“You swore.”
“Like a fisherman. Better get used to it,” She eyes me. “Like the car?”
I fling my arms around her and she chuckles, patting my back. “Not a big deal, sweetie. It’s still in my name, you know. Nothing big.”
“Yes, it is.” I jump out of the truck and run over to the car, hugging the cold, snow-covered metal until my fingers freeze stiff and Betty hustles me inside.
“I don’t deserve this,” I say.
“Of course you do.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Don’t make me swear at you. Just say thank you and be done with it.”
“Thank you and be done with it.”
She snorts. “Punk.”
“I just . . . I love it, Betty.” I throw my arms around her again. The car is the first good thing that’s happened in Maine. It is the first good thing that has happened in a long time.
Of course, people in third world countries have to save their entire lives for a car, and here is mine, right there in the driveway, waiting for me. My head whirls.
“I don’t deserve this, Betty,” I say again, once we’re back in her cozy living room. She bends over and starts up a fire in the woodstove, crumpling up paper, stacking kindling.
“Enough with that sort of talk, Zara,” she says. Her back cracks when she stands up. It reminds me that she’s old. It’s hard to remember that. “You deserve lots of things.”
“But there are people starving in the world. People who don’t have homes. People who—”
She holds up a finger. “You’re right. I’m not going to say you aren’t right, but just because they go without doesn’t mean you have to go without too.”
“But . . .”
“And it doesn’t mean you can’t use what you have to make other people’s lives better.” She pulls off her hat and runs her hands through her crazy-curly, grayish/orangish hair. “How are you going to do any volunteer work without a car? Or get to school? Huh?”
I shrug.
“ ’Cause I’m a busy woman, Zara,” she continues. “Although I’ve changed my schedule so I’m not going on any night calls. We’ll have dinner together, be all domestic.” She smiles a little and her voice softens. “You’re just like him.”
She means my dad. My throat closes up but I manage to whisper, “How?”
“Always trying to save the world. Always worried that you have too much when other people have too little,” she says. “And always trying to get out of going to school.”
She stomps over and gives me a quick hug, followed by a smack on the butt. She’s so football coach sometimes.
I call my mom even though I don’t really want to.
“I’m here,” I say.
“Oh, sweetie. I’m glad you made it safe. How is it?”
“Cold.”
“Sounds just like the Maine I remember.” She laughs and then pauses. I listen to silence and then she asks, “You still mad at me?”
“Yep.”
“It’s for your own good.”
“Right. Did you know a boy up here went missing last week?”
“What? Put your grandmother on the phone, okay? Zara . . . I love you.”
I point at Betty. “She wants to talk to you.”
Then I say into the phone. “Love you too.”
Betty grabs it from me, covers it with her hand, and says, “Now, go on up to your room and get settled in. It’s the second door on the left. You have to get that car registered tomorrow at town hall. And start school. First thing. No sulking around the house.”
I nod and trot up to ward my bedroom. Pausing on the stairs, I just make out Betty’s hushed voice saying, “She sure doesn’t look like herself. You were right.”
She plods across the room and stares at me eavesdropping. “Are you listening to my conversation with your mother?”
My throat closes up. I manage to nod.
“Up to bed, missy!”
I run up the rest of the stairs and head into my bedroom. With its lace curtains and cozy quilt-covered bed my bedroom doesn’t seem so bad either. The walls are pale and not wood. Boxes of my clothes hunker against the wall. I yank off my jeans and hoodie and grab the bathrobe hanging from the back hook of the door. There’s a Z embroidered into the puffy baby blue cloth. I wrap it around me and for a second I feel almost happy. The warm shower to get off all that airport grime feels amazing, even if there are rubber ducky decals all over the tiles. I towel off and head back to my room. Grandma Betty lets me settle in by myself. I even put up my Amnesty International poster. It’s a candle with barbed wire around it, the symbol of the organization. I stare at the flame on it and feel almost—but not quite—cozy. I’m pulling out my International Rights reports when she sticks her head in my bedroom doorway.
“You settling in okay?”
“Yeah. Thanks for having me.” I leave the reports in a pile, stand up, and smile at her.
She smiles back and closes one of the shades. “I’m honored to spend time with my only granddaughter.”
I walk away to the other window to close the shade, but I want to look out first. I have to wipe away the cold to see out. It’s just trees and darkness, darkness and trees. I pull the shade down. “I really don’t want to go to school tomorrow.”
She comes and stands next to me. “Of course you don’t.”
“I don’t really want to do much of anything.”
“I know, but it’ll get better.” She bumps her hip into me and then drapes an arm around my shoulders, giving me a sideways hug. “You could always pray for a snow day.”
I hug her back. “That is an excellent idea. Maybe I could do the snow dance.”
She laughs. “Your dad taught you that?”
“Yep. You drop an ice cube into the toilet and dance around chanting ‘Snow. Snow. Snow.’ ”
“Until it melts. That son of mine. I sure do miss him.” She settles against me for a second, pats her strong hands on my back. “But I’m glad you’re here to keep me company, selfish or not. Now, no worries. You’ll be okay, Zara. I’ll make sure of that.”
“I just don’t know if I’m up for the whole school thing.” I pull away, cross my arms over my chest.
She kisses the top of my head. “You will be just fine, princess. And if anyone gives you any crap, I’ll go jack ’em for you, okay?”
The thought of my ancient life-saving grandmother pummeling someone makes me laugh, even though I know I shouldn’t laugh at violence.
“I mean it, Zara. Anyone hassles you, you let me know. Anything scares you or bothers you, you tell me. That’s my grand-motherly duty. You let me do it. Okay?”
Outside, the snow keeps trucking down. Shivering, I look up into her eyes, amber like a wild cat’s. The pupils seem to expand a little because she means it. She really means it.
I grab her hand. “Okay.”
The howling wakes me up in the middle of the night.
It is a long noise, full of grief.
I shudder and sit up in bed.
Something outside howls again. It’s not too far away.
Coyotes?
There’s a series of excited yips and another howl. I remember this movie we watched in wildlife biology class about how coyotes act when they have a kill. This sounds sort of like that, but not exactly like coyotes, deeper maybe, like big dogs or wolves.
I pad over to my window, move the curtains back, and look out. Whiteness covers the lawn and my car. The moon glistens off it, making the snow seem as if it’s made of crystals or diamonds, gleaming, shining. It’s beautiful.
I breathe out. Have I been holding my breath? Why would I hold my breath?
Because I’m thinking of my dad.
My dad grew up here. And he’ll never see this snow or this house or the forest or me again. He’s locked away from it, locked away from me, from life, a prisoner. I would do anything to set him free.
My hand presses against the cold window frame. Something moves at t
he edge of the woods, just a shadow really, a darkness that seemed a little darker than the tree trunks and limbs.
I tilt my head and squint. Nothing.
Then it comes, the feeling. Imaginary spiders scurry against my skin.
My hand leaves the window. The curtain swings closed. I tiptoe back to bed, closing the distance between window and bed as quickly as I can without actually running.
“It’s nothing.”
That’s what stinks about lying. It’s hard to do it to yourself and actually believe it. It’s much better to just chant your phobias, face the truth, and be on your way, but I can’t do that. Not yet.
Didaskaleinophobia
fear of going to school
The best thing about crying is that it always knocks me out. I slept really well last night, even with the stupid dogs howling around midnight or so. It’s a good thing I’m not cynophobic because I would have freaked all night.
It’s quiet now.
The snow muffles the outside world and when my alarm goes off there is no way I want to get up and face it. Grandma Betty’s house is just too safe and cozy, especially my bed. Still, I haul my tired butt up to look out the window. Snow covers everything and it’s . . . what? The middle of October.
“This is just wrong,” I announce and pull the lace curtains all the way open. The strange white light that snow reflects drifts into my room.
It’s breakfast and I’m by my lonesome. Grandma Betty left me a huge note in the middle of the table, right by a water mark that looks just like South Carolina. I swallow and touch where Charleston would be. Then I check out the note:
Zara . . . I’m off to the station. A logging truck jackknifed on Route 9. Minor injuries. There is still school. You didn’t pray hard enough. Better luck next time. Ha-ha. All juniors have PE so make sure you bring clothes. Drive careful. It’s slippery out. Here’s a map. It’s a pretty straight shot. Do not drive after dark. I’ll be home by nightfall. Knock them dead. The keys are right here.
She drew an arrow pointing at the keys, next to the note on the table, like I’d miss them.
I scoop them up and dangle them in the air. One catches at the string around my finger. It’s getting loose.
The disaster that is my morning begins when I dash down the front steps and skid into the tree. A thin layer of ice is hiding beneath the snow. I don’t see it. I wobble and skid, windmilling my arms until I run right into a big pine tree. I hard-hug it to keep from smashing my face into the bark.
“Damn.”
Slowly, carefully I edge away. If you don’t pick up your feet, you can sort of glide across it like ice skaters do; of course, it’s hard to do that in heels.
“One foot in front of the other,” I tell myself. “One foot in front of . . . Ack!”
Another wobble, another arm windmill, and I lunge toward the car, slamming my hands down on the hood. I puff out my breath. It makes a cloud in the air. My pretty shoes I’d bought in Charleston? Totally covered with snow. Near my footprints are work-boot prints and tiny specks of gold glitter, like the kind you use in an art project in first grade. Betty must have checked out the car at some point last night. That’s right; the sticker on the side is peeled off.
I stop thinking for a second because it’s not the boot prints that are interesting.
Not at all.
Near Betty’s footprints are huge dog prints. I mean, I think they’re dog prints. Cats don’t get that big. I tilt my head. I didn’t know she had a dog. Maybe that’s what I heard howling at midnight. Maybe that’s what I saw at the edge of the woods. Or maybe it was some big Cujo rabid dog thing, waiting to pounce on me, with its red, red eyes and shiny jowls, and its monster evil teeth. Total cynophobia.
I smack my hand against my head to stop myself.
“I’ve been reading too much Stephen King.”
But the truth is that I haven’t read those Maine horror stories since seventh grade, when my dad forbade me.
What had he said?
“Love Stephen, but he gives Maine a bad rap.”
Thinking about my dad makes every breath I take seem like a gulp. I yank my purse up on my shoulder and clamber inside my car. Grandma Betty also left a note on the dashboard.
Turn on defrost. That’s the button with the squiggly lines.
I find the button, but my shaking fingers have a hard time turning it on. Cold air cranks out full blast. It’s like being kissed by the Abominable Snowman or a Stephen King horror monster from hell that sucks out your soul. Or is that from the Harry Potter books? I don’t remember.
The air smashes against my lips. I swear I can feel them chapping.
“Great.”
It takes five minutes for the windshields to clear. I use that time to slide back into the house and get my hat, keeping an eye out for rabid dogs. Then I get back in the car, pull out of the driveway, and learn something else about ice. It isn’t easy to drive on. You can’t go above thirty if you don’t want to fishtail into the other lane.
Ice stinks.
By the time I get to school, my knuckles are white from fear and frostbite and my heart’s beating a million thumps a minute, so I’m not too happy when some jerk in a beautiful red MINI Cooper cuts me off and speeds into the parking lot in front of me. He has chains on his tires. They don’t spin. I love MINIs.
“Hey!” I yell as my brakes lock up again.
I inch into a parking space, rest my head on the steering wheel, and let myself exhale. I’d like to pummel that guy in the MINI, which is not a very nonviolent thought. But instead I will be peaceful and good and make my dad proud. I touch the string on my finger, loose, frayed, still there.
“I will not be violent,” I chant-mutter. “I will not be violent. I am peaceful and good. I am peaceful and good. I do not want to give anyone the finger.”
I switch off the car, thrust myself out the door, and wait.
The MINI Cooper guy jumps out of the car with the grace that only really good jocks have and lands on an ice patch without slipping at all. He has boots on. God, the guys up here wear boots; tan, I’m-a-carpenter boots. It’s like I’ve completely abandoned civilization.
He slams the door, turns around, and finally notices that I exist. How kind of him.
My heart stops. It starts again, but it beats a lot harder when I meet his eyes. I’m frozen there and he strides across the ice like he’s moving across gravel or grass. He doesn’t slip once. Each step he takes brings him closer to me, and he only stops when I make out the deep brown irises around his pupils, the tiny bit of stubble on his cheeks and chin (not too much but enough that you know he has to shave a lot). I can actually smell the musk of him. He’s so close it’s like he’s invading my territory—no, my personal space. I take a step backward and slip. His hand reaches out and grabs my elbow, balancing me.
“Be careful. It’s wicked slippery here,” he says, a smile leaking across his face.
I would smile back, but I’m too busy feeling all wiggly inside. I tough up my voice. “Oh. Yeah.”
His thick chestnut hair lifts with the wind. He sniffs the air. “You sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah.” I pull my elbow away but I don’t want to. I want his hand to stay there steadying me for hours, basically.
This guy is huge, just super tall, and well muscled, but not professional television wrestler muscles, just a lot of nice long ones. I can tell just from his hands and his neck. I don’t know how he fits in the MINI.
He flashes another smile at me. “You’re new. Zara, right?”
I grab the hood of the Subaru. “How’d you know that?”
“I know Betty. Your grandmother.”
“You know Betty?” I let go of the hood, try to take some steps toward the school, and slip.
“She taught a wilderness first-responder class. She’s great.” He grabs my arm. “I can’t believe she didn’t make you wear boots.”
“She’d already left.”
“You should wear boots.”
/>
He walks slowly even though we can hear the bell ringing.
“You don’t have to help me,” I say. “It’s okay. You’re going to be late.”
“I’m not going to let you fall.”
I swallow and look up at him. “Thanks.”
He holds open the door. “Any time.”
The school is a much happier place than I expected. The hallways smell like pancake syrup and they are bright and filled with student artwork, a total contrast to the outside world, where everything is stark, white and gray, sort of magical. Walking into the school makes me feel like I’ve entered the real world again. They even have a diversity mural, just like at my school, only in my school it was in the library.
“Thank God,” I mutter, and stomp the storm off my shoes, hoping that maybe my toes will warm up to twenty degrees soon. They might fall off, one toe at a time, just leave me until I’m deformed and hobbling. That’s happened before.
Not to me, obviously.
“The office is that way,” he says, pointing to a room on the right separated by a big window. “You going to be okay?”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
He nods and gives a little half smile and waves before he walks away. He strides, really. He’s beautiful, even from the back. I shake my head to stop staring, bustle off to the school’s front office, and push open the door. It’s a lot lighter than I expect. It slams into the wall with a big thud. My cheeks get all hot and I say, “Sorry.”
The good-looking pale girl doing the announcements gives me one of those “Who the hell are you?” looks.
I smile at her and try to channel total sweetness while I say it again. “Sorry.”
It doesn’t work. She flings her long strawberry blond hair behind her shoulder and lifts her lip in a little snarl. I raise my eyebrows in some sort of movie move. Touché.
My apology works on the school secretary, though. She perks right up and bustles over to the counter. She reminds me of Mrs. Santa Claus, only without the red jumpsuit and the sugar cookies.
“Oh! You must be Zara White! Betty’s granddaughter.” She pushes her long, thinning hair behind her ears like a little girl. “You look so much like your mother. It’s really remarkable. I would have known you anywhere. It’s like twins . . . only different hair. You must have your father’s hair.”