“This is really delicious, Erma. What a spread!”
He was laying it on thick. You could tell that Nana loved it. She was beaming down at the table, her cheeks flushed. “Yes, it is nice, isn’t it? And so wonderful to be able to share it with friends and family.” She smiled shyly up at him, like a schoolgirl with a crush. It was disturbing, watching my grandmother – my dignified grandmother – throw herself so shamelessly at this man thirty years her junior. Mortifying, really. I glanced at Poppy, trying to gauge if she agreed. She was staring intently at her mashed potatoes, which she had made into a mountain and was presently filling, kernel by kernel, with corn.
“Delicious,” she agreed sullenly, shooting Nana a tight-lipped smile. “Loved it.”
“Would anyone like more?” My grandmother was drinking in the moment. Reveling in it, really. She couldn’t stop smiling.
I shook my head, and Poppy continued with her construction. Tobias, however, nodded, and chatted politely with Nana as she filled up his plate at the stove.
Finally, I pushed back my chair. “Poppy and I are going to go get some fresh air.”
Poppy looked up at me gratefully. “Lots of fresh hair. I’ll show Kennedy around town.”
Nana set Tobias’s plate in front of him and looked at me, her brow furrowed. “Sweetheart, are you sure you don’t want something more to eat? And Poppy, you’ve barely touched your vegetables.”
“We’re fine, Nana. Thanks. We’ll be home in awhile.” I grabbed the house keys off a hook by the door as Poppy stood and picked up her purse.
“Bye, Mrs. Haber. Always a pleasure.” She nodded her head and then scampered after me, out the door and onto the driveway.
I pulled the door shut and followed her. “Give me a second.” She kicked off her heels and tossed them in the air. They hurtled over the fence and into the bushes somewhere in her front yard. She laughed. “I hate those shoes. Jesus. So. Let’s tour, Mystery Man.”
We set off walking toward Main Street, the sun still high in the sky behind us. “So, what brings you to grandma’s? Did you just get out of juvie or something?”
I shook my head. “Stuff at home.”
She glanced at me, obviously hoping for more, and I shrugged. “Well,” she said, “I hope you get out of here soon. Jesus. This town eats your soul.”
“What do you mean?”
She shook her head slowly, chewing on the inside of her cheek. “I don’t know. Everybody just knows everybody’s damn business. Except you get the feeling sometimes that nobody really knows anybody else at all.”
We walked for awhile in silence, then turned onto Main. “You’ve been here before, I guess. So there’s really not much of a tour to give.”
I nodded. “Yeah. I know where the school is. The post office. The bank. All of that.”
“Yeah. So where do you live, anyway?”
“Jefferson.”
She thought for a moment. “I think we went on a field trip once to the science museum in Jefferson. God, that must suck. Coming here from there.”
She had no idea how much. “Yeah. Not a whole lot going on around here.”
“Yeah.”
We lapsed into silence for a few minutes. “So,” I said finally. “It’s just you and Tobias, I guess?”
She nodded. “My mother’s dead.”
“Oh.”
“It’s fine. I mean, I don’t even remember it.”
“Yeah.” I stuck my hands in my pockets with a shrug. “I live in a house with four women. Well, three women and a nine-year-old girl. Apparently, I was such a stunning specimen of masculinity that the parents stuck with girls from then on.”
She laughed. “Yeah, I’m sure that was it. You probably terrified them. So how old are your sisters?”
“Helen’s the nine-year old. She’s the baby, completely. And she loves it. Virginia is sixteen, and way too cool for all of us, of course. And then Josephine’s the twin. Obviously, I’m the better looking one, but you know.” My voice gave it all away. That I loved them. Missed them. Would do anything for them.
Poppy could tell. Her expression softened. “So where are you and your sister applying to college next year?” she said, obviously trying to change the topic.
But I was having trouble thinking of anything else. “I don’t know. Josephine wants to go up north. One of the Ivies. She’s crazy smart, she could make it in a heartbeat. I’ll probably stay in-state. It’s weird, because we’ve always done everything together, til now. And it’s like, what if for the rest of our lives, we go in different directions?”
She shrugged, obviously unable to think of anything to say.
“Sorry. I always do this. Get too personal with people I barely know.”
Poppy looked over, smiling faintly. “No. It’s really sweet. The way you talk about your family.”
“You think?”
She nodded. “Yeah. I do.”
We fell silent for awhile, lost in our own thoughts. “I haven’t spoken to my father since I was seven,” she said finally, jarring me from my mind.
“What?”
She shrugged. “He talks to me. I just... Don’t respond.”
“Why not?”
She chewed on the inside of her cheek, mulling it over. “I don’t know.”
“Of course you know.”
She looked over at me, amused. “Tell me why you’re here.”
“What?”
“Why are you here? In this podunk town in the middle of nowhere? When you have this family in Jefferson that you obviously would kill to go back to? What did you do?”
I heard it in my head, then. Virginia’s voice, insistent, demanding. ”What did you do, Pookie? Oh my God, what did you do?” I bit my lip, tearing away the skin. “What does that have to do with you and your father?”
“There are some things I don’t tell near-strangers, Kennedy.”
And, as I would learn, a lot of things she didn’t tell anyone at all.
Friday, December 12th, 10:29 PM
“Shhh. Helen, come on. It’s okay. You’re okay. Shhh. You’re going to wake Mom up. God, come on. Come on, Helen, it’s okay.”
“What’s going on?”
Virginia looks back at me. She’s kneeling next to Helen’s bed, running her fingers through my youngest sister’s hair. Helen is in tears. “It’s fine. I’ve got it.”
Helen whispers something to Virginia, who nods, then turns back to me. “Can you just go get some clean sheets or something? Jesus.” She stands, keeping a consoling hand on Helen’s shoulder. I walk down the hall to the bathroom linen closet, grab a set of sheets, and return. Virginia has stripped the bed, and Helen is wearing new pajamas, the old ones lying with the linens in a heap on the floor. Helen is still crying.
I hand Virginia the sheets. She gives me a tight smile. I move to help her with the bed, but she glares at me, and I back away.
Helen tugs at my hand. “Stay with me.”
“He’s not going to stay with you,” Virginia remarks from the corner.
“Why not?” Helen and I ask at the same time.
Virginia rolls her eyes. “Because she’s nine years old, Pookie. She should be able to sleep by herself.”
“Well obviously she’s not,” I retort.
Helen’s lip is quivering, her silent tears threatening to turn threateningly loud. Virginia’s expression softens. “Let’s talk in the hall.”
We pull the door closed behind us. Virginia immediately crosses her arms, popping out one hip. “Let’s get this straight. You go away for months. The worst months of her life so far, and probably for a damn long time. And then you come back and you want to be the hero? The guy who wakes up in the middle of the night and comforts her? Where were you two months ago, Captain Planet?”
“What the hell does it matter? I’m here now. And is that what this is really about? You’re jealous? Grow up, Virginia.” I move to open the door, but she grabs my wrist. Her grip is tougher than I remembered. She always was unnervingly strong.
“She doesn’t need to be coddled. You think you know what’s best, but obviously that’s not true.”
“What the hell does that mean?” I hiss.
She throws up her hands. “What, you think Brennan was a remarkable judgment of some kind? That the way you acted when Josephine cut her wrists open was this amazing feat of logic?” Her voice is getting louder now.
I fight the urge to slap her. “You don’t even know the whole story. Don’t tell me how I should’ve --”
“Oh my God.” She steps back, her whole body twitching. “You really think I don’t know exactly what happened? You think I’m stupid? That just because nobody actually tells me anything I don’t know it?”
The hall light flickers on. Josephine stands there in her pajamas, reading glasses on and a mechanical pencil tucked behind her ear. It’s obvious that she’s heard what we’ve said, and it’s obvious that she’s trying to decide whom to kill first.
“Your baby sister is crying, you... You motherfucking idiots.” She grits her teeth, her fists clenched at her sides. “She’s in there in tears, and all you two care about is who’s right – no, no, who’s less wrong.” She shakes her head, chewing on her lower lip. “Grow up.”
“Look, Josie...” Virginia begins, but Josephine silences her with a glare.
“Virginia, deal with it. Pookie, my room.”
“What the hell?” I yelp. I feel like I’m being dragged off to the principal’s office.
“Shut up.” she hisses, then turns on her heel and retreats down the hall, shutting the door quietly behind her.
Saturday, August 16th, 6:32 PM
“Come on. Follow me.”
I peered through the trees ahead as she disappears from view. “Are you some kind of serial killer? Is this the part where you pull out your chainsaw?”
“Could be,” she called back to me. “Why don’t you find out for sure?”
I grimaced and pushed through the trees, scraping my arms on the branches. “This had better be good.”
“Hey, the tour has no quality guarantees.”
I emerged from the foliage and brushed the leaves out of my hair. “Wait, this is what you wanted to show me? I saw this from the road.”
She put her hands on her hips. “Hey, city-boy, don’t be hatin’. Just because we don’t have movie theaters or those blinky light things hanging over our streets doesn’t mean you have to act all superior.”
I rolled my eyes. “Poppy, it’s a water tower.”
“A water tower?” She raised her eyebrows. “Is that what you see here? A water tower?”
I nodded. “Pretty much.”
She shook her head, wagging a finger at me with exaggerated disappointment. “Look, Mr. The-Tractor-Supply-Catalog-Doesn’t-Come-To-MY-House, you’re going to have to get over this whole ‘being entertained’ thing you’ve got going on. Yes, it is a water tower. Congratulations. But to us, this is kind of a big deal. This is where my parents met at a wild keg party. This is where I got my first kiss. This is the single most important spot to teenagers in this shitty town. And now you’re here. A teenager. In this town. So start finding it important, or give up on fitting in.” She paused. “It’d be kind of a shame, because you’re damn hot.”
“Excuse me?”
She grinned and grabbed my arm, pulling me toward her. “I have lived my entire life here. With about sixteen guys. Most of whom are dating my friends, and the rest of which have been there and, if you’ll excuse the crudeness, done that. And, you know, there’s some overlap in the groups, but that’s bound to happen when you’ve got a small pond and not a lot of fish. You are fresh meat. Sushi-grade. And I got here first. So yeah. You’re damn hot.”
I stared at her. She winked at me, laughing. “Get over yourself. You’re not that special. It’s been four months since I’ve gotten laid. I’d jump on the paper boy if he weren’t like, twelve.”
I finally found my voice. “Flattering,” I croaked.
She raised one eyebrow. “Anyway, this is our water tower. We kind of love it. And its name is Susie, because my mother’s generation was hopeless with naming things and nobody in between has bothered to change it.”
I looked it up and down, still reeling from her speech. “Susie?”
“Right.”
“Huh.”
She put an arm around my waist and laid her head on my shoulder. “What, do you think she’s hot? Should I set you guys up?”
I pushed her away, laughing, and she laughed, and we stood there, smiling, the sunset visible over the trees and through Susie’s legs. Two things happened then. First, she grabbed me around the neck and kissed me like she meant it, running her fingers through my hair, setting electricity racing through my body. And I don’t know if that’s why the second thing happened, or if it would have happened if we had just stood there all evening. But either way, it happened. I fell head over heels in love with Poppy Law. Standing there beneath the shadow of a water tower, out in the middle of nowhere, a girl with no shoes and a mischievous grin forced her way into my heart.
Friday, December 12th, 10:36 PM
“What was that?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know. I don’t... I don’t know. What just happened. What that was about. Josephine, I’m... I...”
She holds up a hand, sighing. She closes her eyes for a moment, inhaling deeply. “Look, Pookie, I don’t care. I don’t care anymore. I’m just... I just want this whole thing to be done. Okay? And you fighting with Virginia in the hallway... Pookie, it’s not your fucking battle.”
“She was the one who brought it up. And we weren’t talking about you, we were --”
“No.” She cuts me off, shaking her head. “No, you don’t... Pookie, it’s about me. What you did is about me. You being gone for five months is about me. Look, you were the one telling me yesterday that she’s been through a lot. Cut her a break. Helen wakes up screaming most nights. Mom can’t sleep at all. She’s just trying. You know Virginia. She can take care of things, okay? Just let her take care of things.”
“She’s just a kid, Josephine.”
She throws up her hands. “Pookie, you’re a year and a half older than she is! And you’ve been gone for five months. Virginia has a system down for the screaming nightmare thing. Seriously. Just let her do what she’s doing. Don’t mess with her.”
“I just... Helen wanted someone to stay with her and Virginia said that was a bad idea.” I shrug, biting my lip. “I... I’m worried about her. I just want her to be okay.”
She sighs. “Pookie,” she says, her voice softer, “you can’t take care of everybody.”
“Don’t pull that Oprah crap on me.”
“It’s not ‘Oprah crap’. I was talking to my therapist about you. She said that until you stop trying to rescue everybody, you’re going to keep getting hurt.”
“You talk to your therapist about me?”
She shakes her head, sighing. “Just let Virginia deal with Helen, okay? And get some sleep.”
I turn and open the door. I’m halfway into the hallway before she calls me back.
“Pookie?”
“Yeah?”
“Let us take care of you.” Her eyes meet mine, and she bites her lip. “We need you. And we worry about you, too.”
“Don’t.”
But they should. I know they should. It’s catching up with me. Everything. And I’m so damn tired of running.
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