Page 16 of How Does It Feel?

“I am not in the friend zone,” Cliff stated a few beats behind.

“Yes, you are,” Cecelia and I said in unison before bursting into laughter.

“Just come with me, I can take you,” Cliff said, spinning in circles in my desk chair like an overgrown child.

I finished zipping up my backpack, tucked a few granola bars in the front pocket, and looked at the odd pair huddled around me. They were my closest friends now. The thought of missing out on the butterflies hurt, but maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe that wasn’t the life I was supposed to have, maybe life in Willow Springs would be okay.

“Hello? Anyone here?” A voice echoed down the hallway.

“We’re back here, Earl!” I shouted as I struggled to pull my heavy pack on.

I had a small problem with overpacking. The huge pack made me feel even tinier than I already typically felt at a short five feet tall. What would it be like to be one of those tall, long-legged women? I should buy a pair of high heels and see. I haven’t dressed up in years.

I walked to the front and met Earl in the middle of the hallway. Fluorescent lights beamed down harshly on the haggard-looking man. Maybe I could talk him into getting a haircut? There was a handsome, intelligent man under all those disheveled layers of clothing and unkept hair. Maybe the town would treat him better if he didn’t come across quite so . . . frumpy.

In the few weeks since we had officially talked at the library, Earl and I had been getting together daily. Sometimes he felt like a magnet that I just wanted to be near. It had been so long since I’d felt that comfortable with anyone. Since Eli had left, no one felt safe, especially after the deal I made with his mother.

What an odd string of events to have unfolded. Maybe it was all the incredible gems of information that he carried and my hope of finding the very thing he claimed to have been ruined by, but every day I grew closer to Earl, and for once, I let myself.

Our age gap alone could make our friendship a little odd, but if I was being honest, Earl was on the fast track to being one of the best people I’d ever known. I loved bouncing ideas off him. It felt so nice to share those parts of me and feel understood. Though I don’t completely understand some of the wild things he claims to have witnessed (a horse made of only bones and a rosebush that farted and answered all his questions had been my favorites so far), I still thought of him as one of the most good-hearted people I had ever met. Weren’t all great scientists a little crazy? Isn’t that just what a lot of brain power did to you? I would ask him about getting a haircut today. He deserved to feel good too.

“Hey, you ready? Today is the day, I just know it!” I said as I greeted Earl with a hug.

Cliff shoved past us, clipping Earl’s bony shoulder in a move that sent him almost into the opposite wall.

“Hey! What’s your problem?” I shouted at Cliff, suddenly seeing red. What the—?

“Oh, my bad, Crazy Earl,” Cliff said, his face firm as he glared at the gray-haired old man. He faced us but continued his walk to the door with a sour look. “Callie, you got a Life Alert on you in case your boyfriend falls down on the trip?”

Before anyone could answer, he was through the doors. What had gotten into him? It wasn’t like Earl was a rival male or something. He was in his sixties, for heaven’s sake! I shook my head at the thought as I watched Earl take his time adjusting his suspenders. They had a mushroom and acorn pattern that really set off his faded blue Grateful Dead T-shirt.

“Sorry, Earl, ignore him,” I murmured apologetically.

“Oh, don’t worry about it, Callie. I’m used to it by now,” said the eccentric man, but I didn’t miss the flicker of sorrow that cracked across his face when he said it.

Yea, a haircut and some new clothes would help. I would do whatever I could to help the town see what a wonderful person Earl really was. It wasn’t what I should be focusing on, but it wouldn’t hurt. If all went well with finding these mushrooms, I would be leaving again soon, and I wanted to leave things nicer for my new friend if I could.

With our supplies loaded into the back of Earl’s car, we headed out to the far edge of the state park. Equine and hiking trails ran throughout the grounds, but the western edge was left mostly to Mother Nature. There were no paths where we were headed, which would be both good and bad. A greater chance of mushrooms being left undisturbed, but the hiking was a lot rougher.

Approximately a hundred acres of dense woods and wildlife took up the majority of the property we would be scouting today, and I couldn’t have been more excited. I didn’t have a lot of reason to work in these parts, and it was always exciting to explore new places in the park. I was pretty familiar with Willow Springs State Park, but when Earl parked his car on the edge of the road, I couldn’t remember this section.

“I know they are this way, I can feel them,” Earl said, pausing with his door open to sniff the air like a dog.

“You said that about the last three spots,” I said, smiling at him.

Truthfully I was starting to lose a bit of hope. It had been foolish to think he had the answers to all my problems. My whole plan to find the luna moths and the destroying angel mushrooms seemed to be slipping further and further away, but at the same time, I was having some of the most fun I’d ever had foraging with Earl.

“They are hiding from me,” he said, locking his car and grabbing his walking stick.

It was a beautiful light wood staff with designs carved intricately throughout. Swirls surrounding wild-looking butterflies and a fox covered the top third with a beautiful sun carved neatly into the tip. He told me the fox had taken him nearly two months to complete, to which I told him what a fool he was for working at the gas station instead of selling his carvings. They were glorious. He had just chuckled and said the gas station gave him free coffee.

“Maybe I’m scaring them off,” I said sarcastically as we began our trek into the forest.

“It’s much more likely that they hide in pity so that I can spend more time with you,” he laughed.

It was close to three o’clock when we had gotten deep into the land. The sun beat down brightly above our heads, though we wouldn’t have known it other than the heat it cultivated, for the trees had grown so large and thick left to their own devices that they blocked most of the light save for a few patches here and there filtering through the trees. We had been at it for a while, slowly walking around all the different trees in an effort to find the destroying angels. Earl was a great storyteller, so it was never dull or boring. I had grown so comfortable with him in the hours spent together the last several weeks. His wild stories were like balm to my soul.

“Earl, I hope you won’t take offense to this,” I said, readjusting my long hair into a big floppy bun atop my head, “but what do you think if we got your hair cut and some new clothes? You know I don’t really care about appearances, but I guess . . .” I struggled to find the right words now that they were forming outside of my head. “Well, I guess I just thought that maybe the town would see how great you are if they weren’t so focused on your appearance.” I nervously turned to watch him circle a nearby oak, praying I hadn’t offended the closest thing to a best friend I’d had in a long time.