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“Yeah, just Graham,” I mumble and then stand up. I don’t like the way she’s looking at me.
“You don’t have a middle name?” she asks, sounding surprised and it annoys me. I cross my arms again and frown at her.
“You haven’t told me what you’re doing here. Where’s your people?”
Her smile slips a little. Right away, I feel sorry because her dimming smile does something weird and uncomfortable to my insides.
“You’re not here alone, are you?” My voice is gentler, and her smile grows again. “I’m visiting with my aunt.” She shakes her head. “It’s just Tante Isabel and me. We’re staying in a bed and breakfast in Fredericksburg for the summer.”
I rack my brain, trying to think. I’ve heard my stepdaddy talk about Fredericksburg. That’s where he and Mama go once a month for a provision run. I didn’t know there were people living there.
“What’s a bed and breakfast? I’ve never heard of that before.”
“I dunno, really. It’s what Tante Isabel calls it. It’s a house, but we’re only staying there for the two weeks we’re here. Someone delivers groceries almos
t every morning. But, I have to make my own bed, and I have to help with dinner. I hate that because she always calls me down for dinner when I’m in the middle of something good. But, I’m happy she brought me with her, and I try to obey her so she won’t be sorry she did.. But I wish I didn’t have to cook. She promised we’d go into town to have dinner one night, but I don’t know if she just said that to keep me from complaining. Then today, when I told her I wanted to go …” She frowns a little. “I don’t know if I really believe her. I think she just wants me to stay inside with her. But I wanted to see the world, so I ran off.” She pauses for breath.
“You talk a lot, but you don’t say much,” I tell her, and she dissolves into a fit of giggles. Her little face scrunches up, and her eyes almost disappear. Her freckles look like a thousand tiny splatters of paint.
“What’s so funny?”
“Oh, my dad used to say the same exact thing. I can’t help it. I just start talking and can’t stop.” She grins like it’s a good thing.
“So …” I look around the lake again. Maybe this is some sort of test by my stepfather. I eye her again. She looks innocent, but I know that doesn’t mean anything. “Just you and your aunt? Without a man? She doesn’t have a husband or anything?” In our small town, the only women who live alone are the spinsters, widows, and what Jeremiah, my stepfather, refers to as “fallen women.”
She wipes the tears out of her eyes.
“Yeah, but she got rid of him. They got a divorce.” She says “divorce” slowly like she said my name.
“He let her leave? What kind of man is he?” I ask her. She purses her lips and stares upward for a second and then says, “He was nice. I dunno, I guess.” She lifts her shoulders and looks up again. “He always had gum. But Tante Isabel said it’s because he didn’t want her to know that he drank a lot. It’s not a big deal. People get divorced all the time,” she says like she’s trying to make me feel better.
I’ve never met anyone like her before. The only people I know who are this weird have names like Bilbo and Gandalf.
“Where are you from?” I ask and wait for her to say Middle Earth.
“Las Vegas. My father’s family owns hotels and casinos all over. But we live in the biggest one, The Locklear.” She says it like it could be a place that might exist in one of my books.
“Where are you from?” she asks me, with the same voice I asked her, and I can’t help but smile a little at how good her imitation is.
“Right here. Well, not right here, but a mile off in a town that’s kind of in the middle of the forest. This is where I come to read.”
She smiles at me like I just made her day.
All her smiling is weird.
“So, why are you here with your aunt instead of your mama? It ain’t safe to go jumping off that cliff when you’re by yourself. And why’d you smile right before you hit the water?” I sound more irritated than I should, but I’m annoyed that this kid is walking around here by herself.
“I didn’t jump, I fell. I tripped.” She swallows hard, and her wide eyes dart away.
“My papa’s dead. And my mama’s sad. So, Tante Isabel brought me here so she could feel better. I smiled because I thought maybe I’d get to see Papa and Arti again so it wouldn’t be so bad to hit the water. I changed my mind as soon as I was in it though.”
She’s still running her mouth a mile a minute. But her voice is so sad, she sounds like a different person. I feel bad for asking her, but I’m also glad I did. Now, I know someone else whose sister died. She doesn’t have to say another word. I already know exactly what she’s feeling.
“I’m sorry,” I mutter, and because I don’t know what else to do, I pat her shoulder.
“Me, too,” she says.
“So, your aunt? Maybe she’s looking for you?”
