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NBD. Just @harleygranger stopping by to pick up a copy of the new @johnhenderson for his#holdayshopping. #omg #starstruck #indiebookshop #bookstagram #earlychristmasgift.
The likes and comments start pouring in.
That’s the nice thing about social media. You’re never alone, even when you are. But it’s just a temporary salve for my jangled nerves. Beneath the buzz of excitement at meeting a favorite author and posting on social, I’m vibrating, pushing back the rush of bad memories, fear, guilt.
The “Holiday Chill” station I chose on my iPhone earlier is playing an ambient version of “The Little Drummer Boy.” The volume down low, it’s ghostly and strange as I start shutting down the store. I always felt bad for him, the little drummer boy, how he thought his gifts weren’t enough for God.
I can relate.
2
The lake glistened and I stood on the edge looking down. A last late-fall heat wave, sun blazing, cicadas shrilling in the trees giving volume to the heat.
“You’re scared,” said Evan. “You. Madeline. She who fears nothing.”
It was one of the first things he asked me:What scares you, Madeline Martin? Nothing, I answered, even though it was a lie. I was scared of lots of things, still am.
“I’m not scared.” I poked my chin out at him, looking up into the merciless blue of the sky.
“Then jump.”
“You don’t have to do what he says. You know that.”
Badger sat on the big rock, still fully clothed while Evan and I had stripped down to our underwear. What I remember most vividly about that moment is the vertiginous feeling of freedom, our youth, our near nakedness. Badger and I were seventeen. Evan a year older at eighteen. The ledge was fully fifteen feet above the lake. A girl had broken an arm the summer before and since then a sign had been erected warning people away.Private property. No jumping. Violators will be prosecuted.
“Shut up, Badger,” Evan said, without heat, eyes still on me.
“Don’t call me that.” He sounded peevish. Angry. He was jealous. Of course he was. Evan was the new kid, the interloper, an unwelcome addition to our group of friends. It was just the three of us that day. Where were the others? I don’t remember now.
Evan’s eyes, a startling blue like the sky above us, always gleaming with mischief or some new dare. Something about the energy between us. It connected me to my wildest self. I looked back at Badger, my oldest friend—the voice of reason, the person who even to this day I can say connects me to my best self or has tried to—just slowly shook his head.You’re someone different when he’s around, he had accused me.I denied it. But looking back I see it was true. Evan came into our world suddenly, and change came quickly.
“Don’t do it, Madeline,” said Badger.
And then I was running, the earth hard and chalky against my bare feet. I leapt from that ledge, whooping with fear and delight, air rushing past me, the glittering green water rising up fast. Youth. It only knows the jump, not the landing. And falling can feel like flying, at first.
That was nearly ten years ago.
Tonight, a light snow starts to fall as I lock up the bookshop and make my way to the old Scout truck that used to belong to my dad. It’s a beast, beat up and rattling. But I love it.
Five days until Christmas. There’s a bigger storm coming. Some are saying that we’ll have a white Christmas for the first time in a long while. Global weirding. Last year Christmas Day was sixty degrees. This year, we’re expecting a “bomb cyclone” or some new media-generated storm name created to incite maximum fear and therefore maximum spending on the hoarding of supplies.
I shiver in the driver’s seat, waiting for the heat to come up, still buzzing from my encounter with Harley Granger as I wind though the rural roads that lead home.
I don’t live far from the Wallace place, but far enough that I rarely have to drive past it. Tonight, I make a left instead of a right, following the route that Harley must have driven in his muscle car. I take it slow. The asphalt is slick, the temperature dropping, you never know when a deer will leap out from the thickly wooded acres and total your car or worse. Around me the pines are already frosted with snow.
There it is on the rise. A big rambling place with a barn off to the right. Gray and shingled, two stories, vaulted roof, wraparound porch. I know what it looks like inside now—wallpaper pouting, water pooling, ceilings sagging. There are big holes in the roof through which you can see the sky. Graffiti on every surface. Probably easier to tear it down than fix it up.
Tonight, lights burn in the windows, orange eyes staring back at me.
Unfinished business, Harley Granger said.
I am alive with unwanted memories of a time and place I mostly push away.
It’s been a long day and fatigue is tugging at my eyelids, tightening up my shoulders. I really should turn around and go home. But I keep driving, heading to Badger’s place on the outskirts of town.
After a few more minutes, I pull into his driveway, kill the engine, climb out, boots crunching on the gravel.
The lights in the garage are on, and music wafts on the cold night air. I can’t place the tune. Some classic rock ballad, a throaty-voiced singer, heavy guitar riffs.
