And I would be the only volunteer in Peace City’s history to be in charge of the whole children’s library. John would call me aside and say, “Lacey, you have worked your way into a real paying job. Do you think you can work full time? Take your aunt Linda’s place?”
“I’ve taken her place in lots of things,” I would tell John. “Sure, I can do this.”
But even with all the dreaming, inside there was a worry. I tried to keep it pushed down good with hope. And by ignoring the nagging feeling.
As we drove into town, stopping every few minutes to pick up new people, I tried to move my mind away from my mother. I had to think of something else. Something that made me feel better.
I looked around for someone to work with me in the library. Who looked like a real nice person? I must admit the bus did not carry anyone with potential. Lots of businessmen rode along, even more elderly people, women with their babies. Only a handful of guys near my age. One of them had too many tattoos for my taste. There were a bunch of girls in the very back of the bus, but they laughed way too loud to work in a library. Not one had book-checking-out promise.
“There’s time,” I said, low.
“Time,” Momma said, in a singsong voice. “Time. Time, time, time.”
But really there wasn’t.
What I wanted, I decided sitting there on that hard blue seat, all I wanted, next to Aunt Linda, was a friend.
Anyone at all. That’s what I wanted on my days out at the library. A friend. My cheeks turned pink at the thought of someone waiting for me at the library. A best friend for sleepovers and jogging on the beach, maybe, and even shopping for school clothes.
“I can tell what you’re thinking,” Momma said. Then she sang out, “Boys, boys, boys.” She looked me in the eye. “I remember the boys.” Her voice went soft and she stared out the window. “All those boys. Aunt Linda and me sneaking out at night. Stealing Grandaddy’s car. Driving a carload of boys to the beach.”
I knew the story. How Momma drove. How Aunt Linda ran and tapped on windows, calling all the boys they were friends with to come on with them. Drive to the shore. Listen to the waves crash. Till the car was full of bodies and Momma was kissing her boyfriend while she drove. Swerving on the street. Almost running into a ditch from kissing and laughter, not from crying until she couldn’t see.
Momma laughed now. Then her face grew tight. “You know Granddaddy wouldn’t approve, Lacey. They will cause you grief. Men will cause you grief.”
There was no use in explaining. “Yes, ma’am,” I said. I thought of Granddaddy, so tall and lean, like in his picture, his eyes mad as a stormy sky. The way Momma and Aunt Linda had told me he was so quick to anger. And how he would mourn about their behavior for days. Keep them inside, watch so they couldn’t sneak away, though Momma could sneak away, did sneak away.
“‘Oh, Daddy,’ I would say. ‘Angela and I are old enough to go to the dance. You don’t need to worry.’” Aunt Linda’s voice filled my head. This was just before she had left. Momma had been asleep and I had snuck into Aunt Linda’s room to hear about her first crush.
I glanced away from Momma so I could keep my thoughts to myself. She wouldn’t want me thinking of Aunt Linda. Aunt Linda was dead to her. That’s what Momma said. Dead and gone. Dead and gone.
Gone!
I drew in a deep breath. This summer, I was sure, things would be different for me. If Momma and Aunt Linda could sneak away to be with friends, why, I could, too. The thought was like a fast-growing seed. Not sneak away. Just find someone to talk to. I’d start the journey to womanhood with a girl who was experiencing growing up, too. Not so far as Momma’s gone. Neither of us would be like that. Not so unhappy. No, I prefer to stay this side of her unhappiness, which she says comes from her monthly periods.
“I been blue, Lacey, since the first day I started on the rag. I was thirteen and a half,” she’s told me time and again. I have the words memorized, say them right along with her. “It’s hormones that does this to me,” she says, spreading her hands out like a shelf holding sad information.
For a long time I thought hormones were snakelike things that somehow got into your gut and made you cry. Now I know they’re more like parasites, sucking out people’s happy feelings. They mess up Momma’s days good when they’re riding around in her body. I keep waiting for hormones to mess me up. But so far, I’ve been fine.
I glanced again at the girls at the back of the bus. One caught me looking and gave me the finger. I turned forward in my seat, my face burning.
Just past the cemetery the bus stopped again. And that’s when I saw him. Climbing up the steps. Showing his bus pass. Aaron Ririe from school. I looked away from him fast, then looked again. My face flamed.
“Boys, boys, boys,” Momma sang under her breath.
I stared at my hands that were clasped so tight the knuckles had gone white. Aaron Ririe. I’d seen him in the halls. Even had an English class with him. And he’s my neighbor. Lives just a couple of houses down the road from us. I looked up just as he passed Momma and me. Aaron raised his eyebrows to me as he clomped down the aisle toward a free seat in the back.
I wanted to melt away. He had seen
