6
Beau
Grandpa Cadwell is an old man with a young soul. He thinks he can do all the things he used to do, and to some extent, that's true. But like the rest of us, he'll eventually die. If he keeps drinking whiskey the way he is now, he might die sooner rather than later.
"Grandpa," I say, joining him in the living room, "you can't drink whiskey straight at eleven a.m."
"Boy, I'm eighty years old. I can do whatever I want."
He takes another sip. Wrinkles crease his thin-as-paper skin. His hair is silver, and his wit is sharp. He coughs roughly and swallows it down with a gulp of whiskey.
I bring the paper to him and unfold it across the table. It's from last Sunday. That's how it works with us. We're a wide sky's throw away from town, and so no one will deliver this far. Each week, while picking up our mail from the post office box, I buy the paper, save it until the next Sunday, and give it to him bright and early with his morning coffee. Or in this case, whiskey. We pretend it's the paper from today and not last week. It's the ritual that he likes more than anything.
"It's been years since your parents passed," Grandpa says. "And still the town whispers about it when they think I'm not listening, wondering what exactly happened to them."
I don't like to be reminded that they're gone.
"Any trouble for you or Charlotte at school lately? People ask questions about your parents?" He inquires every few months, just to be sure nothing has changed.
"No," I answer.
Grandpa has legal custody of us. I never knew my grandma. She died in childbirth. Grandpa never did remarry.
Charlotte enters the room. "Morning."
"Charlotte," Grandpa says, nodding to her.
She takes a whiff of the air and smiles his way. "Whiskey, eh? I think I'll have a glass, too."
"Charlotte," I say. "You can't drink whiskey."
What I really mean is that she shouldn't. She smiles like she's going to anyway, but then she saunters past, into the kitchen. She begins making what she makes every Sunday morning: french toast and eggs. I peer out the window while she cooks, my insides eager at the prospect of Willow being there. I haven't seen her since Friday, two days ago.
"Are you looking for your dreadful little obsession?" Charlotte asks, smiling roguishly.
"Ah," Grandpa says. "I saw you with her. Virginia Bell's granddaughter, right?"
"Right," I confirm.
"She'll be a stubborn one," he warns. "Her grandmother is, too."
Grandpa doesn't often talk about the specific girls he dated in his time. Stories, sure. Names, no. Except Old Lady Bell. She gave him hell. He loved every minute of it until she sent him packing. So he bought the land across from the parcel she'd inherited from her parents. Which wasn't supposed to be for sale, but that mattered none because Grandpa always gets what he wants. Except for Old Lady Bell. He never could get her back. Won't tell me how he lost her in the first place. Still, he reminds her every day that he exists. Even though she mostly refuses to acknowledge him.
I sit next to him on the couch. The air smells of cinnamon and sugar.
"Maybe that Bell girl will turn Beau down," Charlotte says.
I hope she doesn't.
My phone chimes in my pocket. I look down to see a message from Grant asking me to join him and Pax in town.
give me two hours, I reply.
Charlotte sets plates on the counter and shuffles eggs onto them. She makes quick work of the french toast, sprinkling cinnamon over a dusting of powdered sugar. I walk to the kitchen and take the canister to add more sugar to mine, like always.
"Do you think Willow's aware of the target on her back?" Charlotte asks.
So she does, in fact, know her name.
"Who said she has a target?"
"Your eyes say so, boy. And you know it."
I take the first bite of breakfast. It's sickly sweet. Just the way I like it.
"Let's say you're right," I reply. "So what?"
"So I just wonder if she knows, that's all."
"That I'm interested in her?" I ask. "Sure hope so."
"You always have known how to be just cunning enough to get what you want, haven't you?"
I take her compliment and swallow it down with the rest of my breakfast.
…
The mall is more than an hour away, but Grant insists on getting a new phone, and on Pax and me joining him.
"Took you long enough," Grant says with a smile when I arrive.
Pax waits next to him, but the two couldn't look more opposite. Grant is stringy with curly red hair and a smattering of freckles, while Pax is linebacker built with brown hair like carpet falling down over most of his face.
"Was having breakfast with my sister and grandpa," I say.
"And how is that sister of yours?" Grant asks slyly.
"Still not interested in you."
Pax grins and leads the way toward the huge looming sign for the electronics store. Inside, it's lit like a beacon. Displays advertise sales. A squeaky guy welcomes us and takes down Grant's name to put him on the wait list for assistance. Looks like we have time to kill.
I watch the way Pax stares longingly at new phones he can't afford, even though his is always having problems. I wish I could help him, but we budget the little bit we have as it is.
Since Grant's parents are a bit better off, he wastes no time going to the wall rack of cases and eyeing each one.
"What do you think of this?" he asks, taking one down.
Pax tries not to laugh. "Is that pink?"
His Southern accent is so thick that most people don't understand him unless they're from around here or unless he speaks slowly and enunciates. Even then, it's still questionable.
"It's salmon colored," Grant says.
"So, pink?" Pax teases.
Grant places the pink case back on the rack.
"What about this one?" he asks.
It doesn't look much better. It has tiny foxes stamped into it.
"Man, you have money to buy a new case and these are the options you pick?"
Pax's voice is lighthearted, but his look tells me he's envious.
"Fine, what do you think about these tablets?" Grant asks, changing course.
I pull up one of the screens and begin playing a game while we wait. Grant and Pax go back and forth about which company makes the best product.
A girl walks by with hair as black as space. For a moment, I think it's Willow, but then she turns and I see that I'm mistaken. She smiles at me, and Grant takes advantage of the situation by trying to talk to her himself.
"You mind?" he asks me.
"Not at all." I lean against the wall and watch as he approaches the girl.
She looks uncomfortable. He looks ecstatic.
"You think she'll turn him down?" Pax asks, laughter in his tone.
"Definitely. He has thirty seconds, tops, before she does."
I'm wrong. It takes less time than that. Grant joins us once again with a scowl.
"Shut up," he says to my amused expression.
The girl disappears into the crowd, and I think of Willow. I find myself looking forward to tomorrow, to driving her to school, to getting her alone again. I want to know her better.
"Some of us don't have it as easy as you," Grant says.
Willow's been different, a challenge. That, and Grant knows nothing of my past.
So I reply, "I don't always have it as easy as you think."
7
Willow
"Willow," says a voice that flips me upside down, topsy-turvy like a carnival ride I don't want to get off. My breaths quicken, fluttering with a false promise of flight.
"Beau Cadwell," I reply as I step up to his house on Monday morning, wearing a blush of rose on my face.
He's standing out front, hip cocked against the doorframe, hands in his pockets.
Beau watches me.
"What are you staring at?" I ask playfully.
"A beautiful girl," he says. "Who lives next door but makes me feel like she's a thousand miles away. Tell me what you're thinking."
He takes his hands out of his pockets. Touches my arm softly. He's so gentle, so careful, in complete contrast to what I've heard of his wicked ways, that I am momentarily stunned. Heat lands on my cheeks and tumbles down. His fingertips, only the smallest portion of Beau, the faintest points of pressure, deliver shocks, and I finally understand what it means to be out of control in my own body. This is the thought that finally snaps me out of it.
"Do you think Samantha would mind you touching me like this?" I ask.
Is she real? Does he not like her like he claims? Is he lying again? I can't tell if he's a harmless flirt, or if he really does mean something by it.
"Maybe I don't care if she does," he says.
"Maybe I do," I say.
Which is, of course, a mistake. I notice a second too late. Beau laughs, and I like the sound, though I'm not sure if I want to. But I am sure that he now knows that I'm drawn to him, and that I care if he has a girlfriend who he plans to hurt.
I turn away, go to his old four-wheel-drive truck, and hop inside. I know it's his truck because I've seen him leave in it before. Not that I watch him. Okay, maybe I sometimes do. It's how I also know that the old man drives a Volkswagen. I caught a brief glimpse of him getting into it the other day. And I assume the small red hatchback parked under the tree belongs to Beau's sister.