100 Days (24 page)

In one quick motion, Diablo bites down on the wheelbarrow handle and raises his head, flinging the load of manure everywhere. I just sigh.
That'll teach you to think about some girl rather than paying attention to me,
I'm pretty sure the gelding's saying.

 

74

AGNES

DAY 27: MAY 29

On our third day in Anaheim, we decide to walk to the park. Yesterday, we stayed at the hotel all day, and we both feel ready to stretch our legs again.

The only problem is, riding the shuttle on day one masked the distance. Neither of us realized how long it would take on foot. It's not the nicest walk, either. It's over a mile of concrete, and you see things walking that you don't notice as much from inside a vehicle. Things like vandalism and sad-looking people at bus stops and trash all over the place.

“I'm going to hail us a cab,” Mom says.

“Don't,” I tell her. “It's fine. We're almost there.” We're standing under a storefront awning, taking a break in the shade. And that's when I see him.

He's in a wheelchair holding a cardboard sign with the words
DISABLED VETERAN—ANYTHING HELPS
scrawled across it in fat marker strokes.

Try as I might, I can't stop staring.

“Everything okay?” Mom asks.

“No,” I tell her. “Look at him.”

“Agnes, I don't think—” she starts to say, but I leave her side before she can reach out to stop me.

The guy stares at me as I approach him. One of his eyes is scrunched shut, like Popeye's in those old cartoons. I can't tell much about him other than that. Every inch of his skin is covered with either whiskers or grime. “Is you old?” he asks in a raspy whisper when I'm close enough to hear.

“Sort of,” I answer. “What about you?”

“As the hills,” he says. A sound comes out of him that I assume is a laugh, but it's more like a couple of rusty cans being rubbed together. Most of his teeth are missing.

“I'm Agnes.”

He looks at me for a minute longer and then finally holds out what I realize is his only hand. His other arm ends in a stump just a few inches below the shoulder. “Sarge,” he says.

“Honey.” It's Mom's voice behind me. Worried but firm.

I ignore her and shake Sarge's hand. “Is there anyone who can help you?” I ask him. “Family or friends?”

“Afraid I burned those bridges a while back, little mama.”

“Where do you sleep?”

“You ask a lot of questions, you know that?”

I look down at my hands, at my knobby fingers entwined and fidgeting with one another now. “Sorry.”

“Bet you get a lot of questions, too.”

“Not really,” I say. “People stare at first, but then they pretty much just pretend not to see.”

“Yeah,” Sarge says, nodding. “Yeah, I hear ya.”

*   *   *

He stays on my mind for the rest of the day. An hour after meeting him, Mom and I stand posed in front of the It's a Small World castle so Carl can take our picture. He gives us free mouse ears and a bunch of coupons for food, too. I get some curious looks, as usual, but most people are too busy fanning themselves in the heat and navigating the crowds to pay me much attention.

It's only once we're on It's a Small World and floating in our boat through the darkened indoor waterway surrounded by singing dolls that I finally understand what's been gnawing at me lately. It's that I'm tired of being treated like a child, like everyone's extraspecial princess. I don't want to be the town mascot anymore. I don't want to be the charity case for local businesses to use in their advertising. We float into the last major part of the ride, where the dolls are illuminated in all different colors and waving at us now. The song that won't leave our heads for days reaches a seemingly endless crescendo, and all the signs say
GOOD-BYE
in dozens of different languages. Mom is sitting perfectly still, looking off to the side of the boat. Out of the corner of my vision, I see her reach up and swipe a tear from under her eye. I'm guessing it's because our trip is almost over, and who knows when, if ever, we'll be able to do something like this again. Swallowing hard, I lean toward my mother and rest my head on her shoulder as the boat gently rocks us back into daylight.

 

75

MOIRA

DAY 26: MAY 30

It scares me how much I've been thinking about him lately. It also scares me how happy thinking about him makes me. I do my best to play it cool when we're together, though. And with Agnes gone, we're together a lot.

Alone in my room, I take off all my clothes except for my bra and underwear and stand in front of the mirror. I try hard to see myself, to really
see
myself. It's excruciating. It's almost impossible to avoid my years-long habit of only glancing, of just allowing a quick glimpse of this body part or that. I've been dissecting myself with my eyes that way for most of my life. After all, why would I want to look at my entire body all at once? The few times I've accidentally seen myself naked, the litany of names I've been called since grade school plays in an endless loop inside my brain. The only time mirrors have been tolerable is when I've practiced my death scowl. But I won't let myself do that now. I force my expression to stay neutral.

I want to see who I really am, not what other people tell me I am.

Turns out I am … well, I'm big, for starters.

I'm also mighty.

I am Rubenesque.

And I am capable of moving through this world for myself and myself alone, with little concern about what other people might think.

 

76

AGNES

DAY 25: MAY 31

On Tuesday morning, as we're heading toward our lockers and groaning about the long weekend being over, I ask Moira if she wants to study for finals after school tomorrow.

“I might be busy,” she says after a pause. “But definitely Thursday, okay?” She doesn't look at me when she says it, which is kind of weird. I don't think too much about it, though. She's been acting different—kind of distracted or something—ever since she got back from Berkeley. She hardly asked me anything about my trip.

“Okay,” I tell her. “Thursday it is. How about after dinner, at six o'clock?”

“Perfect.”

That night, Dad calls and asks if I want to go out for ice cream with the kids. I tell him sure. When they come to pick me up, I climb into the back of the minivan with Nevaeh and Obi. Isaiah offered to put my booster in the front seat, but I told him it was okay. The booster can't go up there because of the airbags, and the seatbelt restrains me in all the wrong places when I try to ride like a normal passenger. Plus, I know it makes him feel grown up to sit next to Dad.

Nevvie gives me a big hug as soon as I shut the door. It's a little
too
big of a hug, actually; I feel a slight pop in one of my ribs when she does it. “Ouch!” I cry before I can stop myself. Dad's worried eyes fill the rearview mirror, and Isaiah turns to shout at his sister. “Careful! Agnes is
delicate
!”

Nevvie looks like she might cry. “I'm sorry, Agnes,” she says, her lower lip trembling.

“Oh, sweetie, it wasn't you,” I lie. “I just kicked the seat and hurt my toe.”

“Oh, phew.” She grins, and I notice that she's lost another baby tooth. At the sight of the empty space, I feel a pang in my heart to go with the one in my rib cage.

We go to the same ice cream place where Dad used to take me when I was the twins' age. At first, a small, jealous part of me feels resentful that we're all there together. I've always sort of thought of it as a special place for just the two of us. But as I watch my brothers and sister eating their cones and describing the insects they're learning about in homeschool, I end up wishing we'd all come here together sooner. “We should have made this a regular thing these past five years,” I say out loud.

Dad looks at me. “We still can,” he says, but his eyes look sad.

I feel an arm wrapping around mine. It's Obi's. He gives my arm a gentle squeeze and rests his head on my shoulder. “Nobody can replace Agnes,” he says. The words momentarily stop my breath. Dad and I exchange a look.

“That's the truth,” he says. He clears his throat and tousles Obi's hair. “Nobody can replace Agnes.”

 

77

BOONE

DAY 24: JUNE 1

It's Wednesday after school, and there's no plan. Agnes is being picked up by her mom, and all Moira and I know is that we want to hang out together today, just the two of us. We're not headed any place in particular. We're just driving.

“I want to play BioHaze for you,” Moira says.

“Is it any good?”

“I don't know. Is the
Mona Lisa
any good? Is Beethoven's Fifth any good?”

“I guess,” I say, laughing.

“You guess.” Flabbergasted, Moira looks up at the roof of the car. “He guesses,” she tells God.

The song begins, and it's not a song at all. It's an aggressive wall of noise. I can't make out any specific instruments, but I'm pretty sure there are a few screaming guitars in there. There are also electronic drums and what sounds like a ukulele being played by a honey badger on methamphetamine. Someone might be singing, too. That, or it's a recording of a guy choking on his own tongue. So much for Berkeley mellowing this girl out. “You're going to ruin your hearing,” I holler at the top of my lungs.

Moira just reaches for the volume knob and turns it up. “It's worth it,” she yells back.

“You're going to ruin
my
hearing!”

The “song” finally plays out, and we ride in silence. After a while, I pull something from my jacket pocket. It's an old cassette tape I found in my dad's collection. I eject Moira's tape from the player and replace it with mine.

“What the hell is this?” Moira's face twists in confusion as the opening slide guitar strains of “Whiskey Bent and Hell Bound” snake out through the speakers. “
Country
music?”

“Don't you remember me telling you about Bocephus?”

“Who the hell?”

“Hank Williams, Jr. My dad had the same name.”

“Your dad's name was Hank Williams, Jr.?”

“Close enough. His name was Henry.” I reach for the volume knob and turn it up as Moira rolls her eyes. There are so many other songs I could introduce her to. “Sweet Dreams” by Patsy Cline, Willie Nelson's “Till I Gain Control Again.” Nanci Griffith and Lucinda Williams sing a version of “On the Wings of a Dove” that will make you want to cry, but am I going to tell Moira this? No. She'll just have to miss out on her own. I cross my arms over my chest at the thought, but then Moira reaches for the eject button. I reach my hand out to stop her. “Just give it a chance,” I plead as Hank wails about hearing a sad song and getting his emotions all balled up.

Moira's hand stays there, hovering near the eject button, and my hand stays there, too, covering hers. I don't want to distract her from the road, but I also don't want to so much as breathe in case it makes her pull her hand away.

*   *   *

Later, when we're hanging out on a picnic table at the park, she says, “What are you thinking?”

“I'm thinking the same thing I thought in sixth grade before everything went wrong,” I tell her. Maybe I'm emboldened by our music war, maybe by the sun warming the skin of my back through my T-shirt, I don't know. Moira tenses at the mention of the Year That Shall Not Be Named, but I put my hand on hers again, like I've been doing it forever. “I'm thinking you're the most beautiful girl I've ever seen.” I don't know how she's going to take it, and I don't really care. It's the truth. I'm sick and tired of hiding it.

There is a long (eternal, even) silence before Moira leans in toward me. Her eyes are almost closed as she presses her lips to mine. I've never felt anything like it. I'm pretty sure kissing Moira could fix just about anything that's ever been wrong in my life. No, strike that. I'm certain, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that kissing Moira
has
fixed anything that's ever been wrong in my life.

She pulls away a few millimeters, and we stay like that for a while, our faces almost touching but not quite, until I vaguely register the sound of her voice. It forces me out of paradise and back to consciousness.

“How are we going to tell Agnes?” she's asking me.

“I don't know,” I whisper against her lips. “I think she'll be happy for us.”

Moira pulls back. “That, right there, just proves how clueless guys are when it comes to love,” she says.

“Mmm-hmm,” I murmur. All I want to do is pull her back to me, pull her back under the surface of life to where I am now, to where bliss resides. “Are you saying you love me?”

“No,” Moira says. “That's not what I'm saying at all.” There's a slyness in her eyes, though, and she gives me a playful little shove. “Shut up.”

 

78

AGNES

DAY 23: JUNE 2

I eat dinner early on Thursday, and then Mom drops me at Moira's house just before six, like we agreed. Finals start on Monday. That's just a few days away now, so we'd better get cracking if we want to be prepared. I haven't seen much of my best friend this week, other than at school. I'm looking forward to studying with her and catching up.

“I'll wait here until you get inside,” Mom says as I unbuckle myself from the booster seat and get out of the car. I nod and sling my backpack carefully over my shoulder.

I'm about halfway to the Watkinses' front door when a sound coming from behind the old elm tree in their front yard catches my attention. It's probably Moira's mom out gardening. I step closer, preparing to say hi, but then I realize it's not Moira's mom at all. It's Moira. She's leaning against the tree with her eyes closed and her arms raised. They're draped across Boone's shoulders, those arms, the wrists crossed behind his neck as the two of them stand there pressed against each other, kissing and kissing and kissing. It's the longest kiss I've ever seen. It makes the earth start spinning at roughly ten times its normal rate. I try not to make a sound, but I fail. My horrified gasp gives me away before I can stop it. As I turn to run back the way I came, back toward Mom's waiting car, Boone and Moira pull apart.