Dig Too Deep (11 page)

Twenty

I'm in town before my heart stops pounding. The half-excitement, half-fear adrenaline my body's pumping has every hair on my arm standing at attention. I pull over in the Kroger parking lot to breathe and check my messages.

There's a reply from MFM and my brain switches gears. I stare at it for a long time, trying to decide whether to open it or not. It would be nice not to go through Granny dying alone. But I don't want MFM back in my life. Whatever happens with Granny, I won't go back to DC and live with MFM. Never.

I delete the email, pull back onto the road, and head home, heart rate mostly back in the normal range.

Granny's sitting on the couch watching a soap opera when I get back.

“Where you been?” she asks.

“I went into town,” I say, which is sort of true. “How are you feeling?”

“'Bout the same.” She has a tissue crumpled in her hand. A few red spots stand out against the white, and I know she's been coughing again. “That hospice woman came.”

Crap! I forgot about that. “What was she like?”

“Nice, I reckon. She says I gotta have a day nurse though.”

“Day nurse?”

“Bunch a' malarkey,” Granny says. “I'm just fine here on my owns.”

“Right.”
For now
, I think. But neither of us knows what to expect as she gets worse. And I have to be in school every day. “Did she say how I was supposed to find a day nurse?” Or who's supposed to pay for it?

“She left a phone number for some woman.” Granny sniffs loudly. “Not that you need to call it.”

I decide to call later, when Granny's taking a shower. Chances are, we won't need her for a while, but I'd like to have that base covered if something does come up. “Can I get you anything?”

“Naw.”

I walk into the kitchen, open the refrigerator, and stare into the abyss wishing for … anything. Absolutely. Anything. I could eat.

“You had a couple calls while you was out,” Granny says.

“From who?”

“One was that boy.”

“Cole?”

“Yeah. Him.”

I close the fridge and go lean against the doorway to the living room. “He has a name.”

“Hm.”

“You know, when I first got here, you didn't seem to hate him. You said he grew up cute.”

“Things is different now.”

“How? Did he suddenly become evil?”

“No.”

“Did I do something wrong?”

“Not such as I know of.”

“Then what's the problem?”

She frowns at me for a minute. “You ever see a moth at a candle?”

I nod, wondering where she's going with this.

“Moths is fine creatures. And candles is fine things. But a flame ain't what a moth needs.”

“Am I the moth or the flame?”

“You don't belong here, darlin'.”

I feel like she just punched me in the stomach. “Don't say that!” All of the sudden, I'm fighting tears. How many times have I heard that since I moved here? With Ashleigh telling me to go home, strangers staring at me like I have seven heads, none of the kids at school talking to me, even Dobber—who still insists on calling me “new girl.” But hearing it from Granny cuts me to the quick. She's my everything. My everybody. My
only
body. If I don't belong with her, I don't belong anywhere.

“Aw, shoot.” Granny struggles off the couch and puts her arms around me. “I didn't mean nothing. I love you, sugarplum, but …” She puts her hands on either side of my face and holds me steady. “I saw your mama go down this road.”

“I'm not her.”

“Shoot, you're like a carbon copy,” she says. “Except where she's calm, you got fire.”

I unclench my fists, just to prove her wrong.

“You got to trust me. This pond ain't big enough for you. Don't hook your boat to this tiny dock. You got bigger seas to sail.”

“This is my home, Granny. I've got nowhere else.”

“Your home for now. For a little bitty while.” She shakes her head. “But not for good and always.”

The meaning of her words hangs in the air like lead fog.
For now. For a while.
But for how long? Till next week? Next month? Where will I go when Granny's gone?

I can feel her pushing me toward MFM, back to DC, toward scholarships and college. Away from Ebbottsville, with its poisoned water and its poverty. I understand her analogy now. I'm the moth and Cole's the flame. Singeing my wings in Ebbottsville means getting stuck here forever.

I get it. But the sad fact is, aside from Granny, Cole's all I've got right now. The only game in town.

“I better call him back,” I say. “I need to check on homework.”

She sighs and shakes her head. “You'll do what you'll do, I reckon. That reminds me,” she says. “Some woman from the county called too.”

“Oh. Good.”

“She said if you got business for the commissioners' meeting, you can call and get yourself on the agenda. The public hearin's next Wednesday night.”

“Public hearing …” I had in mind something a little more private, like filling out some forms with one person in an office cubicle.

“What business you got with the county, sugarplum?”

“I wanted to talk to them about the water,” I say. “The woman at the EPA said the county is my best shot for getting the mine shut down.”

Granny's eyes turn into moons. “Shut down the mine?”

“Well … yeah.”

“No.” She totters back to the couch, shaking her head. “No, no, no.”

“Granny, they've poisoned the water.”

“Darlin' …” Her forehead wrinkles. “It ain't that simple. You shut down that mine, lotsa good people gonna lose their jobs.”

“Granny, people are
dying
!” I feel my eyes flood with tears. “
You're
dying. I think dying's a lot worse than losing a job.”

“'Course it is, but …” She shakes her head. “You ain't seeing the whole picture. People with no jobs die too. Families with no food die. Towns with no families die. See what I'm saying?”

I stare at the woman on the couch, who is normally kicking ass and taking names, now urging ridiculous caution. “So it's okay for Peabody to poison the town so long as he employs a few people in the process?”

“No. But Peabody ain't the only person who gets hurt if the mine goes away.”

“How many people get hurt if it doesn't?”

She sags into the couch. “I get ya, but this ain't all black-and-white.”

“It is! Killing people is wrong. And somebody has to do something.”

“Well, it don't have to be you, does it?” she asks, pleading.

“Who else is it going to be?” Those words fly out before I think about it, but I know they're true as soon as I hear them. “Everybody in this town is so damn scared of Robert Peabody, they aren't going to risk saying anything.”

“There's a reason for that. He's dangerous.” Granny's voice has dropped, like someone might overhear her.

I'm deeply creeped at the hold that man has over everyone … even my own rock-solid Granny and the scarier-than-clowns Mr. Dobber. “He can't hurt me,” I say.

“That's what you think.”

“Really?” I snort. “Let's recap: You're dying. The woman you call my mother is in prison. He can't take away our money, because we don't have any. Neither of us have jobs to lose, and I'm a social outcast. What could he
possibly
do to make my life worse?”

Granny shakes her head and starts laughing. “We're a pair, ain't we?”

“Well, it's true. The only thing I really care about is you. And God knows if he took you, he'd bring you right back.”

“Aw, sugarplum. I do dearly love you.” She holds out her hand.

I take it and sink onto the couch. “There's nothing I can do to fix you. But maybe I can stop him from hurting everybody else.”

“I knew I kept your mama's old picket signs for a reason.” She squeezes my hand and I ignore the comparison. “If you're dead set on tilting at this windmill, I'm with ya. A hunnert percent.”

“You're sure?”

“I'm sure I believe in you.”

It's just starting to sink in, what's ahead of me, and I sigh. “I better call the county and get on the agenda for next Wednesday.”

“Whatcha gonna say at the hearing?”

“I don't know. But I have a week to think about it.” As I pick up the phone, I try not to wonder if Granny has another week.

Twenty-One

Thinking is exactly all I manage over the next week, because when Wednesday morning rolls around, I still have no idea what I'm going to say at the meeting. Despite working on scripts all weekend, I haven't figured out how to hit the right note of concern without being accusatory. People have strong ties to the mine here. Cole's made that pretty clear. And coming out squarely against Peabody could backfire.

Ignoring my first three classes of the day, I manage to cobble together something I think might just work. I just have to finish the end during lunch, which is a problem because up till now, I've kept my plans for the county commissioners' meeting a secret from Cole. But since I have a test and two quizzes this afternoon, I'm completely out of time. I inhale my hamburger and salad in fourteen seconds so I can get back to my meeting prep.

“You want me to eat somewhere else?” Dobber asks. “Or make napkins outta these papers?”

“Sorry.” I scrape my research copies into a pile next to me.

He drops his tray on the table and opens his straw. “My daddy said you came by last week.”

“Ah … yeah.”

His smile stretches all the way across his face. “That was brave.”

“Brave or insane?”

“Some o' both, maybe. You sure did piss him off.”

“Sorry.”

“Naw. It's good.” He jabs the straw into his juice box. “We talked 'bout stuff. I think I understand him some better now.”

“Oh, well … good then.”

Dobber leans over and reads the article on top of the stack. “‘Agency Revokes Permit for Major Coal Mining Project.' What's all this for?”

I take my backpack off the chair next to me as Cole arrives with his lunch. “Um …”

At this point, there's no way I can avoid the subject—no matter how much I want to avoid an argument with Cole. And in this town, he'll hear about it by tomorrow anyway.

“I'm putting together a presentation for the county commissioners' meeting tonight. About the damage the mine is doing to the valley.”

“You're
what
?” Cole slams his tray onto the table and applesauce splatters all over my notes. “Are you crazy?”

“Calm down,” I say, mopping up the damage. “It's a public meeting. Anyone can speak, and the county needs to know what MTR mining does, so they can see what it's doing to Ebbottsville.”

Cole snorts. “No way.” He shakes his chocolate milk so hard I'm sure it's going to go Mount Vesuvius on us. “You are not doing this.”

“Excuse me?”

“I'm not going to let you make a fool of yourself.”

I nearly laugh in his face. “You're not
letting
me? I don't remember asking for your permission. And why do you assume I'd make a fool of myself, anyway? I happen to know what I'm talking about.”

“All the facts and figures from your crazy liberal websites? Nobody wants to hear that shit.” Cole opens his milk and takes a long drink. Dobber's staring at him with his forgotten burger halfway to his mouth. “So forget it. All of it. No more research. No more talk about the mine. This is the end of it.”

I'm speechless. Does he honestly think he can tell me what to do? All I can do is stare while he shovels french fries into his mouth and avoids my eyes.

“You don't own me.”

“You're my girlfriend,” Cole says evenly. “That gives me the right to say when you're making a mistake.”

“I don't take orders from
anybody
.” The people at the tables near us look over to see what's going on.

“You're not going to that meeting,” Cole says, still not looking at me. “This isn't up for debate.”

“You're right about that. It's not up for debate.” I'm absolutely dumbfounded that he thinks he can control me. “I
am
going to the commissioners' meeting and I
am
going to tell them what Peabody's mine is doing to this place. And I don't give a damn whether you like it or not.”

The tables around us are quiet, and I get the impression that everyone's listening even though they're pretending not to. I glance at Dobber, who hasn't said a word. He's looking from Cole to me with narrowed eyes.

“Liberty …” Cole wraps his hand around the top of my arm and squeezes hard. Now his eyes are locked on mine. “I said no.” His voice is quiet but his grip hurts. “I'm sick and tired of having to defend you to everybody.”

“Then stop. I never asked you to do that.” I try to pull away from him. “But I'm going to the meeting.”

His grip tightens. “I said no.”

“I don't care what you said.” I'm trying to pry his fingers away, but he's too strong. “Cole, let go.”

“Not till you agree you're not going to that meeting.”

“Forget it.”

“Then I'm not letting go.”

“Cut it out, man,” Dobber says quietly.

“I'm just trying to keep her from looking like an ass.”

“Bullshit! You're trying to force me to do what you want,” I say.

“It's for your own good,” Cole says.

My arm is throbbing and my fingers are going numb. “Dammit, Cole. Let go.”

“Not till you agree to drop the meeting.”

“No!” The veins in my arm are standing out and my hand has turned bright red. I try to twist my arm away, but it doesn't work. “That hurts.”

People are glancing over at us, but nobody seems to want to get involved, like it's not their business. Staring at Cole's face, I realize he knows he's hurting me. He just doesn't care.

Dobber's voice seems so far away. “Let go, Cole.”

But Cole's hand doesn't loosen.

I'm starting to feel a little light-headed, and I'll be damned if I'm going to pass out on the cafeteria floor. It's probably crawling with bacteria. So I make my free hand into a fist, pull my arm back, and punch Cole square in the face.

My fist lands hard on his eyebrow and my ring finger makes a snapping sound. Cole grunts and lets go of my arm. As the blood swirls back into my hand and through my body, it carries waves of pain from my broken finger to my brain.

“Shit!” I hunch over, cradling my hand in my lap. “Shit, shit, shit.”

“Goddammit!”

I look over at Cole. He has blood running over his eye and down his cheek. Looking down, I see my wounded finger swelling like a sausage around my class ring.

“What the hell?” Cole's voice isn't calm and quiet anymore. It's sort of hysterical and whiny.

Watching the blood drip off the napkin he's holding against his eye, I know I'll be in some big trouble with the school, but I'm having trouble caring. “You deserved that, shithead.”

“The hell I did.”

The whole cafeteria is staring at us, and one of the teachers is making his way toward our table.

“You're gonna regret this, bitch.” Cole stands up, grabs his backpack, and walks out of the cafeteria.

My finger is throbbing like it has bongo drums in it and blood is seeping out of little crescent-shaped wounds where my fingernails cut into my palm. Dobber's standing over me, staring at my hand.

“I think you broke it,” he says.

“No shit.” I'd like to go to the nurse and get some ice, but my head is swimmy and standing up seems kind of dangerous.

Mr. Cheek, the PE teacher, stops at our table. “Everything okay here?” He too is staring at my Quasimodo hand, which is clearly not okay.

“Fantastic,” I say.

“I think the nurse should take a look at that.” And then, miraculously, he's gone. Broken fingers at Plurd County High … nothing to get worked up about.

“Good thing you didn't tuck your thumb in,” Dobber says. “Most girls do.”

“Do they?” I frankly couldn't care less about most girls right now.

“I'll get you some ice.” Dobber heads for the kitchen, leaving me at the table all alone, in a room full of people staring.

Given that I just punched in the face one of the two people who actually speak to me, being alone is probably something I should get used to.