The House You Pass on the Way (8 page)

Some evenings, the phone would ring. And when the answering machine clicked on, there was a girl’s voice on the other end, asking for Trout. When Trout ran for the phone, Staggerlee longed to run after her, to sit beside her and listen. But she didn’t. Instead, she sat on her hands and waited. When Trout hung up, she was often quiet. She seemed younger after those phone calls—less sure of herself. Staggerlee watched her, wondering what the girl had said to make her feel this way.

ONE NIGHT ABOUT a month after Trout arrived, Staggerlee woke up to find her standing in the doorway. It was almost dawn, and gray light trickled in from the shutters Staggerlee had pulled closed the night before.

“Your dog always sleep right next to your bed like that?” Trout whispered, sitting down at the foot of the bed. Creek lifted his head and yawned. He was curled up on his dog bed, a round dark blue mat Daddy had made.

Staggerlee squinted up at her. It felt strange to wake to Trout in the room sitting cross-legged at the foot of her bed.

“The floors are cold here,” Trout said. She was barefoot, dressed in dark pajamas. She had braided her hair, and the braids hung down beside her ears.

Staggerlee sat up, pulling the covers with her. Creek sat up too, went over to Trout, and rested his head on her lap. She stroked it slowly.

“How long were you standing there—in the doorway like that?”

Trout shrugged. “A little while—maybe twenty minutes. I was watching you sleep. You’re pretty when you’re sleeping. So peaceful.”

“That’s weird to me.” Staggerlee frowned. “You standing there.” It gave her the creeps to think of someone watching her when she didn’t know they were there. “Do you always watch people like that?”

“I had a bad dream. I dreamed I didn’t have a family. I was standing out in this field and there was all this snow around and I just kept calling everybody’s name. People I knew kept turning and looking at me like I was some kind of crazy stranger.”

“They probably just thought you were some kind of crazy,” Staggerlee said, wiping sleep out of her eyes. “They probably knew you were going to be standing in my door in the next minute staring at me.”

“You were there,” Trout said. “You walked right by me.”

Staggerlee looked at her. “It was a dream, Trout.”

“When I’m walking in the woods sometimes, my mind is all filled up thinking about you, Staggerlee.”

Staggerlee shivered and pulled the covers tighter around her.

“Have you ever kissed anyone?”

“Once,” Staggerlee said softly, looking away from Trout. “I kissed a girl once.”

She had never even said this out loud.

“What happened?”

“She found a way to never speak to me again.”

“I used to tell Hallique everything,” Trout said softly. “The first time I kissed a girl, I told her.” She crawled up beside Staggerlee and climbed under the covers. Staggerlee moved over to make space for her. “She said that I’d get crushes on lots of people, boys and girls.” Trout frowned. “I asked her . . . I said . . . , ‘But what if I always want this?’”

“Did she say it was bad?” Staggerlee asked. She could feel Trout’s leg pressed against hers. She wanted to push it away. She wanted to pull it closer.

Trout shook her head. “She just said it was something I should keep to myself.”

“But she told Ida Mae.”

Trout turned toward the window. Staggerlee could see the outline of her throat moving up and down. “I know,” she said softly. “And then she died before I could get mad at her.”

“Nobody ever told me I had to hide it,” Staggerlee said. “I think I just told myself. I read this book once where this woman fell in love with another woman and she couldn’t deal with it, so she jumped off this cliff. It scared me. I hadn’t thought about it again until I kissed—I kissed Hazel.”

“Where’d you find a book like that?”

“It was this old book. I was into reading stuff written a long time ago. I didn’t even know what it was about until I got halfway through it.”

“You think your parents would still love you?” Trout asked.

“I don’t know. I really don’t.”

Trout rested her head on Staggerlee’s shoulder. “But one day you’re going to find out.”

They didn’t say anything for a long time. The sun was almost up now. Staggerlee watched the dust-filled rays seep through the shutters. She could not believe she had told someone about Hazel. She could not believe how easy it had been, how safe it felt.

“Who’s that girl who calls you, Trout?”

Trout sighed. “That’s my friend Rachel. She’s on a mission to find me a boyfriend.”

“I thought it was your girlfriend.”

Trout laughed. “Oh, God—Rachel would drop dead standing if she heard that. Every time she calls, it’s to tell me about some guy or some party she went to and all the guys that were into her there.” She turned to Staggerlee. “Sometimes I want that, though—to just be able to walk out into the world and
be.
I couldn’t imagine going to some party with a girl as my date.”

“Why not?”

Trout shrugged. “I guess I’m just . . . I don’t know—I don’t have what it would take. To have people pointing and laughing, that would kill me. Would you do it?”

Staggerlee nodded. “If I loved someone enough, I would go anywhere in the world with them.” She thought about Hazel. She would’ve walked off the end of the world with her and not cared about anyone saying anything. Maybe that’s what she should have told Hazel that morning in the school yard.

“That’s good that you have that in you. I think some people can do it and some people can’t. I wish I was one of the ones who had that kind of . . . of whatever it is, in me.”

“Maybe you’ll have it one day. Maybe it comes later on for some people.”

Trout shook her head and smiled.

“I’d never leave you standing in a field, Trout. If you called my name, I’d answer.”

“I know.”

“I’d say, ‘Hey, Trout. What you know good? Where you been, girl?’”

“And I’d say, ‘Hey, Staggerlee. It’s been a long time.’ Trout sounded groggy.

“I’d like that,” Staggerlee said softly. “I’d like to have someone else like me somewhere in the world.”

But Trout’s breath was coming soft and even, and Staggerlee knew she had fallen asleep.

WHEN TROUT CAME DOWNSTAIRS THE NEXT MORNING, Staggerlee was dressing Battle. He smiled when he saw her.

“Hey, Battle,” Trout said, bending down to kiss him.

“Dotti’s taking him out with her today—visiting,” Staggerlee said, lacing his shoe. She felt nervous suddenly. Last night had almost seemed like a dream, and she wondered how much Trout remembered. “I have to clean the kitchen. Mama’s not feeling so well. We left some breakfast out for you.”

Trout looked at her without smiling.

“What?” Staggerlee said.

“Nothing.”

Dotti came down the stairs and lifted Battle into her arms. She and Trout exchanged looks.

“Hey, Trout. How’s it going?”

“Fine, thanks.”

Trout looked down at her hands and continued staring at them until Dotti and Battle were gone.

“She makes me feel weird,” Trout said in the kitchen. Staggerlee set a plate of toast and eggs in front of her.

“That’s just Dotti. I think she practices that in the mirror—seeing how weird she can make people feel.”

Trout ate slowly. “Sorry I woke you up last night like that.”

“That’s okay.”

Trout chewed a piece of toast. She ate delicately, carefully. “Hallique was the only one I’ve ever told anything to. It feels weird this morning now.”

“I never told anybody,” Staggerlee said softly.

“Nobody?”

Staggerlee shook her head and smiled.

“Geez.”

“It feels good, though.” Staggerlee looked at her. “I mean, I feel—relieved, I guess. Like I’m not walking around anymore with this thing I can’t tell anyone.”

“You never told
anyone
?”

Staggerlee shook her head, then got up and started clearing the table. Trout took a last bite of egg and rose to help her. Staggerlee felt lighter this morning, happier than she’d felt in a long time.

“Not even your best friend?”

“I don’t have a best friend,” Staggerlee said quietly. The words embarrassed her suddenly. “I don’t really—” She turned to Trout, and the look in Trout’s eyes made her stop midsentence. Trout’s look said she was coming to some deep conclusion about Staggerlee. “Nothing.”

“Why not?”

Staggerlee turned back to the sink. The light feeling she’d had a moment before was gone. She felt like a freak now.

“I just never did.”

“Is it because of them?” Trout pointed to a picture of their grandparents.

Staggerlee stared at it a long time, then shook her head. “I don’t think so. People act weird about them. But I don’t know if that’s it. At school they say I’m stuck-up. You think I’m stuck-up?”

Trout shrugged. “I don’t know you at school. You don’t seem stuck-up to me here.”

“I just never had a close friend.”

Trout hip-checked her and smiled. “Before me.”

Staggerlee laughed then and started running water into the sink. “Yeah,” she said.

THEY WERE QUIET walking out to the river. Trout had her hands in her pockets. She was wearing her loafers again and taking high steps to keep the dirt off them. Staggerlee smiled.

“I told you it was a losing battle.”

Finally Trout took the shoes off and tucked them under her arm.

She looked out over the water. The sun was pretty today, faint and orange in the sky. “Last night when Rachel called—it was to tell me about this guy Matthew who keeps asking her all these questions about me. She set up a date for when I get home.”

“Are you going?”

Trout nodded. “I don’t really know why I even said I would, but I did. She makes it sound so great—like everything’s so much fun.” She frowned. “I tell Rachel all this stuff but—like we’ll be sitting in my room and she’ll be telling me everything about some boy who she thinks she’s in love with. It makes me feel awful. Sometimes I even make up some stupid boy. And later, I’ll lie in bed thinking how bad it feels—to have to lie to someone like that.”

Staggerlee squinted, thinking. “I don’t understand it,” she said. “No one ever told me I had to lie about it or had to keep it quiet, but somehow I just knew.” She brushed her hair back from her face with her hand. “I have all this stuff—all these thoughts going on inside me and they all seem so—so dangerous.”

“I see guys in Baltimore wearing these pink triangle pins and I know it’s about . . . about being gay,” Trout said. They stopped walking and sat down beneath the shade of a sycamore tree.

“Gay,” Staggerlee said softly.

They stared out at the water. Staggerlee felt the word settling inside her. It felt too big, somehow.

“I don’t know that’s what I am, Trout.”

Trout frowned. “If you like kissing girls, that’s what you are.”

Staggerlee shivered and wrapped her arms around herself. “It sounds so final. I mean—we’re only fourteen.”

Trout nodded. She picked up a stick and started scratching their names in the dirt.
Staggerlee and Trout were here today. Maybe they will and maybe they won’t be gay.

Staggerlee read it over her shoulder and smiled.

Trout picked up one of her loafers and started rubbing it out.

“Why are you doing that?”

“I don’t want anyone to find it and get stupid.”

Staggerlee watched her a moment. “You think the day’ll come when you can write something like that in the dirt and it won’t faze anybody?”

Trout smiled and started writing their names again. “Guess it won’t ever come if it doesn’t start someplace, right?”

THE SUMMER MOVED PAST THEM SLOWLY. EACH morning, after cooking and cleaning, they walked down to the river, their fingers laced, Creek dancing around them. On hot afternoons, they pulled their shirts up and pressed their bare stomachs into the cool earth.