Wreath (32 page)

Law’s eyes lit up as he walked into sight, wearing jeans and a Landry High jersey. “Wreath …” he said and then stopped as he noticed his mother’s curious look. “Let me get my jacket.”

“I’ll wait out here,” Wreath said and practically ran down the steps.

“I was kind of bored,” she said when Law reappeared. “I probably shouldn’t have just dropped in like this.”

“Are you kidding? This is the best thing that’s happened to me all day,” Law said. He ran his hand through his longish brown hair and lowered himself to the steps. “Have a seat.”

“Are you sure it’s all right with your mom?”

“She doesn’t care,” Law said. “I’m killing time till we go to my grandparents’ house for supper, and she’s coming up with her usual excuses not to go.” He shook his head. “She makes life harder on herself than it needs to be.”

Wreath was surprised as she reflected on his words. “I’ve never thought about it like that, but my mother was the same way. She was so smart, but she couldn’t figure life out like most adults do.”

“Was?”

Wreath grimaced, dismayed that she had again used the past tense when talking about her mother. “I meant is. She makes things hard.”

“Wreath, is your mom in jail or something? You always act kind of weird when we talk about her.” Law reached over and put his hand on her knee.

He looked so serious and so sympathetic, Wreath couldn’t lie about Frankie. Not today of all days. “She’s not in jail. She’s dead.”

“Dead!”

“She died right before I moved here.”

“Oh Wreath,” Law pulled her close against his chest. “No wonder you don’t like to talk about her. My mom’s messed up most of the time, but I don’t know what I’d do without her.”

Wreath breathed in the scent of him, the warm, comfortable scent that she would recognize anytime, anywhere.

“So your cousins took you in?” he asked.

“What?” Wreath was momentarily lost in the feel of Law against her cheek.

“Your cousins? You moved here when your mother died?”

Wreath jumped back as though burned. What was she thinking? She had five more months till graduation, and she couldn’t be lulled into trusting anyone, not even Law. She had to do damage control and do it in a hurry. “Yes.” She avoided his eyes. “They brought me home with them after the funeral.”

“I’m sure glad you moved to Landry, instead of someplace else.”

“Me, too.” Wreath was tempted to lay her head back against his chest. About to give in to his comfort against her better judgment, her eyes fell on the package in her bike basket, and she jumped up, bumping her head under his chin.

“Sorry,” she said. “I have something for you.”

He rubbed his chin, smiling. “It’s not another black eye, is it?”

“This is something you’ve been wanting,” she said, shoving thoughts of her confession about Frankie back inside and pulling out her cheerful smile.

“But I don’t have anything for you,” he said.

“Yes, you do.” Wreath handed him the small gift bag. “You look out for me, and that means a lot. Open your gift.” He laughed as he pulled out a toy guitar.

Chapter 29

B
usiness at Durham’s skidded to a halt in the first week of the New Year.

“Have you ever noticed it’s not nearly as much fun taking Christmas decorations down as it is putting them up?” Wreath asked, pulling a string of lights from the window.

“Why don’t you wait till I can get the boys over to help?” Faye asked.

“This’ll keep me busy,” she said, “since we don’t have any customers.”

The girl had had something on her mind after Christmas, but Faye couldn’t get her to open up. In the last days before Christmas, Wreath had become almost a chatterbox, replaying the details of the open house, outlining the gifts she had gotten and thanking Faye repeatedly for the bonus. When the store reopened for business, though, she was quieter than she had been in months.

“Are you worried about the store?” Faye asked, boxing up seasonal fixtures while Wreath swept and dusted.

Down on her hands and knees getting a spiderweb out from under a chair, Wreath twisted her head. “I will be if business doesn’t pick up.”

“You know January is slow in retail,” Faye said. “You’re the one who told me our business would be best during the last two months of the year.”

With her legs crossed, the girl sat in the middle of the floor and looked around the store. “I had started to believe things were going to stay good.”

Once more, Faye had the idea that she was not only talking about the store but something altogether different. “You’re not getting pessimistic on me, are you?” Faye asked, smiling and moving over to the big desk where she now felt as at home as she did at her sewing machine.

“I was naive. I thought all of that business would continue, even though my research said otherwise.”

“Billy always expected January to be slow,” Faye said. “We’ll just have to put our heads together and figure out a new approach for the entire year, or at least until graduation.”

Wreath looked downright glum. “It’s so bare in here without the Christmas merchandise, and I wanted to leave everything in good shape when I finished school. Now look at it….”

Following Wreath’s eyes, Faye smiled, despite herself. “You think it looks like it did when you first started work here, don’t you?”

“Sort of, I guess.”

“It wasn’t that great, was it?”

“No, ma’am.” Wreath was perking up. She stood up straighter, squinted her eyes, and appraised the room.

“You’ll just have to come up with a plan,” Faye said. “Why don’t you take stock of what’s left upstairs? I’ll work on the numbers.”

“There’s not nearly as much in the attic,” Wreath said, “but we have some stuff left.” She sighed and headed toward the back, pulling the folding stairs down and nimbly climbing up them.

Faye punched numbers into the ancient adding machine, its motor whirring each time she pulled the handle to compute profits. Using a ruler and a pencil, she drew a graph of the store’s business, watching Wreath haul a half-dozen boxes down the attic stairs.

“Well, I’ll be!” Faye said.

“What?” Wreath looked around in alarm, sliding a box down the last few rungs of the ladder. “We almost made it.”

“So we’re in the hole?” Wreath’s mouth drooped.

“That’s one way of looking at it, I suppose. But we’re a lot less in the hole than we were a few months ago. Look at this.” She pointed to her chart. “We’ve made more money every month after you arrived. I may not be an economist, but even I can tell we’re headed in the right direction.”

“You think so?” Wreath asked.

“I know so.” Faye felt upbeat, despite the lack of a profit. “We’ve got to come up with new ideas,” the teenager said, swatting her forehead. “I should have been planning for the slump.”

“That’s what we’re doing now,” Faye said. She glanced at the clock. “I’ll share my tuna with you, and we’ll do some of that brainstorming you’re so fond of.”

Wreath pulled out her beloved journal as Faye fixed lunch, but the pen remained still, her thoughts adrift about telling Law about Frankie. With life in Landry beginning to be enjoyable and the end of high school almost in sight, she feared everything was going to unravel now that she had confessed that key detail.

Law had been so sweet, though, and reassuring. His soft words and deep voice had eased the burden Wreath had carried for months. He promised he wouldn’t tell anyone, and she believed him. She had even wound up going to his grandparents’ house for Christmas supper and had felt like part of the family, adding her own amen when they bowed their heads, held hands, and said the blessing.

“My mom was on her best behavior because you were there,” he’d told her as she got on her bike at Law’s house.

“I had a great time,” she had said and was happy when he gave her a gentle kiss before she left. She steered her bike with one hand and touched her fingers to her lips with the other. Big Fun’s touch had been rough and mean. Law’s was tender. Her first real kiss.

But, her morning voice told her the next day, becoming attached to others had a downside. The more she let people help her, the more she needed them. She felt disloyal to Frankie, like she was using others as a substitute. She left for work undecided about her life.

With the hustle and bustle of the busiest retail season over and the nights so cold in the Tiger Van, she experienced a letdown. School would start back in a couple of days, and Wreath wasn’t looking forward to the hassle of getting there each day and then making it to work. She liked the routine of the store, with no homework in the evenings and a later start to each day.

“Well, that’s a first,” her boss said, placing a plate with a sandwich, chips and a pickle in front of her. “You pulled out that notebook of yours and didn’t write a word. Are you feeling ill?”

Wreath gave a slight shake of her head, both a no and a signal she was clearing her thoughts. She took a bite of sandwich, appreciated the taste on her tongue, and started writing.

“I’ve got it!” she said, putting the sandwich down with reluctance. “We take these basic themes and decorate the store around them.” She read each to Mrs. Durham, elaborating as she went along. “We take what worked with the holiday rooms and expand on that.”

“So we use more vignettes?” Faye, too, had put down her sandwich and looked at the list of seasons. “We can add seasonal books, flowers, and other foliage, different styles of furniture.”

“Exactly,” Wreath said, pushing her chair back with a burst of energy. “We can do a garden theme for spring, a little study or home office for back-to-school. There are lots of possibilities.”

“As much as I hate to say it …” Faye took a bite of tuna, chewed, and swallowed. “We’re going to have to go back up into the attic.”

Wreath laughed for the first time in several days, and then she closed her eyes for a couple of moments. “Before we do that, I need to tell you something.”

She opened her mouth, but the words stuck in her throat.

“Wreath,” Faye said carefully, “are you in some sort of trouble? Are you sick? Do I need to call a doctor?”

Shaking her head, Wreath looked at the table.

“Do you want me to call Clarice or her father? Do you need a lawyer? What can I do to help?”

Touched by Faye’s insistence, she gulped a drink of water and met her friend’s eyes. “I hope you won’t fire me, but I can’t lie to you anymore. My mother is dead, and I don’t want anyone else to know.”

Chapter 30