Wreath Read online

  “Wreath,” Faye called out. “Someone’s here to see you.” She said the last words as though a car had crashed through the front window.

  While trying to decide whether to stand up or not, Wreath heard the voice again. “Wreath, is that you?”

  She looked up to see Law Rogers headed her way. Her heart flipped, and she slid an inch or so closer to the floor.

  “Wreath?”

  Wiping her sweaty palms against her skirt, she gave up and stood.

  “I’m over here,” she said, knowing that sounded stupid, since he was already walking toward her.

  “Wow, this looks great.” Law surveyed the display Wreath had just put together. “I didn’t know this store had cool stuff like this.” Then his face flushed, and he turned to Faye, who had scurried over to where the pair stood, clearly curious. “Sorry, Mrs. Durham. I didn’t mean that like it sounded.”

  “No offense taken,” she said. “I didn’t know you two were friends. Seems like your grandmother would have mentioned it, Law.”

  “Oh, we’re not friends,” Wreath said hastily, trying to straighten her skirt and look unconcerned at the same time, noticing Law’s slight frown at her declaration. “He works at the state park where I hike some days.”

  “We were trading summer job stories, and she told me she worked here,” Law said. “I thought we were sort of friends, though.” He looked puzzled.

  “How are your grandparents?” Faye asked.

  “Good,” the boy said. “My grandmother’s playing bridge and teaching that class at church, and grandpa’s still at the library. He’s always got a new book he thinks I should read.”

  “I haven’t had time to read any books lately,” Faye said. “Wreath’s got me studying up on design magazines.”

  The woman almost looked as flustered as Wreath felt. Law, on the other hand, looked downright dignified, chatting with Mrs. Durham as though he were a politician, not a teenage boy.

  “The place looks better.” He stumbled over the last word. “I like the improvements you’ve made.”

  “Wreath gets all the credit for the changes.” Faye twisted her mouth. “It’s about time, don’t you think? Between your grandparents and J. D. at the hardware store, I had to do something or leave town.”

  Wreath thought Faye’s smile made her look years younger as she continued. “This girl has quite an eye for decorating.” The compliment hardly registered with Wreath, who watched the casual exchange between the two, feeling both possessive and protective of Mrs. Durham. The place had been a mess all right, but Faye had lost her husband only a few months before.

  She never saw the woman anywhere except the store and couldn’t imagine her visiting with people in town, but she must have had an outside life at one time. Wreath coughed, and Law and Faye looked over at her.

  “Did you want something?” Wreath asked the boy. “Oh,” Law said. “I need to talk to you.”

  He cast a charming look at Faye and then back at Wreath, and the woman walked away slowly. “Do you get a break or anything?” he asked.

  Wreath pondered the question, trying not to let on how shaken she was by his presence. “Not usually,” she said. “But Mrs. Durham is pretty nice, so she might let me have a few minutes. Is something wrong?”

  Law looked over his shoulder and lowered his voice. “You weren’t at school today.”

  “I couldn’t make it.”

  “Couldn’t make it? Who can’t make it on the first day of her senior year?”

  “I overslept, okay? My alarm clock didn’t go off.” She wondered if that was considered another lie, since she had turned the clock off.

  “Maybe you should get a new clock,” he said and punched her playfully on the arm. “They called your name on the roll in at least half my classes.”

  “They did?” Wreath’s heart raced. That must mean her enrollment had been approved. But by being absent, she had violated one of her rules. She had drawn attention to herself.

  “Miss Watson asked the whole class if anyone knew you.”

  “Miss Watson?”

  “The jogger you met at the park, remember?” Wreath felt a jolt of excitement. “I got into her class? I was afraid it would be full. She said she only teaches one senior social studies.”

  “Are you friends with Miss Watson or something?” He looked curious. “When she called your name, she seemed disappointed you weren’t there. Afterward she asked me about you. She’s done that before. Like she’s worried about you.”

  “Nothing to worry about,” Wreath said, moving knickknacks around on a table. “I saw her when I registered. She seems nice enough.”

  He nodded. “She’s pushing me to get my college applications finished.”

  “So you and I have a lot of classes together?” Wreath asked, and realized she seemed even dumber than she had when she tried to hide behind the chair.

  She should be concerned about a teacher looking for her and about college applications. But she was very interested in whether this boy was in her classes.

  “A few,” he said. “If you ever show up.”

  “I should have gone,” Wreath mumbled. “It’s a long story.”

  “Destiny said you probably didn’t know which bus to take.”

  “Bus?” Wreath repeated, thinking she sounded like a parrot she’d seen in a barbershop near her grandma’s house when she was in kindergarten.

  “The school bus.” Law spoke slowly, as though she were dense. “Destiny rides the bus when her dad can’t take her to school. She wanted to make sure you know there’s a bus stop out near where you live.”

  “Where I live?”

  Law looked almost like he regretted coming into the store. “Out toward my place,” he said. “The bus stops at the trailer park where I live and at a few other places down the road. Destiny lives down there. She told the driver you might be getting on out there.”

  Wreath’s hopes rose and then were dashed again. Riding the bus to school would be much easier than taking her bike, especially when the weather got cold. But then she wouldn’t have a way home from work.

  She glanced up to see Mrs. Durham, who was clearly eavesdropping on the conversation. “If you take the bus to school, I can drive you home from work,” her boss said.

  Wreath froze and then acted like she hadn’t heard the offer. “Thanks for stopping by, Law, but I’d better get back to work.”

  The boy reached into his back pocket and pulled out a sheet of paper. “Here’s your class schedule—and the bus times.”

  “You told Miss Watson you’d bring this to me?” Wreath whispered, a catch in her voice.

  “What’s the big deal?” Law asked. “I told her I’d bumped into you a couple of times, and I’d give you the information if I happened to see you.”

  Wreath’s eyes met Faye’s and then went back to Law’s.

  “Thanks a lot,” she said. “I’ll see you at school tomorrow.”

  As the door eased shut behind the boy, Wreath stared off into space.

  “He’s a nice young man,” Faye said. “He can be a big help as you adjust to a new school.”

  “Why would anyone want to help me?” She was genuinely perplexed.

  Mrs. Durham looked away, and Wreath caught sight of J. D. sweeping the walk in front of the furniture store.

  “Most people are happy to lend a hand,” Faye said quietly. “You just have to let them.”

  Chapter 21

  The school bus pulled over to the shoulder, its lights flashed, and the little stop signs flew out from the sides. Wreath ran to get on.

  She wasn’t sure this was the right bus for her, but she was determined to make it to school today. She stumbled on the steps, adjusting her big pack to make it through the doors, which wheezed as the driver opened them.

  Wreath didn’t move, but glanced back at the empty rows of brown seats. “Is this bus going to Landry High?”

  “We’re sure not going to Disney World,” the driver said, but her tone wa
s joking, not unkind. “Step lively. I don’t want to get off schedule the second day.” She pulled out a clipboard, wedged beside her seat, and glanced down. “I heard I might be adding a student out this way. Are you Wreath Williams, by any chance?”

  “That’s me,” Wreath said, her face wrinkling with a question.

  “One of the kids told me you’d moved out here somewhere. Right?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Wreath said, spinning quickly to take a seat.

  The woman, who seemed older than the bus driver in Lucky, had long red hair in a knot that was unlike any hairstyle Wreath had ever seen. She stopped talking only long enough to pull the bus out onto the road.

  “My list says I’m to pick you up at the trailer park down here,” the woman said, meeting Wreath’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “Did someone get their wires crossed?”

  Wreath drew a breath. “I stay with my relatives over that way.” She pointed behind the bus. “The school said I was supposed to catch the bus down by that trailer park.”

  The woman nodded, her eyes flicking from the road to the mirror and back to the road. “The bus sits overnight at Tire World, past the state park, so I head out of town first and double back,” she said. “If you’re an early bird like today, I can pick you up first and save you a walk, as long as it’s okay with your folks. Or there’s another stop right down here, a little closer to where you live.”

  Wreath squirmed on the brown vinyl seat. What a luxury to be picked up only a few yards from the junkyard, but what if the driver figured out there weren’t any houses around? “Thanks for the offer,” she said. “I’m not sure if I’ll ride the bus every day or not. I have a job downtown after school, and my mom and I haven’t worked out all the details.”

  “The powers-that-be don’t like me to make unofficial stops, but if I see you, I’ll pick you up,” the driver said. “I won’t wait for you, though. I’d never get my route run if I waited for all my riders to primp and get their lunch money and kiss the dog or whatever other excuse they have. Let me tell you, you high schoolers can come up with pretty wild stories.”

  If she only knew, Wreath thought, looking out the window and beginning to relax. No one could make up a story as weird as Wreath’s life.

  “You’re new in town, right?” the driver asked, the bus slowing, its loud blinker clicking. “You didn’t go to Landry High last year, did you?”

  Wreath met her eyes in the big mirror again but sensed nothing more than an adult’s general interest. “We moved here this summer,” she said. “My mom’s not sure how long we’ll stay.”

  The sound of rocks on the shoulder rattled underneath the tires, and Wreath was relieved and nervous to see a cluster of students waiting. The driver was all business as five kids filed onto the bus, a couple speaking but most silent and sleepy-looking, slumping into their seats.

  The un-air-conditioned bus was already stuffy, and it was barely daylight. Students sprawled on entire rows, letting the windows down from the top, hot air from outside blowing through Wreath’s hair.

  At the next stop, the row of mobile homes where Law lived, another clump of kids tromped onto the bus, including two teenagers who came running up as the others boarded. Law was one of those two and looked out of sorts, but smiled when he saw Wreath. “Glad to see you made it,” he said, sliding into the row behind her.

  “Looks like you were the one running late today,” Wreath said, noticing that his hair was wet and his face had that just-woke-up look.

  He rolled his eyes. “My mom was supposed to wake me up, but I guess she forgot. She was still asleep when I left.”

  “Maybe you should get a new alarm clock,” Wreath said with a grin.

  “Maybe so,” he said and began to gather his things. Wreath’s heart jumped, expecting him to move up into the row with her, but instead he scooted over to the window as several more students got on the bus, including Destiny from the Dollar Barn.

  Wreath was surprised to see the girl wearing a cheerleading outfit, with her name embroidered in purple letters on the front pocket of the crisp white shirt. She smiled and said hello as she passed Wreath and slid into the seat next to Law.

  “Hey, Law, how’s it going?”

  “Overslept,” Law said. “How about you?”

  She giggled. “You know my dad. He tried to make me eat bacon and eggs this morning. He said I’d think better if I had breakfast.”

  “Must be nice,” he said. “I didn’t even have time to grab a Coke.” His stomach growled loudly, punctuating his words. While Wreath would have been mortified, Law and Destiny laughed together, as though they’d been through this drill a dozen times before.

  “You really shouldn’t stay up so late,” Destiny said.

  An unfamiliar emotion ran through Wreath, and she tried to identify it. It wasn’t exactly anger. The girl Destiny had been nice enough to her at the Dollar Barn, and Law was friendly.

  She stared mulishly out the window but listened keenly to every word in the seat behind her.

  “Do you have second lunch shift?” Destiny asked the boy. “I didn’t see you yesterday.”

  “Yep, second shift, like last year,” he said. “Everything was so crazy yesterday that I didn’t make it to the lunchroom.”

  Wreath’s heart fluttered. Maybe he had been trying to help her out with Miss Watson and missed his lunch. That would be sweet.

  “Want to sit together today?” Destiny asked.

  Wreath’s feeling of appreciation for Law’s imagined sacrifice screeched to a halt in her brain, and she suddenly identified what she was feeling. Jealousy.

  She, Wreath Willis, who had never in her life been jealous of anyone but a girl in first grade who had a toy Jeep you could ride in, was jealous of Destiny’s relationship with Law. That girl not only had a father who cooked breakfast for her but was a cheerleader and ate lunch with Law Rogers.

  Wreath thought of her own breakfast, a cereal bar and a cup of lukewarm water from a plastic jug, swatting mosquitoes. She imagined Destiny, showering in a beautiful tiled bathroom and using all sorts of hair products, while Wreath was bathing with an antiseptic-smelling towelette that dried her skin out and trying to figure out how to make her hair look like it had been washed.

  She didn’t like this new feeling at all, and swallowed hard, as though she could push it down into a hidden spot, never to be heard from again.

  “Earth to Wreath, Earth to Wreath,” she heard Destiny saying and felt a tap on her shoulder.

  She wiped the emotion from her face and twisted to look at the row behind her. “Hey, Destiny,” she said.

  “Hey,” the girl said.

  “Wreath, do you have anything to eat in that bag you carry everywhere?” Law asked. “I’m starving.”

  Wreath thought of the precious granola bar she had squirreled away for lunch, but it only took her a split second to offer it to Law.

  Chapter 22

  Adjusting her battery-powered lantern, Wreath squinted to read the type in the literature textbook. Maybe she needed glasses. The light flickered, and she winced. This thing ate batteries like kids at school ate chocolate candy. Between it and the flashlight, she was spending way too much of her money on the LIGHT category in her budget.

  She pulled out her journal and flipped to the section where she kept track of her money. $$$, the heading said, followed by neat columns of the little bit of pay she received and the steady expenditures on everything from expensive batteries to a supply fee for art class to money for the required school notebooks.

  Chewing on one of her last peanut butter crackers, her supper for the night, she looked at her food purchases, each listed separately. The amount she spent didn’t buy enough to keep her stomach from growling, but it still took a bite out of her budget. With the light she looked around the Tiger Van at the stacks of clothes she had scavenged from nearby cars and wished again she had enough money to purchase something new. A month into school, she wondered what the other kids thought of her we
aring identical things again and again, and she knelt down by the tidy rows of clothes, rearranging them into different outfits.

  She could already feel a shift in the weather and knew that her next project needed to be finding heavier clothes. While the junkyard had been nearly unbearably warm many times, she dreaded trying to stay warm in the months ahead.

  Without a dollar in her budget for fashion, she was going to have to come up with something better than this.

  Working at Durham’s Fine Furnishings after school and on Saturdays was what Frankie would have called a mixed blessing.

  In her journal she had several pages filled with details under the label MY JOB.

  Under that she had divided the pages into four categories:

  DO, DON’T DO, DETAILS, and IDEAS!!!!

  The DO column was filled with things Mrs. Durham used to emphasize, such as getting to work on time (although she was never late), sweeping first thing, and emptying the trash. The smell of leftover tuna was never pleasant, and Wreath didn’t need to be told twice to set the garbage out.

  The DON’T DO section was still evolving as she got to know her boss better. It included not leaving the back door unlocked, even when they were inside, and not breaking anything. So far she had broken one lamp, when the broom fell from where she’d propped it.

  The DETAILS list included names of people who sometimes came into the store, like J. D. and the rare repeat customer. One of the regulars in the store was Law’s grandmother, Nadine Nelson, who acted like she and Faye were old friends but mostly caused Mrs. Durham to go into the kind of shell that Wreath put around herself in the lunchroom at school.

  Details also included what to do when a shipment came in, although that hadn’t actually occurred in the more than four months Wreath had worked at the store.

  “I’ll place an order closer to the Christmas season,” Mrs. Durham had said back when school started. “People don’t shop until the end of the year.”

  “But doesn’t it take awhile to get merchandise delivered?” Wreath asked, looking through one of the dozens of glossy catalogs that landed on Faye’s always-messy desk.