Season of Change (7 page)

I wrapped my arm around her neck and tried shoving the nipple into her mouth. She jerked her head away and then tried to run away from me, her long legs stumbling over ski vests and ski ropes. Then she came back and licked my arm, bleating again.

“Look how confused she is,” I said.

Grandpa was on the computer again. “It says that sometimes they don’t take to the bottle right away. Sometimes it’s a struggle.”

“No kidding.” I wrapped my arm around her neck again and this time tried forcing the bottle into her mouth with both hands. She pulled her head out from under my arm and backed away, tripping over a pile of pillows. She made a funny sound like a kazoo.

“Once she figures out it’s something to eat, she’ll start to suck, don’t you think?” I asked. Then I stood over her, practically sitting on her, and tried to shove
the bottle into her mouth that way, so she couldn’t back away. She turned her head and struggled to get away from me, kicking up a storm with her tiny hooves. She had gotten me on the shin once and it was throbbing and I was getting out of breath.

Star stumbled to the corner of the room, staring at me.

“Let her take a break for a little while,” suggested Grandpa.

“How am I going to feed her if she keeps acting like this?”

“I don’t know.” Grandpa kept reading. “It says to move the bottle back and forth to imitate the way it nurses from its mother.”

“If I can ever get her to take the bottle.” I went and looked at the page Grandpa was reading. The fawn in the picture had its head turned up and it was drinking greedily from the bottle. I growled with frustration. Why couldn’t I get Star to do that?

Grandpa and Grandma and I stood on the sun porch, with dusk setting in, watching Star, who had decided she didn’t like the bed I’d made for her now, either, and had curled up almost inside a ski vest.

“That little thing has a mind of its own,” Grandma said.

“It says sometimes it helps to stick your finger in the side of their mouth,” Grandpa said, glancing up from the computer. “And then ease the nipple in.”

Star stood up and began licking my arm. I tried again.

I cradled Star’s head under my arm and held the bottle above her mouth. I squeezed a little milk out and let her sniff it. She licked my finger. I slid my finger into the side of her mouth, then took the opportunity to shove the bottle between her lips. She started to toss her head and then, somehow tasting the milk, she opened her big eyes wide. Eagerly, she grasped for the nipple of the bottle. I pushed the bottle farther into her mouth and the muscles in her throat began to contract as she began to drink. Now she was practically pulling the bottle out of my hand.

“She’s drinking it! She’s drinking it!”

Suddenly enthusiastic, Star scrambled to her feet. I stood and held the bottle above her head. I pushed and pulled, the way the articles Grandpa had read said to do.

Star was now making a racket, loud sucking sounds and panting while she tried to suck down the contents of the entire bottle in a few seconds.

“She seems like she’s starving,” Grandpa said.

“Just look at that little thing,” Grandma said, sounding affectionate toward Star for the first time. “It was hungry.”

Within a few seconds, the bottle was empty. She kept pulling on the empty bottle, gasping, with her
eyes wide and enthused. She started licking my arm again.

“Do you think I should give her another one?”

Grandpa checked the laptop. “It just says four ounces every three hours. So I guess we ought to wait before feeding her again.”

I knelt beside Star as she nuzzled my arm and the bottle. She was so cute I could barely stand it. “That’s enough for now, little girl.”

“Come on now, you two, I’ve been holding dinner for an hour now waiting for you to take care of that fawn,” said Grandma. “Let’s wash your hands and eat!”

I gave Star a quick pat on the head and went back through the living room to the kitchen. When I turned, I saw Star heading after me. “Can she come in the house, Grandma?”

“Absolutely not! She’ll poop on my carpet. At least the floor of the sun porch can be cleaned.”

Star, of course, paid no attention to what Grandma said and scampered right into the living room. She walked past the couch, looking curiously around, her little hooves sinking into the carpet. Then she plodded past the dining room table and onto the linoleum floor of the kitchen.

“She seems so funny walking around the house!”

“Back out on the porch, Diana!”

“Okay.” I put the baby bottle into the sink and then
picked Star up and carried her back out to the porch. I settled her in her bed. A quiet, nagging thought kept repeating in the back of my mind.

Mom and Norm would be back tomorrow. I knew they weren’t going to let me bring her home.

“Y
ou two are going to be all right?” Mama stood by the kitchen door with her overnight bag on her shoulder and her car keys dangling from one hand, looking at me, and then at Matt, who was sitting on a stool at the counter playing a game on his phone.

“Fine,” I said. All my mixed feelings about everything had tangled up into a big old knot. Part of me didn’t want to be any trouble to her, part of me felt so hurt, and part of me wanted her to leave so I could text Colleen and have her parents come get me.

“Matt, I’m counting on you,” Mama said.

“At some point, you have to trust me,” Matt said in a matter-of-fact voice.

“I wouldn’t be leaving if I didn’t,” Mama said. “And I can always count on you, Stephanie.”

I looked at the floor. Mama thought she could always count on me. Mama trusted me. Well, what about me being able to count on her?

“All right, then.” Mama gave me a tight one-armed hug. “Be good, sugar.” She looked like she was hesitating about whether to hug Matt, then decided against it. “I’ll text when I get there.”

And she shut the door. I leaned against the counter and listened to her car start and retreat up the driveway.

A flushed prickle of anger swept over me, then I immediately felt guilty for being mad. Mama had a right to be happy, and Barry made her happy. I glanced at Matt, still focused on his phone.

I was not going to be afraid of him. He was being nicer. Anyway, we were only going to be together for a few minutes. I knew he wouldn’t tell on me. Not after all that he’d done.

I got out my phone. Now was the time. I texted Colleen.

I took a deep breath. I’d just gone behind Mama’s back. But she’d left! While I waited for Colleen to answer, I saw that I had also gotten a picture text from Diana. I opened it and saw the sweetest little spotted fawn lying on Grandma and Grandpa’s sun porch. A fawn! The message below said she’d found it, named it Star, and was feeding it from a bottle. Typical Diana. How could we do anything without Diana getting involved with some animal? I had to admit, I was curious.

“Hey,” I said to Matt. “Diana found a fawn and is feeding it from a bottle.”

“No way.”

“Way,” I said. “She found it in the woods.”

Matt put down his phone to look at the picture. “Aww.”

My phone dinged. Colleen.

What
was
I wearing? I better go get changed. A tingle of excitement ran up my spine, thinking about seeing Hunter. I couldn’t believe he’d invited me.

I went upstairs and put on the tank and jeans shorts that Mama had gotten me today. I looked at myself in the mirror over my dresser. Would people be wearing skirts at this party? Dresses? Should I wear the sundress instead?

Maybe I’d borrow some of Mama’s perfume. I went down the hall and into her and Barry’s room, hesitating just a minute outside the dark doorway. I used to go in Mama and Daddy’s bedroom but I didn’t go into Mama and Barry’s. I turned on the light and went past the king-sized bed with the brocaded comforter into the powder room where she kept her perfumes, makeup, and jewelry box. I used to love watching her get dressed to go somewhere. She’d taken her favorite perfume with her, but an almost empty bottle of another stood on the granite bathroom countertop. Looking at myself in the mirror, I sprayed it on my wrists and behind my ears, just like I’d seen her do.

I could talk to Hunter about his lifeguarding job. In addition to swimming, he had also played soccer on the JV soccer squad this past year. He’d said in Biology that he wanted to be a doctor. I wondered if one or both of his parents were doctors. I’d probably meet them tonight. I’d seen them sitting in the stands at games and stuff like that but never met them.

How many people were going to be there? Would it be mostly sophomores? Colleen and I had been invited, but what other freshmen had?

I ran my palm over the smooth wood of Mama’s jewelry box. I had always wanted to try on Mama’s pearls. Now was my chance. They were cool to my touch as I lifted them from the small compartment where they
were coiled, and felt smooth and heavy against my neck as I clasped them. They had a pinkish cast, and they seemed to glow softly. Mama told me real pearls feel cool at first but quickly absorb the warmth from your skin.

I looked at myself in the mirror. The pearls made me look more like Mama. All of a sudden I didn’t want to look like her or be like her. In a rush, I unclasped the pearls. As I was putting them back, my phone dinged.

From Colleen. I ran my brush through my hair once more, slicked on some lip gloss, and headed downstairs.

“Is there such a word as
shamt
?” Matt asked as I entered the kitchen.

“I don’t think so. You could take off the
t
and have
sham
,” I said.

“I need that triple word space.”

“Oh. Well, what other letters have you got? You could do
mash
and add an
ed
to it or something.”

“Hmm.” He looked up from his game and saw my outfit. “You going somewhere?”

“Oh, yeah. I got invited to a party, and my friend Colleen’s parents are giving me a ride. I’ll be back later.”

“Does your mom know you’re going?”

“No.” I played nervously with the zipper on my
purse. “But I’ll just be gone for a few hours. Anyway, she probably doesn’t care.”

Matt tilted his head at me. “What makes you say that?”

I shrugged. I wasn’t used to having one-on-one conversations with Matt. He wasn’t exactly someone I felt like opening up to.

When I didn’t answer, he put down his phone and looked at me earnestly. “One thing I found out when I had my accident was how much my parents
do
care. I mean, Dad and Mom both went without sleep for the first few days waiting for me to wake up. And I saw both of them like, lose control and break down crying. It made me think twice. I realized that they probably care about me more than anything else.”

I nodded. “Yeah, Barry scared me speeding to the hospital.”

“Seriously. So think about that. I’m not going to tell that you’re going to this party or whatever, but don’t make the mistake of thinking that your parents don’t care. And, you know, don’t drink and drive.” He grinned and wagged his finger at me.

I laughed. A question that I’d wondered about came into my mind. “Since you were almost killed, do you ever think that maybe God saved you?”

Matt squinted at me. “What do you mean? I don’t know, I don’t think about stuff like that. Those sayings
about God caring for every little bird — I don’t believe that. Why would God care about me?”

“Why wouldn’t he?” I asked. There seemed like so much more to say. I wanted to tell him that I thought he was wrong.

But just then my phone dinged. Colleen.

I looked up at Matt. “Seriously, you should think about it. My ride’s here. I’ll be back later.”

“Okay. Have fun.”

Dusk was falling as I ran out to the driveway and jumped into the backseat with Colleen.

“Mm, you smell good,” she said.

“Oh, no, did I put on too much?”

“Maybe a little.”

How embarrassing! I tried rubbing the perfume off my wrists onto my shorts.

Fifteen minutes later, Colleen and I stood on the front step of a two-story colonial with a rose bush blooming beside the door. A deep pounding beat came from music inside and made the whole house vibrate. We waved goodbye to Colleen’s parents, who were off to dinner and a movie before they returned for us. On the drive over, Colleen’s mom asked if Hunter’s parents
were home, and Colleen answered, “Hunter’s a straight A student. He would never have a party without his parents knowing about it.”

But now, as her parents pulled away, she turned to me, put her long, straight blonde hair behind one ear, and said to me, “His parents are out and won’t be home until later. They told him it was okay to have a few friends over.”

My breath caught in my throat. The party was going to be totally different than I had expected.
Should I stay?
I immediately thought, but then I got mad at myself.
Of course I’m staying
. It would be okay. His parents had said it was okay for a few friends to come over. And Mama was on her way to Asheville. And Daddy and Lynn were out of town, having heart-to-heart talks with
Jon
and
Olivia
. I took a deep breath.

“No one’s going to hear if we ring the doorbell,” Colleen said. We pushed the door and it swung open. The front hall and living room, with shiny hardwoods and oriental rugs, were empty of people. Music blasted from the back of the house.

“Come on.” Colleen pushed me over the threshold.

A guy and a girl I didn’t know stood just outside the kitchen entrance with their arms wrapped around each other. The girl was whispering in the boy’s ear. Colleen and I edged past them and stepped into the kitchen.

Four people were sitting around the kitchen table playing Spoons. As we walked in, someone grabbed a spoon, and chairs got turned over as everyone else lunged for the rest of the spoons in the center of the table. Jenna Wentworth and Carrie Shepherd, two girls from the JV soccer team, each had one end of the last spoon and were yelling at each other.

“I got it!” Carrie shrieked, half laughing.

“Oh no you don’t!” Jenna cried. She leaned back and pulled it from Carrie’s hand until the spoon bent and slid from Carrie’s hand. Jenna held the spoon over her head. “Yes!”

Carrie slumped back in her chair with a snort of disgust. “I hate this game!”

A second later, she sat up and pounded her fist on the table. “Rematch. Deal the cards.”

On the counter, along with a couple of empty chip bags, a bowl that had once had some kind of light-colored dip in it had been scraped clean.

A couple of guys from the swim team sat on the sofas in the sun room, one with a guitar. The sliding door to the back deck was open and a bunch of JV soccer players sat around outside laughing and joking.

One of the swimmers looked over at us.

All of a sudden I felt like I was walking onstage
wearing a bathing suit with a spotlight on me. I wanted to die.

I put my hand on Colleen’s arm, to steady myself. “I don’t see Hunter anywhere. Do you know if any other JV cheerleaders were coming?”

“Beth and Ashley said they might.”

“Where are they?”

We peeked out on the back porch, where everyone was talking about a summer soccer camp on a college campus. No Hunter.

“Hey,” Colleen boldly asked one of the guys. “Is Hunter here?”

They all laughed.

“You would think so, since it’s his house,” one of the guys said. “Try the basement.”

“Come out here and talk to us!” one guy yelled. “We won’t bite!”

“Maybe later,” Colleen said, laughing.

We headed back through the kitchen. “When I saw Hunter today at the mall, he was with Kerry Donovan,” I said. “Look for Kerry.”

We threaded our way to the basement stairs, through people watching the Spoons game, and started to make our way down. Music wafted up the stairs, along with the smack of billiard balls, the sharp rhythmic rap of ping pong balls, and the buzz of people talking and laughing.

As we went down the stairs, the air got cooler. I felt chilly in my tank and shorts, and shivered. But maybe that was because I was nervous.

Downstairs, I finally saw Hunter. He and Kerry were playing pool with a girl named Megan, who was also on the girls’ soccer team. I had played some pool, since Mama and Barry had a pool table in the basement. It looked like they were playing rotation, where you start by trying to get the one ball in the pocket, and then the two, and so on, all the way up to fifteen. A few other people stood around watching. Two people were lying together on the couch beside the pool table kissing. The guy was rubbing his hand up and down the girl’s back.

On the other side of the rec room, a guy and a girl were playing a wicked game of ping pong.

“Stephanie! Colleen!” Kerry yelled. “You made it!”

Everyone looked at us, and I felt heat rising to my face. I was afraid to look at Hunter.

Suddenly Kerry, using his pool cue like a microphone, started singing along with the song, about being glad we came. Everyone started laughing, and then Hunter picked up another cue and started singing along too, like they were in a boy band.

“… and make you glad you came!” they sang together, swaying beside the pool table, then they
counted down and did a turn together. Everybody clapped, laughing.

I was laughing too, and I felt warm all over.

“Come play some pool,” Hunter said. “We’ll take you on after this game.”

“Okay, sure!” Colleen said.

“Okay.” I smiled shyly at Hunter. He was dressed very preppie, with khaki shorts and a polo shirt.

“Have a Coke or something,” Kerry said, pointing to a refrigerator behind a bar in the corner.

“You act like you live here!” Colleen joked.

“He practically does,” Hunter said.

The chorus to “Glad You Came” blasted through the basement again and Kerry and Hunter sang into their pool stick microphones and turned around, laughing.

I took a deep breath.