First Thrills - Lee Child [123]
I was crying about something that day, I don’t remember what. It was past ninety degrees, a sweltering summer afternoon. A shadow cast darkness across my right foot. A strange girl stood on the sidewalk in front of the A-frame house I grew up in. A yellow-haired goddess. When she spoke, I felt a rush of love.
“Hey girl,” she said. “Would you like to play?”
“Do I wanna play?” I answered, suddenly numb with fright. I’d never had a playmate before. Most folks’ kids steered clear of me. The nearest child my age was a bed-ridden boy who smelled funny and coughed constantly. Mama made me go over there once, but after I screamed as loud as I could and pulled his hair, she didn’t make me go back. Mama’s garden-club friends didn’t bring their spawn to visit with me while they played canasta under the billowing tent in the backyard. There was no one else.
“Are you simple or something?” the girl asked.
“Simple?”
“Oh, never mind.” She turned her back and started away toward the river, skipping every third step. She wore a white dress with a pink ribbon tied in the back in a big bow—the kind I’d only ever wear on Easter, to go to church with Mama. Even from behind, she was perfect.
“Wait!”
My voice rang as true and strong as it ever had, deep as a church bell. She stopped, dead in her tracks, and turned to me slowly. Her eyes were wide, bluer than Mama’s china teapot. Then she smiled.
“Well. Who knew you’d sound like that? I’m Carol Ann. It’s nice to meet you.”
She strode to me, her hand raised. I’d never shaken hands with a girl my age before. It struck me as awfully romantic. She grasped my hand in hers.
“How do,” I mumbled.
“Now, is that any way to greet your dearest friend?” Her voice had a lilt to it, Southern definitely, but something foreign, too. She squeezed my hand a little harder, her little fingers pinching mine.
“That hurts. Stop it.” I tried to shake loose, but she was like a barnacle I’d seen on Tappy’s boat once. Tappy took care of the rest of the yard for us. He wasn’t allowed to touch the flowerbeds, but someone had to mow and weed and prune. Mama could grow grass like nobody’s business, too.
“Not until you do it right. My God, am I going to have to teach you manners as well as how to bathe?”
She wrinkled her nose at me and I realized how sweet she smelled. Just like Mama’s flowers. I was lost. I looked her straight in those china blue eyes, my dull brown irises meeting hers. I cleared my throat, but I didn’t smile.
“It’s nice to meet you as well.”
She dropped my hand then and laughed, a tinkling, musical sound like wind chimes on a breezy afternoon. She had me enthralled in a moment.
“Let’s go skip rocks in the river.”
“I’m not allowed. Mama says—”
“Oh, you’re one of those.” She dragged the last word out, gave it an extra syllable and emphasis.
“One of what?” My hackles rose. Two minutes and we were having our first fight. It should have been a warning. Instead it made my blood boil.
She smiled coyly. “A mama’s girl.”
Back then, I thought it was an insult. I reached out to smack her one good, but she pranced away, closer to the river which each skip.
“Mama’s girl, mama’s girl.” She singsonged and danced and I followed, my chin set, incensed. Before I knew it, we were on the river, a whole block away from Mama’s house. I wasn’t allowed to go to the river. A boy drowned the summer past, no one I really knew, but all the grown-ups decided it wasn’t safe for us to play down there. This