Wing Jones(37)
“You don’t have to take them. I know they’re just a ratty pair of old shoes. But I thought they might be more comfortable than those.” He nods at my worn-out Converse. They’ve done just fine for now, but the thought of wearing real running shoes…
“Does this make you my fairy godmother?” I ask as I take off my Converse and slide my feet into the cushiony comfort of the new old shoes.
“What?”
“You know … in Cinderella? The fairy godmother gives her glass slippers? Not that you look like a fairy … or a godmother…”
Aaron grins. “I can be a fairy godmother,” he says, his voice rumbling through me. “But maybe I’m more like that cricket in Pinocchio.”
I laugh, my feather giggles filling up the car. First time I’ve laughed like this since we went to Gladys’s. “You mean Jiminy Cricket? The one that shows him right from wrong? His conscience?”
Aaron shrugs, a feather giggle falling off his shoulder. “He’s got a dope hat. And what are you saying? That I don’t know right from wrong?”
“Jiminy Cricket never gave Pinocchio any shoes.”
“All right, all right. I’m not the cricket. I don’t know how I feel about being the fairy godmother either.”
“Yeah, you’re much more of a Prince Charming,” I say, and then snap my mouth shut. Stupid. I’m stupid.
“You think I’m charming?” He’s grinning at me, grinning his grin that I can’t help but beam back at.
“You know what? You can be the cricket,” I say as I open the door and step into the night. My feet are so cushioned in my new shoes that I don’t walk so much as bounce, like I’m walking on clouds.
CHAPTER 22
School doesn’t seem that important anymore, not with Marcus still in the hospital and me running every night with Aaron. But my mom says I’ve got to go. So I do. The pain hasn’t gone away, and it hurts, but it’s a pain I know. One that’s just there. Like a cut that can’t close, a broken bone that won’t mend. At least now I’ve gotten over that first slice, that first break.
I’ve started sitting with Monica and Tash at lunch. Aaron still sits where he’s always sat, at the football table, but I see him watching us, and I wonder if he wants to sit with us. I didn’t think Tash liked me very much, but she’s nice. Nicer than I expected her to be. She’s good with Mon too. When Mon starts crying out of nowhere, her tears falling into her French fries, getting them soggy and saltier, Tash will rub her back and position herself so people can’t really see that Monica is crying, and she’ll kinda croon to her like Mon is a baby who doesn’t know any words yet. This happens at least three times a week. Whenever it does I stare down at my sandwich till Monica’s breathing gets back to normal and she blows her nose and then she starts talking about something totally random like did we see that there’s a new baby elephant at the Atlanta Zoo or did we know that in England the Thames River is pronounced “Tems.”
Today is a crying day. Monica’s sniffling, Tash is rubbing her back, and I’m staring down at my peanut butter sandwich. I’ve been bringing peanut butter sandwiches because money is so tight I can’t afford to buy lunch. No jelly, no honey, just peanut butter on plain bread.
“Wing?” I look up and wonder what Marcus would say if he could see Monica’s puffy eyes and red nose. He’d kiss her and make it better, I know he would.
“It’s apple-picking time,” she says, and I nod, even though I don’t know what the hell she’s talking about, because this is the kind of thing she says after she cries.
“Marcus and I used to go apple picking,” she says, and Tash’s eyebrows shoot up under her thick bangs. This isn’t how after-crying conversation goes, we don’t start talking about Marcus again, and she glares at me like it’s my fault, like I brought him up, when all I’ve been doing is sitting staring at my peanut butter sandwich and thinking about running. And Aaron. Aaron and running. One thought always leads to the other and back again and round and round until I remember Marcus and that thought stops all my other thoughts.
Monica is still talking. “Marcus and I would bring back apples for Granny Dee and she’d make pie. I was thinking, maybe we should go? You and me? And maybe Aaron?” She turns to Tash, whose eyebrows are still hidden. “You can come too, of course,” she offers, but Tash is shaking her head already, shaking her eyebrows back down to their normal place on her face.
“Just y’all should go,” she says. “It’ll be good for all y’all.”
On Saturday, we end up going in Aaron’s car. Monica’s car is bigger, but she doesn’t want to drive that far. She doesn’t want to drive at all now unless she has to.
The leaves in the trees along the road are fluttering in the wind. I’d say they are straight up showing off, making themselves look like red and orange and yellow butterflies. We drive and drive, and I don’t know who does it first, it might have even been me, but we start singing Marcus’s favorite songs.
By the time we get to the apple farm, we’ve been singing for over an hour, and my face feels funny from smiling so much, like my face muscles forgot what it felt like. We tumble out of the car, and I stretch my legs, which are tense from sitting so long. Monica is staring out at the fields and trees of Whistle Apple Farms, and she’s biting her lip as the wind whips her long hair all around her. I grab her hand and squeeze. She squeezes back. Aaron is next to me, holding my other hand, and I know we probably look like we’re on a poster for superheroes, but standing there, all together, it makes me feel good. It makes me feel strong.