If You Find Me(30)

Melissa hums to the radio, to slower songs I’ve never heard before. I sneak a few glances at her, and she catches me, winking at me, and I can’t help but smile back. At least until we reach the ginor-mous (Delaney’s word) bustling place called “the mall,” and I change my mind less than five feet from the entrance.

“What’s wrong, sweetie?”

My feet remain glued to the blacktop. I can’t look at her.

“Carey? Look at me, child.”

I look into her face, my own expressing the tangle of emotions churning my breakfast and flushing my cheeks.

Melissa looks pained, which surprises me. She takes a deep, steadying breath for both of us and then smiles her reassurance, with the kind of strength dredged up from a backbone of steel. Steel. For me.

“Here. Take these.”

She drops the key chain to the SUV into my open palm.

“You can wait in the car, okay? I’ll pick up a few things, and then we’ll go home. How does that sound?”

“Good, ma’am.” I summon up a tiny grin, all monkey arms-awkward. “Thank you, ma’am.”

“Do you know how tall you are?”

Longing runs down my innards like Pooh’s honey as I think of the Growing Trees, two hickorys side by side, where I’d carved ascending notches as I’d marked my height on one and Nessa’s on the other.

“Five feet, seven inches.”

“How about your feet? Do you know what size?”

“My sneakers are an eight? And they fit right good.”

Same size as Mama’s. But I don’t say it out loud.

Slumping in the passenger seat, barely blinking, I people-watch my eyes out. There are lots of girls my age dancing around women like Melissa, as excited as Shorty when I hold up a bone and he weaves between my legs in rapidfire anticipation.

I smooth my hair, seeing the girls’ perfect locks. Melissa made mine perfect just last week.

“Unless you want to change your style, I only need to take about an inch off the ends, straight across the bottom. I could do it for you, if you’d like.”

The ends look chunky now, and I can’t stop turning around to see them in the mirror.

I watch women navigate kids with wires hanging out of their ears, their heads bouncing rhythmically. I follow the wires down to little square boxes clipped onto their belts or disappearing inside jacket pockets.

Some talk into rectangular devices pressed to their ears, called “cell phones,” or hold them out in front of them, thumbs tapping wildly. If you did that in Obed, you could fall down a ravine or step on a venomous snake. Not paying attention, you’d miss the snippet of baby rabbit flashing by or the red shuffle fox who could easily be persuaded to visit from time to time in exchange for bread crusts or wild blackberries, twinkly tinfoil or a busted shoestring.

Delaney has both devices, and she laughed at me when I first asked Melissa what they were. In the middle of the conversation, Nessa’s head whipped toward me, her eyes wide as the harvest moon. I shook my head no.

“We cant call Mama.”

Why not? Jenessa’s eyes shout.

“Because Mama don’t—doesn’t—have one of those fancy phones.”

Delaney turns to Melissa, incredulous.

“She’s kidding, right? How can anyone in this century, let alone on this planet, not know what a cell phone or an iPod is?”

Melissa’s lips press into a hard line. Delaney throws up her hands, her signature gesture, I’ve learned by now. She glares at me before turning back to Melissa.

“What? What did I say this time?”

Melissa shakes her head slowly, a look passing between them.

“Fine. If you think I’m bad, Mother, wait until she goes to school. The kids’ll eat her alive if she doesn’t get with the program!”

School.

Each time I replay that conversation, my blood pounds in my ears and my stomach jumps like catfish in the Obed River.

It only takes Melissa one and a half shopping hours, the end of which I spend dozing. I quickly grow tired of scrutinizing my reflection in the mirror, studying the girl who lives in that glass. I hadn’t known I was beautiful until Melissa confirmed it. Going by her voice, it’s supposed to be a good thing—like winning the Mega Millions, which my father plays twice a week, or bringing down a fat buck.

Only, I don’t see it. All I see is me. And I know me. And that word doesn’t fit me. I still look exactly like the girl who lived in the woods. You can take the girl out of the woods, but not the woods out of the girl, I reckon. I still look owl-eyed, pointy-chinned, serious. I still look like I know more than I should, which I do. I still look like I’m hefting huge white-star secrets. I’m surprised every day that no one else can see.

Rap rap rap!

I open my eyes and see Melissa looking in, toting a bunch of large white bags that bump against her thighs.

“Could you pop the trunk for me?”

I watch her eyes remember. I like that she forgets.

“Here. Let me show you how.”

[page]She disappears from view, reappearing by her own door.

I know how to unlock the doors, so I do that. One flick of a switch. It’s amazing.

“Thanks, Carey. See this button here?” I lean toward her, nodding.

She pushes it, and I spin in my seat to watch the trunk open automatically.