Forget-Me-Not Blue, page 24
In the fridge, she found the last few sugar snap peas from the garden in a little container with her name on it. Yesterday, she and Gunner had pulled up the sugar snap pea vines because they were through bearing, and planted bush beans in their place.
In the truck yesterday, coming back to Tommy’s, she’d told Gunner about The Higher Power of Lucky, about how she was reading it for the third time, about how it was her favorite book ever. And she asked him if he’d found his higher power.
He didn’t answer for so long she thought she’d offended him. Maybe a higher power was private unless the person himself brought it up.
Finally, he reached out his hand and squeezed her knee. “I do believe I have, Sofie.”
She put her hand over his and said she was so glad.
“Me too,” he said.
She got out the eggs, butter, cheese, and milk. The skillet and spatula. Their plates and placemats. Yesterday, she had picked the very first of the sweet-pea blossoms from the garden and put them on the island in a glass. When she held the little bouquet of pink and purple flowers to her nose, they smelled wonderful. Gunner told her sweet peas were poisonous—unlike sugar snap peas, which were delicious and nutritious. Why would something beautiful and nice-smelling be poisonous? It didn’t make sense. But Gunner said some things didn’t.
Today was Sunday and they were going to a ball game. But now that school was out, most days she went to work with her dad. From the restaurant, she could walk to Gunner and Con’s apartment, but her dad didn’t really like for her to. Usually Gunner would come and get her, or her dad would take a break and drive her. The restaurant was an okay place to hang out, especially when she could be on the patio. But she spent a lot of time with Gunner in the garden.
She saw Con when he was working at the restaurant. Sometimes she helped him. As they washed and dried pots and pans, or stood in the corner wrapping silverware, their arms brushed. They glanced at each other and away, the love and memories close between them.
While she waited for her dad to get off the treadmill, she texted Gunner a heart, took a selfie making a face and texted it to Connie, sent Dorie a good-morning text, then emailed her mom.
Her dad came into the kitchen wearing jeans and a T-shirt—but not a black one because this wasn’t a workday—and smelling like soap and shampoo. Every morning, he looked at her like he’d discovered a planet or won the lottery.
“Morning,” he said.
“Hey.”
“Do you want more than eggs and fruit?” he asked. “Want me to make pancakes or biscuits?”
“That’s okay. We can eat at the ballpark, right?”
“Sure.”
She was planning to have a hot dog. Maybe two. Gunner was working this afternoon and wouldn’t be with them, so she could eat all the trashy—as he called them—hot dogs she wanted.
Later, getting dressed, she put on a black skirt Dorie had bought her at the mall last week and a girly white top she’d had for a while. It was soft and so cute it made her smile. She looked in the mirror. She didn’t see a girl who punched above her weight, and she didn’t want to stop being that girl. She put on her new garden boots over red-and-white socks that showed at the top, and added a khaki baseball cap and the sparkle studs her mom stole.
“I’m ready,” she told her dad.
They picked up Jade on the way. Then Con. Then they walked a hundred miles from where they parked to the stadium where the crowd streamed in.
Sofie smelled hot dogs and thought of the soft bun, the sharp mustard, the crispy stripes on the hot dog that burst with flavor.
The first time she’d been here was the day after the night of the gun. But now she’d been here several times. Today, under a soft blue sky, everything was fine, considering her mom was in prison and she didn’t see as much of Connie and Gunner as she would like. She was beginning to understand baseball. She liked to talk to her dad about it and had learned to read box scores, which impressed Con.
She saw people in the crowd notice Con and Jade. Con being so tall, with his bush of thick, dark hair, and Jade with her red hair, made them noticeable. People smiled.
When they were in their seats—Con, Jade, Sofie, her dad—Jade took a small wrapped package out of her shoulder bag and gave it to Sofie.
“I know you’re trying to give your room your signature look,” she said, “and I thought you might like these.”
The package was lumpy and interesting. Sofie peeled away the paper. It was a coiled string of fairy lights.
“Thank you,” she said. “I know where I’m going to put them.”
“Where?”
“Around a mirror. A tall one that stands on legs and tilts. These will be perfect.”
She enjoyed the ball game. She ate lots of popcorn out of her dad’s box. It was nowhere near as good as what Gunner popped fresh, because that was truly magical. But good enough that her hand kept reaching in the box and her arm kept touching his, and he kept smiling.
That night, she put up the fairy lights. After her shower, when she was in her pajamas and about ready to get into bed and call Gunner to see if he wanted to hear more of Hatchet, she turned on the fairy lights and turned off her pink lamp.
She stood in front of the mirror in the dark room. It still fascinated her to be able to see all of herself at once. Her button-like toes from her mom, her movie-star hair from Summer Jones. Seeing her whole self dimly, framed by the tiny lights, was very strange. She thought of Lucky putting on her guardian’s silky red dress and glistening her eyebrows with a drop of oil to run away in a sandstorm.
The first time Sofie read the book, she thought that was very strange. A swaying red silk dress wasn’t a good choice for running into the desert in a sandstorm. And Lucky herself had seemed puzzled by her decision.
But a few pages later, when Lucky finally felt her higher power and she could open the vase, reach in, and finally—after two years—finally cast her mom’s ashes into the wind, the red silk dress was simply perfect.
Sofie could see it. Lucky in red as the moon rocketed into the purple sky. The silky, swaying comfort of the dress as her friends sang “Amazing Grace.”
Somehow Lucky had known, although it seemed silly at the time, that the red dress would be part of finding her higher power.
Sofie stood, perfectly still, gazing in the mirror.
The next morning, the light in the kitchen made her squint, and her dad’s white T-shirt seemed very white.
“Dad, I need a silky red dress. One that sways.”
He was looking at her with an odd expression.
He liked to buy her stuff. What was wrong?
“Say that again.”
“I need a silky red dress that sways.”
He shook his head. “No. Say the whole thing.”
Oh.
She smiled. “Dad, I need a silky red dress—”
His hug cut off the rest of her words. It was a bear hug. He kissed the top of her head, and Sofie felt something break loose inside. Something that had been blocking a big rush of something wonderful.
Sharelle Byars Moranville, Forget-Me-Not Blue
