Signed, Skye Harper

  97

  Eating Out

  The restaurant was too cold, seeing how a storm had swept through cooling off all the land. And still McDonald’s ran the air-conditioning. I flip-flipped my way across the tile of the restaurant, silent, while Nanny stood outside and smoked and kept an eye on Denny, who dug around in the bit of grass, and Thelma, who stared in the glass door after Steve before surrendering and sulking her way back to my grandmother and the rooster.

  I hadn’t said word one to Steve since his apology, but my insides felt sort of sloppy and happy. Still, he needed to pay. Not for the food. For, well, you know.

  We made it up to the counter, where a boy in a light brown uniform and paper cap stood waiting to take our order. His name tag read Mark.

  Mark Spitz.

  “That a chicken?” he said.

  I closed my eyes so Mark wouldn’t see me roll them. “It’s a rooster,” I said.

  “And a Lassie dog?”

  “What? That’s a black Lab.” I felt a little disgusted.

  “Can I take your order then?”{ 162 }

  Steve put his hand on my forearm. “Let me,” he said. “Three Big Macs, three large orders of fries, and three big Cokes. The biggest you have. Light ice.”

  “Anything for the dog or chicken?”

  “Ummm.” Steve looked at me. I shook my head. “No,” he said. “But give us a couple of apple pies. Throw those in there.” Steve took a wallet from his hip pocket and pulled out a wad of money.

  “Geez,” I said, pretending I had forgotten I would never talk to him again, “why do you have so much cash?”

  “I always have this kind of dough.”

  “Geez.”

  Mark the McDonald’s boy raised his shoulders at me.

  “We gotta minute before this is done,” Steve said. He grabbed my wrist and hurried me toward the back of the restaurant, where a mom and dad with three little boys who all looked the same age crumpled up their garbage and got ready to leave.

  Steve pulled me toward the alcove of the bathrooms.

  “What are you doing?” I said, “I don’t have to—”

  Steve’s mouth was on mine in a moment, a kiss that sucked the breath from me. I felt his tongue on my teeth. Then he pulled me close, turning me so my back was against the wall, and pressed against me. I could feel his heart beating.

  “What are you doing?” I said, when he set me free. His { 163 }

  face was in my neck. “I been waiting to kiss you since I moved that pillow. I could kiss you all day, Churchill. Where you been my whole life?”{ 164 }

  98

  Just This Side of El Paso

  I wanted to say, Lugging dishes around your daddy’s restaurant with my bosoms, but I still wasn’t talking to Steve. Plus that sounded like my bosoms were doing the lugging, not me. And anyway, at that moment he pulled back, stared deep into my eyes, like in a movie, and words evaporated out of my brain. Then he grabbed me by the wrist and hurried me back to the counter.

  “Your grandmother has been watching me like a hawk. It’s frustrating.”

  “Order’s ready,” said Mark.

  Outside, Nanny’s cigarette glowed in the late evening. She’d parked the motor home across one whole bank of parking spots.

  “Where are we?” I asked Mark. I could feel my pulse in my neck. My lips felt hot. Steve had the tray and carried it to an orange booth.

  “A few miles outside El Paso. We close at eleven. That’s . . .” He gestured at a clock on the wall behind him then turned and said over his shoulder, “That’s a little more than twelve minutes.”

  “Got it,” I said, and went to get straws and napkins from { 165 }

  a little condiment area. A couple of ketchup packages for good measure and why had Steve been waiting to kiss me and why did I want to kiss him, too, and would Nanny let that happen, not over her dead body, I knew that for a fact, and man! what a kiss and the way he felt all close to me like that. I could hardly swallow.

  Nanny was at the door then, Denny back in the motor home. Thelma waited on the sidewalk, looking through the glass all sad and sorrowful.

  “We’re close to New Mexico,” she said. Not Thelma. Nanny. She spoke like maybe she had heard me ask Mark. She slid in the booth next to me, scooting me over with her hips.

  Steve stood at the small table, tray in hand, then sat down with a sigh.

  Nanny ate with gusto. “I been telling your daddy a good burger on the menu is a great lunch item,” she said. Then she pointed a french fry right at Steve. “I know the Simmons reputation for loving up a girl and then breaking her heart. You won’t be doing that to my granddaughter, now will you?”

  Steve swallowed a huge bite of Big Mac. I’m not even sure he had time to chew. There was a bit of special sauce on his lip. “No ma’am, Miss Jimmie,” he said, and we all set back to eating, me wanting to fade into the plastic of our booth.{ 166 }

  99

  Real Dreams

  So I guess I shoulda known Nanny having her heart broken wasn’t going to do me any good. And neither was the fact that she had a girl when she was a couple years older than me who had a baby before she wed. Not only did Nanny watch Steve like a hawk, she kept her eyes on me in the form of words of admonition. “No one should give up her dream.”

  I stared at the tabletop.

  She took a huge bite of burger. “Don’t you think a ground-beef special like this on the menu would be a great addition?” She licked something from her fingertips. “We could make it a little different than this one here. Not so dry. Thicker. Our own special sauce that’s not ketchup and mayo. Homemade potato chips. A side order of fresh-made coleslaw.”

  Steve finished his burger and then slurped up the last of his Coke. How had he gone through the food so fast? “I gotta get another one, before they close,” he said. “I’m not used to grocery-store food.” And he hurried back up to the counter.

  Nanny turned on me.{ 167 }

  “I think a burger sounds good,” I said, with my own sandwich caught at the back of my throat so the words came out smelling like food and sounding like I might be hid under a bed.

  “I wasn’t going to say that,” Nanny said. “And you know it. I need me a coffee. I was going to say, don’t you dare think I don’t see what’s going on.”

  “What?” I bet even the ice in my Coke trembled.

  “He has a hankering for you.” Nanny dabbed at her lips. Wouldn’t be long before she was applying her lipstick without the help of a mirror. She knows exactly where her lips are, and maybe this is why she was worried about me. Maybe she thinks knowing where your lips are runs in a family. “Now, I have lost my own love. More than once if you include Judith Lee. And your real granddaddy.” She didn’t speak for a second, and I wondered if she said Leon’s name in her mind. “And I won’t see this pain happen to you.”

  McDonald’s felt awful cold. I eyed Thelma, who looked pathetic out there in the parking lot, then back at my grandmother.

  “Nanny,” I said, keeping my voice low. “You are embarrassing me. Just so you know, I am not planning on getting pregnant. And if I remember the story right, you cheated on Leon and lost him. Plus you told granddaddy you were done and he went on his merry way.”{ 168 }

  Nanny turned till she faced me in the seat. “You think I am worried about him breaking your heart?”

  I didn’t even have time to shrug.

  “I am thinking of you breaking your heart. I know how we Fletcher women are. We are women who love with a short fire of flame, if we aren’t careful. We do it too young. Fall for the one person we think might make our lives better. That’s not always the case. So I am going to be careful for you.”

  Steve was on his way back to the table, this time carrying a bag.

  “I’m not in love with him or anything like that,” I whispered at Nanny, fast. “And I want to be an Olympic swimmer. You know that.”

  “Got a couple for the road,” Steve said, holding the carryout aloft.

&
nbsp; Mark passed slow, mopping the floor with dirty water. Nanny tsked, and I could tell by the sound of it she was displeased.

  “I’m almost done,” I said.

  “Miss Jimmie,” Steve said. He clutched at the bag that seemed to have more than two Big Macs in it. “Look, Miss Jimmie.”

  “The answer is no,” Nanny said. Then she was up and out of McDonald’s, leaving perfect tennis-shoe footprints on the damp terra-cotta floor.{ 169 }

  100

  Bugging Nanny

  I kept eating. Outside I heard the motor home start. Nanny beeped at us once.

  “You go ahead,” I said. “I still have me some dinner to consume.”

  “She is one stubborn woman,” Steve said. “Dad’s told me the restaurant’s made it through some hard times because of your grandmother.”

  “Really? I don’t doubt that.” In slow motion I licked the salt from my fingers. The french fries were cool now. Not as delicious. And the burger sat heavy in my stomach, not unlike a brick.

  “You know I have only eaten at McDonald’s a few times in my life,” I said, and closed up the remainder of my food to throw it away.

  “I’ll finish that,” Steve said, and pulled the Styrofoam box toward him.

  “I’ve never had that before”—I pointed to my leftover Big Mac—“but I have to admit it was tasty.”

  Steve finished my dinner sitting at the edge of my seat. His mouth was full of food. How? How could he do that and still look so good?{ 170 }

  Mark sloshed past again, and in the rear of the building the lights were turned down.

  “We gotta go,” Steve said. He wadded up the garbage and stood.

  “Not done,” I said.

  Nanny beeped again.

  My heart thumped but I pretended it didn’t. Who did Nanny think she was bossing me around like this when I might be on the verge of my first real love.

  “Come on, Churchill.” Steve offered me his hand. There was special sauce on his pinkie. The crazy thought came to lick the sauce off, but that was disgusting. “Miss Jimmie is gonna get riled. And Dad’s told me all about her temper.”

  So they had spoken about my grandmother. I felt a bit of happiness flicker in my chest. I took Steve’s hand and let him pull me up. My flip-flops felt glued to the floor. Yes, that water was awful looking.

  “You like me?” I said, coming up close to Steve’s chest. “More than for kissing here and there?”

  Who ran my mouth? Who? Was this me being deviant? Was I talking like this because I had given Steve a three-minute silent treatment?

  I swallowed. No, I wanted to know.

  Steve’s arm went around me and pulled me up close.

  “I like you,” he said, his eyes closed and his voice not more than a whisper. “I like you, Churchill.”{ 171 }

  101

  Keeping an Eye Out, Always

  Steve climbed into the driver’s seat, and Nanny stood to go off to bed but not before saying, “I am a light sleeper. You pull this vehicle over, I will wake up. You kiss each other, I will hear your lips smack and I will wake up. You do more than drive, and I will wake up.”

  “Nanny,” I said, “you’re embarrassing me.”

  “Again?” she said.

  “Still.”

  Stars flickered on one by one in the night sky.

  Steve grinned. “I’m a pretty silent kisser, Miss Jimmie,” he said. “I feel like you’ve offered me a challenge.”

  Nanny, lips tight as a line, raised her hand at Steve, pointing with her unlit cigarette.

  “Don’t you push me none, Steve Lovett Simmons. I used to be young once. I know what love is.”

  “You’re still young, Miss Jimmie.”

  Nanny sort of halted her movements. Then she regained her composure. I saw it happen, as her face sort of melted and then firmed right back up. Oooeee, that Steve Simmons is a smooth talker!

  “I know the matters of the heart.” Nanny’s voice had { 172 }

  lost some steam. “Thelma, come on up with me.”

  Thelma eyed Steve, sort of looked at me, then walked to Nanny’s side, tail tucked between her legs. Thelma’s tail. Not Nanny’s.

  “I’m a straight-A student, Miss Jimmie. My mom and dad don’t know that because we don’t have the best of relationships and I have kept it to myself. It’s one of the things I like about your little family. And, so you know, I have only had three real girlfriends.”

  Real? What did that mean?

  Nanny wrinkled her forehead. “And you’re how old?”

  Steve ignored the question. “Plus I have never gotten anyone pregnant, like my buddy, Jeff Hill did.”

  “That’s good to know,” I said. My forehead broke out in a sweat.

  “You shouldn’t be doing things to maybe get people pregnant,” Nanny said.

  I raised my eyebrow. Something she should know. Talking from experience.

  Steve swung around in the seat. “What I am trying to say is, I’m an okay person, Miss Jimmie.”

  The sigh Nanny let out should have blown my hair back. “I know that, Stephen,” she said, and she climbed into the compartment above us. I could see she was bone tired by the way she tried to get up into the bed. “Drive us into New Mexico.”{ 173 }

  Steve started the engine and shifted the motor home into gear. He pulled away from McDonald’s then reached for my hand. “Come sit closer to me, baby,” he said.

  “And I am listening to you both,” Nanny said from above us. “I have ears like a hawk.”

  Steve grinned at me. “I know you do, Miss Jimmie,” he said.{ 174 }

  102

  Waiting

  “You getting all As?” I said. “For real?”

  Steve nodded, glanced in the rearview, and then reached for my hand again. “Sure am. Hoping for a scholarship to Ohio State. Great football team. Far from home.”

  I nodded. Almost as good a goal as participating in the Olympics. Though he would be heading into Yankee territory.

  “And why haven’t you told your momma and daddy this?” I swung my legs around till I faced Steve. I took his hand in both of mine.

  He shrugged.

  “You do too know.”

  “I see you,” Nanny said. But her voice was tired, and when I looked behind us, expecting Nanny’s head to be hanging down watching me and Steve, there was nothing. Not that I don’t believe my grandmother doesn’t have psychic powers or the ability to look through steel with her laser-beam eyes. She knows stuff. She reads minds. That’s the truth.

  “She’s not looking,” I said.

  “She could be,” Steve said, whispering. “Let’s see if she { 175 }

  is.” He tugged me close and I knelt next to the driver’s seat.

  “Tell me why you don’t tell them you are doing good.”

  “Kiss me first.”

  My heart pounded in the back of my throat.

  Outside the window, Texas was black as an armadillo hole. The moon had fallen over sideways and spilled milky light on the dark road.

  Oh, I wanted to kiss him, something bad. But I couldn’t always be kissing Steve because he said so. “Tell me,” I said.

  “Kiss me.”

  “Tell first.” Somehow I had floated a couple inches from Steve’s face. He smelled like marshmallows. How was that possible what with all the burgers he’d eaten? Did Colgate make marshmallow-flavored toothpaste?

  Steve let out a long breath of air that I thought sure might fog the windshield.

  I moved back to my chair still holding on to his hand. From above us I could hear Nanny in her beginning-sleep snores. We had time.

  “Geez, Churchill, I don’t talk to people like this.” He stared straight ahead, like the black ribbon of road, with its bit of cream moonlight, was the most important thing he’d ever seen. Steve let out another big breath. He glanced at me, all side eyed. “But I guess I can tell you.”{ 176 }

  103

  Truths

  I settled back in my seat, turned sideway
s, Steve’s hand warm in my own.

  “Look,” he said, “people don’t know this. No one knows this.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  Steve cleared his throat. “Everyone thinks my mom and dad are perfect.”

  They do? I wanted to say, but kept my mouth shut. Maybe I was a bit too close to the Simmons family since I bused tables at Leon’s and now knew of my nanny’s ill fortunes with Leon himself. I nodded instead of speaking.

  “So, my mom is like a pillar in the community. She gives all this money to the Elks Club and to charities and she even gave this hunk of change to help with the wing of the children’s hospital.”

  Yup. I knew about Fish Memorial. When I shot a nail through my foot with a nail gun, I visited the children’s wing, and I saw a picture of Janet Green Simmons, right there on the wall, cutting a big red ribbon with a giant pair of scissors. Her dog was at her feet like a tiny stuffed animal.

  “My mom . . .” Steve’s voice went down a notch. “We’re { 177 }

  good friends, Churchill. Like, really good friends.”

  I leaned closer.

  “We do all kinds of things together and she surfs with me and takes me places. But. Something’s happened.”