3 Willows: The Sisterhood Grows

  “It's not that he's too old for Jo,” Sheba said to Megan, resuming the version of the conversation -where Jo wasn't there. “He's too … cool for Jo.”

  Bryn laughed a little too loudly.

  “Thanks a lot,” Jo piped up.

  “Not too cool. I mean, too slick,” Sheba amended. “He seems like a player, doesn't he?”

  “Possibly,” Megan said.

  “Likely,” Violet added.

  “He looks like trouble,” another -waitress, named Caroline, agreed.

  “But he's so hot!” Bryn opined, eager to stay in the conversation.

  Jo -watched them gather up their things and drift out of the restaurant. Jo and Bryn -were left to themselves. She could still hear the older girls discussing the potential of her and him. It didn't seem to make any difference that she -was no longer among them.

  The terrain got rockier over the next two days. The group did their first technical climb, -which meant they used ropes.

  Amas entire body shook for the hour leading up to her turn. She haltingly climbed five feet off the ground, looked over her shoulder, and panicked. Her hands clung so hard to the rope she burned the skin of her palms. Her feet shook so hard she couldn't make the toes of her boots stick in any of the holds.

  Eventually Dan and Jared had to pull her up by the rope, nothing more than dead weight. When she got up to the top she thanked them, -walked a few feet away, and vomited.

  Later, after eating lunch and resting in the sun for a while, she looked out over the rock face they'd climbed. She stood a good distance back from the edge, of course, and tried to calculate its height. She figured it was probably similar in altitude to the final rappel. Maybe a little lower, but not much.

  Later still she sat on a flat rock as Maureen rubbed salve into her cut- up hands.

  “How far -was that climb?” Ama asked casually.

  Maureen held up both of Amas wrists to examine her hands in the fading sun. “Yikes, girl,” she murmured. “How did you do this much damage?”

  Ama shrugged. You should’ see my feet, she thought. “So do you know? How far it was?”

  “The climb today?” Maureen asked. “Maybe forty feet.”

  “Forty feet?” Ama exploded. “That's all?” She balled up her sore hands.

  “Could be forty- five. Not as much as fifty.” Maureen looked perplexed.

  “Not as much as fifty? Feet? You mean feet? Not meters?”

  “I mean feet.” Maureen studied her. “Ama, what's -wrong?”

  Ama clamped her jaw shut. “Nothing,” she whispered.

  The final rappel was 350 feet! That was seven times higher than the climb today. At least seven times higher. Maybe more like nine.

  Ama walked a few feet away and vomited again.

  “You're going where?” Jo asked, sitting up in her lounge chair.

  “To modeling camp,” Polly answered. “I wrote you that in one of my e-mails, didn't I?”

  “I don't think I got that,” Jo said guiltily. “What is modeling camp?”

  “It's in Gaithersburg.”

  “Not where is it. What is it?” Jo practically shouted into her cell phone. “What do you do there?” The truth -was, Jo had finally returned Polly's call at a time when she believed Polly would be busy babysitting or something, but instead Polly had eagerly picked up on the first ring. Jo was already frustrated with Polly before she'd even said hello.

  “You learn about modeling. All kinds of things, I guess.”

  “Like what?” Jo saw her mother appear on the spacious deck at the back of their house in her big straw hat and her black bikini. Jo looked away. It was a lot more of her mother than she felt like seeing.

  “I don't know. Fashion, makeup. You know, photography and stuff.” Polly's voice got quieter. She sounded less confident the more she spoke.

  Jo made herself stop and breathe. “I didn't mean to sound negative. I just didn't realize they had a camp for that.”

  “Is it because you don't think I could be a model?”

  Jo heard that plaintive sound in Polly's voice and forced herself to quiet her impulses. If it had been Ama, she could have been honest. No way! You don't look anything like a model. Ama was tough in that particular-way. Then again, if she'd been talking to Ama, the honest answer -would have been Sure, go for it, because Ama actually did look like a model. But she couldn't tell Polly what she really thought. Polly was not tough in that way.

  “Polly, I don't know. I'm no expert.”

  “Do you think I have the wrong look?” Polly sounded so sad and serious, Jo almost caved in.

  But Polly did have the wrong look. She had big boobs and a wasp waist. She had big features, serious cheekbones, and an overbite—the kind of face you had to grow into. Polly was beautiful in a weird way, but not in a way that most people recognized.

  “Polly, I think that you are going to be a slow cooker, you know? In, like, twenty years, you're going to be a lot prettier than those modely- looking girls, I bet.”

  Polly was quiet for a moment, and Jo found herself hoping that this would do the trick.

  “But Jo, you can't start being a model when you're in your thirties.”

  Jo bit her own knuckle. “Polly. I'm not just talking about being a model.”

  “Well, I'm just talking about being a model,” Polly said.

  “Okay, okay. Listen, have fun at the camp. I didn't mean to sound negative.”

  “So you think it could work out? The modeling idea?”

  “Sure,” Jo said wearily. “Why not.” It was a small capitulation. What did it matter? It would get Jo off the phone, if nothing else.

  Jo was exhausted. She was confused. She was depressed by the sight of her bikini- clad mother trying to scrub two spots of white paint off the deck railing, her new tummy tucked for all to see. Jo was depressed that Polly could be so optimistic about things that weren't going to go her -way.

  Including Jo. Polly remained optimistic about staying really close, and sometimes Jo just wanted her to ease up.

  Sometimes being friends with Polly felt like being friends -with her younger self, like she knew what was going to happen and that it wasn't going to be good. Jo wanted to keep going forward, and Polly always pulled her back.

  •••

  “Goldie!”

  Jo walked out the back of the Surfside after a late dinner shift and two tables in her section -who kept ordering pitchers of beer and would not leave. She thought everybody except Jordan and Hidalgo were already gone, but a certain person materialized at her side just beyond the Dumpsters.

  “Hi,” she said shyly.

  He wasn't shy at all. He grabbed her hand and kissed her knuckle. He put both hands on her -waist and kissed her jaw. “I've been -wanting to do that all night. Do you -want to go get something to eat?”

  She thought of the -warning of the older girls in the bathroom. Did anybody see that? Was she going to hear about it tomorrow? She thought of her curfew and her mother -waiting for her.

  He kept her hand and pulled her along the board-walk.

  “I have to be home soon,” she protested. She didn't -want him to think she -was the kind of girl -who -would just start kissing him in any old place at any time. Even though he had pretty good reason to think that.

  “It -won't take long.” He stopped at the first fudge stand and ordered the assorted half- pound. He paid for it -with newly earned tip money. “See? I got dinner,” he said, holding up the box proudly. “Let's go eat it on the beach and then I'll take you right home.”

  She followed him down onto the sand, a sense of fun building in her heart. It was a Sunday night beach, dark and deserted, just the way she could least resist him. He pulled her close as they sat down on the sand, just beyond the surf. The air -was sweet on her skin, -warm but not hot. He opened the box of fudge and handed her a piece. “This kind is good. It's got peanut butter, I think.”

  “Very nutritious dinner,” she said. She was shaking a little. She hea
rd the giddiness creeping into her voice.

  “Nutrition is important to me,” he said.

  She took tiny bites of hers. She was too excited to eat.

  He took a green one from the box and examined it suspiciously. “What is this, do you think? Fudge should not be green.” He drew his arm back and tossed it far into the ocean.

  “Hair should not be green,” she said softly, knowing it was dangerously flirtatious.

  He laughed delightedly and turned to her in a way that she knew meant he was going to kiss her. He kissed her. What could she do?

  Couldn't you be more… awkward? she wondered of him. How did he just get her kissing him like this without even having to suffer for it? She thought of Arlo Williams at the seventh- grade picnic taking hours to build up the nerve to put his arm around her.

  This guy was so good at kissing. She understood what that meant as she never had before. He was her first real make- out partner, but in the distant part of her brain—the place where she'd stuck her conscience—she knew that she was not his.

  She pushed him away, flushed. She tried to catch her breath. “I have to ask you something, okay?” she said.

  He nodded, obviously eager to get back to kissing her. “Anything you want to know.”

  She paused. “What's your name?”

  Ama thought about it all night and made a decision. It was a hard one, but inescapable: grades don't matter -when you're dead.

  She found Maureen packing up her gear after breakfast.

  “I can't do it.”

  Maureen looked up. “What can't you do?”

  “The final rappel.”

  Maureen nodded thoughtfully. “I know you must feel like that.”

  “I do feel like that. And it's also true.” Ama tried to keep the quaver out of her voice.

  “It's not, though.”

  “Maureen, I can't. I know I can't. Really.” Ama nervously tapped the clunky toes of her boots together.

  Maureen touched her -wrist. “Look, hon. I know it's going to be hard for you. I really do. It's going to take more from you than from anyone else on this trip. I understand that. But you can do it. I know you can. And you're going to feel so good about yourself when it's done.”

  “I'll be dead by then. How can I feel good about myself -when I'm dead?”

  “You won't be dead. Would I let you die?”

  Ama wanted to answer Maureen's encouraging smile, but she couldn't do it. She recognized what a pretty smile she had, though. Maureen -was one of those people whose prettiness crept up on you over time, in step with their niceness.

  Ama trudged away to pack up her things. She hoped Carly -was off making out with somebody or other so she wouldn't have to talk to her -while she pulled down their tent.

  “I'm glad you talked to me about it,” Maureen called to her.

  Ama looked over her shoulder. “But it didn't do any good.”

  “Maybe it did.”

  “Do you want to come out with us later?” Megan asked Jo as she reset table eleven for the third time. It was another busy night at the Surfside, fast turnover and good tips. All the servers were in a happy mood.

  All except Bryn and Lila, another bus girl, -who overheard this invitation -with an expression of shock and envy.

  “Sure. Thanks,” Jo said. She went about her -wiping and setting-with a burgeoning sense of rightness. She hadn't realized that she minded not being asked to join the postshift parties. None of the bus girls were invited. But now that she had been asked, she felt sorry for Bryn and Lila. And she felt backwardly sorry for herself for every night before this one.

  She'd have to call and get permission, but she guessed her mom -would go along -with it. Her mom had always wanted her to be popular as she herself had been. It was also good, because Jo wouldn't end up kissing Zach between the restaurant and home, as she had done for the last few nights. She'd get a night off and build up her strength to resist the other things he was wanting her to do -with him.

  “Let's go to the bowling alley. We can dance,” Caroline suggested during the makeup, planning, and gossip session in the bathroom just after the shift ended.

  “There's a new guy who cards, though,” Sheba said. “Let's go to the Midnight Room. I think somebody's playing tonight.”

  “Brent will try to get us to stop at the arcade,” Megan pointed out.

  “And you're the one who has to say no,” Violet shot back.

  Jo snapped her head back and forth, taking in the different opinions, joyful to be included. She hoped she wouldn't get laughed at for not having a fake ID.

  Bryn caught her on her -way out of the bathroom. “You're so lucky! I can't believe they asked you to go out with them. Seriously. You make me sick.” She said the last thing like it was a compliment.

  “It's because of Zach,” Lila, the other bus girl, said.

  Bryn nodded.

  Jo went outside to call her mom, and when she turned on her phone, she saw there was a message from an hour and a half or so earlier.

  “Get home in a hurry,” her mom said on the message. “I've got a surprise here for you.”

  She called her mother back. “What is it?” she blurted out.

  “It's not a what. It's a who.”

  “Is Grandma there?”

  “Noooo …” Her mom -was obviously trying to be mysterious.

  “It's not Dad, is it?” She knew as she said it that it couldn't be, because if it was, her mom -would sound guarded and complicated. She wouldn't present it like this.

  “No.”

  “Then -who is it?”

  “Come home and see.”

  “Just tell me,” Jo whined, feeling deflated. Jo didn't feel like having to go home and see. She'd rather go out to the bowling alley or the arcade or -whatever. “It's probably one of your sisters,” she said sullenly, feeling guilty as she did.

  “It's not. Just come home, -would you?” her mother said. She -was starting to get tired of her own game. Nothing between them stayed fun for long.

  Jo made her excuses to the group of girls spilling out of the bathroom and trudged home on the road instead of along the ocean as she usually did. She wasn't going out and having fun and she wasn't even going to get kissed. She found herself -wishing Zach -would pop out from behind a shrub. Where -was he tonight, anyway?

  Her big surprise, as her mother had promised, -was -waiting for her on the front deck -with big dark eyes and an earnest expression.

  “Hi, Polly” Jo said.

  “I hope it's okay that I came,” Polly said as they sat on facing counters in Jo's kitchen and Jo ate a bowl of Cheerios.

  Jo nodded, her mouth full, eyes on her spoon. She'd taken out her contacts and put on her glasses, -which -was a relief. She'd been -wearing her contacts for days. Besides her family, Polly and Ama -were the only ones -who knew she -wore glasses.

  “I thought you might need a friend,” Polly said solemnly.

  I have a friend. I have plenty of friends. I even have a boyfriend, Jo -wanted to say. “Why's that?” she said.

  Polly looked at her strangely. “Because of your parents.”

  Jo looked up. “What do you mean?”

  Polly looked baffled. “Because of them splitting up.” She looked like she -was going to cry.

  Jo put her spoon down. “Who told you that?”

  “Your mom did. Last time I called. I asked her how she was doing, because, you know, she sounded sad.”

  “She told you?”

  “She thought I already knew. She thought you told me.”

  Jo didn't know -which direction to go in. Every direction was uncomfortable and bad and she couldn't push herself in any of them.

  Polly had talked to Jo's mother about it. Jo didn't even talk to Jo's mother about it. Polly was hurt and didn't understand why Jo hadn't told her.

  “It's not that big of a deal,” Jo murmured. She looked down at her Cheerios, but she couldn't eat another one.

  “It's not?”

&
nbsp; Jo shook her head. She felt unimaginably tired all of a sudden. She didn't know if she could make it to her bed.

  “You sure you're okay?” Polly was studying her carefully.

  Jo got up. “Yeah, just tired,” she said. “It was a long shift at the restaurant. My feet are aching.”

  “You want to just go to bed?” Polly's eyes were forgiving. She could have pressed her own hurt feelings on Jo or demanded the nitty- gritty of exactly what had happened -with her parents, but she didn't. She didn't want Jo to feel bad.

  “I guess so.” Jo did feel bad. In too many -ways to think about. She also felt guilty. “Thanks for coming, Pollywog. It was nice of you.”

  Polly nodded and followed Jo to her bedroom. Jo saw that Polly had already pulled out the trundle bed and found a pillow and blanket for herself. Her suitcase sat next to the dresser. She knew her -way around the linen closet. She'd slept here many times.

  “Maybe we can go to the beach tomorrow,” Polly suggested.

  “Okay” Jo said, -wondering just how long Polly -was planning to stay. Jo felt guilty as she tried to think of nice ways to tell Polly she had to go home.

  As they lay in the dark, Jo tried to fall asleep, but tired as she was, she couldn't. She could tell from Polly's breathing that Polly hadn't fallen asleep either. But she was quiet.

  “I'm sorry I'm not, you know, up for doing stuff tonight,” Jo said.

  Polly nodded in the near- darkness. “That's okay. I understand. I know it's a hard time for you.”

  The first letter Ama threw away immediately. She had no intention of sending it. She needed to vent and Polly was always the one for that, the best and least judgmental listener. The second letter she put in the bag for the mail drop in Port Angeles.

  •••

  When Jo first woke, she didn't know where she was. She was scared and disoriented for a moment, thinking she was home in Bethesda and Finn -was calling to her from his bedroom next to hers. She could hear his voice perfectly, even though she hadn't heard it for such a long time. Her heart was racing as she sat up in her bed. Slowly she focused her eyes on her surroundings. Sunshine was spilling through the window. She heard the roll of the waves beyond the house. Gradually she placed herself in space and time. It wasn't always a relief to remember -where you were.