“That’s strange. Kate’s never acted up before,” her sister said now, looking at the two lights across the way.
“It ain’t Kate. It’s the son,” Willa answered, staring stonily at the two lights.
“Josh? I thought he lived in Richmond.”
“No, the other one.”
“Oh, Sawyer,” Thel said with a sneer of remembrance. “I heard he lost a leg in the Middle East or something, but that was years ago.”
“I heard that, too,” Willa said, thinking of the faint limp she’d seen as he walked out of the dealership. His leg must have been hurting him, she thought. “You wouldn’t think a three-story house would be his first choice as a suitable residence.”
“No, you wouldn’t.” Thel responded, frowning at the lights. Obviously finding it hard to believe it was really Sawyer and not Kate who’d turned them on. “Why do you think he’d come back here?”
“I don’t know,” Willa answered. “But he did.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he bought me a car earlier.”
“Oh,” Thel said, since that explained everything. But then the penny dropped… “Wait, what?!?!”
3
WILLA wasn’t surprised her sister found it hard to believe the younger Grant brother bought her a car. Sawyer Grant was the worst thing that ever happened to Willa in high school. Her mother had seen it in a vision that Trevor’s father was running around on her with the receptionist at his job. And that had been the end of their time in Richmond in a relatively nice charter school with a seventy-percent black student ratio.
So shortly after turning sixteen, Willa found herself walking beside her older sister down the halls of Greenlee High—yes, even the school was named after Sawyer’s mother’s family. Books held tight to her chest, hoping and praying all these white kids would just ignore the two new black students—the only black kids in their midst. The daughters of the woman the town had already dubbed “The Crazy Librarian,” and who the local newspaper had just announced had filed suit against one of their most illustrious residents.
Willa did not get her wish.
Instead, she got Sawyer Grant—just about the grossest rich white kid who might have ever lived. All those entitled rich kid clichés you see in movies and read about in books? That was Sawyer. Red sports car—check. In fact, every school day you could find his Corvette parked diagonally across two teacher spaces. Big house on the hill—check. In fact, she and Thel could see the back of the antebellum plantation house from their bedroom window. Stupid girls falling all over him—check.
When Sawyer first spotted them in the hallway of his school, he was literally walking down it with a blond cheerleader under each arm.
“Hold up, hold up,” he said with a mean laugh when he walked past her and Thel. “I know I’m not seeing what I think I’m seeing.”
He’d pulled the cheerleaders to a stop right in front of them. Using their bodies like barricades, so Willa and Thel couldn’t easily move past them without splitting up. And the one thing they’d agreed not to ever do when they came to this all-white school? Split up. They might have different last names, but they were sisters through and through. No sister left behind. At least until Trevor’s accident. Then Thel up and ran away from Greenlee, Willa, and everything else that reminded her of their younger brother.
But back then, Thel had growled, “Get out our way.” Her heavily made up eyes slitting on the tiny cheerleaders like she was going to beat them down right there in the hallway if they didn’t step aside.
The unspoken threat felt like a real thing that could easily happen. Unlike Willa, Thel was built like a brick house. Curves for days everywhere but her chest, which she made up for with a collection of carefully curated push up bras. But even without the miracle bra, she probably weighed more than both the petite cheerleaders combined. And so the cheerleaders regarded Thel nervously, looking like they might give way.
But Sawyer kept them there. And like the show horses they were, they stayed put despite their obvious discomfort.
“I can’t believe you two are really here at my school,” he said with faux honor.
Thel just swatted. Like Sawyer was a bug getting in her considerably cool way. She’d ruled their last school with her combination of stunning looks, rich curves, perfectly winged eyeliner, and Teflon confidence. And for a second, Willa thought it might be the same here.
She’d stand up to Sawyer on their first day in this all-white high school, like you stand up to the biggest guy on your first day in prison. And everybody would know not to mess with them. The pretty blond fillies were already whinnying, “C’mon, Sawyer, let’s just go.” Tugging on his shirt.
“Relax girls, I want to give our two newest students a proper welcome,” he said. “How ya’ll liking my school so far?”
“I guess it’ll do,” answered Thel, bold as a fall blizzard. “Thinking I might join the cheerleading team. Show them how real cheerleaders do.”
The two fillies became even more nervous at that statement, shifting in their Keds, obviously not knowing what to do.
Sawyer kept on smiling. But the smile didn’t reach his eyes, which were the color of swamp mud, lazy and mean.
“You got a mouth on you, girl,” he told her. “I’m trying to decide whether your new nickname should be Mouth…” He let his gaze fall to her overly inflated chest. “Or Miracle Bra.”
His cold eyes flickered over to Willa then. Like a snake. “Already know I’m going to call this one Stork.”
Thel, who had a comeback for everything, didn’t seem to have one for this. Instead, she stared at him for a few hot seconds, before grabbing Willa by the arm and pulling her around Sawyer’s left cheerleader.
“C’mon,” she said to Willa, shoving the little blonde so hard, she nearly fell over. “Don’t mind that asshole.”
But he’d been too hard not to mind. He was mean to her and Thel, but for everyone else, Sawyer had his charms. Most of the guys at Greenlee either liked him or wanted to be like him. Most of the girls either hooked up with him or were jockeying for a spot on his wait list, once he was done with his current girl. Willa couldn’t understand the attraction, like at all. And even though Thel and her were the ones with the crazy mother, Willa had to wonder if every white girl at the school wasn’t a bit touched in the head.
Where she saw one hundred-percent asshole, the others saw some kind of football god. But then again, he wasn’t making their lives miserable.
His friends didn’t yell out, “Caw! Caw!” every time those other girls passed them in the hallway. Even though that wasn’t remotely what storks sounded like.
The whole school, including a few of the teachers, didn’t continue to call any of those other girls “Stork,” even after he graduated, just because that’s what Sawyer Grant decided she should be called.
So yeah, Willa supposed if she were one of those other girls and if there was a case of beer involved, maybe, just maybe Sawyer would have looked like some kind of catch to her. With his tousled hair, his All-American good looks, and his green eyes (which might not have put her in mind of swamp mud if she’d been one of those other girls).