“’sall good.” Pete rubbed his chin on his shoulder and Blue affectionately behind his ears. “I always wanted a dog.”
“Yeah, but probably not all his slobber,” I said, parking the car in its usual spot—the end of the dirt trail.
Pete helped unload our bags and backpacks and even held the still-warm jug of milk for me while I helped Mikey out. He peered doubtfully into the open container at the creamy, frothing liquid inside.
“Now that’s what I call fresh squeezed,” he deadpanned. “Goat milk?”
I laughed at the expression on his face. “Nope. Just good old-fashioned Jersey cow.”
“Ah,” he said with a queasy mile.
But I was too busy looking at our shabby lodgings, as though for the first time, and trying not to cringe at the thought of Pete seeing it through his eyes to make a response. I took a deep breath. “Come on.” I nodded him forward. And our little band of brothers walked together to the saggy front porch.
“Why don’t you just milk your own cows?” Pete inquired while waiting for me to work on a convoluted series of locks.
“Um . . .”—I jiggled the last one open—“we actually have what could be considered more of a ranch than a dairy, I suppose.”
He nodded at me, staring. I blushed and bent over to straighten a pair of sneakers sprawled haphazardly on the porch, more to give my nervous hands something to do than the urge to straighten.
“Pete,” Mikey piped up, “you gotta take off youwer shoes before you come in the house.”
“That’s just for us, you dope!” Andrew contradicted quickly.
Poor Mikey immediately hung his head. Pete laughed and rubbed his hand against the grain of his buzz in the same way I did. “Thanks for the heads-up, buddy.” Mikey beamed up at Pete, the adoration plain as the nose on his face; he wasn’t used to such fair treatment.
I had to clear another lump from my throat. “Michael Connelly,” I reprimanded gently, “thanks for bein’ so informative, but we don’t require that of our guests.” I turned to Pete. “We don’t get many out here.”
“I don’t mind . . . I’m in for the whole Connelly-after-school-experience,” he said, spreading his hands wide before gamely pulling off his sneakers.
“Hasn’t anyone ever told you to be careful for what you wish for?”
Pete smiled into my eyes. “Oh, I always do.”
Before he could read the secrets of my soul, my eyes scrabbled away to the bit of scrub still bravely greening up our deserted wasteland.
“Where do these go, buddy?” He held up two aerodynamic, navy sneakers.
Mikey’s face brightened. “Wight over hewer, Pete.” Grabbing Pete’s hand, he led him to a rusty metal tray staining our porch. Lucky Mikey.
After finally managing to get up the nerve to turn the door handle, we all stepped into our stuffy, neat-as-a-pin trailer. I immediately turned on the ceiling fan, despite the fact it wouldn’t do much more than stir the air. As if instantly on vacay-mode from the mere presence of Pete in our house, my brothers tumbled into the living room to watch some forbidden TV. I headed to the kitchen to make snacks.
“Don’t get too comfy boys,” I called over my shoulder, instantly feeling like a party-pooper. “We have hungry calves to feed.”
Pete trailed me into the kitchen and sat on one of our abused barstools, then set about the business of watching me work. I tried hard not to feel self-conscious about anything. Easier said than done, because the way he was looking at me was akin to the way Blue did when I prepared pot roast. And I was very sure that Cadet Davenport had never even laid eyes on the outside of a trailer house before, much less the inside. And I was hyper aware of every crack in the floor and chip in the dishes I set out.
But you’d never know it by looking at him. As usual, Pete was completely at ease and comfortable in his own skin, aside from the evidence of hyperthermia he continually swiped from his brow. I grimaced and edged over to the dining room, where a window was stuffed with the dinosaur that coughed and wheezed out cool air. What’s one more infraction? I thought as I punched in the button for our—ahem—hot guest.
Meanwhile, our forbidden guest continued chatting me up like there wasn’t a mechanical nightmare in the corner groaning in pain. And like he’d never tried to undermine me. Or that we’d never had a fight that had gone viral overnight. He was all rather blasé about being here, with me, in our dumpty trailer. Guess it was all water under the bridge for him.
I wasn’t so forgiving.
However, it was hard not to feel the pull of his potent magnetism. He had swiveled to see where I’d got off to, still going on in that entertaining way he had that had us all so mesmerized. So upon my return, I was rewarded with an eyeful of perfect profile. It was an odd juxtaposition—this immaculate specimen, sitting on that worn-out stool, in this cheap kitchen, with its outdated wallpaper. Talk about shabby chic. I wondered what it must be like to be so shiny and felt instantly shabby as our furnishings next to him.
Usually, I wasn’t embarrassed about being poor; there were lots of folks here that didn’t have much more than we did. I remembered once complaining to Mama because we couldn’t afford to buy matching necklaces with Ashley-Leigh. They were those fourteen-carat gold, heart-shaped, BFF novelties she thought we should buy each other for Christmas one year when we were about nine. She’d had it in her mind to show them off at school after the break.
Mama made me tell her we couldn’t afford it. I remembered it being one of the few times I had outright defied her. I’d really told Ashley-Leigh I didn’t want to buy the necklaces because they were dumb. So of course she went off crying to her mom, and then her mom called mine. Well, Mama set the record straight right away. I was mortified. And angry. I’d felt the childhood sting of life not being as fair as it ought to.
Later, Mama had found me out crying behind the chicken coop when I’d taken too long to fetch the eggs. She’d hugged me to her then proceeded to set the record straight about how lucky I was to have the gifts God gave me. She’d said that I didn’t need shiny things to show off in order to make myself feel good, because I already had everything . . . and then some. “In fact,” she’d gone on to say, “you’re so special I should lock you up, like a princess in a castle.” I remembered her exact words because of the way they tingled my spine. And I’d never heard them before or again. Afterwards, she’d squeezed me to her, telling me that people see you the way you see yourself. And that being poor wasn’t so bad to bear if you owned up to it. It was the pretending not to be poor that was so hard.
I never forgot that lesson and tried to keep it in mind while this paragon of privilege and beauty watched me throw together some peanut butter crackers and lemonade. In honor of my mother’s memory (and our esteemed guest), I decided to use real lemons and sugar. There wasn’t time to boil down the sugar, so it’d have to be a little grainy this afternoon. Anyhow, the boys wouldn’t mind.
“Can I do anything to help?” Pete’s voice rose, automatically adjusting to the ebb and flow of the noise pollution. “I kind of hate to ask because I’m kind of enjoying watching you get your Susie Homemaker on.”