Laura Miller - By Way of Accident

He goes back to diggin’. “You hear from Brooke?” he asks.

“No.” I shake my head. “Dad says they’ll forward the mail, but…” My thoughts stop and go a different direction. “Did you check the mailbox?”

He nods his head. “Yeah, I made Mom stop by it on our way out here. Nothin’ was in it.”

I feel my chest deflate. “Okay. Thanks anyway.”

“No problem. Hey, did you try to call her?”

“Yeah,” I breathe out. “I tried her old number a while back. Someone answered, but he didn’t know where she went.”

Tim looks up and then narrows one eye at me. “She got one of those cell phone things that people on TV have?”

I shake my head. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Damn it,” he says. Then he quickly diverts his eyes to the ground. I know I probably ain’t much to look at right now.

“You know, River, maybe she’s just real busy with gettin’ ready for high school. You know, girls always have so much they’ve got to do for things like that — like hair and clothes and shit like that. Hell, Jenny’s only ten, and she’s already thinkin’ about what she’s gonna wear for her first day of high school.”

I can’t keep my eyes from dartin’ to his. “Your sister Jenny — thinkin’ about high school?”

“Yeah,” he says, startin’ to laugh. “She’s crazy.”

My eyes fall shut, and I chuckle to myself before a leaf blowin’ by catches my attention and snaps me back to reality. “But, yeah,” I say, “you’re probably right…about Brooke.” I don’t know if he’s on to somethin’ or not, but I really hope he is. I really hope Brooke is just busy or busy writin’ a really long letter.

“Plus, I’m sure there are a bunch of pretty girls in high school,” he says. “There’s always some from those little private schools around here that you ain’t never seen before.” He lifts one shoulder and then lets it fall. “That’s what they say anyway. And I’ve seen ‘em too.” He gets a serious look on his face. “I went to a couple high school games last year, and I saw high school girls I ain’t never seen in school before.”

I sit back against the grass. I want to tell him that I’m not lookin’ for girls — that I’m just lookin’ for Brooke. But for the sake of movin’ onto another conversation, I let him think otherwise. “Yeah,” I say, noddin’ my head. “You’re probably right.”

With that he takes his stick and tosses it. It flies pretty far before it hits the water. We both watch it float for a second, then sink.

“You see the Cards game last night?” he asks.

I smile, glad that we’re onto a safer topic now. “Yeah,” I say. “Yeah, I saw it.”

If there’s one thing we can count on bein’ safe when everything else is complicated, it’s baseball. Grandpa’s sick? Baseball . Movin’ closer to town? Baseball . Your dog died? Baseball . Got caught ridin’ the four-wheeler too fast, and you’re hidin’ out from Mom? Baseball . Girl troubles? Baseball .

And that’s why I think God created baseball.

Freshman Year

“Life passes you by when your eyes are closed,” I say.

A girl with long blond hair snaps her eyes open and just stares me down for a moment. “I’m trying to remember my locker combination.”

I nod my head once and then reach over and pull on her locker door. It comes right open. “None of the locks work. I think they’re all for show.”

She looks at the open door and then back at me. “Oh. Well, thanks,” she murmurs. Her smile seems shy.

“Don’t mention it.”

I go back to grabbin’ some books out of my own locker.

“It’s Amy, by the way.”

My eyes quickly fall back onto the girl with the small voice. “River,” I say, slamming the door shut.

She smiles at me as if she’s waitin’ for me to change my mind about my name or somethin’.

“River,” she repeats after a while, noddin’ her head.

She might be from around here, but she didn’t go to school here. I think she notices the question bouncin’ around my head.

“Sears County,” she says.

The side of my mouth lifts into a grin. “Gotcha.” That explains it. Sears County is a little K-8 school in the next town over from here. They don’t have a high school, so they give the kids an option of a few high schools in the area — just like they do for the little private schools. And just like the little private schools, hardly any of the kids ever choose Boone Bluffs.

“I don’t really know anyone here,” she says, playing with the wire spirals of a notebook that’s now pressed against her chest. “But you seem nice.”

I’m not sure how she gets that idea, but I’ll do my best, I guess. “Well, I don’t really know my way around here yet either, but I’ll show ya who’s okay to hang out with and who you should probably try to avoid.”

A small smile crawls evenly across her face.

“What’s your first class?” I ask her.

She reaches into her back pocket and pulls out a wrinkled piece of paper. I do notice the little jean shorts she’s wearin’, and I try to keep my mind from goin’ back to that old creek side where I store some of my best memories.

“Algebra, I think.” She looks at the paper and then nods her head. “Yep, Room 7.”

“That’s mine too. Here, we can walk together.”

This time, her teeth show when she smiles. “I’d like that,” she says.

I feel good. I was nervous as hell when I walked into this place. Some of the kids here look as if they might as well be forty. I mean they’ve all got cars and jobs and so much confidence that it’s comin’ out of their ears. I’ve seen most of them before, but the last time I saw them, we were all in junior high and they were about a foot shorter and mostly knees and elbows. But since I’ve met Amy, all of a sudden, I don’t feel as if I’m the most lost soul in this building.

“Come on,” I say. She smiles and together we head to our first high school class — just me and Sears County Amy.

“Guys, this is Amy. She went to Sears County.”

“Aah, so you’ve come over to the dark side?” Grant asks in a sinister-sounding voice right before he stuffs a handful of soggy fries into his mouth.

I’ve known Grant my whole life. We grew up not too far from each other. We’ve been friends since they put us on the same peewee little league team back when we were six years old. I can tell Amy doesn’t know how to respond to Grant. In fact, I think his question makes her a little uncomfortable, but she sort of smiles regardless before she sets her tray onto the table across from Grant and sits down.

“He’s just jokin’,” I say, tryin’ to ease her fears. “Boone Bluffs isn’t so bad. You picked the right place.”

I take a seat next to her and start diggin’ into my lunch. They only give ya twenty minutes to eat your whole meal here evidently. Too much stuff to learn to fit eatin’ in there, I guess. I just swallow a big bite of my hamburger when I catch Amy lookin’ at me.

“You’re wearing a necklace?”

“What?” I ask.

“Around your neck.” She points to her own neck but eyes mine.

“Oh,” I say, tryin’ to cover up the piece of the chain that must be showin’ around my neck. “Yeah.”

“Ohhh, the necklace,” Grant exclaims with wide eyes. I send him a look that I hope says: Mind your own damn business, before I catch Amy still starin’ at me.

“It’s nothin’,” I say.

She doesn’t look satisfied, but she doesn’t ask any more questions either.