Please, Cass…” My sister Lou Anne peered at me with one eye.
The other one was hidden behind a curtain of blond hair.
“Please-y, please? Would you watch Missy this morning? I have to study for a test!”
“If you have to study so bad, how come you had time to straighten and blow-dry your hair?”
“What do you think the test is on?” She picked up the hand mirror off the bed. “Does this hairdo look sexy?”
“What’s so sexy about letting your hair hang in your face?” I grabbed my own hair back in its usual ponytail and twisted a rubber band around it. “You just want to get out of watching Missy.”
“I do not! I’m practicing for my career!”
I rolled my eyes. Lou Anne had been practicing for her career her whole life—my sister has never worn her hair the same way two days in a row. “Come on, Lou, be fair! It’s your job to watch Missy. I watched her yesterday.”
She pooched out her lip. “Why won’t you do it? You got nowhere to go!”
“You’re right!” I snapped my fingers in her face. “And I’m going there now!” I ran down the stairs before she could make her eyes get all shiny, but turned back at the door and skidded to a stop. I yanked the string-and-stuff drawer open and got out the scissors— Mama wouldn’t miss them if I brought them home each night. The ones in the Nowhere sewing table drawer were rusty.
I trotted down our front steps, the scissors jouncing in my pocket. I felt better about breaking into Nowhere now that Ben had found out about the people who lived there, and I liked having a place that was sort of mine.
I’ve never had a room of my own. Lou Anne and I share—but the room feels like hers. I’d never paint a room of my own pink, and my room would never smell like hairspray.
As I cut across the yard going to Jemmie’s, I caught a glimpse of the old rocker behind the rose of Sharon bush where I used to sit when I wanted to be by myself. I trotted over and put a hand on the arm. It wobbled. The joints had gotten loose sitting out in the weather. I hadn’t gone to sit back there for a long time. I hadn’t even thought about it or missed it.
Sometimes, I guess, things change without your even noticing.
I glanced at the knothole in the fence between my yard and Jemmie’s. We used to talk to each other through that hole back when she first moved in and Daddy didn’t want me talking with black people. But that was before he got to know the Lewises.
I sat in my old chair for just a second, my elbows on my knees. The chair felt rickety under my butt, and the sun was hot. Our last summer was ticking away, and I was wasting it!
I jumped up. Leaving the chair wobbling, I cut around the fence and sprinted up the Lewises’ front steps. Jemmie’s grandmother was dozing in her porch rocker with General Lee, their fourteen-pound tomcat, in her lap. Artie was pushing a toy truck around her feet.
“Morning, Nana Grace!” I called.
She startled awake, then smiled. “Oh, hello, Cass. This is some mighty drowsy weather. Go on in. Jemmie’s upstairs reading.”
I took the steps two at a time and fell into my friend’s room. “Ya ready?”
Jemmie set down a magazine and stretched her arms over her head. “I guess.”
Jogging in place, ready to take off, I patted the scissors in my pocket. “I’m going to finish that dress and you’re going to help me figure out how to do it, right?”
When she nodded, I grabbed her arms and dragged her to her feet. “Come on!” And I shoved her toward the stairs.
“Where are you two going?” Nana Grace asked.
“Nowhere!” we said together.
We were jogging along, kind of easy, when Jemmie looked at me sideways. “Day before yesterday…?” She hesitated.
“Yeah?” Whatever it was, I knew she wanted to tell me.
“When Ben blazed out of Nowhere to take Cody off your hands, Big and I played ‘Heart and Soul.’”
“The race?” I’d seen them do it, playing four-handed as fast as they could. “Bet he won.”
“Now why do you automatically assume he won?”
Ever see someone run with their knuckles on their hips? Well, Jemmie can do it. It was her way of letting me know I was getting on her last nerve.
But then she grinned. “Okay, you’re right. He won. He said the score was one to nothing, so I challenged him to race me back to the neighborhood.”
We jogged across Rankin, me trying to imagine Justin lifting his feet. “And then he wussed out?”
“That’s the weird part. He didn’t.” She vaulted the fence and cut into the woods.
I vaulted after her. “Justin ran?”
“Yup. And he almost kept up.”
“Justin ran hard enough to keep up with you?” I stopped.
She stopped too. The skin on her neck glistened with sweat. “I said, almost.”
“If he ran that hard, he must really like you.”
She took off running again. “What is it with you and this boyfriend-girlfriend thing?” she called over her shoulder. “I just thought it was interesting, that’s all.” She leaped over a log and picked up speed.
I smiled as she flashed away between the trees. I knew something she didn’t. She was beginning to like Justin.
And I liked the idea of my best friend and Ben’s best friend liking each other.