Lord Almighty, someone’s banging on the front door, and Momma’s not even done frying our eggs yet.
“I’ll get it,” I say. Don’t often get a knock this early, ’specially on a Saturday morning. I swing the door open and there’s Lottie standing on the porch. Melissa too. I don’t want Momma hearing any of what happened yesterday, so I slip out, closing the door behind me. “Hey,” I say and look down.
“Look!” is all Lottie says. She pushes a folded newspaper into my hands.
Okay, I see the president is doing something. “So?” I hand it back to her. I wonder if they came to make more of a fool out of me than I did myself.
“No, no!” they yell together.
Lottie takes the paper from me and opens it so’s the front page is full. “Here!” She points with one hand. They exchange a glance as I take the paper.
All the breath is knocked out of me. Me and Lottie, on the front page! “Oh, my Lord!” I stare, astonished. I can’t believe we are front-page news. Only your most important news gets on the front page.
Lottie jumps up and down. “Read it, read it!” But before I can, she’s already telling me what it says. “Everything we said is right here in the paper! And the Home Sweet Home people are going to fix everything! And they’re raising money for us to replace stuff!”
“All right!” Melissa says and they high-five.
I’m not even annoyed; I am in shock.
I’m staring at us, me and Lottie. In the picture, we’re leaning against each other, and Lottie’s arm is around me. We’re both smiling these huge smiles, the kind that squish your eyes and make your cheeks big, and anyone could see just by looking how good friends we are.
And just in case there was any doubt, the headline reads “Best Friends Survive Strike.” Well, there it is, God’s honest truth, right there in the newspaper—Best Friends.
Lottie is still talking.
Melissa makes a fist and sticks it under Lottie’s mouth like it was a microphone. “Char, you’ve survived lightning and now you’re on the front page of the newspaper. What’s next for you?”
I can’t help it; I accidentally let myself laugh.
Lottie says, “There’s even more!”
She grabs the paper and flips it over for me. I look where the story’s continued inside, and there’s a little picture of Lottie, me, and Melissa, but not the one where I let my mad face show. The photographer must have taken this picture when we weren’t looking. I’m standing in the middle, pointing to something far in the distance. And even though Melissa’s leaning against the banister and Lottie’s sitting, we’re all looking ahead to the same thing. I wish I knew what it was.
“Oh, my Lord!” I say. I hug the newspaper to me. I love this article, and I love these pictures. A wonderful feeling swells up in me, and I feel like I’m going to burst.
Lottie hugs me and says, “All this is because of you! That letter you wrote!”
I look at Melissa’s face in the picture and then glance at the real Melissa. “Actually, I kind of got the idea from you.” She looks a little surprised when I say that, but I feel it’s right to give credit where credit is due. I go on. “You know, how you write all those Hollywood letters and you put your picture in.” I turn to Lottie. “That’s how I got the idea.”
“All right!” Lottie holds her hands up, one high five for each of us. We slap her hands and giggle.
Melissa grabs a pen from her pocket and offers it to me. “Sign it, Violet.” She holds the pen out and looks me directly in the eyes. “I’ve just decided to start a collection of local celebrities.” She clicks the pen. “You’ll be my first.”
She’s not laughing as I take the pen and neither am I. This is a peace treaty. Everyone’s quiet as I write my name carefully across the picture. I don’t even realize I’m holding my breath and they are too, until I lift the pen and we all let our breath go at the same time.
When I look up, Lottie is smiling at me, and Melissa is blowing on my autograph so it don’t smear. Lottie is still Lottie, even though she’s Char now. And Melissa, with her makeup and all her Detroit bragging, ain’t that bad. She has some good ideas and she’s a fast runner, I saw that the day of the alligator.
I saw another thing that day too. One person who didn’t run away. My heart is full of sorrow on how I treated him. I can’t run away either. I got to find him.