Page 4 of The Cadence
He turned to look at me. “Why? Is that how you travel?”
For the first time in what seemed like years, I felt myself smile. “Sure! Every time I jet off somewhere, I’m only going the best.” I even laughed a little, just a “ha” but it was a relief to know that I had some emotion other than sadness left in me.
“Have you ever gone anywhere?” he asked, and I stopped smiling.
“No,” I answered. “I’ve been busy here.”
“You were taking care of your grandmother.”
“I had to study hard, too. School was never my strongest point,” I remarked. “Do you remember how it was when I started freshman year?”
“I do. It was a disaster.”
I nodded, since that was true.
“What have you been doing since high school?”
“I started beauty school but then I had to quit and help my grandma,” I answered. “She got worse right around then.”
“I thought you said that she only got bad a few months ago.”
“For the last few months, she was very, very sick,” I explained, “but she needed me here before that. Why did you come again tonight?”
Will rocked the chair forward then back, just once in each direction. “I was thinking that I should have stayed longer when I was over before.”
“No, because you must have been so uncomfortable,” I said. “Just you and a bunch of older ladies staring like their eyes were going to pop out of their heads.”
“They must be Woodsmen fans. That’s the name of my new team.”
I smiled again. “I bet they wouldn’t know a Woodsmen if they ran one down with their cars.”
“I hope to hell it’s not me who ends up flattened.” He looked at me closely. “You don’t need the tissues anymore.”
“I probably will soon enough. All these emotions are a real roller coaster.”
“What’s next?”
“I’m not quite sure, but probably crying—”
“I mean, what are you going to do next, now that you don’t need to take care of your grandmother any longer?” he clarified. “Will you go back to beauty school?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m not quite sure what’s next for a job, either.”
“I always like to have a plan.”
“I remember,” I told him. “You had it written in your phone, all your goals. What else is on your list?”
“A league championship, among other things. Why don’t you want to do hair?”
“Well, I may,” I said, “but first I have more important stuff to take care of. I’ll move soon.”
“You’re selling this place?”
“It belongs to someone else,” I explained. “We needed money, so my grandma did something with the bank—I’m not exactly sure what, because she never wanted to talk about it. She didn’t want me to worry and she probably didn’t think that I’d understand, and it was already done by the time I heard. But we ended up owing a lot and now I’ll have to move out, since it’s not mine. I’ll get a job wherever I go next.”
He stared at me almost angrily. “Was it a foreclosure? Didn’t she own this place outright after all the years she lived here? Did she take out a second mortgage?”
I shrugged again, and my mind flashed back to the first time he’d come over and knocked sharply on my grandma’s front door. “I’m Will Bodine,” he’d said, as if I hadn’t been aware of that. Almost from the moment I’d set foot in that terrifyingly large high school, one thing had been clear: this man had been the king. Even as a know-nothing freshman, I’d noticed how everyone admired him, all the students and also the administration.
