Fifteen

FIFTEEN

On Saturday, Berry texted that she had to help her dad clean the garage, so she couldn’t come over and watch movies.

Which felt like a weirdly fake excuse, but then maybe cleaning the garage is a big thing in Greenville. I technically had to help my moms unpack the kitchen, since there were still boxes all over the place.

Hey, we all had stuff to do, okay?

Then Lucy ended up having to be at the school all day, and Millie had errands to run for a photoshoot she was planning.

And suddenly I was alone in the house.

So of course I got on the phone and called all my friends and I was like, “KEG PARTY AT MY HOUSE, EVERYBODY! YAAASSSS!”

Ha-ha. No.

Can you imagine? No.

No. I went disco roller-skating.

Which, let’s be clear, I’d learned my lesson at that point. I knew Greenville wasn’t interested in seeing me perform disco classics of the seventies downtown. I knew there were many things Greenville didn’t want to watch me do: sing, dance, have joy. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t enjoy some tunes in the privacy of my own headphones in concert with the wind blowing through my hair.

It was a day to be my own bird, so to speak.

And since I was in the mood, and no one was home, I thought I’d make it a whole occasion.

Which meant fashion.

Which meant it was time to pull out my fringe.

Fringe is not essential for disco skating. It’s probably not even recommended because it’s kind of a pain to maintain (you basically lose about a hundred strands of fringe every time you put anything with fringe on, especially if it’s a garment made in the actual seventies, as mine all are). But if you happen to have a full fringe orange silk jacket and green sequin leggings and you’ve already done your English homework?

Why not?

After I fed Monty and Bjorn, I strapped on my skates and headphones, tied my roller-skating scarf (pink with yellow flowers) around my neck, clicked play on my favorite skate track, “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)” by Sylvester, the B-side to his 1978 hit, “Dance (Disco Heat),” and sailed out the door.

Sylvester—who I think would have loved this jacket—was briefly a member of the San Francisco drag troupe the Cockettes, a group of performance artists who dabbled in gender play and regular play, before leaving to pursue (and achieve) a stellar career as a recording artist.

I slipped past Greenville residents watering their lawns. A man in shorts behind a lawn mower stopped to take off his hat and get a good stare in as I shot past. I did a little shoot the duck past two girls sitting on their front steps.

Why not?

The music switched to “Do You Wanna Funk?” by Patrick Cowley featuring Sylvester.

I did want to funk. Who doesn’t?

I could see the sun sparkling on the gold-sequined wristbands I’d added as a last-minute costume embellishment.

There are people who say you should take off one thing before you leave the house, outfit-wise. First of all, what kind of vague suggestion is that? One thing? So take off your pants? What if you just take off one shoe?

Be more specific!

Second of all, I think that’s advice for people who are afraid of being too much. And on that day, I was by myself, skating, and happy to be too much.

I wasn’t in school. There was no Principal Lynde, no Tanner or Sarah, around to say otherwise.

So I was going to be Very Anne that day.

And I was happy about it.

Millie has a theory that if you think about someone not being there, it kind of summons them into existence. Like if you’re waiting for the bus and you realize you need to grab something at home and you think, Oh, I hope the bus doesn’t come yet, it’s sure to arrive.

And so, it was not surprising that just after I had that thought, I heard, under the amazing beats of music in my ears, a horn blasting behind me.

I looked over my shoulder and spotted a blue pickup truck, its chrome nose blinking in the sun, a cloud of dust kicking up beneath its wheels. I was about to slow down when I saw the head of the person in the passenger’s side, leaning out the window.

Even from a distance I could see it was Tanner, his hands cupped around his mouth, like he was yelling something.

At me.

What he was yelling I couldn’t hear over the music, but I could guess.

I pushed my headphones off my ears and the roar of the truck’s engine got much, much louder. The road stretched out in front of me, with nothing but empty fields on either side, except for a ways ahead where there was a tree line.

I bent my knees, feeling the wobble of my wheels as I tried to pick up as much speed as I could on Greenville’s pothole-ridden roads. All I could hear now was the pop of stones under rubber, the scratch and grate of my vinyl wheels on the road.

Unfortunately a truck is always going to beat roller skates in the rock-paper-scissors of who’s faster.

Before I could catch my breath, the truck blasted past me so close I felt the spray sting of gravel on my legs, and the whoosh of something else sailing past my ears. What felt like it could have been a hand, reaching toward me.

Without thinking, I dove off the side of the road, into a set of what I suppose were bushes—very prickly green things that were more stick than leaf. I rolled, I would say athletically (but maybe not), onto my side and scrambled to unlace my skates as I heard the burning noise of a truck screeching to a stop on the road.

I picked up a skate in each hand and, carrying them like boxing mitts, tore off in my stockinged feet into the trees.

I ran until my heart exploded, past trees and shrubs and through some tall grass, until the ground started squinching under my socks and I heard, over the sound of my gasping breaths, the trickle of what must have been a creek.

At some point my heart popped out of my chest and I stopped, because you want to stop when that happens.

I turned to face my pursuers. And they weren’t there.

Mission accomplished.

I lifted my feet. My socks were torn to shreds, but my feet were shockingly intact, if throbbing and distinctly pink in hue. The trickle of water was clearly coming from somewhere on my left. In the interests of a soothing foot bath, I hobbled in that direction with my skates slung over my shoulder, until I found the tiny stream of water winding its way through a road of slimy green rocks.

I sank down on the edge, peeled off my now full-of-holes socks, and lowered my feet to the cool water with an audible sigh of relief only the crows in the trees heard. After a few minutes of the water swirling around my toes, my heart was finally beating a reasonable number of beats per minute. I peeled my wrist cuffs off and shoved them in my pocket. Lowered my fingers to dangle in the water along with my feet, which had started to pulse.

I looked up to the sky through the trees. “Don’t tell anyone else this, like don’t tell Lucy or Millie or Berry, but I’m, like, just up to here with trying to get you to not hate me and feeling like every good thing I get comes with something horrible. Like. I feel like you owe me some sort of sign.”

I clarified. “A good sign.”

I paused. “Okay, I mean this creek is nice. Don’t get me wrong. The world needs water to live, I get that. But at this point I feel like it needs to be something bigger than just water for my aching feet. You know? Like I need something that’s a reason to keep trying. I don’t want to ask for a miracle but—”

There was, I-swear-to-disco, a perfectly timed loud splash, and suddenly there it was, over my left shoulder.

A horse.

Is that a miracle?

No. Obviously. Horses, like rivers, are naturally occurring phenomenona. But there is something poetic about seeing a horse staring at you with its big brown eyes.. . .

Until you see the saddle hanging off its side like an awkward fanny pack for a horse if horses wore fanny packs.

I held out a tentative hand.

The horse bowed its head, stepping through the water and gently pressing its nose into my palm. Which had never happened to me before.

Now I had my miracle.

I just needed to find the rider.

And I was pretty sure I knew who that was.