“So, what do you do?” I asked. “Besides working with the orphans or helping critters
or reading the Bible, I mean?” It sounded ridiculous, even to me, I admit, but that’s what
she did.
She smiled at me. I think she was surprised by my question, and even more surprised
at my interest in her.
“I do a lot of things. I study for my classes, I spend time with my dad. We play gin
rummy now and then. Things like that.”
“Do you ever just go off with friends and goof around?”
“No,” she said, and I could tell by the way she answered that even to her, it was
obvious that no one wanted her around much.
“I’ll bet you’re excited about going off to college next year,” I said, changing the
subject.
It took her a moment to answer.
“I don’t think I’m going to go,” she said matter-of-factly. Her answer caught me off
guard. Jamie had some of the highest grades in our senior class, and depending on how the
last semester went, she might even end up valedictorian. We had a running pool going as
to how many times she would mention the Lord’s plan in her speech, by the way. My bet
was fourteen, being that she only had five minutes.
“What about MountSermon? I thought that’s where you were planning to go. You’d
love a place like that,” I offered.
She looked at me with a twinkle in her eye. “You mean I’d fit right in there, don’t
you?”
Those curveballs she sometimes threw could smack you right between the eyeballs.
“I didn’t mean it that way,” I said quickly. “I just meant that I’d heard about how
excited you were to be going there next year.”
She shrugged without really answering me, and to be honest, I didn’t know what to
make of it. By then we’d reached the front of her house, and we stopped on the sidewalk
out front. From where I was standing, I could make out Hegbert’s shadow in the living
room through the curtains. The lamp was on, and he was sitting on the sofa by the
window. His head was bowed, like he was reading something. I assumed it was the Bible.
“Thank you for walking me home, Landon,” she said, and she glanced up at me for a
moment before finally starting up the walk.
As I watched her go, I couldn’t help but think that of all the times I’d ever talked to
her, this was the strangest conversation we’d ever had. Despite the oddness of some of her
answers, she seemed practically normal.
The next night, as I was walking her home, she asked me about my father.
“He’s all right, I reckon,” I said. “But he’s not around much.”