What Comes After Page 18

  Mr. Nichols walked over to his desk. I started to follow him, but stopped. Oh, what the hell.

  “Wait, Littleberry,” I said. He was already walking away, late for his next class, but in no hurry to get there.

  He turned around. “What?”

  I said, “Look. OK. Here’s the thing.”

  “Yeah?”

  My T-shirt felt damp under my arms. “Tomorrow’s Tuesday,” I said. “I can maybe hang out tomorrow, but I can’t go to the mall, or the batting cages.”

  He shrugged. “What, then?”

  “Have you ever milked a goat?”

  Littleberry and I met in the parking lot the next afternoon by Aunt Sue’s truck. I brought a bag of Cheetos for the goats, even though I knew I shouldn’t be spending the money. But I thought it might help them take to Littleberry if he fed them some. When I told Littleberry what it was for, he ran back to the school to buy more out of the vending machine. While he was gone, I realized someone had broken off the Tundra’s antenna, to go along with the key-scrape. I looked around to see who might have done it, but didn’t see anyone. I assumed it was one of the football players. I hoped the black snake had bitten one of them at practice.

  Littleberry came back with five bags of Cheetos. We shared one on the way out to the farm, though I was so hungry from skipping lunch that I ate way more than my share.

  “Will they eat the bags, too?” Littleberry asked.

  “Yeah. If you let them. They’ll try to get hold of your fingers, too, to lick the Cheetos dust off.”

  Littleberry looked at the cheesy residue on the ends of his fingers.

  “Will they bite?”

  “Oh, yeah. You definitely don’t want them chewing on you.”

  Littleberry licked his fingers clean.

  “I haven’t been around animals much,” he said as we pulled into Aunt Sue’s. All the goats lined up at the fence to greet us. Huey and Louie were so happy, they started bouncing in the air. Gnarly slobbered all over Littleberry there in the backyard.

  “Man,” Littleberry said. “I need a shower.”

  “Just come on inside the fence,” I said. “Let the goats have their turn at you.” Littleberry pushed Gnarly away and opened the gate. He started to open one of the bags of Cheetos, but Tammy chomped it out of his hand. The other goats crowded in on him to get theirs, and in a panic Littleberry tossed the rest of the bags in the air. Tammy happily chewed on hers — Cheetos, bag, and all — off to one side while the others fought over the rest.

  Huey and Louie ended up not getting any, so they turned their attention back to Littleberry — butting his legs and dancing around him. I could tell he liked playing with them. He pushed on their heads. They liked that a lot and pushed against Littleberry harder until he fell into the grass. Then they stood on him.

  “Time for milking,” I said when the milkers had finished their Cheetos. I helped Littleberry up, and we coaxed them into the barn. Patsy stepped right up onto the milking stand. Littleberry watched closely as I patted and massaged her udder and then squeezed long streams of milk from her teats. Loretta climbed up next.

  “Can I do it?” Littleberry asked. I said OK, but it didn’t go well.

  First he tried to hold her steady by her teats whenever she moved, which Loretta didn’t like at all. She maaed and stomped at him on the stand.

  “Stop,” I said to Littleberry. “That hurts her. You wouldn’t pull a woman around by her nipples, would you?” As soon as the words came out, my face reddened with embarrassment. “Anyway, just don’t do that.”

  Littleberry smiled, probably embarrassed, too. “Sorry.”

  I refilled the grain trough, and that calmed Loretta enough that he could try milking her again. He did a little better, but not much. Mostly he just squirted milk on his pants. Then the guinea hen attacked him, pecking at his pants leg, and that freaked him out.

  “Maybe I’ll go play with the little goats while you finish up,” he said.

  I took over with Loretta after he left the barn, Jo Dee pressed to my side the whole time, then it was Tammy’s turn. I could hear Littleberry back outside, running around with Huey and Louie. I let Patsy, Loretta, and Tammy out of their stalls while I milked Reba, thinking she would take the longest time, as full as she was.

  Littleberry started yelling while I was milking Reba, and I ran outside just in time to see Tammy throwing him off her back. Apparently he had decided to go for a goat ride. I’m not sure how he got on top of her in the first place, but after she threw him off, she butted him hard in his ribs.

  Littleberry tried to run, but Tammy chased him and knocked him down. Patsy and the others looked on passively, as if they saw that sort of thing all the time. I couldn’t stop laughing as Littleberry got back up and Tammy chased him around and around the field.

  “Help me, Iris!” he yelled. “Call off your goat, already!”

  But he was laughing, too, and could barely run because he was gasping so hard. But whenever he slowed down, Tammy butted him again from behind.

  I finally interceded, grabbing Tammy and holding her just long enough for Littleberry to run to the gate and let himself out. Tammy looked at him for a minute, then dropped her head and started grazing, as if nothing had happened.

  I brought the milk buckets with me over to the back steps and sat next to Littleberry.

  “Thanks,” he said. “I thought she was going to kill me and eat me.” Gnarly laid his head in Littleberry’s lap. It seemed to be a gesture of sympathy, though he also slobbered on Littleberry some more.

  “I doubt she’d eat you,” I said. “Probably just your clothes.”

  Littleberry pulled up his shirt to check for bruises. I couldn’t help looking at his smooth chest. He saw me and grinned, and I looked away quickly.

  “So,” I said. “Think you’d ever want to come out to the farm again?”

  He tugged his shirt back down. “Yeah. But it would be good if you could bring the catcher’s equipment from your softball team so I could strap it on first for protection.”

  After we pasteurized the milk and set up the presses, I sat down with Littleberry at the kitchen table and we snacked on crackers and goat cheese, which he said he liked a lot.

  Late-afternoon sun angled in through the window, and dust motes danced around the kitchen. I spread more goat cheese on crackers and filled Littleberry’s plate again, though I had some qualms about it. I was going to need all the cheese I could make to cover Aunt Sue’s bills. And I was going to have to find some way to escape the Tutens’ every Saturday morning to set up at the farmers’ market. I got tired just thinking about it all: getting out here every day, doing the milking, making the cheese, selling enough every week at the farmers’ market, hiding everything from the Tutens.

  I poured us two glasses of cold well water and sat down again.

  “Thanks, Iris,” Littleberry said, and he took a long drink.

  “You’re welcome, Littleberry,” I said.

  He set his glass down carefully in front of him, as if he was afraid of breaking it, then scooted his chair over next to mine and held my hand. I tensed up right away, but took a deep breath and told myself to relax. He was just holding my hand. It was no big deal.

  Then Littleberry leaned over to kiss me, and I had the same panicky reaction as when he’d grabbed my arm the day before in the hall.

  I pulled my hand away and left the kitchen.

  Littleberry followed me onto the back porch. “Iris? Are you OK? What’s the matter?”

  I let the screen door swing shut behind me — between us — and walked quickly back to the barn. I had to lead the goats back in and lock them up for the night.

  Littleberry came through the screen door but stopped in the backyard. Gnarly must have sensed something, though, because he started barking hard and backed Littleberry up all the way to the truck, until Littleberry turned around and climbed in.

  I finished up in the barn, closed up the house, and petted Gnarly for a while.
I hated recoiling from Littleberry like that. I hated that I couldn’t just let a boy hold my hand and kiss me.

  I finally ran out of chores, or any other diversions, so I joined Littleberry in the truck.

  “Sorry I took so long,” I said. “And sorry about in the kitchen. I’m just not ready for anything like that, I guess.”

  “It’s OK,” he said, gazing out through the windshield. “I mean, you told me before and all. I just thought you might be more comfortable or something out here, you know?”

  “Yeah,” I said. I didn’t know what to say after that. I started up the truck but didn’t put it into gear. We just sat there while it idled.

  “Hey,” Littleberry said. “Remember that night I drove you out here and your aunt was shooting at that car and everything?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “That was pretty wild. Good thing she didn’t shoot us.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Good thing.”

  We both lapsed into silence while Littleberry thought up another topic for conversation.

  “So,” he said after a minute. “Is this what you do with all your goat cheese? You just, like, bring boys out here and let them get beat up by your goats, and then you give it to them to eat?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “That’s pretty much what happens.”

  “Really?” he said. “Because I was just kidding.”

  I laughed. “Me, too. I’ve never brought anyone out here before. You’re the first.”

  I thought about telling him what I was really doing with the goat cheese, but the idea of confiding in him made me nervous. He seemed trustworthy, but how well did I really know him?

  But I also knew I was going to need some help if I was going to keep selling the cheese at the farmers’ market. I couldn’t keep making up stories for Mr. and Mrs. Tuten — not without them getting suspicious about all my Saturday morning “practices,” especially when it wasn’t even softball season yet.

  I was going to have to trust someone, and I realized Littleberry was probably my best option. My only option.

  I eased the truck into gear and started down the gravel drive away from the farm. I cleared my throat.

  “What?” Littleberry looked up expectantly.

  I took a deep breath, and then said it. “Would you be interested in a job?”

  “What kind of job?”

  “A job selling goat cheese.” I continued in a rush: “At the farmers’ market downtown. Starting Saturday. I could pay you out of whatever we make. I could pay you ten percent.” I told him the rest of it, too — what I needed the money for, where I parked the Tundra so he could find it to drive over to the farmers’ market, why I had to park the truck there, and why he couldn’t let anybody know. I kept driving and talking until the house and the farm disappeared behind us.

  I stopped when we got to Cocytus Road — waiting for a car to pass before I pulled onto the asphalt, and waiting for him to answer.

  I turned to look at him and he smiled. “Yeah, sure,” he said. “I’ll do it.”

  Littleberry sold another two hundred and fifty dollars in cheese and eggs that Saturday. He wouldn’t take any money at first. He ended up taking twenty, but then insisted on buying us both some lunch. When I left the house at noon, I had told the Tutens I was bicycling over to the library to study. Craven County was probably the last place in America to still have pay phones, and I used one of them, at a Gulf station near the farmers’ market, to call the Tutens and ask if I could go to lunch with a boy from school. Littleberry sat in the truck.

  “We’re happy to hear you’re making new friends,” Mrs. Tuten said.

  “Thanks, Mrs. Tuten,” I said, giving Littleberry the thumbs-up, but feeling guilty about lying to her and Mr. Tuten. But not too guilty. It was what I needed to do to save the goats.

  And the part about making new friends — I guessed that wasn’t a lie.

  Dialogue Exercise (Note to Mrs. Roosevelt: Do Not Read Aloud to Class)

  Hey, Mr. DiDio.

  Hi, Iris. Want some tea?

  No, thanks. I just had a Snapple.

  OK. So what are we talking about today? Anything been going on you’d like to start with?

  Well, I had a dream about my mother last night. It woke me up.

  I’m guessing it was a bad dream?

  Yeah. I had a hard time getting back to sleep.

  Do you want to talk about it?

  Yeah. Maybe. I had it once before — the same dream. Right after what happened at the lake. The beating. Aunt Sue and Book.

  What happened in the dream?

  Not a lot. Just my mom calling to me from another room, calling me and calling me, and then hitting me.

  You told me you saw your aunt recently. Do you think this might have something to do with seeing her again?

  I don’t know. Why?

  Sometimes a person in your dream can be a substitute for the person you’re anxious about in real life.

  Oh. I don’t know. Maybe. I don’t really want to talk about my aunt.

  Well, what do you remember about your mom? Let’s start with that.

  Nothing, really. I was five when she left. Dad said she hit me. I don’t remember it, though. I don’t remember any of it. Just what Dad told me.

  Were you hurt?

  I don’t think so. Not like I had to go to the hospital or anything. Dad said when he came home that day, I was still telling her I was sorry, but she kept telling me she was sorry, and I didn’t have to be sorry, that I should never say I was sorry for something I hadn’t done.

  Why did she hit you?

  I dropped the syrup bottle on the kitchen floor. It broke.

  Why did she leave?

  I guess because she felt guilty. Dad said she was afraid she would do it again. That she had grown up that way, and it scared her — what she might do. But he also said she didn’t like Maine. She got restless there. She had a hard time after I was born and didn’t get out of bed much. Even after she got better, she didn’t really know what to do with me, so I stayed over at Grandma’s and Grandpa’s a lot. And Dad started taking me with him on his vet rounds, even when I was really little.

  How did your parents meet?

  Dad found her in the barn, like a stray animal. He went out to feed the animals one morning, and there was a girl in a sleeping bag curled up in one of the stalls. She was from here, from North Carolina, but I don’t know why she was in Maine. Dad offered her breakfast, but after they went inside to the kitchen, he burned the bacon, so she said, “Here. Let me” — like she was an expert cook. Only she burned the bacon, too. She also set fire to the stove. That was one of their stories. Dad gave her a job at his office and let her stay in a spare bedroom. He was older than her, and I guess he was lonely, since he’d never gotten married. So he ended up marrying her. And then they had me.

  What did she look like?

  Like me, I guess. Only pretty.

  Did your father try to stop her from leaving?

  I’m sure he tried to stop her. But I don’t really know. He never talked much about when she left. And then Grandpa got sick not too long after that, and we had to help Grandma take care of him, and then Grandma got sick after Grandpa died, so we were very busy, and I started school, and I met Beatrice, and we were always together, out doing sports, or at her house, or at my house. There wasn’t much time to miss her, I guess.

  Do you need a tissue, Iris?

  I’m not crying. It’s something in my eye.

  Do you think about her very often?

  Only since the dream started. I guess I did have this idea about her for a while, when I found out how sick Dad was, and then when he died. You know, the Rescue Parent. But I don’t know where she is. I used to get letters every once in a while. Just newsy stuff. She traveled to a lot of places with the Rainbow People, camping out in the national parks. And she had a business making dream pillows. They’re these hard little pillows that hurt your neck if you sleep on them; they have different herbs sewn inside that a
re supposed to make you have different types of dreams.

  Do you still think of her in that way — as the Rescue Parent?

  Not really. People aren’t like that in real life. They don’t just show up and save you.

  Have you seen her since then?

  Yeah. It was after she’d been gone for a couple of years. I was seven. I thought she wanted to get back together with my dad and be my mom again. She showed me how to make the pillows and said maybe we could start a mother-daughter business. But she and Dad got into a fight the second night she was there. She was gone when I woke up the next morning. I blamed Dad for a long time, but she probably only showed up because she needed money. I remember she left about twenty of those dream pillows.

  What did you do?

  I didn’t do anything. I made coffee for Dad, and toast with jam. He liked either butter or jam, but never both. And he said he liked me to burn it first, and then scrape the burned parts off. I had been making him toast that way since I was a little kid, and he let me think that everything I did was perfect.

  What about the pillows?

  We burned them in the old crematorium. I accidentally breathed in a bunch of the smoke, though, and had wild dreams for weeks after that — terrible nightmares. Dad said I used to yell out in my sleep. But every now and then, I would have a nice dream about my mom, too. Every now and then, I still do.

  What’s a nice dream you have about your mom?

  I’m three or four, and Mom lets me curl up in her lap, and it’s late in the afternoon and we’re sitting by the window with what’s left of the sunlight, and she’s reading to me, and the little bird in this book keeps asking everybody the same question — “Are you my mother? Are you my mother?” And I’m getting more and more anxious, and the little bird is getting more and more anxious, but then, finally, on the very last page, we finally get the answer we’ve been looking for.

  The next time we had softball practice, it was so cold I almost couldn’t feel my hands. Neither could anybody else. Annie, our pitcher — who threw with too much arc for a fast pitch — whined about it the whole time, which got on my nerves, and Shirelle’s, too, but really, who could blame her? Half the girls didn’t even show up. Once my shoulder warmed up enough, I hit flies and grounders for them to field, though the freezing aluminum bat turned my fingers purple. Nobody moved much to chase anything, except Shirelle. She and I switched after a while, and then I was the one chasing down everything while the other girls just stood there shivering.