Follow Me (5 page)

Georgie was at the stove, stirring something that didn’t smell like anything Sally recognized. The man seated at the kitchen
table was facing the entranceway where Sally stood, and he let out a low chuckle at the sight of her.

“There she is, the she-demon.”

It was Swill. Swill of the pigsty. Ugly old Swill, capless now, the grizzle on his head and face thick and short and white,
like a coating of paste. She was embarrassed to see him, or, rather, to be seen by him. But she also resented him for announcing
her arrival as though she couldn’t hear.

“You look like you’re feeling better,” said Georgie, turning, holding a spoon that dripped a thick, brown porridge onto the
floor. “Are you feeling better?”

She was, yes, thanks, she said, and added that she didn’t know what she would have done without, without… Unsure who to thank,
she just let her voice trail off.

Georgie didn’t notice the porridge on the floor. Neither did Swill, who rose from the table, fit his cap back on, and said
he’d best be going.

“You haven’t had your breakfast yet,” Georgie said.

With his eyes fixed on Sally, who stood there in her fat-lady’s nightie, Swill announced that he’d lost his appetite.

Sally decided he was an enemy for life. She no longer regretted bringing up the pigsty comparison. She wished she’d thought
of something worse.

“We’ll be seeing you, then,” said Georgie.

He said he had to stop by the A&P before he headed out to work at the Baker place. There was stuff he needed. Stuff — whatever
that meant.

“Sure. See you later.”

He was reaching for the back door when Georgie’s boy squeezed past Sally through the entranceway and jumped toward Swill,
who caught him in a swift hug, twirled him around, and set him standing on a chair.

“Hey, kiddo.”

The boy raised his arm and pointed a finger. “Pow, pow.”

“Aw, you got me good that time,” Swill said, rubbing the boy’s hair.

Sally looked on, feeling an unfamiliar envy for Swill’s tender manner, along with a fair amount of anger at his deception.
She guessed from the way he’d acted in the woods that he wasn’t always a gentleman.

“I gotta go now, buster. See you later.”

“Pow, pow,” said the boy, shooting a couple of farewell rounds at the ceiling.

Sally walked into the small space of the kitchen and said, “Hey, buster.”

“Steven,” said his mother firmly, which Sally took as a signal that she should use his proper name, “say hello to our guest.”

“Morning, Miss Angel.”

He should call her Sally, she told him. He shrugged and hopped down from the chair, grabbed a bowl from the counter, and held
it out to be filled. Georgie began bustling in an awkward fashion. After giving the boy his oatmeal, she set out the milk
bottle and cups with a clatter, swished the percolator pot to check the level of the coffee, and urged the boy to eat. She
had to get to work now and take him to Grandma’s, so he’d better hurry up and finish his breakfast and run a comb through
his hair.

Sally kept out of the way, accepting the cup of coffee and taking a seat with the boy at the table. From her position, she
noticed that the floor was warped; the whole floor seemed tilted, the molding bulging with swollen joints, and the ceiling
was so low that Sally was reminded of the Jensons’ root cellar.

She watched the boy leap from his chair and whirl out of the kitchen. When he was gone, she asked if there was anything she
could do to help. Georgie said what she could do was stay quiet for the day and make sure that infection didn’t flare up again.
She apologized for the condition of the house. One day soon she’d get around to fixing up that spare room where Sally was
staying.

“But it’s hard, you know,” Georgie said.

“Sure, I know how it is.”

“Raising my boy alone.”

“Who’s that man, that Mr. Swill?” Sally asked. And then, thoughtlessly: “What’s he to your family?”

Georgie gave her that same cold, searching look she’d given her yesterday when Sally had lied about her home.

“Swill?”

“I mean —”

“Swill is Steven’s grandfather.”

“I see.”

“You don’t think much of him, do you?”

No, Sally protested, she’d never said that.

But Swill had already told Georgie what Sally said to him up there on the mountain. The words she’d used. As she started to
apologize, Georgie held her hand up to silence her. “He doesn’t always make a good first impression,” she said. “You’re not
to blame. Well, listen, I’m going to work. You make yourself at home. I’ll be back at six, and we’ll have dinner. And then
you can tell me your story.”

“I’m a Werner,” she blurted in a desperate effort to prove herself trustworthy. “I’m Sally Werner.”

“Werner.” Georgie thought for a moment. “I don’t recognize the name. Oh, look, there’s Mason’s truck coming up the road. He’ll
keep you company. I’ll be seeing you.”

She headed off to the bathroom to help her boy wash up. Sally sipped the watery brew of her coffee. Watching Mason’s pickup
approach, she felt like a fugitive waiting for the sheriff to arrive. She had an urge to run, the way she’d run from the kitchen
of her parents’ house. And yet she also wanted to let things happen to her, come what may. Here in Georgie’s kitchen, with
its low ceiling and cockeyed floor, sixteen-year-old Sally Werner waited as time was marked by the sound of tires crunching
gravel. She thought about the sound her name made when she’d spoken it aloud to Georgie, and she wondered if her parents were
searching the yard, calling for her right then, calling through cupped hands.
Sally, you wicked girl! Sally Werner!
Did they miss her? Did they want her to come home? Of course not. They were glad she was gone. Good-bye and good riddance
to the daughter who had brought the family nothing but shame and another hungry mouth to feed.

Sally watched through the screen of the back door as Uncle Mason stepped from the cab of his pickup truck. Maybe he’d tell
her what would happen next.

Hi, g-g-g-girlie.” He twisted the soft band of his cap around his wrist as he nodded his greeting. He seemed embarrassed to
see her. She pushed herself out of the chair and folded her arms. His embarrassment humiliated her. She resented him. If he
couldn’t find a way to help her, she wanted him to go away. And yet she also perceived him to be harmless. He must have been
nearly seventy — a few years older than Swill. He was about her height, though with longer legs and a higher waist. His face
lacked the gray grizzle of Swill’s face and instead was a smooth, shiny marble with age spots that reminded Sally of the spots
on the newt she’d seen that first day at the spring. She remembered the slimy sensation on the back of her leg just before
she’d fallen into the creek. The memory caused her to reach around to touch the skin of her calf to make sure something awful
wasn’t still clinging there. As she twisted, she noticed a tear at hip level on her nightie, and when she looked back at Mason
she saw he was staring right at the white of her panties showing through.

She glared at him and moved her forearm to cover it. He matched her glare with a smile. It was a melancholy smile, as though
he were trying to cheer her up despite his own secret misery.

He asked her how she was feeling.

“Why, I’m feeling fine,” she said with a shrug, unsure why she found it an odd question.

“Well then, where are you g-g-going next?” It was a straightforward question, but she didn’t have a straightforward answer.
In fact, she didn’t have any answer at all.

He picked up the glass Stevie had left on the table and examined the inch of milk left in it. He said, “Let’s not b-beat around
the bush,” and then paused. The pause made Sally wonder if he was expecting her to offer some suggestion. Or maybe he was
telling her to go find some clothes and get dressed properly. She wanted to get dressed. She didn’t want to give the false
impression that she was lazy. She was far from lazy — anyone who knew her would agree. If she was given work to do, she did
it, and much more. She just needed permission to do things her own way.

She took a step toward the hall, but just then Mason dropped the glass he’d been holding. It bounced without shattering, dribbling
milk, and he stepped quickly backward, as if to move away from something alive that had found its way into the house and was
scuttling across the floor.

“I’ll take care of it,” Sally said, grabbing a dishrag and getting down on her knees to wipe the floor. The position made
the sharp pain in her breast come back all at once. She sat up, sucking in her breath with a whistle.

“Y-you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

He offered her his hand and tugged her to her feet. She was surprised at his strength and then remembered that somehow this
little man, by his own account, had managed to pick her up from her faint in the woods and haul her down the mountain. She
looked more closely at him, trying to figure out how all the pieces came together.

“You’re looking at m-me,” he said, “like I’m a p-puzzle you want to solve.” She blinked, startled by his accuracy. She would
have asked him if he was a mind reader, but she sensed that the question would have sounded stupid.

Handing him the glass she’d picked up from the floor, she denied that she was looking at him in any special way, even as their
eyes met.

“S-say,” he said after a pause. “You have a p-plan for yourself?” It was a question that made her feel a little bit ashamed
and a little bit suspicious, in equal measure. He was standing there judging her. Depending on whether he blamed her or forgave
her, she would feel either more ashamed or more suspicious of him.

She wanted to say she didn’t see how her plan was any of his business. But he clearly wanted to help. So what if she didn’t
want his help?

Funny that right then she heard a chickadee call outside the kitchen window. Its trill reminded her of her younger sister
Tru, who used to translate birdsongs into words. Thanks to Tru, she heard,
Love me, me, me,
from the chickadee, a plea that roused in Sally the impossible but nearly overwhelming longing to believe that everything
she’d experienced since she’d ridden away from the picnic on Daniel Werner’s motorcycle had been a dream. All she had to do
was go back to sleep and wake up again, and her mother would be standing over her bed:

Morning, Sally.

Where am I?

Why, you’re at home. You’ve been sick. But you’re better now. Get up, you lazybones.

And below her bedroom window, she’d hear the sound of the cows complaining, groaning from their fullness and with their low
mooing urging her: Get up, Sally, get out of bed.

Moo.

Sally?

Where’s Sally?

Who cares?

“You look l-l-lost in thought,” said Uncle Mason.

“Who cares?” she asked, just to hear the words spoken aloud.

“I’m s-s-sorry.”

“No, I mean… aw, forget it. Listen, I’ll be honest. I’m in a fix. I don’t have a dime in my pocket. I need to find work, but
it doesn’t look like there’s much available around here. There’s the cement factory where —”

“They’re laying off r-r-right and left. G-Georgie will be lucky if she holds on to her job.”

Sally wondered aloud about the sales work she’d seen advertised in mail-order catalogues. If she could stay with Georgie for
a while and start earning commissions —

“You can’t stay here,” Mason said plainly, forcefully.

“Why not?”

“That room — there’s no heat b-b-back there. It’s closed off during the w-winter.”

“Well, I could —”

Sally waited for Mason to fill in the blank. Instead he put his cap on his head, positioning it so the rim bent over his ear.
“I’d b-best be going,” he said. “I’ll be seeing you.”

“See you then, sure,” Sally echoed.

And that was that. With Uncle Mason went Sally’s sense that she had to plan anything. She didn’t even get out of her nightie
that day. She just sat around, paging through Georgie’s old magazines, setting herself the task of memorizing details about
the lives of movie stars to keep herself from getting too jittery with boredom. Georgie came home with Stevie at the end of
the day and cooked scrambled eggs for dinner.

The next day when Georgie was at work and the boy was with Swill’s wife, Sally sat around again, though at least she got dressed,
wearing a denim skirt and yellow blouse that Georgie had lent her. The following day, she devised small chores to occupy her
while she tried to figure out the direction of her life. The week turned into a month, and she was still trying to decide
on her next move. Once in a while she’d get up and walk through the town. She thought about stopping at the beauty parlor
to have her hair done, but she had no money.

On weekends when it was hot, Sally accompanied Georgie and her boy to wade in a swimming hole near the spot where Swill and
Mason had found her the day after she’d run away from home. They watched the parade in town on the Fourth of July. And once
Mason drove them to a country fair, where they watched barrel races and horse auctions. That was the best day of all. It happened
to be Sally’s seventeenth birthday, a fact she kept secret. But instead of feeling sorry for herself, she felt relieved to
have put the last year behind her.

During the week, Georgie worked long days at the factory. She couldn’t be blamed if she didn’t have the energy to straighten
up around the house. Sally, who felt ready to explode from boredom, spent the lonely hours setting things in order for Georgie,
dusting her collection of ceramic animals on the shelves in the living room, washing the windows and the kitchen floor. When
she saw how grateful Georgie was for her effort, Sally grew more ambitious. She washed the dirty laundry and hung it on the
line. She found a screwdriver and tightened the loose knobs on the doors. After finding a can of white paint in the basement,
she sanded and painted the flaking porch rail. She took apart a window sash and attached a weight to the cord. She filled
a pail with raspberries from the bushes out back and boiled them down to jam.