Love and Other Unknown Variables (11 page)

3.4

T
he next day, school was pretty uneventful, which was good because I can’t handle much more. The only problem is that the crack in the wall Ms. Finch made is growing. Today we read a science fiction story about time travel. Afterward she asked if anyone had an opinion about the probability of the author’s time machine actually working. Three people’s hands sprang up before they realized what they’d done. Charlotte was right. We’re going to need a new plan.

On top of that, I kept thinking I heard Dr. Whiting’s loud whistle out in the hallway during English, but I never caught a glimpse of him through the small window in the door, so I can’t be sure.

When I arrive at Mrs. Dunwitty’s to do my penance, she calls me up to the porch and motions for me to sit in the other rocking chair. “Sit your bony ass down, Jack.”

I want to ask who Jack is, but decide to do as I’m told. I remind myself this is the last day I’ll have to put up with her. I’d have bailed on her weeks ago, but she wouldn’t think twice about narc-ing on me to Dad.

“Tools can get you to powerful places,” Mrs. Dunwitty says, turning the fraying brim of her sunhat in her hand.

We’ve been rocking along in silence for a few minutes when she hits me with the crap about the tools. I raise my eyebrows and she finishes, “But having the tools doesn’t mean you know how to use them properly. Understand, son?”

No, you insane bat, I have no idea what you mean.
But I nod and mumble, “Yes, ma’am.”

Mrs. Dunwitty is no dimwit. “Don’t lie to me, Jack.”

“My name’s Charlie,” I say, but I can’t make myself say it loudly and it comes out like a question.

Dimwit rolls her big eyes at me. “Short for jackass.”

“Oh, well. Okay…” I look down at my hands gripping the arms of the chair. The white paint is worn.

“Today,
Jack
”—she puts great emphasis on my new nickname—“you’ll clean and store the garden tools. Winter’s coming and the tools will be put away.”

“Easy,” I say, standing. “I’ll get right to it.”

“You do that then,” she says in a tone that indicates I’ve made a fatal mistake. I pause and glance back at her. She looks expectant, but seriously, how hard can it be to shove some tools in a shed? I shrug and walk around to the shed at the back of the house. She’s still rocking when I come back ten minutes later.

Wiping muddy hands on my stained T-shirt, I declare, “It’s all done.”

She gets up from her chair, reaching for her cane, and follows me to the back yard. She’s slower than usual and I have to stop and wait for her to catch up a few times. Must be all the rainy weather affecting her joints. My grandma used to complain about that.

Mrs. Dunwitty nods toward the door of the shed, which I open obediently only to have a rake handle crack me viciously on the forehead.

“Ow! Crap.”

“Yep. Crap job. Do it again,” Mrs. Dunwitty says as she begins walking away.

I stand rubbing my forehead. She won’t let me go until I get it right. She’ll keep me here cleaning tools until spring arrives.

“Wait,” I call. “Aren’t you going to tell me how you want it done?”

“I want it done correctly,” she says, still walking away from me.

“But—”

She stops.

“I don’t know how. Can you teach me?” I ask, defeated.

She turns around with a wide smile, “Yes, Charles. I can.”

When we’re finished, we walk back to the front. “One last thing. Would you please put the new angel in the garden for me?”

I’d laugh, but I’ve just swallowed my tongue. Mrs. Dunwitty just said please. The world must be coming to an end. She laughs at my expression and shakes her head as she walks up to the porch, “She’s in the garage. Don’t break her.”

I find the new angel where Mrs. Dunwitty said, but this angel is twice as big as the old angel and probably weighs as much as me. I’m not sure how to move her. I can’t even heft her into the wheelbarrow myself. I need help. Crafty old biddy is testing me. The angel’s wisp of a smile agrees with me.

I walk back out to admit that I can’t move her alone and see Mrs. Dunwitty scratching the pointy ears of a familiar hellhound. She looks up at me with a knowing expression in that wrinkly face. “Problem?”

“I need help.” I peek at Charlotte, her cheeks pink from walking her dog. “The angel’s too heavy.”

“Don’t look at me,” Mrs. Dunwitty chuckles. “That’s why I’ve got you around. I’m too damn old for lifting angels.”

Charlotte pushes a curl behind her ear. She holds my gaze prisoner with her own. “I’ll help, if it’s okay.”

“Well, aren’t you lucky? Looks like you’ve got a personal savior.” Mrs. Dunwitty leads Luna up to her porch for some water.

Charlotte and I stand like we’re stuck in tar. My savior is looking hot today in a pair of running shorts that show off her long legs. She catches me staring and bites back a grin. I motion for her to follow me to the garage.

“Charlie,” Charlotte says as soon as we’re out of Mrs. Dunwitty’s sight.

I don’t want to fight. Not now. Not where Mrs. Dunwitty will inevitably butt in and spout out more metaphors about gardening and life and crap. “Let’s just move this thing,” I say, positioning the wheelbarrow by the angel.

Charlotte swallows whatever she was going to say. She nods and follows my lead as we lift the new angel and settle her carefully in the wheelbarrow without incident. It was so easy that I’m thinking I could have lifted the stupid thing by myself after all.

I roll the angel out to the garden where I’ve prepared a spot for her amongst the roses. “I think I can get this,” I tell Charlotte, stepping up to the angel. I bend my knees, take a deep breath, and grip as hard as I can. Blowing all the air out of my lungs as I lift, I manage to pick the angel up in one swoop. I open my eyes and yelp. Charlotte is standing so close, just opposite the angel, her arms out like she was about to offer to help. She laughs and between that and the surprise and the actual weight of the angel, my grip slips.

“Whoa there.” Charlotte steps in to help. Her hands meet mine under the angel’s wings and we clasp them together to make a human safety net for the statue.

Protecting my machismo, I say, “I got it,” and try to yank the angel away, but Charlotte is freakishly strong and won’t let go of my hands.

“Let me help. Would it be so bad if you let me help?”

I sigh and study her face, soft and inviting, dissolving my residual frustrations. If the angel didn’t weigh so much, I may have lingered on it longer, but the rough concrete begins to dig into my skin. Without a word, I nod and we sidestep our way into the garden. Carefully, we tip the angel into place and step back to admire our work.

“See,” says Charlotte, wiping her hands on her shirt. “We make a good team.”

I snort. “Yeah. We make something.” Her smile is crooked and an errant curl is looping across her temple.

Mrs. Dunwitty and the dog join us by the garden. It looks good with the new angel resting at its center. Which reminds me, the old one is still rolling around in the trunk of my car.
Must dispose of broken angel.

My hands are calloused, my back is sore, and I’ve ruined all my gym clothes, but I also feel stronger somehow. I guess it’s all the endorphins or whatever, but I feel good, better than I’ve felt in a while, so I give Mrs. Dunwitty a small smile.

She shakes her head slowly and says, “Don’t get all sappy. You’re done here. Next time, stay on the road.”

My smile slips away. “Don’t flatter yourself, old woman. If I never have to see this garden again it will be too soon.”

“That’s more like it,” she chuckles. “Now please escort this young lady home.”

I nod. “Yes ma’am.” That’s two pleases in one day.

Luna hops into the backseat of my car and begins drooling right where James sits. “Good girl,” I say as I close the door. Charlotte and I are quiet on the drive back to her house.

“Turn here,” she says. “Mine’s the third one on the left. Jo’s not home yet, so you can pull in the driveway.”

“As opposed to slowing down and tossing you out as I drive by?”

“Something like that.”

Before opening the door, Charlotte touches my arm. “Thanks, Charlie.” She looks like she may say more, but bites down on her bottom lip. Her hand slips away from my arm, leaving a warm spot under the memory of her touch.

“I should be thanking you. I’d be crushed under an angel if it weren’t for you.”

She smiles. “I meant for trying to help with Jo.” She looks out the window. “And for putting up with me.”

“Charlotte—”

“Does it really bother you that I’m at your house so much?” She’s rubbing a hand along the worn vinyl of the car door’s interior, still not looking at me.

The answer is yes. Yes it bothers me. Everything about her, from her smile to her crazy doodled-on shoes unnerves me. She makes me want to step away from my straight-arrow life, if only so I can peer over her shoulder every once in a while and see how the world looks through her sketches.

I brush my fingertips over the back of her other hand. There’s a current between us running faster than water over the falls. “Don’t go anywhere, Charlotte.”

She rewards me with a smile that crinkles the corners of her eyes. God help me, I want to kiss those lines, but I’m held back. Charlotte needs my help. She does not need to deal with my over exuberant, inexperienced hormonal urges. She needs a friend.

“I do want to let you in,” she says, her smile softening. “But everyone’s always known my business, and they thought knowing gave them the right to make decisions for me. I want to make the choices now, which means I have to keep everyone out until I know what I want.” Her pupils are dilating with panic. “And I don’t know. I don’t know what I want.” She pulls her trembling hand from under my fingertips.

I double my grip on the steering wheel. My fingers ache. “I’ll do whatever it takes to help, Charlotte. That’s a promise.”

3.5

A
fter showering, I head to James’s to study. I’m falling behind in a few classes since I’ve been spending my afternoons gardening. Greta and James have agreed to help me catch up. Plus, Greta says we have to finish our topic presentation outline for Ms. Finch. Topics get approved this Friday.

James has made a cake. He leads me into the kitchen, steps aside and holds his arms out, like ta-freaking-da, showing off this lopsided monstrosity of a cake. Melody and Ella are posing next to the cake while Greta snaps a picture of it with her phone. She’s laughing so hard she’s wiping tears from her eyes.

“Isn’t it wonderful?” She’s practically cackling.

James leans against the fridge watching Greta laugh her ass off. “It’s carrot cake.” He winks at me, which is weird, and I hope never happens again. “Melody helped,” he says, tickling his little sister who is standing beside him.

“Wow, Mel. It looks great,” I say. She smiles her broadest smile.

“Jamie did the frosting,” she says, pinching off her smile and wrinkling her nose. “I would have made it prettier.”

“I don’t doubt that for a second,” Greta says lowering her phone and looking at the cake with new interest. “Carrot cake is my favorite.”

“I know,” James says with a satisfied smile on his face.

Greta’s about to step into his ginormous gorilla arms for a kiss, but she stops, her eyes darting toward me. Redirecting, she grabs forks from the drawer and fans them out toward us.

“Do you think it tastes as bad as it looks?”

James does a valiant job straightening the disappointed slump in his shoulders. He wanted a kiss, but got forked. He stabs a chunk of cake the size of my fist. “Guess there’s only one way to know.”

My friends are acting like dumbasses around me. I should let them off the hook. Say something like,
Oh, go on and kiss the big lug!

I should also close my door the next time Charlotte and Becca are watching their stupid old movies. Big lug? Who says that? I contemplate lobotomizing myself with my fork.

James cuts pieces for his sisters. They take them into the family room to finish a game of Pretty, Pretty Princess. I’m actually really good at that game. I always get the tiara.

Greta takes a bite of the lopsided cake and moans her approval. She and James tear into it like wolves over a fresh kill. I like carrot cake too, and I didn’t get a chance to eat before I came over, but I’ve lost my appetite. Maybe I should go play the princess game with the girls.

“So listen,” I blurt, determined to press on despite the weirdness. “We have a problem with Finch. My plan is failing. I hate to admit this, but I need help with a new plan.”

Greta takes another bite. “Let us have cake and figure it out, too.”

I look at James. “I’m not hungry.”

“Suit yourself,” Greta says with another mouthful of cake. “I say the key to figuring out what’s going wrong with our plan of attack lies in what’s really bugging Ms. Finch. She’s hiding something. Whiting knows what it is. We need to know, too. It’s probably a weakness we can exploit.”

That weakness is Charlotte. I don’t know why Charlotte is the key, I’m just sure I’m right. Like Euler’s Identity—I can’t solve it, but I know it’s true.

“Let’s agree to keep our ears and eyes open, but we need a plan in the meantime.”

Two-thirds of the way through the cake, we’ve rejected half a dozen ideas. James finally suggests something decent between giant mouthfuls of frosting. “Sometimes, when Mom is interviewing someone on the stand, she’ll do this hot and cold act. She fluctuates from friendly and understanding to hostile and intimidating in the bat of an eye. Eventually, the dude gets so confused he accidentally admits stabbing the bouncer in the eye with his granny’s knitting needle.”

“Brilliant,” says Greta. “Your mom is so my hero.”

“So you’re saying we need to act like we care?”

“Yes, particularly about poetry, because I think I’m developing a taste for it.” James rolls his eyes and shoves me. “What I’m saying is that we feed her positive reinforcement for her efforts to literature-ize us, but just when she looks comfortable we toss in a little sabotage.”

It’s a brilliant idea. By showing an interest in her class, Ms. Finch will spend more time preparing lessons to keep challenging us. It’s what she was trying to do in the beginning. When we first started ignoring her, she’d kept trying for a while, but as time wore on and the wall grew higher, she gave up. If she’s busy with lesson plans, Charlotte said Ms. Finch pays her less attention. By sprinkling in some negative reinforcement, we send a clear message to Ms. Finch that no one truly likes her dumb poetry. We’re all playing a game.

“Operant conditioning, eh? That could work.” Greta stands and smacks her hands on the counter. “How do we start?”

James grimaces. “We have to do an excellent job on our outline for this project of hers.”

“Got it. Academic suck-up mode,” Greta says, opening her laptop and our project notes. “Can do. But what about the sabotage?”

“I may have an idea.” I hop up from my stool and pull out my phone. “Ingrid’s been working on a new contact adhesive in chemistry.”

“Ingrid?” Greta sits up straighter, her fingers freeze over the keyboard. “And you’ve got her number on your phone?”

I pause mid-scroll. Her voice was a little too hopeful, like Becca’s when she needs a ride to the library. “Maybe? What’s it to you?”

“You and Ingrid…” James says, his fist extended for a bump.

“Are lab partners? Yes.”

James sings, “Getting freaky in the lab, oh, oh, oh.” He attempts to dance along with his impromptu song, but he looks like a rooster running in place.

“Stop, for the sake of our eyes and ears. Stop.” Greta throws her napkin at James, who slows his movements, but keeps doing a miniature version of his rooster dance. Turning to me, she says, “You should ask her out—I mean if you like her—maybe we could double?”

Great, my underage adoptive parents are trying to set me up.