“Yes,” I said. “He’s half horse and his group of friends are talking narwhals.”
Thom clapped loudly enough that a man nearby lowered his newspaper and scowled. “There’s one school for the county,” I told Thom. Otters Holt felt exotic to me. Very third world. Nashville was awash with magnet schools, private schools, and specialized academies. Families didn’t have to be very rich to send kids on this educational path, just very dedicated. My parents had been very dedicated; Thom’s parents, by way of Thom’s grandparents, were very rich. But neither of us had much experience with women. Waylan’s lower and middle schools were all-boys as well.
Thom tapped his mug, counting aloud to eight, and said, “Eight hours of ladies or gentlemen, good sir. This will increase your odds of coitus by a factor of at least five. Ruminate on that advantage.”
“You want me to find a country girl to have sex with?” I asked, as this seemed very unlikely.
“Yes, and I want her to call you darlin’ and you to call her sweet pea, and the two of you to buy a lifetime supply of overalls from Carhartt. If you don’t get Daisy Mae pregnant in three months, I’ll be devastated.” I nearly smiled, and he laughed for my benefit.
“When I visit my granddad, I live on my computer,” I said as if it were a solution, a dismissal of dating anyone or finding friends. “You remember when we watched all those dog videos?”
“Dude, you can’t watch dog videos for a year.”
“What am I supposed to do?”
“I want you to figure out how ‘happiness’ works in Otters Holt. Happiness is a noun, David. Shall we go and look it up?”
We had a rare books section at the Waylan Academy library. There was a partial Oxford Dictionary collection from 1884. One of Thom’s favorite “games” in junior high involved me stopping whatever I was doing and following him to the library, where he would look up a mundane word—happiness, fear, worry—and read the definition aloud in an English accent. Charming as hell, he’d cock his head to the side and repeat, “Happiness, noun, the state of being happy.” I’d then counter-argue that he should look up happy, and we’d be caught in a loop of words and fake accents, which meant nothing except that we were dorks.
“Happiness is an emotion,” I groaned.
“Of which you are capable. I’ve witnessed the phenomenon.”
“Well, if you transform Otters Holt into LaserCon, that will be fine,” I said. LaserCon was a large but local cosplay conference we had attended since we were old enough to insist our fire-retardant Spider-Man pajamas were costumes. Thom even hosted the occasional costume party dates here at Bonjo. Pop culture nerds need other pop culture nerds. I suspected he also planned these parties at times when I was the most keyed up—near a big game, after a failed date, when my father was cruel.
He began, “I could throw a party there, but I don’t think I can—”
Then I hmmed. All my truly ingenious ideas sounded like engines.
“What’s with the hmm-ing?”
“My dad’s not going with us,” I said.
“I rather think not.”
“So I might be there, but I won’t be subject to his rules anymore.”
John Winters loves me. But he loves the idea of turning me into him more. On more than one occasion, I’d let him. Without his influence, I could breathe.
“You can be whoever you want there.”
“Hell, I can be myself,” I said.
Maybe I could put my intensity to work on something other than lacrosse or grades. I could experiment with who I was when the overlord departed the kingdom. I wasn’t anxious to try this apart from Thom, but I was suddenly anxious for freedom I’d never had.
Thom smiled easily, and told me he would purchase a cookie of any size or variety if I could find the real David Winters within a ten-mile radius of Molly the Corn Dolly. He twisted his Waylan ring again. “New self. New name? You can even be Davey there if you want.”
“Big T already calls me Davey.”
“Okay then. Old place. Old name. Davey Winters. God, that sounds like you’re picking hay already.”
“I believe you bale hay,” I said.
“See, you’re already getting the hang of things.”
6
A typical church day looks like this for me: doughnuts, Sunday school, church service, lunch, homework, youth group. A typical church day for Dad looks like this: work, work, extra meetings, work, more work. Today, there are two extra meetings: one with the deacons, one with the youth group parents.
I offer to attend the parents’ meeting, to apologize. Thankfully, he declines. “At the end of the day, I’m the one responsible. It happened on my watch,” he says.
The parsonage phone has rung off the hook all week. The other deacons are churning milk into cream. I overheard the words “fired” and “Brother Scott” and they were not in reference to flames. Two parishioners stopped me at the BI-LO this week—one sympathetic, one gossipy. I was buying broccoli for Mom. “Bless your heart. I’ll bet it’s hard to be at the center of things.” And in the frozen foods aisle. “That article in the paper true?”
Then, when I was bent over, running my thumb over a Hershey’s bar to check for maximum almonds, two plump ladies had a conversation at my expense. “We’ll just see how Brother Scott disciplines his daughter this time,” they said. “That Miller girl’s involved too,” they hinted. “Those two are up to no good,” they speculated.
As if Janie Lee and I were alone in that youth room with a blowtorch.
I expect more of the same today.
Sunday School is held in the basement fellowship hall instead of the youth room. The youth could stomach the destruction—big fans have been drying the water damage all week. Right after the opening prayer, Dad said, “Everyone better be here tonight. After I talk to your parents, we’re discussing the incident. In detail.”
Janie Lee turns a wicked shade of green at his sternness, which makes me want to Bubble Wrap her. My dad’s the closest thing to a father figure she has. She’s been partially grounded all week, logging hours at Bleach because of the newspaper article. Attention means skittish customers, and skittish customers make for an unhappy Mrs. Miller. The rest of the Hexagon looks equally uncomfortable.
But by Sunday night, Janie Lee isn’t the only one who could use some Bubble Wrap. I make the mistake of sitting outside the meeting room and listening to the deacons whale on Dad, skittering around the corner only just before the first wave of them pours from the room, mouths still foaming with verbal rabies. I count to one hundred, slow my heartbeat, and take the back stairs to Youth Suite 201.
The fans are still blowing. Teens mill about, heading in and out of the suite, trying to sneak food before dinnertime. Woods Carrington hangs from the doorframe of 201, blocking anyone who wants to enter. He winks at me. I wink back. And there we are caught up in a moment of closeness even though we are fifteen feet apart.