“Who lives here?” Agnes asks.
Before I can answer, the door swings open and a tall, skinny boy is standing there. He’s got a mop of reddish-blond hair and eyes like sweet tea. Eyes that can only belong to a Dickinson. And right now, they’re staring, real wide, right back at Agnes and me.
“Bo? What are you—?”
“Hey, Colt,” I say, giving him a half-guilty smile. “I need a favor.”
“So x would equal fifteen.”
Bo stared down at the paper where I’d been working the problem with a thick black marker. “Wow,” she said. “Seems a hell of a lot easier when you do it. Mr. Ryan makes it look so hard.”
“Yeah.” I capped the marker and dropped it onto the dinner table. “He’s not real clear when he teaches. And he’d always forget to make large copies of the homework when I had his class, too. Mama ended up going down to the school to give him a talking-to more than once.”
“Seems like your mama really fights for you.”
“She does. It’s embarrassing sometimes.”
“I think it’s great,” Bo said. “If I was you, I wouldn’t be embarrassed at all.”
And, like she’d been summoned, Mama and her big blond hair appeared in the kitchen doorway. “Sorry to bother y’all again.” She probably didn’t emphasize the again, but I sure heard it that way. This was the fourth time she’d come out of the kitchen in the past hour, always with some excuse for why she needed to poke around the dining room for a few minutes.
When I’d told her Bo Dickinson was coming over, she’d been surprised, to say the least. But she hadn’t said no. Or tried to discourage me from spending time with Bo. Which, honestly, I’d half expected her to do. My parents had never been as outright hateful toward the Dickinsons as Grandma was, but still. Bo Dickinson wasn’t exactly the girl parents around here wanted their kids hanging out with after school.
I think she was winning Mama over, though. She’d been real polite since she got here, and even complimented the cookies Mama had made from scratch. And now, my guess was, Mama had just overheard our conversation about Mr. Ryan and how Bo didn’t think she’d done anything embarrassing by confronting him. I imagine she probably liked that an awful lot.
“You girls need anything?” Mama asked. “Some tea or more cookies, maybe?”
“No, thank you, Mrs. Atwood,” Bo said.
I shook my head. Just like I’d done when she’d asked fifteen minutes ago.
“All right. Well, if you change your mind, just let me know. I’ll be in here on the phone with your sister, Agnes. I’ll tell Gracie you said hello.”
“Thanks, Mama.”
When she left the dining room again, Bo said, “That reminds me. I gotta call my cousin and make sure he’s still taking me to Dana’s party tonight. You coming?”
“Coming … where?”
“To Dana’s party.”
“Oh.” I shook my head. “No. I don’t really go to parties. They’re usually pretty dark, and my vision is even worse when there’s not much light. It’s just too much of a pain for Christy or someone else to guide me around all night, so …”
“I’ll do it,” Bo said.
“Do what?”
“Jesus, you don’t listen for shit, do you?” She laughed. “I’ll guide you around all night. I don’t mind.”
“Oh. No, that’s all right. I couldn’t be a burden.”
“You ain’t a burden,” Bo said. “Come on. It’ll be fun.”
It was something I never in a million years thought would happen—Bo Dickinson sitting in my dining room, inviting me to a party. And it certainly wasn’t something I’d ever thought I’d want to say yes to so badly.
It wasn’t a good idea, hanging out with Bo. People would talk. I was having a hard time caring about that as much as I ought to, though. Because I’d never been to a party before, and the idea of going with someone like Bo, someone who didn’t treat me like deadweight or a thing to be pitied …
“Mama?” I hollered. “You on the phone yet?”
She was back in the doorway in half a second. “No, but if I was, yelling at me would be awful rude, now wouldn’t it?”
“Sorry,” I said. “Can I go to a party at Dana Hickman’s tonight? With Bo?”
“Oh. Um …” She hesitated, and I wished I could see the details of her face, be able to use that to know what she was thinking. “Well …”
I felt a little guilty all of a sudden. I could tell by Mama’s voice that she didn’t want to say yes. Of course she didn’t. I was asking to go to a party with a Dickinson. But I’d put her on the spot by asking in front of Bo. There was no easy way to say no.
“Uh … Will there be parents there?” she asked.
“I think so,” Bo said. Though, from everything Christy had told me about the parties she’d gone to, that seemed real unlikely.
“Well … uh … I guess that’ll be okay.” She sounded a little defeated. “But you’ll have to be home by ten thirty.”