A Walk to Remember - By Nicholas Sparks Page 0,19
pulled at least a C—but it didn’t come naturally to me, if you know what I mean.
Anyway, I was writing one of my essays when the phone rang. The only phone we had was located in the kitchen, and I had to run down-stairs to grab the receiver. I was breathing so loudly that I couldn’t make out the voice too well, though it sounded like Angela. I immediately smiled to myself. Even though she’d been sick all over the place and I’d had to clean it up, she was actually pretty fun to be around most of the time. And her dress really had been something, at least for the first hour. I figured she was probably calling to thank me or even to get together for a barbecue sandwich and hushpuppies or something.
“Landon?”
“Oh, hey,” I said, playing it cool, “what’s going on?”
There was a short pause on the other end.
“How are you?”
It was then that I suddenly realized I wasn’t speaking to Angela. Instead it was Jamie, and I almost dropped the phone. I can’t say that I was happy about hearing from her, and for a second I wondered who had given her my phone number before I realized it was probably in the church records.
“Landon?”
“I’m fine,” I finally blurted out, still in shock.
“Are you busy?” she asked.
“Sort of.”
“Oh . . . I see . . . ,” she said, trailing off. She paused again.
“Why are you calling me?” I asked.
It took her a few seconds to get the words out.
“Well . . . I just wanted to know if you wouldn’t mind coming by a little later this afternoon.”
“Coming by?”
“Yes. To my house.”
“Your house?” I didn’t even try to disguise the growing surprise in my voice. Jamie ignored it and went on.
“There’s something I want to talk to you about. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”
“Can’t you just tell me over the phone?”
“I’d rather not.”
“Well, I’m working on my college application essays all afternoon,” I said, trying to get out of it.
“Oh . . . well . . . like I said, it’s important, but I suppose I can talk to you Monday at school. . . .”
With that, I suddenly realized that she wasn’t going to let me off the hook and that we’d end up talking one way or the other. My brain suddenly clicked through the scenarios as I tried to figure out which one I should do—talk to her where my friends would see us or talk at her house. Though neither option was particularly good, there was something in the back of my mind, reminding me that she’d helped me out when I’d really needed it, and the least I could do was to listen to what she had to say. I may be irresponsible, but I’m a nice irresponsible, if I do say so myself.
Of course, that didn’t mean everyone else had to know about it.
“No,” I said, “today is fine. . . .”
We arranged to meet at five o’clock, and the rest of the afternoon ticked by slowly, like the drips from Chinese water torture. I left my house twenty minutes early, so I’d have plenty of time to get there. My house was located near the waterfront in the historic part of town, just a few doors down from where Black-beard used to live, overlooking the Intracoastal Waterway. Jamie lived on the other side of town, across the railroad tracks, so it would take me about that long to get there.
It was November, and the temperature was finally cooling down. One thing I really liked about Beaufort was the fact that the springs and falls lasted practically forever. It might get hot in the summer or snow once every six years, and there might be a cold spell that lasted a week or so in January, but for the most part all you needed was a light jacket to make it through the winter. Today was one of those perfect days—mid-seventies without a cloud in the sky.
I made it to Jamie’s house right on time and knocked on her door. Jamie answered it, and a quick peek inside revealed that Hegbert wasn’t around. It wasn’t quite warm enough for sweet tea or lemonade, and we sat in the chairs on the porch again, without anything to drink. The sun was beginning to lower itself in the sky, and there wasn’t anyone on the street. This time I didn’t have to move my chair. It hadn’t been moved