not going to sit around all day while they try to find it.”
There were some papers in the box, including Cole’s birth certificate and his medical records, but Cole barely gave those a thought. He was far too upset about his drawings, and about another item, one he never mentioned to PW or to anyone else and which he tried to forget once it appeared that the box was probably missing for good. Something he’d managed to bring with him from the house in Little Leap and hold on to throughout his long illness. It had gone with him, washed and folded and tucked into a pocket, when it was time for him to leave the hospital and move to Here Be Hope. He had promised himself he would never lose it, but now it was gone: his mother’s blue bandanna.
COLE WAS EMBARRASSED by all the get-well calls and messages. He was embarrassed by all the prayers. He became flustered when Mason dropped by the house and greeted him with a high five. “You did good, bruh.”
Mason shrugged off Cole’s fear of having ruined the program. “What? We heard a little commotion, then silence for a bit, then ‘His Eye Is on the Sparrow.’ No biggie! Nothing for you to feel bad about. Besides, dude, it was yesterday.”
An echo of what both Boots and PW had already assured Cole, who nevertheless remained doubtful. You make a public spectacle of yourself, life can’t just go on like before, can it? True, no one laughed openly at him. But he didn’t think he was imagining it when, the next time he was at church, a few people avoided looking him in the eye.
Fortunately, there was something new for everyone to focus on: Starlyn’s birthday party. Actually, there were going to be two parties. One was the Saturday afternoon surprise party her aunt would be throwing in Salvation City. The other would take place in Louisville the Friday evening of the week before, a much bigger and more grown-up affair in the banquet room of a hotel: a dance party. Cole wished he could be at that party, too, mostly because he wanted to see Starlyn in the fancy new dress he’d heard her tell Tracy all about—specifically, to see how any dress that was both strapless and backless could stay on. And he was curious to see her date, her boyfriend, about whom there’d been talk as well.
It took his mind off his fresh humiliation to be working on Starlyn’s gift: a charcoal portrait based on one of Tracy’s many photographs of her niece. Tracy had also helped him pick out a frame for the drawing, one with real pressed flowers under the Plexiglas, which made Cole happy every time he looked at it.
Cole was fairly satisfied with how his drawing finally came out, but when he imagined Starlyn unwrapping it in front of everyone else he felt almost sick, and so he was more relieved than disappointed that there were so many presents for her to open, she couldn’t spend time fussing over any one of them. He could tell she liked the drawing from the way her eyes lit up when she peeled the paper away. In the photo she was smiling, but Cole had drawn her with her lips closed and slightly pursed. Tracy said it made her look like she was praying, but that wasn’t what Cole had been thinking about.
Starlyn scanned the crowded living room to find him, half hiding in a corner, and blew him a kiss. It was enough.
No, it was not enough. Not if he was honest. Maybe it was all those hours he’d spent poring over her photos, making sketches, working so hard to get her features right (and the nose, he’d despaired, would never ever be right). Now, from the safety of his corner, he could not take his eyes off her. Once, he happened to catch PW watching him watch her, and there was something in his look—not disapproval, exactly, but something that made Cole feel chastened nevertheless.
Maybe it was the lacy white slip she was wearing. Not that he hadn’t seen her and plenty of other girls dressed like that before. It was one more thing Boots could get worked up about: Gals coming to church half naked. But Starlyn, who was thin, and whose breasts were smaller than most girls’ her age, didn’t look as exposed as some other girls—or as Tracy—did. Cole had been surprised to learn that