Wilder Girls - Rory Power Page 0,56
first with its head bent. I watch as it rips a bite out of the wounded deer, coming away with a mouthful of flesh, blood staining the white fur on its throat.
I should be surprised. But I only feel a flicker of recognition. We’re all like that on Raxter. We all do whatever it takes to survive.
I balance the shotgun on my shoulder and keep after Reese. We’re not far from her house.
* * *
—
It took until spring of my first year for Reese to invite us over. We’d spent third-quarter break on campus, all three of us together—Byatt didn’t want to go home, so I didn’t either—and when school started up again Reese was easier somehow. Still never smiling, still quiet and closed, but at lunch she started letting me cut ahead of her in line. In English she lent me her copy of The Scarlet Letter when she saw I’d lost mine, said she’d read it already even though I knew she hadn’t.
One night she showed up to dinner and she wasn’t wearing her uniform. We were supposed to wear skirts and collars from sunup to sundown on weekdays, but there she was, jeans and a ratty old sweatshirt, and she said, “Thought we’d eat at my place.”
We followed her out through the double doors, down the walk to where two bikes were leaning against the fence. I never had one, never learned to ride, so I waited and tried not to look anxious as Byatt climbed onto hers. I remember wondering if they’d leave me behind. Reese hadn’t technically invited me. She hadn’t named names.
“Come on,” Byatt said. “Get on the handlebars.”
“People only do that in movies,” I said. But I straddled the wheel, eased myself onto the bars.
It was starting to stay light out in the evenings, and as we flew down the road there was sun everywhere, glare reaching in off the ocean. I wanted to be the girl who closes her eyes, tips her head back. Instead, I asked Byatt to slow down.
Reese’s house backed onto the beach, low-slung and weathered, like it grew up out of the reeds. As we got nearer I could see a dock behind the house, stretching out into the waves, and two rowboats bobbing at their mooring. And on the front porch, waving to us, Mr. Harker. Tall, broad. Hair trimmed neat, like my dad’s Navy cut.
“You made it,” he said, and came down the steps to help me off Byatt’s bike. It made me nervous, I remember, seeing him so close up. We saw him through classroom windows, and we saw him across the grounds as he mowed the lawn and cleaned the gutters, but this—a man, his calloused hand on my arm. I forgot I could be afraid of them.
It’s only a moment, though. A prick in the cloth. We went inside, to one long room, the whole of the house right there at our feet. And the food smelled good, better than the dining room food, and there were photos of Reese on the wall. Reese learning to swim. Reese halfway up a tree, grinning down at the camera. I couldn’t take my eyes off her the whole night. It was like she made sense, finally, in her father’s house, with mismatched furniture and the back door thrown open.
“I hope the place looks okay,” he said to us when Reese took the plates to the kitchen. “We don’t have much company over.”
“It looks great,” I said, and I meant it. I never missed my house much, but that night I did.
Afterward, Byatt and I waited at the end of the driveway while Reese said goodbye. She was leaning in, saying something I couldn’t hear, and then Mr. Harker laughed and laid his palm against her forehead.
Byatt looked away, but I didn’t. I watched Reese smile, watched her roll her eyes. “Still fits,” I heard him say.
My own father, tour after tour, day after day of being gone. We never knew each other like that.
Sky streaked rose, stars faint and new. We were quiet the whole ride home.
* * *
—
I have that day fresh in my mind, the image of her house so clear. Pale green siding and white trim, windows only just installed. New shingles on the roof—repairs after that year’s hurricane.
We crossed the road a while back, to the north side of the island, and I can tell we’re getting closer to the shore. Under our feet the ground is damp