“All I said was don’t get me in too much trouble today.” She buckles up, crossing her legs and staring straight ahead. “I’m trusting you with my future. I still think I can convince my dad to let me go to college. I’m trying to walk a very thin, narrow line here. That’s the only reason I let you talk me into signing out.”
“You trust me?”
“You’re good at this being bad stuff. You know what you’re doing.”
I pull out of the parking lot and come to a stop at the corner. “You’re okay with last week, right? We never had a chance to talk about it. You spent all weekend doing chores or some shit like that. I thought you were avoiding me.”
“How many times are you going to ask me?” she huffs. “I’m totally fine.”
My foot presses into the gas. “Just making sure.”
Waverly stares out the window, tracing her finger across a smudge on the glass. “So, where are we going?”
“Probably shouldn’t stick around town if you’re not wanting to be seen.” I roll down my window, letting the fresh air hit my face. Freedom is skipping some bullshit camp with a pretty girl by your side and no particular destination in mind.
“The next town over,” she says. “Hilldale. They have antique shops and little cafés.”
My lip curls up on one side. “I’m sorry, Waverly, but I am not going antiquing with you. I’m not your boyfriend, remember? You made that pretty clear just a little while ago.”
“So if you were my boyfriend, you would go antiquing with me?”
“Probably. But you’d have to blow me first.”
“You’re disgusting.”
“That’s how relationships work, just so you know. You do shit you don’t want to do and sometimes you have to bribe each other with sexual favors.” She smacks me hard across the arm, though it doesn’t much hurt. “And why the fuck does an eighteen-year-old want to go antiquing, anyway?”
We pull out onto the main road that veins through town east and west.
Waverly slinks a shoulder up to her ear. “I don’t know. It’s something to do.”
“You need to grow your imagination, then. I can think of a million other things to do that are better than antiquing.” I switch the radio on to a classic rock station. “What do you like to do in your free time?”
“Never had a whole lot of it. Most of my time is spent at home. Housework. Chores. I read books. That’s about it.”
“You’re killing me here. You know that, right?” I merge onto the interstate, rolling up my window. “Is there a theme park around here? A mall? Anything?” A big green sign a quarter mile down the road tells us we’re just fifteen miles away from the birthplace and lifelong home of Mormon poetess Elizabeth Wagner. “You know her?”
“I know of her, yes,” she says.
“You want to go see where she was born? It’s not much better than antiquing, but I get the feeling you don’t get out much, so I’m willing to go there, and you don’t even have to blow me.”
“I wouldn’t have blown you anyway, but yes, we can go there.” There’s a hint of a smile in her voice, and I think she’s kind of excited.
We follow the signs to a sleepy little town called Glen Oak that seems to encircle a small lake. About a mile down the road, just past a handful of boat ramps, is an old house stitched together with mudded timber. A white sign out front says: HOME OF ELIZABETH WAGNER.
“Found it.” I shut off the ignition and climb out.
Waverly runs to the sign, reading the scheduled tours. “Aw, they don’t start tours until four.”
A red sedan is parked outside the house. “Someone’s here. Won’t hurt to ask.”
I jog up to the front door and knock before checking the handle. The house is unlocked, so I motion for her to follow me.
“What are you doing?” She whispers her words and crouches down, like we’re a couple of burglars.
“Hello? Anyone here?” I call out. The house is small, a sparsely decorated living room to the right and an old timey kitchen to the left. A set of stairs is before us, and the sound of footsteps above tells us the owner of the red car is definitely here. “Hello?”
The footsteps move quicker until we see the feet of a woman at the top of the stairs. She climbs down gingerly, the stairs popping and cracking with each careful movement.
“We’re closed.” Her voice is gruff and old, tinted with small town fatigue.
“I know, but we’re just passing through, and my girlfriend here is a huge fan of Elizabeth Wagner’s work. It would mean the world to her if you—”
“Twenty minutes,” she says. “And don’t tell anybody. I’m just the cleaning lady.”
Waverly’s mouth parts into a smile a mile wide and she gives my arm a squeeze.
“See?” I say. “Ask for what you want and you just might get it.”
She scampers off toward the living room, oohing and ahhing over display cases filled with handwritten notes and letters by the poetess. A desk with Elizabeth’s actual feather quill and inkpot sits behind velvet ropes.
“This was her desk,” Waverly says. “Her actual desk. Where she wrote. She sat here.”
You’d think we were touring Graceland, or something. “Yeah. Very cool.”
She doesn’t pick up on my sarcasm, so I stand aside and watch her fawn over every square inch of this humble dwelling.
“She had twelve children,” Waverly said. “Can you imagine?”
“How many sister wives?” I tease.
“Several. Eight, I think? She was the first, though.”
I follow her into the kitchen, where she ogles teacups Elizabeth Wagner once drank from as well as a pie pan she used to bake her famous boysenberry pies with.
The cleaning lady tromps down the stairs, a plastic caddy and feather duster in her hands. “I’m done upstairs. As soon as I finish down here, I have to lock up. Consider this your ten-minute warning.”
We head up, the staircase barely two feet wide and steeper than shit. The upstairs contains a few small bedrooms—one appearing to be a master bedroom and the others filled with makeshift bunk beds and covered in ancient quilts.
“This is where she slept,” Waverly sighs, running her palm against the multi-colored fabric that covers a bed.
“Lay on it.” I shrug. “No one will know but you and me.”
She swats at me. “You’re a bad influence, you know that?”
“Do it, Waverly. I’m sure if Elizabeth were here, she’d be more than happy to entertain you in her home.”
Waverly laughs. “I highly doubt that. She allegedly wasn’t the nicest person, but man, could she string together some beautiful sentences.” She leans over the bed, inspecting every square inch of the quilt as if she’s fascinated. “I bet she sewed this herself. She was an avid quilt-maker. Best in the county.”
I take the opportunity to gently shove Waverly, forcing her on the bed. “Oops.”
She whips around. “Jensen!”
I fall into the bed, taking the spot next to her. “Oh, my goodness. I think I tripped over the chamber pot.”
I expect her to scramble up off the bed and chide me, but she doesn’t. She lays there, parallel to me, her head resting on her hand. A slow grin captures her face and her hair falls over her left eye. “You’re terrible.”
“You’re easily persuaded.”
“You’re a smooth-talking salesman.”
“I’m sure there are plenty of things I can’t talk you into doing.” I lean back on the bed, tucking my hands behind my head and staring up at the wooden ceiling. God, growing up in the 1800s would’ve been mind-numbingly dull.
“You really think I’m that uptight still?”
“You are that uptight. Still.”
“I’m trying not to be,” she says, her hand across her chest. “I’ve gotten better. Uptight Waverly wouldn’t have snuck out to go to a concert with you. Uptight Waverly wouldn’t have signed herself out of Camp Zion.”
I love how we’re just lying in Elizabeth Wagner’s bed, in her museum, yakking away like it’s the most natural thing on earth. But that’s the beauty of being with Waverly—she tends to make everything else irrelevant.