Fran eventually went through a growth spurt, which put a stop to that; Ophelia was still tiny, even now. And far as Fran could figure, Ophelia hadn’t changed much in most other ways: pretty, shy, spoiled, and easy to boss around. The rumor was her family’d moved full-time to Robbinsville from Lynchburg after a teacher caught Ophelia kissing another girl in the bathroom at a school dance. It was either that or Mr. Merck being up for malpractice, which was the other story, take your pick.
“Ophelia Merck,” Fran said. “I need you to tell Nurse Tannent you’re gone to give me a ride home right now.”
Ophelia opened her mouth and closed it. She nodded.
Fran’s temperature was back up again, at 102. Tannent even wrote Ophelia a note to go off campus.
“I don’t know where you live,” Ophelia said. They were in the parking lot, Ophelia searching for her keys.
“Take the county road,” Fran said. “129.” Ophelia nodded. “It’s up a ways on Wild Ridge, past the hunting camps.” She lay back against the headrest and closed her eyes. “Oh, hell. I forgot. Can you take me by the convenience first? I have to get the Roberts’ house put right.”
“I guess I can do that,” Ophelia said.
At the convenience, she picked up milk, eggs, whole wheat sandwich bread, and cold cuts for the Roberts, Tylenol and more NyQuil for herself, as well as a can of frozen orange juice, microwave burritos, and Pop-Tarts. “On the tab,” she told Andy.
“I hear your pappy got himself into trouble the other night,” Andy said.
“That so,” Fran said. “He went down to Florida yesterday morning. He said he needs to get right with God.”
“God ain’t who your pappy needs to get on his good side,” Andy said.
Fran coughed and bent over. Then she straightened right back up. “What’s he done?” she said.
“Nothing that can’t be fixed with the application of some greaze and good manners,” Andy said. “You tell him we’ll get it all settled when he come back.”
Half the time her daddy got to drinking, Andy and Andy’s cousin Ryan were involved, never mind it was a dry county. Andy kept the liquor out back in his van for everwho wanted it and knew to ask. The good stuff came from over the county line, in Andrews. The best stuff, though, was the liquor Fran’s daddy brought Andy every once in a while. Everyone said that Fran’s daddy’s brew was too good to be strictly natural. Which was true. When he wasn’t getting right with God, Fran’s daddy got up to all kinds of trouble. Fran’s best guess was that, in this particular situation, he’d promised to supply something that God was not now going to let him deliver. “I’ll tell him you said so.”
Ophelia was looking over the list of ingredients on a candy wrapper, but Fran could tell she was interested. When they got back into the car Fran said, “Just because you’re doing me a favor doesn’t mean you need to know my business.”
“Okay,” Ophelia said.
“Okay,” Fran said. “Good. Now maybe you can take me by the Roberts’ place. It’s over on—”
“I know where the Roberts’ house is,” Ophelia said. “My mom played bridge over there all last summer.”
The Roberts hid their spare key under a fake rock just like everybody else. Ophelia stood at the door like she was waiting to be invited in. “Well, come on,” Fran said.
There wasn’t much to be said about the Roberts’ house. There was an abundance of plaid, and everywhere Toby mugs and statuettes of dogs pointing, setting, or trotting along with birds in their gentle mouths.
Fran made up the smaller bedrooms and did a quick vacuum downstairs while Ophelia made up the master bedroom and caught the spider that had made a home in the wastebasket. She carried it outside. Fran didn’t quite have the breath to make fun of her for this. They went from room to room, making sure that there were working bulbs in the light fixtures and that the cable wasn’t out. Ophelia sang under her breath while they worked. They were both in choir, and Fran found herself evaluating Ophelia’s voice. A soprano, warm and light at the same time, where Fran was an alto and somewhat froggy, even when she didn’t have the flu.
“Stop it,” she said out loud, and Ophelia turned and looked at her. “Not you,” Fran said. She ran the tap water in the kitchen sink until it was clear. She coughed for a long time and spat into the drain. It was almost four o’clock. “We’re done here.”
“How do you feel?” Ophelia said.
“Like I’ve been kicked all over,” Fran said.
“I’ll take you home,” Ophelia said. “Is anyone there, in case you start feeling worse?”
Fran didn’t bother answering, but somewhere between the school lockers and the Roberts’ master bedroom, Ophelia seemed to have decided that the ice was broken. She talked about a TV show, about the party neither of them would go to on Saturday night. Fran began to suspect that Ophelia had had friends once, down in Lynchburg. She complained about the calculus homework and talked about a sweater she was knitting. She mentioned a girl rock band that she thought Fran might like, even offered to burn her a CD. Several times, she exclaimed as they drove up the county road.
“I never get used to it, to living up here year-round,” Ophelia said. “I mean, we haven’t even been here a whole year, but… It’s just so beautiful. It’s like another world, you know?”
“Not really,” Fran said. “Never been anywhere else.”
“Oh,” Ophelia said, not quite deflated by this comeback. “Well, take it from me. It’s freaking gorgeous here. Everything is so pretty it almost hurts. I love the morning, the way everything is all misty. And the trees! And every time the road snakes around a corner, there’s another waterfall. Or a little pasture, and it’s all full of flowers. All the hollers.” Fran could hear the invisible brackets around the word. “It’s like you don’t know what you’ll see, what’s there, until suddenly you’re in them. Are you applying to college anywhere next year? I was thinking about vet school. I don’t think I can take another English class. Large animals. No little dogs or guinea pigs. Maybe I’ll go out to California.”
Fran said, “We’re not the kind of people who go to college.”
“Oh,” Ophelia said. “You’re a lot smarter than me, you know? So I just thought…”
“Turn here,” Fran said. “Careful. It’s not paved.”
They went up the dirt road, through the laurel beds, and into the little meadow with the nameless creek. Fran could feel Ophelia suck in a breath, probably trying her hardest not to say something about how beautiful it was. And it was beautiful, Fran knew. You could hardly see the house itself, hidden like a bride behind her veil of climbing vines: virgin’s bower and Japanese honeysuckle, masses of William Baffin and Cherokee roses overgrowing the porch and running up over the sagging roof. Bumblebees, their legs armored in gold, threaded through the meadow grass, almost too weighed down with pollen to fly.
“It’s old,” Fran said. “Needs a new roof. My great-grandaddy ordered it out of the Sears catalog. Men brought it up the side of the mountain in pieces, and all the Cherokee who hadn’t gone away yet came and watched.” She was amazed at herself: next thing she would be asking Ophelia to come for a sleepover.
She opened the car door and heaved herself out, plucked up the poke of groceries. Before she could turn and thank Ophelia for the ride, Ophelia was out of the car, as well. “I thought,” Ophelia said uncertainly. “Well, I thought maybe I could use your bathroom?”
“It’s an outhouse,” Fran said, deadpan. Then she relented: “Come on in, then. It’s a regular bathroom. Just not very clean.”
Ophelia didn’t say anything when they came into the kitchen. Fran watched her take it in: the heaped dishes in the sink, the pillow and raggedy quilt on the sagging couch. The piles of dirty laundry beside the efficiency washer in the kitchen. The places where hairy tendrils of vine had found a way inside around the windows. “I guess you might be thinking it’s funny,” she said. “My dad and I make money doing other people’s houses, but we don’t take no real care of our own.”