Girl By Any Other Name Read online

  My mother loved Sylvie, too, although my father had made a few comments about how it might not be a smart idea to let Mandy hang out with her. He saw Sylvie as a girl he might have to arrest in a few years for drunk driving or drugs. Momma saw her as the poor child who’d lost a parent and needed guidance. Mandy saw her as an awesome, older best friend. To me, she became a strange spirit who floated in and out of our house. I was comfortable with her, but I had no idea why.

  Mr. Cranston hardly ever left home. He stayed in the house as if he were afraid of the outdoors. He had told my mother he worked from home, what they called a “telecommuter,” which sounded like a foreign word in Prairie. Strange he chose to be a hermit, especially since every single woman in a fifty-mile radius had asked him on a date. My mother had told them all to leave him alone since it was obvious the man was still mourning the death of his wife.

  Sylvie did the shopping except for the one time a month when her dad got in his Cadillac, took the ferry to the mainland, and came home with several large boxes, the contents too heavy for paper bags. Sylvie helped him carry them inside. The remnants of those trips would be visible in the coming weeks when his garbage bin overflowed with empty Glenlivet bottles. The sound of the garbage men dumping the contents of those bins into the truck was ear-splitting.

  My mother invited Sylvie to church with us, but she always refused. I found it interesting my mother liked Sylvie despite this. We weren’t religious nutcases or anything, but Momma had very specific feelings when it came to God and His house. It didn’t matter if you were black or white, Muslim or Jew, straight or gay, you would receive no judgment from Mrs. Tanner. It was for God to judge you, but you had better get your ass to some kind of worship so you could be properly judged by your Maker.

  On a warm Sunday in early, before church started, Momma had me and my buddy, Glen, carry out to Dad’s truck an old church door that needed to refinishing. My job consisted of carrying stuff so I was used to it.

  Sylvie sat behind the church on the swing set Pastor Morrison installed as a way to tire out the younger kids before service.

  “Are you coming?” Glen asked.

  “You go on,” I said.

  “They’re going to start service soon. Your momma’s gonna be pissed.”

  I wasn’t worried. Momma had joined the choir. When she stood up there in her flowing purple robe, singing hymns, she was too busy to look for me. My sister and father would be preoccupied watching her, too. “I’m fine.”

  He glanced at Sylvie and back at me. I could tell he was working up an insult. I shot him a warning look. Finally, he shrugged and went inside, muttering to himself.

  It had rained for the past two days. My feet sunk into the soft grass, leaving impressions of my Nike’s on the ground as I walked over to her and took the other swing. “You can come inside.”

  She laughed. “I don’t think there’s enough holy water to put out the sparks if I walked in there.” She bordered on blasphemy. Thank God, Momma wasn’t witnessing this. But then again, Sylvie would never say anything disrespectful in front of my mother, or anyone’s mother for that matter. She didn’t hesitate to show off her crazy to me, though.

  “Why are you here then?”

  “I like the swings.”

  Liar. The church walls were thin and Pastor Morrison’s voice carried. She would be able to hear the whole thing sitting right here. The music started then, the hymn filling the air around us. “The swings are always here. You don’t have to come on Sunday service to sit on the swings. There are swings outside the elementary school, and they are closer to your house.”

  When she turned toward me, I saw a fat tear forming at the corner of her eye. “Do you really believe in this stuff, Cal? You believe in God?”

  I shifted on the swing, surprised by the question, and a little uncomfortable with the whole tears thing. I didn’t handle crying girls well, except for Mandy, and only because her crying was more of a tantrum than anything else. “Yes, I believe.”

  Sylvie let out her now-familiar cynical laugh. “You believe God let His son die? You believe the serpent and the apple? You believe a man lived in the belly of a fish?”

  “I believe we were made by someone better than us, and He loves us. And we’re supposed to treat each other good. That’s all I need to believe.”

  She nodded and put her head down, moving back and forth on the swing, kicking up a few rocks in the process. “I used to believe in God, but He never believed in me.”

  “You’re wrong. He loves all of us.”

  She turned to me with a half-hearted smile. “Some more than others.”

  A fat tear rolled down her face, washing off the white powdery residue and revealing her natural olive tone. Her lower lip trembled, but she didn’t make any other sounds.

  I had no idea what to do. Part of me wanted to run inside the church and slam the door. The other part wanted to scream for Pastor Morrison because I figured this was some kind of Biblical emergency and he was the right man for the job. In the end, I did nothing very dramatic at all. Instead of wiping her tears or coming up with a consoling statement, I said nothing. Not one damn thing. I just took her hand and squeezed it.

  I expected her to seize up or run away, but instead, she tightened her fingers over mine. We didn’t talk again. We listened to the sermon from the swings. She ran off before the doors opened and the parishioners rushed out. I stared at her as she disappeared into the woods, her long hair blending in with the oaks and elms.

  Every Sunday after that was the same. I snuck out of church and sat with Sylvie during service. Momma was on to me, and I expected a stern lecture, but she surprised me by saying, “Everyone prays in a different way, Cal. You’re at church whether you’re sitting inside its walls or outside on its swings. Sylvie’s there, too.”

  That was how the First Methodist Church of Prairie ended up with two parishioners who preferred the swings over a pew.

  If it rained, I brought an umbrella. If it was cold, I brought a jacket for Sylvie. If it was hot, I brought juice boxes. I never asked her to go inside again. Most of the time, we didn’t talk. I didn’t register what that meant, but looking back, I realized it was because we were comfortable in silence. It was one thing to have a friend you could always converse with, but it was more special to find someone to share silence.

  “What are you reading?” Sylvie asked in a hushed whisper one afternoon.

  “The Bible.”

  “Liar. You’re not reading the Bible. You’re using it to hide the book you’re really reading. What is it?”

  “None of your business, nosy.”

  “Show me,” she said.

  “No,” I said, clutching the Bible and the paperback inside it closer to my chest.

  Sylvie jumped off her swing and practically pried the book out of my hands. If anyone was passing by, it would look like we were literally fighting over the Scriptures. My paperback fell to the ground. She lunged for it before my reflexes kicked in. She was surprisingly fast.

  “The poems of Edgar Allen Poe?” She turned the book over in her hands. “We’re supposed to read this one in high school.”

  I snatched the book out of her hand. “I’m glad you can read.”

  She shrugged. “Why are you embarrassed? I thought you were looking at dirty pictures the way you tried to hide it.”

  It would have been better if I was. “Don’t tell anyone.” I doubted the guys would think poetry was cool, even if it was about ghosts.

  She sat on her swing again. “I think you’re the smartest boy I know.”

  “You’re wrong.”

  She blinked her eyes at my goofy grin.

  “I’m the smartest person you know,” I corrected.

  “Can’t be, because I’m smarter than you.” She jutted her chin out in defiance.

  “You’re a smartass. There’s a difference.” I returned to the passage I was reading, doing my best to ignore her.

  “Why don’t you want peopl
e to know you like to read?”

  “Quit annoying me.”

  “Will you read to me?”

  “We’re supposed to be paying attention to the sermon. The only reason my momma lets me sit out here with you is because we listen to it.”

  “You’re not listening.” She had me there. “Read me one. Your favorite one. Please?”

  I sighed. “Fine.”

  I flipped to my favorite poem and quietly read “The Raven” to her. When I looked up, she stared at me with wide eyes and a wistful smile. Even my ignorant eleven-year-old self could appreciate her smile. It lit up her whole face.

  “It’s so pretty. I wonder what it means.”

  “I get what it means. He thought he heard the ghost of some girl named Lenore, a weird girl he used to know, but the whole time it was some stupid bird screaming how he’d never see her again.”

  “That sounds sad and romantic.”

  “Romantic? He was crazy,” I said, twirling my finger next to my head. Poe’s poem was a horror story through and through. Nothing else. And that’s why I loved it.

  “He had to love her very much if he kept seeing her.”

  “Maybe he just went bat-shit.”

  “Cal, don’t swear. We’re in church.” She wagged her finger at me.

  “Doesn’t count. We’re outside of it,” I said, gesturing to the open space between us and the building.

  “God can hear everything.”

  I chuckled. “Yeah, but Momma can’t.”

  She punched me in the arm.

  “Did you just punch me or was it the wind? Cause I can’t tell.” I could tell, though. She had a mean right hook.

  “Very funny.” She looked off into the woods. I wondered if she was going to bolt early. “There might be a raven calling to me, too. Do you think I’m crazy?”

  “Heck, yeah,” I said, impressed with myself for not saying “hell.” But I felt lousy when she looked at me with those big chocolate-colored eyes full of sorrow. I wanted to make her feel better. I wanted her to smile again. I knocked my knee into hers. “Girl, you’re such a weirdo,” I said, finding the most poetic words my childish mind could muster.

  She laughed in that cynical way of hers. “Yeah, you’re right. Bye.” She took off, sprinting into the woods.

  “Hey, Sylvie,” I called after her before she blended into the landscape. She stopped and turned, almost out of earshot. “Let’s go fishing tomorrow after school.”

  “I knew you’d take me,” she yelled back, giving me a real smile.

  * * * *

  Our legs dangled off the wooden dock, our bare feet skimming the cold blue water. The sun ricocheted off the Gulf of Mexico, causing it to reflect so bright, you couldn’t tell the sky from the water.

  “Are you ready to run, girl?” I held the fat, grubby, wiggly worm close to her face.

  Sylvie didn’t flinch. The girl had guts. “Give me that,” she said, grabbing it out of my hand and hooking it on the line the way I’d taught her. “Are you trying to scare me?”

  “Yeah,” I admitted.

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s fun. How come you’re not screaming or something?” Girls were never this calm in the face of writhing worms and bloody fish.

  She shrugged and casted the line, her long legs dangling over the dock. Her skirt skimmed the water, but she didn’t seem to mind. “I’ve seen scarier things than dangling worms.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like stuff. Now let me fish.”

  We sat in silence for a while. I was curious about what she meant, but I didn’t ask. She didn’t want me to. “Nothing bad ever happens in Prairie. My father protects this island. You don’t have to worry as long as he’s around.” She didn’t look convinced. “Or me,” I added. “I’m your Huckleberry.”

  She arched her eyebrow in confusion. “Like Huckleberry Finn? And I’m Tom Sawyer then?”

  I laughed. “Sort of. It’s what Doc Holiday said in Tombstone. It means I’m your buddy.”

  “The movie? I’ve never seen it.”

  “We can watch it some time. It’s not a girly movie, but you’ll like it.”

  “’Kay.”

  “So, you never get scared, huh?”

  “I didn’t say that.” She concentrated on her line, watching for movement in the water.

  “You really aren’t scared of anything.” The realization hit me all at once. She wasn’t like kids our age. Hell, she wasn’t like most adults either.

  “Because I’m not afraid of a stupid worm that can’t hurt me?”

  “Because you walk around the woods at night like a zombie. I’ve seen you leaving your house.” I would never admit it to her, but it impressed the hell out of me the woods didn’t creep her out. I could not say the same.

  “It doesn’t matter if you’re behind a locked door, under the covers, or walking around in the middle of the night. If something’s gonna get you, it’ll get you no matter what.”

  “I got a twelve-gauge that says different.”

  She tilted her head. “Your daddy show you how to use it yet?”

  I slumped my shoulders and sighed. “Not yet. He says maybe next year.” My father was really into gun safety. He talked to me about guns all the time—how to clean them, take care of them, and most importantly, when to use them—but I wasn’t allowed to handle one on my own. My friends’ dads had no problem with it. As the sheriff’s son, I should be able to handle a damn gun. It embarrassed the hell out of me.

  Dad promised if I passed his tests, I could go hunting with him when I was fourteen. At least I had that to look forward to.

  “I’m glad you don’t know. You might shoot your foot off,” she said in a mocking tone.

  I gave her the bird. In my opinion, it was the coolest way to swear. After all, if no one heard you, you weren’t really swearing. “I’m going to be a sure-shot. Don’t you worry about me—or yourself. Nothing bad ever happens in Prairie.”

  “Promise me you’ll be careful.” Usually, our conversations were lighter than this, but she stared me down with complete conviction in those brown eyes, waiting for an answer.

  “I’m not the one wandering around the woods in the dead of night.” I didn’t have the right words, but it was my way of warning her. My way of saying I was worried about her, too.

  She put her hand on my arm. Her voice wavered like she had something wedged in her throat. “I can’t sleep at night, and it helps me. You’re wrong about me. I’m freaked out all the time. Sometimes I get so scared it hurts. I feel it in my bones, like they might crack open any minute, breaking my insides apart.”

  I shifted my pole and reached for her hand. I hadn’t quite comprehended the value of hugging. “Maybe you should pray on it. Pastor Morrison says prayer can solve a lot of problems.”

  “You think that will work?” she asked, almost hopeful.

  I shrugged. “I wouldn’t know for sure. I don’t pray right myself.”

  She frowned, wrinkling her nose. “How can you pray wrong?”

  “Momma says I do it wrong all the time.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  I sighed, tilting my head up at the blue sky. “She always asks me what I prayed for. The first time I told her it was for a new bike and football cleats. She got real mad and said, ‘Son, you are praying to God, not Santa Claus.’” I had used my best Amelia Tanner impression, and the edges of Sylvie’s mouth curved up.

  “That sounds like your mom.”

  “Yeah, but I guess I didn’t learn my lesson because I asked her what I should pray for then. She said I should pray to be a better person.”

  “That’s a good idea.”

  “I thought so, too. I started praying God would make it so I could throw the football longer and run faster. Maybe help me get on the football team in high school.”

  Sylvie cupped her hand to her mouth to cover her laugh. I didn’t care. I wanted to make her laugh, even at my expense. “What did she say?”


  “She got pretty mad. Said I was being selfish, and since I couldn’t pray for myself correctly, I should pray for someone else.”

  “Who did you pray for?”

  I stared down at the lake. “I prayed for Mandy.”

  “That’s so sweet.”

  “Yeah, I asked God to make her less annoying.”

  Sylvie cracked up so much I was sure she’d run all the fish away, but I didn’t care. It was one of the best feelings in the world to make this girl laugh.

  “You didn’t.”

  “I did, but at least now I know what I need to pray on.”

  “What’s that, Cal?”

  I squeezed her hand. “I’ll pray you’re not scared anymore, Sylvie.”

  She was quiet for a minute, and I wondered if I said the wrong thing. “Thank you.” She said it barely above a whisper, but I heard it.

  I let go of her hand before she got too mushy on me. “You pray I run faster and throw the ball harder.”

  She stared at me curiously. “I don’t understand.”

  I shrug. “Figure it’s not selfish if someone else is doing the praying for you.”

  Chapter 4

  Present day

  “Morning, please pass your essays up to Jessica. Today, I want some insights into what you found out about each other and possibly yourselves. Who’d like to start?”

  Melanie Adams raised her arm, straight and high. She had a crush on me. I wasn’t vain, but I’d grown accustomed to this sort of thing. It’s a commonly known fact that a young instructor was bound to be the object of affection for some of his students. There were girls every semester like Melanie Adams, who applied fresh lipstick before my class, sat in the front row in tight sweaters, and always had the right answers.

  “I got The Great Gatsby, Professor. I’ve read it before so this assignment was easy for me.”

  “Just for clarification, I’m an instructor not a professor.”

  “What’s the difference?” she asked.

  “A chance for tenure, the word ‘doctor’ before my name, and thirty thousand dollars.” A few students chuckled. Some just seemed confused. “I’m still working toward my PhD. Please go on, Miss Adams. Tell me, what character traits you attribute to a person who loved such a novel?”