Circa Now Read online

  “It’s okay, Nat. I knew what you meant.”

  “Besides,” Circa said, “it’s good that summer started early, because now I’ll have more time for the Maple Grove project.”

  “Oooh,” said Nattie. “That wall of pictures thing? You mean you get to work on it?”

  “On the whole rest of it,” said Circa. “My dad’s been teaching me how.”

  “Wow, cool, Circ,” said Nattie as she waved a mosquito off. “I bet you’ll do great.”

  “Thanks,” said Circa, smiling at the big drip of sweet that was Nattie. She thought about how extra tough it was going to be in the fall when she had to move to middle school without Nattie by her side. She’d still have her close by at home and church, but for so many reasons now, that just didn’t seem like enough.

  The girls walked the fake-grassy carpet up to the church building’s main entrance.

  “Nat?” said Circa.

  “Yeah?”

  “What in the world is a shmoo?”

  The two of them squeezed through the glass doors in a stifled fit of giggles.

  The cash prize for the most flapjacks eaten at the country store was five dollars. Sadly, Flora Mae had been cursed with a tiny stomach. Not one for giving up, Flora thought of her own contest. Fortunately, she simultaneously befriended a robot drifter named Jimbob 3000, who was content with doing nothing all day except for keeping Flora Mae’s tower of flapjacks from tipping over. Three hours later, discouraged by the lack of interest in her contest and suffering a fierce headache, Flora ate the stale flapjacks and sold Jimbob for five dollars to the proprietors of the dangerously leaning Umbrella Rock.

  After that, church services were a two-hour blur of hugs and nods and lingering eye contact from adults who’d never spoken directly with Circa before that summer. Circa was glad to sit in the room at the back with Mom this time. It was a good break from the overdose of pity. Plus, this time Nattie’s family was in there with them, which made the three-pewed room full of snoring old people and crying brand-new people a lot more pleasant. Mrs. Boone leaned over and said she’d bring some milk and bread and eggs over to the house tomorrow. Circa secretly hoped she might even throw in a peanut butter pie.

  Once worship service was over, everyone filed out into the lobby like always, only this time Circa stood quiet and still next to Mom, who seemed to lean against her daughter more and more with every handshake. This must be what it’s going to be like for me to be the rock instead of Mom, thought Circa. As she irritably shuffled through a stack of tracts on the visitors’ desk, the secretary from the church office approached Mom and handed her a baggie with what looked to be an old photograph inside.

  “It’s the original church building in 1929, on the very day it was completed,” the lady explained to Mom. “I’d told your husband I would give it to him this week to include on the wall at Maple Grove. It’s got a few small worn spots, but it should still fit in nicely with the photos he’s already spruced up.” She held on to Mom’s hand and patted it. “I’m so sorry for your loss,” she said. “I’m grateful that the wall will be a showcase of Mr. Monroe’s legacy.”

  Circa felt a sudden glimmer of hope for the project. She watched Mom’s face. Unfortunately, Mom’s expression remained flat.

  “Thank you for the thought,” Mom responded. “But you should probably hang on to this.”

  She handed the baggie back to the lady. Circa felt a twitchy urge to grab it.

  “I’m sorry to say that Studio Monroe won’t be involved with the Memory Wall after all,” Mom explained. “There was so much still left undone when the accident happened.”

  “Oh,” said the lady, fanning herself with the photo. “Oh my. It seems that I’ve been terribly insensitive. Please forgive me. I thought—”

  “It’s okay,” said Mom. “Really. It’s okay.”

  Mom nudged Circa slightly as if to herd her across the lobby. Then, at once, Circa was overwhelmed with a sense that her arms were no longer under her brain’s control. She reached out and snatched the baggie from the woman’s hand. “I’ll keep it,” she said.

  Mom stiffened. The secretary blushed and gently took the photo right back. “That’s all right, sweetie; it was rude of me to assume. I’ll just tuck it back into the church scrapbook.”

  “No!” Circa raised her voice. She grabbed at the baggie again, squeezing it so firm this time, she felt the little picture crinkle inside. “CAN’T. YOU. HEAR. ME? I. SAID. I’LL. KEEP. IT,” she demanded.

  Even Circa was surprised at her own words. Apparently her arms weren’t the only thing she’d lost control of. Mom stood there looking stunned. And so did the woman, and so did the Boones. Why in the world did everyone in the whole lobby have to stand there looking stunned? Circa thought as she let go of the photo. Then, of all places, of all moments, it happened. For the first time all weekend, she broke down in tears.

  The woman backed away with the retrieved wrinkled baggie, saying again more quietly, “That’s okay, hon. Like I said, it was rude of me to ask. I’ll just return it to the scrapbook. Don’t you fret. No harm done.”

  “Circa Monroe, you are riding home in the car,” said Mom under her breath, taking hold of Circa’s elbow and leading her toward the exit like she was escorting some kind of major shmoo. A shmoo who’d just totally lost it in front of her mother and her best friend. A shmoo who’d just crumpled an old photo and talked ugly to an old lady. A shmoo who could think of nothing more than how her dad would have hated everything about all that.

  Circa felt herself quivering at the knees. Nattie shuffled to catch her and Mom at the door.

  “Um, can I ride too, Mrs. Monroe?” she said. “So me and Circa can talk some more?”

  Mom looked from Nattie to Circa to Mrs. Boone and then back to Nattie. “I suppose so,” she said with a sigh.

  “Nattie,” said Mrs. Boone. “You just be sure and come on home after that, so you can help me with Durret while I make lunch, you hear?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Nattie, following Mom and Circa out the door.

  Mom grabbed Circa’s arm again as Nattie climbed into the backseat. “Look, I know you’re hurting, Circa,” she whispered. “We all are. But you cannot be acting like that to people who care about you, okay?” Circa noticed that for such fussing, Mom had a good dose of pity in her voice. The two of them joined Nattie inside the car, where Circa buckled her seat belt and dried her face on her sleeve.

  “Okay?” Mom repeated.

  Circa nodded as she stared at a stain on the floor mat. Nattie began to chew on her longest braid. Circa felt a bit sorry for her friend, who surely already regretted coming along.

  “I could have fixed that picture,” Circa said, super quiet, knowing full well that she was on thin ice.

  “You almost ruined that picture,” said Mom, pulling to a stop at the lowering railroad crossing arm.

  Nattie made a quit it before you get in big trouble face at Circa.

  “Can we maybe go visit the Maple Grove people today?” asked Circa.

  Since church services were pretty much the extent of her outings, Mom had never been to Maple Grove. But Circa secretly hoped it might sway her a bit if she got to see that empty wall and meet those people and want to help them reach their stories. To feel the Dadness that was still there.

  “Not today,” Mom said.

  “Then when?” said Circa.

  The train seemed to last forever. Mom put the car into park.

  “Forgive me, Nat,” she said. “But I have something serious to say to Circa right now.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Nattie, without even dropping the braid from her mouth.

  “Circa, listen to me,” Mom said. “You know I loved your dad’s life more than my own, just like I love your life more than my own. I don’t want all of that stuff to go away either, but I simply have no choice about it. I
’ve got nothing against the people at Maple Grove, Circa. You know that. I pray for them every day.” Mom squeezed hard at the steering wheel. “But I’m not Dad enough to fill those shoes, Circa,” she said. “And neither are you.”

  Mom looked at Circa in the rearview mirror. “And that’s all right,” she said.

  But it’s not all right, thought Circa. It was far from all right. How did Mom know Circa couldn’t fill Dad’s shoes if she wouldn’t even let her stick her toe in?

  Circa stared out the window at the heaps of coal zooming by. She imagined the splendid Shopt graffiti Dad could have added to that train. “But I don’t want to be him,” she said stubbornly. “I just want to be like him.”

  Mom puffed out her cheeks like she was full up with something. Nattie chewed a second braid.

  “Circa Monroe, you are eleven years old,” Mom said. “You deserve to be a kid…to have recess and kick a ball around and wiggle your loose molars. That’s your job. You are just not able to pick up where your father left off, nor should you feel like you have to.”

  Circa felt the ugliness welling up inside her again. She wanted to say, Well, somebody’s got to pick up where he left off because you’re sure not gonna. But then she looked at Nattie, who was about to squirm right out of her seat, and she softened her tune a bit.

  “Not have to,” Circa protested. “Want to.”

  Drop it drop it drop it, signaled Nattie. But Circa was unfazed. She unsnapped her purse and pulled out the edited picture. As the train rushed past, she unfolded the photo and held it up for Mom to see.

  “Bet you can’t find the Shopt thing,” she challenged.

  Nattie was so puzzled she froze her chewing. Then Mom sighed big and pointed right to the top of the tree.

  “The nest, baby. The nest,” she said before the caboose could even pass them by. And with those measly five words alone, a thousand-pound realization came crashing down hard on Circa. That nearly all the good stuff in her life was speeding away from her even faster than that train.

  As the striped arm went up, signaling that it was safe to cross over into the rest of the Monroes’ miserable life, an oblivious Nattie poked her friend on the leg. “Shopt?” she mouthed.

  “Nothing,” said Circa. She’d never shared Shopt stuff with Nattie before, or with anyone for that matter, because Dad made her promise she would keep it in the family. He didn’t want anyone outside the studio to know about the Shopt stuff, in case customers found out and thought he was goofing on them or their ancestors. Besides, Circa sure didn’t feel like explaining herself under these miserable circumstances. She suddenly felt pinched by two guilts at once, for almost letting the secret slip in front of Nattie and, in turn, for excluding her best friend in the first place. In utter frustration, Circa tore the photo to bits and let them drop at her feet, vowing inside to plant herself in Dad’s office chair and set to work again as soon as this wretched drive was over.

  There was so much sadness and quiet stuffed into the car, Circa thought Nattie might never ask to ride anywhere with them again. Then, suddenly, at the end of the drive, something happened that instantly distracted the three passengers from their funk. They saw it as soon as they turned onto Delp Street. There, climbing clumsily out of the Monroes’ backyard over their own wooden fence, was a stranger. A boy, who struggled hard to free his shirt from between the planks.

  “Mom,” said Circa, her heart racing. “Look.”

  “I see him,” Mom said. “What in the world is he doing?”

  To Circa’s surprise, when the boy freed his sleeve and caught sight of the car, he didn’t run. Instead, he just froze there by the fence like it didn’t even occur to him to take off. The lanky boy just stood right there looking all worn out and sweaty, like some guy who’d cut the grass and was waiting for his glass of lemonade and a twenty dollar bill.

  “Circa, do you know that kid?” said Mom.

  “Uh-uh.”

  “Nattie?” she said.

  “No, ma’am. Never seen him.”

  “Then what was he doing in our backyard?” said Mom, riding right on past the driveway.

  Then, as if the car was on some kind of autopilot, Mom drove it all the way around the block. When they came back around, the boy had sat down on the front porch step, settled in like he’d been waiting there for an hour. Circa wondered what Mom was expecting to see the second time they approached the house. Like if she hoped to find that the boy had figured out he was at the wrong place and skedaddled, or maybe even that they’d imagined him all along.

  By the time Mom finally pulled into the driveway, slow as she could make the car crawl, Circa had been able to observe quite a bit about the mystery kid’s appearance. Wearing a green-sleeved baseball shirt, torn jeans, and a great deal of dirt, the boy sat facing forward on the doorstep with his knees bent up high and his elbows planted on them, his arms crossed in front to make a resting place for his chin. He had longish sun-bleached hair that lay kind of wavy across one eye, and he looked as if his one and only task was to keep tabs on the few cars that passed this way and that on Delp Street.

  “He must be lost,” Mom said. “That’s all I can figure.”

  “He’s kind of wild looking,” said Nattie, tucking a moist braid behind her ear. “Like a swamp boat pilot or something.”

  Circa wanted to pinch Nattie for saying such a ridiculous thing, but instead she stayed quiet, finding herself more and more captivated by the strange boy’s presence.

  “I wonder,” she said, pressing a tear-striped cheek against the car window, “if maybe he’s here on purpose, Mom.”

  Often when we are distracted by other things, we tend to leave our container of magic lidless and unattended on the front step. Usually, nothing comes of this. But every now and then, a little something catches the wind and lands in the wrong, or maybe even the right, hands. Now don’t you go saying you haven’t been warned.

  Mom struggled nervously to free the keys from the ignition. Nattie arranged the chewed braids back behind the neat ones. Circa stared out the window at the porch. The stranger there looked down at his hands and rubbed them together in a slow-motion dusting off. Circa noticed there was a backpack slumped behind him.

  “Well, I guess let’s get on out,” said Mom, unbuckling. “He doesn’t really look dangerous.”

  The girls followed her lead, climbing out and approaching slowly up the walk. As soon as they got within speaking distance of the stranger, Circa considered looking away to save the boy the embarrassment of people seeing him tremble, but for some reason she couldn’t take her eyes off him. The boy quickly pushed his hands up under his legs to steady them.

  “Hi,” said Mom, in a gentle, puzzled way. “Are you lost? Can we help you with something?”

  Nattie was suddenly contemplating her own shoes, but Circa fanned out from behind Mom just enough to study the boy’s face. She couldn’t put her finger on what it was, but something about him was familiar. Not like kid-at-your-school familiar, but more like a foggy, weird déjà-vu kind of thing. Like that animal instinct stuff Nattie talks about.

  “Yes, ma’am. And I hope you can,” the boy said. His voice rasped like he was coated with dust on the inside too. As if he’d either been talking nonstop for a week, or hardly at all. The boy looked up at Mom and had to squint from the blazing sun. It made him look like he was in pain. Or maybe he really was in pain. Circa had never seen someone look like he needed so many things all at once.

  “Come on in the house,” Mom said. “Let’s get you a drink of water, and then we’ll talk.”

  As Mom reached out a hand to help the boy to his feet, Circa greeted him with a slight nod and slighter smile. Nattie glanced up and gave a bashful shrug. Mom fumbled for her house key as the boy picked up his pack and slung it over a shoulder. It looked as though Mom had caught a case of the trembles from their unexpected guest.

 
“Nattie,” Mom said, “your mother said she wanted you home right away to help with your brother while she makes lunch. How about you run on over?”

  Nattie lingered for a few seconds, studying the mystery boy from head to toe and back up again.

  “Okay, Nattie?” said Mom.

  “Oh, um…okay.” Nattie snapped out of it. But before she left the porch, she tugged at Circa’s sleeve and leaned in.

  “You better call me later,” she said.

  Circa nodded.

  “Bye, uh, everybody,” Nattie said, walking slowly across Circa’s yard toward her own.

  “See ya,” murmured Circa, herself now mesmerized by the weary stranger’s movements. The boy leaned against a column, patient, like an old dog waiting to be let in. Even leaning, he was a good head taller than Circa. She couldn’t help noticing the smell of hot car vinyl and Windex around him.

  Mom pushed the key into the front door at the very same moment a surprised yelp came from the front yard. Circa turned to witness her best friend in the midst of a stifled dance of disgust. Nattie exclaimed in a most flustered manner that a bird perched high in the tree next to Circa’s bedroom window had just freshly “done his business” on the brim of her church hat. Then, with one last humiliated glance at the spectators, Nattie ran the rest of the way home, her Bible and purse clutched tight in one arm and the poor hat held out far as the other arm could stretch. Circa exchanged a yeeks face with Mom and then watched to see how the boy would react. He was unfazed, though, focused on the opening door.

  Inside the Monroe house, the air was cool and damp and still smelling like an abandoned grocery store flower department.

  “You can set your backpack anywhere,” said Mom, but the boy just held tight to his pack and shuffled through the foyer, clumsily bumping some of the shriveled petals off a daisy. Nervous about what he might be hiding, Circa tried to decipher the bumps and bulges of the backpack as they made their way single-file into the kitchen. She wondered what in the world he’d been doing in their backyard. It was such a jungle. No one had even been back there in a month.