Part 4 (1/2)
”Do you have a phone?” Kaila asked. For some reason, she could not picture Jordyn using a phone.
”No,” Jordyn replied cryptically. ”But I can call you anytime I like.”
Kaila nearly knocked her mother over as she blazed into the kitchen. ”You people have kept me locked up in this centuries-old house, and I am getting into this century right now. Everyone has a cell phone and clothes and I am a complete loser. I have got to get a phone-like today!”
”I take it you met a boy you liked?” Mike asked.
”No,” Kaila said, reddening. ”I made two friends, Melissa and Pia, and they both want to come over, but I have no phone.” She would die before she told her parents about Jordyn.
”Why do you need a phone?” her mother asked. ”Why can't you call on the home phone like we did when we were kids?”
”Because home phones are dinosaurs,” Kaila said. ”You can stay in this cave, but I am moving ahead.” She folded her arms and jutted out her chin. Her mother rolled her eyes.
Paw Paw trudged into the kitchen. He was painfully thin from the chemotherapy. Kaila ached to see him so frail. She recalled him strong and riding horses. He'd lost all his hair and his dark eyes were sunken in a shriveled face. But when he looked at her she could still see his love.
Paw Paw always had to have something sweet to eat. Even in the morning. He never chastised her for eating a Twinkie for breakfast.
”Goosy,” he called her by his pet name. ”I'm glad you're in school and away from this death trap. Come on. We're goin' to the store.”
”No, Dad,” her mother said. ”You can't drive.”
”Like h.e.l.l I can't.”
”Oh,” Nan said, nervously fiddling her reading gla.s.ses.
”Get out of our way,” Paw Paw said. ”I'm takin' my granddaughter to the store. She's gettin' a phone.”
They went to AT&T and bought Kaila an iPhone. In the minutes it took to get to the mall, she had the phone figured out. Kaila could dissect anything electronic. She had gotten her computer and printer working in less than five minutes. She was the one her family relied on to program the TV or work the DVD; she could program any device with focused concentration.
Someday, people won't need these phones. They will communicate with their minds, Kaila thought. Now where had that thought come from? Forget it-iPhone. She began downloading apps.
When they entered the mall food court, Kaila smelled fresh baked pretzels and her mouth watered. But when Paw Paw said, ”Now I might be an old man, but you have till this mall closes to buy whatever you need to make yourself feel as pretty as you are,” she forgot her hunger.
”Oh Paw Paw, thank you,” Kaila said, hugging him, feeling his bony thinness.
”Don't thank me,” Paw Paw said. ”I've been living for this. I want to see you happy. You're the apple of my eye.”
”Paw Paw, why are you so corny?” Kaila asked, dying to get into the mall and find some cute outfits.
”Come on,” Paw Paw said, linking arms. ”Let's get you decked out and get them boys shoutin' yee-haw and whistling at you.”
”Stop!” Kaila said, pleased.
Paw Paw turned onto the long, clam-sh.e.l.l driveway leading to home in the dark, the truck tires crunching on the sh.e.l.ls. In the distance, gas lanterns glowed in front of the house. Crickets and tree frogs chirped in the humid night air. Paw Paw carried bag after bag into the kitchen, then leaned against the wooden kitchen table, panting.
”I can help you, old man,” Mike said. The kitchen was cozy and redolent with the odor of gumbo, garlic, and deep-fat frying.
”Don't need any help,” Paw Paw said. He sank into a chair. He turned to Kaila. ”Show 'em what you got.”
Kaila opened the bags of skirts, tops, and jeans. She hadn't known what to get. Finally, she had bought anything that hit her fancy, borrowing from all the groups she'd seen at school; and then she hit the makeup counter at Dillard's.
”Oh my,” Nan said. ”You spent a king's ransom.”
”Yes, oh my,” Kaila's mom echoed, dressed in baseball cap and yoga pants. Her mom taught a yoga cla.s.s in the converted dining room several times a week.
The Guidry family, historically, were thrifty where money was concerned. ”Money doesn't grow on trees,” Nan often said, whose parents struggled during the Depression. This was why many of the furnis.h.i.+ngs in the house were antiques. Nan saw no sense in replacing things as long as they worked.
”We're going to have the prettiest girl in school,” Paw Paw said.
”That we are,” Mike agreed, palming his thinning brown hair.
”In fact, she'll be seventeen soon and I propose we have a party,” Paw Paw said. ”You can invite all your new friends from school to come and go riding. Have a barbecue. Would you like that?”
”Oh, yes,” Kaila said. She could invite Jordyn. And Melissa and Pia. Have real friends to her home!
”Look at this,” her mother marveled at the iPhone. ”How do you figure out this fancy equipment?”
Kaila sighed, wondering why old people were so technologically inept.
”Enough,” Nan said. ”I made a big pot of gumbo, some fried chicken, and cornbread. Let's eat and get this girl to bed. It's a school night.”
Kaila gulped the gumbo and nearly inhaled the chicken and cornbread. Everyone chattered about her new phone and clothes while she daydreamed about Jordyn.
”Hey,” she asked, her mouth tingling with the gumbo's cayenne pepper and file. ”You heard about that cult in New Mexico where they brought in some students to our high school?”
”Sure,” Mike said. ”It was all over the news.”
”I remember,” Paw Paw said.
”I have no idea what you're talking about,” her mother said. ”And stop feeding the dog under the table.” Lucy gobbled up a hunk of cornbread. Woofy nuzzled her knee for more.
”Me neither,” Nan said, chomping on a chicken wing.
”How could you not remember that cult?” Paw Paw asked. ”I clearly remember us sitting together watching the news. We all watched and said how sorry we felt for those kids.”
”Well, I don't remember it,” Nan said.
”Alzheimer's, old woman,” Paw Paw said, shaking his head and pus.h.i.+ng back his plate. He'd barely eaten a thing.
”I don't remember it either,” Kaila's mother said.
Kaila looked at her mother and grandmother, one wearing a navy baseball cap, the other an old pink Easter bonnet-with the black Velostat plastic hidden inside. She had this creeping feeling that everything was not what it seemed. She scratched the skin above her ear under the black plastic. She too, had never heard one word of this cult before today. Gooseb.u.mps lifted the hairs on her arms, her intuition prodding chills. She determined to remain watchful. She could figure out anything if she set her mind to the task.
Kaila trudged upstairs. Her bedroom was in the front of the house on the second floor. Her room was s.p.a.cious with wood floors, worn rugs, and floor-to-ceiling windows that led out to a balcony spanning the width of the house. The damask curtains, once royal maroon, had faded from too many years' sun. A white wicker rocking chair sat outside on the gallery. In cooler weather, she could rock and look out over the wrought-iron railing to the pond, the fields, the barn, and the forest beyond. Now, it was too hot, the air sticky with humidity.
Kaila neatly laid her new outfit for the next day on the antique velvet chair next to her canopied bed. Tomorrow she'd wear a new skirt and blouse. She yanked off the c.r.a.ppy hick jeans and t-s.h.i.+rt and hurled them into the closet. She tore off the wig and the plastic wrapped around her head and scratched her scalp. She often sat alone in her room without the plastic; it just felt so good. She changed into a comfy nights.h.i.+rt.