“Hey, wait up.” It was Hap loping across the common.
Stella had a sinking feeling as he approached. Two universes were about to collide, and she could guess which one would come out on top.
“Hap Stewart.” Juliet looked him up and down, considering.
Stella noticed that Hap looked like a bumpkin as well, wearing an oversized brown jacket and muddy work boots, with his hair curling foolishly and that huge grin of his. For no reason at all, she thought about the expression on Jimmy Elliot’s face that day they watched the doctor’s horse, how puzzled he’d seemed, how he’d made her want to laugh out loud.
“You’ve just turned fifteen, you plan to go to Columbia University, if accepted, not that you’re worried because you can always go to the state college. You’re interested in biology, but your real dream is to become a photographer. You’re six-two, your hair is brown, but it looks blond in the sunlight. You don’t like the sight of blood, you have a great smile. Hapgood was your mother’s family name.” All of the information that Stella had slowly revealed to Juliet over the past few weeks had now been reeled back out in a single whoosh. Juliet turned to Stella, who seemed stunned. “Did I get everything?”
“Pretty much.” Stella couldn’t bring herself to look at Hap, who now knew how much she had confided in Juliet. Would he feel betrayed? But, no, this release of information worked two ways and Hap was still grinning.
“Juliet Aronson.” They continued on across the green, and now that they were with Hap, Juliet didn’t seem to mind that her boots were soaked by the wet grass. “You’ll be fifteen on July twenty-seventh. Your mother’s in Framingham Prison for Women, and you’re not certain what you believe constitutes a crime of passion. You like black clothes, cigarettes, gold earrings, older men. You’re far smarter than most people give you credit for. You’re beautiful.”
Stella looked up; that last part was Hap’s own observation.
“In regard to the older-man reference? That’s not always the case.”
Juliet grinned as well. Stella noticed there was no mention of bumpkins now that Hap was around. Stella glanced over at him. He actually had a blade of grass in his mouth. How much more of a bumpkin could anyone be?
“I like her,” Hap confided when Juliet was out of earshot, stopped by a parked truck to peer into the side-view mirror as she tried out her newly stolen mascara.
“Do you?” Stella said coldly. “Well, great.”
After Hap had taken off for home, Stella and Juliet walked toward the tea house. “What a strange person,” Juliet said of Hap. “I like him.” She must have then noticed Stella’s cool expression. “For you, I mean. God, not for me.”
They had reached the corner of East Main. Liza had lit a fire and a plume of smoke rose into the damp air. Everything was gray, and perhaps that was why Juliet didn’t notice Jimmy Elliot on the corner. He’d biked over with his sister, but had stayed on after Cynthia had begun her shift, the way he did most days, acting as if he were looking at something important, when the only thing out in front of him was the foggy air.
Stella had already decided. If Jimmy was there, she would not mention his presence. She would not say See that boy over there, the one with the dark eyes? He spends a lot of time staring at me, and for reasons I don’t understand, I’m staring back. For the first time, she didn’t want anyone’s opinion but her own. She opened the door for Juliet, and waited until Juliet went inside, before she quickly turned and waved. Spotted, Jimmy sped down the street, right through the deep puddles on East Main.
“Very Hansel and Gretel,” Juliet said when they hung up their jackets inside the tea house. There was the spicy scent of the apple turnovers that Liza had recently baked. “I’ll bet if you walk into this place, you never walk out. You’re charmed into staying for the rest of your natural life.”
Thankfully, Stella’s mother was already gone for the day; Stella had wisely been watching the clock to make sure they didn’t arrive until after 4:30. Her mother needn’t know her every move, her every friend, her every desire. She needn’t know anything at all.
When they went into the kitchen, only Liza was there to greet them. Liza was wearing a white cook’s jacket over her blue jeans and sweatshirt; her hair was tied back and she wore a kerchief. “Too bad! You just missed your mom.”
Stella and Juliet looked at each other and tried not to giggle.
“Rats.” Juliet had the ability to sound sincere in the most frivolous of times. “And I was so looking forward to seeing her.”