“I’m fine,” I finally blurted out, still in shock.
“Are you busy?” she asked.
“Sort of.”
“Oh . . . I see . . .,” she said, trailing off. She paused again.
“Why are you calling me?” I asked.
It took her a few seconds to get the words out.
“Well . . . I just wanted to know if you wouldn’t mind coming by a little later this afternoon.”
“Coming by?”
“Yes. To my house.”
“Your house?” I didn’t even try to disguise the growing surprise in my voice. Jamie ignored it and went on.
“There’s something I want to talk to you about. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”
“Can’t you just tell me over the phone?”
“I’d rather not.”
“Well, I’m working on my college application essays all afternoon,” I said, trying to get out of it.
“Oh . . . well . . . like I said, it’s important, but I suppose I can talk to you Monday at school. . . .”
With that, I suddenly realized that she wasn’t going to let me off the hook and that we’d end up talking one way or the other. My brain suddenly clicked through the scenarios as I tried to figure out which one I should do — talk to her where my friends would see us or talk at her house. Though neither option was particularly good, there was something in the back of my mind, reminding me that she’d helped me out when I’d really needed it, and the least I could do was to listen to what she had to say. I may be irresponsible, but I’m a nice irresponsible, if I do say so myself.
Of course, that didn’t mean everyone else had to know about it.
“No,” I said, “today is fine. . . .”
We arranged to meet at five o’clock, and the rest of the afternoon ticked by slowly, like the drips from Chinese water torture. I left my house twenty minutes early, so I’d have plenty of time to get there. My house was located near the waterfront in the historic part of town, just a few doors down from where Blackbeard used to live, overlooking the Intracoastal Waterway. Jamie lived on the other side of town, across the railroad tracks, so it would take me about that long to get there.
It was November, and the temperature was finally cooling down. One thing I really liked about Beaufort was the fact that the springs and falls lasted practically forever. It might get hot in the summer or snow once every six years, and there might be a cold spell that lasted a week or so in January, but for the most part all you needed was a light jacket to make it through the winter. Today was one of those perfect days — mid-seventies without a cloud in the sky.
I made it to Jamie’s house right on time and knocked on her door. Jamie answered it, and a quick peek inside revealed that Hegbert wasn’t around. It wasn’t quite warm enough for sweet tea or lemonade, and we sat in the chairs on the porch again, without anything to drink. The sun was beginning to lower itself in the sky, and there wasn’t anyone on the street. This time I didn’t have to move my chair. It hadn’t been moved since the last time I’d been there.
“Thank you for coming, Landon,” she said. “I know you’re busy, but I appreciate your taking the time to do this.”
“So, what’s so important?” I said, wanting to get this over with as quickly as possible.
Jamie, for the first time since I’d known her, actually looked nervous as she sat with me. She kept bringing her hands together and pulling them apart.
“I wanted to ask you a favor,” she said seriously.
“A favor?”
She nodded.
At first I thought she was going to ask me to help her decorate the church, like she’d mentioned at homecoming, or maybe she needed me to use my mother’s car to bring some stuff to the orphans. Jamie didn’t have her license, and Hegbert needed their car anyway, being that there was always a funeral or something he had to go to. But it still took a few seconds for her to get the words out.
She sighed, her hands coming together again.
“I’d like to ask you if you wouldn’t mind playing Tom Thornton in the school play,” she said.
Tom Thornton, like I said before, was the man in search of the music box for his daughter, the one who meets the angel. Except for the angel, it was far and away the most important role.
“Well . . . I don’t know,” I said, confused. “I thought Eddie Jones was going to be Tom. That’s what Miss Garber told us.”
Eddie Jones was a lot like Carey Dennison, by the way. He was really skinny, with pimples all over his face, and he usually talked to you with his eyes all squinched up. He had a nervous tic, and he couldn’t help but squinch his eyes whenever he got nervous, which was practically all the time. He’d probably end up spouting his lines like a psychotic blind man if you put him in front of a crowd. To make things worse, he had a stutter, too, and it took him a long time to say anything at all. Miss Garber had given him the role because he’d been the only one who offered to do it, but even then it was obvious she didn’t want him either. Teachers were human, too, but she didn’t have much of an option, since no one else had come forward.
“Miss Garber didn’t say that exactly. What she said was that Eddie could have the role if no one else tried out for it.”
“Can’t someone else do it instead?”
But there really wasn’t anyone else, and I knew it. Because of Hegbert’s requirement that only seniors perform, the play was in a bind that year. There were about fifty senior boys at the high school, twenty-two of whom were on the football team, and with the team still in the running for the state title, none of them would have the time to go to the rehearsals. Of the thirty or so who were left, more than half were in the band and they had after-school practice as well. A quick calculation showed that there were maybe a dozen other people who could possibly do it.
Now, I didn’t want to do the play at all, and not only because I’d come to realize that drama was just about the most boring class ever invented. The thing was, I’d already taken Jamie to homecoming, and with her as the angel, I just couldn’t bear the thought that I’d have to spend every afternoon with her for the next month or so. Being seen with her once was bad enough . . . but being seen with her every day? What would my friends say?
But I could tell this was really important to her. The simple fact that she’d asked made that clear. Jamie never asked anyone for a favor. I think deep down she suspected that no one would ever do her a favor because of who she was. The very realization made me sad.
“What about Jeff Bangert? He might do it,” I offered.
Jamie shook her head. “He can’t. His father’s sick, and he has to work in the store after school until his father gets back on his feet.”
“What about Darren Woods?”
“He broke his arm last week when he slipped on the boat. His arm is in a sling.”
“Really? I didn’t know that,” I said, stalling, but Jamie knew what I was doing.
“I’ve been praying about it, Landon,” she said simply, and sighed for the second time. “I’d really like this play to be special this year, not for me, but because of my father. I want it to be the best production ever. I know how much it will mean to him to see me be the angel, because this play reminds him of my mother. . . .” She paused, collecting her thoughts. “It would be terrible if the play was a failure this year, especially since I’m involved.”
She stopped again before going on, her voice becoming more emotional as she went on.
“I know Eddie would do the best he could, I really do. And I’m not embarrassed to do the play with him, I’m really not. Actually, he’s a very nice person, but he told me that he’s having second thoughts about doing it. Sometimes people at school can be so . . . so . . . cruel, and I don’t want Eddie to be hurt. But . . .” She took a deep breath, “but the real reason I’m asking is because of my father. He’s such a good man, Landon. If people make fun of his memory of my mother while I’m playing the part . . . well, that would break my heart. And with Eddie and me . . . you know what people would say.”