CHAPTER ONE

“The water’s up, so come on down.”

~Old Cajun saying

THEN (1986)

“Dana Folsom, don’t you go wandering around town today getting into trouble and embarrassing me, you hear?”

Dana sighed heavily and nodded at her mother. Cherry Folsom checked her coral lipstick in the small wood-framed mirror lined with hooks for keys, baring her teeth briefly to check for smears. She fluffed her curled and hair-sprayed dark brown hair, making a halo around her pretty face. She sucked in her cheeks and pouted at her reflection. Seeming satisfied, she turned to Dana, her flirtatious look dropping from her face.

“I’m trying to get on at the Merle Norman in Jefferson, and I don’t need them asking me about my wild child roaming the streets like some damn kind of hooligan.”

“I don’t roam the streets,” Dana muttered. She roamed the woods.

“And don’t you let me catch you down at that marina rolling in fish guts, ‘cause that’s what you smell like when you come home. Stinking up my whole house with that mess. Why you like fishing more than normal things girls your age like is beyond me.”

“I don’t roll around in fish guts,” Dana huffed.

Cherry rolled her eyes and tucked and ruffled her blouse, her attention recaptured by her own presence, just as Dana preferred it. She’d

have to tell Ronnie Burnett, the old coot who ran the marina and had a soft spot for her, not to mention to anyone her showing up later that afternoon.

“How do I look?” Cherry struck a pose, her hand on her hip, emphasizing her hour-glass curves.

“Fine.”

“Fine?” Cherry huffed and grabbed her spangled, over-sized bag, the conch-shells jingling. “Not a woman in the world wants to hear she just looks ‘fine’. Well. I’ll be back when I’m back. Cross your fingers they take me on.”

Cherry blew a kiss to her reflection and left, not bothering to lock the front door. There wasn’t a lock, first of all, and if there had been, Uncertain was a minuscule town in the piney woods of East Texas where everybody, all one hundred and seventy-two of them, knew everybody else. The Folsoms didn’t really have anything worth taking, which of course everybody knew.

As Dana stood in her mother’s open bedroom door, she took in their clapboard house, what folks called a shotgun shack, barely noticing how the burgundy and gold wallpaper in her mother’s bedroom peeled at the seams, how the threadbare, dark green carpet in Dana’s bedroom across the hallway showed every little flake of dust, and how the mat of spiders on the ceiling over the front porch was getting larger. Well, that she noticed. She just hoped her mother didn’t, as it meant she’d make Dana clear them away.

A mud dauber nest was forming around the porch light, rendering the whole space useless to Dana. She liked folding lounge-chair naps in the afternoon, but today, she had other plans in store.

She pulled out a shoe box from under her bed and smiled when its contents cheeped at her.

“Hey, buddy,” she murmured. “You ready to go home?”

The mockingbird blinked up at her and opened its wings in degrees before tucking them close to its grey and white body.

“Don’t go trying to fly around just yet. I don’t want you banging into things, okay?” She scooped it carefully into her hand and grabbed the worn pink bandana she’d used to line the box. “Let’s get going.”

As the screen door banged shut, the mockingbird’s clawed feet pinched Dana’s bare forearm for stability, but she didn’t mind. She adjusted the bandana draped over the bird’s head and continued breaking a path through the tangled overgrowth of hackberry and loblolly pine that edged their property on the bayou. She angled herself toward the thatch of yaupon that separated the bayou from the lake where she’d found the injured bird a few days prior.

Something had gotten to it but hadn’t finished it off. Dana thought it must be one of the feral cats that lived under Ronnie’s marina when the waters were low. The bird, cheeping pitifully to itself, had allowed her to pick it up and check for puncture wounds; she hadn’t found any, just missing feathers from its wing and that it seemed to favor one foot. A few days under her bed in a shoebox with a pink bandana, her second-best, and some hand-fed red wigglers apparently did the trick.

The cicadas ratcheted up their screaming rattle in the trees overhead as she broke a path carefully through the scrub brush. The ground was getting softer and more Spanish moss appeared dripping from the forest canopy. Sweat pooled in the small of her back and bloomed under her armpits. She caught sight of the orange reel of an old fishing pole trapped high in the branches of a cypress and made a right, pulling the bandana off the bird’s head; it stayed still, its head cocked as it looked around. Just ahead, the tree line broke into a clearing, exposing one of the many sandbars that lined the bayou and lake, and was where she’d first found the bird.

Now, there was also another person sitting there, a girl with her knees tucked up to her chest and face buried in her arms, her back heaving with sobs.

“Oh.” The bird flapped its wings but didn’t take off, walking up Dana’s arm to the crook of her elbow.

The newcomer looked up. Mascara and black eyeliner ran down the girl’s cheeks. Dana didn’t wear makeup yet. She was only fourteen and didn’t see the point of it, even though her mother kept pushing the idea alongside dressing more “lady like.”

“Hey, uh, girl.” Dana bit her lip. “Are you okay?”

“What’s that on your arm? Is that a... a bird?” the girl asked.

“Oh, um, yeah.” The mockingbird opened its wings and adjusted its balance, digging its feet into Dana’s arm to keep steady.

The girl smeared her palms across her face and narrowed her eyes, a piercing blue like faded denim. “Is that like, what? Your pet?”

Dana’s face flashed with heat. The girl had on pink lip gloss and her blonde-streaked hair was carefully styled. She was wearing really expensive-looking white sneakers; there wasn’t a stain or scuff on them. Dana was horribly self-conscious of her nubby cast-off t-shirt. It had a zodiac sign and a cartoon cat on it. Her jean shorts were just cut offs from her mom’s old pair, and her flip-flops were ragged. Her thick, dark hair was almost certainly full of sticks and leaves from walking through the woods.

This girl looked like one of the rich kids who were forced to spend their summers on the water while their parents drank and boated on the lake.

“No. It got hurt and I fixed it. I’m trying to set it free, if you don’t mind?”

“Wow, really?” The girl stood up and held out her hand as if she wanted to touch the bird, then thought better of it. “What happened to it?”

Dana shrugged. “I don’t know. Look, I need to do this. Maybe just...?” Dana made a waving motion with her free hand, to indicate the girl should back up a few steps. Dana’s face was positively on fire now, hating that someone was watching her do this, someone who looked like the exact kind of person Dana knew Cherry had wished Dana would try to be more like. She wanted to turn her back on the girl, but that would be rude. It was just a bird. It shouldn’t be this... weirdly personal thing. Who cared if this stranger watched?

“Okay, buddy. You ready?” She stroked a fingertip over the bird’s head and down its back. The bird opened its wings, cocked its head, and blinked. As Dana threw her arm to the sky, it flapped and took off.

“Whoa. That was awesome,” the girl said.

Dana shrugged, rubbing the phantom feeling of bird feet off her arm.

“Do you do that? Like, is that your thing? You fix birds or whatever?”

“If they need it. Yeah, I guess?”

The girl rocked her weight back on her feet and folded her arms. “That is so cool.” Her chest hitched with the remnants of her previous sobs.

“I’d offer you this, but…” Dana gestured at the pink bandana in her hand.

She girl giggled and wiped a little more at her face, drying them on her tanned thighs. “Thanks. Oh, sorry. I’m Adelaide. My friends call me Addy.”

Dana shook her hand, conscious of her own chewed-up nail beds. “Dana.”

“You from here?” Addy asked, nodding at their surroundings.

“Yeah. Which is why I know you’re not.”

Addy grinned, “Uh, no. God.”

“Wow, okay. You don’t have to be rude about it.”

“No, that’s...” Addy closed her eyes. “Let me try this again. Hi. I’m Adelaide Winn. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Dana Folsom.”

“Look, I’m sorry. I’m... it’s been a bad day. Sorry.”

“Why were you crying? Are you hurt or something?” Dana looked for sign of injury on Addy’s lean form.

Addy snorted, her large blue eyes tearing up again. “Something like that. I don’t… I’m not supposed to talk about it.”

Dana wished she felt brave enough to offer the girl a hand to hold, or that her hand was even clean. “Wait, what are you doing out here? Are you lost?”

Addy rubbed at her eyes and shook her head no, shrugging.

“It’s just.... The only thing close to this part of the lake is the fishing docks, and you don’t really strike me as the big mouth-bass or crappie type.”

A loud bark of laughter erupted from Addy. “Oh my God, no. I don’t think there’s anything more boring than fishing but try telling my father that. He dragged us out here for the whole summer so he can drink and catch fish and show off to his business friends. It’s awful.”

Dana wanted to point out that she lived there year-round, but the girl’s chest was still hitching as a few tears rolled down her face. “I mean, it’s not like there isn’t other stuff to do here, if you know where to look.”

Addy smiled, a slow, sweet thing Dana couldn’t look away from. She really wished she had a tissue or something. Her chest constricted at the thought of holding Addy’s face still to wipe her tears away. Why was she so weird, thinking things like that?

“Yeah, bird-girl?” Addy said, tapping Dana’s arm with her index finger. She tucked her arms back up against her chest before Dana could react. “I didn’t know there was so much going on here. I guess we can’t all be wildlife saviors, huh?”

“I’m not... It’s just a bird.” She didn’t understand why she was feeling so defensive. This... this girl was just messing with her afternoon plans.

“Well, why don’t you show me what there is to do here that helps me avoid my father and his weird friends or ignore when they talk about hunting and, I don’t know, drilling for oil or whatever it is they all do when I don’t have to be around.”

For most of her fourteen years Dana had kept herself entertained without a second thought. Suddenly faced with the need to improvise entertainment for someone else sent her into a small panic, her mind unable to land on a single suggestion.

Addy cocked her head toward a sandy path that Dana knew ambled along the water’s edge. Dana followed along. They walked in silence for a moment until Dana caught sight of something on the opposite bank. She grabbed Addy’s shoulder and motioned to be quiet, then hunkered down on the water’s sandy edge.

“That’s a softshell turtle—folks here sometimes call them leatherbacks. Look.”

“Where?”

Dana nodded across the water. “See where the ground fell away at those tree roots? Look left where the sand flattens out.” At Addy’s gasp, Dana continued. “She’s laying eggs.”

“Gross,” Addy said. Dana noted Addy was grinning, however.

“It’s really rare to see that, wow.” Dana beamed. It was maybe only the third time she’d ever spotted one laying eggs, in fact.

They watched in silence as the turtle used her flippers to cover up her nest. Most of them would get eaten by gators. What they didn’t get, the water moccasins would most likely finish up. Hopefully one or two of them would make it. It’s why they laid so many.

“So... where are you from?” Dana asked.

“Shreveport. My mother and father bought the big place down at Rocky Point. She’s going crazy renovating it, or whatever. He thinks it’ll be good to have business trips out here or something, being secluded but still close to town, um, to Shreveport and the club in Oil City. But my mom and I have to be here, too. He doesn’t want us staying back at our house in Shreveport making him look as if he’s stepping out on his family.” She punctuated that with a roll of her eyes, as if Dana knew all about how dads were.

“I’m going into ninth grade,” Addy continued. “One more year at Isis Prep, then my folks are making me go to some boarding school.”

She looked expectantly at Dana, until Dana barked out, “Me, too. I mean, minus the fancy school and stuff. Ninth. But I go to the school in Karnak. It’s, uh, not a boarding school. It’s just regular.”

Addy laughed at that. “Oh my god, so my birthday is in May? I had a pool party at our place in Shreveport. My mother finally convinced my father to let me have boys come, too. I was like, the only girl in school who wasn’t allowed to have both until this year when I turned fourteen, it was so embarrassing.”

“Yeah.” Dana didn’t usually have birthday parties. Her birthday was in July when everyone was off on school vacation, and also, she didn’t really have many friends. Two years before when she turned twelve, her mother had invited some of her coworkers’ kids to a pizza party at the Godfather’s Pizza in Jefferson and no one had come. Cherry hadn’t told them the pizza was on her, and Dana got it. Money was tight. Birthdays weren’t that great anyway.

“Mine was May 14^th.” Addy shot her a significant look.

“Oh. Yeah. July 10^th. I just turned fourteen, too.”

“Cool. We’re both Class of ‘90.”

Dana imagined Addy was the type who got a class ring and had everyone begging to sign her yearbook.

“So, like, what do you do for fun? When you’re not saving birds from hunters, or whatever?” Addy knocked her shoulder into Dana’s.

“Oh, you know... stuff.”

“Like, do you play tennis? Are you into music? What’s your deal?”

“Music is cool. I guess I like rock. My dad lives in Marshall. He has a shop. Sometimes I hang out there and he lets me pick the radio station.”

“Awesome. What kind of shop?”

“Um, mechanic? Cars? What do your folks do?”

For the first time since their meeting, Addy looked flustered. “Oh, you know. My father’s an investor and stuff. Has a bunch of businesses. My mother doesn’t do anything. She ‘volunteers,’” Addy said, adopting a mocking tone.

Dana figured volunteering meant she worked with their church. “That’s nice. Do you have any sisters? Brothers?”

“Nope, just me, and I wish I did have a sister so my father would leave me alone.”

“I have a half-sister,” Dana said. “My dad’s remarried. She’s only two, though.”

“What about your mother?”

“Oh.” Dana’s voice wavered for a moment as she said, “You know. This and that. She sort of changes jobs a lot. I think she’s going to start working at Merle Norman soon, though.”

“Really? She’ll meet my mother, then. I better not tell her, or she’ll make me ask you to get her a discount. Katherine Winn loves a discount even though she doesn’t need one.”

“Are y’all really rich, then?”

“I don’t know?” Addy shrugged. “Probably. Like, if my mother wants something, she gets it. Our houses are pretty nice.”

“...houses?”

Addy turned away and nodded.

“So, you know, don’t take this the wrong way,” Dana said, “but why are you hanging out with me? Don’t you have friends or, I don’t know, horseback riding lessons or something?”

“I don’t know. You seem cool.”

It was Dana’s turn to laugh. “Wow. I’m not cool.”

“I think you’re cool.”

“I think you must be really dumb, then.”

They grinned at each other before Dana couldn’t bear looking at Addy’s pretty face anymore. She picked at the ground with the tip of her sandal and held her tongue.

Addy checked her watch and sighed. “I have to meet our driver at Burnett’s Marina and go home. You want to meet up tomorrow? Maybe you could show me more stuff?”

“Yeah, sure.” Dana wondered if all the air suddenly evaporated, it was so hard to breathe just then.

“Cool.”

“Just like me,” Dana replied, and shot a finger gun, immediately regretting it.

Addy laughed, though. “Yeah. Cool like you.”

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