The Deepest Roots Read online

  “No more cable?” I tease her. Lux watches reality television shows, the kind where women are auctioned off to bachelors or singing for votes to stay on the island or whatever.

  Lux flips me the bird. “Maybe I should read those car manuals you love so much.”

  We stop at her house, pausing at the end of her driveway. The small bungalow crouches low in the yard, deeply shadowed by massive cottonwood trees and a lone, crooked pine. The television blares loudly through an open window.

  I shove my hands in my pockets and wait for her to say whatever’s on her mind. Probably it’s about how she’s figured out there’s something behind Mom and me hiding out in the trailer instead of going to the tornado shelter. But maybe it’s Morgan, since Lux isn’t in any rush to call her tonight.

  But I get nothing, and this walk was just to see her home. “See you later,” Lux says before she gives me a small wave and disappears inside her house.

  I wave back and walk the rest of the way home alone. I wonder if what Lux didn’t say tonight was about me or her. I wonder if we could fill a book with all the things we don’t say.

  The dark doesn’t bother me, and I enjoy the quiet of the walk home by myself. I like to look at all the houses I pass, their lit-up, golden windows illuminating tiny squares of other people’s lives. Sometimes it’s a glimpse of a father watching baseball on the television with his kids, or a young couple dancing to a crackly radio station, other times it’s curtains pulled tightly shut so that I’ll never know what I’m missing. The streetlights end before they get to the dirt road Mom and I live on, but the storm has pushed the clouds away and there’s enough moonlight to see clearly.

  When I get back to the trailer, I don’t go in. I know Mom will be asleep again, hiding from me and our missing rent money. Besides, this is my moment to finally check on the Mach without disturbance from anyone. I relish this time alone, just me and a problem that can be Fixed with common sense and capable hands.

  I get the shop lamp from the rusty metal shed behind the trailer and run an extension cord. I pop the hood of the Mach, propping it up carefully so it doesn’t fall and smash my head in. Then I hold up the shop lamp so that it illuminates the underside of each dent. I take a deep breath, my fingers twitching a little. And I push. Thwunk. The mound springs back up, flattening out so that the metal is smooth. Thwunk, thwunk, thwunk. It’s kind of like popping those little packing bubbles. When I’ve finished the hood, I do the same for the trunk. The roof of the car is a little harder to do through the interior upholstery, but I Fix those dents too.

  I still remember the day I found the Mach. Mercy was selling cookies door-to-door for her church fund raiser. We were about two miles down County Road 14, at an old farm owned and run by two ancient women who called themselves the Truett sisters. We didn’t know if they had talents like us. They only ever called each other “Sister” in our presence. One was tall, with a thin face and hair she kept hidden beneath a handkerchief, and the other was shorter and wider, with a fat braid she wore hanging over one shoulder.

  And then there’d been this tug. Toward the barn, which was no surprise. There are always broken things in old barns. Tractors, tillers, old Chevy pickups. But the tug was strong, and Mercy was in the middle of her spiel, so I had nothing better to do.

  I snuck into the barn, rolling the door along the track just far enough to squeeze inside. As my eyes adjusted, I was able to make out an old tractor and a baler. But it was the tarp-covered lump near the back of the barn that really pulled at me. I crept around the tractor, careful not to disturb whatever critters might have taken up residence around the equipment.

  My hand twitched when I reached out to tug the corner of the tarp.

  And there it was. A 1972 Mach 1 Mustang. Faded red paint, a black hood scoop, and racing stripes down the sides. The lettering behind the front wheel well said MACH 1. All four tires were flat and the windshield was cracked. I dared to pull the tarp off all the way and found that the interior was home to cracked vinyl seats, dust, and about thirty pounds of mouse shit.

  It was beautiful.

  And I wanted it to be mine.

  At first, the Truett sisters seemed reluctant to even talk about selling the car, but eventually they followed me into the barn, and this time I pulled the barn door open wide enough to spill a swathe of warm, buttery light onto the Mach. I told them I’d saved one thousand and fifty-seven dollars since I’d started working as a dishwasher at the café and I was willing to give them every last penny if they would sell me this car. That’s how strongly I felt about it. It was as if I’d found a part of myself in that dusty old barn, and I couldn’t leave it there.

  Then my hand twitched. Just enough that the short Truett sister noticed it. “You one of them?” she growled between rows of yellowed dentures.

  “One of who?” I shot back, already knowing what she meant. One of those Cottonwood Hollow girls. Not the kind of girl who deserved a car like this.

  “You a Fixer?”

  “Yeah. So?” I waited to see if this was going to help me or hurt me.

  “Our mother was a Fixer,” the tall Truett sister said, her voice thoughtful.

  “She could Fix anything. Kept this farm running, even through the Great Depression,” the short sister added.

  The tall sister nodded, pursing her mouth in reverence.

  “This was my boy’s car,” the tall sister explained. “He died not long after he bought it. Wasn’t in Vietnam more than three weeks before he was shot.”

  Something in my stomach twisted. The car had been waiting for its owner to come back all these years.

  “Since you’re a Cottonwood Hollow girl,” the tall sister went on, “we’ll sell you the car, but only if you Fix it up right. No new parts. Just Fixing.”

  The short sister raised her eyebrows, just high enough to show she was surprised by the added stipulation.

  “All Fixing?” I asked, at once irritated and thrilled by the possibility.

  “We could teach you a thing or two about cars. And with Fixer talents, it ought to be a breeze.”

  “I can Fix it,” I promised, though it was a lie. I’d never Fixed anything that big or complicated before. It might as well have been a human body, with all its intricate systems and components.

  But that tug was strong.

  “We’ll sell it to you for a thousand dollars,” the tall sister told me. “And you Fix it here, before you take it home.”

  “Deal.” I held out my hand to shake on it.

  By the time I’ve Fixed the dents on the Mach, I’m worn out. But when I look over at Mom’s little Ford Focus, I can already see a couple of dings on the hood, so I drag my lamp over to her car and start all over. I’m drenched in sweat by the time I finish, and the soreness in my muscles tells me it’s time for a hot shower and bed. Fixing things drains me, and the more elaborate the Fix, the more tired I feel by the end of it. But this is a good ache, a good exhaustion, hopefully one that will let me sleep through the questions about Mom and the missing rent money until tomorrow.

  The wooden box waits where I left it. It looks harmless there, where the porch light gathers a host of moths and june bugs.

  I lean down and pick it up, and the wood is like ice in my hands. I feel that terrible tug again, and it makes the tiny hairs on my arms stand up. It’s worse than what I felt when the Mach needed to be Fixed. The pull is harder, fiercer, almost desperate. It sends a fissure of unease down my spine. What is it that so desperately needs to be Fixed?

  I’m too tired to find out tonight. I’m not sure why, but I don’t think I trust whatever is inside it to be near me while I’m sleeping. Instead, I take the box to the rusty shed and put it on the shelf above the lawn mower, where I keep old pickle jars full of nails and screws.

  Just in case.

  Three

  IN THE MORNING BEFORE HEADING to school, I pull up in front of Lux’s house first. The 351 Cleveland under the hood of the Mach grinds out a low, throaty rumbl
e as I idle, alerting her to my presence. She’s outside before I can honk, slinging her backpack over one shoulder. I catch a glimpse of her mother, Tina, at the screen door as it slams shut behind her.

  Lux’s mother is one of us. Born in Cottonwood Hollow, born with the curse. She is a Healer, though I’ve only seen her do it a couple times. The first was at our trailer when Lux fell off the front stoop and twisted her ankle when she was ten.

  Lux jerks open the passenger door and throws herself inside, her plaid skirt bunching up around her thighs. “Drive away,” she commands. “Far, far away.”

  I look down at the fuel gauge, which is closer to E than I would like.

  “Mercy’s house it is,” I chirp brightly, knowing it annoys her. Lux is not a morning person. I hit the gas harder than I need to, making the engine roar and Lux’s head jerk back into the headrest.

  “God, I hate you,” she mutters, straightening her skirt.

  Mercy is waiting on her front porch, framed prettily by the pots of flowers perched on the railing. Her uniform is pressed and neat, from the plaid skirt to the white button-down shirt and little navy-blue jacket. She wears a matching headband and knee socks. Mercy is perhaps the only person I know who likes the Evanston High uniforms. The school district voted to implement them ten years ago, the same time they consolidated Cottonwood Hollow’s high school with Evanston’s because our enrollment was so low. They’d thought that the uniforms would keep us from noticing that the wealthy Evanston kids had brand-new sports cars, designer backpacks, and spring breaks in places I couldn’t pronounce, while most of the Cottonwood Hollow students rode in on a school bus that leaked exhaust fumes through the floorboards.

  Spoiler: they did not.

  “You could give me shotgun for once,” Mercy grumbles as Lux throws the heavy car door open and scoots her seat forward just enough for Mercy to climb into the back. “I can barely fit through here, and I’m tiny, you know.”

  “Last pickup gets the bitch seat,” Lux says.

  I look down at the gas gauge again. I don’t get paid until Friday, which is four long days from now. Until then, I am totally broke. But Mercy is in the car, so I should be okay for today. Even on E, I know we’ll have Enough fuel to get there.

  I drive the fifteen miles to Evanston going seventy on a county road, loving the thrill of flying over every hill and around every bend, the freedom of speed and wind and power. Lux fiddles with the knobs on the radio until she finds a station she likes, and then she sings along in her beautiful, silvery voice as she starts handing her makeup to a humming Mercy in the back seat. Mercy’s parents don’t let her wear makeup to school, so every morning Lux brings her makeup bag and shares with Mercy. And after last period, Mercy washes her face before she goes home.

  I let their song sweep over me, a balm to some of those raw places that I haven’t told them about. Maybe if I don’t tell anyone we don’t have the rent money this month, it simply won’t be true.

  “You could use some of this, too,” Lux says, leaning over and applying lip gloss to my mouth.

  I swat her hand away. “I’m driving,” I grumble. “You’re going to kill us all.”

  “Hold still then. And look at the goddamn road.” Lux continues her ministrations.

  “Can you please stop swerving around?” Mercy demands from the back seat. “I’m doing my eyeliner right now.”

  “Blame Lux,” I tell her.

  Lux laughs. “You can be so ungrateful sometimes.”

  I swing into the school parking lot and carefully park the Mach in the back row of the lot.

  Mercy flicks the back of my head. “Move it, so I’m not late for first period again. Mr. Morris has it out for me, I think.”

  “He hates all of us,” I commiserate, letting Mercy out of the car. It’s no secret that most of the residents of Evanston weren’t happy when they had to consolidate with the riffraff from Cottonwood Hollow. And it doesn’t help that our girls are peculiar.

  “You’d better run,” Lux calls as Mercy throws on her backpack and sprints across the parking lot. “It’s a long way from Antarctica to your class!”

  “This is not Antarctica,” I counter, shutting my car door. “It’s just a good, safe parking spot.”

  “For your baby?” she asks, turning her attention back to me and patting the hood of the Mach with one hand. Her fingernails are painted a startling shade of banana yellow.

  “Yes,” I agree, rubbing out her prints with the hem of my plaid skirt.

  This makes Lux laugh, and we leave the car in relative safety in the back of the lot.

  Lux and I have the same first-period class, and we take our time getting there. It’s US history with Miss Strong, and she’s nearly always late. The school is big, with over a thousand students, and by the time we get our books from our lockers and make our way to the classroom, Miss Strong is still not there.

  We usually sit in the back, and while I’m trying to step over the long legs of teenage boys, one of the girls in a middle row refuses to move her backpack out of the way. When I cock my foot back to kick it, she hisses, “freak,” under her breath. Her words can barely scratch the thick skin I’ve developed over the years. However, this doesn’t stop me from accidentally bumping my backpack into her shoulder as I pass.

  Lux lets a chuckle escape as she follows behind me. The girl doesn’t bother saying anything nasty to Lux. We slide into our usual seats. Morgan is already there, waiting for us to arrive. Her dark hair is clipped into a stylish angled bob, and she wears the Evanston High uniform like it’s a designer label. She’s perhaps the only girl from Evanston who is actually friendly enough to say hello to me. She’s said more than hello to Lux, though, and I watch out of the corner of my eye as Lux squeezes Morgan’s hand under the desk. I catch a few words, “so worried, tornado . . . ,” before I actively try to tune them out and give them some relative privacy. They seem fine, so whatever Lux might have said to me last night when I walked her home, it wasn’t about a problem with Morgan.

  Lux and Morgan have been out a few times, though Lux’s parents have no idea. Every date has ended with Lux sleeping at my place. Over a bowl of popcorn in the comfort of my bed, we dissect the details of every smile they shared, every gesture, every kiss. Lux told her mom and stepdad that she’s a lesbian. Her mom, Tina, was cool with it, but her stepdad, Aaron, is convinced that it’s just a phase, and that she just needs the right man to “turn her straight.”

  But in both Evanston and Cottonwood Hollow, Lux has a reputation for being a man-eater, a reputation left over from our freshman and sophomore years, when she was still learning to control her talent. And there was that one algebra teacher that we’d sort of messed with. Okay, we’d really messed with him. But damn, algebra was hard.

  Two boys in the front row are talking in low voices, and one with black hair hazards a glance back toward Lux and me. He sees me staring back and winks. This is the first semester I’ve ever been in a class with him, and all I know about him is he started at Evanston our sophomore year, he’s on the baseball team, and everyone calls him Jett. When he grins, white teeth in a coppery-tan face, I roll my eyes. A couple girls from Cottonwood Hollow got pregnant last year, and now a lot of the Evanston boys think we’re easy. I suppose Lux’s reputation doesn’t help us, either.

  Second period I have free, and I spend it at a lonely table in the library up on the mezzanine level. Mercy finds me a few minutes later, and she looks agitated. “I got counted tardy,” she hisses. “Tardy. Two Evanston girls came in after me and Mr. Morris didn’t say anything to them.”

  “Sorry,” I say. “Tomorrow morning we’ll leave earlier.”

  “My parents are going to kill me. That’s the third tardy I’ve had this month.”

  “When you’re a ghost, please don’t come back and haunt me,” I reply, taking a book off the shelf.

  “I know you don’t take school as seriously as I do,” Mercy whispers furiously, because she’s not capable of breaking th
e silence rule in the library. I’m not a bad student, but the truth is, no one takes school as seriously as Mercy does. Her parents expect straight As, honor rolls, and extracurricular activities. They want Mercy to be the first one in their family to go to college. Mercy’s dad is the foreman at the meat-packing plant, and he makes pretty good money. But his heart is set on his little girl going to some fancy college and being a doctor or a lawyer. He orders information packets in the mail for Ivy League colleges, examining them with the same dedication and thoroughness as he does the ground beef at the plant. I don’t know what that must feel like, since no one has any expectations regarding my future. Mercy sometimes looks like she might shatter under the weight of those expectations, like tiny fissures are creeping down over her shoulders.

  “I take school very seriously,” I counter. “After a prestigious academic career, I plan to be the first rocket scientist from Cottonwood Hollow. Your children will study about me in their textbooks. I will be so successful that I will be the face on some kind of money. Probably a five-dollar bill. When I’m forty-five, I’ll retire to the Bahamas and live off my bush funds.”

  “I think you mean ‘hedge funds,’” Mercy corrects me, unable to hide a smile.

  “No, mine will be bush funds. I’ll invent them along with my potato-fueled rockets.”

  Mercy shares a prim smile, and I know that her panic meter has backed down to an acceptable level again. “Let’s leave ten minutes earlier tomorrow, okay?”

  “Got it, boss,” I tell her, making a salute with the book I’d picked up.

  I am famished by lunchtime, but when I dig in my backpack for my emergency lunch money, I remember that I used it last month. I’m standing in the cafeteria line, ready to grab a tray when this revelation occurs. Damn.

  The girl behind me clears her throat. Ahem. I zip my backpack closed and step out of line. I feel a familiar flush color my cheeks, not because I’m terribly embarrassed, but more because I’m annoyed and maybe a little embarrassed.