Having Thom Cahill as a friend is the luckiest thing that has happened, perhaps in my life. He breaks my fall without my breaking him. But even Thom Cahill cannot be in two places at once. No one catches Davey.
Thom and I are heaps on the barn floor. There is copper liquid swirling in my mouth. When I touch my fingers to my tongue, they come away red. I move my jaw back and forth, making sure it isn’t broken from where I hit the beam. My elbow collided with Thom’s massive shoulder at some point. I am already sore, but I can’t pinpoint a particular source.
Thom is groaning, but not the scary kind. Beside us, Davey is making a terrible noise. Thom untangles himself from me. We stumble-crawl to Gerry, who is already at Davey’s side telling him he’ll be okay. There’s a compound fracture in his arm, three inches above his wrist, that I can hardly bear to look at. He absorbed the majority of the shock with a tuck and roll, but the impact had to go somewhere. Gerry leans over his chest, blocking his view of the blood.
I rest my hand on his bandanna and sweep his hair backward. It is greasy from the game and stays wherever my fingers leave it. He closes his eyes when I touch him, and I wonder if it’s from pain or relief. I can’t be angry with him right now.
His head lolls toward me. He’s grimacing, but trying to be brave. “Are you okay?” he asks.
I nod and Thom distracts him with bad jokes. He winces, and Thom mouths to Gerry that we shouldn’t let him move. But he’s drumming the planks of the barn with his good hand, and sitting up on his own.
Woods jumps the last few rungs to the barn floor, the Hexagon hot on his heels. Janie Lee is a smeared mess of emotions.
I want to think: Good for her.
But really I think: I’m sorry this all went to shit.
“What happened?” Woods asks, removing his sweatshirt and draping it over the place where the skin is broken. Davey yelps, but Woods is talking about contaminants and keeping it as sterile as possible. Lifeguard talk, I’m sure.
“I knocked him down,” I say.
“Don’t listen to her. I was trying to be a hero,” Davey tells Woods.
“Anything else hurt?”
“Everything hurts, but I don’t think anything else is broken,” Davey admits. His eyes are on Thom and me. “You two okay?”
We assure him we are.
“Let’s get to the hospital,” Woods says, but then Fifty says, “I already called 911. You’re welcome.”
“Asshole,” Woods and I say together.
“What?” Fifty says.
Janie Lee has an answer for this. “Every person in town with a scanner will hear. And you-know-who will show up and report on this. Which is the last thing Billie’s family needs.”
Judith at the Lamplighter is married to her scanner. Rumor has it, her husband, Roger, said he’d divorce her if she didn’t throw it in the lake and Judith said, “If it’s you or the scanner, I’m picking the scanner.” Because the most exciting thing Roger does in a day is move his toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other.
But with the ambulance ordered, we have no choice but to wait for the EMTs to arrive. We make sure we’re outside the barn and looking innocent. The two twentysomething guys accept the answer of “horseplay” as a reason for the injury, but one says to the other, “We used to walk this damn thing when we were kids. Remember when Beau fell?” Davey climbs aboard with them, and as we watch the ambulance make the first turn toward the hospital, everyone downloads the shock of the situation at the same time.
“He’ll be okay,” Thom says reassuringly, heading toward the Audi so we can follow the ambulance. Only when I’m standing in front of the car do I realize the one fallibility of the Audi. There is a back shelf, but I cannot ride there. Which means I’m stuck with Woods and Janie Lee. In his truck.
I wedge myself against the door and close my eyes, silent. And they are silent. Everyone knowing what everyone knows, and no one having a clue where to begin. I’m glad they don’t try. They’ve said enough. Did they all kiss me for pity as well? Did they all have a little meeting and say, “You know what, let’s make Billie feel really loved and special?” Because thanks, no thanks.
We park near the emergency room, and Gerry strides over, warrior-like, cleans some of the blood from my face, and walks me arm-in-arm through the sliding glass doors. Inside, there is nothing to do but smell rubbing alcohol and sanitizer and avoid Judith’s questions. She is here, as predicted, with her ever-present pen and yellow legal pad, desperate to make the story before the paper goes to print. “Why were you in the barn?” and “Were you present at the time of the injury, Ms. McCaffrey?” and “This is the second time you’ve called 911 this fall. Any comment on that?” and “You know, that barn has a reputation for its beam. Beau Wilson, ten years ago—he fell off the beam after a dare,” she says.
I excuse myself, leaving her questions for Woods. He started this. He can finish it. I have blood on my shirt, and Gerry drags me to the bathroom and makes me swap with her. It’s a small thing, but I’m thankful. Within thirty minutes, the room fills as the news spreads through town. A mishmash of details and drama will often make ambulance chasers of the whole town. My mom’s rationale: “Well, when you know everyone, it’s bound to be someone you know.”
My parents show up and offer to pray. Dad’s eyes flick to the broken skin and the purplish bruise that is spreading from my chin. He asks if I am okay with his eyes, as everyone makes a circle and bows their heads. I nod that I am. I pray along. Everyone has his or her eyes closed in a different way except me. Some squeezed painfully shut. Some resting. Some fluttering. Some leaking.
“Do they think he’s dying?” Gerry inquires when the prayer is over and we return to our seats. “I mean . . . his arm is broken, not his neck.”
I give her a weak smile. “This is just Otters Holt being Otters Holt.”
“It’s very charming,” she tells me.
John Winters arrives an hour later. By now a nurse has told us that Davey is doing fine. Mr. Winters is in his gym clothes, looking frazzled and afraid, like maybe he drove triple digits to get here. Mash sits up straight when his uncle appears. I’m straight-backing it too. As is Hattie, like there’s a grenade in the waiting room. But he doesn’t yell. He asks Hattie some whispered questions and takes a seat across the room. Which still makes everyone uncomfortable, but not as uncomfortable as we expected.
Janie Lee risks speaking to me. “Can we talk? Not here, though.”
I let my eyes stay at her feet, as if she is undeserving of my eye contact. But really I am ashamed. Ashamed that she assessed me and found me incompetent. The exact opposite of who a Corn Dolly nominee should be.
“Please,” she says, and I’m stirred to at least listen.
We move slowly away from the crowd because I’m too stiff to move quickly. We follow the white-tiled hallway, through multiple sets of double doors. Elevators are to the right, exterior doors to the left. She leads us into starlight and fresh air. A breeze knocks my hair loose from its pins, and she says, “You know I’m sorry.”
I don’t doubt this.
Thin wisps of clouds cover the nearly full moon. She thinks of taking my hand, but draws hers back. I know her. She’s wishing for pockets. But the little shorts she wears are pocketless and she’s forced to grip her own hands instead of mine. How can I read her body language at this level and have missed something so colossal?
“I do,” I say, finally.
“We made a mistake, but we thought we were doing the right thing. Can you understand that?”
I nod. But my understanding the error doesn’t change the error.
She has one more thing to say. “We all love the hell out of you, and I hope you love the hell out of us back. Or at least enough to forgive us.” And then she kisses my cheek and goes back inside.
With the Hexagon, there have been many predetermined endings. So much of our time together starts with Einstein, followed by Woods saying We will about something, and us replying Of course we will. Most of the time, we get what we want by virtue of wanting it badly enough.
Can I blame them for doing what we’ve always done?
But not everything can be mapped on Einstein. Not love. Not self-esteem. Maybe not even Harvest Festivals.
My love is wily, guileful even. Uncontrollable. Maybe theirs is too.
“I don’t know what will happen,” I say to the sky.
And Thom, who has slipped up beside me, says a good friend thing. “You don’t have to, McCaffrey.”
Thom is sturdy, the kind of person you can fall twenty feet on. I say, “Thom, how do you feel about Octagons?”
He says, “I failed geometry,” and we both laugh.
Four hours later, the doctors release Davey to the care of his parents.
As I fall asleep that night, I realize one last ironic thing: not a single one of us voted for the Corn Dolly.