Chapter 35: Chapter 35
Later that evening, when the sun was starting to go down so it wasn’t sweltering hot, well before the time Carly said she’d be by to pick her up, Beth decided to walk down to her grandmother’s house and have a chat. If anyone could help her work through all of this, it was Grandma Iris.
Normally, Beth could make the trip on foot in about ten minutes, but she found herself walking slower, stuck in her own head. She looked up and realized her feet had led her halfway up her grandmother’s long drive before she even knew where she was. There was no need to knock at Grandma Iris’s house. She let herself in, and hearing her grandmother in the kitchen, she shouted, “Grandma? It’s Beth!”
A familiar voice as warm as apple pie called, “Oh, Beth! Come on back, honey. I’m just fixin’ some supper.”
The scent of ham or bacon frying filled her lungs as she crossed through the small living room and dining room area and through the swinging door that led to the kitchen. Grandma Iris had terrible arthritis and couldn’t walk well, so she chose to cook from a chair. She called it, “armchair cooking,” and she was sitting there now, turning a slice of ham while sliced potatoes fried alongside them.
Beth bent and kissed her grandma’s cheek, careful to avoid the grease splatters. “How you been, honey? It’s been a few weeks since you’ve come to see your old granny.” Iris wasn’t wearing her wig, since she hadn’t been expecting company. The little gray tufts she had left poked up on the top of her head. She wore a thin cotton summer dress to keep her cool since the air conditioning in the house was a window unit that didn’t make it all the way from the living room to the back of the house.
“I’m… okay,” Beth said, pulling out a chair across the table from her grandma and having a seat.
“Uh huh. I don’t quite believe that. What’s goin’ on, honey?”
With a sigh, Beth began to tell her grandmother everything that had happened the last few weeks. Grandma Iris listened intently, only stopping Beth to ask a few clarifying questions, as she ate her ham and potatoes, which Beth declined. The idea of eating something that greasy right now, when she already felt nauseous thinking about everything Ryan had told her, seemed like a really bad idea. When she was finished, she waited patiently for the wisdom she was sure her grandma would expel.
“Well, honey, I’ve been wondering for years if that Ryan didn’t have feelings for you. The two of you sure do spend an awful lot of time together.”
“I had no idea, Grandma. You do think, then, that he meant himself? I wasn’t crazy for thinking that’s who he was talking about?”
“No, I’m purty sure that’s what he meant. It would be hard for him to say the words, though, I imagine. Now, this Halley—she seems like trouble, honey. Coming in here, keeping her past a secret, and not even willing to tell anyone where she lives. I’d steer clear of her.”
Her grandmother’s words sounded foreboding. She was sure if Grandma Iris thought she was in any real danger, she’d say, and it didn’t seem like that’s what she was getting at, but still, the fact that they knew so little about Halley was alarming. Hadn’t anyone ever read the book Rebecca? Or anything by Lois Duncan? Isn’t it possible Halley was hiding who she really was because her past held more secrets than anyone could ever guess?
“Beth, are you okay, honey?” Grandma Iris asked, setting her fork beside her empty plate.
“Yeah, I’m fine, Grandma. Just… I think you might be right about Halley.” She stood and took her grandma’s plate and carried it over to the sink to rinse it off. Realizing the sink was nearly full, she plugged it and poured some Joy in as well.
“As far as Ryan is concerned, seems to me the two of ya have feelings for each other. Those aren’t likely to go away just because of Halley or because you momentarily forgot who you are.”
Beth looked over her shoulder, her grandmother’s dinner plate in one hand, a soapy rag in the other. “You think I should go back to who I was before, then? That I should stop trying to fit in?”
“I don’t know. I guess it depends on what you want. Do you want to be the girl you are when you’re with those other girls, fake laughing and carrying on, or do you want to be the sweet girl you were before? What about your other friends? Do you miss them?”
Beth had considered hanging out with her old friends that night instead of taking Carly up on her offer to pick her up. But she wasn’t sure she was ready for that just yet. She’d worked so hard to get where she was. If she faltered now, it would all be gone. And she’d never be able to regain it. She continued to wash the dishes, mulling everything over.
The chair behind her creaked as her grandmother pulled herself up, a few pops and clicks generated from the old body filling the air as well. She crossed the room and wrapped her arms around Beth, kissing her on the cheek before heading into the living room where it was cooler. “Thank you for doing the dishes, honey,” Grandma Iris said. “I know, no matter what, you’re still my sweet Beth.”
Once the dishes were done and set in the drying rack, Beth joined her grandmother in the living room for a few minutes, an old episode of The Beverly Hillbillies, one of Grandma Iris’s favorites, playing on the television, even though Beth wasn’t paying any attention to it. It was starting to get dark outside, so she decided she’d better go. Not that she was scared to walk around Barryville in the dark, but she remembered bumping into Craig the other day, and she needed to get home if she was going to go with Carly. Despite her better judgment, something told her she was. She hugged her grandma, kissed her cheek, and headed home.