made a sound like “ehh.” She wobbled her hand in the air in a so-so motion.
“I like her! She’s really nice,” I said. In Stacy’s defense, I splashed in Emilie’s direction, but the water landed a foot short of its mark.
Emilie laughed. “You don’t even know her.”
“I do, too! You don’t know who I know.” I did know Stacy. She had visited our house twice now, and each time she’d asked me about what I was reading, what I liked to do during the summer. She and Johnny and I had walked out to the barn, and I’d convinced her to let a calf suckle two of her outstretched fingers. She’d squealed at first and then got used to it and started stroking the calf behind its ears with her free hand. This felt like the most essential thing to know about a person.
There was a familiar hissing sound as Aunt Julia struck a match to light her cigarette. “What don’t you like about her, Emilie?”
Emilie considered for a moment. “She’s just so clingy, you know? She hangs all over him.”
Aunt Julia blew some smoke out of the side of her mouth and gave a little chuckle. “Seems like she’s the kind of girl who likes to have a boyfriend. Plenty of girls like that.”
“I think it’s pathetic,” Emilie pronounced. “She spent the whole past month just trying to catch his eye—”
“She did not!” I sputtered defensively. Of course she hadn’t. She’d only been at that softball game because her Dad was playing; she’d only talked to Johnny in the first place because I’d passed on her message. “You’re just jealous because you don’t have a boyfriend.”
Emilie shrieked with laughter. She tipped her head backward into the water and came up again, her hair lying sleek against her head. “Oh, puh-lease. Plus, ask anyone at school. She was dating this guy last year and she just about drove him insane, she was so needy.”
I flopped onto my back, kicking my legs angrily in her direction. She skimmed her arms across the surface of the pool in response, serving up an impressive wall of water that splashed onto the deck.
“All right, girls.” Aunt Julia sighed, a gray strand of smoke curling out of her mouth.
“I’m only saying,” Emilie smirked.
“Well I like her,” I announced.
“I do, too, sweetie,” Aunt Julia said. “And I bet Johnny’s big enough to handle himself.”
Emilie rolled her eyes but let it go. “I’m going to start a whirlpool,” she announced, kicking off from the edge of the pool.
Aunt Julia laid her head back, closing her eyes, and I flopped back onto an inner tube, letting the momentum from Emilie’s vigorous one-person whirlpool spin me in lazy circles. Every now and then I splashed water onto the inner tube to cool off my legs. The sunscreen that had been slathered on me only an hour before had melted away with the heat, and I could feel my skin pinking from head to toe.
That night, with barely any warning, a thunderstorm rolled through on dark, menacing clouds that hung low on the horizon over our still-fragile cornstalks. It was still blazing hot, eighty degrees but dripping with humidity so thick that the air seemed to splinter and shape itself around us as we moved. Dad and I were coming back from the barn when the first bolt of lightning split the sky in two. We were drenched by the time we made it to the back door. Upstairs, Emilie and I sat on her bed, watching while rain swept the fields and battered the house. Suddenly, there was a crack; the oak tree on the front lawn had been hit by lightning. I screamed when a large branch hit the ground, shaking the house and all of us inside it. In the morning, Dad and Johnny dragged the limb across the grass to the side of our shed, where it lay like a carcass, its sad branches splayed to the side.
six
One night that August, Stacy Lemke showed up unannounced at our back door.
Johnny was in the living room practicing moves with some of his wrestling friends, Peter Bahn and Erik Hansen. Johnny was always conditioning—hefting feed bags and doing chin-ups at a barn in the hayloft, but he saw these nights as serious training sessions. Dad was there, of course, and Jerry Warczak had stopped by to talk with Dad about some new fencing he would need help installing. Grandpa took a seat in one of the out-of-the-way recliners and cheered at all the wrong times. Somehow, despite watching dozens of Johnny’s matches, he’d never figured out the scoring system.
Johnny’s coach was there, too; he liked to stop by from time to time to check in with Dad and throw around words like “scholarship” and “state title.” Coach Zajac was Johnny’s height but twice as wide, his shoulders straining the seams of the warm-up jacket he wore year-round, no matter the weather. His ears were puffy, bulbous even, like an early version of human ears, before God ironed out all the kinks. Cauliflower ears, Dad had explained to me once. “It’s just fluid that gets trapped in there.” But every time I saw him, I was reminded of the jar at Wallen’s Pharmacy, where people dropped their spare change to help end birth defects.
When Stacy arrived, I happened to be in the kitchen, helping myself to a glass of lemonade. I didn’t recognize the white sedan that dropped her off, but there was Stacy, striding across our lawn as if she’d done this a million times before.
“Oh!” Mom said, opening the door but standing in front of the doorway, as if she wasn’t going to let Stacy inside. “You know, this might not be the best time, honey. Johnny’s in the middle of some wrestling with the guys.”
“I know,” Stacy said, smiling sweetly. “I came over to watch.”
Mom didn’t respond; she just stepped out of the way. Stacy gave me a little wave, passing right through the kitchen into the living room, as if she belonged there. I saw Mom raise an eyebrow; she didn’t approve. It wasn’t personal, but as far as she was concerned, Johnny was too young to have a serious girlfriend.
I followed Stacy into the living room, noticing the way her jeans hugged her thighs, the way her hair floated over her shoulders. She didn’t fit in here, I realized. Everything we owned was shabby, from Mom’s hand-me-down furniture and the worn carpet that had been here since Dad was a boy and the peeling wallpaper we always meant to take down. Everything about Stacy was new and fresh, as if it had just been invented that day.
The men in the doorway stepped back to let Stacy into the room, and Grandpa looked up from the recliner. Dad looked from Stacy to Johnny and back, as if he was trying to figure out the joke. Only Johnny and Peter Bahn, wrestling in the middle of the floor, didn’t notice her right away. I said loudly, “Stacy’s here,” and Johnny froze, his glance drifting over his shoulder. Peter took advantage of the moment and flipped Johnny over, pinning him. Grandpa clapped. Johnny swore.
“Got you,” Peter said, laughing.
Johnny rolled out from under Peter’s grasp, his chest heaving. “Caught me off guard,” he panted. “That’s no fair.”
Peter shrugged. “Fair’s fair,” he said, pushing himself up to a standing position.
Johnny stood, too, scowling. He hated to lose.
“I didn’t mean to break anything up,” Stacy said, smiling uncertainly.
“What are you doing here?” Johnny demanded.
Stacy’s smile faded. “I just wanted to say hi.”
Johnny shook his head. “You could have just called.”
Dad cleared his throat. “Johnny, why don’t you introduce Stacy around.”
Johnny hesitated a long beat, breathing through his nose. Only after catching Dad’s eye did he relax. “This is Erik, Peter, Grandpa Hammarstrom, Coach Zajac,” he said, gesturing. Erik and Peter smiled, Grandpa gave a slight, confused nod of acknowledgment, and Coach raised one hand in a meaty salute. “And this is Jerry, who lives next door.”
Jerry reached out