Page 7 of Who's that Girl?
The drive into the mountains to the cut-your-own-tree lot seems to take years. Mac chain smokes the whole time, and eventually I can’t take it anymore and crack my window. No one says a word, which is lucky, not even Jake, who would usually use any opportunity he can to complain.
Mac can be obsessively dictatorial about the car and has shouted at me before for opening a window or turning on the radio without permission, but today he is mellow, and silently consents to letting me have an icy wind slapping me in the face for an hour.
As my coughs subside and my cheeks freeze, I remind myself that as cold as my skin feels, it’s the better alternative. Jake ignores me from his spot across the back seat, while my mother sings along to Christmas carols, off key in the front. Some miserable hours later — I can’t keep track — we finally pull off the highway into a gravel parking lot. A faded sign reads, “Christmas Trees: Cut Your Own!” There’s a little shed and an enormous man wearing a plaid shirt inside. Mac and Marla go over to talk to him and Mac immediately gets mad. Even from across the empty parking lot, I can see the skin on his neck go red, though he doesn’t raise his voice. Probably because the tree man is so much bigger than him.
It turns out, if you’re too dumb to have brought your own tools, and we are, you have to rent an axe. Mac is infuriated at the expense.
I stay by the car, trying to pretend I belong to anybody else as he attempts to haggle down the price for a rental axe.
I notice that the guy who runs the lot has a neat pickup truck. It’s ancient and green, like something out of one of those old movies where all the guys wear leather jackets. I wander over and peek inside. I’d like to have a truck like that.
As Mac and the lumberjack argue and I admire the pick up, an old station wagon pulls into the parking lot and all the doors pop open, including the trunk. It’s like watching a clown car empty out at a circus. Bodies just keep coming. I can’t keep track of them all.
There are at least two grown ups. And two girls that look like teenagers, probably a little older than me. They glance my way, but don’t seem to register my presence.
Girls never do. I’m nothing special, I guess.
There are two little boys, even smaller than Jake. And a whole bunch of smallish girls — I can’t even count how many of them there are — they’re moving so fast. One of the littlest boys is crying, it seems. Another girl (bigger, maybe my age?) no, probably younger, comforts the little kid that is crying. She glances up at me, and I hastily move away from the old green truck feeling like she’s caught me at something, though I’m not sure what.
The girl’s skin is sort of medium dark, but her hair is reddish, like Anne of Green Gables, but not quite so orange. More … brownish orange. There’s probably a word for the color, but I don’t know it. Boys aren’t supposed to know colors. Regardless, it’s an unusual combination. Beautiful and striking.
She looks my way again, more deliberately this time, and grins, then rolls her eyes a little, like she’s saying ‘Little kids. Solidarity. Am I right?’
I have the urge to look behind me to see who she intended this silent communication for, but of course, no one is behind me.
Was that smile for me? That eye roll? Doubtful.
Mac and Marla are still talking to the axe man, and Jake is zooming around our car in circles. He’s found a stick and is whacking one of the front tires with it every time he passes. I ought to stop him. But I can’t be bothered at the moment.
Ah, that must be what she means.
I smile tentatively back at the red-haired girl.
Moments later, Mac and Marla are back and we are trooping off into the woods.
Jack zooms off ahead, and I walk deliberately slowly, trying to fall behind.
“What sort of tree are we looking for?” I ask.
“A nice one,” says Marla.
“A cheap one,” says Mac.
As our unhappy little family moves off into the trees, the woods seem to close around us, and the sound of the big happy family fades, then disappears entirely.
~
Nearly an hour later, I’ve finally managed to shake loose from the Masons, and I even lose myself to some extent.
No, that’s not true. I’m wandering the little woods, but I’m only pretending to be lost.
I practice saying it aloud to the trees. “Sorry, I got lost.” Mac is sure to flip his lid when we’re all together again. He’ll shout at me. Ask where the fuck I’ve been. All that jazz.
“Sorry, I got lost,” I say again to the trees, in a slightly different tone.
But the trees don’t answer.
I wish I felt something. Afraid maybe. Or anxious. But I don’t. I’m happy to be on my own, away from Jake and Mac and my mother. If he yells at me, it will be worth it. I like the smell of the pines and the cold, thin air. And I’ve always had a solid sense of direction. Though the scrubby trees that surround me do all look somewhat the same, I can still tell — can just sort of feel — where the gravel parking lot is. Or at least, which direction I ought to go in to get back to it. I’ll be fine. I’ll always be fine.
