Frazier's Tree by Steven Reed

Author:Steven Reed [Reed, Steven]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, General
Publisher: Virtualbookworm.com Publishing
Published: 2014-04-15T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

Long before I ever told him about it, I would lie on the windowsill, look down across the street, and watch the lights from Richard’s house. If I stuck my head a little way out the window I could just make out his room through the big cherry tree in Aunt Ethel’s front yard. Sometimes I would purposefully lay awake until his lights had gone out, and then I would lay back on my pillow and dream of what it would be like to have him all to myself. I hadn’t the faintest idea what I would do with him once I had him, but I was tired of sharing him with all the other girls in the neighborhood. Miss White credited his cuteness with breaking the protests in front of the school. He’d showed up at school just after Thanksgiving, all the girls persuaded their mother’s to let them come back. By January, we had a full classroom.

Actually, I didn’t know exactly which light belonged to Richard’s bedroom until I consulted the other girls, and they knew the exact floor plan of the house. After that, I could make out his light from the others, and I started doing the crazy thing. I had read an article in some psychology magazine at the library (Mamaw would have killed me had she known), but Naomi and I had found this story about people who could do things just by thinking about them. They could send their thoughts out into space and move tables, lift bodies, bend spoons- all kinds of weird stuff. For a week I carried a spoon around in my back pocket concentrating like a swami. It actually did bend, but only after Jacob pushed me down the stairs at school after we’d got in a fistfight.

But I didn’t give up on the power of thoughts. Some nights, after Richard’s light had gone out, I would lie on the window sill, or sit in the middle of my bed, face in the direction of his house, and send my thoughts out into the night. I started with thoughts on kissing. I would pucker up and smack thin kisses, deep clinging kisses, spit soaked kisses his way. He didn’t come out of the house for a week. I thought about it for a while and figured either he was afraid I’d smack him with another jug, or my kisses weren’t any good—I really hadn’t had any experience -, or maybe I was starting too fast. I started thinking thoughts of holding hands and looking at each other with big cow eyes.

After a week of silence except for a “Hi” and a “Bye” at the feed store, I went back to basics conversation. I would sit in the darkened room and hold conversations with the imaginary Richard. We talked about crops and books, the Cardinals, weather, sometimes romantic stuff. I held both parts of the conversation until one night Aunt Ethel knocked on my door and asked who I had in there with me.

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