“Who is that knocking on my door?” my grandmother asked, her feet brushing against the uneven wooden boards of our trailer as she came up the hallway.
“I don’t know.” I shrugged and brushed aside one of the yellowing curtains to peer out the tiny window.
“It’s some girl.” I didn’t know the girl who stood on the other side of our door, but she appeared to be my age. My grandmother had told me there were a few teens who lived in the trailer park.
“Go ahead and answer. She’s probably one of the neighbors.” My grandmother turned and headed back down the hall.
“Hey,” the girl with long brown hair and a broad smile said as I opened the door.
“Hey,” I replied with a wrinkled brow.
“I’m Kate.” She pressed a palm to her chest. “You’re new here, right?”
I nodded.
“Thought so. I saw you a couple times this week but never before.”
“I just moved in to live with my grandmother.”
“Oh.” Kate nodded. “That makes sense. How old are you? I’m sixteen, and I’ll be a junior in the fall.”
“Me too.”
“Cool.” She lifted on her tiptoes as if excited to meet someone else her age.
“What’s your name?”
“Savannah.”
“Savannah, do you want to come and hang out with a few of us down at Gaines River?”
I glanced down at my jean shorts and T-shirt. “I don’t have a swimsuit.”
Kate waved a hand. “No problem. It’s hot as Hades outside. If you get wet, you’ll dry off fast. Come on,” she urged. “We’re meeting at this cool spot right underneath Tucker Bridge.”
I hesitated and glanced over my shoulder. My grandmother had told me to stay away from Tucker Bridge. Well, not so much the bridge, but from the people who lived on the other side of it.
I worked for them people all my life, she’d told me.They hated when that bridge was built. Didn’t want their kids going to school with our kind.
Our kind, meaning those whose parents couldn’t afford homes with actual foundations built into the ground.
But I was sixteen, and sitting inside all summer watching reruns of courtroom dramas wasn’t how I wanted to spend my time, either.
It didn’t matter that I didn’t know Kate; I wanted to go out. Even braving it out in the Texas sun beat staring at the TV or worse, the framed picture of my mother that sat on the wall directly over the TV.
I missed her so much.
“Hold on,” I told Kate while holding up a finger.
I left the door open before going down to my grandmother’s bedroom. “Grandma, I’m going out with Kate for a little while.”
She pressed the mute button on her remote, silencing her tiny black-and-white television. I didn't even know they still made those things. “Where are y’all going?”
“To grab a slice of pizza,” I lied.
My grandmother looked me up and down. “Hm, hm. Just don’t go over by that bridge. I have to work tonight, so I probably won’t be around when you get back. Take your key.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
