“That’s no good,” I said, sitting beside him. “Because then you’ll leave Greenwood, and I’ll have no friends.”
“Well, you might have more if you put yourself out there!”
“Out where? I don’t want to put myself anywhere. I want to be a turtle.”
Isaiah ran off to a white veranda between the fountain and pool, perhaps to get a better look at my pathetic self. “You ought to learn to be a hare!” he said, folding his arms, leaning against the wood. “That brings me to what I wanted to talk to you about. If you’re interested, I’m sure the Vanderbilts can find you a nice job that would level up your money.”
I looked up at the woman in the window again. “I don’t think that lady wants me here.”
Isaiah looked up too. “I know Mr. Vanderbilt better than the missus, but I would hazard that staring back makes it worse.”
I took my eyes off the woman, but she continued to watch me. I could feel it.
I found a wobbly version of myself in the clear water of the fountain as I pondered Isaiah’s offer. Deep down I may have been tired of being such a dewdropper. “Perhaps I should get a better job,” I said. “Say I leave Greenwood to write for some paper outside this town. What could Pa say about that?” I met Isaiah’s eyes and felt a boldness creep into my bones. “What law is there says you have to work in the town you grew up in?”
“Not one.” Isaiah shrugged. “You could potentially take the first train up North tomorrow morning. But where would you go?”
“Chicago,” I answered.
He raised his eyebrows. “Not New York?”
“New York is too far,” I said. “And possibly too big. And too close to the water. I’d hate to drown.”
“So, you want to be somewhere better,” Isaiah said, his tone softly asking for assurance.
“Yes,” I admitted. “Not here, in Oklahoma, but if I could see more of the world, I think I would find my place in it. To become charming and adaptable, like you.”
Isaiah laughed lightly, accepting the compliment with a muted grace.
A low noise—a hiss—came from the grass, and then sprinklers around the property turned on, spraying us with water. I looked up to the window again and the woman was gone. Had she done that?
“Probably a sign it’s time to go,” Isaiah said, holding up his arms to shield himself from the spraying mist.
He broke into a jog down the pathway toward the gate, and I followed.
Once home, I waited on my front porch in the dark for a moment, watching lightning bugs glow every few seconds around me. At last, the air was cool outside, but I hated this part of the day.
I unlocked and opened the door, stepping over the threshold as quietly as possible.
“Nick?” Pa called from his study, before I’d even closed the door. “That you?”
I found him in his room—a cave of the fixations that fueled his writing. His walls were covered with newspaper clippings fromThe Tulsa Star. They told of politicians trying to take our rights away and the rising heroes who would save them. On his desk, a burning candle sat beside a big globe, and behind the desk, a three-dimensional sailboat jumped out of its frame.
He gave me a glance, in between clacks on his typewriter. “Where have you been out so late?” His tone was direct. But his focus? On anything but me.
“Isaiah was showing me the fancy estate he works at now,” I said.
Pa paused his typing and faced me gravely. “You went to that side this late?”
“Yeah, he invited me after work. It was the only time I could go. But Isaiah got all kinds of connections over there and they all know him.”
Pa crossed his arms and furrowed his brow, a mixture of disappointment and quiet anger on his face. “But they don’t knowyou. They don’t know you from a wild hog, and they damn sure won’t treat you any better.”
I knew this already. Every other day it was some dismissive lecture about how little I knew of the world. How I’d only understand things when I was older. I was sick of it!
“I don’t think I should have a curfew anymore,” I said. It came out almost against my will. My words drenched the room in uncomfortable silence, and I regretted them right away.
Pa looked very confused. Then he started to laugh—something he rarely did. “That’s an odd statement because you’ve never had a strict curfew.”
