“Consider yourself lucky.” I withdrew, fists still clenched.
“What’s wrong—” He gasped, sucking in oxygen. “—with you.”
“Doesn’t feel great, does it?” I waited for him to make a move, any slight advance. I didn’t start this morning looking for a fight, but if he gave me a reason, I’d leave him battered.
He massaged his throat as he staggered down the stairs. He scurried past Mum. Gladys had gotten out of the driver’s side of the car, watching as he ran to his truck. The queen of gossip had watched the entire thing. It’d only be a matter of hours before Firefly hummed with speculation, talking about how I tried to beat up one of their own.
“Charles.” Mum hobbled toward the front steps. “What’s going on?” She worried, even as my nails dug into my palms. “What happened?”
In all the years that man bullied me, I never revealed his name. There had never been a reason to give away his identity. He might have been the one shoving me against lockers and tripping me in the cafeteria, but it had been the entire school that participated. Complicit, they let it happen. Johnny was one of many.
“Taking care of business.” I eyed Gladys, still standing at her car. “It’ll give them something to talk about.”
“Charles, what’s gotten into you?”
It didn’t make me feel better. Not in the least. I could have easily tossed Johnny around like a rag doll. I had the opportunity, but knowing I could have done it didn’t take away the sting. It had nothing to do with getting revenge for the sleepless nights and fear of getting on the school bus.
More than the gremlins, I had been looking forward to our excursion. My opportunity to pass on Pops’s legacy had been shattered by a self-righteous asshole. The one good thread binding me to Firefly came unraveled. It hurt more than expected.
My time in Firefly had an expiration date. Once Mum could get around, I’d pack my bags and return to my life in Boston, or at least what was left of it.
Johnny’s truck vanished down the street. I hoped that, if nothing else, I occupied space in his head as he recounted every action that brought us to this point. If he didn’t regret his decisions, I wanted him to know I’d easily put him in his place.
I looked back at Mum’s worried face. “Breakfast is ready.”
“I can get the mail for you.”
Mum rolled her eyes as I helped her out of the truck. At the far end of the green, the post office could very well be the oldest building in town. White with a bay window on either side of a dark blue door, I could see the countless layers of white paint, none of them quite hiding the previous effort. She might find my attempts to help irksome, but I noticed how she held on to my arm for support.
“Foolish boy,” she chided. “I’m not here for the mail.”
The brown package slip said otherwise, but I knew it served as another excuse to visit. I could have picked it up for her, but she wanted to chat withsomebody. Another small-town quirk. In Boston, the mailman would have dropped it at the front door of the apartment building and gone about his business. This served as yet another way Firefly forced interaction.
After this morning, I didn’t want to interact with anybody.
Inside, it was as if I had entered a time capsule. Decades had passed, and nothing inside had changed. Along the back wall, small brass doors opened to post office boxes. While there were at least a hundred of them, their tiny windows showed only a fraction held mail. The right wall held dozens of posters, with a bulletin board covered in events hosted by the school.
“Ellie!”
“Patty!”
The pass through the wall to the mail room had metal bars as if somebody might attempt to rob them. If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought I stepped into the roaring twenties with all the brass. The woman on the other side must have been close to Mum’s age. With her hair in a bun and wearing a sweater far too heavy for the season, she gave me a quick glance.
“Dickie left this in the box.” Of course, Dickie, the same mailman from when I was a kid.
“Let me grab your fabric.” The woman running the post office must know everybody’s business. “You must have a new project in mind.”
While Mum visited, dishing about a new quilt design, I busied myself studying the wall. The bulletin board is exactly what I imagined. A school play. A school concert. A baked goods sale. In a small town, the school served as a community hub. Nothing about that had changed. It kept them feeling busy, as if there were more going on than nosing in one another.
I zeroed in on the high school’s art class exhibit. The bright purple paper stood out among the photocopied posters. More than the color, I spotted Celtic knotwork going down one side. As I ran my fingers along the surface, I discovered it had been hand-rendered onto the paper. The fine lines and perfect spacing would have impressed any tattoo artist. Whichever kid had produced that should consider an apprenticeship in their future. It’d give them the opportunity to say good riddance to Firefly.
Further down, I found metal protruding from the wall. Like a Rolodex, I flipped through the photos, amused that the post office in Firefly Valley had the F.B.I.’s most wanted list. It switched from mugshots to police sketches and back again. To think, somewhere in the tedium of Firefly, there might be an art thief or ex-member of the mafia. A few weeks here and they’d turn themselves in.
“Audrey should never let him leave the house without approving his outfit.”
The post office, like every public space in Firefly, turned into an event. Mum didn’t come for her package. This was an excuse to gab with one of her friends. I hadn’t been listening and didn’t know which man they chuckled about.
“I forgot to tell you.” Patty’s voice quickened. It was as if I had walked into my own personal hell. They treated gossip as a communal activity, and I wanted no part of it. “Sheryl and Rick.” She emphasized the and, making it clear the gossip involved their partnering.
