You don't see a lot of cars passing by, this time of year. Especially not ones that look like they're going to stop.
Some country-pop song is seeping from the speakers through cranked-down windows, out into the world; you wish you didn't know all the lyrics, but you do.
If that's what you need, honey, go ahead and leave;
But promise you'll come home to me...
The beat-up old sedan (your dad or your brother would call it a beat-to-shit old jalopy, but you are dead set on being a Young Lady) rolls to a halt at the edge of the curb a couple feet from you, and the pretty woman driving turns down the radio to talk to you.
"Hey." Her voice is conversational, unaccented. "You know any good motels around here?"
"Uh, not really." You get up from where you're sitting on the grass and walk a little closer to where she's stopped. You probably sound like a dumb hick to her, you realize -- scruffy teenager in jeans and a too-big shirt, with clumpy workboots and scabbed hands. "If you keep going west a while there's a little inn you can stay at."
"Uh-huh?" She sounds kind of interested, like maybe she isn't just passing through.
"You intending to stay a while?" The inn you mentioned so innocently just happens to be the one your dad runs -- and God knows he's dinned it into your head that he can always, always use more business.
"I might," she allows, and cracks a smile. Her hands are still resting on the steering wheel, tapping out a vague rhythm. "Can you give me directions to this inn?"
"You'd have to try pretty hard to miss it." You point down the road ahead of her, where the car's hood is pointing into the sun. "It's maybe two miles. Turn off at the sign that says 'Farm Tools Mended', and it's not too far from there."
"Rock on." She gives you just a hint of that smile, and you realize how much of a hick you must look to her -- she could be a model, incongruously beautiful in her old and beaten car. "Thanks."
"No problem," you mutter, stepping back from the side of her car so she can pull away.
The back end of her car recedes at increasing speed. No one else has gone by in the last few hours, so she raises a plume of dust behind her as she goes.
And you can't help but wonder -- what is she doing here?
Your mom asks pretty much the same question at dinner that night.
"Now, don't take this wrong, but -- where you going, honey?"
Your mom married your dad when she was barely out of high school, but she still has a deep, silky, slow accent. Before she got married she was a proper young lady, and that's how she's trying to make you turn out -- not a cheerfully disheveled, boyish teenager in man's clothes.
The strange woman -- her name, it turns out, is Naomi -- swallows her bite of mashed potatoes and answers.
"Oh, nowhere in particular." She has an easy smile, as you're coming to see, and she uses it again. "West, I guess."
This makes sense -- ever since the recession started when you were still a little kid, you've seen lots of people just wandering here and there, looking for work or a future or somewhere to go.
To you, though, it smells fishy. A woman like Naomi could find work anywhere -- she's strong, as well as pretty, and she'd probably get along fine working anywhere a man can.
Your dad makes the next conversational move.
"So, Naomi, what do you do?"
You fork more meatloaf into your mouth as you covertly watch her answer.
"Well," she says finally, "that's kind of hard to answer." She smiles again, and brushes a strand of dark blonde hair back from her face. "I guess I'm kind of unemployed, but I get my bread and butter from writing."
"Oh, so you're a writer, then." Your mother's voice is soft and polite as always, but you know that despite the clean Southern-belle façade she presents, there's a hard core of practicality in her -- if the result of work isn't something she can pick up or run her hands over, something she can see, it's not a real job.
"That I am." Naomi's voice isn't quite accentless -- it has a little lilt of an accent you cannot place. It's not your mother's soft accent, or your own, harsher accent. It's something new and entirely different. "I'm working on a book about the recession, actually. I've been on the road for a while now, so I thought it'd do me good to take a break from that."
Your father breaks the silence -- the recession is always a touchy subject, and doubly so here, where Naomi is the only person you've seen recently with absolutely brand-new clothes.
"Well, Naomi, if you need any help, don't hesitate to ask. Christine will be more than happy to help you out." He indicates you with one upraised hand.
You'd be happy to help her with whatever she needs, sure -- if only your own father could remember that your name is Chris.
You're familiar with Naomi's room. God knows you hid in the closet one million times during childhood games of hide-and-go-seek, and you're as familiar with the boards of the floor as you are with your own body.
So why does being in it now make you blush?
It's probably the stupid manners your mother has been so careful to instill in you -- never enter a stranger's room without their explicit verbal consent. Or something that would explain why you're blushing.
Naomi's voice carries in from outside. "Chris? You still in there?"
She comes in the door. You're still holding a heavy cardboard box of her things -- books or something, judging by the weight of it -- and her eyes widen a little. "Um, just put that over in the corner. I'll take care of it."
You set the box down gently in the corner by the window looking northwest. "Anything else you need, ma'am?" Her other things -- clothes, toiletries, two other boxes -- are already in place, but maybe she wants something else.
She winces. "Call me Naomi, please. I'm not old enough to be a ma'am."
"All right, Naomi." You shove your hands in the pockets of your jeans. "So... what do you really do?"
"Huh?" She looks confused. "What do you mean?"
"You're not a writer. I know that. You don't have a computer with you or anything." And she doesn't look like a writer, either -- not all frumpy and librarian-like. What Naomi looks like is a model, someone pretty and fabulous who got lost on her way from New York to Los Angeles.
She does not belong here, that's for sure.
"I'm old-fashioned," she says calmly. "I prefer to write in notebooks. Besides. I'd have to charge a computer, and I spend a lot of time in places without reliable electricity."
You nod, feeling awkward as usual. "Well, all right then. If you don't need anything else..."
Naomi sweeps her long blonde hair back over her shoulder. "Nah. I'm fine. I'm sure you have other things to do."
Sure you do, this late at night. Nothing in town is open, and there's nothing good on television.
"Yeah," you say, from a throat that's suddenly dry.
"Thanks, Chris," Naomi calls after you as you make your exit.
Something is weird about her; you're sure of it.
The next time you see her, it's morning. You don't have anything to do in particular, so you're kind of killing time, maybe thinking of walking into town to see if anyone else is there.
Naomi's sitting on the porch steps, with her legs open like a man. She's wearing worn-light jeans and a tank top, her feet bare in the dirt. There's a notebook and a pen sitting next to her on the top step, but her attention is focused on a fresh peach which almost certainly came from your mother's fruit bowl.
"Oh, hi," she mumbles through a mouthful of fruit, waving cheerily.
"Um. Hey." God, you must sound like some kind of idiot. But you're not used to talking to people -- you spend most of your time alone. Dad has your mother and your brother and some part-time help to run the inn, and school's out right now.
Which leaves you, the open road, and your thoughts, most of the time.
"Want a peach?" Her eyes are wide and brown, which is kind of unusual -- most of the people with blonde hair you've met have light eyes, blue or green or grey. Not the dark, earthy brown of Naomi's eyes.
"Sure."
She tosses you one with a smooth motion of her arm and hand, and you don't really have the time to wonder where she was hiding it, because you sure didn't see her holding it.
You cradle your hands around the fruit, hoping it's not bruised from your clumsy catch. Although what does it matter? You're just going to be eating it anyway.
Naomi's eyes crinkle at the edges with a small, but genuine smile. "Nice catch."
"I didn't play softball for nothing, I guess," you return. You only stuck it out for one season, but she doesn't have to know that.
She takes another bite of peach and waves you over to the steps. "Come on. Sit down."
You take a couple of steps towards her, not willing to get too close to this strange woman who blew in from nowhere. You are innately untrusting -- and it's not wise to get too friendly with someone who could be gone tomorrow.
But whatever -- it's a warm summer morning, there's a fresh peach in your hand, and this friendly older woman wants you to sit with her.
You sit down next to her on the top step. Naomi is nibbling delicately at her peach, letting the juice drip through her legs and onto the wood of the steps. Maybe that's smart of her -- saves on cleanup time, certainly.
But you know where the hose is coiled neatly by the spigot, around towards the back of the house, and you know how good the cold water will feel on your hands when you go to rinse off peach juice later.
So you have absolutely no problem taking a big bite of soft flesh and softly-haired skin, filling your mouth with peach. This is the way you've always eaten food, despite your mother's constant reminders to act like a lady, not a tomboy. You like tomboy, and you like food, and it's not like someone classy enough to care about the way you eat is ever going to pay Hicksville a visit, so it doesn't really matter if you take little nibbling bites or big huge ones.
"So," you ask, knowing she couldn't care less about the juice making your hands sticky and uncomfortable as it dries, "what brings you here?"
The edges of her eyes crinkle again and she laughs. "I've answered that for you twice."
"I don't mean, like, what you do for a living," you say, deadly serious. "I mean... like... tell me why you're here."
She hesitates, and then suddenly she looks tired -- but you're fairly sure it's just a cloud passing over the sun, because in just a moment she looks the same again, a faint smile touching her lips, making her look a little bit mischievous.
You kind of wish Naomi were your age -- she might have been cool to hang out with at some point in time. But she's older than you, which means things are always going to be awkward between the two of you.
When she speaks, though, she sounds a little bit worn out -- like she could answer your question, but the answer isn't something she really wants to talk about, not now and maybe not ever.
You know that tone well -- it's what comes right before a conversation ends.
"It's kind of a long story," she says, her voice full of false-sounding lightness. "Maybe I'll tell you later."
She probably won't.
Naomi gets up, scooping her notebook and pen up in her non-sticky hand and taking her peach pit in the other, stepping across the porch with the confidence of someone with no fear of splinters.
What gives you hope is the fact that she turns back to you before she goes inside. Like she's reconsidering something.
"Hey Chris?"
"Yeah?" Your mouth is half-full of peach, but suddenly that doesn't seem so important.
"Come see me after dinner." She hesitates for half a second, and to you it seems like she's searching for a reason that doesn't make it sound like a proposition. "I want you to read something for me," she manages at last.
"I'd be glad to," you say, the response not really coming from you but from your mother's years of proper-lady training.
What you really want to say is:
Why can't you tell me right here?
Right now?
Dinner's early that night -- well, a little earlier than usual -- and Naomi isn't there. This doesn't worry you in particular -- maybe she went into town to eat at a restaurant or something. You haven't checked recently to see if her car's still parked where she left it.
You have to go by her room on your way to your own, and you nearly run into her on the narrow balcony. She looks like she ought to have a cigarette in her hand, enjoying the sunset and a smoke simultaneously, but she's just waiting.
For who, you're not quite sure.
"Oh. Hey, Naomi," you mumble at your sneakers.
"You're here." Her eyes seem to light up. "Come on."
She fairly drags you inside your room, and you remember -- she promised to tell you about why she's here.
Ooh. Story time. Goodie.
The last of the light sparks against Naomi's long hair as she ties it back into a practical ponytail. Something in that motion makes you realize -- she's older than she looks. You thought she was in her mid-twenties, but she seems, right now, like a woman in her thirties. Or maybe early forties.
"Don't think this is because of you," she says, her voice bleak after the door is shut and locked behind you. "I just... it's been a long, long time, and I need to tell someone."
She smiles at you, her expression soft and something like affectionate.
"Let me tell you a story," Naomi says, and with her back to the window in the fading light, her brown eyes are dark. You sit down on the floor and she follows suit, your naked feet cold against the sanded wood. It's something like consulting an oracle, you figure -- until she begins to speak.
And then it's intimate as a séance, her voice sweet as honey and lyrically lilting, calling up her ghosts to walk these aging boards.