I was disappointed to find out that Scout was not a writer. Later that night I had asked her what she did for a living and she said that she was a sub secretary at a marketing company a few blocks away. She just about flipped her lid when I told her what I did for money.
"I think that's terrific," she said, genuinely and happily surprised.
"You should try it," I suggested. "I bet you would be good at it."
"What would I write about?"
"You know how many stories I've written about you, me and Jem growing up?"
"Are you serious?!"
I could tell she was not pleased at all when I confessed that to her. Her face turned beet red and she put her hands to her mouth. She tried to laugh but she was obviously too mortified. I began to rub her back to try to coax her into saying something.
"Does the whole world know about our revival?"
"Well, they don't know it was based on a true story..."
"Oh my God," she said as she snorted and put her hands over her face. "Lord, what else from my crazy childhood did you write about?"
"The Tom Robinson trial."
"Oh, God! The Europeans are going to think us southeners are a bunch of assholes now!"
"What makes you think that?"
"Because we are."
"Did you pay any attention to what went on during the war? A good chunk of the world is in no position to judge us, sweetheart."
A glimmer of hope shone through when she lifted her face from her hands and her cheeks faded back to white. Another thing I had forgotten about her is that when she thinks, she thinks with everything. You could see the wheels turning in her head and you couldn't help but wonder what was going on in that magical mind of hers.
"Anything else that I should know about?"
"When a good friend had no choice but to leave."
"Well, that's sad. Who left you?"
"I left you."
"You didn't have a choice," she said with a sad laugh. I could tell memories were flooding back into her mind. "We were only ten and your mother moved and you had to go with her."
"Sometimes fate is the worst thing in the world," I said with a sigh. After all these years, even though I sit here reunited with my childhood friend-turned-lover, the memory of what I felt that last night in Maycomb was nothing of what I felt before. Scout leaned over and kissed my temple.
"That's not always true."
That was all she had to say about that. She walked away from me to go get herself a glass of water while the thought of our last conversation in Maycomb popped up in my memory. I began to smile and she noticed because she began to smile as well. I supposed I better speak up before she asked me what I was smiling for.
"Do you remember the last conversation we had before I moved away?"
"You know," she said as she took a pause. She set her glass down and puzzled over it for a while but to no avail. "I don't remember. I'm sorry."
"Do you remember anything about that night?"
"Hank got mad and pushed me into the Radley's tree," she replied, somber.
"What?"
"He was mad because I guess I was laying on your lap and he didn't like that."
"What?"
"That's why I got this now," she said as she pushed her hair back and exposed that scar on her temple from the other night. No wonder why she had a bad reaction when I noticed it. I knew I never noticed it before.
"Do Jem and Atticus know that?"
"Yeah."
"What did they do?"
"Well, you know that Jem never liked it when you fooled around with me the way you did and Atticus wasn't pleased to learn that I was laying in your lap, either."
"What about Hank though?"
"He admitted it, he apoligized, he was forgiven."
I felt sick to my stomach listening to this. Atticus was not the man I gave him credit for being all these years. The boy pushed his daughter into a tree and left a scar! The same boy was under Atticus' wing for years. She was going to marry this boy.
"So," she spoke up as she rubbed my arm. She could tell I was upset. "What did we talk about? Refresh my memory."
"We talked about our wedding day," I replied, still trying to not flip out over Hank.
"Was it a good day?"
"It was the best day."
"Was I happy?"
"Yeah."
"Were you happy?"
"The happiest I ever was or will be," I said as I turned around to look at her. I looked at her right in the eyes because I wanted her to know that I was telling the truth. She took my face in her hands and kissed me.
"You're a goddamned fool," she said as she laughed.
"What?" I was startled. "Why?"
"You really thought I had forgotten about that?"
"Why'd you say you didn't?"
"I wanted to see if you did."
"Why would I bring it up then?"
She just looked at me and smiled. She got up from the bar and put her glass back in the sink. I smiled because maybe she was pulling my leg about the whole thing and maybe she said that about Hank to get my goat. I don't know why she would joke about such a thing but she is a mystery like that.
"How did you really get that scar?"
"I told you already."
Shit.
