“Yes?” I said automatically, looking up and expecting to see Grandma standing in the doorway, back from shopping.
No one was there.
Slow tingles crept into my legs and arms like icy tentacles, freezing me onto the couch in fear.
“Hello?” I said, straining to hear someone in the other room. My chest rose and fell quickly as I began to breathe faster. The silence in the house was unbearable. I wanted to get up and go into the other room, or outside, but I felt rooted to the spot. After what seemed like an eternity, I set the photo album back under the table, and slowly stood up. Summoning courage I bolted into the family room and turned the TV on just to hear noise. I shivered as the nervousness slowly left me, and cautiously looked around to make sure there wasn’t someone in the house.
The voice had been so real, as if someone standing right next to me had said it. Mom would say my imagination was running away with me. I took deep breaths and tried to concentrate on the television.
“Anna, are you ready to go swimming?” Gabby ran inside from the garage and sped past me to put her swimsuit on, unable to contain her excitement.
“Are we going now?” I asked Grandma, who was following Gabby through the door with her arms full of grocery bags. I headed out to the car to bring the rest of the bags in. The air in the garage was heavy and humid.
“Well, Libby said to come over anytime after two,” Grandma said from the kitchen, “and when Gabby found out it was two-thirty she just couldn’t wait, so I said we could go now.”
“Okay, I’ll help you put the groceries away and get my suit on,” I said, returning to the cool relief of the kitchen.
“Make sure you put on sunscreen, both of you.”
Libby had been Grandma’s nearest neighbor since Mom was a girl, although “nearest” was a relative term, because it took about ten minutes to walk to her house. Libby’s husband had also died, so she and Grandma saw each other several times a week. They got their hair done, played rummy, and generally kept each other company. Libby was tiny. She couldn’t have weighed more than ninety pounds or been taller than five feet. But her hair added about another foot. It was the biggest hair I’d ever seen. She colored it blond, and if anyone asked her about it, she protested that it was her natural color, then she’d lean over and wink and whisper that she’d been dying her hair so long she had no idea what her natural color really was.
I couldn’t believe how hot it was walking over to Libby’s. I thought my rubber flip-flops would melt right into my feet. I wondered why Grandma didn’t want to drive, but I knew she liked to get her exercise.
“Hotter ‘n Hell’s kitchen!” Grandma exclaimed, fanning herself with her wide straw-brimmed hat. She had long linen pants on, and I couldn’t imagine how much hotter she must be. “Oh Lord, look at my flower bed. Those flowers are as dry as a desert dune. Gabby, you put your sandals back on, girl!” she said, shaking her head. “You’ll be sorry if you step on one of those goatheads.”
Gabby stopped dead in her tracks. “Goat heads?” she squeaked, slowly turning to look for a bloody, severed head on the dirt road.
“Oh, shoot, not a real goat’s head, but a nasty, spiky weed that sure won’t feel good if you step on it.” Gabby’s shoulders relaxed in relief and she quickly put her sandals back on.
After the hot walk, we were happy when Libby opened her door and let us in to the cool comfort of her air-conditioned house. “Well, my word!” she said, looking at Gabby and me. “Y’all can’t be Anna and Gabby. You’re much too big!”
“It’s us!” Gabby protested, not understanding the joke.
“It’s just wonderful to see you again, girls, and Ashley’s happy to have some friends to play with. I’ll get your Grandma some iced tea and y’all go ahead and find Ashley in the family room.”
Libby’s husband had smoked, and the house smelled strongly of cigarettes even though it’d been over ten years since Mr. Watson had passed away. The house was filled with mismatched furniture, overflowing bookshelves, and plants in every corner. Grandma liked to say Libby had more crap than a cow field. Grandma was full of funny old sayings.
“Hi Ashley,” Gabby said shyly.
“Hi Gabby,” Ashley replied without looking at us. I waved and said hello also, and Ashley’s reply was so quiet I could barely hear her. I knew that after about only five minutes both girls would be squealing with happiness as they got reacquainted and remembered how much fun they had together.
“Y’all wanna go in the pool?” Ashley asked.
“Yeah, let’s go!” Gabby replied, her earlier excitement returning.
Gabby wasn’t a very strong swimmer yet, so she had to wear floaties on her arms. I think she was a little embarrassed at first, because Ashley was younger and swam well without any help from inflatable plastic rings. But any self-consciousness was short-lived, and almost immediately the girls were splashing and playing as if they spent every day together.
I floated on my back on a thick foam pad, drifting leisurely around the deep end away from the girls. Above the girls’ splashing I could hear Grandma and Libby chatting about the people and events that shaped their everyday world. Someone was back in the hospital. Someone else didn’t show up at church last week. Another’s grandson was graduating from military school. I noticed that Libby had a lot of flowers in her backyard. I wondered if she took care of them herself like Grandma did, or if she had a gardener to help. I thought about Grandma, up at the first light of dawn spading and raking, digging and watering. By the time Gabby and I woke up Grandma had already been in her garden for several hours.
I closed my eyes against the heat and splashed the cool water on my face and chest. I daydreamed with my hands and feet dangling lazily in the water until my fingers and toes were pruned as raisins. After a while I began to get thirsty, and as I sat up and paddled the pad toward the edge of the pool, I swore I heard my name being called—a slight whisper hidden in the sound of the tree leaves flickering in the warm breeze. I looked around; Gabby and Ashley splashed around in the shallow end of the pool, and Grandma and Libby remained engrossed in deep conversation. I heard it again.
“Aaannnna. Anna, help me.” I swiveled around, trying to find the source of the voice. Suddenly, the sky turned black and the wind picked up. The temperature seemed to drop a few degrees, and the sky began to swirl with leaves and other debris. In the distance, I heard a low moaning, like a freight train making its way across the Texas prairie. I knew it couldn’t be real, so I shut my eyes tight and shook my head to break myself from the reverie. When I opened my eyes again, no one else seemed to have heard or seen anything. Puzzled, I wondered if I’d fallen asleep. Libby called for me to come get something to drink. Grateful for her offer, I made it to the side of the pool and tried to clear my mind of the strange moment.
Later that night as I showered I wondered what my friends back home were doing. With a two-hour time difference I guessed that many of them, including my best friend Chelsea, were probably just getting in from soccer practice. Chelsea and I met at school when we were both eight. On the first day of third grade, she was seated behind me, having the dubious luck of following my last name in alphabetical order.
“Do you play soccer?” she whispered to my back while Ms. Costas assigned the remaining desks.
“Yeah, I played on the Stingrays,” I replied, half turning so she could hear me, but wary of getting in trouble for talking.
“I played on the Cougars!” she exclaimed, happily. “I knew you looked familiar. What’s your name?”
“Anna.” I was a little intimidated by someone my age who seemed to have no shyness whatsoever. But there was something about her I really