Miriam's Well Read Free Page B

“Hold on. Mama,” I whispered, “what time is Brother James coming over?”
    â€œI haven’t called him yet. You were sleeping so peacefully, I thought there’d be no need to bother him.”
    â€œWell, then, what time are the men due home?”
    â€œSix-thirty, same as usual,” she said, with that edge to her voice I’d begun to recognize when she talked about my uncles.
    I heard Adam Bergen shouting something to someone on his end. It all came so easily to him—laughing, playing, teasing. “Are you still on the phone?” I asked.
    â€œStill here.” I pictured him sinking into our couch with the zinnia upholstery and weak, squeaking springs. Our living room with its small-scale maple furniture, its chintz and flounces, its dark, plaid drapes, would never contain anyone with the breezy style Adam Bergen had. The men hated the room, called it a woman’s room, and refused to sit in there. The kitchen was where they sat to read the paper or the Book in Gold Leaf , when they weren’t out in the garage working with their wood and tools.
    But I couldn’t take Adam Bergen into the kitchen. The simple polished maple table didn’t join well at the seam where the table leaf would go when Brother James or one of the elders came to dinner. How would Adam Bergen feel reading Emily Dickinson at that table with the soulful eyes of Jesus watching him from the picture on the wall? And what would I offer him to drink? He’d laugh at me if I gave him cinnamon tea or tomato juice, or even caffeine-free Coke. To be honest, I’d never thought about our house this way before, because no one ever came over except church people whose houses looked and smelled much like ours. But Adam was different, freer. I’d been noticing him for weeks, as he hung his lean body over Diana’s locker or bounded up the steps two or three at a time or shoveled pizza into his mouth in the cafeteria.
    â€œAdam, I really don’t feel well enough for company,” I said. My head was pounding. “I’m sorry if it’s a problem for you with Mrs. Loomis.”
    â€œDoesn’t matter to me,” he said casually. That was the impression he always gave—a shoulder-shrugging “who cares?” Except when he was galloping after Diana like a lovesick pony. “Hey, but would you explain it to Mrs. Loomis, because she’d never believe me.”
    â€œI will. I have to hang up.”
    â€œWait,” Adam said. “Do you think you’ll be at school tomorrow, before Mrs. Loomis skins me alive?”
    With the secret pain growing in my back, how would I be able to walk all the way to school? And stepping up onto a bus was almost as bad. But, as Brother James always says, each day brings the miracle of a new dawn, and I promised Adam, “Oh, yes, definitely I’ll be there tomorrow.”
    â€œSee you,” he said, so comfortably. It cost him nothing. I knew that his hands weren’t sweating like mine when he put the receiver down, nor was his face hot. No doubt he’d already forgotten our conversation and had turned on the TV.
    I wiped my hands down the sides of my skirt and lay back down in front of the dying fire. I wondered about Mrs. Loomis’s motives. I’d listened closely while she announced her poetry pairs. I observed everything, because I was never distracted in class. It seemed to me she went out of her way to pair up the least likely teams—boy with girl, black with white, slow with smart, Cambodian with Mexican, Jew with Christian.
    Adam was the first Jewish boy I had ever known. Though he never took things seriously, his voice was gentle. He wasn’t at all like his friend Brent, who was such a loudmouthed show-off. Adam Bergen had nice eyes, kind eyes. I noticed his eyes sometimes at Rockwell Library, when he passed my table. Once I was scared to death that he’d take the seat beside me. That’s the