New Girl in Little Cove by Damhnait Monaghan (book club suggestions TXT) 📗

I came around the corner. I stood outside and looked up at the stars, remembering Lucille’s comment that stars were stars. I wondered what Lucille was doing that evening and whether her new boarder appreciated her. But I was enjoying living on my own for the first time in my life. Spending Friday nights in Little Cove was no longer appealing, but I planned to stop by after school one day soon to visit Lucille and buy one of her rugs for Mom’s Christmas present.

16

November slipped past and December arrived with the first snowfall. We watched it come down, soft and steady, outside the classroom windows. I was almost as restless as the students. When the afternoon bell finally rang, they exploded into the schoolyard. I watched from my classroom window as Calvin made a big snowball with his bare hands and chased Cynthia around my car. When he caught her, he shoved the snowball down the back of her coat. She shrieked blue murder but wore a huge smile. She grabbed his toque and sped off, looking back over her shoulder and laughing as he slipped in the snow, trying to catch up. A dump of snow could make a pair as disparate as Calvin and Cynthia find common ground.

Later, when I left school in the dark blue early evening, the snow had been cleared from my windscreen. I smiled, imagining Phonse sweeping it off with a broom. But when I slid into the driver’s seat, I saw a note taped to the steering wheel: “Clayville’s not far enough. Piss off home out of it.”

My stomach lurched. Someone had been in my car, maybe even sat in the driver’s seat to put the note there. I banged my fist on the steering wheel, and the paper split in two. I ripped the pieces off and threw them on the passenger seat.

Screw this place and the people in it. I pulled out of the parking lot and put my foot down hard on the accelerator. By the time I left Little Cove, I had fishtailed twice, scaring myself enough to slow down.

For a minute I kept my eyes on the road, the car lights drilling amber tunnels into the falling darkness. But I couldn’t help but look over at the torn paper, wanting to check the handwriting. Was it the same person? And why? What had I done to deserve this treatment? When I shifted my eyes back to the road, my car had veered over to the wrong side and two headlights were coming straight at me. I swerved, then braked hard, remembering too late that you should pump the brakes on icy roads. My car spun around, then slid off the road into the ditch.

I heard a door slam, then a voice called, “Miss O’Brine?”

My driver’s door opened and a wrinkled face under a red toque peered in.

“Lord thundering Jaysus,” said the man. “You scared the frigging life out of me. You all right?”

I opened my mouth but no words came. The most I could manage was a thumbs-up. He reached over, undid my seat belt and helped me out of the car and up from the ditch.

I gulped in the cold air. When my breathing returned to normal, I thanked my rescuer. He introduced himself as Eddie Churchill and said that Phonse had told him all about me.

I sagged against the side of his truck. “You know Phonse.”

“Know him? Sure he’s my cousin and next-door neighbour, can’t know him much better than that.”

He reached into his coat pocket, pulling out a flashlight, which he shone at my tires. “No snow tires on ’er,” he said. “No wonder you’re after sliding off the road.”

“The garage in Clayville is putting them on for me,” I said. The day I’d bought the winter tires, the garage had been too busy to put them on and I hadn’t been back since.

“No, my dear,” he said. “I’m doing it the once. It’s a bad road the best of times, and when it’s icy, she’s like the bottle. Let’s push her out first.”

From the back of his truck, he fetched some cardboard. We climbed back down into the ditch and he put the cardboard behind my wheels for traction.

“You okay to push?” he asked.

I nodded.

He put my car in neutral and joined me at the back bumper.

“Now then, missus,” he said, “we needs a bit of the old rock and roll.”

We pushed the car, back and forth, working it up and eventually out of the ditch.

Then he handed me the flashlight to hold, got the tires and jack from my car, and set to work.

“So you teaches French,” he said. “I wish I could do the parlez-vous.”

“It’s never too late,” I said.

My fingers grew numb clutching the flashlight and I changed hands periodically, shoving the cold one in my pocket. Mr. Churchill didn’t seem to notice the cold. He worked methodically, whistling.

“What’s that tune?” I asked at one point.

“It’s called ‘Sonny’s Dream,’” he said. “Phonse’ll know it.”

Finally, he cranked the jack back down and put my summer tires and the jack in the trunk. “Put those away now when you gets home,” he said. “You won’t be needing them for a keen spell.”

“Thank you so much, Mr. Churchill.”

“It’s Eddie,” he said, blowing on his hands, then rubbing them together.

I opened my purse. “How much do I owe you, Eddie?”

“I can’t take nothing for that,” he said. “For one thing, it was a five-minute job.”

“More like forty-five,” I said.

“Plus, Phonse would have me head. Sure you’re part of the community, now, right?”

Whoever was sending me those notes might not agree with Eddie, but as I drove slowly home through the falling snow, the words part of the community glowed in my heart.

When I arrived at school the next morning, Phonse was shovelling the front steps.

“Morning, Rachel,” he said. “Heard about your tires. With all that travel back and forth to Clayville, you might want to ask himself to look out for you.”

“Who?