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*
The call comes from Mr. Sennett.
He's in Madison Memorial Hospital with Mrs. Sennett, and they're waiting to hear about Thomas J's condition. Vada doesn't understand what that means. She doesn't understand why her father's voice trembles or why Shelly looks like she's gonna cry.
Warm tears flood into Vada's eyes, dripping down her cheeks,
"… Is Thomas J gonna die?" she whispers.
Shelly's fingers reach out on instinct, combing and soothing Vada's hair. "Sweetie…" A grim-faced Harry Sultenfuss takes her by the shoulders, "They're gonna to do everything they can… and so are we. We will pray for him. That's all we can do now."
He kisses the top of her head, nudging Vada back to the dinner table to finish her meal. Nobody can eat.
Vada lets Shelly pull off the child-sized overalls, slipping a nightshirt over Vada's head and rocking her until Vada feels sleepy. But she can't. Not yet. Vada waits until Shelly slips out to crawl off her bed and kneel down, clasping her hands together.
Please, God, Vada prays furiously. Please don't take Thomas J away. You already have my mother. I'm sorry that I spit on Annie Andrews when I was mad. I'm sorry I won't eat my vegetables even if they taste bad. I'm sorry I stole money from Shelly's cookie jar. Please don't take him. I'll marry Thomas J instead of Mr. Bixler. I know it's illegal and I won't do it. I won't get straight A's.
Vada scrubs off her wet cheeks with the back of her hands, lowering her head and sniffling.
Please.
*
Mr. Sennett calls.
Vada runs ahead while the adults gather together in the waiting room to discuss what happened. She only hears a bit of it, but it's enough. Thomas J went into the woods by himself after he left Vada, kicking over a beehive. He shouldn't have done that.
Her skin itches as if she's been stung over and over and over.
A nurse wearing dark red lipstick scolds Vada, watching her run past the nurse's station, but doesn't chase after her. Everything smells too-clean. Vada barges into Thomas J's room, yelling his name and panting. Sweat gleams on Vada's pale brow.
It's an empty bed.
Her heart drops. The ugly, noxious taste of bile coats Vada's mouth.
Nearby, a toilet flushes.
"Vada?" Thomas J mumbles, exiting the cramped hospital bathroom, squinting through his glasses. "Wh'ss the matter—?"
He stiffens in place, going wide-eyed, as Vada breathlessly throws her arms around him. Thomas J's face is pinkish red welts all-over from his bee stings, and swollen up, and that doesn't matter to Vada. Her prayers were heard. For once.
*
The first thing they do when Thomas J leaves the hospital is ride off on their bikes.
Mrs. Sennett told him not to. She hugs Thomas J to her chest, petting the bangs off his forehead and not letting go for anything and weeps when Thomas J finally ducks away, escaping into the kitchen for a juice box. Vada used to be annoyed about how she was overly protective of Thomas J, but now it's sad. She could have lost Thomas J forever. Vada thought the same thing.
"I wanna be a world-famous painter," Vada declares, hanging off a willow-branch with both hands. It's their tree. It's their secret spot behind Linens N Things and A&P Food Store, where the sparkling blue water laps against the sides of the wooden jetty.
Thomas J sits in the grass, looking up in quiet contemplation as Vada's legs swing uselessly.
"Last week you wanted to be a circus performer."
"No, I wanted to run away to Hollywood," she corrects him. Vada nods firmly as Thomas J raises his eyebrows. "But before that I wanted to learn to play the violin, and before before that I wanted be a ventriloquist and then a fancy cake decorator."
A boyishly wide smile appears on Thomas J's face. His bee-stings less swollen.
"You're so weird."
Vada's cheeks flush.
"YOU'RE weird!" she barks, but finds herself smiling when Thomas J laughs.
Vada can't help but be grateful that Thomas J isn't in Heaven with his own big white, winged horse. Riding on the clouds all day, eating marshmallows and being best friends with anyone else when Thomas J was meant to be HER best friend.
He explains going back to where Vada dropped her mood ring in the woods. Thomas J holds out the ring between them, and Vada can see a luminous green streaking the solid black jewel. Her little heart flutters. She thinks about Thomas J getting attacked by the bees, and thinks about her prayers. She thinks about her promise to God about marrying Thomas J if he lived.
"You keep it," Vada insists, pushing the mood ring back into Thomas J's opened hand.
"Really?" he asks. "You sure, Vada?"
"One day, you're gonna give my mood ring back to me. But not right now. We're not ready."
Thomas J looks puzzled by Vada's almost cryptic words, but agrees.
*
They're thirteen when they kiss again.
Vada hates bleeding every month, but she doesn't complain to Thomas J. He wouldn't know what to say. She's already in a bad mood when Judy's ex-friends start teasing her. "Eww—what stinks?" one of them crows, giggling behind her purple binder.
"Your big fat mouth! That's what!" Vada yells, gesturing with a fist.
"Is she talking to us—?!"
More giggles echo by the lockers, high-pitched and cruel.
Judy murmurs for Vada to calm down, snatching onto her arm as a glowering Vada lunges towards the other kids.
"Nobody wants to talk to you, Rhonda," Thomas J grumbles, heading over. He's wearing baseball sneakers and long khaki shorts held up by a leather belt. His mouth deepens into a frown as Rhonda sticks a finger into her throat, pretending to gag.
"Aww!" Eleanor coos. "Here comes your boyfriend to the rescue, Vada!"
"Two losers in love."
"It's disgusting."
Vada glares so hard that her facial muscles strain painfully. The corners of her vision meld red.
And then… an idea occurs to her.
"You know what, you're right," she says coolly, folding her arms and jeering at her bullies. Her overconfidence makes Judy and Thomas J glance around to her in confusion. "He is my boyfriend and he's kissed me and he would never kiss any of you."
"Yeah," Thomas J blurts out after reading into Vada's expression. He shrugs. "Boys only wanna kiss pretty girls."
That does the trick. All of the girls stare at them as if deeply offended.
Rhonda scoffs.
"Then you have prove it," she hisses.
It's calling her bluff.
Vada mock-grins at her bullies, facing Thomas J who gives her a familiar 'seriously, Vada?' eye-quirk. Maybe this is going too far but Vada figures since they have kissed before this… it shouldn't be difficult. But they should sell it. The funny part is that Vada gets distracted by her amber-colored mood ring on Thomas J's right hand. On his forefinger. It's exactly how Vada wears it.
"Well?"
"Shut up," Thomas J mumbles, not even looking at a scandalized Eleanor gasping. He only has eyes for Vada. His fingers pluck a strand of Vada's dirty-blonde hair, tucking it gently and slowly over her ear, and that's when Vada decides to kiss him.
Not long ago, they practiced smooching on their own arms.
That first kiss, nothing but a brush of lips, felt like a hot spark inside Vada. Thomas J got so nervous about Vada pressuring to say something when they were eleven and break the silence that he climbed to his feet reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. Vada didn't know what to do either, climbing to her feet and also reciting along with him. They spit-swore to never talk about it.
Vada's chapped-dry mouth presses to his, holding there for a few seconds.
She steps away, mortified by the heat traveling up to her ears. Thomas J doesn't seem to notice, eyes unfocused and dreamy.
Judy's ex-friends sulk away.
*
They're fifteen when Thomas J moves away.
All she had left for her best friend was Gramoo, passing away before Vada's twelfth birthday, and him.
Judy was nice, but Judy wasn't Thomas J.
"Run away with me," Vada pleads. Both of them sit cross-legged in front of each other and huddle behind Mrs. Sennett's carnation-flower bushes. Their scent like dirt. "We did before, remember? Remember Hollywood?"
Instead of bringing up the failure behind it, Thomas J considers this. "Where would we go this time?" His voice sounds deeper to Vada. Thomas J's face loses all of the baby fat this year, replacing with a sharper jaw-line — but he's still her Thomas J.
"Don't care," Vada says stubbornly. "They can't make you leave Pennsylvania."
"M'sorry, Vada…"
Her teeth clench. Moisture fills her eyes. "No, you're not!" she shouts. "You're not or else you wouldn't be going!" Before her temper tantrum worsens, a solemn-faced Thomas J grips onto Vada's wrist, keeping her from running off back home.
"I'll send you letters. Every week." Sunlight flints off his eyeglasses. "I'll write every day and send them to you every weekend."
"Swear," Vada demands, rubbing the bright blood on her knee to her thumb.
She waits for him to dig his own fingernail into his own scabbed knee. Thomas J's blood oozes into existence.
"Swear," Thomas J whispers.
Their bloodied thumbs rub together, kissing like lovers.
Vada rubs Thomas J's blood into her scab, watching as her blood mingles into his. His blood is hers. Hers is his.
*
Nothing changes much when Vada turns nineteen.
She still lives at home, taking Psychology classes at the local college center and working as an assistant at Sultenfuss Funeral Home. Her father won't let her work the bodies yet, but Vada can move hearses out of the garage and type the death notices.
Out of nervous habit, Vada singsongs loudly to herself, walking up and down the basement.
The letters stop, but only on Vada's end. Thomas J sends his postmarked for every Monday, and Vada clings to them like a drowning victim. Reading them over and over and over. He's been attending University of Saint Francis, studying for pediatric medicine and volunteering at the soup kitchen. Between the lines, he's still as practical as ever. Curious and sweet.
From downstairs, the entrance-bell tinkles.
"I'll get it!" Vada hollers. She wipes off her thin, sunshine yellow crop top.
"Hey!"
The man by the waiting benches glances up as Vada marches down two steps at a time.
"We're closed!"
He has a pair of gold-rimmed eyeglasses resting on the bridge of his nose. Red flannel over a light grey tee. Thomas J, nineteen and towering over Vada, loses his composure to stare in amazement. His white blond, soft hair curtains his brow.
Vada doesn't know when she got face-to-face with him.
"Have you paid for the admission?"
At the wry remark from her, Thomas J offers a boyish smile. "I thought you said you were closed," he points out.
"For you, I'll make an exception," Vada retorts. But she grins absurdly wide and opens her arms, feeling Thomas J hug her so tightly. A small, shuddery exhale in her ear. Vada buries her face into his neck, as Thomas J does with her, breathing in deep.
He smells like fresh rainy air.
Vada fights back her tears, murmuring into his neck, "Why are you here?"
"I needed to see you…"
"Thomas J, you've been gone for so long."
"And you're here, thank god… I went to see my parents as soon I got in and I asked about you…" Thomas J gazes over Vada's pale, slender hands. As if looking for something specific about them. "So… you didn't marry Mr. Bixler, huh?"
Vada thinks about her fifth grade teacher and his wife Suzanne, and their three little boys. And the new baby boy on the way.
"I was a kid, so sue me," she groans. "A really dumb kid with a really dumb crush."
Thomas J laughs. His smile all handsome and crooked. "Trust me. I had what I thought was a dumb crush, too."
Vada's lips thin together.
"With… Mr. Bixler?"
He laughs again, deep and rumbling. A head shake.
"With my best friend," Thomas J says bashfully, pulling a necklace out from under his light grey tee.
In the lamplight, Vada recognizes her mood ring. Its gem-stone color now a deep, mesmerizing purple. She has half a mind to grab it and inspect the ring, maybe even try it on — but there's no way the golden band could fit on any adult finger.
"I was hoping I could propose to her with this."
Please, God.
Please don't take Thomas J away.
Vada hooks her fingertip into the mood ring, playing with it gently against Thomas J's broad chest. "If she accepts?"
"Is that a yes, Vada?"
Thomas J looks pained until she smile-mouths "duh!" with sparkling blue eyes watery. He brightens. Vada squeaks against his lips when Thomas J pulls her in, cradling her face and kissing her, making her heart pound frantically. Everything's dizzy.
It's no longer a hot spark. Vada feels a sweeping, constant warmth building inside her.
She and Thomas J will make the distance work. They'll make it all work out.
Anything's possible when they're together.
*