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else? Or should I be coy like Celia said, and make him wildly jealous so he’ll come chasing after me? I knew Mama wouldn’t be any help. Come to think of it, neither was Celia.

chapter 5
    When you walk into Mark’s house, you are overcome with the notion that a real family lives there. Family portraits are lovingly hung on every wall, and Mark’s school pictures have the seat of honor above the fireplace. The one from second grade is my personal favorite. He’s missing one of his front teeth, and his hair is slicked to the side like a used car salesman.
    There are little baskets of potpourri all over the place, and Mrs. Findley’s ceramic teapot collection is displayed throughout the house. And it always smells the same, like pumpkin pie and fresh laundry. It smells the way a house should smell—warm and good and safe.
    I walk right through the front door because I’mpractically a part of the family. Mrs. Findley is icing a red velvet cake in the kitchen. My favorite.
    “Hi, Mrs. Findley,” I say.
    “Hello, dear. I’ve made cream cheese icing, just the way you and Mark like it, extra sweet.” She gives me her special smile, the one where her nose wrinkles.
    “Thanks, Mrs. Findley.”
    She sprinkles a handful of chopped pecans on top of the cake and says, “Sit with me a minute and chat, Annemarie.”
    So I do. Talking to Mrs. Findley is as easy as talking to Elaine or Celia, but in a different way. She listens and nods, and she makes you feel safe.
    When I told Mark that my mama was a whole lot prettier than his, I was only five, so what did I know about anything? It may be true that Mama’s prettier, but Mrs. Findley has a warm kind of beauty few people will ever be able to fully appreciate or comprehend. It’s in the way she touches people, looks at people like they’re something special even when they’re not.
    Her hair is light brown and beginning to gray at the crown of her head. Her eyes are the color of Daddy’s bourbon, wise and gentle. Mrs. Findley is a few years older than my mother, and I suppose I should mention that she is not from the South. She’s from the Midwest. This may seemlike a trivial detail, but somehow, it matters. She is different; she is unique.
    Mark will never know how lucky he is to have been born to a lady like Mrs. Findley. People who have it that good rarely do.
    I get so comfortable talking to Mrs. Findley, I sort of dread the thought of walking into a den of boys. There is something about walking into a room full of boys that makes you feel exposed and somehow all wrong. You feel inadequate, like you come up short in every way that matters. It didn’t used to be like this, and I don’t know when it changed, but now it feels like it was always this way.
    That’s why I’m relieved when Mrs. Findley suggests that I bring the cake down to the rec room. It gives me some sort of purpose, a reason to be there. Plus, it’s always easier to walk into a room carrying something—a purse, a cake, a baseball bat. Anything to make you look like you belong.
    The boys don’t even look up when I come into the room. I am carrying the cake, and plates and forks underneath it, and when I say, “I’ve got cake,” they finally look at me. I am wearing an old yellow sundress of Celia’s, and I have tied my hair back with green ribbon. I think I look real nice. And all they see is the cake.
    Mark says, “All right!” He grabs the cake and sets it onthe coffee table. “Hey, where’s the knife?”
    I glare at him. “It’s your house. You go get the knife.”
    That bum Jack Connelly says, “Aw, pipe down, Annemarie. You’re the girl. Well, sort of.” He smirks. “Girls are in charge of the food; that’s the way it is and that’s the way it’s always gonna be. You better get used to it.”
    “You’re a pig, you know that? Oink, oink. You just roll around in your own feces all day thinking stupid thoughts.” I laugh at my own joke.
    “Why don’t you go home and play