CHAPTER 1
Senior year, new school. That’s not how it’s supposed to happen. I’m supposed to be enjoying my life with my friends in Denver, but instead I’m walking into a small school that has a cow pasture next door. “Welcome to Huntley Project” the marquee flashes in red, white, and black bulbs. What kind of name is “Huntley Project” anyway? While looking at the flashing sign, I almost walked into the path of a huge blue truck. Stumbling out of the way, I noticed that the parking lot is full of huge trucks. Not necessarily blue, but it seems the requirement is huge and diesel from the smell of the exhaust in the lot. Kids step out of their trucks wearing plaid shirts, huge brass belt buckles, and of course, cowboy boots.
You should see the variety of cowboy boots that exist. I thought cowboy boots were brown or black, pointy, and leather. OH no. I see boots that are blue, studded with diamonds, and zebra striped. They are squared, pointy, AND rounded. And it seems like everyone wears them.
I square my shoulders and walk through the gravel lot to the doors of the old school. A woman named Deb welcomed me at the front office and walked me to the counselor’s office to figure out my schedule. The door to his office had a sign that said,
“Every day is a new beginning. What’s yours?”
I sat in an uncomfortable chair that faced the windowed waiting room, students laughing with each other, hugging for the first time since last summer, jostling to fight their way through the crowd to get to their lockers. A few glanced in, but no one really bothered me.
“Anne-Marie Watkins?” the counselor called from inside the door to his office. I walked inside and saw Santa’s clone. Seriously. Mr. Dunning had a huge white beard and a holly, jolly smile. I mean, he was even wearing a red shirt. Maybe he embraced his alter ego. The funny thing about it though is that the Santa comparison did made me feel more comfortable though. It was like seeing someone familiar.
“Hi,” I replied as I sat down in an uncomfortable orange chair.
“Welcome to Huntley Project,” he said, shuffling some papers on his desk to find my schedule, “I hope it will be an easy transition for you here. You’re from Denver, right?”
“Yep,” I sighed. “That was home.”
“What brought you to Montana?” he asked with pointed interest. It’s not every day a city girl comes to a place like Huntley Project.
“My Gram. Her name is Anne Marie Watkins too. She lives on 15th Street by the Green Church.”
Santa chuckled a little to himself. His eyes lit up when I mentioned her name. “Anne Marie Watkins. I should have guessed from your name.”
“Actually, I go by Ree. Ree Watkins,” I corrected him.
“Well Ree, I hope you feel right at home here in Huntley. I know your Gram will show you the ins and outs of small town living. She’s a legend here you know.”
That piqued my curiosity. “Legend?” I asked.
“Yep,” Mr. Dunning replied. “Ask her about it.”
The school wasn’t that big, so I found my first few classes quickly. The kids had started to notice me. I guess that’s they way it goes in small towns. I was a big deal to the teachers—everyone made sure to introduce me and the few other new kids to everyone else in every single class. Every class, that is, until I walked into English. Mrs. Dalton was one of the two high school English teachers. I walked in, found a seat, and started to doodle on my notebook cover. The process has always been therapeutic to me. Starting with a blank yellow, blue, or green canvas, then filling it with black ink that turns into a testament to my school year. I have beat up notebook covers in a box going all the way back to the third grade. The first marks on a cover are important. It destines the entire year to follow the lines you made first. It’s kind of how I feel about my impression this first week…what I do now will determine my status at this school.
I poised my pen at the right edge of the notebook when a bedazzled behind bumped into my hand, forcing my pen into the cover and making a jagged diagonal line all the way to the top.
Shit, I thought to myself. I glanced over at the owner of the bedazzled butt as she slid into the seat two in front of me. She had long blonde hair, a tight plaid shirt tucked into her jeans, and zebra striped boots. I actually thought I could have seen her in Western. The over-the-top, Reba-loving, rodeo riding cowgirl. She turned and I saw her profile. The perfect button nose, a sprinkling of freckles, and the cutest dimples you’d ever seen. She was like the Fourth of July trapped in human form.
I looked back down at my ruined notebook cover. Now what am I supposed to do? I thought to myself. But really, deep down I was thinking, What does a jagged line mean?
I didn’t have much time to think about my cover because the bell rang and Mrs. Dalton walked purposefully to the front of the room. She looked at each of us as she took attendance, repeating our names twice. When she got to my name, she called it out as usual, but stopped as if she forgot something.
“Anne Marie Watkins?” she said again, tentatively.
“Here,” I called quietly from my seat.
“Anne Marie Watkins,” she murmured, in a quiet, whispery voice. She looked right at me as she said it and asked the inevitable. “Are you related to THE Anne Marine Watkins?”
“Yep,” I replied bashfully. “She is my Gram. I’m named after her, but go by Ree.”
“Well Ree, we have a lot to discuss this year,” Mrs. Dalton said, moving on to the other “W” on the roster.
When she finished with the roll call, she carefully set down the yellow notebook she was making notes on and turned to face us. She stood in the center of the room, hands folded as if she were waiting, but no one was talking. She looked at each of us slowly, eyes meeting eyes, the atmosphere in the room changing from novel to intense. As her gaze left the last student, she opened her mouth and recited the following poem to us:
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests; as snug as a gun.
Under my window a clean rasping sound
When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:
My father, digging. I look down
Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds
Bends low, comes up twenty years away
Stooping in rhythm through potato drills
Where he was digging.
The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft
Against the inside knee was levered firmly.
He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
To scatter new potatoes that we picked
Loving their cool hardness in our hands.
By God, the old man could handle a spade,
Just like his old man.
My grandfather could cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner's bog.
Once I carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink it, then fell to right away
Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, digging down and down
For the good turf. Digging.
The cold smell of potato mold, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I've no spade to follow men like them.
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I'll dig with it.
Usually, when teachers read out loud, I check out after the first few lines. I’m not the most gifted listener, but the way Mrs. Dalton spoke the words was…powerful. She had looked us in the eye, not speaking, yet commanding our attention. The class sat up straighter, leaned in a little closer, and wanted to jump into the words of the poem with her as she spoke them.
