Edna in the Desert by Maddy Lederman Page B

her parents. Maybe this was still a trick! Instead of the whole summer, it was only going to be a week. As the vehicle got closer, Edna could see it was a little red pick-up truck with a cap on the back. Did her parents buy a truck? On the side it said Bishop’s General . She didn’t know what that was, and she wasn’t even sure it was coming to the cabin, though she couldn’t think of where else it could be going.
    Edna wished it could be Johnny driving the truck. She tried to convince herself that it was too ridiculous a thing to hope for, but her heart beat rapidly as if it knew otherwise. Because it did. It was him. Johnny was driving the truck. He was coming to the cabin. Edna got dizzy for a moment as this sunk in. Her hand forgot about the mug of coffee it was holding and spilled it. The coffee wasn’t hot enough to burn her, but it left her chest covered in an ugly splotch. Emergency. She dashed into the pantry. She emptied her drawers until she found her cutest pink T-shirt at the bottom of one of them. It was tapered and made her look like she had curves. She brushed back her strawberry hair, a horrible, unwashed mess. There was no time to do anything about it, so she threw it in a ponytail.
    When Edna’s friends had started liking boys a year or two before, she had been determined not to allow it to happen to her. Girls acted like idiots when they liked boys. How to say “hi” to a boy in school became a stupid preoccupation, considering which hallway to walk down and how many seconds after the bell. It was always a waste of time. Even if Brit liked a boy and got to kiss him, they broke up in a few weeks and each started on the next, most popular person they had a chance with. Edna didn’t want to like boys, or girls, which would have been fine, or so the adults around her went to great lengths to make clear. Edna didn’t want to like anyone, but it was already well underway. She’d just spilled coffee and thrown her clothes all over the place in less than a minute.
    When she got back to the porch, the red truck was parked. Johnny approached the cabin with bags of groceries in his arms. It was magical, impossible: he was even cuter than she remembered. He wasn’t dusty this time. There was something energetic and graceful about the way he moved. His hair was wild. Boys at Edna’s school put tons of gel in their hair to get it to look like that, and they never succeeded. He said, “Hi Edna,” as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
    “Hi,” Edna eked out.
    “Staying out of trouble, I hope.”
    Before she could respond, he went inside. Edna felt somehow special because Johnny knew her name and because he hoped she was not in trouble. She was lightheaded again. She watched as he helped Grandma unpack the bags. He seemed to know his way around Grandma’s kitchen. Edna couldn’t believe it was all happening. When he took some cans to the pantry, she was so hypnotized she forgot she’d left her clothes, including her underwear, scattered all over the place.
    “I was doing laundry,” she yelped as she dashed ahead of him, gathering the more humiliating items first.
    “Sorry, Edna, I didn’t know this is your room now.”
    There was no irony, sarcasm or anything in his voice that would indicate an opinion of the fact that Edna was sleeping in the pantry or hanging her laundry all over it. He put down the cans. Edna dropped her clothes and followed him out. She could smell his T-shirt again, this one navy blue. In the big room Johnny gave Grandma some mail, and Grandma gave Johnny some bills. He told her he’d check the car.
    It hadn’t occurred to Edna that Grandma might know Johnny, but apparently he delivered her groceries and mail, and he maintained her car. Anyone else might have mentioned it.
    Edna peered around the side of the cabin and watched Johnny open the garage door. He lifted the hood of Grandma and Grandpa’s Bronco, took something out, a stick, and wiped it off with a