Page 4 of Intermission

Muttering a few choice words, I slam the car door, but my temper fizzles when a cold wet nose presses into my palm.

“Hi, Janey.” I kneel and kiss her fluffy gray and white head. “Looks like Gretchen’s at it again, huh?”

Janey makes a throaty sound. Affection. Agreement. Solidarity. She doesn’t much care for Gretchen or her loud crowd. I don’t want to make her go inside, but... maybe we don’t have to. At least not yet.

“Whaddya say we hike up to the waterfall?” It’s November, but not really winter yet. And even a cold hike through the woods beats subjecting myself to Gretchen’s drunk and handsy friends in the house.

Janey’s warm tongue wets my face from chin to hairline. “Okay, okay.” I laugh. “We’ll go.”

I pull out my phone and send my sister a quick text.

Faith:

Got home at 8:45. Taking Janey for a hike. Be back later.

I don’t expect a response, but becausesomeonearound here needs to be responsible, I send a follow-up.

Faith:

Be safe, k?

Before stowing my phone in my pocket, I pick a playlist and put my ear buds in. The November wind has taken the night off, and although its absence keeps winter’s coming chill at bay, it is far from warm. I pull the hood of my sweatshirt from beneath my insulated vest and grab my gloves from the passenger seat. “Okay, Janey. Let’s go.”

Four miles west of the small town of Kanton and fourteen miles east of Sommerton, the closest city big enough to have a decent hospital, the Parre Hills subdivision includes over a hundred wooded acres with manicured trails for walking, running, and biking. The location appeals to professionals like my parents who make their living in Sommerton but prefer the relative peace of “rural” life, thesocial status of living in a golf course community, and the quality education afforded their children in the smaller Kanton school district.

What I like about Parre Hills is how the west and north sides of those carefully kept woods are bordered by a not-so-tidy nature preserve. This is where Janey and I usually trek. Our most frequent destination is, of course, the waterfall—my secret stage. It’s not much of a waterfall—this is Iowa, not Oregon—but it’s mine.

As we wind our way up through the woods, I silently review the night’s practice ofAnnie. Earlier this fall, against the warnings of my Drama Club friends, I tried out for a named part—a daring deed, virtually unheard of for a lowly sophomore. The underclassmen of Kanton High are almost always relegated to the chorus. But... my risk paid off. The drama coach broke tradition and cast me as the bimbo airhead, Lily St. Regis.

Yes, it’s a smaller part, but playing a character role is crazy fun, and even though I did make temporary enemies of a few junior and senior girls by snagging the role “away from them,” most seem like they’re over it now.

I duck under a low-hanging branch, smiling as I mentally replay how I vamped it up at practice tonight, scoring a wink from the senior boy cast as Daddy Warbucks.

At the top of the hill, I veer to the left, following a familiar deer trail rather than the carefully maintained Parre Hills paths. Without needing my command to know where we’re headed, Janey crawls under the dilapidated wire fence separating our gated community from the county nature preserve. I follow, climbing over it. A few moments later, the steep bank of the creek welcomes us to follow it to my favorite perch.

Glad for the moon to light my path, I find a few outcroppings of rock to use as footholds, and I descend the creek bank. Tracing the water’s path, I don’t need to think about where I’m going, but it’s nice to have that ambient light to point out fresh obstacles that have fallen in the creek bed since the last time we were here.

Several yards ahead of me, Janey stops, on point—or as much “on point” as she can with that tail curling over her back.

I creep forward. What is it? A deer? Wild turkey? Bobcat? Coyote?We’ve seen or heard all of those around here, but we’ve never come too close.

I pull out my ear buds. “What is it, girl?”

Her low growl jolts me to a halt, but it’s a different sound that shocks me into clumsiness.

No, not a sound. Asong.

I catch my balance in time to avoid dipping my shoe in the shallow water. I know this tune. It’s a song not from the radio but from a Broadway musical.In the Heights.

I lean forward, tilting my head as if that will help the words I know align with the words I’m hearing. It doesn’t. The tune is right, but whoever this guy is, he doesn’t know the lyrics at all.

Still, I can’t help but listen. Even sung with the wrong words, the delivery is incredible. Almost... painful. But in a good way.

“Wow.” As I breathe out the word, one of Janey’s ears perks slightly back toward me, but the rest of her remains in complete stillness.

I almost don’t care that this guy is murdering Lin-Manuel Miranda’s lyrics. He’s emoting those wrong words with such...truth, it’s almost as if he’s changing them up as he goes, improvising the lyric around his heart.

Curiosity takes wing. I feel a little like a Peeping Tom, but without the skeeve factor.