Please don’t say, “Which one?”
“Yes.” He didn’t budge from the doorway. “And you are…?”
Greta found her voice. “We’re your neighbors from across the street.” She pointed over her shoulder. “We all go to the same school.” And pretty much ignore your son’s daily attempts to make friends.
“Hmm. Right. Okay.” He leaned back and called, “Nate, your friends are at the door!”
Nate—the ginger with the Volvo—appeared behind his dad. He had a toothbrush in his mouth, spittle in one corner. He held up a finger for them to wait and ducked out of sight. His dad turned and disappeared into another room too, leaving Greta to prop open the screen door with her foot. Patty hated it when they did that—“heating the outdoors,” she called it.
“Hey, guys.” Nate was back again, a little red in the face. He regarded them on the porch, obviously confused. “I’m Nate, by the way. Well, it’s Nathaniel, but I go by Nate.”
“I’m Greta,” she said, “and this is Ash.” She glanced at Ash, wondering if he was going to confess that his name was Ashwin but he went by Ash. Nope. “Can we talk outside for a minute?” She gave him her best we’re-not-psychopaths smile.
“Uh, sure.” Nate pulled a coat off a hook and slipped on a pair of massive Sorels from a muddy mat. Probably his dad’s.
Ash backed all the way down the steps, but Nate stopped right outside the door and waited. Greta stood next to him, suddenly feeling like the village idiot. Who does this?
“Our dad is married to this woman—” she began.
“Woman is being generous,” Ash said. “Picture a wraith—bony, hideous.”
Greta shot him a look. “Um…so we’ve had some problems with her and my dad”—she inhaled—“and something happened.”
Nate leaned forward, waiting for the next word to fall.
Ash was right. Worst idea ever.
Ash stepped up beside Greta and gave her a look this time. “Basically, our dad took off with our stepmother, leaving us behind. We found out they’re in Whitecourt, and we need a ride up there to try to talk him into coming back home. We can pay you fifty bucks. Interested?”
Nate’s face relaxed. It was starting to look painful, the way his nearly-not-there eyebrows pinched together. “Oh, right.” He let out a puff of air.
“You’d have to miss school,” Greta said. “The sooner we leave, the better.”
“I’m up for anything that involves missing school.” Nate tapped his fingers against his legs. “Let me ask my dad.”
“Well—” Ash raised his arm to protest. A well-meaning parent could blow this thing up fifty different ways. “Is there any way you could not quite tell the whole truth?” he asked. “We’re trying to keep this quiet for now.”
Nate stared for a full minute before nodding slowly, his mouth working like he was sucking on a marble. “I don’t normally lie to my dad, but I get it. I’ll come up with something.” Then he disappeared again, leaving them on the porch. Greta bent her head toward the door but couldn’t hear anything from inside. Ash scuffed the thin dust of snow with his toe, making it into a tornado shape before kicking it aside.
After a few minutes Nate cracked the door open and leaned out, the way his dad had before. “He said it’s okay. I’ll be ready in five minutes.” Then he shut the door and left them standing there.
“Okaaaaaay?” Ash said.
“Okay! Let’s get ready!” Greta nearly leaped off the porch and bolted back to the basement suite. They grabbed a couple of water bottles and stuffed granola bars in their pockets. Ash pulled his money from a margarine container in the storage room—fifty for Nate and an extra ten just in case. A motor of anxiety pushed Greta along, like her worry could move them closer, faster.
When they went back outside, Nate was already chiseling ice from his windshield through a cloud of exhaust. “Rebus doesn’t like the cold much,” he said, running the scraper along each wiper blade.
Greta thought for a second he meant his dad—the lumberjack—and then realized Nate had named his car Rebus. Beside her, Ash pinned her with a stare. It was going to be a long four hours.
Nate manually unlocked the passenger door and held it open. Greta flipped the front seat forward and climbed into the back. Ash started to fold his long body in beside her, his neck bent at an unnatural angle. Greta hissed, “Get up front! This isn’t a taxi!”
He mouthed back, You go up front then, gesticulating between her and Nate.
“You’re…a boy…and in the same class.” Realizing how lame that sounded, she added, “I’ll do the way back.” Greta hoped that Nate, still standing by the open door, hadn’t heard.
Ash pinched his lips tight and gave her a murderous look. He unfolded his body and slid into the front seat instead. Nate shut the door and moved toward the driver’s side.
“I hate you,” Ash whispered.
Greta smiled into her collar. This should be interesting.
Despite the heat blowing at maximum, the seat beneath her radiated cold. A pine-tree air freshener dangled from the rearview mirror. The interior—mostly red plush and duct tape—was immaculately clean.
Nate backed the car out of the driveway and headed toward a four-way stop. “Not gonna lie,” he said. “These tires are pretty bald. I’ll show you.” He accelerated, then slammed on his brakes. The car fishtailed and slid to a stop at an angle, the back tire bumping the curb.
Ash didn’t speak but hunched his shoulders a little higher. Greta heard him loud and clear. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you.
“I’m almost on empty. Do you have a twenty on you?” Nate asked Ash.
Ash nodded and dug in his pocket. They pulled into a gas station a few blocks away. When Nate stepped out to pump gas, closing the door behind him, Ash turned to face Greta in the back seat.
“Not too late to back out and take the good ol’ Greyhound with its not-bald tires. And psychologically sound driver.”
“There is something a little ‘stranger danger’ about him.”
Ash turned back to face the windshield. “He’s the type of guy who’d either give you his last five bucks to buy lunch or giggle maniacally as he cut off your legs with a hacksaw. And not much in between.”
Nate slid back into his seat and smiled at them. “Okay. Brace yourselves. Rebus hasn’t gone highway speeds for a while.”
“Why did you name him…uh, her…Rebus?” Greta said.
“I don’t know.” Nate shrugged. “He just kind of looked like a Rebus.”
So yellow Volvos from the eighties are male and named Rebus. They headed out of the city in total silence. Ash looked up the route on Google Maps and prompted Nate when and where to turn. They were driving through Spruce Grove—a small city right outside Edmonton—before anyone spoke again.
“What did you tell your dad?” Greta asked Nate.
“I told him you guys needed a ride and moral support to get some testing done at a clinic.”
“Testing? What kind of testing?” Ash sat up straight, his eyes bugging like Nate’s.
“I was deliberately vague.” Nate cleared his throat. “I may have implied it would be embarrassing for you if I shared more.”
A damp, dirty feeling settled over Greta, catching her off guard.
Ash’s face turned purple. “Why,” he sputtered, “why would you say that?”
Nate swallowed and glanced between Ash and the road. “Look, I’m sorry. It was the only explanation I could think of where he would let me miss school and wouldn’t offer to take you himself.”
Ash rubbed his eyes and turned to face the window. “Yeah, okay. I just…” He trailed off.
“It worked, didn’t it?” Nate asked.
Point taken.
Greta tried to clear a path through the feeling she had, tried to find some logic. “Yes, Nate. It worked,” she said. Let the lumberjack think she was pregnant, an addict or had an STI. They were in a car on their way to Whitecourt, weren’t they? “And we’re gr
ateful.”
Nate nodded and smiled at her in the rearview mirror. “That’s all right. I’ve been wanting to meet you guys for a while now.”
And we’ve been trying to avoid you for a while now. Greta broke eye contact to look out the window, feeling guilty. Did Ash feel it too? The back of his head gave away nothing more than hunched misery.
“You’ll need to watch for the Highway 43 exit,” Ash said, gesturing to the right. “After that we’ll eventually hit Whitecourt.”
After a few more minutes they turned off Highway 16 onto 43, narrow and hilly. Greta watched the farmland and fence posts, broken by patches of poplars, their spotted trunks almost blending into the snow. Pickup trucks—and even the odd blue-haired grandma—ripped past them on the highway. Greta strained against her lap belt to check the speedometer. Ninety kilometers per hour.
“I think you can go at least a hundred here, Nate. Maybe even 110.”
Nate shook his head. “Rebus starts to shake over ninety.” He accelerated, and the steering wheel vibrated in his hands until he dropped back to ninety. Greta quashed the bubble of impatience rising inside her. Was this better than the bus?
Nate talked—for a long time—about alternative bands from the nineties and how hard it was to find stores that carried the cassette tapes he needed for Rebus. Ash leaned back against the headrest and closed his eyes; Greta could tell he wasn’t really sleeping by the way his head didn’t roll with the movement of the car.
They passed by some small towns. “Sangudo,” Nate said at the latest one. “That one’s fun to say. Try it. San—goo—do.”
Greta said it just to humor him, especially given Ash’s I’m asleep routine. Maybe it was a little fun. They crossed over a river, frozen and piled with snow. On road signs the kilometers to Whitecourt slowly, painfully decreased. Farmland gave way to forest. She forgot where they were going for a minute, craning to see the sway of old pines, their branches caked in white. The glaring sun of early morning shifted to a matted gray. Nate continued talking. About what, Greta didn’t know.
With nothing to do but watch pine trees and sky, Greta thought about them, about when things were good. She’d been at West Edmonton High for almost two months when Rachel spoke to her for the first time. Greta had been assigned to Rachel’s biology group, along with a girl named Priya and a guy named Scott, who never spoke. They sat on stools around a table the shape of a kidney bean, with a poster of a uterus on the wall and a pickled tapeworm in a jar beneath it. Rachel and Priya were talking about their Halloween costumes. They were dressing up as the Spice Girls with two other girls, Samantha, or “Sam,” and Chloe.
“We just need Sporty Spice now,” Priya said. “Then we have all five.”
Greta was the only one actually doing the biology worksheet. Pulmonary artery: carries deoxygenated blood from the right ventricle to the lungs. It helped, being good at school. It distracted her from how lonely she’d been since the beginning of September.
“What about you, uh, Gwen?” Rachel asked, really looking at Greta for the first time. Priya shot Rachel a warning look for fraternizing with the enemy—one of the “unspecials.”
“It’s Greta. Sorry, what?”
Rachel ignored Priya. “What are you doing for Halloween? We’re going as the Spice Girls and need a Sporty Spice. You’re tall and, you know, athletic.”
Greta knew she looked the part. She’d grown two inches over the past year, and people always asked her if she played basketball. Probably neither Rachel nor her friends wanted to be stuck wearing sweats and runners on Halloween. And Greta was a safe bet, being new. No embarrassing ex-boyfriend or awkward yearbook photo to hold against her.
“I…uh…I’m not sure yet.” Actually, she had planned on staying home with Ash and handing out Halloween candy. Hoarding all the Snickers bars.
“You should join our group. We’re dressing up for school, and there’s a party that night.”
Greta started to say no, but for what? To keep eating lunch alone, checking dark corners for Ash? “Well, maybe. I don’t think I have the right clothes though.” Definitely no sexy workout wear in her closet.
“I can lend you something,” Rachel said. She was slim, Asian and several inches shorter than Greta.
“Uh…”
“Come over after school tomorrow, and we’ll figure it out.”
Greta had met the whole group at Rachel’s house the next day and ended up taking home a skin-tight tank top of Rachel’s and a pair of yoga pants that didn’t fit Sam anymore. On Halloween day, Rachel dressed up as Posh Spice. Priya, with her untamable black hair and Cleopatra eyeliner, was appropriately Scary Spice. Blond, curly-haired Sam was Baby Spice. She had a wide, friendly face. Big bones, as Patty would say. Chloe—Ginger Spice—sprayed red streaks in her hair and giggled a lot without making eye contact. Greta floated on their high through the hallways and cafeteria, others stopping them constantly for pictures and selfies.
That night Rachel picked her up and drove her to a party at Priya’s house, which looked like the boss of show homes. Priya answered the door, taking their coats and laying them across a nearby bench. Shiny wood floors, pristine furniture, vases, original pieces of art on the walls.
“Don’t touch anything,” Priya said to her. “My parents are gone until tomorrow, and they don’t know I’m having a party.”
Rachel rolled her eyes as soon as Priya turned her back. “Yeah, Greta,” she whispered when Priya stepped down a staircase to the basement, “try not to wreck the house.” Greta stifled a laugh.
The house had caught her off guard. Also, Greta had imagined something different when Rachel said “Halloween party,” like the ones in movies—pounding bass, a crush of drunken people dancing and wandering around in elaborate costumes, strobe lights. Greta had thought she would wander around, too, get lost in all the noise or find a quiet corner. In reality, a few people sat on couches arranged in a square in the middle of the room. The ceiling was low, lit by pot lights, and Greta saw the outline of a pool table off in a darkened corner. A phone and wireless speaker on the coffee table played music. It was super low-key. Other than the Spice Girls, no one wore a costume. Greta paused at the foot of the stairs, but Priya and Rachel marched ahead. She followed.
Rachel stepped up like it was her house. “Everyone, this is Greta. She’s our Sporty Spice.” She smiled at Greta and started naming and pointing to people. As she talked a short, muscly blond guy walked over and put his arm around her waist. No, right on her butt. “This is Matt, my boyfriend,” Rachel said. She gave him a coy smile. Yup, still on her butt.
Besides Priya and Sam, who stood behind a couch, talking to a girl called Angela, there was Matt—the butt groper—a guy named Dylan who had sat at their table at lunchtime, and someone named Angus with chin-length dreads.
As though reading Greta’s mind, Priya said, “More people are coming later.”
Greta sat on the empty leather couch in front of Priya, Sam and Angela. Rachel went over to a bar by the pool table and brought Greta back an orange drink that smelled like nail polish remover. Then she curled up on Matt’s lap on another couch and whispered in his ear.
Across from Greta, Dylan sat alone. Greta tried not to stare at him—one of those people. She had noticed him at lunchtime too: dark, chin-length hair, almost the same color as hers, strong jaw, great smile. There was something friendly about his face. She wanted him to look at her. Wanted him to like her. Don’t be such a cliché. Look at Angus instead, coming this way. Angus smiled and sat next to her.
As they ran through a list of questions about who she was and where she’d gone to school before, Greta found her head turning toward Dylan. She caught his eye for a second. Was he looking at her too? Wasn’t he? Angus noticed her eyeing Dylan and trailed off mid-question. Then Angela came up behind Dylan, bent over and draped her arms around his neck. Her copper-red hair fell over his shoulders. She had a heart-shaped face and perfect skin. Greta snapped her head away, her face warm. T
he drink, which kind of burned, didn’t help. She tipped the bottom up and finished the last of it. “Sorry, what were you saying?” she said to Angus.
Sam saved her by calling up all the Spice Girls, minus Chloe, to lip-synch “Wannabe.” Greta butchered everything except the chorus, which made Dylan laugh. Was he watching her? When they finished, she stayed standing with Sam and Rachel.
“Angus seems to like you.” Rachel gave her a conspiratorial smile over the rim of her plastic cup.
“He’s, uh…nice. So are Angela and Dylan, like, together?”
Sam and Rachel snorted at the same time.
“What? Just curious. They’re a nice, sort of…couple.” She was becoming more stupid with every passing minute.
“Sweetie, with the exception of me, everyone wants to be with Dylan,” Rachel said.
Greta looked away to hide her red cheeks and tried not to watch Angela rest her head on Dylan’s chest. At the end of the night, though, he was there. Just the two of them as she collected her shoes and coat from the entryway. She stumbled as she bent for her shoes, still wobbly from the radioactive punch. He steadied her, a hand on each hip. She’d felt the warmth of his fingers through her Sporty Spice yoga pants, her heart hammering as he smiled down on her. “You okay?” he asked.
“Just a little dizzy.”
“I’ve got you,” he said. On one level, Greta had hoped Angela hadn’t heard that. On another, she hadn’t cared at all. Then he’d let go, smiling over his shoulder as Matt called him away.
That was all before the cabin. Greta shifted in her duct-taped seat in the back of Rebus, not wanting to think about after.
FOUR
Rebus started to shake at ninety, so Nate dropped to eighty-five. Pickups followed with their headlights nearly touching Rebus’s bumper before tearing past, their tires spitting gravel at Nate’s windshield. Greta bit back her impatience again, grinding her teeth together. Roger and Patty could be hours away by now. She slid the phone off the edge of Ash’s seat and tried the locator app again. Still in Whitecourt. She took some slow breaths.
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