As Far as the Stars

by Virginia MacGregor

  I hold her closer and look up at the sky. Where are you, Blake?

  Christopher leans over and pets the top of Leda’s head in long, gentle strokes. I can feel her relaxing against me, her heart slowing down.

  For a few seconds, neither of us say anything. Then I say, ‘Here.’

  I place Leda on Christopher’s lap.

  ‘You look after her.’

  Leda licks his hand and he leans over and kisses the top of her head, the soft patch between her ears.

  ‘Leda likes you,’ I say.

  ‘Leader?’

  ‘Yes, Leda. As in L-E-D-A. Jupiter’s thirteenth moon.’

  ‘Oh – right.’

  ‘It was found in 1974. The moon, I mean. I can show it to you if you like.’

  God, I sound like a dork.

  ‘It’s a cool name.’ He pats her again, a bit more confidently this time. ‘Have you had her for a long time?’

  ‘She’s Blake’s. Like the car. Whenever he goes on tour, I get to babysit them. And I named her – obviously.’

  ‘Obviously?’

  ‘I like space.’

  ‘As in, outerspace?’

  I nod.

  Leda puts a paw up against Christopher’s chest and then paws at his glasses, so that he has to readjust them. Yeah, she definitely likes him.

  Christopher shakes her paw like he shook my hand earlier.

  ‘Pleased to meet you, Leda,’ he says. ‘Officially.’

  As I lean over and give Leda a stroke, my hand brushes Christopher’s bare forearm; electricity shoots through my body.

  I notice Christopher’s cell light up; it’s been charging through the cigarette lighter. He grabs it and starts scanning through news pages. His breath goes jagged and he starts jiggling his leg.

  I should ask him what’s going on, but I’m not ready to take in anything else right now. I want to get back on the road and drive. Focus on getting to the wedding. And anyway, if Blake’s turned up somewhere and is waiting for me to pick him up, he’ll call me.

  I switch on the ignition and look across the road. It’s late so there aren’t many cars around. I pull out onto the road, do an illegal U-turn and then press down on the accelerator.

  Chapter Eleven

  21.30 EST 1-81

  My eyes are burning. After the adrenaline of the past few hours, it’s like my body’s gone into some kind of shutdown mode.

  I look back at the road. A few seconds later, my eyes close. My eyelids are heavy and it takes all the energy I’ve got to blink them back open.

  ‘I think I need to take a break,’ I say.

  Which is the last thing I want to do right now. I’ve got over 500 miles to cover before I get to Nashville – and, because of the eclipse, the traffic’s going to be really bad as soon as people hit the road tomorrow morning.

  So, I should keep going.

  But if I don’t take a break, I’m going to crash the car – really crash it this time. And then I’ll never make it to the wedding. If that happens, Mom and Jude won’t forgive me. It’s one thing our unreliable brother not showing up, it’s another for the always-show-up-no-matter-what-little-sister (the little sister who’s meant to walk in front of Jude scattering the petals of Mom’s heirloom roses) bailing.

  I look over at Christopher. His eyes are closed so I guess he didn’t hear me.

  I lean over and shake him gently.

  He rubs his eyes and yawns.

  ‘We’re stopping for a break,’ I announce.

  I notice a Mobil sign by the next exit and flick the indicator.

  ‘Can you lend me a bit more money?’ I ask. ‘For some gas?’

  I swallow hard. I hate having to ask him, but I don’t have a choice. Well, I do have a choice. I could use the emergency credit card. But like I said, I’m not ready for Mom to find out where I am. Plus, she’ll get the email alert and then she’ll call and I’ll feel like I have to pick up and I’ll try to make up some excuse but she’ll hear it in my voice, that something’s wrong. I’m a crap liar.

  ‘I’ll pay you back.’

  ‘Sure,’ he says, getting out his wallet.

  Once we’re parked and I’ve filled up the car, I take Leda to a patch of grass for a pee and then put her back in the backseat of the car.

  ‘We won’t be long,’ I say.

  I noticed a sign in the window advertising coffee. It won’t be Starbucks but I’ll take anything to keep me awake.

  I start walking away from the car and Leda yelps. And then she totally guilt-trips me: cocking her head to one side and looking at me with those big, black glassy eyes of hers.

  She’s still shaken up by what happened earlier, when I nearly rammed us into an oncoming truck. The blood on her ear has dried into a crusty brown. I know she’s wondering where Blake is because the only reason we ever go to Dulles airport is to collect Blake. And I know that she doesn’t want to be alone. But what am I meant to do? There’s a big No Dogs Allowed sign outside the Mobil store.

  She lets out a low, mournful whine.

  ‘Okay,’ I say. ‘Okay.’

  I look over at Christopher and get an idea.

  I open the boot, pull out a fluorescent yellow sash that Mom put in there along with a whole load of other safety stuff and tie it round Leda’s belly.

  She starts whining again. Then she wriggles around under the sash like she’s got fleas.

  ‘It’s this or you stay in the car,’ I say.

  Leda keeps snapping her head round and biting at the sash.

  I clip on her lead and hand it to Christopher.

  ‘She’s yours,’ I say. ‘Look like you need her.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘She’s your service dog.’

  ‘She is?’

  ‘Yep.’

  If you think I’m a bad liar, try watching me act. It’s not pretty. I flunked every theatre class I took at school. Blake and Jude sucked up all of Mom and Dad’s artsy genes.

  ‘Okay,’ Christopher says, taking the lead.

  I like that about him. That he kind of goes along with things without asking too many questions. That he stays calm. And trusts me.

  ‘You’d be good to have on a space mission,’ I say.

  ‘What?’

  Did I actually say that out loud?

  ‘Oh, nothing. Just that you’re cool.’

  He raises his bushy blond eyebrows. ‘I’m cool?’

  ‘Yeah. You are.’

  I grab my telescope from the back seat, Christopher gives Leda’s lead a tug, and we head into the store.

  The guy behind the counter looks at Leda and you can tell he’s about to say something, but then he sees Christopher and closes his mouth again. Christopher totally rocks the service dog thing. He pats Leda on the side and says, ‘good dog,’ and makes it seem like it’s totally normal that he’s bringing an animal into a no-animals-allowed place.

  Blake once said that confidence was his biggest talent – that it was what made people listen to him and like him. That people are drawn to confidence because it makes them feel safe, like it’s making them stronger too. Blake said that confidence was even more important than being good at singing or playing the guitar or being cute. Though he has all of those things too, of course, so I’m not sure he’s really tested the theory.

  I’ve got enough cash in my wallet to get us a couple of coffees from the dispenser. I get some chips too, from the guy at the counter. He’s so busy watching the highlights of the Red Sox game that he doesn’t even look away from the screen as he hands me the change.

  We sit at a round, rickety metal table by the food machines, the only table in the store. I feed Leda some chips under the table. I know it’s not good for her but Leda looks like she could do with some comfort food. And, more to the point, Blake’s not here so he doesn’t get a say.

  My phone sits on the table in front of me. It keeps lighting up. More messages from Mom.

  Messages from Mom asking when Blake and I are going to show up.<
br />
  I type a quick message: Blake messed up his flight. I’m waiting for him. We’ll see you tomorrow. Don’t stress, Mom. I pause and then add: Love you.

  Then I switch off the phone.

  I know Mom. On the face of it, she’ll seem totally calm. Make a joke of it – that it’s Blake’s thing – to turn up late. That we should have banked on him not making the family breakfast. That the main thing is that he’s there for the wedding. That I’ll get him there. Because that’s what I do.

  But inside, she’ll be going crazy.

  Because the events Mom plans never go wrong.

  Mom sees every festive occasion (Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, birthdays and a few other religious festivals to which we have no known affiliation) as some kind of Olympic-level competition. When we were kids, she hand-sewed every one of our Halloween costumes and baked, carved and frosted every one of our birthday cakes and, every Christmas, she scales the roof putting up Christmas lights – bolder and brighter and blinkier than any of the neighbours.

  She’s totally exhausting to live with. Like Martha Stewart on speed. Except that stuff isn’t even her day job. She’s an amazing lawyer too.

  So, how does Mom do it all, I hear you ask? Simple: she never sleeps.

  You’ve got it, Mom’s both a superhero and totally annoying.

  So, you can imagine that her eldest daughter’s wedding was going to be a big deal. And it’s an even bigger deal because Mom knows that, more likely than not, she’ll only get one stab at it. Blake doesn’t believe in marriage – or anything else that involves long-term commitment: he’s had a steady stream of girlfriends since middle school. As for me, having a husband and kids doesn’t really mix with zooming off into space.

  So if Blake and I mess up Jude’s wedding, she’ll be upset. Really upset.

  I wonder how Dad’s handling everything right now. He’s the yin to Mom’s yang. The calm centre to her spinning world. He sits back and lets stuff wash over him. When Mom goes into intense mode, he slips away into his study and goes into Greek-myth world and doesn’t re-emerge until things have calmed down. When Mom’s doing my head in too, I sometimes join him in there. He lets me sit on the other side of his desk and read or work on my Physics homework and we pretend the rest of the world has dropped away. It makes me feel better, to sit there with Dad, even if we don’t say anything.

  I think about calling him and telling him everything but then I know that’s not an option. Dad’s like me: can’t hide what he’s thinking. Mom would pick up on the fact that I’ve been in touch right away.

  When Christopher’s finished his chips, he gets out his phone.

  ‘You said there was a bus from Knoxville to Atlanta?’ he says.

  ‘Yeah, there should be.’

  He looks up a few more pages.

  ‘What time do you think we’ll get there?’

  ‘To Knoxville?’ I check the clock on the far wall of the store. ‘When’s the earliest bus – tomorrow morning?’

  ‘Six thirty.’

  ‘If we drive through the night we might make it for that one.’

  He nods.

  And then a stillness settles between us. And I know it’s because talking about the bus has brought it home that, in a few hours, we’ll be saying goodbye.

  He takes a paper napkin from the dispenser and folds it until it turns into a small, tight body with wings and a long, thin beak. He places it on the table and its head tilts upwards, like it’s about to take flight.

  It’s amazing how he can make a cheap paper napkin from a gas station look this beautiful.

  Sitting here, it’s like we’re in a bubble, our bodies pale from the fluorescent strip lights, no sound except the humming of the refrigeration units behind us.

  I think about the craziness of the airport we’ve left behind and the investigation into what’s happened to the plane and the fact that I nearly crashed the car. And I think about all the wedding preparations taking place in Nashville and how Blake and I should be there. And then I look back at Christopher, folding another napkin, a second bird to accompany the first. It reminds me of the newspaper bird he made for the mother and the child back at the airport. I wonder where they are now. I wonder who they were waiting for.

  Christopher’s hair falls over his glasses, and I feel like leaning forward and sweeping it away so that he can see more clearly but I don’t. Because that would be weird, right? Touching a boy I hardly know? Plus, it would make him totally freak. And I realise that right now, I need him. Like I need to go to Dad’s study sometimes. Because even though he’s not doing anything, he’s making me feel better about this shit storm of a situation.

  So, instead of touching his hair, I keep watching him. It’s kind of soothing, how precise he is – and how focused. Like, while he’s folding, nothing else in the world exists.

  ‘Where did you learn to do that?’ I ask.

  He stops folding and looks up at me.

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Those models you make.’

  ‘Models?’

  ‘Out of paper.’

  ‘These?’ He looks down at the paper birds. ‘Oh, they’re nothing,’ he says.

  ‘They don’t look like nothing.’

  He sighs, leans back in his chair and looks out through the store window. A truck is refuelling next to Blake’s car.

  ‘I used to get bored, waiting,’ Christopher says.

  ‘Waiting?’

  ‘For Dad.’ His eyes narrow in concentration and he makes another fold. ‘I hung around airports a lot.’

  ‘When you were travelling with your dad?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘You taught yourself how to make things out of paper, then?’

  ‘I started by making paper planes,’ he says. ‘I guess like any kid.’

  I think back to the paper plane Christopher was making when we were waiting for the Buick to come back – and how that reporter stared at it, like it implicated Christopher in some way. The plane was amazing. A perfect replica of one of those Boeings that cross the Atlantic. But it was more than that. Its wings were alive, like those of a bird.

  ‘I’d get scraps of paper,’ he explains. ‘And fold them into an arrow and shoot them around the place.’ He goes quiet for a bit. ‘It annoyed him.’

  ‘Your dad?’

  He nods.

  ‘He got annoyed by the paper airplanes?’

  ‘Yeah.’ He goes quiet again. ‘It still annoys him.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘The paper folding. He thinks it’s a waste of time. That I should be reading books or revising for my exams or planning my future. You have to lead a Big Life, Christopher, he’s always saying.’ He pauses. ‘Whatever that means.’

  I feel a thud in my chest. And it comes back to me, the reason we’re here, in this service station that smells of oil and grease, drinking bitter coffee from a machine. And that it’s way more serious than anything I’m worried about. A plane’s crashed. And though he seems to be in denial about it, Christopher’s dad was on that plane.

  ‘Well I think it’s cool, the things you make,’ I say. ‘That you’re artistic.’

  His eyes go wide. ‘Artistic?’

  ‘I can’t even draw a stick-man.’ I can’t even sing, I think. But that, more likely than not, is what I’m going to have to do – in just over twenty-four hours. To cover Blake’s ass. To make sure Jude’s wedding goes to plan. ‘So, I think that it’s amazing – that you can make all that stuff, just out of paper. More than that – it’s not even special paper like from an art shop or something. You use scraps, right? Stuff you find around the place.’

  He nods.

  ‘Well, it’s awesome.’ I smile. ‘Eco-Art – that’s trendy, right?’

  ‘Trendy?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  He laughs. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Well, I think your models are amazing.’

  The tops of his cheeks blush. ‘Thanks.’

  A guy comes
into the store. He grabs a coffee from the machine beside us and a burger from the oven. Then, he bashes into the back of my chair and my telescope falls to the floor.

  ‘Watch out!’ I say.

  But the guy keeps walking, without even apologising.

  Christopher leans over and picks it up.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘My telescope.’

  ‘For the eclipse?’

  ‘Yeah – for the eclipse. But for other stuff too.’

  ‘Other stuff?’

  ‘I like looking at the night sky. I want to do it – professionally.’

  ‘Professionally?’

  ‘Yeah. Sort of.’

  My cheeks get hot like they do every time I have to explain my thing about the stars and the universe and what I want to do with my life. Besides Dad, most people I tell don’t get it. That what’s up there is like the most important thing a human being could do. That it’s the only way we’re ever going to understand how we got here and why we’re here now and what’s going to happen next.

  ‘I want to be an astronaut,’ I say.

  ‘Really?’ He looks surprised but not a patronising only-ten-year-old-boys-want-to-be-astronauts look. It’s a kind of impressed look. Really impressed. Like he understands – how wanting to go into space is the most awesome thing anyone could ever want to do.

  I feel a rush of pride.

  I nod. ‘Yep, really.’

  He looks up at me, his pale, grey eyes wide and shiny. ‘That’s meant to be really hard – isn’t it?’

  ‘Yeah, it’s really hard. Only a tiny percentage of those trained ever go up into space. I did an internship this summer, at the Smithsonian to help my chances of getting into MIT. NASA recruits from MIT,’ I explain.

  ‘So, you’re going to study engineering?’

  ‘Yep. One more year of school—’

  ‘One more year of school?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You look – I don’t know – kind of—’ he stalls.

  ‘Young?’

  He nods. His face goes red.

  ‘I skipped a grade. That’s why this internship was really important. I have to prove that I’m ready.’

  ‘Skipped a year? So you must be, what—’

  ‘Seventeen. Just. My birthday was last week.’