by Amy McAuley
“There must be a library where my dad lives. I’ll e-mail you from there when I can.”
Di gives me a hug. “You’d better. If I stop e-mailing back, I’ve died of boredom.”
At the end of the driveway, Scott straightens from his laid-back slouch and takes a few backward steps to the sidewalk. “Coming, Di?”
In my ear, Di says, “Thanks for sticking up for me tonight over the Leslie thing. If you ever need me to, I’ll do the same for you. In a heartbeat.”
Our hug ends. And our summer apart begins.
I watch Di bound down the driveway, so lightly I almost expect her to lift off and fly.
“Talk to you soon,” she says, as Scott puts his arms around her waist.
I just wave good-bye. I don’t feel very good all of a sudden.
I locate Ryan’s dark shape in the backyard and head in that direction. My lawn chair squeaks beneath me. I tilt my head back and stare at the sky. A shooting star streaks over us, and I quickly wish I’d never talked to Margie.
“Did you know koalas almost never drink?” Ryan says.
If that’s his attempt to cheer me up, it’s working. “That’s a relief. If they got drunk, they’d fall out of their trees.”
He laughs. “They get their water from the eucalyptus leaves they eat.”
Now it’s my turn to tell Ryan a fun-fact. It’s a game we made up while driving home from his swim meet last week.
“Did you know that dolphins swim in circles when they sleep? They keep the one eye on the outside of the circle open to watch for sharks.”
“Cool. Did you know that barber poles are red and white because barbers used to do medical stuff like bleed people? They hung the blood-stained rags out to dry on a pole.”
“Interesting,” I say. “Did you know that the Mona Lisa has no eyebrows?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Di told me that.”
We go back to staring at the sky for a while.
“There’s the Big Dipper.” The starry scoop is obvious, but I point to it anyway.
“The Big Dipper is part of a constellation called Ursa Major. And the Little Dipper’s in Ursa Minor. The star at the end of its handle is Polaris, the North Star.”
“Show off,” I tease.
I glance at his silhouette in the dark. I don’t need to see him to know he’s blushing. He has no problem walking around in a bathing suit that leaves little to the imagination, but he can’t take a compliment or joke without lighting up like a Christmas tree.
“I like astronomy,” he says. “Anything that has to do with ancient civilizations, I love. Greeks, Egyptians, Incas. I can’t get enough of it.”
This is definitely not the time to confess that I enrolled in History solely to gaze upon Mr. Lamont’s gorgeous face and behind.
Ryan reaches into the front pouch of his sweatshirt and pulls out a CD case. “Pen, I burned this CD for you. It’s a bunch of songs I thought you’d like. I made myself a copy, too. That way we can listen at the same time and it’ll be kind of like we’re together.”
My shaking hand reaches out to take the case. I wasn’t expecting Ryan to give me anything and this CD seems like way too much. The only good-bye gift I’m giving him is the pleasure of spending the evening in my half-tanked presence. Whoopdeedoo.
“Thanks,” I say, unable to say anything more than that.
“The Queen songs are from the movie The Highlander. Have you seen it?”
“No. Maybe we can see it when I get home.”
I rest my head on his shoulder and bury my face against his neck. His scent fills my nose, firing up nerve endings that tell my inebriated brain to jump his bones. It’s scary, but the words I love you are clicking against the back of my teeth. I want to open my mouth and let them loose. But something’s holding me back.
When I imagine myself saying those words to Ryan, I feel guilty. As if I’ve already promised to say them to someone else.
I tuck my skirt under me and sit at the edge of a sparkling clear river.
“Astrid, there you are!”
I twist to look behind me. Diana throws her waist-length golden braid over her shoulder with a mischievous smile.
“She’s here, Raven! At the water!” Di calls out as she runs to the river’s edge.
A statuesque girl strides out from the evergreens, extraordinary black hair streaming out behind her. In a strange tongue, my own shocked voice fills my mind, saying, “Hrefna!” Raven.
“We were watching Leif and Erik wrestle,” Di sighs. Her flowing dress billows when she plunks down next to me.
Just as Raven stretches out on the grass, the ground rumbles, and a group of boys, stripped to their breeches, thunders into the river. A leather boot sails through the air, narrowly missing my head, and tumbles onto the soggy riverbank.
“Come for a swim, Raven Thunder-Trousers!” a cute boy with a hint of blond scruff on his face taunts, waist-deep in swirling water.
Raven leaps to her feet and storms fully clothed into the river.
Diana and I laugh when she tackles the boy. They exchange a few words, and her fist snaps out to slug him in the stomach. He keels into the water, smirking. Wading to the river’s edge, she angrily wrings out her hair. But the dreamy look in her eyes tells a different story.
I grab a fine-tooth bone comb from my skirt and run it through Raven’s wet hair until it shines blue-black in the sunshine.
“Leif can’t take his eyes off you.” She shifts to look at me, and the comb slides out of her hair. “What did you do? Cast a spell over him?”
Within the group of blond- and copper-haired boys splashing in the river, only one stands out–the handsome young man watching me comb Raven’s hair. All the others have blended together, as if to form one man I don’t need to pay attention to. I feel drawn to Leif.
Raven grabs my hand, stopping it in a mid-air sweep, and I snap free of my daze. “Did you talk to your father about Erik?” she asks. “My brother would make a wonderful husband, Astrid. He asks about you all the time. And if you marry him, we’ll be sisters.”
I sit tall, excited and proud that both Leif and Erik want me. How far would they go to win my heart?
“Today at the distance-swimming competition,” I begin slowly, “they will swim as far as they can into the open sea. Whoever turns back last will become my husband. I will leave the decision up to them.”
On the other side of me, Diana gasps. “You can’t do that. Your family will choose your husband.” Close to tears, she adds, “And Raven’s right. Erik would be a wonderful, caring husband. You don’t need to marry Leif to be happy.”
I pull my arm free from Raven’s tightening grasp. “My parents are divorced. My father will listen to my wishes and do what I want him to do.” Crossing my arms, I go back to gaping at Leif. “Whoever loves me more will win.”
Dear Dream Journal:
I had another dream about Astrid. Di and Raven met me at a river, after watching Leif and Erik wrestle. Leif was the millennium guy. Everything about him seemed so exciting, like brand-new love. Was he the first, a thousand years ago?
As I was waking up, Ryan ran in front of Leif, and asked me if I wanted to watch a movie. That made me mad because he was blocking my view of Leif, and I knew I only had seconds of dreamtime left. My subconscious must be trying to remind me that I have a real, live boyfriend who I should be dreaming about. Instead, I’m fantasizing about another guy. Once I figured that out, I felt awful. Am I making Ryan compete with someone who exists only in my dreams??
7
“Your father’s going to be here any minute. I think I’m going to throw up.”
“Yeah, me too,” I mutter, and Mom scowls as she paces past me. I believe she has correctly guessed I have a hangover.
“Dad’s here!” Kalli hollers from upstairs.
“Oh, shit,” Mom and I say at the same time. We laugh about it, but then Mom’s face tenses up in a flash. “Watch your mouth,” she says.
Kalli thumps downstairs and struggles to get through the kitchen doorway, lugging her suitcases and bags.
“Did you pack your whole room, or what?”
She lets everything fall to the floor. “We’re going for the whole summer. Duh.”
The doorbell rings. Kalli squeals and runs to the front door, waving her arms in the air like an idiot. Dad knows we use the back door. Why’d he ring at the front? Maybe he feels like a stranger at our house now.
“I want him out of here. Get moving,” Mom says, stepping around Kalli’s junk.
“Geez, fine.”
“Hello, Karen,” Dad calls into the house, and I unexpectedly smile. The sound of his voice chisels away the ice coating that was preserving the four-year-old girl I used to be, the girl who loved her dad unconditionally and thought he was the coolest guy around.
“Hello, Peter,” Mom says, stiffer than a wooden spoon. She hurries into the main-floor bathroom and shuts the door.
I set the crust of my buttered toast on my plate. “Hi, Dad.”
“Penny!”
Kalli gallops into the kitchen from the living room, with Dad not far behind. He looks really uncomfortable, like his skin is itching to leap off his skeleton and sprint away. The smile he gives me has a hint of surprise in it. I wonder if I look different from the last time he saw me almost a year ago. I’m stunned by Dad’s appearance. He must have quit drinking, because he’s lost at least thirty pounds.
I have none of Dad’s genes in me, and I’ll hate to the day I die that Kalli got his height and I didn’t. That dummy will no doubt be a supermodel within ten years, sleeping with rock stars, living the good life, and traveling the world, while I’ll be married to a two-timing loser, popping out kids, and squashing the wide hips I got from Mom’s side of the family onto the worn-out cat-clawed sofa to eat ice cream straight from the carton while watching soap operas.
“All set?” Dad asks.
My bag is lying on the kitchen floor, looking puny next to Kalli’s mountain of luggage. I slept late and packed at the last minute. Unless Dad lives north of the Arctic Circle, there’s sure to be a mall in his town. I can buy whatever I forgot.
I loop the straps of my bag over my shoulder. “I guess.”
Dad clears his throat. “Say good-bye to your mother. I’ll meet you out at the car.”
“Mom, we’re leaving!” Kalli shouts.
The front door closes. Mom leaves the bathroom, patting her face with toilet paper.
“Mom, don’t cry. Just think of all the fun you can have without Kalli and me here.”
Mom whimpers behind the toilet paper.
Kalli runs over and gives her a quick peck on the cheek.
Mom holds her arms out. I set my bag on the floor, shuffle over, and allow her to squeeze me. I keep my arms at my sides, feeling even less affectionate than usual.
“See you in a couple of months,” I say, as she crushes air from my lungs.
“You be careful.”
“I will, Mom. I’ll call when we get there.” I wiggle out of her clutches and grab my bag. “I should go. Dad’s waiting.”
Mom follows me to the back door, where I grab my jacket and put on my shoes. Mom follows me through the living room to the front door. Mom follows me out the door.
Dad’s car, a very brand-new-looking Honda Accord, is idling in the driveway. We never had new, shiny black cars with leather interiors while Dad was with us. We were lucky if they came equipped with working seat belts.
“Nice car,” Mom says. A person lacking people-reading skills would take that as a compliment. But I heard venom drip from her fangs to the asphalt and, “Nice car where’d you get the money for that you never had money to spend on us.”
I set my bag in the open trunk, on top of Kalli’s layer of luggage. Kalli took the front passenger seat, so I get the whole backseat to myself.
Within seconds, we’re rolling down my street. The street I’ve lived on my whole life. I turn to glance out the rear window, and see Mom waving her arm through the air. I give a small good-bye wave and turn back around in my seat, already missing Di and Ryan.
Up front, Dad and Kalli chat nonstop. I’m only half listening, but then Kalli turns in her seat, giving me a smirk. “Penny’s got a boyfriend now.”
Brat.
Dad glances into the rearview mirror to look at me. “The same boy-hating Penny who declared at the age of ten that she’d never, ever have a boyfriend or get married?”
“Yup, that same Penny. I think boys are only mildly vile and nauseating now.”
Dad asks me a few innocent questions about Ryan, and I give a few succinct answers that don’t reveal too much.
Kalli, probably ticked off that the conversation isn’t revolving around her, starts giving Dad a minute-by-minute replay of the past year. I silently pray for a bus to hit us. If I go to sleep, maybe I’ll be oblivious to the long car ride and Kalli’s lame stories.
I slouch down and gently rest my head against the back of the seat. Through my eyelashes, I watch grassy hills and clumps of forest whiz past my window—
My head bobs sleepily and I fix my gaze on Margie, who’s sharing the backseat with me. Her grin exposes a smudge of pink lipstick on her front teeth.
Framing the window with her hands, she says, “I told you you’d be traveling.”
“Lucky guess.” I watch the scenery roll past my own window.
“Like I said, Penny, everything happens for a reason.”
“Do I have to go to Dad’s for a reason?” I turn to look at her. “I’m not going to meet that thousand-year-old guy there, am I? The guy from my dreams?”
Margie shrugs, and as I’m staring at her, I notice that the car we’re riding in isn’t my dad’s car. The whole shape is different, boxy, not sleek and rounded. And everything is worn, not new. The seat is gray and fuzzy, and there’s a tiny cigarette burn in the fabric, beside my right leg. Who does this car belong to?
“It’s a shame you had to leave Diana,” Margie says with a wistful sigh.
Up goes my head again. “What do you mean?”
The red curls on the back of Margie’s head slither and intertwine in a slow, hypnotic dance. “It’s for the best,” she says, staring out the window. A coil of hair rears up and strikes out at me, sprouting black eyes and curved fangs an inch from my face. My head flies back and crunches against the window glass.
In unison, the snake-like curls jut upward, like a venomous forest. A horrific wail fills the car. My hands fly to my ears to block it out, but it’s no good. It’s not only coming from the mouths of the snakes, it’s inside my head, too. With a whoosh, the snakes burst into flame. Fire flashes across the roof of the car in a rolling wave, rippling down Margie’s seat belt.
Pressing my body against my door, I say, “Tell me. Why did I have to leave?”
The fire-engulfed head turns away from the blackened window. But the mangled face staring back at me from the fire isn’t Margie’s, it’s Diana’s. Rotting hunks of white flesh flap off her cheeks, the skin on her forehead bubbles angrily, licked by flames. Worms of blue fire weave through her lips.
I claw at the gray plastic in search of a door handle, terrified.
“Pen, you had to leave,” Diana whispers, and she leans so close I can see the reflection of the flames in her eyes, “to get away from me.”
“Whaaaaaa,” I blurt, wrenching awake.
The car lurches as if Dad, startled, tapped the brakes as a reflex.
“Everything all right back there?” he asks.
Breathe, breathe, breathe. “Yeah, Dad.” A vibration of fear hums through me.
“Don’t tell me you had another stupid dream,” Kalli says. I can’t see her eyes, but I know they’re rolling back. Maybe one of these times, they’ll snap and stay that way.
I stare at a lackadaisical herd of cows in the field outside my window, not wanting to talk about the fire-car dream. But then I start to wonder why Kalli kind of implied that stupid dreams a
re the norm for me.
“What do you mean, Kalli?”
More unseen eye rolling. “You wake me up almost every night with your moaning and whimpering and saying dumb stuff like ‘Malcolm, don’t leave me,’ or ‘don’t die, Raphael.’ Every time I get up to go pee in the night, I hear you.”
No way. She must be lying. I suddenly feel sick, like somebody told me I compulsively pick my nose in public without being aware of it. If Kalli is telling the truth, and I do have weird dreams way more often than I thought … what on earth am I dreaming about? And who the heck are Malcolm and Raphael?
* * *
After a few hours of nothing but cows, sheep, flat fields, and the occasional nearly nonexistent town outside my window, I start to get nervous. If Dad lives in some hole-in-the-ground town full of rednecks and old people, I’m going to die.
“We’re almost there,” Dad announces as we pass, heaven help me, a cheese factory.
I’ve entered the Land of Cattle and Cheese.
We pull off the highway. The town itself seems pretty normal. The houses are cute, the lawns are green, and the gardens are full of flowers. We cruise past a grocery store and a community center. So far, I haven’t seen a single teenager. Even the playground is empty. And the car ahead of us is crawling down the street as if doing the speed limit is a sin punishable by death. The Twilight Zone theme goes off in my head. This really is an old-person town, I just know it.
“Why did you move here?” I ask.
“He works at an automotive plant,” Kalli says. “Mom said he makes lots of money.”
Dad chuckles.
“Wow, there are lots of big trees here,” Kalli, the master of astute observation, says.
Dad points to a building that’s so old the bricks are crumbling. “There’s the theater. You girls might like the movie that’s playing there now, it’s a teen movie.”
The movie? As in singular?
“I can see the beach!” Kalli cries, like she’s never seen a flippin’ lake before.
While we’re stopped at the intersection beside the theater, which, according to Dad, is smack-dab in the middle of downtown, Kalli and I get a quick rundown of good places to eat, shop, and hang out. The buildings downtown all look as old as the theater and there are no recognizable fast food signs visible. A mall has yet to make an appearance.