by Amy McAuley
“I know that. But I’m not expecting you to run there. Have you forgotten what’s sitting out in your dad’s garage?”
“You think I should use my car?”
“No, I was thinking you’d fire up the old push broom he’s got out there.”
I coast down the sloped street, able to laugh without asphyxiating.
A visit to Di and Ryan is a great idea.
* * *
“Nope, not a good idea,” Dad says, moving his head to peek around me. I’m blocking the eleven o’clock news.
Remain calm. Save the tantrums for Mom.
“I’d only have to drive for a few hours, Dad. I’ll go for a weekend, that’s it. I even know this great place where I can stay. It’s called My House.”
Dad’s not used to situations like this, where he has to take charge and think of ways to outsmart and outmaneuver me. He’s the picture of befuddlement. “I don’t like the idea of you driving that far by yourself,” he says. “What if the car broke down?”
“What if I took Kate with me?” I shout, excited by my sudden ingenuity.
“I don’t think your mother would like it if I let you drive on the highway.”
“I’ll call and ask.”
On to the next round of questions—Dad quizzes me on everything his whirring brain can think up on short notice. Do you know how to pump gas? Can you change a tire? Do you have enough money? Do you pick up hitchhikers?
My answers to the questions aren’t well thought out, but they’re good. I’m wearing Dad down. I can see it in his glazed-over eyes.
“Call your mom in the morning,” Dad says, and I hold back a triumphant whoop. “If it’s okay with her and Kate’s allowed to go with you, I’ll let you go for the weekend.”
“Thanks, Dad. You’re the best!” Did my mouth just say that?
* * *
It’s trip day. I met all of Dad’s criteria; he had to let me go. I told Mom to keep our visit secret. Everybody’s going to be so surprised to see us.
I hear a tapping noise on the patio door. I whirl around and run over to let Kate in. “I said I’d pick you up at noon,” I cry, feeling guilty that she walked all the way over here carrying her luggage.
The bags drop to the kitchen floor, and she stretches her arms. “I couldn’t wait any longer. And I’m used to coming over at this time anyway.” She unzips one of the bags and pulls out a manila envelope. “I brought your set of photos.”
I take the envelope from her hand and open it on our way to the kitchen table. “I hope I don’t look too stupid,” I say, carefully sliding the stack of pictures out.
The first picture is of me. I think. The girl in the black-and-white photo is beautiful.
“Do you have a magic darkroom, Kate? Look at me in this photo.”
I lay it on the table and move on to the next picture, the one of me sitting on the rock at the beach, hugging my legs. Wispy strands of hair flutter back from my profile as I gaze off into space.
Slowly, I go through all the pictures. Each one is incredible, especially the nature shots I’m absent from. When I get to the final photo in the stack, my hand flies up to my throat, but it’s unable to hold back a gasp. The photo is the one Old Guy took of Kate and me. Close-ups of our faces are centered and in focus, then the beach background gradually fuzzes out.
“That’s called a vignette,” Kate says. “Do you like it?”
Not wanting Kate to know I’m choked up, I lean closer to the black-and-white picture, pretending to get a better look. It takes all my concentration to calmly say, “I love it. It’s the best photo I’ve ever seen.”
“Let’s go,” Kate says, leaving the table. “And don’t forget your running shoes.”
I gently insert the pictures into the envelope, with the photo of Raven and Astrid, together again, at the very top of the stack.
* * *
Saying good-bye to Sandy wasn’t fun. She knew I was leaving, and I felt awful. As we were pulling away, I saw her furry face pressed against the patio door. What will I do when I have to go home for real? I can’t call a dog on the phone to chat. Or can I?
Even Kalli was sad that I was leaving. She straggled out of bed to give me a dejected “See ya later.” She had the chance to come with us—Dad’s idea, not mine—but she didn’t want to leave her new best friend, Little Miss Annoying. I called Dad at work before we left to say good-bye, which led to another round of testing. Seems he’d remembered more worst-case possibilities. By the time we got out of the house, put gas in the car, backtracked to an ATM, and grabbed some takeout at Wendy’s, it was pushing three o’clock.
“When I talked to Ryan the other night, I almost blabbed about our visit, but I caught myself in time.”
“Did you talk to Diana?”
“No. I called but she was out doing something with wonder-twins Rick and Emma.”
“Pass this loser,” Kate says, pointing a fry at the car ahead of us. “He’s a hat-driver.”
“I can’t, I don’t like to pass when I’m driving. And what’s a hat-driver?”
“Anybody who wears a hat while driving drives veeery slowly. It’s a universal law.”
I crawl along behind the hat-driver until I’m wishing I could ramp onto his car and crush him into a hat-wearing pancake.
“All right, I’ll pass him,” I say. “I’m two minutes away from an aneurysm.”
I check every mirror a dozen times, and pull out to pass when the other lane is clear for as far as I can see. The steering wheel vibrates in my hands. When I’m safely past the hat-driver, I pull back into my lane and exhale the breath I was holding.
Kate noisily slurps up every last drop of her Coke. She lets out a satisfied aaaahh, and says, “Are we there yet?”
* * *
I’m waiting at a busy intersection in a city about twenty minutes from home. This is the longest red light in history. I tap my fingers on the steering wheel, eager to get going. It’s only six o’clock, but it’s getting dark. Rain clouds are billowing up in the sky, and I don’t like to drive when it’s dark or when it’s raining.
A city bus rolls into the middle of the intersection to make a left turn onto the street I’m on. The interior of the bus is aglow, making the rectangular windows look like movie screens. My gaze stops on a man seated alone, wearing a red shirt. The invisible feathers lightly roll down my bare arms.
Something bad is going to happen to him.
A drawn-out horn blast from the car behind me makes me jump.
“Pen, the light isn’t going to get any greener.”
I snap back to paying attention and accelerate through the intersection.
“Something the matter?” Kate asks. “You look freaked out.”
“It’s nothing,” I say, but the horrible feeling that came over me when I saw the man is clinging to me like plastic wrap.
I follow the bus, separated by a few cars. At the next street, the bus turns into a mall parking lot. As I drive past, I glance out my window, catching a glimpse of the red shirt. My gut takes over, and I impulsively swerve into the next turning lane.
“Hey, are we going to the mall?” Kate says. “I forgot to pack my deodorant.”
Only half-listening, I say, “Yeah, sure.”
I drive through the lot and pull into a spot near the bus. The man is nowhere in sight.
“Aren’t you coming?” Kate asks, when I make no move to get out of the car.
It hits me that I’m acting strangely, for no good reason. I shut off the ignition. “Sorry, I’m just spaced out.”
We wait for traffic to clear the thoroughfare, and walk to the closest entrance.
“There’s a drugstore,” Kate says, veering to the left. I have to jog next to her to keep up with her super-athletic walk. Four guys hanging out at the ATM check Kate out, but she strides past, oblivious. “We should get sports drinks. In case we run tonight.”
Inside the store, I browse around while Kate inspects rows and rows of deodorants. I grab a
magazine, some gum, and two sports drinks. Rounding the end of the aisle, I freeze. The man in the red shirt is standing in the pick-up line at the pharmacy counter. I hurry back the way I came and meet up with Kate at the checkout.
“You’re getting deodorant for men?” I say, peering into her handcart.
“I like the way guys smell. Why would I want to walk around smelling like a girl?”
The old man in line ahead of us is arguing with the cashier over a five-cent difference between the weekly flyer price and the price he was charged. I don’t envy her one bit.
Eventually, it’s our turn. I’m all business at the counter. No phony small talk, no fuss. We’re out of the store in no time. We push the heavy mall doors open and leave the air conditioning behind. The air is so thick I could drink it through a straw.
And then I see the man in the red shirt. Again.
Kate points him out, as he walks through the parking lot. “That guy dropped his wallet. I should run it to him.” Over her shoulder, she says, “Meet you at the car.”
Kate jogs away, zigzagging between three concrete planters, and waits for a car at the nearby stop sign to pass. The driver leans over the steering wheel, staring at the road. She must see the wallet, because she stops to let Kate go ahead and rescue it.
I’m glad Kate decided to return the wallet. I saw the man drop it, too, but I was going to ignore it. I didn’t come to this mall to get deodorant, or a magazine, or anything else. I came because I followed the man in the red shirt here. And now he keeps getting thrown in my path. I should have kept driving, like a normal person would have. But I keep thinking about the other time a strange, unexpected thought popped into my head. Right before the fire alarm went off in Ms. Watford’s class.
On the way to my car, I spy on Kate and the man. He stops and pats down his pockets. The patting gets more frantic. He spins around and starts to jog back. Kate waves the wallet in the air. Even from where I’m standing, I can see the relief in his face.
I start the car, roll down the windows, and reverse out of the parking spot. In my side mirror, I watch Kate talk to the man. She waves. He waves. She runs to the car, smiling.
“There’s my good deed for the day,” Kate says, bouncing onto her seat. “Now I get to be bad to balance everything out.”
At the thoroughfare, I look left and right a few times, not sure how I got into this mall.
“Wait, don’t go yet.” Kate presses on my arm, as if that’ll hold the whole car back.
A beat-up black pickup blasts straight through the stop sign. It whizzes past the front of my car, going faster than I’m comfortable driving on the highway. The driver is too busy reaching into the glove compartment to look at the road.
Kate’s reaction time is way better than mine. Swearing, she springs up and sticks her head out her window, before I have a chance to say anything. By now, the speeding truck is squealing out of the parking lot, but Kate hollers, “Go a little faster why don’t ya! Jerk!”
With the truck already out of sight, the only other person in Kate’s line of fire is the old man who was arguing with the cashier in the drugstore. He shuffles across the road, scowling and grumbling under his breath.
“Let’s get out of here.” Kate drops down, laughing hysterically. “Looks like he’s about to throw his Metamucil at us.”
We leave the mall and get back on the road to my house. The sticky horrible feeling I got when I came here stays behind.
* * *
Singing along with Kate and the radio makes the rest of the trip fly by. We crest a hill and then my city comes into view, a sea of lights in the distance. A tingling zap shoots across my chest when we cruise past the first few houses at the city limits. Brockton: Population 75,000. Ambitious Present, Bright Future.
“Let’s go straight to Di’s house,” I say, cruising past my place.
I pull into their driveway and park, so excited I nearly rear-end their car. We run up the porch steps, and I press the doorbell. Faint chimes float out through the door, and then Di’s schnauzer, Misty, announces our arrival with frenzied barking. Through the frosted glass inset in the door, I see a tall, blurry shape with broad shoulders strolling down the hall. I can barely breathe. Kate and I exchange gritted-teeth smiles.
The door swings open.
My stomach rises in my gut, like I’m whooshing down a steep roller coaster. I was expecting Di’s dad to open the door. Not him.
“Penny, it’s you.”
“Hi, is Diana here?” My voice sounds hollow and far away. I stare at the doorbell that gave away my arrival. It’s too late to back down the steps and run away.
“She’s downstairs, watching a movie. C’mon in, and I’ll get her.”
“Omigod! Penny!” Di screams from somewhere inside the house.
Next thing I know, Di’s dragging us inside, Misty is jumping all over me, scratching my bare legs with her serrated schnauzer claws, and there’s too much squealing and barking and hugging going on. Then, as if that wasn’t enough, the phone starts ringing. “The cordless is in my room,” Di calls over her shoulder.
When I manage to get loose from our group hug, the three of us are standing alone in the front hallway.
Kate gives a hasty wave. “Hi, I’m Kate.”
“Kate! I’ve heard so much about you.”
Di leads us into the kitchen. I trail behind on stiff legs, my brain relaying conflicting messages to my body.
“So, who was the stud who answered the door?” Kate asks, and I want to melt into a puddle on the hardwood floor.
“That was Rick.”
“Rick? His name is Rick?” I ask, leaning against a kitchen chair.
“Yeah, remember, I told you about him over the phone. Lots of times.”
“He knew who I was when he opened the door.”
Di points to my eleventh-grade picture prominently displayed on the fridge. “Of course he knew who you were. I talk about you so much he probably feels like he already knows you.”
“Oh, right.”
Rick walks into the kitchen and sets the phone on the counter. “It was your mom. They’ll be home around ten.” He crosses the room, saying, “Can you guys stay? I’ll go restart the movie.”
We are not staying here, that’s all there is to it. I open my mouth to tell him that we have to get going to my place, my mom’s waiting.
“A movie. Sounds good, we’re into that,” Kate says, and I clench the chair.
“Great.” Rick jogs downstairs to the family room.
My gaze darts around the kitchen and settles on the phone. There’s one person I need to talk to. Now. “Di, I’m gonna call Ryan. Can he come over, too?”
Di’s smile droops. “Ryan’s not home. You didn’t know that?”
“What do you mean? Where is he?”
“I ran into him last night at the mall. He said he and his dad were taking Scott on a canoe trip or something.” Di shakes her head and her tiny ballet slipper earrings twirl. “I dunno. I wasn’t really listening. There was this phenomenal purple sweater in the front window of Clothes Horse.”
Kate turns to look at me, one eyebrow cocked higher than the other.
“I’m sorry,” Di says. “But you’ll get to see him in, what, two weeks, right?”
Pretending to be engrossed in the newspaper laid out on the table, I say, “Yeah.”
“You guys want Cokes for the movie?” The fridge door opens.
“I do,” Kate says, at the same time I say, “Sure.”
Di sets two cans on the table. “Let’s go. I’ll introduce you to Emma.”
Kate starts to follow behind Di. I tug on her shirt, hoping she’ll get the hint.
“We’ll be down in a minute,” Kate says. “I had to go pee the whole way here, but Penny refused to pull over. That’s fairly evil, if you ask me.”
Di laughs on her way out of the room.
“Okay, what’s up?” Kate whispers. When I look up from the newspaper, her features go into reverse, a
s if I’m a monster they must retreat from at warp speed. “You’ve got a bunch of red splotches all over your face like you’re ready to kaboom.” Her hands fly out next to her face, mimicking an explosion. “Are you upset that Ryan’s not home?”
I pat tears away with my sleeve. “Yeah, that.”
“You humans and your faulty eyes,” Kate says with a sly grin.
“And Rick’s the guy.”
“The what guy?” Her eyes go wide. “That guy?”
“Yes.” I exhale.
“I thought you said his name had to start with U. And he doesn’t look like a lion.”
Rubbing my temples, I squint my eyes shut. “I don’t understand. Margie said I’d know him when I saw him. And I know Rick is the guy.”
“You’re sure?”
When Rick opened the door, my mind took a snapshot of him—blond, tall, and handsome in a majestic kind of way. From that, I got an overwhelming feeling, the kind of feeling I’ve been waiting for since Mom’s party.
“I’m positive.” I try to conjure up the snapshot image. “He is. I think.”
“I’m sensing some doubt, with a touch of delusion sprinkled on top.”
I give Kate a squint-eyed glare.
“All right, if you say he’s the guy, then he’s the guy.”
“What do I do now?”
“You’re going to go downstairs to watch a movie with your best friend, Diana, and her new friends, Rick and Emma, that’s what you’re going to do.”
“But,” I start to protest, and Kate does one of her emphatic hand swishes at me.
“You can do this. Now let’s go.”
* * *
Rick must think I hate him. We’ve been watching movies and listening to music for hours, and I haven’t made eye contact with him or spoken to him once. I keep my focus firmly entrenched on Emma, Diana, Kate, the floor, the TV, the chair I’m sitting on, and my lap. I still don’t have a clear-cut image of what Rick looks like.
“Hello, down there,” Di’s mom calls down the stairs. “Time to wrap up the party, Diana, your dad and I are going to bed.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Di says.
Rick and Emma stand. “It was nice to meet you, Kate and Penny,” Rick says, and Emma chimes in with, “We’ll see you tomorrow.”