Until the gangueros started showing up at my abuela’s courtyard gate.
Until they demanded money, telling us that she would need to pay, if she wanted to keep her pupusa stand.
Until those assholes grabbed me by my feet—held me out of a window, three stories above the street, every day for weeks.
Until my grandmother and her courtyard disappeared, carried on powerful waves of mud into the lake below.
Until I abandoned her.
The corners of my eyes start to sting. I push myself up to stand, and I gather up the last of the used napkins and containers.
“I’m gonna go find a place to throw this stuff away,” I say, still looking away from her.
I take my time walking around the perimeter of the church, trying to pull my shit together. I tell myself to stop thinking about the past. I tell myself to think about the blue sky, and the warm sun, and the fact that I’m hanging out with a beautiful, kind girl who brought me to the countryside to buy me pupusas.
I find a garbage can around back and drop our bag of trash inside. I’m worried that maybe I’ve been gone too long—that Gretchen will wonder what happened, or come looking for me. But when I round the corner to the front of the church, Gretchen is still there on the steps, exactly as I left her, waiting for me. Except she has her phone out, and she’s texting.
“Ready?” I ask her.
“Mmmhmm,” she mumbles, standing up. She looks at her phone and back at me a couple of times, like she’s trying to figure something out.
“We’ve gotta get back to Atlanta, right?” she says.
“Yeah, unless you want for our next adventure to be getting chased down by the Dahlonega police.”
“Could be fun.” She shrugs. “A low-speed chase through the mountains.”
“Not my kind of fun,” I say. I know she wants to lighten the mood, so I’m trying to play along.
“Wanna meet up with some friends of mine Downtown?”
I hear the anxiety in her voice. I don’t know if it’s because she’s nervous about introducing me to her friends, or because she doesn’t feel comfortable going Downtown. I’ve seen enough to know that Gretchen doesn’t like being in crowded places.
“Do you wanna go?” I ask.
She nods. “Yeah, I think I do, but it might be stupid.” She starts walking toward the car. “It’s my best friend, Bree, and her new boyfriend. They want to do, like, a tourist night—go Downtown and pretend we’re from out of town, do all the stupid touristy stuff.”
Then she smiles in a way that would make it really damn hard to say no. The truth is, even without that smile, I don’t want this day with Gretchen to end.
“Let’s do it,” I tell her.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
GRETCHEN
“YOU KNOW HOW EVERYBODY’S always talking about the American Dream?” Phoenix asks me. The windows are rolled down in the car, and we’re winding our way back toward Atlanta. We’ve been driving in silence for a while, breathing in the damp mountain air.
“Yeah, I guess.” That’s what I tell him, but I don’t really. No one I know makes reference to the American Dream unless they’re being sarcastic.
“And people are always talking about the almighty dollar—like the American Dream is all about getting a shit-ton of money and then buying a big house and a bunch of fancy cars.” He’s sitting in the passenger seat, his feet on the dash, his head tilted back, eyes closed. “That’s not my American Dream,” he says quietly. “I don’t even care about money and cars and all that.”
For a moment I look right at him, concentrating on what he’s trying to tell me, but he doesn’t look back. I return my gaze to the road.
“My American Dream’s way more simple than that. I just wanna be able to go for a walk in the woods alone—get on one of those little trails in the forest and walk for hours. That would be so awesome. Or maybe head over to a friend’s place after dinner to watch a football match on TV, and not have to look behind my back every five seconds, not have to worry about whether I’ll make it home alive. You know?”
No, I don’t know. And I don’t know what to say. I want to reach out and touch him, but instead I grip the steering wheel tighter.
We pull out of the mountains, back onto the highway, and then two high-pitched beeps break the silence—instead of my own voice, which appears to have disappeared.
“We’re back inside my radius,” Phoenix says, pulling up the leg of his jeans to inspect the ankle monitor.
The ankle monitor.
“Can you ever take it off?” I ask.
“Nope,” he says. “Never.”
* * *
When we get to my house, we don’t go inside. By the time Bree and Ty pull into the driveway, it’s getting dark. Phoenix and I are sitting together on the hood of my car, leaning into each other, close. Bree rolls down her window and Ty leans across to call out to us.
“Get in, y’all!” he says, smiling big.
We jump off the hood and Phoenix opens the back door of Bree’s car. He touches my back lightly to let me in first. Bree is watching, studying us both carefully. I don’t recognize the look on her face, which is unusual, in light of the fact that we’ve been friends forever. Maybe it’s just curiosity. Or concern. I slide across the back seat and Phoenix gets in beside me. Ty half stands in the front passenger seat and turns around to face us completely.
“Check it out,” Ty says, pointing toward the baseball cap he’s wearing. “I’ve got on my Falcons jersey and my Braves cap! We’re going full-on tourist tonight.”
We all laugh at Ty. He’s sort of a buffoon, but he can be funny sometimes. After Ty and Bree introduce themselves, Bree maneuvers thorough the neighborhood to DeKalb Avenue, and then we drive west along DeKalb toward Downtown, skirting the edge of the train tracks. We talk about all the graffiti art on the walls of the elevated train. Phoenix seems fascinated by that art, especially when we tell him that most of it was painted by volunteers, as part of a city project to beautify the area. I guess where he’s from, graffiti isn’t usually created as a community service initiative.
Soon we’re Downtown, snaking our way through city streets, looking out the window at the high-rise buildings stacked one beside the other. Bree pulls into a parking spot and we all look up.
“Um, Gretchen,” Phoenix says, “what is that?”
“The Atlanta Eye,” Bree tells him. “Doesn’t it look fun?”
An enormous Ferris wheel with enclosed cars spins slowly above us, lit up in a dozen different colors.
“Let’s do this thing!” Ty says with much more enthusiasm than necessary.
We all tumble out of the car. Except Phoenix. He closes his eyes and rubs his head a few times.
“Come on!” Bree says, leaning back into the car. “The line is getting long.”
Phoenix steps out of the car slowly. He looks up at the spinning lights and then clenches his jaw tight and wraps his arm around my shoulder. We start walking toward the Eye, and he keeps his arm hanging on me, which is fine. Because that’s what friends do, right? They walk down the street, their arms casually draped across each other’s shoulders. At least, that’s what I’m trying to convince myself.
Bree was right. The line is long. So we decide to wait while Ty and Phoenix go and buy us some Cokes.
“What’s going on?” Bree asks as soon as they walk away from us.
“What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean. What’s going on with Phoenix? The air between you two is so thick, I could cut it with a butter knife.”
“I don’t know,” I tell her. And it’s true, I don’t. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t either.
“Well, figure it out,” she says, shaking her head slowly. “Because Phoenix seems great, and all, but you have a very devoted boyfriend, Gretch.”
Ty and Phoenix come back and, by the time we get to the front of the line, we’ve already finished our drinks. Ty buys a ticket for Bree. Bree doesn’t even put up a figh
t. She doesn’t say one thing like, Excuse me. I think I’m capable of buying my own ticket. Or My, how nineteenth century of you! Or Look at that! A hundred years of women’s struggle for independence right out the door! She is so entirely un-Bree that she actually giggles—giggles!—when the salesperson offers them the VIP car with “limo-tinted windows, red leather seats, and a glass floor.” It doesn’t take much creativity to imagine what goes on inside those little pods as they dangle above the Atlanta skyline.
Gross.
The only upside of Bree’s strange behavior is that she’s so busy giggling with Ty that she forgets about me and Phoenix and the heavy air between us. Not surprisingly, Bree and Ty strategically land themselves alone in the VIP car. As soon as the doors start to slide shut, they’re all over each other. They don’t even wait for those doors to fully close.
As soon as their doors close, Phoenix and I are standing together, in ear-shattering silence. We walk up a short stairway to the next car. We both stand perfectly still at the edge of the walkway, staring forward, waiting for the attendant to open the doors and let us in. I’m at the edge of the platform, trying to put some space between us.
I know Phoenix feels as anxious as I do. We are about to be alone in something clearly designed as a full-on make-out pod. Of course, I’m not supposed to be thinking about this, since I am here with my friend Phoenix. But I am. I mean, thinking about it. I am thinking about his body, to be more specific. I am thinking about what it would feel like to taste him on my lips and feel his bare skin under my touch, to feel his hands against my hips.
Why am I letting my mind go there? Why is my body sending out all these crazy signals? Maybe it’s all that mountain air we breathed on our drive back from Dahlonega. I should have kept the windows rolled up.
Our pod comes to a stop in front of us. It’s swinging back and forth a little, so the doors stay closed.
“Motherfucker,” Phoenix says, releasing the word slowly, drawing out each syllable.
This is unexpected.
“You swear like a sailor,” I tell him, trying to sound casual instead of really confused. (I am really confused.) “Where did you learn to talk like that?”
“The missionaries,” he tells me, still unable to tear his eyes away from the pod we are about to climb into. “They taught me everything I know.”
“Goddamned missionaries,” I say, trying to make him laugh. He doesn’t even smile.
The doors slide open and a woman stands on the other side, welcoming us onto the Atlanta Eye. I step into the pod and sit down on a bench. The woman looks at Phoenix, who is standing as still as a statue outside.
Oh, God. How could I have forgotten? He’s afraid of heights.
“Is he gonna make it?” she asks me.
“I think so.” But I’m starting to doubt it. I look over at Phoenix and realize he definitely isn’t thinking about what it would feel like to have his hands all over my body. What he’s thinking is, Motherfucker. In fact, I’m pretty sure Phoenix is headed toward a full-on panic attack–freak-out. I know panic attacks. I can see the signs.
“Because we need to get this thing moving,” the female attendant continues. She isn’t being mean. She’s just stating a fact.
I stand up. “I can’t believe I forgot. How could I have forgotten?”
“Forgotten what?” He’s looking up at the thin metal cable that connects our pod to the frame of the Ferris wheel.
“That you’re afraid of heights.” I start to step out of the pod. “We don’t have to do this.”
The attendant is watching us both, a bored look on her face. “On or off?” she asks.
“On,” he says, squeezing his eyes shut. He still doesn’t move, though.
“Are you sure?” I ask.
“No,” he growls. “But I’m also not ready to look like an idiot in front of your friends, so I guess we’re gonna ride this thing.”
“We’ll wait for them down here.” I say, stepping out of the car. “It’s not a big deal.”
He grabs my arm to stop me, and then he pulls me back into the car. “It is to me.” His eyes dart around frantically. “Let’s get this over with.”
We’re standing inside the doors. The entire car feels charged with energy—and not the good kind. I do a quick search for barf bags, but there aren’t any. This could be bad. I pull him onto the bench next to me, even though there is another one across from us—an empty one, designed so that under normal circumstances friends can sit across from each other, chatting and laughing and not hooking up. But these are not normal circumstances.
Phoenix presses himself against my side. The woman drones on about the Atlanta skyline, and all that we will see. I can tell he’s not listening. His eyes are fixed on a warning sticker that’s stuck to the window across from us. It’s got drawings of stick figures, intended to illustrate several completely improbable ways a person could get hurt in this very secure little pod. Like, Don’t shove the doors open with your bare hands and Don’t stick your arms and legs out of the very small window. His jaw clenches and his back goes rigid.
“Phoenix,” I say. “Look at me.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
PHOENIX
LOOK AT ME.
I tear my eyes away from the warning sign and look right at Gretchen. The woman whose job it is to seal us into this death pod keeps talking, saying the same load of crap she has said three times already tonight. But I don’t listen to her. I focus on that little brown freckle in Gretchen’s right eye, and I start begging sweet baby Jesus that I’ll be able to hold myself together.
One time around, and then I’m outta here.
“The ride will last for three full revolutions. If you want to get out early”—the woman pauses and looks directly at me, her eyebrows arching—“or if for any reason you need to get out early, push the red button.”
Three times. Oh Christ. Do I look as sick as I feel?
The woman points to the ceiling, where a red emergency button glows in the very center. Then she steps out of the car and the doors slide shut, but I don’t watch her go—because I’m staring at that red button. It’s like a goddamned beacon in the night.
Click.
And then there’s a jolt, and the car starts to swing wildly, and this stupid circus ride begins to move. I mean, what the hell? Why is there a big-ass fair ride in the middle of downtown Atlanta, anyway? And more important, how did I—Phoenix Flores Flores—the number one candy-ass sissy of all time, end up inside it?
I can’t take my eyes off that red button.
The car only moves a few yards, and then it jolts to a stop again and starts to swing. This time it swings like it’s out in the middle of the Pacific fucking Ocean, and the waves are pounding it. Back and forth, back and forth. And I’m still staring hard at that light on the ceiling.
Then the stupid ride starts to move again, and this time it doesn’t stop. We are climbing fast, but at least the death pod stops swinging like mad. I feel Gretchen pressed up against me, and—I’ll admit it—I sink into her.
“You need to hold me down.” I hear myself say. “The whole time. Or else I’m going for that red button.”
“Yeah,” she tells me. “I can do that.”
And the way she says it, it’s not even like she thinks I’m insane—or a total wuss. She says it like everything is okay, or it’s going to be okay.
She grabs both of my hands in hers and holds on tight. I feel her press our hands into my lap, which makes me look away from the red beacon, finally. She leans in so our foreheads touch, and then we both sit completely still, staring at our hands, wrapped around each other.
Our hands, they’re amazing to look at.
Hers are smooth and white. Her skin is almost translucent. Next to hers, my hands are bigger, and the skin is darker. They look stronger, but they’re not. She’s the strong one, keeping me together.
Her body shifts.
“Don’t let go,” I beg.
So she doesn’t.
For three revolutions we sit like that, not moving, not saying a word, dangling over this big bright city in a glass pod. It feels like forever, and it feels too fast.
When it’s over, I pull back and look at Gretchen, her cheeks flushed pink, lips pressed together.
“It’s done?” I say.
“Yeah, it’s done,” she says.
I don’t want to let go of her hands. Not yet.
“Now can we please go have some fun?”
“Sounds good.” She bites her top lip and the flush rises in her cheeks, or maybe I’m just imagining it. It’s a little dark in here.
Another click and the door slides open. Bree and Ty are waiting for us, their hair all messed up. Bree’s shirt is half untucked and her lipstick is smeared. They look like they just climbed out of bed.
And then I get it. It hits me all at once—why people love this crazy-ass death machine. They jump in those pods and get all up on each other. How did I not even think about that? Me? Alone with Gretchen? And we just went three goddamned revolutions, holding hands.
Which is probably a good thing, since she has a boyfriend and all.
“Let’s ride the trolley!” Bree calls out.
She sounds so pumped about the idea that it makes me think: Does a trolley have hookup pods too? I’m pretty sure I’ve never heard the word trolley.
“Trolley?”
“Yeah, you know. A streetcar. It’s like a train.”
“And it stays on the ground?”
She smiles big. “Yes, Phoenix, a trolley stays on the ground. It’s a cute little choo-choo train that rumbles along the tracks. You’ll be fine.”
“I’m not sure I trust you and your friends,” I say to Gretchen. But I do.
We head out behind Bree and Ty. We walk along, close enough that our bodies sometimes touch, but I resist the crazy urge to take her hand, and I force my head to stop imagining what could have happened in that death pod.
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