by Deb Caletti
Mads peers around the big basket of drooping fuchsias that are right in front of her. The flowers, shaped like little pink and purple ballerinas, dance on her cheeks. They smell pink and purple. She parts the leaves so she can see.
She squinches her eyes because it’s all a little blurry. She sees William and an old lady, whose silver hair is in a ponytail. The lady has a green watering can in one hand. She grabs William’s chin with the other. “What’s this?”
“What,” he says.
“You growing a beard?”
“Nah. Maybe.”
“Get rid of it.”
He shakes free of her. “Stop.”
“Shave it off. You got two whole hairs. A gerbil’s got more.”
Ha! Mads gives a little laugh-sputter behind the hanging plant, even though her heart is galloping like mad.
“Give it a week. I’ll be like . . . Who’s that old cowboy singer you’re so crazy for?”
“Which one? Kenny Rogers? Willie Nelson? I’ll call you Gerbil Man. Get the razor.”
“You can’t stand how handsome it is already, that’s all. Your eyes are practically falling out, it’s so handsome.”
The woman chuckles. Mads smiles.
“Give me that can. You’re going to hurt yourself lifting that heavy thing.”
“I’m stronger than you,” she says, but lets him take it.
Mads is in trouble now. He moves toward a row of pots where he’ll surely see her. She slides flat against the house. The cat’s water dish is by her foot. A boat drives by too fast and causes the houses to rock and slosh.
And then a little white dog starts to sound the alarm. He’s closed inside the old lady’s house, but Mads can see him through the window. He’s up on the back of the couch, barking his head off. He’s staring right at her.
That’s it. It’s over. Either they’ll see her face, or she can run like mad, giving them only the view of her fleeing back. The choice is clear. She steps over the dish, races down the dock.
The gate squeaks as she pushes through. Her keys are in her hand. Her heart goes from a gallop to a crash. Just as she reaches the huge sheltering side of China Harbor, she hears the slap, slap of shoes running on the steps behind her.
Oh, God. Her hand shakes. All of her is shaking so hard. Why did she lock the door of the truck? Someone’s really going to steal her backpack or her phone in the five minutes she’s away? Only Goody Two-shoes lock their door for five minutes. Only girls who can’t stand five minutes of risk.
“Hey! Hey!” he calls.
Wrong key!
She feels the tug as he grabs a pinch of her shirt. He spins her around. Thank God she’s got an explanation ready, there in the pocket of her skirt. She expects the star eyes to be furious, but instead they’re just sloped down into a question. His face is close to hers.
“Who are you?”
Right then, Mads has no idea. Honestly, right then it is an excellent question.
Chapter Eight
“Are you some kind of reporter?” he asks. It’s the first thing that comes to him, even if no one gives a shit about his mother and never has. But he’s struggling to understand why this girl is everywhere he is lately. Is she even J.T. Jones’s girlfriend after all? With the way she keeps showing up, he has no idea.
“Do I look like a reporter?” Okay, weird—she sounds mad. Her cheeks are flushed, and her hands are little earthquakes. What the hell—she’s creeping around his house, and she’s mad at him?
“A junior reporter, maybe?”
“Why would I be a reporter? And if I was a reporter, why would I be a junior reporter?” She’s jabbering, she’s so pissed. Taking big, deep breaths, like she might pass out from anger, or something.
“I saw you at the bridge that day. We talked—”
“You saw me at the bridge and now I’m a reporter?”
This isn’t going well. She’s right. He’s not making sense. He saw her on his street, sure, but then he was the one who spotted her at the bridge. “Well, who are you? What are you doing here?”
“Madison? Murray?” She says it as if she’s not sure. “I have this.” She shoves her hand down into her skirt pocket. Pulls out the square of folded paper. “Of yours. You dropped it.”
Can it be? Please, please, please, God, he thinks, even if you never listened before, let it be. This one small thing, come on!
He sees the yellowed pages, folded and folded again so that only the words on the back side show. Yes! YES! He tries not to do a spin plus a fist pump. He thought it was gone for good. He searched and searched between the couch cushions and in the pockets of his jeans, and the next day, he decided to retrace and retrace his steps after all, and still nothing. Now his heart rockets with relief. All this time, he’s imagined it lost on the bridge somewhere, run over by cars, carried off on the tire of some truck. Or, God, worse—fluttering down, and here, the shiny-haired girl has had it the whole time.
“You,” he says. It all seems like a miracle. A small one, but who cares about the size of a miracle? The map has probably been resting comfortably on a white dresser in a pink room with a canopy bed. He doesn’t know shit about girls’ rooms, not really. Abby Millicent had a Power Rangers bedspread handed down from her brother.
“It’s yours, right? You said the dogs were rescues, so I went by . . .” She waves her arms a little, as if she just walked into a spiderweb. “So I went by . . . A girl . . .”
“She told you where I lived?”
Madison Murray rubs her neck. It’s turning red. “I didn’t want to . . . just toss it or something. It looked important.”
It is. It’s really important. He can get another map anytime he wants, but he can’t get this exact one.
“Yeah. Thanks. It belonged to someone . . .” He’s such an idiot. He even chokes up a little. He clears his throat. He can’t say anything more. First off, he just met this girl. You’re not going to say your mother jumped off a bridge, you’re not going to tell her about the arrows that rip through your heart nearly every second you’re awake. Still, tears gather up like an army of mummies on an Energy Attack. He’s just so glad to see that map, he can’t even say.
“It looked old. I think it fell out of your pocket when you bent down. . . .”
He gets it now. He gets all the beautiful, fantastic coincidence of it. She’s here to give him back his map after they talked at the bridge, and he was likely right all along about that first time he saw her. He should tell her. Like, this second. About spotting her outside J.T. Jones’s house. Not saying anything is kind of a lie, but saying something will be pretty awkward. It means having information he shouldn’t have yet. I saw you before that day at the bridge, you know, stalking some douchebag who broke your heart. She probably has no idea how many girls he’s seen going over there. Plenty, all the time. He’s heard about those Blanchet guys and drugs, too. What is it about Catholic school guys? Yeah, he gets that rules can make you want to break them, but going out of your way to piss off a nun? Why not just piss off a rainbow or a basket of flower petals? Come on, assholes.
Madison Murray looks down at her feet, scrapes the asphalt with the toe of her flip-flop. Then she meets his eyes. “I know what it is,” she says.
“You do?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh, heh heh.” That’s actually what his laugh sounds like. Heh heh! Jesus, how embarrassing! How’s he going to explain this? It’s a stupid book, meant for ten-year-olds. But it was his mom’s favorite, and it’s the only book he’s ever read all the way through for fun. More than that, he gets it, why his mom loved it. He’ll never admit that, but he does. The museum, sneaking into it like they do . . . Spending the night with those objects all around you, stuff that has lasted through Roman times and wars and every fucked-up thing the human race did . . . That stuff tells anyone who looks at it that you can keep on going, no matter what.
And The Book itself—it’s lasted. It’s so awesome, because here it is, talking about a hap
py family, man, how retro, hot fudge sundaes, a mom and a dad, the time when kids could just get on a train and no one freaked out, a time when you could break into a museum and not get fucking Tasered or something, and here he is, Billy Youngwolf Floyd, with a dad who drowned drunk, and a half brother he met only once, and a mother who jumped off a bridge after being depressed for years, and he chuckles like hell reading how Claudia and Jamie hid in the toilet stalls from the guards. He loves (shut up if you don’t get it) the running away and the need for a larger life, and the mysterious angel statue and the chauffeur and the lifetime of mess and secrets in the files. How every piece is a part of a bigger experience, and how you should never forget that. You know when that book came out? 1967! The Vietnam War, people! That long ago! Kids and kids and kids have read it, when there’ve been protests going on and presidents resigning and communist walls crashing down. When the book first came out, there were barely computers! It could blow your mind. They didn’t even have Pac-Man yet, let alone Night Worlds. They didn’t even have the Internet, which you can barely imagine. Today, though, little children are still reading the damn thing and wishing they could sleep in that fancy museum bed. You gotta love something that stays like that.
Mom didn’t take a lot of things from their place in La Conner. Furniture, yeah; his stuff, but barely any of the crap that had been hers and his dad’s. But The Book was one thing she did keep. It had her name written in it, Anna Youngwolf, in a kid’s fat, loopy handwriting, and underneath that, the year she’d read it, 1985. When he saw the book again the day they packed up her things—her sweaters and her balled-up socks, the bottle of pills that didn’t do squat, her shampoo, her magazines, her last check from the stupid car rental place that fired her, the pans and those plates made of some plastic you could back a truck over and they wouldn’t break—he plucked it from the Goodwill pile. It was yellowed and it smelled like an old closet and some of the pages were scrunched, but she had kept it, and so he would keep it. She didn’t have jewelry and shit like that. He didn’t have some ring to wear on a chain. So he carried The Book with him for a few days, until the cover started to come off, and until it started getting awkward, carting it around. Then he took the map from the middle, taped the two halves together, and kept that with him instead.
“From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler,” the girl says.
He can feel the heat rise in his face. His cheeks burn. He’s struck with some deep shame, as if she’s just seen him naked, or found out he sucked his thumb until he was seven.
“Well, it’s . . .” There’s no good explanation. He wishes he could be the fuck-you-who-cares kind of guy, but he’s never been that. His dad used to say he was too sensitive. Once, Billy cried when he got hit with the kickball during recess. Second grade. Kelsey Rodgers would squawk waaa-waaa whenever she saw him after that. He could never be with a girl, he has so many secrets.
“I love that book,” she says.
He takes her in for the first time, truly looks at her outside of his own dead-mother panic and his own shiny-hair, knowing-eyes need. He sees her. Yeah, there’s the straight brown hair, and those eyes, but there’s also a trickle of freckles over her nose that make her look honest. She’s in an orange T-shirt and a tan patterned skirt, and she wears a woven leather bracelet around one small wrist. Her neck is blotchy from heat or nerves or something, and her nails are bitten down. He’s never seen anyone quite so beautiful.
“Oh, yeah?” he says.
“The way they run away. How they become a team . . .”
“It’s the only book I ever read for fun,” he says. He hopes this will clarify things. At least, it’ll make him seem less like a moron.
“Really?” she says. “You’re kidding.”
“I mean . . .” Shit!
“Oh, no, it’s totally fine. There are just so many amazing books, is all. Don’t even get me started.”
He doesn’t know what to say to that. They stand there silent, and, God, it’s awkward. A Disappearing Spell would be awesome. Finally, Madison Murray brushes her hands together. “Well!” she says, all brisk. It makes him think of Mary Poppins, the way she got in there and got everyone going. Same with the nanny that sings in the mountains in that movie, he can’t think of the name right then, because he’s sinking fast and the girl is so beautiful.
“Mission accomplished! You have your map, and my job is done!” She’s so superconfident that she’s done with him, he’s sure. “Wow, what time is it? I’m probably already late! I’ve got to babysit.”
“The baby in pink.”
“The baby in pink. Nice to . . . you know. I was going to say meet, but we already did sort of meet, though . . .”
“Billy.” He holds out his hand. “Officially Billy.” It sounds like a brand of jeans or something.
“Billy? Right! I guess that’s short for William.” Her hand is small and, truthfully, a little sweaty.
“Hey, thanks so much for bringing this.” He waves the little folded square. “It belonged to someone I knew,” he says again.
“No problem.”
She inches away from him. She’s trying to get the hell out of there. He hopes his breath isn’t bad.
“See ya!”
“See ya.”
She tries to wiggle the key in the lock of her car. It looks upside down to him. In a second, she’ll be back inside, driving off, and all he’ll have is her name.
Idiot! Stop her!
The voice is back—it’s turned deep and Mafia, so he knows it means business. He shoves his hands in his pockets, heads back down the stairs and through the gate to the dock. Whatever. His mom hasn’t been dead long enough. You don’t go hit on some girl. This is not just some coincidence! The Mafia voice has a point. You have your regular old coincidence-coincidence, like when one of his friends, Evan, actually does his Algebra II homework on the one day Billy doesn’t, saving his butt, or when some guy starts a fight right as they’re checking IDs at Corazon, so they get in. But this—seeing her after seeing her after seeing her, it does seem like a sign. Maybe his mom . . . Stop! He doesn’t like to think all woo-woo and stuff. If she wanted to give him some guidance, she should have stayed around. You’re not supposed to be critical of people who do what she did, but try being their kid.
You’re gonna lose your chance!
Who even believes in love? Fine, fuck. He does. A person should.
He turns. He’s a blur; he’s a heroic streak of long-shot passion as he runs up the stairs. “Wait!” he calls. But no need to worry. She hasn’t gotten far. Her truck is having trouble starting or something. She’s sitting in the seat with the windows rolled down, her head in her hands.
“Hey,” he says. She looks up. “Is it the battery?” It’s his only guess. He doesn’t know shit about cars.
She seems surprised to see him. “Kind of starts when it wants to start.”
He chuckles. The truck has a big, smiley hood that makes you smile back. Or maybe he’s just suddenly feeling really good. Singing bluebirds kind of good. Dancing penguins good. Ladies running around Alpine mountains good.
“I was thinking,” he says.
One of her hands rests on the wheel with that bracelet around her little wrist. It’s delicate and determined, like the wing of a bird.
“Maybe we can . . .”
She waits. Her eyes are brown and deep as Jasper’s.
“Meet for coffee or something.”
“Sure.”
“What’s today?” Stupid! Like he has a full calendar or something. Like he’s a CEO whose days are full of meetings!
“Wednesday?”
“How about Friday?”
“I babysit until seven. Maybe we can . . . I don’t know. I’m never very good at this part.”
“Um, pick up food? Take it somewhere?”
“Sure.”
“Do you want me to pick you up? In case your truck . . .” What’s he saying? He has a flash of meeting some father at the door. He�
��s never met a father at the door. Mariah, she picked him up for that dance and the few times after, and he and Zoe always met somewhere. Zoe, well, you know it’s not right when her mouth feels wrong.
“No. No, no, no! We can meet! How about somewhere like . . .”
He’s supposed to fill in. “Okay, let me think. Agua Verde? Mexican? By the Montlake Cut?”
“I can find it. Seven thirty?”
“Yeah. That’ll work. They make great burritos.” He never realized it before, but burritos is the least romantic word there is.
The truck starts up. Blasts his eardrums. She drives away, gives a shy wave. Her arm is tan as caramel, and oh, no, she’s going the wrong way, unless she wants to get on the express lane of the freeway heading south.
Outside the houseboat, Gran’s still watering those plants. Probably trying to listen in with her eagle ears. “Who’s that girl?”
“No one.”
“You didn’t go running after her like it was no one.”
“Mind your own business.”
He’s giddy. He’s suddenly starving. Gran’s down-turned mouth is just a mean pebble in a nice shoe.
“Fine sight, I’ll tell you that.”
“What?”
“A smile. You smiling.” She makes it sound bad. No, she makes it sound mixed. It’s confusing. The words say one thing, the tone another. Choose which to believe, and the other will slither under your skin.
Gran sets her watering can down. She pinches dead stuff off flowers. Her silence jabs him with shame. Her silence tells him what a bad, disappointing person he is. He just doesn’t get what she wants from him. The dock rocks as a boat passes, and he hears the clang of Glenn and his husband Craig’s sailboat. They have the biggest house on the dock, and it’s pitching and rocking. He doesn’t feel too well, all of a sudden. It’s anti-magic. He can feel an Ability Drain, levels turning to red.
“Buzz?” Gran says.
Shit! A Breath Weapon, Devil Chills, a Red Ache, Mind Fire. His stomach clutches up and his chest squeezes. Gran is right about him. What was he thinking? His mom is dead, and he’s going on some date?