Golden

by Jessi Kirby

  “Everything okay?” I ask.

  “Yeah, but I don’t know if we’re gonna be able to make it all the way out there. It’s not usually this rough. I don’t want to get—”

  Before she can finish the tires hit a thick patch of mud and I feel us lose traction. “Shit,” Kat mutters. She jams her foot into the gas pedal to make it through, but that only makes it worse. The engine revs up to a high-pitched whine and our back tires spin, splattering mud out behind us in two big rooster tails.

  “Kat, stop! You’re making it worse.”

  She lets off the gas and smacks the steering wheel. “Shit, shit, shit. I thought I could make it.”

  I don’t say anything. She shuts off the engine. When we both get out, my shoes squish into the same mud the back wheels of her truck are sunk into, deep.

  “Maybe we can like, wedge something under it?” I offer. I have no idea.

  Kat walks around the back, squishing every step of the way, and shakes her head. “I don’t think so.” She laughs. “We’re screwed. Look at that.” I do, and she’s right. The back tires have spun themselves into two deep ruts that have already filled in with mud.

  “Crap, this is all my fault. I’m so, so sorry.” I feel awful for a few seconds. And then I panic. “Oh my God. If my mom finds out about this she’s going to freak. Seriously. We have to get the car out and get back before she knows I’m not in school.”

  I look around for something to wedge under the back tires to give them traction—a log, a rock, anything. “Maybe I can push it out.” I’ve heard of people getting superhuman strength in dire situations, which this all of a sudden is. Kat just looks at me like I’m being stupid, which might be the case, but I don’t know what else to do at the moment.

  “What?” I ask. “You get in and give it some gas, and I’ll push.” I say it with confidence, then roll up my sleeves, step into the mud, and put my hands on the bumper, ready to get the truck out and save my butt from being grounded for the rest of senior year.

  “It’s not gonna work,” she says flatly.

  “Well, we have to try something. This can’t happen. I can’t get caught the very first time I ditch. That’s ridiculous.”

  I wonder for a second if the desperation in my voice is as obvious to Kat as it is to me, and then I know it is, because she twists her long hair up into a bun, walks back to her open door, and gets in. “Don’t get pissed if you get dirty, because you will.” She closes her door, then turns the key, and the engine jumps to life again. “Okay,” she yells back to me. “You ready? Push on three!”

  “Okay!” I dig the heels of my hands into the bumper and try to find something in the mud to brace my feet against.

  “One . . . two . . .”

  “Go easy at first,” I yell, but it’s too late.

  “Three!” She hits the gas hard, sending a mud explosion flying from both tires. In the half second it takes for me to squeeze my eyes shut and try to remember to push, it splatters my face and my feet slip out from under me like something out of a cartoon. And that’s probably what I look like, lying face-first in the mud when she shuts the truck off.

  By the time Kat gets back to me, I’m on my hands and knees wiping grit from my mouth and she’s laughing so hard she can’t talk or breathe. I chuck a handful of mud at her, which only makes her laugh more, then she loses her balance and ends up on her butt right next to me, and now it’s my turn to laugh so hard I can’t breathe. She grabs a handful of mud and smears it down my arm. I glop some onto her leg. We sit there in the mud like that for I don’t know how long, laughing until tears stream down our faces and it’s one of those moments I want to always remember. One that years from now will make me laugh just to think about. It makes me miss Kat already.

  Finally, I catch my breath. “I’m sorry. This is totally my fault.”

  Kat nods slowly, traces a shape in the mud. “Yep,” she says. “Which means now you have to tell me what we’re doing here with my car stuck in the mud and you about to get your ass handed to you by your mom.” She’s right, and she knows it. I owe her an explanation, which she waits for with a smug smile on her face.

  “Fine,” I say. “But you’re gonna think it’s stupid.”

  “Try me.”

  “Okay.” I take a deep breath. “I heard that Shane Cruz’s and Julianna Farnetti’s initials were carved into a tree out here near the Grove, and I wanted to see if I could find them.” It’s the truth, just not the whole thing.

  Kat’s quiet a moment. “You’re kidding, right? Their initials on a tree is why we’re here? Do you know how many initials are carved into the trees down there?”

  “I told you you’d think it was stupid—”

  “I don’t know if stupid’s the right word,” she says, getting to her feet. “But it is kind of weird. Why are you all of a sudden obsessed with them since you got that letter? It’s not like you get points with the scholarship board for finding their lost initials.”

  “I don’t know, I . . . it’s kind of romantic to think they’re out here somewhere. I just wanted to see.”

  Kat shakes her head. “Clearly, you’re in need of a life outside of sappy books and movies,” she says. “And a guy. Which I’m gonna help you out with right now. I know how you like your knights in shining armor, so let’s call one to come get us out of this mess.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know. Whoever’s willing to drive all the way out here and get us unstuck. Relax about it,” she says with a wink. “Enjoy the sun and the last of your freedom.”

  10.

  “He asked with the eyes more than the lips . . .”

  —“LOVE AND A QUESTION,” 1913

  By the time we finally hear an engine heading our way, the sun is high and the mud on our clothes is nearly dry, and I’m grimly resigned to the fact that I probably won’t be leaving my house for anything but school for the rest of the year. It doesn’t matter though. This turned out to be such a bad idea, I don’t even care.

  And then I do care. Because when our rescue car rounds the turn, I can see it’s actually a silver Suburban—one that I know well. I look at Kat and shake my head without saying anything.

  “What?” she asks innocently, but her smile says she knows exactly what.

  “You called Trevor Collins to come get us?” I wipe at my face, try to smooth my mud-caked hair. “That’s your idea of a knight in shining armor?”

  Kat just smiles, proud of herself, then shrugs. “Don’t be so surprised. Who did you think I was gonna call? I knew he’d come if I told him I was with you. Turns out I was right. Just like always.”

  The Suburban stops, then does a three-point turn before backing up to Kat’s bumper. When Trevor gets out, it’s with a smug grin on his face, one that’s aimed right at me. “You could’ve just called me and said you wanted to hang out, Frost. No need to go to all this trouble.”

  “Well, you know,” I say rubbing at a patch of mud on my forearm. “I figure when you’re up against such a long list of people vying for your attention, it’s better to take a different approach.”

  “Took you long enough,” Kat says.

  Trevor walks around to the back of his car and opens the door, leans in, and comes back out with a rope. “I would’ve come sooner if I’d known mochas and baristos were code for mud-wrestling.” He squats down to the truck and, with hands that look sure and strong, knots the rope around Kat’s bumper and then his own. Then without another word, he hops back in his car, hits the gas, and pops Kat’s truck out of the mud like it’s nothing.

  Kat nudges me with her elbow. “He’s taking you home.”

  “No.”

  “Yes.” She smiles through her teeth, then hooks an arm through mine and drags me over to the bumpers, where Trevor is now untying the rope. “Yay, thank you!” She gushes. “We owe you big-time for that.” She pauses, and I realize a second too late I should’ve probably added something.

  “It’s fine,” he smiles. “Any excuse t
o get out of sixth period.” He holds one end of the rope and quickly loops the rest of it around his elbow. “What were you guys doing out here, anyway?”

  “Nothing,” I say, right at the same time Kat practically shoves me forward.

  “Parker can tell you all about it on the way home. You don’t mind giving her a ride, do you?”

  “Sure. No problem.” Trevor looks from Kat to me. “You ready?”

  Kat smiles sweetly at me, and I’m left powerless against her.

  “Um . . . let me just go get my bag.” And a little courage, and maybe a spritz of perfume and a mint or something. I’m sure I smell awesome after my mud bath.

  When I get in, the inside of Trevor’s car does smell awesome. And it’s immaculate—not an empty gum wrapper or stray penny anywhere, which makes me all the more conscious of my muddy clothes sitting in the front seat. And of how close we are. And of how awkwardly quiet it is all of a sudden as we work our way back to the main highway. It’s easy to quip back and forth in the hall with Kat around, but alone together in his car is a different story. I am quipless. But he is too, it seems.

  I clear my throat. “Thanks. That was really nice of you to drive all the way out there for us. We would’ve been stuck out there forever otherwise.”

  “No problem.” He glances over at me. “So . . . do I get to know what you guys were doing out there?”

  “I was looking for something.”

  “Oh. That’s specific.”

  “It was stupid. You don’t wanna know what it was.”

  “No, now I don’t at all,” he says.

  We drive in silence for thirty seconds that feels like it’s stretched out into thirty minutes. “Okay,” I say, unable to handle the quiet any longer. “You know Shane Cruz and Julianna Farnetti?”

  “You mean them?” He points, and I look up in time to see the billboard coming up on the shoulder. I hadn’t thought of it for a long time before yesterday. I don’t think most people do anymore. That’s just how it goes with the things you see every day. Eventually they start to fade into the background. But now that her journal is in my backpack, and the snow has melted, their pictures are visible again beneath the foggy plexiglass. I see them in a whole new light.

  “Yes, them,” I say. I keep my eyes on Julianna as we get closer, can’t take them off of her, actually. In my memory she’s older, and much more grown up than me. But in her senior picture on the billboard, she looks young, like she could be anyone in my class. And she could’ve. I’m the same age as she was when she died. The same age as she was when she wrote on those pages of the journal that’s sitting in my backpack on the floor of Trevor’s car right now. I keep my eyes on her even as we pass by, sad for her all of a sudden because I think again of that first line on that first page. The place where I’m at in life, that feels like the beginning of everything, was the end for her. For a moment it makes me sadder than it should.

  “What about them?” Trevor asks, pulling me back.

  “Oh—I, um, I heard somewhere that their initials are carved into one of the trees out there, and I wanted to go find them. I don’t know why. It’s stupid.”

  Trevor shrugs. “It’s not that stupid. They’re kind of like cult figures around here. Town history. I get it.”

  “I’ve never thought of them as cult figures, but I guess it’s true, in a way. I think because everyone remembers when they disappeared.” We pass the billboard and I watch the road. “My dad was on the search party that went out for them the day after they crashed, and I have this vivid memory of him coming home after. He was standing in the kitchen, telling my mom the whole thing about how they found the Jeep upside down at the bottom of the ravine near the river and how the bodies must’ve gotten swept right into Summit Lake. I didn’t know what bodies they were talking about until the next day, when everyone knew, and there was the candlelight vigil, and . . .” I realize the car has slowed way down and Trevor seems to be only half listening. “I’m sorry. You probably didn’t need to hear the entire story.” God, why can I not just have a normal conversation with him?

  “No, it’s fine,” he says. “That’s the most you’ve ever said to me, so I was gonna let you keep going.” He smiles over at me. “I was just trying to figure out where you want me to take you. It’s still seventh period, so . . .” He looks me over, and I feel his eyes on every mud-covered inch of me. “You probably wanna go home though, right? To shower?”

  “Yeah, that’d be good.” I pinch my crusty shirt away from my chest and a few flecks of mud fall off onto my legs. I see Trevor see them. “Oh, crap, I’m sorry. I’m totally getting your car dirty.”

  He smirks, but doesn’t say anything.

  “What?” I fight the urge to check the mirror. Do I still have dirt in my teeth? Mud stuck in my nose?

  “Nothing, don’t worry about it.” His eyes slide over to me for a second before they bounce back to the road and he shakes his head. “I wasn’t looking at the mud, Frost.”

  11.

  “On Looking Up by Chance at the Constellations”

  —1928

  By the time my mom walks through the door, I’ve showered, erased the message from the school about my unexcused absences for periods two through seven, and am still giddy at the fact that I somehow got away with my little foray out onto the edge today. And it was fun. And Trevor Collins was checking me out in his car.

  I’ve even got a pot of spaghetti boiling on the stove, but it’s more a gesture than anything else, because my mom probably won’t eat any. Instead, she’ll pour a glass of wine and sit down at her computer to check her e-mail even though she just came from work. There’s an ebb and flow to her store, which caters to the high-end tourist ladies who want to shop while everyone else skis. The store lives and dies by November through January. Spring, summer, and fall are the slow times, which means she’ll stress out at the end of every month until things pick back up next ski season.

  “Hey, Mom,” I say as she sighs her way into the kitchen. “Long day?”

  “You have no idea.” She stands on tiptoe, reaching in the cabinet for a wine glass. “Sales for spring break were not what I was hoping for. Not even close. At this rate I may actually have to cut down hours come September.”

  “You say that every May, and by every September, it’s fine. You always make it.” I heft the pot over to the sink and stand back from the billow of steam when I dump the noodles in the strainer. “You want some spaghetti?”

  She shakes her head. “Not now. I may have some later.” It’s quiet a moment as I scoop some into a bowl for myself, add a ladle of sauce, and grab the parmesan cheese. “So,” she says, making a point to look at me. “How was your day?”

  A little tremor of nervousness zips through my stomach, but I shake the parmesan can over my bowl and play it cool. “Fine.”

  She nods. “Good.” Then she pours her wine and sits down at the table with her laptop. When she doesn’t ask about anything else, not even my speech, it surprises me. Normally she doesn’t let it go at just that, which means things at the shop must be really bad.

  Partly because I don’t want to spend my dinner in silence, and partly because I’m nervous, I elaborate. “I’ve been helping Mr. Kinney with these senior journals he sends out every year, so that’s pretty cool.” She nods absently, alternately scrolling and tapping. “They’re from ten years ago, and now we’re mailing them out to the people who wrote them. It’s sort of like a personal time capsule of who they were when they were seniors.” I twirl my fork until it’s full and take a bite of spaghetti.

  She looks up for a second. “Hm. I wouldn’t want to read anything I wrote about when I was seventeen.”

  “Why?”

  “Oh, it’d just be embarrassing to read all the things I thought were so important back then. Life is different once you grow up. Not so dramatic. By the time you’re my age you’ll get it.” She pauses, and swirls the wine in her glass, thinking. “I would just hate to look back and see how nai
ve I’d been about a lot of things. Life works out a lot differently than you can ever imagine at seventeen.”

  She stops herself and I shovel another tightly wrapped bundle of spaghetti into my mouth. The only sound is the clink of my empty fork when I rest it on the bowl. We both know what she just said without actually saying it. When I was old enough to do the math I figured out why my parents had gotten married. When I got brave enough to ask her about it, she sat me down and told me all the things a parent is supposed to say: that yes, I was a surprise to her and my dad, and so they did what they thought was best back then and got married, and even though they weren’t the right people for each other, I was the best surprise either one of them had ever gotten.

  That was years ago, and for the most part she’s always been good at maintaining that glass-half-full version. But sometimes, in little moments like this, she slips. And this slip makes me wonder what it was she would’ve dreamed of doing at seventeen. It probably wasn’t running a boutique that somehow squeaks by every year in a town she never really wanted to live in to begin with, while raising a daughter mostly by herself.

  “I didn’t mean anything by that, Parker. I just . . . I’m a little stressed about the store right now.” She takes a deep breath and recomposes her smile. “Anyway, I’m sure Mr. Kinney appreciates your help with those. It must be quite a production to find all of the addresses and get them sent out.”

  “It is.” I smile. “I actually have a few to look up tonight. I should get back to it.” I’m not hungry anymore, so I get up, put the bowl in the sink, and kiss my mom on the top of her head to let her know I didn’t take what she said personally.

  She smiles relief and rubs a hand on my back. “Don’t let this project take over everything else. Your number one priority right now should be your speech. It’s coming along?” I nod and she pats me on the back. “Good. I can’t wait to read it when you’re ready. I love you, Parker.”