At the end of the day, he and Bonnie sat once again on Amelia’s deck, drinking lemonade made with lemons from Amelia’s tree. The sun was setting spectacularly over the ocean, decorated with scarlet and violet and golden streamers of cloud. Duff gazed at this display.
“It’s the smog that makes those colors,” Bonnie said.
And at that, a vision arose before Duff’s inner eyes. He saw the entire planet wrapped in a miles-thick woolly blanket of bad air, glowing an evil orange, gradually smothering all the little life-forms struggling beneath it. The picture was as clear in his mind as a really good computer animation.
Phone Call #8
Tuesday, July 2, 8:35 AM
Duff: Hi, Dad. I’m in California.
Duff’s father: Great! You’re calling from work?
Duff: Well, no. Things have sort of changed.
Duff’s father: Changed how?
Duff: That job with Incredibility didn’t work out. I mean, the company tanked.
Duff’s father (long pause): I see.
Duff: But I have a whole new angle on my career now. The thing is, though, I’ll probably have to go to school. And I don’t exactly have a place to stay yet. Or a job, which I need right away, because I more or less used up most of my money. I don’t actually have a car right now, either.
Duff’s father (after another long, dire pause): Two words, Duff: Wade Belcher. Call him.
Duff: Well, but I thought maybe I’d like to stay in Los Angeles, if you could just lend me—
Duff’s father: Call him, Duff. Do it now. And then call me back and explain how you got yourself in this situation.
Duff: It’s kind of a long story.
Duff’s father: I will look forward to hearing it. Talk to you soon, Son, when you and Wade have a plan.
Chapter 20
A WHOLE DIFFERENT FUTURE
It turned out that Wade Belcher wasn’t the boring old dinosaur Duff expected him to be after all, or at least he didn’t sound like one over the phone. He talked fast, laughed often, and seemed sincerely glad to hear from his old friend’s son. He told Duff that he was planning to rent out the top floor of his house, a refurbished Victorian in an old part of San Jose, near the university. But since the work on the place wasn’t quite done yet—they were still putting in the new windows in the tower room—he’d let Duff stay there a while for free as he looked for a job.
So Duff abandoned his vision of the apartment complex and the swimming pool, and he bought a plane ticket to San Jose. Bonnie and Amelia drove him to the airport. They dropped him off outside the terminal. Bonnie opened the trunk, and he hoisted out his duffel bag and his laptop. Before he’d had a chance to think about how to say good-bye, she flung her arms around him, nearly knocking him backward. “Bye,” she said into his ear. “Come and see me when I get famous.” Then she kissed him. On his mouth. It was not just a quick peck—it must have lasted three full seconds. Duff’s duffel bag slid off his shoulder and thumped down at his feet. His whole being was bedazzled.
Bonnie jumped back in the car, waved out the window with Amelia waving behind her, and the car pulled away. Duff stood still and watched until he couldn’t see it anymore. It took him a moment to get his legs working, but he made it through the airport and onto the plane. During the flight, he replayed that kiss several hundred times. It was wonderful every time. He felt new. His face, dimly reflected in the tinted airplane window, looked different to him—stronger along the jaw, and without the morose, guarded expression it used to have. He would grow his hair a little longer, he thought, and comb it sideways. He was tired of the furry-animal look. He wanted to look on the outside the way he felt now on the inside—not only like a man of intelligence, as he’d always been, but like a man of action, too, a bold and purposeful man, a man with heart.
Phone Call #9
Wednesday, July 3, 11:03 AM
Duff: Hello?
Stu: Hey, man, it’s me.
Duff: Stu?
Stu: Yeah, your favorite traveling companion. Where are you?
Duff: The San Jose airport—I just got off the plane. Where are you?
Stu: The beach, man! Mexico.
Duff: Mexico?
Stu: Yeah. I needed to get away.
Duff: Right. You got away with a lot. What happened to our deal?
Stu: Well, that’s what I’m calling about. I’ve been feeling a little bit bad.
Duff: A little bit?
Stu: So I’m sending some of that money back to Bonnie, and I need her address.
Duff: Why not all of it?
Stu: Well, some of it’s gone.
Duff: Gone where?
Stu: Here and there. Some I gave away to some folks who looked like they needed it. Some I spent.
Duff: Bonnie’s still at her aunt’s. It’s 2309 Veranda Way, Santa Monica. [Pause.] How’d you get my cell phone number?
Stu: It was on your business card.
Duff: I never gave you my card.
Stu: It was in your wallet.
Duff: Oh. [Pause.] Wait. My wallet?
Stu: Which I happened to cop off the counter at Pete’s Stewpot.
Duff: You? You stole my wallet?
Stu: Just temporarily, man. Don’t get upset. I’ll send your money back, if you want.
Duff: You’d better.
Stu: I got a job, is the thing. I’ll be making my own money now. [Pause.] Don’t you want to know what it is?
Duff: Okay, what is it?
Stu: Driving a car for a rich American guy!
Duff: Great. Are you planning to rip him off, too?
Stu: No, no, man. I’m through with crime. It’s the straight path for me. So listen—if you ever come down here, look me up.
Duff: How would I—and what about my—
Stu: See ya, man.
[Click.]
The Last Chapter and
THE LAST PHONE CALL
One day shortly after Duff had moved in to the tower room in Wade Belcher’s house, as he was sitting by the window looking through the San Jose State University catalogue, his cell phone rang. He unhooked it from his belt. “Hello?”
“Hi,” said a voice on the other end. “It’s me.”
Duff’s heart jumped in his chest like a happy frog. “Bonnie?”
“Yeah. I have some news to tell you.”
“Oh! Okay. Great!” With his free hand, he hoisted the window open, and warm, jasmine-scented air flowed in. “What news?” he said.
“Two things. The first one is, I talked to my mom. She’s still in the hospital. She is so furious about what happened! And on top of the whole thing about the money, Rolf and Burl got arrested!”
“They did? What for?”
“Because they threatened the guys at the gas station and pushed them around, and the guys called the police. And the police were really glad to get their hands on Rolf and Burl, because they were wanted for a whole lot of stuff. They’re in jail now in Albuquerque.”
Duff smiled. Bad guys lose, he thought, remembering Stu’s triumphant whoop. “And what happened to the car?” he asked.
“Confiscated,” said Bonnie. “It’ll sit in a garage somewhere and wait till my mother comes to claim it. She’ll sell it, I’m sure. And maybe she’ll use the money to start herself on a better kind of life.”
Duff leaned against the window frame, gazing out over the rooftops of his new neighborhood. “Well, that’s all really good,” he said. “I mean, I guess your mom and Rolf and Burl don’t think so, but it seems fair to me.”
“Me, too,” said Bonnie. “So here’s the second piece of news. There’s this place called the Bluebird Cafe. They’ve hired me for Friday nights, to sing.”
“I told you so!” Duff said. “I knew you’d get discovered.”
“And I made up a new song,” said Bonnie. “It’s called ‘Brand-New Car.’ It’s kind of about you.”
“About me? Really?”
“Uh-huh. Want to hear the last part of it?”
> “Sure,” said Duff. “Of course.”
“Okay, stand back.” He heard Bonnie take a deep breath, and then her great vibrant singing voice belted these words into his ear:
“You can’t even know
Where he’s going to go,
Or how far
In his new kind of car.
And he’s on a new road,
A cool road,
A fast road,
He’s on a new road now.”
Duff was speechless for a moment.
“Do you like it?” Bonnie asked.
“I do,” said Duff “I can’t tell you how great I think it is.” He stood gazing into the feathery leaves of the palm tree, his ears ringing, his mind blissfully empty, and his heart running like a little engine, fast and smooth.
Car Trouble Page 14