Freefall

by Mindi Scott

  “It’s the thought that counts, anyway,” Garrison said. “I’ve wanted to take Carr out for years, but I’ve never had a good enough excuse.”

  My mind was blown that Carr wasn’t as friendly with these guys as I’d always thought, and that Brittany ranked Kendall higher than Carr. I didn’t know what to say, so I changed the subject to the one and only thing I cared about right then. “Have any of you noticed Rosetta around tonight?”

  Pete shook his head. “I’ve seen her at exactly two parties in my life, and this isn’t one of them.”

  There was still a chance she was hiding out, but it was a long shot. If I’d stopped to think about it before, I’d have realized it had always been a long shot. Rosetta hated parties full of pod people.

  “You’re in Brody’s band, right?” Pete said to me. “Aren’t you guys playing in the Valley tomorrow night?”

  Like I wanted to talk about that right now. “Yeah. But, hey. What about Daniel? Have you happened to see him?”

  “Behind you,” said Eric.

  I turned.

  “Glad you could make it, Dick,” Daniel said, grinning. “Now, if I’m not mistaken, you’ve got some unfinished business to attend to. How about if we go and get started on that?”

  11:20 P.M.

  “I should have called sooner,” Daniel muttered. “It’s probably too late now.”

  “What’s too late?” I asked.

  For the past five minutes, I’d been following Daniel through the main level at Eric’s house while he tried to find whomever it was that he’d called me here to see, but he still wasn’t telling me anything. Now we were in the second floor hallway—the last area we had left to scope out—where every single door was closed. I was getting so irritated I wanted to throw him against one of them.

  Daniel didn’t answer my question. He just opened the first door, stuck his head in for a few seconds, and then ducked out, shutting it again. “Nope. Not in there.”

  “How could you tell with the lights off?”

  “Oh, I could tell. Trust me.”

  I shook my head. This was kind of sick. “How would you like it if someone busted in on you at a party?”

  “Are you kidding? Happens to me all the time. I get over it.” He moved to the next door and twisted the knob. This time, before he had a chance to look, some guy inside was yelling, “Hey! This room’s in use!”

  “Sorry, dude.” Daniel slammed the door, laughing.

  I wasn’t finding it funny at all. By now I was sure we weren’t looking for Rosetta, and the whole thing—me coming to this party—was a huge letdown. I’d gotten my hopes up that Rosetta and I could fix things tonight, but doubt was taking over and I was realizing she might really be done with me.

  “You know what?” I said. “This is ridiculous. If you don’t tell me what the point of this is, I’m out of here.”

  “Oh, fine,” Daniel said. “Carr Goodwin was going around earlier, blaming you for his suspension and everything else, and it was pissing me off. I was going to take him down, but from what I’ve heard about your fight with him, you need a shot at redeeming yourself. So, you’re going to do it. As soon as we find him.”

  God. Could Daniel be a bigger dumbass?

  “You had me come here so Carr can kick my ass again?” I asked.

  “No. That’s not how it’s going to happen. I’ve got your back, okay? We’re not going to let him get away with it.”

  “What are you saying?” I asked, crossing my arms over my chest. “You and me fighting him two against one is going to change things?”

  “Probably not. But it’ll make me feel better,” Daniel said, grinning. “And you too, right?”

  The thought of Carr ending up with bruised ribs and a black eye like I had did improve my mood, no doubt about it, but I couldn’t go along with this plan. It just wasn’t worth it.

  But before I could say so, Daniel was pushing the third door open. “Jackpot!” he said, reaching in to flip the light switch. “Well, sort of.”

  11:22 P.M.

  From the doorway of Eric’s parents’ room, I spotted Carr right away. He was passed out on the floor next to the huge bed.

  Daniel and I stared down at him. Looked at each other. And burst out laughing.

  It wasn’t funny. Not really. But at the same time, it kind of was. After the effort Daniel had put into making this happen, Carr couldn’t fight. Or move. Or do anything except lie there on his back, snoring with his mouth hanging open.

  Lucky for me, I guess.

  “That’s one way to get out of a beating,” Daniel said, shaking his head. “What a bastard. You should take a leak on him or something.”

  “No way.”

  He reached for his belt buckle. “I’ll do it, then.”

  “Daniel, no.”

  I shoved Daniel into the hall, where we started cracking up again even harder than before. It felt good—all the laughing—except for the fact that it also hurt.

  “No one’s going to take a leak on anyone,” I said, when I was able to speak again about a minute later. “Well, no one except Carr. All over himself.”

  Daniel leaned against the wall to finish catching his breath. “You know. For being named Dick, you don’t do nearly enough dicklike things.”

  “Maybe because my name’s Seth?” I suggested.

  “Maybe.” He started for the stairs. “This party blows. I’m getting out of here. You?”

  “Definitely.”

  But when I reached the first step, I changed my mind. I wasn’t ready to leave quite yet.

  I headed back to the bedroom and glanced at Carr one more time.

  Then, using my foot, I rolled him onto his side.

  All right. Now I was ready.

  11:49 P.M.

  In my imagination, stopping by Rosetta’s house after Daniel and I split up paid off hugely. Rosetta was staring out a second floor window when I drove up. She ran out to see me. We sat in her front yard and used all our IC skills. It was as cold as hell, but it was okay because after we’d finished with the apologizing and forgiving, we held each other close and kissed all over the place and it was mind-blowing.

  In real life, though, none of it was going down like that. I was driving past super-slowly for the fourth time, and Rosetta still wasn’t looking out any window. She wasn’t coming outside. Her house was all curtained up and dark, and, most likely, she was in there fast asleep.

  This drive-by routine wasn’t going to lead to anything good, so I left Rosetta’s block and took a few turns to get to the main road leading down the Hill. That’s when an all-too-familiar blue MINI Cooper caught my eye. Kendall’s car. Parked in front of Kendall’s house.

  I thought about that thing Brittany had said about me being Kendall’s hero. And about the fact that I wasn’t.

  I needed to get home. I needed sleep. Much more than that, though, I needed to talk to Kendall. When she saw me at her door, she’d probably scream some more, maybe even throw things, but it needed to happen. It was the only way I’d be able to look at myself straight again.

  I flipped a U-ey, parked in her driveway, and headed up the walkway. There were lights on in the house, which meant someone was awake.

  About half a minute after I knocked, Kendall opened the door. She didn’t say anything at first, just stood there in her tank top and pink pajama pants, staring at me. “Right,” she said. “You want your keys.”

  It wasn’t that big a deal; I was using a spare set. “Actually, no—”

  But she closed the door before I could finish.

  Letting out a loud breath, I leaned against the handrail, waiting. Was she going to come back with them or was she really not going to talk to me tonight?

  A minute later, there was a noise above me: Kendall had opened a window. After a second, something dropped from it and hit the ground next to me with a clang. My keys.

  At least she hadn’t thrown them at me.

  I snagged the keys and knocked on the door again. Thi
s time when Kendall opened up, she immediately crossed her arms over her chest.

  “So, thanks,” I said. “That isn’t really why I’m here, though. I was kind of hoping to talk to you about what happened the other day. You know, in the parking lot?”

  “I’d rather we didn’t.”

  “Look, Kendall, I’m really sor—”

  “Don’t,” she said, putting up her hand. “We’re not doing this. I screwed you over. You got back at me. We’re even and that’s the end of it.”

  “We’re not even, okay? And one thing I’ve been figuring out is that there are times when talking through crap is the only way to resolve it. So . . . I think we should.”

  Kendall pressed her lips together and narrowed her eyes like she’d never heard anything as annoying as me trying to use IC stuff. It was probably true, but I kept talking anyway. “You don’t have to forgive me. I’m not even sure if I want to forgive you. But I want you to know that I know I fucked up big-time. I shouldn’t have pushed you down like that. I was out of line and I’m sorry. That isn’t me and I don’t want it to be.”

  She waited a few seconds before softly saying, “Understood.” Then she flipped her black-and-blue hair over her shoulder and said in her regular voice, “I’m freezing. You should come in.”

  I stepped inside and followed her as she walked in a stiff, hobbling way back to the home-theater room. At first, I wondered if she’d busted up her feet or something, but then I noticed sparkly gold separators wedged between her pink painted toes.

  We each took a seat on the largest of the poufy dark leather couches facing the huge TV. I’d been here a few times to watch movies and hang out. That had always been with Isaac, too, though.

  Kendall aimed the remote to turn down the Gilmore Girls rerun on the screen. Then she grabbed a bottle of clear nail polish from her plastic toolbox-looking makeup holder and set one of her feet on the coffee table. “Did you really drive all the way up here in the middle of the night just to talk to me?” she asked.

  “Well, that’s why I drove ‘here’ to your house. But I’m ‘here’ on the Hill because Daniel tricked me into it. He had a plan to kick Carr’s ass, but Carr was passed out by the time I got there.”

  “Figures,” she said, rolling her eyes.

  I didn’t know if she meant me, Daniel, or Carr. Probably all three.

  She twisted open her nail polish, leaned way forward, and started in on another paint layer on her toes. The fumes started stinking up the place, covering up the vanillay smell of the room. I wasn’t too stoked about sitting around and watching Kendall give herself a pedicure, but I didn’t want to leave yet; things didn’t feel finished.

  “I looked for Rosetta at Eric’s party tonight,” I said. “She wasn’t there. What was she like at school?”

  “I don’t know. Why? Haven’t you two made up yet?”

  “She hasn’t called me back.”

  Still not looking at me, Kendall brought up her other foot to get started on it. “She thinks you had sex with me, so she won’t even talk to you? Talk about insecure.”

  Now it was my turn to roll my eyes. “She isn’t talking to me because she thinks I lied to her. Big difference.”

  I kind of expected that she might apologize again—it was her fault, after all—but she just said, “What are you going to do about it?”

  “I don’t know. I’m definitely not going to drive slowly past her house all night.”

  “Good call. Girls don’t like being stalked. Except, I guess Rosetta isn’t what anyone would call normal, so maybe she does.”

  A flash of irritation shot through me. If I let this conversation go any further, I’d probably get pissed off all over again. “So why weren’t you at Eric’s?” I asked.

  Replacing the brush, she set her bottle on the table and put both her feet back on the floor. “Because I’m too busy moping around here and feeling humiliated, obviously.”

  “Well, you don’t have to be. Seems to me that everybody hates Carr and is taking your side in what happened.”

  “That makes it worse,” she said, sighing. “Like, the whole world already knew the truth and I just was being stupid. It’s Isaac all over again, except this time I really should have known better.”

  I sat up a little straighter. “Well, I didn’t know. About Isaac, I mean. After all the stuff you’ve been telling me, I’ve only just figured out that you were right.”

  “I was right about what, exactly?” she asked, tilting her head.

  “That Isaac was reckless. And an ass a lot of the time. He pulled a lot of shit that I blamed you for.”

  She shrugged. “I’m sure he left out all the parts that were his fault.”

  “Yeah. And if he was always doing that, how good of friends could we actually have been, you know?”

  All this time, I’d assumed she’d be glad if I started seeing things her way, but instead she frowned and threw a small pillow at me. As I caught it, she snapped, “You were best friends, Seth. He was on your side and you were on his. That’s how it should have been.”

  “It doesn’t make the stuff he did okay.”

  “Of course it doesn’t! But don’t start thinking you were stupid or wrong to care about him. You weren’t. We weren’t. No person is all good or all bad, Isaac included. He was really sweet most often and a really, really big asshole the rest of the time.”

  I held the pillow against my chest and slouched deep into the cushions, not sure why I’d missed seeing that for so long.

  Kendall went on. “Isn’t it weird that I ever went out with Isaac? Back when you first started hanging out, I couldn’t stand him. But I still clearly remember the first time I ever noticed he was cute. It was in seventh grade when he beat up that high school kid at the arcade who tried to steal your money. Do you remember?”

  I nodded. Isaac had gotten himself—and all the rest of us—banned from the place for six months after that. It wasn’t one of my best Isaac memories ever.

  “And then,” Kendall said, “I went to your first gig after you and Isaac joined Jared’s band freshman year. Oh my God, the way Isaac played guitar! So hot. Afterward, some guy tried to start a fight with you and Mikey in the parking lot, and Isaac just walked up and decked him. Right at that very second, I was completely in love.”

  Another not-the-best Isaac memory. “It really turned you on when he hit people, huh?”

  At that she burst out laughing. “I think what I liked was that he was fearless. And when he wasn’t screwing everything up, he was loyal. He would have punched anyone in the face for you, Seth. No questions asked.”

  Kendall was right about all of it. Isaac: fearless, loyal, impulsive, reckless. Not all good things, not all bad. Just . . . Isaac.

  “He’d have done that for you, too,” I said. “Taken down anyone who messed with you.”

  “You think so?”

  “I know so.”

  “Hmm,” she said. “I guess that makes us the only two members of the People Isaac Would Have Punched Everyone Else in the Face For club?”

  I wrinkled my nose, and Kendall and I exchanged small smiles.

  “Doesn’t have much of a ring to it, does it?” she asked.

  “Not so much,” I said.

  SATURDAY, OCTOBER 23

  2:07 P.M.

  Whenever it wasn’t raining, Saturdays were crazy at the car wash. Today was no exception; vehicles had been lined up all the way to the street for five hours straight. Say what you will about Kenburn, but we do like us some clean cars.

  Lyle came up to me while I was handling one of the prewash hoses. “It’s your turn for a break,” he said, holding out a soda.

  I shook my head. After being up most of the night, I was trying to work through my exhaustion, afraid that stopping would mean not being able to start again. Lyle wasn’t having it, though. “Seth, drink the Coke. And I don’t want to see you back here for at least fifteen minutes.”

  “Fine.”

  I handed my job
off to him and I went around back. Leaning against the building, I guzzled my second Coke of the day and waited for another temporary lifting of the cloudiness in my head. I had exactly one goal: stay awake long enough to get through my shift and the gig. After that I was going to crash.

  As I was tossing the empty bottle in the bin, a red Miata came rolling around the corner. And, to my surprise, Mrs. Dalloway was behind the wheel. I’d never stopped to think about what she drove, but if I had, I probably would have pictured some regular old sedan or minivan. This was kind of impressive. I mean, a Miata isn’t the end-all of cool or anything, but it’s more styling than I would have expected of her.

  After she’d pulled up next to one of the vacuums and got out to punch the payment code into the machine, I yelled, “Hey, Mrs. D.!”

  She glanced around all confused, and then, spotting me, smiled in her crinkly nosed way. “Hi there, Dick! So good to see you.” I was sure she was going to make a comment about the black eye, but instead she said, “I’ve been told that you won’t be back in class until next Thursday?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, Thursday.”

  “We’re all going to miss you,” she said. “In a class as small as yours, it makes a huge difference when one person is gone.”

  I knew she wasn’t speaking for everyone with the missing-me stuff, but I couldn’t help wondering whether Rosetta missed me. Because, God, I missed her. The way she bit her lip when she was nervous, the flowery scent of her hair, her pretty laugh, the off-the-wall stuff she said. I missed holding her. And kissing her. And just being with her.

  Right then I mentally changed my plan for the rest of my day: get through my shift, play the gig, find Rosetta, and get her to listen to my side of things.

  Mrs. D. yanked on the vacuum hose to get ready to go to town on her interior. It wasn’t hard to use, but she was making it look hard. I still had a few minutes before I needed to head back to work, so I went over. “Here, let me give you a hand with that.”

  She hesitated. “No, it’s fine.”

  “No, really. I work here. It’s part of my job to keep customers from busting up the equipment.”

  Laughing way louder than my comment deserved, she handed it over. While I started the vacuum, she spoke up so I could hear her over the engine. “So tonight’s the big night for your band, right?”