by Steven Gould
“What’s going on with Hector and Caffeine?” Jade asked at lunch. “Did someone die? Or get arrested?”
Tara’s eyes got big. “What did you do?” She was looking at me.
I batted my eyes. “What are you talking about?”
Jade eyes narrowed. “Smugness. That’s the expression I was trying to figure out. You’re smug. Did you get their buddies arrested or something?”
“Me? How on earth could I do something like that?”
Jade looked disgusted and turned to Tara. “See? Smug.”
I stuck my tongue out at them.
Okay, maybe I was a little smug. But mostly I was afraid of what those assholes would do next.
* * *
I jumped home briefly after lunch and put away the armor properly. I started to return Dad’s jacket and sweatpants, but put them in my closet instead. I thought I might need them again.
“You’ve got a meet tomorrow, right?” Dad said while he was fixing supper.
“I do? Oh, right, I do.” It was the second-to-last meet for the snowboard club. I’d almost forgotten.
So sue me. I’d been dealing with a lot of things lately, all right?
“Would you like to pretend to drive me, so I don’t have to wake up so early?”
Dad nodded. “We’re going to come watch, after all.”
I phoned Joe to tell him I wouldn’t be in the van.
He hesitated a moment before saying, “Okay. Don’t be late, all right? You’re our best women’s slalom boarder.”
“I’m your only woman slalom boarder. But I think I can manage.” I was planning on jumping to Cedar Mountain early and getting in a few runs before the team arrived.
I expected Joe to say goodnight, then, but he blurted out, “Are you all right?”
“Huh? Sure. Why do you ask?”
“It’s just I heard that Caffeine and her crowd were, uh, messing with you.” He sounded genuinely worried.
“In their incompetent way. Don’t worry, I won’t mess up the club’s Title IX status.”
“That’s not it!” He sounded offended. “Give me a little credit, here. I know what they did to Dakota and Tony. Everybody knows.…”
I didn’t know whether to be irritated or gratified at his concern. “I didn’t know you cared.”
He paused. “Uh, doesn’t matter. You’re dating Grant Meriwether.”
I blinked. “No.”
“You’re not?”
“I went out with him once for … well, not for romantic reasons.”
“Interesting.” His voice was suddenly more cheerful.
Okay, I decided. Gratified. I decided to feel gratified by his concern.
I thought about Joe for a moment, trying to separate him from his role of team captain, and Brett’s friend, and even the guy who’d unintentionally put down my academic skills. He was taller than I, not as tall as Brett, but much taller than Grant. He dressed like he didn’t care what other people thought, but nothing embarrassing. His complexion was mostly clear. I pictured his face, his beaky nose, his angular torso.
My heart went pitter-pat.
Tongue-tied, suddenly, I let the silence grow.
He cleared his throat. “So, if you’re not dating Grant, are you dating anyone else?”
My mouth was suddenly dry. “I am not.”
“Sure you don’t want to ride with us in the van tomorrow?”
“Positive, why?”
“Thought we could sit together.”
“What about Lany? I thought there was something going on with you two?” They touched a lot, horseplay and hugs.
He laughed. “She’s my first cousin. And she’s going out with a college boy. How about the van?”
“A four-hour drive is your idea of a good time?”
“Depends on the company.”
There was that, but the last thing I wanted to do was sit with Joe while Brett was in the same vehicle.
“Not interested.”
“Oh.” The cheer in his voice vanished.
“In the van ride. But I’m free tonight.”
There was a clatter as he dropped his phone. I heard him saying, “Shit! Shit!” as he scrambled to pick it up again. “Are you still there?”
I didn’t say anything.
“Cent?”
“Yes.”
He exhaled. “Want to go out tonight?” He said it in a rush.
“Trying to get that in before you drop the phone again?”
He laughed, a breathless kind of laugh. “Yeah. Kinda. You surprised me, there.”
I’d surprised me.
“Can’t stay out too late. I’ve got this, uh, snowboard thing tomorrow, but you can pick me up at seven.” I hesitated. “Oh. You don’t have a car, do you?”
“Not to worry—I can borrow wheels! Uh, I already know your address.”
You do?
“All right. Seven, then,” I said.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Millie: “Letting Go”
Davy rose from the table as soon as Joe and Cent left.
“Where are you going?” Millie asked.
He turned his head quickly, touched his lips with his tongue.
Millie laughed. “No! Don’t even think about it.”
Davy slowly sat back down.
Millie said, “When you lived in New York, when we met, how would you have liked it if your father had followed you around watching everyone you talked with?”
Davy looked away, saying, “I am not an alcoholic!”
“No. So? What does that have to do with her right to privacy? To her right to make her own mistakes?”
“Making her own mistakes could get her killed!”
“If you’re not careful, you’re going to do just what your father did to you: drive her away.”
He looked shocked and angry. “My father was physically abusive!”
“Yes, he was. And emotionally abusive, too. But don’t compare your behavior to his. We can always find someone who is behaving worse than we are. Doesn’t excuse our own behavior.”
“What is the objective standard, then?”
“You could do worse than the golden rule. If you were in her shoes, would you like to be followed around by even a benevolent parent?”
“What if she needs my help? Our help?”
Millie held up her cell phone. “Wait until she asks.”
* * *
Millie did go out herself, later, to download her e-mail. On reading one, she jumped to the DC Metro and found a public phone.
“Martingale.” Millie could hear silverware on china and the clinking of ice cubes in the background.
“It’s Millie. Is this a bad time?”
“One second.” Away from the phone Martingale said, “Work call. Won’t be a moment.” The sound of the cutlery faded and Becca said, “Okay. I’m back near the restrooms. You got my e-mail.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yes. Who saw her?”
“Sheer coincidence. An agent out of the LA office was reviewing some security camera footage related to a bank robbery, checking the previous day’s video to see if the suspects had cased the lobby, and she showed up though the window. Nothing to do with the robbery, but the agent had seen a recent circular on her prison escape.”
“When was this?”
“Last Thursday—the robbery was Friday.”
“And where, exactly?”
“Venice Beach.”
“It’s not much. Checking the area?”
“Of course. Police and agents. But Hyacinth wasn’t alone in the picture. We don’t have an ID of the man yet, but we’re working it.”
“Could you e-mail me that image?”
“Sure. First thing tomorrow, okay?”
“Thanks.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
“Potential”
Dad took it well. Okay, he took it better than the previous time.
“Got a date tonight,” I said at supper.
Dad didn’t say anything, mainl
y because he’d inhaled some iced tea.
While he was coughing, I added, “I won’t be out late, though, because of the meet tomorrow”
Mom whacked Dad on the back, between his shoulder blades, and said, “But you’re jumping there. Why should it matter if you stayed out late?”
Dad, still coughing, glared at Mom.
Mom ignored him and kept whacking. “You can sleep in tomorrow morning.”
“Sure, but he can’t. He’s on the snowboard team, too, and he’ll have to get up early to catch the van.”
Dad got his coughing under control. “Not Grant?”
“Right. Not Grant.”
Dad looked at with raised eyebrows, waiting.
“It’s Joe Trujeque, the team captain. You met him when you dropped me off at the van, that first day of practice.”
“Isn’t he a senior?”
“Junior.”
Dad said, “A little old for you?”
Mom and I burst out laughing.
Dad grinned, too, and winked.
Oh. This time he was being funny.
Mom followed me back to my Yukon bedroom. “Dressing up?”
I shook my head. I changed to an oversized sweatshirt and added my Yomiuri Giants baseball cap. I only had to use one bit of cover-up for a healing zit. Then I flossed and brushed my teeth really well.
Mom watched all of this, especially the oral hygiene. “This isn’t another practice date, is it?”
I tried to play it cool, but then grinned. “This one has potential.”
“He’s not the crush?”
I made a face. “God, no! I’m well away from that jock. Joe hasn’t got that disease.”
“Joe isn’t a jock?” Mom said.
I shook my head. “Not like Brett. Joe’s a skateboarder and an A student. And he’s got the most adorable big honking nose.”
Mom looked alarmed. “I see.” She licked her lips and then crossed over to the ceramic box on my dresser and tapped it.
I felt my face go bright red and shook my head vigorously. “Way too soon.” She frowned and I said, “But I know where they are! And I can get to them in a millisecond.”
She blushed and hugged me, then jumped away.
She’d given me the box the day we “moved” into New Prospect.
I’m not saying go ahead and do this. But don’t be stupid. Be safe. Make your own decisions.
I opened it, looked at the condoms inside, and then shut it again, quickly.
Way too soon.
* * *
“It’s my brother’s,” Joe explained.
It was an old-school Volkswagen bug, air cooled, older than both of us combined. The starter barely turned the engine over, and Joe looked worried, but then the motor caught and ran smoothly enough.
“Where do you want to go? A movie? Dancing?”
The heater in the car was pathetic. “Pie,” I said. “Hot pie.”
He took me to Luncheon Junction, a restaurant in a converted train station. It had been decades since there was passenger service in town, but freight trains still rolled through the adjoining rail yard several times a day.
“Pie is kind of their thing,” Joe said.
He had the blueberry-apple. I had the cherry pie à la mode. We shared bites with each other.
Pie was definitely their thing.
Joe had two sisters in middle school and an older brother who went to college in the East—it was his VW Joe was driving. His dad was a welder and his mom taught composition at the community college. His most serious relationship had ended the year before when his ex, Emily, dropped him for a senior with a car.
He was a reluctant reader.
By this I don’t mean he read reluctantly. He read voraciously. What he was reluctant about was admitting it.
“Really? I thought you didn’t care what other people thought?”
He squirmed a bit and shrugged. “Skateboarders.”
“You’re pathetic,” I said.
It took some more work to find out what he liked to read. I had to swear not to reveal his dark secret.
I could’ve kissed him on the spot.
“She only wrote the six books,” I said.
“There are her letters,” he said, “and the juvenilia are really very funny and the novella Lady Susan—wait, you knew she only wrote six books?”
“Sure. But I’ve only read Northanger Abbey once. Catherine is an idiot, even more so than Emma. But Emma, the book that is, has so many other things going for it, and Emma learns better in a more convincing way.”
He frowned. “So you’ve only read Northanger Abbey and Emma?”
“Don’t be silly! I’ve read the rest of them several times. Northanger Abbey only once.”
He smiled warmly and I felt the nape of my neck tingle.
“Well,” he said. “It’s not my favorite, but really, I don’t think you’re being fair to Catherine. She did eventually get over the gothic novel thing.”
“Ha! Persuasion blows it out of the water. I’ll take Anne Elliot over Catherine Morland any day.”
He nodded judiciously. “Not really fair. She wrote Northanger Abbey before any of the others, even if it wasn’t published until after her death. She wrote Persuasion last, at the height of her powers.”
“I’m not talking about fair,” I said. “I’m talking about best.”
He held up his hands. “Okay. Completely agree. Persuasion happens to be my favorite, too.”
I thought about taking him home to pore over my bookshelves, but the stuff I’d moved to the New Prospect bedroom was anime and manga and my nonfiction reference books. Everything else was still in the Yukon. How would I explain that?
“How late is the library open?”
The Volkswagen starter tried to turn over once and failed.
“Can you drive a shift?” he asked.
I shook my head. “I don’t drive at all.”
“We can push start it. I just thought I’d push while you popped the clutch.”
I laughed at him. “Get in the car.”
We were on flat ground and it rolled easily. He pushed with the door open, ready to jump in. I pushed from the rear bumper. As soon as he jumped in, I hopped on the rear bumper and jumped in place, adding velocity to the car. I nearly sprained my wrists but the car sped up abruptly. I stepped off and jumped again, just before I touched the pavement, to kill my forward velocity.
The car started easily when he put the clutch in, but he was now far enough away that he had to U-turn and come back for me.
When I climbed in, he said, “Huh. I guess this stretch is more downhill than I thought.” Despite funding cutbacks, the county library was open until ten on Fridays. We browsed the adult and YA shelves, pointing out favorites to each other. Sometimes it was “yes,” a shared favorite, sometimes it was a shrug, having never read it. Several times we were reminded of other books that weren’t at the library. Rarely it was a “no,” we had read it, but it wasn’t that high on our list.
Made me nervous, though, when I put my finger on the spine of a book by Garth Nix, the one about the Second Assistant Librarian and the Disreputable Dog.
Joe leaned closer, to read the title, and then he kissed me.
So I guess that was a “yes.”
I was out of breath by the time I got inside the house. Mom raised her eyebrows.
I held my thumb up. I wanted to throw the door back open and chase the boy down as he climbed back into the VW. We’d kissed in the library, on the library steps, in the car, and on the porch.
My lips were puffy.
“How was your evening?” I asked.
* * *
I had trouble sleeping but let me tell you, this was so much better than the night I’d spent crying about Brett.
The next morning I called Joe’s cell phone fifteen minutes before the van was supposed to leave.
“Did you change your mind? Do you want me to tell them to wait?”
Four hours in the van n
ext to Joe was looking better but I said, “No.”
“Darn.”
“Look, I know Brett is a good friend, but can you not tell him about us?”
“What? Why not? You said you weren’t dating anybody else!”
“Shut up. Drink more coffee. It’s not about dating. Until this Caffeine thing is resolved, it’s about her guys hassling me. I’d rather they didn’t have one more target.”
“Oh,” he said. “Donna. Brett to Donna. Donna to Caffeine, right?”
“That’s it.”
“I’m not scared of them. I’ve got my peeps, too.”
“I believe you. But I really don’t want to be scared for you. Do it for me, okay?”
“Those guys are assholes. It may never be resolved.”
Not if I have anything to say about it. “Well, then, two more weeks. Until the snowboard season is over. Whatever happens, even if it’s all-out war, then you can tell anybody. If we’re still dating.”
He sounded alarmed. “Are you having doubts? Was I pushing things?”
I laughed. “Are you having doubts?”
His voice got husky. “No. I hardly slept last night.”
“Me, too. Good thing I’m not in the van. You can sleep.”
“I can’t tell anybody? It’s just that it’s nice—I want to share that. I can’t even tell Lany?”
“You do and I’ll tell everyone you think Northanger Abbey is the best book Austen ever wrote.”
“Ohhhhhhh. That’s low.”
“See you on the mountain.”
* * *
I gave my jacket to Joe at the very last minute and came in second in the women’s slalom. The reduced drag put me across the line chilled, but two tenths of a second ahead of the third-place finisher. Also, I got to rub against Joe as he held the coat for me at the bottom of the run.
“Stop that,” he said, “unless you’re ready for a very public display of affection.”
Mom videotaped the runs and cheered me on, her scarf pulled up high even though it wasn’t cold. I only glimpsed Dad once, buried in the crowd.
Jade finished out of the running in slope style, but she didn’t fall once and felt really good about her performance, especially since Lany came in first. Lany was also third in the half-pipe.
I got to kiss Joe once, in the woods, between the slalom course and the half-pipe, but Donna and Brett almost caught us, so we cooled it for the rest of the day.