But What About Me?

by Marilyn Reynolds

  Joey gets out of the back seat of the car, gives Danny a look that oozes meanness, then sits down in the front seat, leaving the door open. I see that he is taller than Alex, almost as tall as Danny. And the tight T-shirt he’s wearing shows muscles that must be the result of years of working out with weights. His hair is light like Alex’s, and cropped short.

  “Let’s go,” he yells.

  “Okay, okay,” Danny yells back.

  He leans down and kisses me. “I’ll be back in a couple of days,” he says. “Tell your mom I can for sure start work on the fence Tuesday morning.”

  Joey leans out the window. “Say bye-bye,” he yells at Danny, mimicking Sinclair’s tone and waving a limp wrist.

  “What is his problem?” I ask Danny, loud enough for Joey to hear.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Danny says. “Listen. I know I haven’t been a great boyfriend lately, but I promise I’m going to make it all up to you when I get back. You’ll see. We’ll do something really special. Like Tuesday night, after I finish your mom’s fence. Okay?”

  “You don’t have time to get any right now!” Joey yells.

  “Is that guy totally uncivilized, or what?”

  “I’ve gotta go.” Danny kisses me quickly, runs back to the car, jumps in, and Alex speeds off down the alley.

  Great. My mom starts liking Danny, for about a day, and now he’s not going to show up to do the work for her the way he’d promised? To quote April’s grandmother, this will go over like a fart in church.

  I check back on Beauty, and hand-feed her a bit more. Is it my imagination or are her eyes a little brighter?

  “You’ve got to work a little harder at eating,” I tell her.

  I take my keys to the office and sign out. I dread telling my mom that Danny won’t be there until Tuesday.

  Over the weekend, while I’m studying, or walking around the mall with April, or watching a video with Rocky, Danny is on my mind. I wonder where he is. And why was he so mysterious? And has he totally forgotten that our one-year anniversary is practically here?

  When I get home from school on Tuesday, there’s a message on the machine for me to call Mom at her work.

  “What happened to Danny?” she says, not even bothering with “hello” when she hears my voice.

  “I don’t know. I thought he’d be here,” I say.

  “Dad will be home soon, and I want things to be in order. I was planning on Danny doing what he said he’d do.”

  “He’s not usually like this.”

  “I took a long break this morning and drove home, expecting Danny to be there. I wanted to be sure he had everything he needed. I waited around as long as I could. He didn’t show and he didn’t call.”

  It really upsets my mom when people tell her they’ll do something and then don’t follow through.

  “I could have hired the man who did some work for us last summer, but I thought I could help Danny out. I know he needs the money.”

  “I’m sure he’s got a good reason, Mom,” I say, hoping it’s true.

  “Well, surely he could have called,” Mom says.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, and then wonder why I’m apologizing for Danny. I haven’t done anything wrong.

  After the phone call with Mom, I call Alex’s house. His mom answers. Neither Danny nor Alex is there.

  “I don’t know where Danny is,” Mrs. Kendall says. “I can’t even keep up with Alex, much less all of his friends that are in and out of here.”

  Her voice is coarse and her words are slurred.

  “Well, do you know where they might be?” I ask.

  “No. Joey wanted them to take him somewhere—I’ve hardly seen anything of them since I got Joey from camp.”

  “Well, would you have Danny call me if you see him? This is

  Erica.”

  “Sure, Honey,” she says, but I don’t have much faith that Danny

  will get my message.

  I get Kitty’s leash and she runs to the door, then back to me. I catch her and manage to hook the leash onto her collar and we start walking. We stop at the park and sit under this huge oak tree that must be about a thousand years old. Kitty nudges me with her nose, wanting to move on.

  “What’s your hurry?” I say, holding her face between my hands and looking deep into her eyes. She doesn’t answer.

  “Sit,” I say, and she does. I’ve taught her all that stuff, sit, stay, heel, and I did it without ever hitting her.

  “You know, you’ve got a really good life in comparison to some poor dogs,” I tell her, thinking of Beauty. “I’m glad I got you, and that you didn’t go to some stupid jerk who wouldn’t even see to it that you had food and water.”

  We sit side by side for awhile. I don’t know what Kitty thinks about, but I think about Danny. I get mad. Is this his idea of making things up to me? I’m sitting in the park with my dog at a time we were supposed to be doing something special? Not only has he disappeared for days without even a phone call, he messed up with my mom. That’s really bad. She’ll probably never let me forget it and it’s not even my fault.

  All the times Danny’s let me down start marching around in my brain—the times I’ve sat waiting for him when he said he’d meet me after school, then didn’t show, or when he said he’d call, and didn’t. Other things, too, like borrowing money and not paying it back, like he just took for granted that whatever he needed it for was more important than what I needed it for.

  And how we talk and talk about his stuff, but as soon as I start to tell him any of my problems, he has to hang up the phone. Like last week, after I’d listened all about his dad, and the police, and everything, and as soon as I tried to tell him how mad my mom was, and how I was feeling, he had to go.

  I scratch Kitty behind the ear. “Maybe Danny doesn’t really care about me,” I say, and I get a funny, hollow feeling deep inside.

  Then I start worrying. How can I be thinking such bad things about Danny when maybe something terrible has happened to him. Maybe he was in a bad accident and he didn’t have any I.D. on him. He’s somewhere dying and I’m mad at him because he didn’t show up today?

  I get up and start running back home, Kitty loping along at my side. Maybe Danny’s called while I was gone or maybe someone else, a doctor from the hospital where Danny might be. I picture the waiting room of the hospital where Danny’s mother died. Maybe sudden tragic death runs in families.

  The rest of the week is kind of a blur, trying to do what I need to do at school and at work, but always, always, thinking of Danny. Television reports of a freeway shooting leave me trembling with the news that two eighteen-year-olds are in critical condition. Their names won’t be released until the next of kin is notified. I call all of the emergency treatment centers in Los Angeles County and ask if anyone meeting Danny’s description has been brought in. The answer is no, every place I call, but sometimes I think they don’t even check.

  The best thing that happens this week is that, on Thursday, when I walk into the infirmary. Beauty stands and wags her tail when she hears my voice.

  “Wow! You ate all your food already, too,” I say.

  She wags her tail and takes a drink of water, as if to say, “Look at what else I can do now.”

  I give her another flea powder treatment and check the mange. Then I put her into another cage and clean hers thoroughly. When I finish, I put a fresh mat in for her to sleep on, and give her my usual pep talk.

  By Friday night, when I still haven’t heard from Danny, I’m kind of going nuts. I think about that Jeffrey Dahmer creep who kidnapped and tortured and killed all those guys and I get scared for Danny. It’s got to be something awful or he’d have called me.

  Alex hasn’t been around either. I’ve called over there every day.

  Alex’s mom doesn’t seem to be worried—says they’re just boys, sowing their wild oats, whatever she means by that. But I know something awful has happened.

  I even call Danny’s dad, who just
says, “He’ll turn up, like a bad penny. You can depend on that,” and then he hangs up.

  Chapter

  9

  “Erica!”

  I turn to see Danny and Alex, leaning against the wall of the Humane Society when I leave work Monday evening.

  “Danny! Where’ve you been?”

  “He’s been to London, to visit the queen,” Alex says, laughing a strange, high-pitched laugh.

  Danny walks over to me and puts his arms around me.

  “I’ve missed you, Pups,” he says.

  I’m so relieved, I start crying. “But where have you been?”

  “Pussycat, Pussycat, where have you been?” Alex giggles.

  Danny turns toward Alex. “Shut up,” he says. “I told you I was going with Alex and Joey to take care of some business.”

  “You also told me you’d be back on Tuesday, and you’d do that work for my mom!”

  “Shhh,” he says, kissing me and holding me tight. “I’ll tell you all about it later. Alex has to get home, then I can use his car. Come with me.”

  “I can’t. Mom’s waiting for me out back.”

  “Tell her I’ll bring you home later.”

  “She’s mad at you.”

  “Why?”

  “’Cause you didn’t show up to do that work. Twice.”

  “Tell her April will bring you home then, if she’s mad at me. But tell her something. I’ll be waiting for you right here.”

  I wipe my eyes and walk around the comer to where Mom is waiting in the car with Kitty.

  “Danny’s here, Mom. I’m going out with him for awhile and then he’ll bring me home.”

  “Where’s he been?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well. I don’t think you should drop everything to go with Danny when he hasn’t even had the courtesy to call all week long, and when he’s been so completely irresponsible about keeping his agreements with me.”

  “Mom, please,” I say. “I need to talk to him.”

  She looks at me and softens. “Of course you do. Don’t be too late.”

  I dump my books in her car, then go back to meet Danny.

  “We’ll drop Alex off at home,” Danny says, putting his arm around me and walking with me to Alex’s car. Alex is slumped down in the back seat, eyes half closed, next to Joey, who appears to be sound asleep. Danny gets into the driver’s seat and I get in on the other side. The inside of the car smells like pot.

  “Keys?” Danny says, reaching back toward Alex.

  Alex fumbles around, then finds his keys in his jacket pocket and hands them up to Danny. Besides his car keys, there are a couple of other keys, probably house keys, and a round, silver emblem with a marijuana leaf engraved on it.

  “Gina’s pissed, too.” Alex giggles. “But business is business.”

  I don’t say anything and neither does Danny. I’ll be glad when Alex and Joey are out of the car. Tonight is one of those times I don’t like Alex, and I have a feeling there will never be a time when I like Joey.

  Headlights of cars and streetlights along the way cast light and shadows on Danny’s face. He looks so good tome, familiar and safe and strong.

  After we drop Alex and Joey off we drive to McDonald’s.

  “I haven’t eaten since early this morning,” Danny says as we wait in line in the drive-thru lane. “My stomach’s complaining. How about you?”

  “I’m hungry, too,” I say, suddenly realizing I’ve hardly eaten anything for a week.

  “I don’t have much money on me.”

  “I’ve got some.”

  “Enough?”

  “Yeah. I got paid yesterday,” I tell him.

  “I can pay you back pretty soon,” Danny says. “Not just for tonight, but all the other money I’ve borrowed from you, too.”

  “Did you find a job?” I ask.

  “Sort of.”

  He orders two hamburgers and two large fries and I order a salad. We both get sodas. I hand Danny $11.

  “Where?” I ask him.

  “What?” he says.

  “The job?”

  “Oh, I’ll tell you about it later.”

  After we get our food, he drives down to the cemetery where his mom is buried.

  “I haven’t visited in over two weeks,” he says. “You don’t mind, do you?”

  “No,” I say, knowing how stressed Danny gets when he goes more than a week between visits to his mother’s grave. I respect Danny for keeping his word to his mother, even if she didn’t hear him make the promise to her.

  We sit in the car, eating. Danny reaches into the glove compartment and pulls out a little Jack Daniels bottle, then empties it into his soda.

  “There’s more. Want some?” he says, holding the empty bottle

  up.

  “You know I don’t drink that stuff,” I tell him. “I don’t even like it when you do, so why offer?”

  “I’m just being polite. You don’t have to get all mad about it.”

  “I am mad,” I yell at him. “You totally disappeared for days. We had plans for last Tuesday, including you were going to work for my mom, and then we were going out, ‘someplace special,’ you said, but you didn’t show, you didn’t call, I didn’t even know if you were dead or alive, and then you show up like nothing’s happened?”

  For an instant he looks at me as if I’m an absolute stranger. Then he yells back, “I said I had some business to take care of. Okay? I need money, and I had a chance to make a lot more than six dollars an hour being your mom’s little handyman!”

  “You could at least have called Tuesday to say you couldn’t make it!”

  “Don’t nag me, Erica! You sound like my dad! I won’t take that shit from any girl!”

  He reaches into the glove compartment, opens another Jack Daniels and takes a swallow, straight.

  I’m trying to choke back tears but I can’t. “I’m not any girl! How can you say that? You say you love me, but you sure don’t act like it sometimes!”

  Danny jumps out of the car and slams the door, hard. He takes a few steps away, turns back, jerks open the car door, gets his food, reaches past me to the glove compartment and grabs a handful of the little bottles, then slams the door again with such force I think the window will break. I’m crying so hard now I’m blubbering.

  I watch as Danny walks across the dimly lit cemetery to where his mother is buried. My hands shake as I dig a paper napkin from the bag my salad came in. I blow my nose and try to stop crying. At this rate I’ll need about a hundred more paper napkins.

  I feel all trembly inside. Danny and I have never really fought like this before. In the distance I see him squatting down by Mrs. Lara’s tombstone. Why did I get him mad? If I’d just have acted like everything was okay, then it probably would have been. But I have a right to be mad! He used to call me all the time, and he was always there when he said he’d be. What’s happened? . . . Maybe Danny doesn’t love me anymore.

  With that thought, my tears come faster. I can barely catch my breath. The windows are so steamy now I can’t see out. I wipe the one opposite me with my sleeve. Danny is still sitting in exactly the same place he was before. I wish he’d come back.

  I’ve been here with him before. If we come in the daytime I bring flowers from our yard and place them at Mrs. Lara’s grave. But when he comes at night I know he wants to be alone with his mom and I wait in the car. Usually he doesn’t stay long.

  “I can’t lose touch,” is what he says about these visits.

  He’s been out there at least twenty minutes. I’m sitting in the car, lonely and cold, wondering if Danny’s ever coming back. My nose is still runny from crying and I’ve used up all of the napkins. I rummage around in Alex’s glove compartment for tissues. There’s nothing but about six more of the little bottles, a screwdriver, and a dirty old rag.

  I look in the side pockets of both doors. I wipe my nose on my sleeve. Gross! I feel around under the driver’s seat, which is where my mom a
lways stashes those little packets of tissue.

  Something feels kind of bumpy, so I stick my hand under the carpet. I touch a package that I hope is tissue and pull it out. What is it? I switch on the light in the car and see that it’s a zip-lock sandwich bag filled with something that looks like crushed leaves or . . . marijuana.

  I quickly turn off the light and put the baggie back under the seat where I found it and feel around for more. There must be about ten packages under both seats. I wonder if Danny knows they’re there, or if it’s all Alex and Joey’s doing? It is Alex’s car. Danny doesn’t even smoke weed anymore. At least that’s what he says. Maybe it’s not even weed. Maybe it’s something else. Like Alex is carrying baggies of oregano around? He’s going to make tubs of spaghetti sauce? No. It’s got to be weed. I don’t use it but I know what it looks like.

  I know Alex smokes, and I know the rumors about all the partying that goes on at Alex’s house. But I’ve never heard anything about Alex dealing. Smoking it and dealing it are whole different things.

  I think about how I’m always accusing April of jumping to unfounded conclusions, and she’s always accusing me of not facing things. I wonder what story April would come up with if she’d found the baggies. She’d probably be convinced that Alex and Danny and Joey were part of a big drug ring or something.

  I’m freezing, sitting here waiting for Danny. He’s so inconsiderate! I’m really getting sick of being treated like this. I’ll go tell him to take me home, tell him he can just forget about me, he won’t have to hear my “nagging” anymore.

  I get out of the car and start walking over to where Danny is sitting. There are plenty of guys around. I don’t need Danny Lara. I wipe my eyes. I wish I could stop crying before Danny sees me. I hold my breath and walk.

  When I get to Mrs. Lara’s place I stand over Danny and demand, “Take me home now.”

  Danny looks up. He looks so sad, and I can see that he’s been crying, too. He reaches for my hand and pulls me down beside him, wrapping his arms tightly around me.

  “Sorry. I’m sorry, Erica,” he whispers. “I need you so much, don’t be mad. Please. I love you.” He is shivering hard, and I feel his tears against my cheeks.