Chasing AllieCat (14 page)

Twenty-One

Night

July 3, continued

When we walked in the door, Aunt Susan handed me the phone. “Your dad.”

Joe kept on walking and went straight to his sanctum in Scout’s office.

“Hi Dad,” I said, watching Joe disappear.

“Hi Honey. Happy Fourth of July! You ready for your big race?”

“Mostly terrified.”

“That’s good,” he said. “If you weren’t scared, you wouldn’t respect what you’re doing. Being scared is good, Sadie. Good luck.”

I talked to Mom, too, and I wanted to tell them in the worst way about all the insanity of Father Malcolm and the nuns and the detectives, but Timmy wouldn’t leave the room, and Aunt Susan was listening, and I couldn’t say I’d take the phone in the study because Joe was in there, so I asked about Nefertiti and then said good night.

And I went downstairs and shut myself in CCC.

I’d changed into pajamas, and crawled into bed with a book, when there was a knock at the closet door.

“Yeah?”

Joe stuck his head in. “Can I come in?” He looked sad, really sad.

“Sure.” I sat up, pulling the sheet up to my armpits because I was only wearing my oldest, comfiest, see-through T-shirt.

“Can we talk?”

I nodded, patted the bed beside me for him to sit down. He did.

“I can’t stand feeling like this. I know I’m a wuss, but I don’t want to be. I lost John. I don’t want to lose you—”

I let go of the sheet with one hand and grabbed his hand. “Joe, I’m really sorry for what I said. That’s not what I meant. I just meant that I’m sure Allie didn’t disappear ’cause of being freaked out by blood. Besides, she’s got way more guts than me. No comparison. And sometimes I wish I
were
her
.
And she’s got enough guts that she’s been at the hospital every night. I’m so sorry.” The words tumbled out. “Sometimes I don’t think what I’m saying. I didn’t mean—”

But his finger was on my lips and he was smiling into my eyes. “It’s okay. I know I can be a wuss. It just drives me crazy that I think you like Allie more than me, or that she’s more important to you than I am, and that you admire her more. And I guess I’m jealous, so I came to apologize.”

“You are? I mean, it does? I mean, no, I don’t like her more. Joe, I like—”

His finger was back on my lips. “You don’t have to explain. But thanks. I had to say that ’cause we need each other right now. The race, Allie, Father Malcolm—this is crazy enough without being mad at each other.”

I nodded, too vigorously. I bit my lip and plunged in. “Joe, I get jealous because it seems like you always bring Allie up whenever we’re close. Like every time you touch me, you have to bring up her name.”

“Ha. You serious? I thought it was you who always did that.”

Our eyes met, and we smiled.

“’Night, Sadie.”

“’Night, Joe.”

My heart was so much lighter. I only wished he’d leaned over and kissed me.

Twenty-Two

Race Morning

July 4

Fourth of July morning. I didn’t have to work because I’d taken the day off for the bike race. I woke up, saw 5:30 on the clock, and turned over. The race wasn’t until nine. For once I could sleep in.

The next thing I knew, Joe was in my closet-turned-bedroom. “Sadie.”

Joe looked awful. Worse than last night. His eyes drooped like he hadn’t slept at all.

“Joe, what’s wrong?” I sat up. “What time is it?”

“Six thirty.”

I was aware again of wearing only my thin T-shirt, the closeness of the closet.

He sat on the edge of my roll-away. He wasn’t looking at my thin T-shirt or what he could probably see beneath it. “Go for a walk?” he said quietly. “We’ll wake somebody up if we talk here.”

“Okay.” I pulled a sweatshirt over my T-shirt, flannel pants over my boxers, and stepped into my flip-flops.

We shushed Peapod, let him out the door with us, and walked down the road toward the waste treatment plant, through the Dumpster cemetery but avoiding the woods. Peapod bounded around behind us, then in front of us, delighted we were walking, delighted for the dewy grass to roll in and for morning smells to sniff.

We passed the north end of the trailer court and the junked mobile homes where I’d met Allie. In the early morning, barely there light, we eyed the trailer on its side, without a floor, its pipes hanging out like intestines, and we both shuddered. Joe took my hand. We walked, holding hands, until we reached one of the Blue Earth River overlooks.

Joe dropped my hand and climbed onto a rock, looking down at the river. I followed him. The water rippled in all the same places that it always did.

“It’s going to be a hot day to race,” I said. The valley was an explosion of five hundred shades of green, surrounding the black river water and reflected in it. The change in temperature overnight made mist rise in thin wisps that hovered like ghosts over the shimmering water.

Joe stared into the still-life photograph before us. Then, as if he was pained, he sat down, curled up tight, in the fetal position, hanging onto his knees as if they might shoot out and down the bluff if he didn’t hold on. “I didn’t think I’d ever be able to sit on a cliff again,” he said finally.

I watched his face and waited for him to explain. I sat down as close to him as I dared.

Peapod sensed Joe’s mood, jumped up beside him on the rock, and nosed his big head into Joe’s lap. His big yellow head rested on Joe’s thigh and Joe rubbed one golden ear.

“It doesn’t break your heart. It’s bigger than that.”

“Joe. Tell me what you’re talking about.”

He went on. “When you scream, the noise isn’t big enough. You scream from the inside, but it splits you open like an egg. I felt cracked wide open like a broken egg, and I was screaming on the path at the Grand Canyon, like all that was left of me was a broken shell, and I couldn’t scream loud enough.”

I stared at him. I knew my mouth was hanging open. I could tell that Joe had been thinking these words for a long time, holding them in. He dragged his eyes from the river far below to look at me. I put my hand on his knee. “Go on.”

“My brother,” he said. Peapod pulled his head back, cocked his head, and whimpered, watching Joe’s face.

I waited.

“When John died. But you know all that, right, Sadie?”

I shook my head. “All I know is you’re here ’cause your brother got killed in some horrible accident hiking and you needed to get away. Aunt Susan won’t talk about it, and I asked Uncle Scout to tell me, but he said you probably needed to tell me yourself. That’s all he’d say.”

“You never asked me.”

“You kidding? I wanted to ask so bad. I figured you’d tell me if you wanted to.”

“So, here goes then, Sadie-Sadie. My brother John and I were hiking along the edge of the Grand Canyon. We loved going there. My twin brother and me.”

I tried not to move. “Twins,” I said, barely more than a whisper.

“He fuckin’
fell
, Sadie. I … I watched him splat on the rocks. Four
hundred
feet. Splat. Like he exploded.”

I stared. My mouth felt like sand.

“He was being stupid.
Stupid
. He was jumping around, showing off on the ledges to piss me off ’cause he knew I’m scared of heights, so he kept jumping around and he kept saying over and over—‘precipices, Joe, precipices!’ And he jumped back a little too far and slipped right off, me five feet away, watching him go, listening to him scream … and I started to scream … ”

I wasn’t sure if this was real, or a bad dream that had started in the hospital room, or on the road with the rednecks, or when we found Father Malcolm, or when Joe suggested Allie was gay, or maybe back when the cannonball explosion landed me here in LeHillier. The whole world as I used to know it had shifted, and I grabbed at the rock on each side of me. I had to hang on or I might go flying off, but the rock was smooth and there was nothing to hang onto.

“Oh, Joe,” I heard myself say.

“They sent me up here, Sadie. Minnesota’s about as far away from the Grand Canyon as you can get. So they sent me here.” He looked at me, so much pain in his eyes it hurt to look at them. “So that’s my story. He was my twin, so it’s like I splatted down there, too. At least half of me did. That’s why I totally freak at the top of the big hills. I’d always freaked out a little, but now … now sometimes I just freeze, and all I can think about is watching him go … and it’s like I have to push myself over, ’cause I can’t go on purpose. John—he was fearless on the mountain bike, like Allie. I thought I
had
to do this, to keep mountain biking, to get over this, to face it, to ride the big hills, but it’s not getting any better. And then I fell and flew over the ravine … and that was bad enough, but then I almost landed on top of Father Malcolm. And that freaked me out more than falling. And—and I’m scared to not pray. Because I didn’t pray that day. The day John fell. Until it was too late. And I don’t want John to be nothing. I want to believe he’s still alive somewhere.”

“Oh my God,” I said.

“Holy crap,” Joe said, leaning back, the palms of his hands behind him on the rock. Peapod shifted, too. “Fuck and shit.”

“Joe,” I said, “you are using profanity.”

He swiped at his eye with the back of his hand. “Sure as fuck am.” Then he yelled over the river valley, “Doesn’t fuckin’ matter, does it?” He threw his head back, looked into the sky. “Wish I had a smoke. Damn. I really want a fucking cigarette.”

“No you don’t,” I managed to say. I was in slow motion, watching myself from the outside. I reached out and put my arm around his shoulder and lay my head against his neck. I felt tears dripping from my face onto his shoulder. I hadn’t even noticed I was crying, but I didn’t stop them. I wrapped the other arm around him, too. Joe sat there while I cried, and after a while, his arms wrapped around me, too, and I felt teardrops plunking on my temple from his face. And then he started sobbing. And I held on tight.

We sat like that for what felt like a long, long time. The sun reflected on the river as it slid up over the hill, almost where the cannonball had disappeared over a month ago. When the sun launched off the horizon into its arc for the day, the rays heated us up instantly.

I let go and wiped snot and tears from my face. Joe did the biker blow, holding one nostril shut and blasting the snot from the other nostril. He sniffed.

Then he looked me in the face. “Guess that means I trust you. Nobody else knows all that. And I sure haven’t cried with anybody else.”

I tried to smile, but it was a lame attempt. The ends of my mouth sort of curled up in a sad sort of way, and that was all I could muster.

“Thank you.” He brushed my cheek with his knuckles. “That’s why I’m such a chicken shit. Talk about needing to ride through the chicken. So if you didn’t admire me as much as Allie before, now you can write me off entirely as a crybaby who’s scared of the hills—”

“Joe! Stop it—”

“It’s true, Sadie. But I had to tell you this crap. I needed you to know. I’m the one who should have fallen. Not John.”

“No, you shouldn’t, Joe. Last night, when I told my dad how scared I am, he said, ‘If you weren’t scared, you wouldn’t respect what you’re doing. Being scared is good.’ That’s my dad, the archeologist. John didn’t respect the Grand Canyon, Joe. The only reason he died was because he didn’t respect the danger. You respected it. It kept you safe. You respect Mount Kato. So you can do it. Fear is good.”

Joe bit his lip. “Your dad sounds cool,” he whispered.

“He is,” I said. We were quiet for a minute. “So … ” This time I took Joe’s hand. “So, Joe.”

“Yeah?” He looked at me and sniffed.

“Why did you need to tell me? I mean, why
me
?”

“Don’t you know, Sadie?”

I shook my head.

“’Cause I like you. Lots. I need you to know. If you’re going to like me back, you have to know all of it.” He looked away, over the river. “I don’t care so much if you think I’m sort of a wuss if you understand why.”

“Joe.”

“Hmm?”

“I think you’re brave. And wise. And Joe? I like you. Okay?”

And he turned back to me. “You sure?”

I nodded. And this time I could smile for real.

And we leaned toward each other and I was finally, finally going to get to kiss him, to feel those lips. And Peapod barked.

We jerked back. Peapod growled. He leaned against Joe and his hackles stood straight up.

“What, Peapod?” I whispered. “Joe, the only time I’ve heard him growl—”

“I know. Shhh.” We stared into the edge of the woods. Nothing that we could see. Peapod sat down, still staring. His growl crescendoed, and then finally he relaxed and wagged and licked Joe’s face.

Joe took my hand and Peapod’s collar. “That’s creepy. Come on, Sadie. Peapod, come!” We turned and walked toward Scout’s. When we passed the trailer cemetery, we ran. We raced Peapod back to Uncle Scout’s. Peapod beat us both, but Joe was ahead of me by only two steps when we got to the garage, breathless.