Flyaway (14 page)

"A lot of people are scared of meth. But it's a member of the family of phenylethylamines—the same stuff you buy in the drugstore for nasal congestion."

So what if I can't pronounce the scientific name for it? He thinks he can impress me with all his big words, his alternate universes and black holes. He can fall into a black hole, for all I care. I'm seeing now it's all a bunch of crap, that I'm ten times smarter than he is. I shake his hand off me.

"What's the matter?" He lowers himself onto the bed and reaches for me. "I was kind of hoping we could finish what we started the other night."

After all the times I dreamed about that moment, I wouldn't kiss him now if you paid me. I push myself off the bed.

He sits up fast and grabs for me. "Hey, where you going?"

I don't bother to answer, just move toward the door.

"Don't get all pure and innocent on me," he calls. "You know you wanted to do it with Cole."

I slam the door behind me—hard.

It's pitch dark now. I drive, not knowing or caring where I'm going. For a while I don't feel anything. Then, as I wander up and down the quiet side streets, my body starts to speak.

I'm starving,
says my empty belly. Then an even louder voice says,
I need to pee!
I pull into a mini-mall and burst through the door of Westernco Donuts and into the restroom. I can hardly get my pants down fast enough.

Afterward I stay seated on the toilet and stare at the initials someone's scratched on the napkin disposal can. Finally I venture out and study myself in the mirror above the sink. Even though I feel like a different person than I did this morning, amazingly, on the outside, I still look like me.

After splashing some water on my face and wetting down my hair, I go out into the shop. The old lady with a hairnet standing behind the counter frowns at me and points to the sign that says, "Restrooms for Customers Only." The glare of the fluorescent lights makes the doughnuts lined up in the case look slick and greasy, but I hand her a dollar and ask for one of the glazed.

I'm gobbling down the doughnut at a little table by the window when a car pulls into the parking lot. It takes a few seconds to register the red and blue lights on top.

A hunk of glazed doughnut sticks in my throat. As the cop strides in the door, I bolt for the restroom. I lock myself in the last stall and sit on the toilet, hugging my knees to my chin. Any minute, I think, the restroom door will swing open and those heavy black cop shoes will come trudging toward me. But it doesn't happen.

I don't know how long I wait—half an hour, maybe longer. Long enough, I'm hoping, for the cop to finish a doughnut and a cup of coffee and leave. I creep out of the restroom, ready to duck back in if he's still there, but the only other person in the shop is a skinny old man sipping from a Styrofoam cup. I look out the window; the cop car is gone.

Such a surge of relief rushes through me that I give a big belly laugh. The lady with the hairnet purses her lips. I look her right in the eye and laugh again. Then I stroll out to the parking lot and start up the car.

I'm real good at driving forward down open country roads. Backing out of tight parking spots ? Not so much. I inch slowly backward, then, just when I thought I've made it,
bam!
I smash Aunt Mindy's Camry into a light pole.

The relief I felt a minute ago smashes right along with it. I sit for a couple of minutes with my face in my hands. Finally I get up the nerve to get out and check the damage. There's a big, honking crack in the bumper, and one of the taillights is shattered.

At least the car still drives. There's nowhere else to go, so I hang a left and wind through Crown Hill, back to the old apartment building, which is lit by a full moon and the eerie glow of streetlights. I never really noticed before how tacky it looks, the way all the units are painted a pukey greenish color and most people have sheets strung up in their windows instead of curtains. The poop-covered Toyota still sits in Mom's parking space. There's a light on in my room; I wish it was me curled up in bed there tonight.

I park the car and hoist myself onto the low wall in front of the complex. I can feel the cold even through my flannel shirt, but I don't care anymore. I think about all the good times we had in that apartment: snuggling up and watching late-night TV, ordering pizzas, playing poker at the kitchen table, telling stories and laughing so hard we could barely breathe. There were some bad times too: Mom cussing out the landlord when he came to collect our rent, the night I had to stay with the neighbors because Mom got beat up. Still, even with all the bad, I'd give a million bucks to be living my old life right now.

I lean my head back and check out the stars. Sometimes they look so close I feel like I could touch them, but tonight they seem light-years away. I think about how alone I am, floating out here in this endless universe. I'm aching for someone to talk to. Not the Professor—I'm done with him. Not Tonya either.

Alan. I wish he was here right now. We'd kick back and shoot the breeze, talk about birds, talk about nothing. Or maybe we'd just sit and not talk, or—

A car honks. I tense, figuring it's some jerk trying to pick me up. Then I hear Aunt Mindy's voice.

"Stevie, is that you?"

I squint into the dark and realize with a jolt that it's Rick's Maserati idling by the curb. You-Know-Who is calling to me through his passenger side window.

"Come on. You can't sit there all night."

Wanna bet?
I say with my eyes.

She gets out of the car and slams the door. Then she leans in through the window and says something to Rick. He takes off, and she marches over to her Camry. I'm scared she'll notice the crack in the bumper, but she climbs in and opens the passenger door. "Get in!" she shouts.

I think about making a run for it, but I know it's no use. I have nowhere else to go. I drop off the wall and get in the car.

At first we don't say anything. I don't even look at her. When she finally breaks the silence, her voice is shaking. "I am so angry with you." Her face looks hard and tight, and she's holding onto her thighs like she's scared she might hit me. "What were you thinking, Stevie ? You don't know how to drive a car."

"I've driven one before, okay?"

"No, not okay. For your information, it's against the law to drive without a license."

"Fine. Just take me to jail, then."

"You don't know how close I came to calling the police. I told Rick, 'Let's go by the apartment one more time.' If we didn't find you here ... My God, Stevie, don't you realize you could have been killed?"

"Like you care," I say under my breath.

"What did you say?" She spits out each word.

"Like you care." I can spit words too.

She grabs me by both shoulders. "If I didn't care, do you think I would have called everyone I know, anyone who might have seen you? Do you think I would have forced Rick to drive every square inch of this city looking for you? You have no idea what you put me through. Here I'm thinking we're going to find you on a highway somewhere with your head through the windshield." She puts her hands over her face and starts to sob.

I don't know what to do, so I just sit there and watch her.

After a minute or so she wipes her eyes on her sleeve. "Look, are you hungry?"

I don't answer.

"Well, I am. Let's grab a burger at Dick's."

I wonder if she's gone nuts. I've never seen her eat a burger—she lives on salad and fish and energy bars. But sure enough, she makes me hand over the keys and then drives us the two blocks to Dick's. She slips me a twenty and says, "Get me a cheeseburger with extra onions, and some fries. And something for yourself, if you want."

I go to the walk-up window and order Aunt Mindy's stuff and a double Deluxe, onion rings, and a vanilla shake for me. The burgers smell so good and I'm so hungry, I start to dig in as soon as I get in the car.

"Hang on. We're not eating in a parking lot." She pulls onto Holman and follows it as it turns into 15 th, then takes a right on 75 th and parks by the Overlook, this little park with a chain-link fence along one side.

"I'll take that cheeseburger now," she says.

I hand her the warm burger, then unwrap my own and take a huge bite. Mayonnaise dribbles down my chin.

We chew on our food in silence for a minute. Then she turns to me and I brace myself for another lecture, but she just says, "Promise you won't ever scare me like that again."

"Whatever," I mumble around a mouthful of burger.

"Come on, let's look at the view." She wipes her hands on a napkin, stuffs her keys into her pocket, and strolls toward the fence.

I sit in the car sipping my shake, my shoulders hunched up to my ears. Aunt Mindy motions me over, but I ignore her. She puts her hands on her hips and gives me the get-your-butt-over-here stare.

Once I'm standing beside her, she says, "Tell me this isn't gorgeous."

I'm not usually big on views, but this one's not half bad. On the other side of the chain-link fence, with moonlight shining on their sails, the boats in Shilshole Bay Marina look like ghosts floating on the water. Beyond them, Puget Sound stretches toward the Olympics. It's quiet except for the lonely bark of a seal in the distance.

"I can understand why you're angry," she says. "We have a hard time seeing eye to eye when it comes to your mom."

I tense up, thinking we're headed for another fight.

"And I really should have told you about Rick."

Yeah, that.

"It was the last thing I was expecting. A few weeks ago he called and asked if we could get together and talk about how you were doing. We had coffee, and coffee led to dinner and—"

"Okay, okay, I get the picture."

"We've been spending some time together, and, well, we really should have told you sooner. We just wanted to see where it was going before we said anything." She turns to me. The moonlight makes her face look smooth and glowing, like the ladies on those skin-cream commercials. For the first time I sort of get what Rick might see in her. "It's been a long time since I've felt this way about someone. I hope you won't let this come between us, Stevie."

I'm trying my best to stay mad at her, but it's not working. I sigh and say, "Fine."

The seal barks again, but this time it doesn't sound so lonely. We stare out over the water for a minute more.

I clear my throat. "I guess I should tell you. I got a parking ticket."

"Not a big deal. You can pay for it with your allowance."

"And I backed into a pole. There's a big crack in the bumper and one of the taillights is smashed."

She blows air through her lips. "That's a bigger deal, but we'll work it out. Anything else you need to tell me?"

I think about the sweet, burnt-plastic smell and the Professor's crystal-dark pupils staring into mine. Some things I just can't tell Aunt Mindy.

She glances at me, then back at the water. "I guess there's something I need to tell you too. Your mom called again. She's still thinking about leaving rehab. Apparently some friend of hers is willing to loan her the money for bus fare. But if you encouraged her to finish out her twelve weeks, maybe she'd do it."

"I want her to come home!"

Her voice softens. "I know you do. But June has a chance to kick this thing. She might think she's okay now, but wait until she's back in the city again. There's going to be a lot of temptation."

I know she's right, but my heart keeps shouting that I want Mom back.

"I understand that you have a hard time believing this, but I really do want the best for your mom. She hasn't always made great choices, but she's my sister, and I love her." She puts her hand on my arm for a second, then pulls it away. "Just like I love you."

The breeze is starting to pick up, so I hug my shirt close.

"You're cold. Let's get out of here."

We drive without saying anything, but it's a different kind of silence than before. It's a window instead of a wall.

We pull up in front of the house. Before she turns off the ignition, she says, "I want you to give this some serious thought. Sleep on it, and if it feels right, we'll call your mom in the morning."

 

I'm so wiped out I could die, but I can't fall asleep. I go over things every which way as I watch the clock turn over to two, then three, then four in the morning. I make lists in my head. One is "Reasons Mom Should Stay in Rehab." It's got lots of important things on it, like
She'll get better for sure
and
She won't start using crystal again.
The other list, "Reasons Mom Should Come Home," only has one thing on it:
Because I want her to.

By five in the morning, I'm exhausted but I'm sure. When I finally fall asleep, I have that dream again. The blue-flowered blanket surrounds me from toe to chin, and Mom's breath as she leans in to kiss me is warm on my cheek. "Don't worry, Stevie," she whispers in that husky voice of hers. "I'll take care of you."

 

At nine Aunt Mindy makes the call. Once she gets Mom on the line, she hands the phone to me. "Good luck," she whispers, then leaves me alone.

"Mom? Are you there ?"

She wraps me up in her big, warm laugh. "How you doing, baby? My God, it's good to hear your voice."

I'm so choked up I can hardly talk. "Good to hear yours too."

"So, you ready to see your old mom again?"

Yes, yes, yes!
I want to tell her, but I know I have to be strong. "Yes, but..." I swallow. "But I think you should finish your program."

There's a long silence on the other end. "You don't want me to come home?"

"I didn't say that. I just want you to—"

"I can't believe it. My own daughter doesn't want me to come home."

"That's not what I'm saying!"

"This is exactly what I was afraid would happen." She sighs. When she speaks again her voice is heavy. "You've changed, baby. I feel like I don't know you anymore."

The world starts to crumble around me. The walls slide toward the floor, and the phone turns to dust in my hands.