Rhythm & Clues: A Young Adult Novel (9 page)

My knuckles tighten on the wheel. “It’s behind us.”

Sabrina sits up straighter.

“I’ll just keep driving. Maybe we can lose them on the highway. I don’t want you—”

“No, go to my house.” She wipes away a tear and takes a deep breath. “I need to do this.”

I sigh, but follow her instructions except I don’t plan on ditching her. Maybe I can keep her in the car until the other one stops, the person gets out, and then I can peel away and take both of us to safety. If my car allows me.

As I round the corner, I spot Josephine and Chuck standing in the drive, arguing, their arms flailing. Their white Volvo sits in the driveway with the trunk popped open.

I swerve into the nearest driveway and slam on my breaks. “You little liar.”

“No, I swear.” Sabrina twists in her seat, her eyes wide. “What are they doing here?”

I don’t want to believe her. But when I see Chuck bend down and lift one suitcase and then a second into the trunk, I have to.

“Suitcases? Where are they going?” Sabrina’s voice has fear in it. “And why didn’t they tell me? Mom dropped me off at school on the way to her new job!”

Chuck and Josephine get back in their car, slam the doors, and peel out of the driveway without enough time to buckle their seat-belts and look both ways. They speed off in the opposite direction.

A few seconds later, the silver Ford Focus whips past us—too fast to glimpse its driver—and follows the Tullys down the road, leaving our car alone. Sabrina and I stare at each other, dumbfounded.

Six Weeks Ago

I’
d invited Gavin to a free concert in the park as a joke, never expecting he’d say yes. Even though he’d been standing up to his parents more since dinner two weeks ago, I still didn’t think his parents would withdraw their stance on rock & roll. But much like the way I temporarily dyed my hair when I met Gavin’s parents, I couldn’t exactly show up to pick him up in my steaming turd of a car. Even with its dents and scratches, Krystal’s car was still more presentable than my own.

So I sucked in a deep breath and pushed inside the diner where she worked the lunch shift.

“Can I switch cars with you?” I asked Krystal in lieu of a hello.

She wiped her hands on her apron, her platinum blonde hair twisted up into a messy bun. She wore only mascara during the day, probably so her face would remain a blank canvas before she painted it for her night job. “I’d rather you didn’t. The insurance is about to run out, and your car is already a safety hazard, what with your bumper falling off.”

I swallowed hard, nodding. It was a long shot to ask. I braced for her to yell at me for even bringing up the subject.

Instead, she clucked her tongue. “I have my fingers crossed the inspectors won’t notice the glue on the side-view mirror,” she joked.

I decided to play her at her own game. “So if I damage the car, we can put it in neutral and crash it into a tree. Collect the insurance before it’s time to renew.”

She stared at me for a minute, her eyes searching mine for something. The smile returned while she dug her keys out of her apron. “If you do get into an accident, make sure a Mercedes is at fault.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” I held her eyes to my chest, thankful she was in one of her good moods today. Thankful this one small gesture made it seem like she actually cared about me.

Inside Krystal’s car, I tucked my hair back in a high ponytail and obscured my streaks with a pageboy cap that she used in her shows. Satisfied with the mirage, I drove to Gavin’s house and honked once. Nothing. I honked three more times before I grew impatient and headed for the door. My finger perched on the bell, but before I could press it, a muffled argument distracted me.

I pressed my ear to the door. Framed in a small, translucent window, Josephine and Chuck huddled together right behind the door, their backs to me. I tilted my body to hide in the shadows and listened as hard as I could, my finger still hovering near the doorbell in case they discovered my presence.

“—going to draw every neighbor to their front window, blaring that horn of hers.”

“Just what were you thinking, Jo, letting him go out with her?” The anger in Chuck’s voice made me flinch back from the door a bit.

“What else could I do? If we hold them too tightly, it’ll backfire. They’ll lie to us and we’ll lose all control.” Josephine lowered her voice, and I strained to hear the rest. “You want him sneaking out?”

“What I want is for Gavin to make some decent friends. She’s nosy and manipulative. Dangerous. You saw how she helped Sabrina rebel.”

“I don’t like this either, but I can’t lay down the law on whom he hangs out with. He’s too old for that. And she
is
from church.”

Chuck snorted. “Is that supposed to make it all okay? We agreed on this, for them! Don’t forget why we’re doing this.”

“I just feel like I’m losing them.”

Just then, a rumbling sound made me jump back. The garage door rolled open, and I hustled back to the car as fast as possible, huffing to catch my breath.

So the Tullys thought I was dangerous. It still stung, even though I shouldn’t be surprised.

Gavin waved at me from inside the garage, and I tried to lean against the car in a natural way. At least he couldn’t see how my throat was closing. My arm slipped from its perch so I got in the car and tried to steady my heart. He slid into the seat next to me and removed the headphone buds from his ears. His long, floppy hair hid them from most eyes.

“So it’s official.” A beaming smile appeared on his face. “My dad called Milford Brook and registered me. And it looks like Sabrina’s off to boarding school.”

“Really? Your dad allowed this?” That didn’t jive with the conversation I’d just heard. “I mean, congrats.”

“You don’t sound excited.”

“I am, just, I didn’t think your parents were decided yet.”

I reversed out of his driveway while Gavin tuned the radio. Bits and pieces of songs filled the car, lines cut and spliced as he rolled over them, uninterested. But when strung together so quickly, they still sounded whole. Like Gavin’s music.

“You did a good job convincing them.” He smiled at me, a happy-go-lucky tone in his voice. Otherwise known as an oblivious tone.

I drove a few blocks, and then pulled the car over. We both got out and switched places. His parents had finally started giving him driving lessons at his insistence, but they structured the practices on deserted roads. He wanted to tackle more realistic routes. I was more than willing to teach him. Even in Krystal’s car.

“So where did you tell your parents you were going today?” I buckled my seat belt.

He adjusted the rear-view mirror. “Your friends are hosting a book club.”

I had to laugh. “What are we reading? Just so I can get the Cliff Notes it in case your parents drill me.”

“
Pride and Prejudice
. It’s my mom’s favorite. Mention anything she adores and she caves right in.” He turned the ignition and eased out of the parking space.

“Gavin, are you sure sneaking around is a good idea? Lying to your parents?” I wasn’t the most saintly person on Earth, but he had to do this because he wanted to, not because I’d encouraged him to rebel.

“They’ve lied to me too. I’ve stopped feeling bad.” He paused at a stop sign, looking left, right, and left again even though no cars were anywhere in sight. For someone so concerned with playing by the rules, I was surprised to hear this declaration out of his mouth.

“Um, I’m going to need more info than that.”

“They act all religious, right? Except, we get all dressed up for church, head down to services, and then leave before it starts.” He hesitated at a yellow light, but then gunned the engine. “Well, my mom stays. But my dad, Sabrina, and I only stay for the service on holidays.”

I fanned my hand in front of my chest. “I’m hyperventilating. I don’t believe this.”

He laughed. “The excuse is the minister has views on certain bible passages that don’t match dad’s own and those are the Sunday services Sabrina and I skip. But the thing is, my dad sometimes doesn’t even bother to check what the service is about that day.”

I let this sink in. “It does sound strange, but maybe your dad just isn’t as religious as your mom but keeps pretending so you learn good values?”

He turned the car onto a crowded road, merging expertly into traffic patterns. “Yeah, I’ve thought of that. But there’s something my mom’s lying about too.”

I waited while he concentrated on driving.

“She didn’t graduate from boarding school with my dad like she tells us.” He checked his rear-view mirror, then both side-view mirrors. “She’s really a year younger than my dad, and a few years ago when my grandma died and we were cleaning out her house, I found Mom’s high school diploma stuffed in a drawer. She graduated from the local public school in the town she grew up in. All her report cards were there too, so she
did
go to boarding school for three years. When I asked them about it, they stumbled over their answer, claiming the diploma I found was a fake they created as a joke once.”

I cover my hand with my mouth. “Wow. Worst. Excuse. Ever.”

“Tell me about it. And of course, with my grandparents both gone, I couldn’t ask them. That’s when I started keeping stuff from my parents too, trading some kid my bike for his old mp3 player when he got an iPhone. Told my parents the bike was stolen and they promptly bought me a new one. Getting the digital music composition software was harder.” He patted his pocket where it lay concealed. The car veered to the shoulder and Gavin corrected his driving.

“What’d you trade for that?”

“My body.”

I must have looked shocked because he winked. “I’m just kidding.” He bit his lip. “But I did do something really bad to get it. I stole from my parents. One dollar at a time. Sometimes just quarters so they wouldn’t notice. It took me two years to save up. Then I ditched movie night at church and walked to the Best Buy a few blocks away.”

I place my palm on his shoulder. “Gavin, I totally understand why you did it.”

He raised a brow at me. “Only you would condone stealing and lying.”

“It’s not like you were stealing from your parents for drug money.”

His lips twisted into a playful smile. “Sometimes music feels like a drug to me.”

At the outdoor concert, the sun scorched my bare shoulders. I wore a halter—the only kind of tank top that hid my heart surgery scar. Sunglasses crowned Gavin’s head, pushing back his hair, and he slathered on sunscreen so his parents wouldn’t catch on to our outdoor activities.

A makeshift stage rose above the crowd scattered across the grassy park. Gavin bobbed his head to the music and tapped his hands against his thighs. I stood beside him and watched the crowd because I long gave up on trying to see over them. Instead I let the rock music burrow into my heart.

When the second band finished their set, the crowd broke apart like a zipper, everyone scattering for the concession stand before the third band finished setting up. People pushed us left and right, trying to get past. I inched closer to Gavin so we wouldn’t get separated.

“You know…maybe if your parents saw how much you loved music, they would allow you to go to concerts like this.” I waved my hand at the crowd. “You have to admit, this is pretty harmless.”