Stones and Spark (32 page)

And for one brief moment, I even feel sorry for Helen. She flees "parents’ weekend" and this is her lousy welcome home. Can I really blame her for getting drunk? I run and I run and run and run. Maybe Helen's way of coping is more honest.

At the statue of Stonewall Jackson, I turn right, wondering if my sister's ticked off enough to leave town. The Greyhound bus station is six blocks north, a dumpy rectangular building, sitting directly across the street from the city baseball stadium. Coasting to a stop, I glance at the stadium, shuttered for winter. The field looks abandoned, nothing like that first game this spring, when Opening Day led us to Titus's restaurant.

And look what that one day brought into my life. Drew's life.

I lock my bike outside the bus station's entrance, and make a promise to God:
Bring Drew home, and I will never complain about baseball again
.

Inside the station, lying across four chairs, a woman sleeps below the electronic board that lists the bus arrival and departure information for tonight. The cities, the times, the stops along the way. One bus leaves for Washington D.C. in an hour, another for New York City. Yale University is in New Haven, Connecticut, not that far from Manhattan. I stand there, wondering whether Helen is drunk enough to hitchhike to campus. The woman lying on the chairs opens her eyes. Her skin is dark and faded, her hair the color of campfire ash, and the blank expression in her eyes says her departure was a long time ago.

I walk the terminal's L-shaped space, searching for Helen. Every surface in here looks grimy, as if coated by diesel fumes from the busses. Or from smoke. Richmond is home to the Philip Morris tobacco company; the city still allows smoking inside some of its buildings. Since my sister started smoking in tenth
grade, I follow the cloud that hovers over some orange storage lockers, the surfaces browning from exhaled tar. Helen's not there, and when I describe her for the two men puffing away, each one shakes his head.

I check the women's bathroom. Considering how dirty this place is, the linoleum is a disturbing shade of yellow. There are also a lot of discarded bus tickets on the floor and shiny brochures advertising The Jefferson Hotel, and of course the crumpled paper towels that never make it to the trashcan. I'm checking the stalls when a woman walks in. She wears high heels and a short, tight black skirt. When she sees me checking the stalls, she hesitates before walking to the mirror. She opens her purse, takes out a tube of lipstick, and leans into the mirror. Her eyes stay on me.

"You lookin' for somebody?" she asks.

"My sister." I describe Helen—reddish-brown hair, dressed like a hippie. "Have you seen her?"

The woman is carefully stroking her lips with a magenta color, so bright it glows. She straightens, gazes at me in the mirror. "Your sister, she's in some kinda trouble?"

"No."

She yanks a paper towel from the dispenser. "What'd she do?"

"Nothing, I just want to find her."

Eyes still on me, the woman blots her lipstick with the towel.

"So have you seen her?" I ask again.

"Can't say that I have." She tossed the towel toward the trash and walks to the door. When she throws it open, a gust of air smelling of diesel stirs the litter on the floor, including her paper towel. Like all the others, it's missed the can. The air lifts it, displaying her magenta kiss.

Overhead, the loudspeaker crackles. Somebody clears their throat, then announces the bus leaving for Washington D.C.

But my eyes are fixed on the paper towel. On the bleached white paper, the lipstick looks almost purple, almost the color of Drew's sparkly Schwinn bike. I step closer, feeling weirdly drawn to the thing, and when I'm directly above it, I can't stop staring at that parted mouth. It looks familiar somehow. Those silent lips that seem on the verge of saying something.

When I look up, my reflection gazes back at me. Brown eyes charcoaled with insomnia, cheeks red from biking through the cold, my long hair windblown. But the image fades from the glass as my mind recalls another pair of painted lips, and they remind me why the mouth on the towel looks familiar. Because it’s like that lipstick kiss on the St. Catherine's mirror. The one I saw that Friday night, in the girls’ bathroom. Same kind of bright silent mouth, ready to speak, to tell me something.

I glance at towel. Same kind of litter was on the floor.

That night.

The girls’ bathroom looked like this one, in the bus station.

And suddenly, I know.

I know.

***

I take one quick look inside the bus leaving for Washington, but Helen's not on it. And she's not inside the station. When I step outside, looking around, the only thing there is the baseball diamond, waiting across the street.

I think of Titus again.

He's got no alibi for Friday afternoon. None. And Drew and I shouldn't have been in his restaurant. He broke the law.

But as I bike south toward Monument Avenue, I hear his sister-in-law's voice in my head. And I see the grandchild, her skin dark as melted chocolate.

That is not Titus's child.

When I turn right on Grove Avenue, pedaling past the headquarters for the Daughters of the Confederacy, my mind is flipping through the days, going back to the worst Friday of my life. I recall Drew's bike, waiting outside the gym, and her jacket in the physics lab. The notebook, its pages devoted to drawings and diagrams explaining the physics between a bat and a ball. Simple stuff, really.

Like instructions. Like she was teaching someone how to hit.

Definitely not me. Drew already taught me how to hit a baseball. Because I'm athletic, she thought I'd love the sport. I could hit great; I was still bored.

And Titus?

He set batting records in the minor leagues. He hit so well the majors called him up.

Drew couldn't teach him anything about hitting.

I ride down the road, the streetlights beaming as clear as purified quartz all the way to St. Catherine's.
This time, the
parking lot outside the gym is empty. No limos. No chaperones. Nobody guarding the gym door.

I lay my bike on the grass outside the main building and walk carefully to the windows. All the lights are on. The classroom white boards are so clean they gleam. Desks and chaira aligned in rows. The floors swept of debris.

I check my watch. 7:18.

I circle the building, peering into each classroom until I find the person responsible for all this cleanliness.

John. The janitor.

He's cleaning Mrs. Weston's classroom. Our History teacher keeps a list of ancient dates on her white board, from the Peloponnesian War to the fall of Rome. The dates stay there until we've memorized every one. John moves his rag delicately around the numbers. I watch the overhead light, shining on his bald head. When he finishes cleaning the board, he removes a dust mop from his rolling cart and begins navigating through the desks, straightening each as he goes.

Here in the dark, watching him work, I feel both weightless and riveted to the ground. I'm here—completely—and not here. My mind continues to go back through the days and nights, even as my eyes watch him push a chair into its desk. I remember the dark classrooms that Friday night, how the desks twisted in disarray, how the hallway was littered with paper.

And the bathroom. That lipstick kiss waited on the mirror. He scrubbed it away while I was there. And it was after midnight.

Parsnip came by. She said: "Working late, I see."

I check my watch again. 7:24 p.m.

And almost all the classrooms have been cleaned.

When I look through the window again, John has stopped beside a desk where someone's left a sweater on the chair. He holds it up, as though looking for a name. He examines the St. Cat's crest but then glances at the open door, to the hallway. I think somebody's called his name. I watch the door, expecting a person to appear. But when nobody does, I glance back at John.

He presses the vest to his face, covering his nose and mouth. I watch his eyes. They roll back in his head then close. His chest expands with the deep inhalation, the theft of this sweater's scent, the stolen smell on this girl's clothing.

He is a man in total rapture.

There's only one vehicle in the front parking lot, by the main entrance. A white truck with a camper over its back. I peer through the driver's window. The glass is so clean, not one smudge or fingerprint. And inside, no litter.

I rap my knuckle down the camper, listening. There's no response.

Which means there's nothing here to convince Officer Lande to come out. Especially when the cops are convinced Drew and I are playing some game.

I take my bike over to the side of the building and open my cell phone, calling home. My dad's voice sounds like somebody's been kicked him in the stomach.

"Come home," he says. "Don't worry about Helen. She can take care of herself."

"Come home—right now?"

"Where are you?"

I glance around the empty school, the dark trees. "I'm thinking about hitting McDonald’s for dinner."

"Raleigh.” He hesitates. “I love you, very, very much."

"I love you, too, Dad. And I'll be home soon."

When I call Helen's phone again, she's still not answering. But this time I leave a message. It's not witty: "Call me. Dad's worried. And hurry, this stupid phone's almost dead."

I slip the thing into my pocket and start bouncing foot-to-foot to stay warm. Twelve minutes later, John the janitor comes out the school's front door, whistling. He holds a ring of keys and shakes them, filling the dark with silvery music.

When he gets in his truck, I hop on my bike and follow him down River Road. I pump the pedals, trying to keep up. We pass the baseball field, the quarry's entrance, and cross the Huguenot Bridge. He pulls away.

I sail right through a yellow light on Cherokee Road, thighs burning. The white truck is moving faster. It crosses Chippenham Parkway. I stand, running on the pedals, and see his brake lights flash, right before he turns right. When I reach that corner, he's gone. There's a fire station on one side. Across the road, a shopping center. The parking lot is so well-lit I can see the bag boys pushing shopping carts out of Ukrop's grocery store, rattling down the parking lot. I ride over there, coasting the lot's aisles. My panting breath clouds up the air in front of me.

I cover the entire parking lot, but see no white truck with a camper.

I've lost him.

Pulling to the parking lot's curb, I scan the cars again. The bag boys are chatting with customers, lifting groceries into trunks. I take a deep breath of cold air and close my eyes for one second. A desperate prayer is bubbling up and I can't decide whether the burning sensation in my chest is from riding or losing. I take another breath, and catch a scent of heaven.

I open my eyes. French fries. Burgers.

Behind me, a McDonald’s is tucked into the corner of the lot, disguised to blend in with the shopping center. Its drive-through lane opens onto the main road.

My inner attorney opens the argument:
You let your dad think you were going to McDonald’s for dinner
.

I scan the parking lot, searching for the white truck.

My little lawyer objects:
The truck is not here, and you need to eat
.

After a while, the arguments for eating grow so strong that I'm suddenly wondering if my entire hypothesis is wrong. So John the janitor cleaned late on Friday—maybe it was because of the dance. Or maybe because the plumbers had to repair the plumbing. Or maybe he always works late on Fridays and Parsnip didn't know because she pretty much ignores anybody who's not Ellis. Or Sandbag.

My inner lawyer approaches the bench:
If you don't get dinner at McDonald’s, you'll be lying to your dad. Again.

I ride toward the small golden arches, my mouth watering like a faucet. When I pass in front of the drive-thru lane, car headlights sear my eyes. I climb off my bike, seeing purple spots, and have to blink rapidly to see the numbers on my bike lock. I'm still blinking when the drive-thru service window slides open and a chipper female voice says: "Here ya go!" I glance over, still blinking. Two white bags come out the window. I'm almost drooling with hunger. The driver leans out, takes the bags. The girl hands him two drinks and the truck pulls forward.

A white truck. Camper on the back.

And behind the wheel, a bald man.

I'm right behind him when he turns left on Stony Point Road, so close I can taste the gas coming from the tailpipe.

But the road turns out to be two lanes with no street lights. His headlights are too far up for me to see the road, but he taps the brakes after about a quarter mile. The flash of red light is bright enough to show me the road's shoulder as I swerve around his back bumper. I feel my front wheel sink into gravel, my handlebars wobbling. I crank the pedals and spurt back onto the road, just in front of the truck.