Where You'll Find Me (2 page)

Chapter Four

“Hanley. Come on. Time to get up.”

My eyes have only been closed for five minutes. It can’t be time for my dad to wake me up. I groan and inch closer to the wall.

Dad sighs. He must be as tired of the “Get Hanley out of Bed” battle as I am. “It’s six thirty. You know what Principal Trombley said…” As he trails off, he taps impatiently on the doorframe. Even from this far away, I can smell his familiar aftershave. Usually, I don’t mind the smell. Today, it makes me want to vomit.

Yes, I know what Principal Trombley said. She called my parents to inform them that I have almost enough tardies to get a detention. I have almost enough detentions to warrant a suspension. And if I earn enough suspensions, I could be expelled. Personally, I don’t see how suspensions or expulsions are fitting punishments for high school students. Who
wouldn’t
want extra time off school?

But none of that matters today because I’m not going to be tardy for first period. There’s no way I’m going to school at all. When I open my eyes, the bulletin board on the wall next to my bed swirls into a blob. The room spins like a merry-go-round. Yep. I’m still drunk. “Not going to school,” I grumble.

Dad sighs again. The doorframe tapping continues. “Are you sick?” There’s no concern in his voice. I don’t get sick often, but I use the excuse more often than any healthy person should.

“No.”

“Then you’re going to school. Get up.” Tap. Tap. Tap.

It’s time to break out the big guns. I can only use this excuse once a month. It works best on a morning like this, when Mom is already on her way to the office. I groan for added affect. “I’m on my period. I have cramps. I can’t go.”

The tapping stops. My dad’s squirming is audible from here. Even though he has a wife and two daughters, any mention of “female problems” sends him into a tailspin. He clears his throat. “Didn’t you just…didn’t you say…a week or two ago…”

While he fumbles for the uncomfortable words, I rack my brain. Did I already use that excuse this month? I faked
something
to get out of school not too long ago, but I can’t remember what it was…

I roll onto my back and stare at my dad. He’s dressed in his usual black suit, and his thick brown hair is still wet from the shower. At least the room has stopped spinning enough for me to make out these details. But I’m still not going to school. “What, are you suddenly an expert on the female reproductive system?” I snap. “Are you keeping track of my cycle? Would you like to teach me about my own body? Hey, while we’re at it, why don’t we talk about sex? You can tell me all about how—”

“No,” Dad says loud enough to cut into my diatribe. He tugs at the tie around his neck. “Please stop.” He clears his throat again. “I’ll just call school and tell them you’re not coming in today.”

Hanley: 1. Dad: 0. “Thank you,” I say, though my bitter tone negates the words.

“Feel better.” The door closes with a click.

I roll back onto my side and close my eyes. Dad’s a lawyer at a big firm in Detroit. He’s on a big case, so he won’t be home until at least six. Mom’s an accountant, and it’s tax season, so she won’t be home until seven or eight. Heather doesn’t usually come home right after school, and even if she does, she won’t bother me. Curling into a ball, I enjoy the warmth and relish the thought of being alone and asleep for the next twelve hours. Happiness.

…

The phone wakes me that afternoon. I’m not drunk anymore, but the pounding in my head is proof of just how drunk I recently was. It can go to voice mail. But as I hunker down for a few more hours of sleep, my cell phone rings—Simple Plan’s “Perfect.” It’s the ringtone I set specifically for my parents’ cell and office phones so that I know when to ignore a call without needing to look at the screen. For a while, the ringtone for my mom was Meredith Brooks’s “Bitch,” but Heather caught on to that, and my phone was taken away for an entire month. Snitch. Bitch.

As much as I want to ignore this call, if I don’t answer, Mom or Dad will just keep calling, eliminating the possibility of sleep in the near future. I sit up, careful to avoid aggravating my aching head. My fleece, with my phone in one of the pockets, is nowhere to be seen. The chair at the desk where I usually hang it is empty. The surfaces of the desk and the dresser next to it are mountains of dirty clothes, magazines, makeup, and nail polish. The floor is more of the same. No jacket, though.

The ringtone continues playing as I shove my way out from under the covers and follow the sound. It leads me to the floor in between the foot of my bed and my overflowing closet, where I must have dropped my jacket last night. I answer just before voice mail kicks in.

“Hello?” My mouth feels stuffed with cotton, and my voice is hoarse. Water is on the agenda as soon as this call is over.

“Hello, Hanley.” People always say that my mom and I sound alike on the phone, but I don’t think we do. She sounds like she has a giant stick up her ass, a tone that I try to avoid. “I just spoke to your father. Do you realize how many absences you’ve had this semester?”

I sit back down on the edge of my bed. So much for motherly concern over me being home sick. “Yes, Mother. I know. But I also know that I’m still passing all of my classes, so it doesn’t matter.”

In the background, fingers click away at a keyboard. Maybe I should be annoyed that my mom never gives me her full attention except when I’m in trouble for something a lot bigger than missing school, but sometimes I can use her distraction to my advantage.

“What’s the problem today? Dad didn’t really say.”

Of course he didn’t. “Cramps. Headache.” At least one of those isn’t a lie.

“Maybe we should make another appointment with the gynecologist. You shouldn’t be missing school every month.”

The thought makes me gag. Besides the miserable exam, the doctor would say that there’s nothing wrong with me, and I would lose my one-free-day-per-month excuse. Not going to happen. “I’m fine. I just don’t feel good. You know. Or are you too old to remember what it feels like?”

“Not funny, Hanley,” she says, still typing.

I can picture Mom in her office. Giant oak desk, a large window behind her, one wall covered with framed degrees and awards, the other filled with five or six tall filing cabinets. Many weeks, she spends more time in that office than she does in her own house. She keeps one framed picture of our family in the corner of her desk, taken by a professional photographer when I was in fifth grade and Heather was in eighth. She’ll never update that picture. Our family will never be as perfectly fake as it was back then. Not since the day everything fell apart for me.

“Your homework will be online, right? You can make it up this weekend.”

“Yeah,” I say, even though my weekend schedule is already filled to the brim with extravagant amounts of sleep.

There’s a click on the line. “Oh, I’ve got another call. But, Hanley? Take a few minutes and clean your room this afternoon. It’s a disaster area.”

Before I can respond or even say good-bye, the line goes dead. The phone ends up on the ground on a pile of old magazines. I’ve tried to tell my mom that she should just stay out of my room so the mess won’t bother her, but she never listens.

I’m tempted to crawl back into bed, but Advil and water are more pressing needs. I shuffle out of my room and into the bathroom Heather and I share. It has pastel pink and yellow wallpaper and a quote that proclaims, “Little girls are made of sugar and spice and everything nice.” The quote’s wooden frame has been subjected to heat and humidity from the shower for so many years that it is permanently attached to the wall. My attempts to remove it have been unsuccessful, so now I do my best to ignore it. Nauseating bathroom décor aside, I do feel better after I’ve peed, washed my face, and brushed my teeth. My teeth are always fuzzy after a night of drinking, and they feel amazing once they’re clean. I pop three Advil and will them to start working soon.

On my way downstairs, I don’t bother to avoid the Third Step Creak. The kitchen is spotless, as always. It, too, is in need of a remodel. The patterned blue wallpaper is beginning to peel in places. The border consisting of ducks, roosters, and other farm animals might have been fashionable in the 1950s, but probably not even then. My room may be a mess, but at least it looks like it belongs in this century.

I fill a glass with ice water and gulp it down without stopping to take a breath. After a refill, I walk around the kitchen, drinking this glass more slowly. There’s a bulletin board on the desk near the kitchen table. It’s covered with neat rows of business cards, appointment reminders, and our family’s calendar. I’m studying what’s on the agenda for this weekend when a voice says, “Good to see you up and around,” and startles me so much that the glass slips out of my hand. It shatters, splashing my pajama pants with water, ice, and shards of glass.

Garage Boy is leaning up against the wall like he owns the place.

My hand flies to my chest. Ohmygod, this must be what a heart attack feels like. “You scared the
shit
out of me. God. Break and enter much?” I crouch down to start cleaning up the mess and focus on getting enough oxygen to slow my heart rate back to normal.

Garage Boy crouches down to help. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“What the hell did you mean to do then?” When I attempt to shoot a glare in his direction, the ocean-blue of his eyes distracts me. I can’t be intimidating when I’m looking into those eyes, so I force my gaze back to the mess. “And what the hell are you doing in my house?” The biggest chunks of glass are easy to pick up. As I carry them to the garbage can, Garage Boy follows, glass and ice in his hands as well.

“Your family only locks the door between the garage and the house at night.”

My instinct is to snap back with a sarcastic response, but when I close the kitchen cupboard and catch sight of his tall frame, whatever I was going to say falls right out of my brain. Instead, I stomp off toward the laundry room. Garage Boy follows. The broom and dustpan are in here somewhere. “Just because the door is unlocked doesn’t mean you have an open invitation to come in. Last I checked, trespassing was illegal.”

“I’m aware of that,” he says.

The threat doesn’t seem to faze him, but his lack of reaction to something illegal does faze me. I’m alone in the house with a stranger who obviously lacks any kind of moral compass. Fabulous. “Good to hear,” I snap as I sweep up the rest of the glass and dump it in the garbage.

“You’re mad, aren’t you?” he asks.

I nudge past him, careful not to touch. “No shit, Sherlock.”

“I’m sorry. I was just cold. Bored. Lonely. I know your parents and sister won’t be home for a while, and I knew you were here.”

He’s ditched his heavy jacket in favor of a gray and green Michigan State University hoodie. Strike one: scaring me into a heart attack. Strike two: being a Spartans fan. “I should call the cops on you.” Leaning against the counter, I fold my arms over my chest. When I look down, I realize I’m wearing the pajamas with the hole in the armpit and the bleach stain down the right side. I cross my arms a little tighter.

“You won’t,” he says.

The confidence in his words bugs me. I pick up the broom and head back down to the laundry room. This time, Garage Boy stops in the hallway behind me.

“What happened in eighth grade?”

My heart stops just as suddenly as it did when I dropped the glass. The closet door handle digs into my skin as I clutch it tighter. “What?” The word comes out shaky.

“Eighth-grade Hanley looks nothing like seventh-grade Hanley.”

Relief floods through me as I realize what he’s referencing. The hallway leading to the laundry room is home to two of those cutesy picture frames with thirteen picture slots: one for each school photo from kindergarten to twelfth grade. In the seventh grade picture, my hair is the same dirty blond color as my mom’s and Heather’s. I’m wearing a pink T-shirt and have a bright smile on my chubby face. In the eighth grade picture, my hair is the jet black that it is now, thanks to regular use of Natural Blue Black hair dye. My clothes match my hair, and my cheeks are pale and thin over an empty smile.

“I discovered hair dye. So what?”

“It’s not just that,” he says, still studying the pictures. “You look…sadder, somehow.”

It’s not just that I
looked
sadder. It’s that I
was
sadder. And it didn’t take a whole grade for that change to happen. It only took one night. I spin the silver ring that is a permanent fixture on my left thumb. “You shouldn’t be in here.”

“Okay, okay. I’ll go.” He picks up his jacket. When he stands, sunlight hits the stubble on his chin. It’s attractive. He’s attractive. Well, except for the MSU shirt, which he covers up when he zips his coat. The attraction makes being angry at his breaking and entering decidedly more difficult. “I like your hair black,” he says as he loops his backpack over one shoulder. “It looks good on you.”

Warmth rises to my face, because right now I look anything but good. “Wait,” I call before he can get outside. “You at least have to tell me your name. I can’t keep thinking of you as Garage Boy.”

This grin shows off his crooked front tooth again. “Nate.”

“Where are you going, Nate?”

He shrugs. “Don’t worry. I won’t break and enter again.” He opens the door. “Bye, Hanley.”

“Bye,” I say, but the door is already closed.

Chapter Five

The weekend passes with numerous naps, zero homework, and a cosmic bowling event Rosalinda dragged me to that ended up as lame as the shoes we were forced to wear. On Sunday, Rosalinda texts me before noon—an hour I wasn’t sure existed on the weekend—and asks if I want to go to the mall. We haven’t been shopping in forever, and I have some leftover birthday money to spend.

After one tiny lie about finishing my schoolwork, Mom agrees to my shopping plan, because how much trouble could I get in at the mall?

She wouldn’t like the answer to that question.

I sit outside with my hands shoved in my jacket pockets while I wait for Misty’s van to pull up. Misty Smith is a junior at the private school a few miles down the road from my house. We met at a party a few months ago, where Rosalinda immediately befriended her because she has: 1, a car, 2, an older sister who purchases alcohol for us, and 3, a working fake ID. Rosalinda was using Misty at first, but it didn’t take long for her to become more than a source of alcohol. She became someone who laughs at our dumb inside jokes. Who sticks up for us when someone else treats us like shit. A friend. I feel bad for Misty. She gets made fun of because she’s overweight and because her family doesn’t have as much money as the rich snobs who make up the rest of her school’s population. It’s good that she has us to stick up for her, too.

The sound of Misty’s van reaches my ears before I see it coming down the street. It’s the kind of van with few enough windows to make you wonder if there’s a dead body or a child molester in the back. Though I don’t know exactly what year it is, it’s old enough to only have seatbelts for the front two seats. Misty claims that she likes the muffler-challenged van, that it has more character than the flashy new cars her classmates drive, but really it’s the only vehicle she or her family could afford.

Rosalinda is in the passenger seat, so I climb in the back. It smells like McDonalds French fries with a hint of cigarette smoke. The van’s stereo system—if it can be called that—is broken as well, so there’s no music to drown out the sound of the muffler. “Hey,” I say, pushing clothes and papers out of my way.

“Hey,” Misty says as she backs out of my driveway. She’s wearing jeans and a hoodie with her blond hair in a ponytail. Her school has a strict dress code, so she dresses for comfort on the weekends. Even when we go to parties, she doesn’t bother with nice clothes or makeup.

“Hola, chica,” Rosalinda says. Unlike Misty, comfort is the furthest thing from Rosalinda’s mind. The mall is an opportune place to meet guys, so she’s wearing dark jeans and a tight, long-sleeve shirt that shows off her ample cleavage. As usual, she’s not wearing a coat.

My mall-shopping wardrobe falls somewhere in between the two: jeans, a scoop neck T, not quite as revealing as Rosalinda’s, and Uggs. I was going to wear my boots, but I haven’t forgiven them after my drunken clumsiness on Thursday night. My ankles still hurt.

Rosalinda turns so she’s facing me and pats the dark brown curls around her shoulders. “Hair up or down?”

The smell of the gel she used to scrunch her hair into tight ringlets is strong. I’m jealous of her curls and think they’re too pretty to shove into a ponytail holder, so I say, “Down.” Rosalinda nods and turns back toward the front of the van.

“That’s what I told her two minutes ago, but she didn’t listen,” Misty says as she turns left out of my subdivision and onto the main road. Rosalinda smacks Misty on the arm, and she protests with a laugh and an “ouch.”

“I’m allowed to get more than one opinion,” Rosalinda says.

“True, but you never listen to what I have to say. Like bowling last night. I told you it was going to suck, but did you listen? No. You went anyway. And what happened, Hanley?” she asks as she glances in the rearview mirror. Her green eyes are pretty, but sink too far into her face. Someday I’ll teach her how to use eyeliner to highlight her eyes and blush to bring out her cheekbones.

“It sucked,” I respond.

“Exactly,” Misty says. “Maybe you should listen to me more often.”

At the mall, Misty parks in our usual spot outside the food court. Warmth and the smells of fast food and industrial cleaner hit us when we walk through the door. An employee is standing in front of the China 1 kiosk, offering pieces of sesame chicken on toothpicks. “Free sample?” he asks as we approach. And we accept, even though we’ve sampled all of their dishes too many times to count.

Charlotte Russe is our first stop, where the mall’s elevator music is replaced with something loud and upbeat. The store’s sizes run small, which means Misty spends her time looking at shoes and other accessories, and Rosalinda spends her time trying on clothes that are even tighter than the rest of her wardrobe. Which means I spend my time trying to talk her out of purchases that are too anything—too tight, too short, too see-through, too consisting of pleather.

After successfully distracting Rosalinda from a denim bustier with an emphasis on the
bust
, we head out of the store empty-handed.

“Come on,” Rosalinda is still whining, “it wasn’t
that
slutty.”

“It was ‘
that
slutty’ times seven,” Misty says.

“If you still want it before we leave, you can go back and try it on again.” The only reason I say this is because we have many more stores to visit, and some other item will catch Rosalinda and her wallet’s attention.

She pouts. “Fine.”

I pause in front of a store called Truly Michigan. It’s the kind of store we walk by all the time without a second glance. Today, something catches my eye. At the entrance to the store is a jewelry display: necklaces, earrings, pins, and bracelets, all made with Michigan’s state stone. Petoskey stones look like ordinary stones when they’re dry, but as soon as they get wet, a beautiful hexagonal pattern appears on the surface. Almost like magic. These stones have been polished and glossed to make the distinctive pattern shine through permanently.

The stones on the necklaces are smooth and cold beneath my fingers. For a moment, I’m transported back to summers on the shores of Elk Lake. To hours spent searching through the water for these magical rocks with my best friend, heads so close together that it was impossible to tell where my blond hair stopped and hers started. The memories are clear enough to sting.

“Hanley?” Misty’s voice breaks into my thoughts. I drop my hand and fight to bring my attention back to the present. “What’s the hold up?”

“Just…nothing.” I shake my head and tug at the ring on my thumb. “Sorry.”

“Hey, Hanley,” Rosalinda says, sliding up next to me. “I think that guy is staring at you. He’s kind of cute.”

My gaze lingers on the Petoskey stones for a few more seconds before I force myself away. “He’s probably staring at you,” I say, clearing my throat to get rid of the choked emotion.

“No, he’s definitely staring at you,” Misty says. “Look.”

When I look toward the center of the mall, it takes a minute to locate the guy they’re talking about. There’s a kiosk selling some kind of miracle face lotion. There are shoppers walking back and forth, some weighed down with bags, some empty-handed. But then I see him. Sitting on a bench in his Pumas, jacket, and jeans with his backpack resting next to him. Staring right at me. Garage Boy. Nate.

I push the Petoskey stones out of my mind as emotions bubble to the surface: fear that Nate’s reach extends beyond my house, anger at him for stalking me, anger with myself for not seeing him as dangerous until now, and a twinge of annoyance that I found him attractive and still do.

“Oh, he is cute,” Misty says. “Usually, I have a thing for guys with long hair, but he might change my mind.”

I march over to him.

“Wait, what are you doing?” Rosalinda asks, scrambling to keep up.

This is not mall protocol. First of all, when a guy stares at us, he’s usually staring at Rosalinda, not me or Misty. Second, when a guy stares, the correct response is to stare back for a few seconds. Smile. Laugh. Flirt from afar. Spend the next hour or two watching out for the guy and trying to cross paths with him whenever possible. After all of that, then
maybe
allow him to approach and talk to us. I’m breaking every one of our unspoken rules.

But at this moment, I don’t care. This isn’t some random guy. This is Nate, Garage Boy, and I don’t have time to stop and explain that to my friends. “What, you’re stalking me now?” My imagination drifts to a police interview after Nate does something terrible to me or my family.
Let me get this straight
, the imaginary officer says.
Not only did you let him in your garage and in your house, but you also didn’t stop him from following you to the mall?

“Well, hello, Hanley. It’s nice to see you, too,” Nate says with a smile I do a terrible job of ignoring.

I lean closer to him so that the group of approaching mall walkers won’t hear, but set my tone to make sure Nate will get my message, loud and clear. “Stop following me. Leave me, my house, and my family alone. I mean it this time. If I see you again, I will call the cops.”

I stand back to my full height, which, at five feet, is not nearly as tall as I need it to be right now and spin on my heel. Rosalinda and Misty are staring at me.

As I start to walk away, Nate calls, “Okay, but I’m not the one following you. I think you followed me.”

It’s the absolute absurdity of the comment that stops me in my tracks. When I turn back around, Nate is sitting there, cool as a cucumber, a smile planted on his face. “What?” I demand.

“You followed me,” he repeats, as if I am deaf or slow. He motions to the mall around him. “I come here three or four times a week. It’s warm. There are people to watch and things to look at. Most of the time, people leave me alone. The way I see it, this is my turf. Not yours. You followed me.”

Before I can begin to think of a response to that ridiculous speech, Rosalinda and Misty come up behind me.

“Hey, Hanley,” Rosalinda says in her fake, flirty voice. She flips her curls over her shoulder. I bet she’s glad she left her hair down now. “Who’s your friend?”

“He’s not my…” I start to say, but Nate jumps to his feet.

“I’m Nate,” he says, reaching out a hand for her to shake. He’s all smiles.

“Nate,” Rosalinda echoes. “It’s nice to meet you. I’m Rosalinda, this is Misty, and you obviously already know Hanley.”

Nate shakes hands with Misty as well. This time it’s my turn to stare, dumbfounded, as I think of nothing other than slapping that ridiculous grin off his face.

“Do you go to our school?” Rosalina asks. “I don’t think I’ve seen you around Edison.”

“No. I don’t.” He doesn’t mention what school he does go to or the fact that he doesn’t go to school at all.

“Too bad,” Rosalinda says with another flip of her hair.

“So, how do you and Hanley know each other?” Misty asks.

The last thing I want is for Nate to say anything resembling the truth, so I snap myself out of my stupor. “We met at Clinton’s party Thursday night.” I narrow my eyes in Nate’s direction, warning him to keep his mouth shut.

My powers must work because he nods and says, “Yeah. Clinton’s party. It was…”

“…awesome,” Rosalinda finishes for him. “But it would have been even better if Hanley would have introduced you to me.” She nudges my arm, and I know she’s disappointed she didn’t get to Nate first. If only she knew the whole story.

I pull out my cell phone and glance at the display. “Oh, look at that. We gotta go. Good-bye, Nate.” The last two words are more forceful than friendly.

“But we don’t have to…” Misty complains as I grab her wrist and drag her away.

“Yes, we do. Lots of shopping to do. Let’s go, Rosalinda,” I say through gritted teeth, almost running into a woman with a stroller in my effort to get away.

“Bye, Nate,” Rosalinda says. “See you later, I hope.”

“Nice to meet you, ladies,” Nate calls. “Good-bye, Hanley.”

I don’t look back.

“Ouch,” Misty whines, and it’s only then that I realize how tightly I’m gripping her arm.

“Sorry.” I let go and take a hard right toward the escalator leading to the mall’s lower level. This isn’t the path we usually take, but right now I need to put as much space between us and Nate as possible.

Misty rubs her wrist. “What happened back there? You were kind of a bitch, and he’s way too hot for that.”

“Yeah,” Rosalinda says from a few steps behind us, “what the hell, Hanley?”

“It’s nothing. He’s nothing. Forget about it.”

Rosalinda looks over her shoulder, as if she can still see him, even though we’re downstairs now. “Forget about him? Not likely. Did you see those eyes? The way he wore those jeans? And that crooked smile?”

When I stop walking, it’s so sudden that Misty runs into me with an “oof.” I close my eyes and take a deep breath. It calms me a little, so I open my eyes. We’re standing in front of Wet Seal, and lucky for me, they’re having a sale. “Let’s just shop, okay?”

“But don’t you…” Rosalinda trails off as she approaches one of the displays in the window. “All shoes are buy one get one free? Seriously? Misty, you should buy that pair you saw last time we were here, and then I can get these, and we can…”

Rosalinda and Misty walk into the store. I’ll join them in a second. For now, I glance to my left, toward Macy’s and the children’s play place, then to my right, toward the escalator. There’s no sign of Nate anywhere. Shaking off my thoughts, I head into the store, leaving Garage Boy far behind.

…

A few hours later, the three of us exit the mall, each carrying at least one bag. Rosalinda forgot all about the bustier, and we never saw Nate again. Misty drives to my house first, and when we pull into the driveway, I stare at the garage door. It’s not late, and I’m not sneaking in, but I’ll go into the house through the garage like I always do. As much as I want to avoid anything Nate related, using the front door would raise suspicion with my parents.

I’m kind of afraid Nate will be in the garage. Afraid of what I’ll have to do after that. Images of cop cars and handcuffs and restraining orders fill my mind. I would do it to protect myself, but I don’t want the drama. I’m kind of afraid he won’t be there, too. No matter how hard I try, I can’t stop thinking about his eyes. His smile. The way he took care of me. His reaction to my school pictures. The way he noticed my change without knowing the story.