Anywhere but Here (10 page)

Eventually, I stop waiting. He's probably out with Sheri.

I eat my half by myself in front of the TV, and I forget to notice how it tastes. Then I stumble downstairs and crawl into bed.

•  •  •

In the middle of the night, I have to pee. I drag myself from under the covers.

“Oh, baby . . .”

I hear the words faintly, but they're enough to freeze me in place, one foot on the threshold of the bathroom and one in the air. My bathroom is directly below the upstairs bathroom and the upstairs bathroom is right next to Dad's bedroom and there's a big vent in between.

I don't know whether to go forward or backward. It's past midnight and I really have to pee. It's possible I imagined that voice.

“Oh my God, baby . . .”

Backward. I definitely need to go backward. Because unless my dad is watching porn in his bedroom—and he doesn't have a TV in his bedroom—then what I am hearing is Sheri. . . .

“Yes!”

Backward. Must retreat. Quickly and quietly.

I scuttle to my room and pull the door firmly shut. Then I fling myself onto the bed and pull two pillows and all my blankets over my head. It's possible I should leave the house entirely, go for a middle-of-the-night walk. Of course, if I do that, I might have to keep walking until I get to the coast because I really, really don't want to go upstairs in my house ever again.

I imagine describing the scene to Greg.

“Oh, fuck,” he'd say, wincing and grinning at the same time.

“Literally. Have you ever heard it when your parents—?”

“That's disgusting,” he'd reply.

I'd shudder.

“I feel like I just took the lid off the garbage can and a pack of rats jumped out. And now I don't want to take the garbage out. For a year.”

“A decade, at least,” he'd tell me.

That's what he'd say if I told him. But somehow, I know I'm not going to tell him. This is just too . . . wrong. If I tell him, it'll be like actually admitting that everything's going to hell.

Hannah's working at a fruit stand on the highway for the summer, selling ripe peaches to sweaty tourists who've been stuck in their SUVs for too long. In my opinion, every man to stop at that particular fruit stand is going to drive away with ripe peaches on his mind and it's going to have nothing to do with the actual produce.

When Hannah's finished, with peaches and with high school, she'll study anthropology at the University of BC. Apparently she's signed up for the biology, chemistry, and math pre-reqs this year.

“Whoa! Did you take all sciences last year too?” We're in my bedroom, where I'm sprawled on the bed. I'm sort of hoping
Hannah will join me, but she hasn't shown any signs of that.

“Well, I wasn't in your artsy-fartsy comparative civilization class, was I? Where did you think I was, Cole? Remedial?”

That's uncomfortably close to what I
did
think, at least until a few weeks ago. I cover quickly. “You're going to wind up shaking the principal's hand at graduation as he gives you the plaque for best academic performance.”

As I say the words, I remember that was one of Lauren's goals. Top academic student, full scholarship to the university of her choice, major in elementary education.

“I wouldn't accept the plaque,” Hannah says, rolling her eyes in a way that might be serious or might be joking. “It'd ruin my reputation.”

We're having this conversation because Hannah found the Vancouver Film Studio brochure in my room.

She's not even supposed to be here. One of the mental guidelines I've devised in my keep-it-casual rule book is that daytime dates are off-limits. Boyfriends and girlfriends do things during the day. People in noncommitted relationships get together only at night.

But she turned up at my door this morning, and there was no one else home. I thought it might be entertaining—just this once—to let her in. I didn't think we'd be talking about film school.

“Where did you get this, anyway?” she asks, flipping through the pages, examining the pictures of black-shirted, would-be directors peering through their camera lenses.

“Ms. Gladwell.”

“Wow. This is pretty creative for the counseling department. You sure you don't want to be an electrician?” She thins her lips and raises her pitch in an impressive Ms. Gladwell impression. “Good money in the trades these days.”

I burst out laughing. “She wanted you to be an electrician? She wanted me to be a plumber.”

“Oh, no.” Hannah shakes her head. “Electrical was for Dallas. I'm supposed to go to a university. She's all about female empowerment.”

“Ms. Gladwell? She didn't strike me as particularly empowered.”

“You're getting me off topic. Is this why you've been filming things?” She waves the brochure under my nose.

It does something, that brochure. It gives me a prickle of excitement. The same kind I felt on that night when Greg first told me that Hannah Deprez thought I was hot.

I nod. “I'm making a short documentary for my application.”

“What's it about?”

“About the Web as an actual web and about people getting stuck here, even though they dream about leaving. You know,
trapped because of their families, or their jobs, or lack of money. It's hard to explain.” It's too vague to explain, really, too unfinished. If I try to outline my ideas in words, they might vanish.

“I have time,” Hannah says, finally plunking herself on the edge of the bed.

“Okay. But not right now,” I say. I pull her on top of me. “Unless you want to film this.”

We are mostly naked and slicked with sweat when Hannah props herself on an elbow. I can barely speak, and I'm pretty sure my bones have turned gelatinous. Whatever just happened to me, it was good. If summer ended right now, it would all have been worth it.

This is the problem with Hannah. She's amazing. And not just in bed. She's unexpectedly sharp. She makes me laugh. If I'm not careful, I'm going to end up liking her a little too much.

“How come we hang out at your house, but I've never met your dad?” Hannah asks.

Case in point. People in casual relationships do not meet parents. I raise my head from the mattress and look her up and down. “Like this?”

“Idiot.” She pummels me with a pillow. “Assuming I had all my clothes on, wouldn't he want to meet me?”

“Why are we talking about parents?”

“I'm serious. Would he disapprove of me?”

“My dad? He'd think you're hot.”

“Excellent.” She smiles like a satisfied cat. “I'll come over for dinner, then. I'll bring something. Cookies? What would he like?”

There are warning lights flashing in my head. “You can't come over for dinner. Our kitchen's disgusting. You'll stop hanging out with me, fearful you'll contract a rare contagious disease.”

Hannah laughs. “Cole, you
are
a contagious disease.”

This is bad. In the words of Tom Hanks: Houston, we have a problem.

“Or you could come to my place instead,” she adds.

Hannah's rich. Her dad's some sort of ex-foreign-service guy who retired early. Their house is on a hillside on the west edge of town, looking down over the fields and the river.

“You live in a mansion. I can't go inside that place. I'll track mud on the marble floors or something.”

She rolls her eyes. “Not likely. But my mom will smother you. She'll offer you tea or juice or milk and date squares, and then she'll do something excruciating like get out a picture of me in my ballet tutu when I was three.”

“Can you just bring me the baked goods and the tutu picture and skip the parent meeting?”

Meeting a girl's parents simply doesn't mesh with “summer fling.” I've been working hard here so neither one of us gets the wrong idea. She is not helping.

She whaps me with the pillow again. “You can't see the tutu picture.”

“I'll just take the squares, then. I like date squares.”

“Stop trying to change the subject. When do I meet your family?”

“If I
had
a family, I suppose you could meet them. What I
have
is a disaster, so how about we forget that part?”

The words come out more bitter than I meant them to. Hannah's smile fades, and her eyes grow soft and sympathetic. I can't take it. I'm not some puppy who needs rescuing from the pound.

“We should do something,” I say, pulling myself off the bed.

“Okay.” Thankfully, she follows my lead. “It's gorgeous out.”

We have our clothes back on when I hear the front door open and footsteps upstairs.

“Is that your dad?” Hannah asks.

But there are two voices.

“We should go out,” I say. “Where do you want to go?”

“Somewhere we haven't been yet. Somewhere interesting.” She's still rubbing my arm, as if she needs to soothe me.

I step away, search the dresser top for my wallet. “Agreed. Let's blow this place.”

Upstairs, Sheri's laugh clangs. I need to get out, preferably with the speed of an instant transporter.

“Let's go across the border to Idaho and buy pork rinds and then drive as far as we can before dark,” I say.

“Pork rinds?” She's standing in front of my mirror, smoothing her hair into a ponytail. Her nose wrinkles.

“Whatever you want. You can buy six billion kinds of junk food there cheaper than here.”

“Let's go hiking,” she says in the same eager voice Lauren would have used to suggest shopping. “My dad just gave me a trail guide.”

I'm not sure hiking sounds better than shopping. Marginally, I suppose. It definitely doesn't sound better than pork rinds.

“Hiking?” I can practically taste the salty, fatty pork deliciousness dissolving on my tongue.

Sheri laughs. Again. When did my dad get so funny?

“You'll love it,” Hannah says.

So I agree. At least I'll be out of the house.

•  •  •

An hour later, we're grinding our way up Mount Slando, picking through the subalpine meadows where layers of moss and hot pink fireweed cover the wide patches between scraggly evergreens.

“I don't see any bears!” Hannah says cheerfully.

No bears along the edges of the trees and none in the dusty grizzly wallow we pass. There are no bears because it's too freaking
hot and the freaking bears are freaking smart enough to be napping in the freaking shade like civilized creatures.

We reach the end of the wildflowers. From here, the peak stretches up in great jagged slabs of scree.

“It's like a giant-size pile of broken crackers,” Hannah remarks.

I think mournfully of pork rinds.

As she climbs the first slab, Hannah peels off her top to reveal her hot pink sports bra.

Still not measuring up to deep-fried goodness. “You should keep your shirt on,” I grumble. “Your arms are going to get scraped on the rock.”

She turns to raise an eyebrow at me. I know that look.

Slowly, she peels off her bra.

Then she flings it downhill, along with her shirt.

And now Hannah is balancing topless across the first slab, like some genetic mash up of an Amazon warrior and an insane ballerina.

“Coming?” she calls.

I've lost the ability to speak.

“You're not shy, are you?” she teases.

Well, I've been busy ogling her breasts. Now that she's mentioned it, this could become an embarrassing situation.

“What if someone's up there?”

“Who would be up there?”

And of course she's right. Everyone else, including the bears, is bound to be smarter than us. Didn't I agree to come because I wouldn't have to interact with other human beings? Plus, I'm not the one who's going to be embarrassed. I hastily strip off my shirt, grab my water bottle, and leap over the first few rocks to catch up.

We're not exactly a pretty sight. I mean, there are good views, like Hannah turning to smile back at me, the sun bouncing off her so brightly I can almost see the lens flare. And then there are the bad, like me losing my balance halfway between boulders and winding up with one hand and one foot on the downhill rock and one hand and one foot on the uphill rock, my butt in the air like a big slapstick comedy target.

“This is ridiculous,” I grouch.

“That's what it's all about.” Hannah shouts, then waits to hear the echo.

“It's all about what?” Screw the echo.

“It's about being ridiculous on a day off with no one in the world to care.”

We collapse at the summit, on a slab of rock that's flat and gray like a giant cookie sheet. The sun beats down on us until my skin crackles, but I don't care. I'm too hot and too tired to move.

Just by turning my head to the side, I can see the perfectly
blue lake below us and the peaks encircling the sky in every direction. Peak after peak after peak. It's like getting aerial footage without the helicopter.

“Can you imagine if you were one of those explorer guys and you climbed up here?” I ask. “What if you were trying to scope a route and all you saw in every direction was more mountains? That would be seriously depressing.”

“They followed the rivers,” Hannah says. She's stretched out on her stomach. There are white bands across the skin of her back where her bathing suit would usually be. She has a sheen of sweat on her shoulders. It would be seriously sexy if I weren't too tired to move.

“It was David Thompson,” Hannah says after the sun has baked our brains for a while longer.

“What was?”

“Your explorer. He was the first white guy through here. We talked about him in history last year, remember?”