Ask the Passengers (24 page)

“Try being on trial for
impiety
on a Wednesday. It’s far worse.”

When my phone rings, I think it’s Kristina feeling all the bad vibes I’m sending out. But it’s Dee. The minute her number comes up, I hear it:
Stay away from my daughter.

“Hey! I was going to call you later.” I say.

“I miss you so much!” she says back. It makes me grin a huge grin.

“Me too. It feels like a year went by since—uh—Saturday.”

“I am sooooo sorry about that message my mom sent,” she says. “It was so uncool. I nearly died when I saw it.”

“It’s okay.” I am so relieved that I forget about Kristina the liar for a minute. And Claire the neglected mother who never gets to hear anything
meaningful
.

“Seriously. I nearly killed her. I’m really sorry.”

“Really. It’s fine.” I say. “I’m sorry I took you out to a bar that got busted. I feel like a tool.”

“How would you know that was going to happen? And anyway, you didn’t take me. I drove there all on my own.”

“Still. I had to say it,” I say.

“You okay, Jones? I hear all kinds of shit. Even an entire school district away.”

“That’s a really long line of whisper down the lane. I can only imagine the discrepancies.”

We laugh. It’s nice.

“Don’t believe what you hear,” I say. “Unless you hear that my mother and Ellis have disowned me, and my best friend is a lying bitch,” I say. “But I’m not going to jump off any cliffs, if that’s what you mean.”

“I’m glad,” she says. “And, hey, admit it. It feels nice to be out, right? No more hiding. No more secrets?”

“Uh.”

“What?” she says.

“Uh. I didn’t really tell anyone,” I say. “I mean, it’s been such a hectic week, and the only person I’ve really seen is my dad, and he’s just—uh—useless,” I say. I mean stoned.
Useless and stoned.

“Hold up. They don’t even know about you?”

“Nope.”

“But
everyone
knows!”

“Not them. Not yet, at least.” I don’t mention that they don’t know because I haven’t told them I know, either.

“What about me?” she asks.

“What?”

“Do they know about me?”

“They don’t know about anything.”

“Why?” she says. It’s slightly whiny.

“I haven’t found the right time yet. That’s all.”

“Dude, this weekend was the right time. Right? That’s when I told my mom.”

“And she wrote me that text,” I say.
Stay away from my daughter.

“Again—sorry. She doesn’t want you to stay away. It was just her reaction. You know. She was being protective. My hockey scholarships. My reputation. I’m
still
freaked out about the hockey scholarships. I even talked to Coach about it, and she’s pissed at me.” She takes a deep breath. “I asked my mom
to call you or text you back to apologize, but she was too embarrassed.”

“Yeah,” I say. “Tell her not to be embarrassed.”

“But you really should just come out, you know? Beats lying. And sneaking around. I’m not sure I can do that anymore.”

Oh. She’s not sure she can do that anymore. Last week she was fine with it. I reach into my pocket and retrieve my list, and I add things to it.

Awkward silence for what feels like twenty whole seconds while I talk to myself inside my head.

“Astrid?” Dee asks. “We still good?”

“As far as I know,” I say.

MOM IS STILL IRONING
when I get downstairs at 6:40
AM
on Thursday. I can’t tell if she’s been here all night or if she got up early. I hear Ellis get into the shower and Dad flush the downstairs toilet soon after. This makes Ellis screech and Dad stand outside the main bathroom door and yell, “I’m sorry!”

As I pour a bowl of corn flakes, I count how many times someone in this house apologized to me for flushing while I was in the shower. That would be zero times.

Dad arrives and walks straight for the coffeemaker and makes a cup of very light, very sweet coffee and sits down at the table across from me. Mom continues to iron.

“Any answers today for us, Strid?”

“Huh?”

“About our conversation last night. We just want answers.”

“I thought I gave you answers,” I say.

“Okay,” he says. Then he leans over the table and whispers, so his coffee/morning breath bowls me over. “Can’t you just make something up?” He moves his eyes to the sides of their sockets to draw my attention to my ironing mother.

Poor guy. It must suck to get to thirty thousand feet and realize that your pilot is a control freak nutjob.

When I look at her, I see our house as a mini cave, and her fire as a mini fire that casts mini shadows for us mini shackled prisoners. We are a cave within a cave within a cave. Our little house on Main Street (with the immaculately pressed curtains) is part of the Unity Valley cave, which has its Unity Valley fire that casts Unity Valley shadows. And Unity Valley is just a cave inside the big American cave that is a huge fire that casts the biggest shadows of all.

“Strid?” Dad whispers again.

“Stop calling me that,” I say. Then I get up and rinse out my bowl and put it into the dishwasher.

When I get to my room and get dressed, I decide that I’m going to skip school for the first time ever.

I walk up the road toward school and then I double back to my car, which has been sitting in the same space since Sunday’s trip to the diner. I hop in, start her up and drive to the lake because who’d go to the lake on a cold day like this?

I park in the empty lot and lock my doors. I put my seat back and try to fall asleep, but I can’t get past the warning
signals in my brain about some ex-convict finding me here and drowning me in the lake after doing unspeakable things. So I sit up and roll down my window.

I pull out my phone and scroll through the numbers until I get to Kim’s number, which I put into my phone under the name
Pizza
in case anyone found it. I look up into the clear sky over the lake, and I start to cry a little.

I get out of the car and go over to one of the five wooden tables in the grassy picnic area. Inferior-quality tables compared to mine and Dad’s. The wood is rotting in spots, not to mention covered in graffiti and gnawed away on the corners by forest animals. The surface needs a good sanding, and I don’t move much because I don’t feel like getting splinters in my ass. I think today is already sucky enough without splinters in my ass.

This sending-love-to-the-passengers thing is getting old, somehow. I mean, I still have to do it the minute I see a plane—it’s a reflex, like covering my mouth when I cough—but I don’t want to send my love away forever. I want it to be safe here. I want my life to be easier than this. I mean, I know I’m not some starving kid who has to wash clothes in the Ganges for a nickel, but today just sucks. My guts are all twisted up over Kristina and her stupid lie, and Dee and her pressuring me, and Mom and our lack of
meaningful
conversations.

The sky is amazing at lakeside. It’s huge. And it’s quiet here. There’s no traffic. No bikers because it’s ten o’clock on a school day. All I hear are birds.

When I see the first plane, I make a deal with its passengers. I say:
Look, this is a loan. I don’t know if love is something I will run out of one day. I don’t know if I should be giving it all to you guys or not. Today, I feel like maybe I should have kept some for myself for days when no one else loves me. Not even my best friend.

My eyes well up with tears again, and I feel stupid and dramatic.

And then I send the love up. It’s as easy as it always is, and it’s hard, too, because I really don’t know the answer to this mystery. Is love something that will always be available? Will it always be confined and untrustworthy like it feels today? Is there enough to go around? Am I wasting mine on strangers?

PASSENGER #980

JAMEY WIEDNER, SEAT 27E

FLIGHT #504

PHILADELPHIA TO CHICAGO