Downers Grove (19 page)

I could tell he was still upset. Bobby's eyes were dilated and he had that unreadable look, trapped in that spacey boy thing, a million thoughts circling the wagon train.

“Quarter for your thoughts,” I said.

“Big spender.” He seemed impressed.

“You're worth it.”

“I was just imagining flying to the moon.”

“How come you're always dreaming about someplace else?”

“I like to project myself out of this trailer. I don't need to explain that, do I?”

“At least you have a trailer,” I said. I looked at his face, his hair, trying to read the lines stretching from the corners of his eyes. His whole face looked like history. I was trying to decide whether it had a future. He seemed like a white-trash miracle, one of those boys from a long line of rednecks who pops out of nowhere and takes over the world. I was certain Bobby was more than he even knew.

“So where you gonna go?” I asked.

“North Carolina maybe. I got some cousins down there,” he said between sips of beer. “You oughta come with me.”

“What?”

“You'd like it. There's lots of trees and hills and the air smells good, not like around here.”

Bobby's idea came so far out of the blue I wasn't quite sure how to digest it. I couldn't tell if he meant what he was saying or was just talking off his sleeve.

“You mean it?” I asked.

“Why not?” he asked. “I need a good-luck charm.”

My heart swung on a pendulum. I wanted to, but I had to think about it. He equated me with a trinket on a bracelet, and that's a long throw from unconditional love. Mom did announce that from here on out it was every person for themselves, only I wasn't sure I wanted to check into the first motel on the list. Not that I could afford it anyway. Plus, Bobby was a mystery wrapped around an enigma, who knows where that plane was going to land. He could tell by my silence that I was standing on the fence.

“You gotta bust out of your cocoon sooner or later,” he said.

“I haven't even graduated yet!” I laid on his bed with a smile of possibility racing through my nervous system, but at the same time a streak of sadness was eating at my heart. I wasn't sure I could bare for him to leave now, but I was even less secure with the idea of being his companion. He leaned over and kissed me and held me so tight I had a feeling that maybe this was destiny dropping its hook in my stream and it was up to me whether or not to take the bait.

My heart was racing with love and worry. I imagined visiting Bobby in the hospital, visiting him in jail, but never in the winner's circle. I looked over at my mechanic and watched him breathe in the milky morning light. Outside I could hear cars on the highway hurling into the distance. Inside everything was perfectly still, only a patchwork of stale smells competed
for my attention. The fold-out couch was so small there was nowhere to move. I closed my eyes and let my thoughts parade around in circles. The Godzilla movie ended, and the television became a snow pattern of fuzzy blue light warming the room like an electric fireplace.

“Bobby?” I whispered. “I have to go home.”

He rolled over and kissed me, then slid his hand up my shirt.

“Now?” he asked.

“Well, not this second.”

T
HE
sun came up and started to bake the trailer. I woke up sweating. I sat at the edge of the couch and found myself trying to snap together a few buttons between when I left home and where I was now. Bobby was anxious and flopped around the trailer like a fish out of water. When he finally burst outside all the warmth of the couch was replaced with the creeping chill of dawn, all the romance of the night before was exchanged for the complications of sunlight.

I walked out to the car and Bobby whisked me home. The sky was lit by an overlapping pattern of mushy gray clouds. The car felt cold and had a hollowness to it that I had never noticed before. All I wanted to do was brush my teeth and curl up in my bed, but then I realized I might have to deal with Mom. Hopefully she spent the night with the astronaut. Bobby looked tired and worried and anxious to get me out of the car.

When we pulled up in front of my house I planted a major kiss on his face.

“I have to try and get a hold of Danny,” he said, checking his rearview mirror, as if we might have been followed. “He might be able to help me out.”

“I wish there was something I could do,” I said.

“I'll be all right.” He tried to be reassuring.

“I can probably scrape together another hundred dollars,” I said.

“I feel so lame taking your money, especially after what happened.” He seemed embarrassed.

“You're not taking it. You're borrowing it. I know you need it and I know you're the type to return a favor. Maybe I'm a fool, but I like the idea of you owing me something.”

“I gotta leave tonight,” he said. “Should we meet somewhere?”

“I'll have to go downtown to get the money. How about Starbuck's or the Tivoli Lanes? I don't think anything else is open.”

“Let's do the bowling alley.” He checked his mirror again. “What time?”

“Sometime after eight,” I said.

He leaned over and kissed me, then shifted the car into gear. I knew it was time for me to disappear. I didn't know what to say. And even though he asked me to come with him, there was an overwhelming feeling in my heart that I might never see him again. He had a look on his face that was anything but reassuring.

“Be careful, Bobby.” I got out of the car and closed the door, then watched him bank around the cul-de-sac corner
and accelerate up the hill. My heart sank into my stomach. There's nothing worse than falling in love with impossibility. I picked up the newspaper and headed up the driveway.

There was a strange beeping sound coming from the side of the house. I walked around to check it out, and there was Grandma scanning the yard for treasure or something. She was wearing headphones and waving a broom-size electric wand over the grass. When she saw me she waved me over.

“What are you doing, Grandma?” I asked.

“Oh, just snooping.” She pulled her headphones off. “The microphones on this baby are so powerful I can hear the earthworms eating breakfast.”

“That's lovely,” I said.

“You're up awfully early,” Grandma said. “I usually never see anything stirring around here until way past nine.”

“I was just getting the paper.”

“Was that the paperboy?” she asked.

“Who? That?” I scrambled to reshuffle my story. “That was Bobby. The guy I was telling you about.”

“You look a little shook up. What's the matter?”

I didn't answer her and she knew I was hiding something.

“If you can't trust me you can't trust anybody,” she said. “And that's a terrible place to be.” She shook her head and looked down at the grass.

“I trust you, Grandma, it's just hard for me to talk about.”

Grandma turned off her gadget. “Some men are like holding a firecracker in your hand,” she said. “They're exciting when the fuse is lit, but if you hold on too long the results can be real painful.”

“You can say that again.”

“Sometimes you gotta throw it and get out of the way.” She jumped a step to animate her idea. “It's gonna hurt, but not as much as if you try to hold on.”

Grandma slipped on her headphones and went back to her lost treasure. I wasn't sure I agreed or even wanted to agree with all of Grandma's prophecies, but I walked up behind her and gave her a huge hug anyway.

“I love you, Grandma,” I said.

“I love you too, Chrissie.” Grandma disappeared behind an evergreen.

I gave a short prayer to the God of missing moms and slid my key into the slot, pushed the door open, and quickly unlaced my shoes. The house was dead silent. I crept into the kitchen, found the note from Mom, and felt a major sense of relief. There was a reference to money, but I'm sure that was long gone into the bloodstream of my brother. I took a banana out of the fruit bowl, then climbed the stairs and fell onto my bed. I tried to focus on some schoolwork because I've got so many reports due now it's not funny. For English, I'm finishing an essay on slacker god Winnie-the-Pooh; for science, I'm taking on space junk, which basically has no real function other than to make the weather more exciting on the six o'clock news; and for history, I'm photographing the hundred and fifty Sears-Roebuck homes built in Downers Grove. I've only done one roll of film, so it's gonna be hell around here for a while.
Are you there, God? It's me, Chrissie.

The trouble with love is that it's never perfect. When it comes to mating the fit has to be tight as two puzzle pieces, any space between personalities only gets bigger. The space in between Mom and Dad was like a truck stop, a place to say
hello and order pancakes. Bobby is supercharged trouble. I can deal with his messy trailer, but I wasn't sure I wanted to be the Bonnie for his Clyde. Our relationship felt similar to riding an escalator that keeps returning to the same floor, I knew I was never going any higher on the priority list.

I closed my eyes and raced toward a whiteness so pure it was colorless, but all my thoughts circled back to the mechanic, his car, his trailer, his garage, his incredibly romantic and disasterous life. The vagabond car thief probably has a carbon copy past of his more than reckless present. He drifted here without directions and would probably disappear with the same abandon. One of these days he's going to make the wrong turn and end up trapped by his own ambition. I just hope he survives the transition.

T
RACY
was stressing over finals, the curse, and her lack of a serious relationship this close to summer and the last thing she wanted to do was go knock down some pins at Tivoli Lanes. I called her anyway.

“Hello?” Tracy said.

“Remember all the favors I've done for you lately?” I asked.

“No.”

“Like introducing you to that guy at the garage?”

“I introduced myself and he never called me. Get to the point.”

“I need a humongous favor. Please, please, please come to the bowling alley with me for an hour.”

“Tracy lets go here. Tracy lets go there. I am not your chauffeur. Besides, my mom is using the car.”

“Then we'll have to walk.”

“Oh yeah, right. Walk. I'm sure.”

“It's the last chance I'll ever get to see him! Tracy—I'll owe you forever.”

“You already owe me forever.”

“Listen, I'll talk to my brother.”

“I've heard that promise before.”

“Please! I'm begging!”

“Are you on your knees?”

“Tracy, please!”

There was a long silence, but finally Tracy gave in. “All right. I'll be over in a little while.”

Tracy was late as usual. “I can't believe we're walking,” she said. It was only about a fifteen-minute walk downtown, but Tracy made sure it seemed like days. We stopped at the bank and I withdrew another hundred dollars.

“You shouldn't give him any more money,” Tracy said. I knew it was wrong, but I also knew that Tracy would have done the exact same thing if she were in my shoes.

The bowling alley was tucked underground opposite the Main Street train station. It still smelled like the fifties, a sweet mix of Brylcreem, soda pop, and cigarettes. The air-conditioning was on year-round so you always had to bring a sweater. The old-timer behind the bar looked like he'd been there since the day they opened. He was watching the Sox game, blasting from the color TV perched over the bar like an electronic gargoyle. We ordered root beers and spiked them with miniatures. Vodka and root beer was my favorite. The old man handed us our shoes—a pair of fives and a pair of sixes—then I went and found my favorite purple sparkle ball. Tracy always goes first.

Tracy got up and cooled her hand over the air vent, then
retrieved her ball and let it rip. She had a very quick release, as if her ball was just one more burden she couldn't wait to get rid of. I sat at the scorer's table and filled in all the preliminary information.

Needless to say I bowled like shit. Tracy on the other hand was on a roll. The gutterball queen even had a strike. Bobby didn't show up until the sixth frame. He slipped in unnoticed and dropped into an orange Formica chair.

“You got a cigarette?” he asked. I handed him one of Tracy's. He looked paranoid and untrustworthy, but still had an air of innocence clinging to him that made him completely adorable, like a dog who ate all the cake and was left outside the screen door.

“You mad at me or something?” he asked.

“Why should I be mad? You disappear, you reappear. You're like a superhero to me.”

“I don't make the rules.”

“You don't follow them either.”

Tracy beat me for the very first time. I couldn't concentrate. I was trying to figure out a way to keep Bobby from running away. I could get in the car and go for a ride, but in the back of my mind I knew that if he got caught there would be something in it for me too, and who knows how much farther he would be willing to go when things got truly desperate. Bobby reeked of hard time, and I knew in my heart that he wasn't the type to surrender. When the police came to his window it would not be pretty.

I unlaced my shoes and slipped into my romper stompers.

“Imagine if AIDS was a foot disease,” Tracy said.

“The entire Midwest would have been devestated,” I said.

“What are you two talking about?” Bobby asked.

“Girl talk,” I said.

I set my bowling shoes on the counter and led Bobby up the steep stairs. A train was rolling through town and it had the sound of destiny wrapped all around it. Bobby looked anxious and I knew he wanted to go. I knew there was nothing I could do to stop him. I kissed him in front of the Tivoli Hotel like I never wanted him to forget me. He rubbed his hand in my hair, then down my back. I laid my head on his chest and listened to the train wheels clack and squeal. Bobby smelled like smoke and nervous sweat. I started leaning away from him, but he just clung tighter.