Goodbye, Rebel Blue Hardcover (12 page)

I don’t see a single gray hair but after two blocks spot an all-night grocery store. A man pushes a shopping cart through the parking lot. “Pull in there,” I tell Nate. When Nate stops, I jump out of the truck. “Hey, let me give you a hand.”

“I got ’em.” The man has beefy arms and a gut that hangs over his belt.

I settle my hands on his cart, which is filled with twelve-packs of beer. “I want to help.”

He swats me away, as if I’m a mosquito. “Get out of here, kid. I ain’t giving you no beer.”

“I don’t want any beer.” I reach for one of the twelve-packs. “I just want to do something nice for my fellow man.” Something crunches behind me, and I spin just as a little old lady bats a beaded purse against my head. I grab my right ear and yelp.

“Got her, Buddy!” The old lady raises her arm again.

The beer guy grabs her arm. “It’s okay, Mom. She’s leaving.”

He gives me a bearlike growl, and I hurry back to Nate’s truck where he’s rubbing his chin and trying not to laugh. “That didn’t go well.”

I rub my ear. “Start driving.”

A half block down the street we pass a brightly lit restaurant. Mariachi music floats from the patio, where a waiter carries a large tray of food to a pair of late-night customers. “There! Pull into Dos Hermanas.” I run inside the Mexican cantina and shout to the woman at the register, “Two street tacos to go!”

“Beef or chicken?”

“Whatever’s fastest.”

The woman tilts her head as if she doesn’t understand English, and Nate leans in close and winks.

“It’s a taco emergency.”

Within four minutes I have two steamy chicken tacos and a side of guacamole. “Back to the beach—hurry!”

Nate punches the accelerator. We squeal out of the parking lot toward the ocean. When we arrive at the grassy dunes, I point to the road’s shoulder. “Pull over there.”

Once out of the truck, I rush through the grass and past the lifeguard tower where I spotted the homeless man.

“Here!” I thrust the tacos into his face.

He backs away from the bag as if it were a live snake. “What’s that?”

“Tacos.”

He scratches at a tuft of greasy, matted hair poking from the side of his head. “What’s it for?”

“You.” I wave the bag, sending curls of charred-meat-andonion steam through the air.

He squints at me through a sun-roughened face. “You on drugs?”

“I am not doing drugs. Why does everyone think I’m doing drugs?” I take a long breath. “Listen, I’m trying to do something kind.” I turn back to Nate. “What time is it?”

“Eleven fifty-eight.”

“Just take the tacos.”

The man licks his lips, and I wonder when he last ate. Something scampers through the grassy dunes. Remnants of laughter echo from the beach far below us.

“Please,” I whisper.

Bronson’s right. I’m pathetic.

After checking his watch again, Nate takes the bag from my hand. “I got this.” He sets the bag on the corner of the cardboard, grabs my hand, and pulls me away. I’m about to kick sand at him when paper rustles behind us. I turn just as the man shoves one of the tacos into his mouth. Juice dribbles down his chin as he snatches the other taco. I jog away, too embarrassed to stick around.

Next to me Nate makes a snuffling sound. His shoulders jiggle. My lips twitch. By the time we climb back into the truck, we’re laughing out loud.

“Check.” Nate positions his fingers as if holding a pencil and makes a check mark in the air.

“One random act of kindness.”

“More like random act of weirdness.” I raise my face to the night sky. “This is crazy.”

“But crazy in a good way.”

Yes, it felt good. Kennedy would have approved. I settle against the cracked leather seat in the old truck. “By the way, you broke the law.”

“What?”

“You sped.”

“Did not.”

“You drove eleven miles over the speed limit on the way to the beach. I checked the speedometer as we passed the cop car sitting in the convenience-store parking lot.”

He grimaces. “Those tickets aren’t cheap.”

I rest my elbow on the edge of the open window. “You shouldn’t spend so much time with me.

I’m a bad influence.”

“True,” he says with another shake of his shoulders.

When we reach my street, the bungalow is still filled with Cupcakes, but now they have company.

Three new cars are parked out front. Nate finds a spot near the neighbor’s house, and I weigh the wisdom of spending the night with Tiberius. I reach for the door handle, but Nate locks his fingers around my wrist. I start to pull away, and he lets up, the touch softening until it’s just the featherlight brush of his fingertips against the top of my hand.

My heart beats triple-time, and the blood courses through my veins so hard, I can almost see it pulsing in the top of my hand. When I look up from our hands, I see Nate’s face, more puzzled than pained or impassioned. He looks very un-Nate-like, as if he’s not sure who I am or what to do with me.

It’s a good thing for both of us that I recognize the truth about this disturbing collision of our worlds. “Nate, I’m not your kind of girl,” I say, not unkindly.

He turns my hand over, so we’re palm to palm. The bewildered look gives way to something warmer. He inches closer, simultaneously pulling me toward him. “Shouldn’t I be the one to decide who my kind of girl is?”

“I don’t like shoes.”

“You have cute toes.” A dimple appears.

Shit. “I’m disruptive in math and don’t play nicely in sandboxes.”

“I’ll have my little brother say a Rosary for your soul.” Another dimple.

“Nate, I’m being serious.”

“Me, too.” His eyes are a dark, steamy chocolate, every hair on his head in place. Everything about Nate is perfect. He’s charming, smart, kind. Everyone likes him. And that’s the problem. I’m not everyone. I’m not good at sharing paint. I don’t know about tree-acquisition rules. I’m not one of the herd.

His fingers twine with mine. The heat must be burning off all the oxygen in the cab of the truck, because I’m light-headed.

A pair of headlights slashes across the windshield. Bronson pulls up in his red Mustang, which is filled with Nate’s sporto buddies. The muscles in Nate’s hand tense and harden. The Mustang lets loose a loud honk. Nate drops my hand and slides back to the driver’s side.

My lungs expand, and finally oxygen rushes to my brain.

I lunge for the passenger-side door. Nate doesn’t reach for me. Instead he stares at the roof liner of the truck. “Let me walk you to the door. It’s getting late.” No more dimples. No more steamy eyes.

Welcome back, Mr. Polite and Proper.

He’s also an ass.

I shake my head at my own asslike behavior. “I’m in a made-for-cable teen-angst movie.”

“Excuse me?”

I jerk my hand toward the Mustang. “You’re embarrassed to be seen with me.”

“Why would you think that?”

My fingers fumble along the truck door for the handle. “On a deserted rocky shore or the dark cab of a pickup truck I’m fine for a quick grab and feel, but when your buddies show, I’m not the right kind of girl.” I find the handle and yank. The door groans open, and I stumble out of the truck.

NOVA WON’T GO, SO I WALK TO THE BEACH.

This morning there will be no dolphin watching or working on the sea-swallow nesting site.

Either would be a bad choice, as I might run into Nate. Running into Nate would mean I’d have to talk to Nate, and I’m not sure what I’d say to him.

We’re two separate species, Nate. You’re a member of
Sporto Popularus,
and I’m classified as
Art Nerd Rebelum.
No intermingling of species.

Or …
When you lace your fingers with mine in a whisper of a touch, my heart booms and my
pulse pounds, and I can’t breathe, therefore risking death by asphyxiation.

Or the ever popular and appropriate …
Asshole.

Which is why I’m walking to the beach in search of the Del Rey Fun and Sun Rental Shop. Every item on the top half of Kennedy’s bucket list is of the do-gooder variety, and after last night in the truck with Nate, I decided I needed a break from good. This morning I skip to:
Ride a bicycle built for
two.

Business is hopping at the Fun and Sun Rental Shop this sunny Sunday morning.

“I’d like to rent a tandem bike,” I tell the woman behind the counter.

“Sorry, I rented out our last tandem about half an hour ago. Can I interest you in a beach cruiser, caster board, or unicycle? We have so many choices.”

“No, thanks.”

I try Beach Bikes and Beyond, Toby & Trey’s Bike Emporium, and Cheap Wheels. All rent tandems, but all are sold out. The Del Rey boardwalk stretches three miles along the Pacific Ocean, and I stop at every shop that rents things with wheels. At mile two, one of my flip-flops breaks, and I toss them into the trash.

Near the end of the boardwalk I enter Bubba’s Beach Bikes. The handwritten sign on the front window notes he’s already out of beach cruisers, but Bubba assures me he has a tandem bike he’ll rent to me for two hours. “And I’ll knock the price down to ten bucks because it’s in pretty bad shape.

Salty sea air rusts stuff.”

Bubba, a skinny guy with a long face and carrot-colored hair, wheels the bike out of the back room. Both seats are cracked and split, and rusty dots pit the frame.

“Perfect,” I say.

Bubba takes my money and wheels the bike, which squeaks like Aunt Evelyn on one of her bad-hair days, onto the boardwalk. “Okay, Captain,” he says. “Where’s your stoker?”

“My what?”

“Your back rider. I need to give you both a few tips. You each play different roles on a tandem.

Your stoker is your power on climbs, but he can also throw off your equilibrium. You need to work together on weight shifts, pedal force, and coasting. Tandem riding is all about teamwork. It’s about two riders becoming one.”

Who knew tandem bikes had so many rules? “I don’t have a stoker.”

He scratches the orange soul patch on his chin. “But you want a tandem bike?”

“Yes.”

“That’s weird.”

“Welcome to my world.”

Bubba looks at me as if I’m crazy but finishes the tandem lesson and sends me on my way.

I have no idea why Kennedy wanted to ride a tandem bike before she died. Maybe her film crush rode a tandem with the love of his life in her favorite movie, or maybe she never rode a bike because she was afraid of falling and needed someone at her side to help her conquer her fear. But I do know that a person’s past affects the choices she makes in the present and for the future. Case in point: As a kid I never caught on to math, so in the future I will not choose to be an accountant.

So what kind of past makes a person want to do a random act of kindness every day for a year?

Did Kennedy grow up in a family of do-gooders, or was she desperately in need of kindness because there was none in her world? My fingers curl around the gearshift. But the why doesn’t matter. The important thing is that I complete the list.

Pretty soon I’m cruising and squeaking along the beach walk. This tandem stuff is a piece of cake, no different from riding a regular bike and much easier than adopting four leatherback turtles and starting my own charity. But according to Bubba, tandem riding is all about teamwork … two riders becoming one.

I want to do things right, you know?

I growl so loudly, a woman on a bike with a kiddie carrier swerves out of my way.

So I need a stoker. My choices are few. Cousin Pen? She’d brake just to make me work harder.

Uncle Bob? In San Diego. Nate? Won’t go there.

Then it hits me. I know just who to ask.

My sophomore year a boy from detention invited me to a party at his house. While there, I ran into Macey, who said she lived a few doors down. At the party Macey and I spent most of the evening sitting on the pool deck with our feet in the water, keeping drunks from peeing into the pool.