Out of Nowhere (26 page)

But I hardly knew him.

“There is some good news,” Coach continued.

“Yeah? Surprise me,” I said.

“The weather. If the storm we’re getting tonight is as bad as they’re predicting, we might have a foot of snow dumped on our field. That might push the schedule back just in time to return Saeed to the team.”

When I came out of Coach’s office, Mike was waiting for me. He sat slumped on the floor, back against the wall. His backpack, stuffed full, lay beside him.

“Hey,” I said, surprised. He got to his feet.

“So what’s the word?” he asked.

“Say what?”

“Saeed,” Mike replied.

I shrugged. I headed down the hall toward the exit. Mike followed.

“He’s off. For a while, anyway. Probably long enough to miss the next game or two.”

Mike stopped.

“So we’re pretty much fucked, right?” he said.

“Pretty much,” I agreed.

Mike shook his head in disgust and we continued walking.

“How’d you know I was talking to Coach?” I asked him.

“I didn’t,” he said. “Jake said you’d gone in this direction, and I was gonna ask, since practice was canceled, if we could go over the physics. Torque wrecked me on the last quiz. I really can’t figure out the moment arm.” He sighed. “I’ve got the car today. How ’bout you teach me the physics and I’ll give you a lift home?”

As we drove to my house under darkening skies, he basically interrogated me the whole way about what Coach said. I didn’t have much to tell him, especially because I left out the parts about my meeting with Alex. I just didn’t have it in me to explain what had happened there. Mike respected me and I didn’t want to lose that.

Even if I didn’t deserve it.

At my house, there was a note from Mom taped to the fridge:
Hands off the lasagna. I’m bringing it to Tetu’s tonight
.

“Hmm. I don’t think she’s going to any potlucks tonight, but whatev,” I said to Mike. Our first order of business was surveying the microwaveable options in the Bouchard kitchen. Hot food, we agreed, was the goal, because once the storm took out the power it’d be cold sandwiches for the foreseeable future. We started out nuking a bunch of frozen burritos; then I was unsheathing a couple of steaming pasta alfredos from their plastic containers when my cell phone vibrated. My hands were covered in sauce.

“My phone is ringing,” I told him. “Right back pocket.”

He gingerly reached into the pocket and slipped the phone out. He frowned, glancing at the display.

“It’s Plourde,” he said. He snapped it open.

“Hey,” he said.

“Tom-boy!” I could hear. Donnie was practically shouting.

“Don-boy!” Mike called back. “How the hell are ya?” Pause.

“Who is this?” I heard Donnie say.

“Mike Turcotte.”

“Turcotte, you loser. Where’s my man Tom?”

“Yeah, nice talking to you, too,” Mike said. “Tom’s a little tied up. How can I help you?”

“You can put Tom on is how you can help me. Bye-bye, Mikey.”

As I rinsed my hands, Mike held the phone out toward me.

“Your buddy’s high as a kite,” he said grimly.

“Great,” I said, taking the phone. I put it to my ear. “Don?”

“Tom-boy!” I heard once again. “Where you and little Mikey at?”

“My house. Fixing something hot to eat before the power goes out. What’s up?”

“Man, the power isn’t gonna go out. What a bunch of sissies. It’s still October! Whoop-dee-doo, it’s gonna rain!” Laughter.

Yup. Stoned.

“Tell you what. Call me when you return to earth.”

“No, no, don’t go! Seriously, bro, I need you.” He fought back laughter. I opened the fridge but kept the phone to my ear. There was also some leftover Chinese we could reheat. I gestured to Mike, whose eyes lit up when he saw the white carryout boxes lined up next to the milk.

“What do you need, Don?”

“Hey. So, are you gonna see that little Myla tonight?”

I sighed. He was stalling. Just trying to keep me on the phone.

“Probably not. I don’t know if anyone told you, but this is a
real
storm heading our way. Might be a good night to stay home.”

“Dude … no. That’s why I’m calling. We’re going out to the speedway. Morin says someone took the gate down.”

The Millsap Plains Speedway is about a forty-five-minute drive from Enniston. It’s a short track, a third of a mile of semi-banked asphalt where kids from age eight to age fifty go to race. People head out there on Friday nights, with coolers loaded with whatever, and watch cars buzz around. It’s not my thing. I like to watch sports where people compete against each other, instead of engines and tires competing against each other. But hey, to each his own.

You’re not supposed to drive on the track when the speedway is closed. And it’s suicide to drive fast on a banked road that’s glazed with ice.

I looked at Mike, who was shoveling heaps of General Tso’s chicken into one of my mother’s microwaveable bowls.

“He says they’re going to the speedway,” I told him.

He shook his head, then leaned toward the phone in my hand.

“Do you have a death wish, Plourde?” he said loudly into the receiver. “Pass.”

“You’re a
woman
, Turcotte!” Don yelled in return.

Mike went back to spooning out the leftovers.

“Don?” I said into the phone. “No way, man.”

“Oh, c’mon,” he wheedled. He was so out of it. He usually didn’t call me when he got like this. “We never do anything together! We used to do everything together, but now it’s like, you’re always playing soccer, or hangin’ out with that
woman
, Turcotte, or with some girl. I mean, I get that. The girls. And Myla? She’s nice, Tom-boy. Definitely your type. An in-tel-lec-tu-al.” He emphasized each syllable, then started giggling like he’d made
a great joke. I couldn’t decide whether he was pissing me off or worrying me.

Then I realized: pissing me off. More than usual.

“Let me ask you something, Don. Have you ever noticed that shit happens? All the time. To people who are just walking around, minding their own business. They get cancer. Or lose their jobs. Or they’re just out there in the fields, taking care of a cow or something, when out of the bush comes a dude with a gun who burns their house and chases them to a refugee camp. Shit finds us. But you, buddy? You actually go out looking for it. And it blows my mind, because it’s not like you don’t already have a boatload of shit to deal with!”

I could hear sounds coming from his end, so I knew he was still on the line. I think I surprised him. He didn’t realize what a day I’d just had.

“Now, I should probably just tell you to fuck off, good luck, whatever, but I’m stupid enough to put up with your sorry ass. So screw Morin and come over here. We can hang and watch ESPN until the television goes out. You know my mom loves to feed you. You can sleep over.”

There was another long silence as he considered my offer.

“Nah. Thanks, but I shouldn’t come over right now, if you know what I mean. Besides, I don’t have a car. Do you have a car?”

“My parents aren’t home from work yet, but Mike’s got his car. We’ve got some homework to do first, but if you can sit still long enough, we’ll swing by and get you later.” Mike flashed me a look that pretty much summed up what he thought of being transformed into Donnie Plourde’s cab service. Whatever.

“I’ll be long gone later, Tom.”

I glanced out the window. In the fading light the first flakes fell. They turned in the air, spiraling down, hinting of the wind to come. This was so useless.

“Well, then I can’t help you,” I said shortly. I heard him breathing on the other end.

“Yeah. Well, it was worth a try, right? You have a good night, bro,” he said.

I snapped the phone shut without saying goodbye. The microwave beeped, and when I opened the door the smells of ginger and soy sauce wafted out. As Mike and I divvied up the Chinese food, he glanced at me curiously.

“He need a lift?”

I shook my head. I didn’t want to talk about it.

We carried our plates and textbooks into the den. As we walked by the big picture window in the living room, I glanced outside again. Already a light dusting of snow had covered the handrails on our front porch and turned the driveway white. It was blowing hard enough to obscure my view of the mailbox. Passing cars had their wipers going and had slowed their usual speed.

In less than five minutes, it had become winter.

The first call that night was from Myla.

My cell vibrated on the nightstand, waking me. I could tell right away that the power had gone off: my face felt cold. The house was silent, empty of the usual background hum from the furnace and the fridge. At the window I heard the soft, bristly sound of sleet brushing the glass. I snapped the phone open.

“Hello?”

“Tom, it’s Myla. You awake?”

“Sort of. What time is it?”

“Twelve-thirty. I’m sorry. I keep forgetting you live in real-people time, not college time.”

Real-people time versus college time was one of the odd little hurdles we’d had to negotiate in our new in-a-relationship status. Myla, and everyone else at Mumford, it seemed, lived like a skunk. Nocturnal. It wasn’t unusual to find her and the rest of her dorm studying at one in the morning. Updating her Facebook at two. Popping Orville Redenbacher at three. In real-people time, aka living in the Bouchard home with parents who went
to work and a kid in high school, the lights were usually out by eleven.

“What’s happening, College?” I asked.

“Have you heard from Saeed?” she said.

The question was so totally out of the blue that I was a little disoriented at first.
Saeed. Right. Soccer
. I was conscious, I could respond …

“Heard from him … when? Tonight?”

“Yes.” Myla sounded rushed.

“No. Now that I think of it, I didn’t see him at school today. I mean yesterday. Yeah, that was yesterday … this is tomorrow.” Wow. I was
so
not awake. I heard her breathe impatiently.

“I’m sorry. Is something wrong?” I asked. I sat up. The air in my bedroom felt really cold.

“He’s missing. Samira just called me and they are really worried about him.”

Missing. What the hell did that mean? Just not home and didn’t call in? Or wandering outside in a storm?

“Did anyone try calling him?” I asked.

“Yeah, but he’s got one of those crappy Tracfones they all use. It’s the end of the month, so he’s out of minutes. Do you have any idea where he might be? His mother is pretty upset.”

“Jeez, Myla, I don’t know who he hangs with outside the soccer team. Have they called Ismail, Double … er, Muhammad Muhammad, or Ibrahim?”

“I don’t know. Do you have their numbers? Not that they have any minutes left, either.”

“Yeah, sure, hold on. It’s in my phone.” I scrolled through my contacts, found the guys’ numbers, and read them to her.

“Thanks, Tom,” she said when I was done. “You can go back to sleep.”

“Whoa,” I said. “Don’t wake me up, drop the I’m-freaking-out bomb, then sign off. What’s going on?”

“I’m not freaking out. I’m just in a hurry to get them these numbers.”

“You sound sort of … freaking.”

She sighed.

“They depend on me for a lot, you know? They don’t really know what to do and I think this storm is adding to their panic.”

I sighed. Definitely freaking.

“I hate to break it to you, College, but these are competent people who have survived civil war and a transatlantic migration. And that was before they met you, so take a deep breath. Now, don’t you think he’s just at a friend’s house and can’t call them ’cause his phone’s out of minutes?”

“Probably. I don’t know. They’re worried he’s been in an accident.”

“Has anyone called the police to see if there’s been an accident?” I asked.

She didn’t answer right away.

“Somali people don’t call the cops,” she finally said in her I-can’t-believe-what-an-idiot-you-are voice.

“Uh … why the hell not?” I asked her. She wasn’t making sense.

“Okay, you know what? I don’t have time to explain the whole post-9/11 universe to you, but when the lights go back on, we’ll talk. Good night, Cap.”

“Myla,” I said, but she’d hung up. Great. I obviously said
something that bugged her. Whatever. I was just trying to be helpful. I pulled the comforter over my head and drifted off.

The second time I woke up because someone was banging around downstairs. Chopping wood, sounded like. At—I flipped my phone open to check the time—2:00 a.m.? Seriously? I tossed the covers off and swung my feet over the side of the bed. Cold air enveloped me. Like it was January in my bedroom. I pulled on a sweatshirt and some socks, then made my way to the stairs, hands brushing the walls, searching for the railing in the dark.

A halogen glimmer came from the living room, where I found my dad wearing an L.L. Bean headlamp and wielding a hatchet. He balanced a fat log, end up, on the hearth, and attempted to drive the blade into the cracks. He was making a terrific noise, and there were wood chips scattered on the carpet.

“Whatever you’re trying to do, Mr. Bouchard, is not working,” I said.

He startled. He hadn’t heard me walk in.

“Tom! I’m sorry. Did I wake you?”

I didn’t bother to respond. Instead, I threw myself into an armchair and surveyed the mess.

“It’s freezing,” I said.

He nodded.

“I’m trying to get the stove going but we didn’t have any kindling. Stupid. I brought wood in for just this reason, but forgot kindling.”

“I’m beginning to understand why you never made Eagle Scout,” I told him. He shook his head ruefully. My father is not a hands-on guy. Before he could aim another whack at the log, I got up and took the hatchet from his hands.

“I’ll cut kindling if you find matches and newspaper,” I told him.

Before long a small fire popped in the open grate of the woodstove. Dad fed the flames with the thin, dry sticks I had shaved from the log, and I handed him the slightly larger pieces of wood. Once we got it roaring, we closed the iron door and let the heat pulse through the room and up the stairs.