The Chance You Won't Return (29 page)

My friends, on the other hand, would still be around. One day in late January, I ran into Theresa in the tray return line.

“Hey,” she said, eyes focused on the conveyer belt.

At first I wasn’t sure if she was talking to me — we hadn’t spoken at all during winter break — so it took me a moment to respond. “Hey.”

“So I hear you’re in driver’s ed again. I guess you passed that test.”

“I did.” I didn’t know what she wanted. And after she’d been so bitchy to me in the girls’ room, I wasn’t sure I wanted to pretend that everything was normal again.

“That’s good; at least you don’t have an F on your transcript now.” I slid my tray on the belt and she did the same; the trays rode into the kitchen together. When I started to walk away, she followed, saying, “Did Jim help you study?”

I didn’t look at her. “Yeah, he’s been awesome about that. Otherwise I probably still wouldn’t be able to go forward or backward.” I headed through the exit, into the hall. Theresa was still walking with me.

“You sit with them every day now,” she said. Her voice was quieter than usual; I could barely hear what she was saying over the din of the hallways. “His friends. The seniors.” When I didn’t reply, she rolled her eyes. “Apparently Jim’s too cool to sit with the loser juniors and you got cool enough to sit with his friends.”

“It’s not even like that.” I stopped at my locker even though I didn’t need to get anything before class. “I met them at a Christmas party, so now I know them.”

“We invited Jim to meet us, too. Way back around Halloween.” On Theresa’s other side, Edward Baker and his freshman girlfriend started to make out against the lockers. “Take it somewhere else, will you?” Theresa snapped at them, and turned back to me. “You know, Jim didn’t even know who you were until last semester. And I bet for a while most of his friends thought you were that girl who fucked up the football field.”

I was just getting over that. “Stop being such a bitch,” I said.

Her laugh was almost a snort. “I’m a bitch? I was the one who stood up for you when you were, like, the worst driver ever. You’re the one who ditched your friends for some guy. And I’m supposed to be your best friend, and you don’t even talk to me about it.”

When I glanced over at Theresa, her chin was crinkling and her eyes were tinged with red. I’d never seen her cry before, and for a second, I thought she would start right there in the hallway. But then the first bell rang and she rushed away, dodging into a classroom before I could think of what to say.

For a moment, I rested my head against my locker door, wishing I could cram myself inside and hide there forever. I stayed there until the second bell rang and I had to run to my next class.

Everyone else had passed driver’s ed. My new classmates knew that. They were mostly sophomores who had just turned sixteen and gotten their learner’s permit, and they looked at me like I was the biggest loser ever to enter the driver’s ed car. But Mr. Kane smiled at me placidly and asked me to go first.

“We’re starting over,” he told me when I slid into the driver’s seat. “No pressure at all. Just take it slow.”

Even though he sounded encouraging, I knew he was worried I’d mess up again, which got me worried, too. I took deep breaths and tried to hear Jim’s voice in my head.

Mr. Kane asked me to drive across the parking lot, where he’d set up a series of cones. Whenever I did something small — like turn the key or check the mirror — he pointed it out to the other students in the backseat. “See how Alex adjusted the seat? You need to be at the right distance from the pedals and the wheel.” It felt a little patronizing. I pressed the gas gently so the car rolled forward. After a second, I realized I wasn’t breathing and had to practically gasp for air.

“It’s all right,” Mr. Kane said. “You’re doing fine.”

I kept my eye on a patch of ice in the corner of the parking lot, almost hitting a cone when I made a wide turn to avoid it. Aside from that, I managed the course without destroying anything. Mr. Kane was ecstatic.

“Wonderful!” He turned to everyone in the backseat. “Who else wants to try?”

Mindy Johansson volunteered, and we switched places. I squeezed in the back between a JV football player and a blond sophomore girl whose named I’d already forgotten. Neither of them glanced at me. I tried to concentrate on Mr. Kane’s voice as he guided Mindy through the course. I pretended it was last semester, and he was talking to Caroline Lavale. Instead of the blond sophomore girl, I imagined I was sitting next to Theresa, who would whisper sarcastic comments to me all class.

In early February, Mom was planning her flight from L.A. to Mexico City. Whenever I sat with her late at night, she’d be pouring over dozens of maps — really high-quality ones, too, with aeronautical symbols and notations I couldn’t recognize. Dad had caught her ordering them online. He saw it as a good sign that she was using the computer — something Amelia Earhart couldn’t have done — but I thought she was taking bolder strides away from us. The maps covered the table, the counters, half the floor space, and most of the walls. She’d get so close to them that she practically brushed her nose against the paper and would write notes to herself. But she didn’t seem as happy with it anymore. I remembered a few months ago, when she wanted to show off her maps. Now she would mutter to herself, “Doesn’t look right,” and “Not that path.” Sometimes she didn’t even notice when I sat at the table with her.

One night I didn’t hear anything from the kitchen, so I crept downstairs to check on Mom, hoping she was engrossed in her work. But even though her notes and maps were on the table, she wasn’t standing over them. I padded softly into the living room, whispering, “Mom?” and hoping she’d suddenly appear. Nothing.

It was suddenly hard to stand and breathe all at once. How could I have lost her? She wasn’t planning her final flight yet. I thought we still had time.

I was about to run upstairs and wake Dad when I heard the distant sound of metal against metal. I rushed outside to find Mom standing in the driveway, regarding the car engine thoughtfully, a mismatch of tools on the pavement beside her. It was freezing out, but she wasn’t wearing a coat.

No one else was on the street. Windows of neighboring houses were dark. Maybe I could get her inside before anything happened.

“It’s three in the morning,” I hissed. “What are you doing?”

She reached down for a wrench. “I need to make some adjustments. I’ll never make the record without my plane in top shape. Need to make sure it’s ready for Mexico and New Jersey.”

“Don’t,” I said, rushing over and grabbing the wrench. “Do not touch the car.”

“I’m doing just fine on my own, thank you.” She tugged back, pulling the wrench out of my hands and going back to whatever kind of work she thought she was doing. Before I could stop her, she pulled at one of the tubes and it came off, spilling greenish liquid.

We both screamed and jumped back from the car.

A light came on in Mom and Dad’s room. Another window illuminated across the street. I wondered if I could drag Mom back inside before anyone noticed.

Mom was too busy frowning at the car to notice that we’d probably woken up half the neighborhood. “It wasn’t supposed to do that.”

“You think?” I said.

Dad appeared in the driveway, dressed in pajama bottoms and a backward T-shirt. Suddenly I felt guilty, as if he caught us trying to set the car on fire. “I found her like this,” I said.

“I’m doing the best I can,” Mom told Dad. The lines of her face hardened and her hands were shaking. “You know how these models are.”

I thought Dad might put his arm around Mom and appease her, but he sighed and shook his head at his bare feet. “It’s three in the morning. I don’t care who you are; it’s not the right time to be messing with machinery.”

“Gip, I —”

“I don’t want to hear it. You shouldn’t be out here on your own in the middle of the night anyway. And then to start playing around with the car — what were you thinking? Do you want to get hurt?”

Mom’s hands clenched. “I know what I’m doing.”

“You don’t.” Dad was almost shouting now. “You really don’t. You want to make notes on maps, write letters to no one, that’s fine, go ahead. But this could get you killed, do you realize that?”

“I’m trying very hard.” Mom’s voice cracked. “We need to get ready for this flight. I want everything perfect and so do you.”

“You’re not listening to me. Listen to me!” he said. For a second, I thought he might grab her and shake her.

Then I saw something else: across the street, a man stood in his doorway. It was our neighbor, Mr. Daniels. He was wrapped in a plaid bathrobe and staring at us. I nudged Dad and motioned to Mr. Daniels. Dad waved, trying to smile.

“Everything all right over there?” Mr. Daniels shouted.

“Yep,” Dad said. “Just a little car trouble. Have a good night!”

Mr. Daniels hesitated, then waved and went back inside. We waited for a minute, staring at his front door to see if it would open again but it didn’t.

Dad stooped to pick up the tools. He held them close to his chest the way he would hold a small child. “Come on. We can talk more about this tomorrow.” He started for the house, not turning to see if we would follow. For a moment, Mom stared at his back, looking like she might either scream or cry.

“I told him I would leave if I had to,” she whispered.

I wasn’t sure if she meant for me to hear that. “He’s tired,” I said. “You don’t have to leave anyone. I’ll work on repairs tomorrow. Everything will be fine for Mexico.”

She smiled at me wearily and started toward the house without responding. At the door, Dad called for me to come inside. I slammed the hood of the car down and rushed after them. Even if Mom went to sleep now, I was sure I’d be listening for her footsteps for the rest of the night.

After that, Dad was adamant about making sure she didn’t leave the house alone. He told her that he didn’t want her going outside because of reporters. I thought she’d argue, but she nodded conspiratorially. “Can’t take any chances,” she said, “not with a flight like this.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. “What kind of flight?”

But she shook her head, lips pressed together. “Nope. Can’t breathe a word. Not even to you.”

I kept trying, though. I’d join her in the middle of the night as she spread charts out across the kitchen floor and tried dismantling various appliances. In the morning I’d be exhausted, but it was better than lying in bed, imagining the ways she could leave us. But mostly she worked without talking. She used to tell me everything about being Amelia — the flights, the tours, the people she met. Now she was more serious.

Once I came downstairs and found her sitting very still at the kitchen table. At first I thought she might just be pausing before scribbling notes on one of her maps, but then she took a deep, choked breath and I realized she was crying.

When she saw me, she wiped her face with the back of her hand. “Hello,” she said. “Didn’t know anyone else was up.”

“Are you okay?” I asked. What did Amelia Earhart have to cry about? Maybe she was back to being Mom again and we didn’t have to worry anymore.

“Of course. Just working on these plans.” She picked up a pencil and pressed the tip against paper but didn’t write anything. “It’s a long one. We have so much to work out before it happens. It’s more —” Her voice cracked, but she pretended it was a cough. “It’s more than I would have thought. . . .”

I sat at the table beside her. “You don’t have to,” I said. “Just don’t go.”

“Everyone is expecting —”

“Screw everyone,” I said. “Stay here.”

She shook her head. “That’s not how it works.”

“It works any way you want it to.”

Mom finally looked up at me, her eyes red and shining with tears. But instead of crying, she took a deep breath and smiled at me. “It’s fine. It’s going to be fine. It’s the last flight, I promise, and then I can rest. Now, are you here to help?” She handed me a chart, which I couldn’t read, and busied herself with planning her final flight.

“You kids all right?”

Mrs. Wiley peered into the living room, half her body hidden by the door. Jim and I were curled up on the couch in front of a really bad sci-fi movie. We’d missed most of the plot since we started making out during the opening credits, snapping apart when we heard footsteps approaching.

“We’re fine, Mom,” Jim said.

She stepped into the room. “Hungry? Alex, have you had dinner yet?”

“I’m good,” I said. “We had pizza at home.” It was frozen pizza, of course, that I popped in while making sure Mom didn’t try to get outside and work on the car again. I wondered what the Wileys had for dinner. Mrs. Wiley seemed like the kind of person who roasted chicken and made sure meals included vegetables.

“Thirsty?” she asked. “We’ve got water, juice —”

“Mom,” Jim said. “We know where the kitchen is. I’m not letting Alex starve.”

“All right, I can take a hint. Alex, make sure to help yourself if you need anything.” She glanced at the TV, where a giant crocodile-shark hybrid was eating a team of scuba divers. “Do you really enjoy this?”

“Yeah, it’s my favorite movie ever,” Jim said. “We really don’t want to miss this, so . . .”

Mrs. Wiley rolled her eyes and disappeared back into the hallway, leaving the door open behind her.

Jim peeked over the edge of the couch to make sure his Mom was walking down the hall. When he was sure she was gone, he settled back down. “Sorry about that. She likes hovering.”

“I mean, you are alone on a couch with me, watching a really bad movie.” On-screen, the crocodile-shark was now walking around a beach. “I think she can put two and two together.”

“What do you mean?” Jim laughed. “I’m totally into
Croc-Shark.
I had no other motive when I asked you over to watch a movie.”

“I bet.” I leaned my head against Jim’s shoulder, and he put his arm around mine. Hanging out with a cute guy and not really watching a lame movie — it felt so normal. It was like slipping on a costume of a totally regular girl who didn’t have any secrets at home.

A helicopter was trying to take down croc-shark. “This has got to be the worst movie ever,” I said over a yawn.