What Happens Next (20 page)

“So, does your friend—”

“No. She already has a ride.”

“Cool. Watch your step, it’s high.”

I step up into the truck and slam the squeaky door. We get going and at first there is this longish silence and I’m relieved when Corey speaks first.

“Has your dog gotten bigger since I saw him last? He looks bigger.”

“Nope, he’s the same,” I say. Then I add, “Maybe he just looks bigger in the daytime.”

Corey nods. “Yeah, maybe.”

And then another awkward silence. I scour my brain, but I am truly at a loss for conversation starters. I’m never this tongue-tied at the bakery. One, because whenever there’s a break in conversation, I can busy myself with asking about bakery things or excuse myself to go to the bathroom, or Mr. DiRusso will walk by and say something. Two, because I know I have an escape hatch if I need it. I can just make up an excuse and leave altogether, and any awkwardness is ended gracefully with a
Gotta get going! See ya, Corey! Later, Mr. D.

But I am always praying for another invitation on my way out, one that thankfully always comes. Corey will say something like,
Hey, come by Tuesday if you want, we’re making rum cake for some old lady card club. We’ll tie one on before school
, and then Mr. DiRusso will smack him in the back of the head, and we’ll all laugh. I’ll walk out swearing to myself that I will not go to the bakery on Tuesday, that Corey is just being nice, that I’m being a parasite and he doesn’t really want me there, but I always end up back, walking in all nervous, trying to play it off like the bakery is just on my running route, no big deal. After a few minutes, I relax and my words flow freely because I always know that if things get weird, I can just take off like I have an errand or some last-minute homework.

Right now, we are trapped together for the next ten minutes and there is no bathroom to excuse myself to, no Mr. D to take the edge off, and no rum cake to joke about. There is absolutely nowhere to run. What there is, however, is a radio, and I’m relieved when Corey turns it on.

It’s set to the local classic rock station. A commercial ends and “Born To Be Wild” starts up. I know the song from the
Jock Rock
tape my mom used to play when we’d go to the beach.

“Is this okay?” Corey asks. “I can change it. Or I’ve got some CDs in the backseat?”

“No, this is fine. I like Steppenwolf.”

And I say this like “Born To Be Wild” isn’t the only Steppenwolf song that I know. I say this like I’m a big follower of all things Steppenwolf.

“Really?” he says, “Cool. ‘Magic Carpet Ride’ will be next. They usually play doubles.”

Okay, then. “Magic Carpet Ride.” So that’s two songs I know. I guess I actually do like this band or person called Steppenwolf.

The music provides a comforting cloak for the awkwardness. For me, anyway. From the looks of things, Corey seems fine, cool as a cucumber, mellow yellow, just like always. I am hoping that they play the whole Steppenwolf album. I might make it to school without jumping out at a red light.

I relax into my seat, or try to look like it, anyway. I tap my fingers on my knees to the beat, move my lips to the words. I check out the inside of his truck while trying to appear unfazed. It’s an older truck. And when I say older, what I really mean is ancient. It’s an automotive relic. It’s all dials, and I can barely see it from where I’m sitting, but the odometer reads over 100,000 miles. It’s probably a million miles, and they just ran out of zeroes.

As I continue to survey the interior of Corey’s truck, the nervous energy I feel starts dissipating, and a new feeling starts seeping into me. I don’t know what it is yet, though. All I know is that the smell of Windex is evident and a new leather-scented air freshener is hanging from the rearview mirror. I know it’s new because it’s fairly strong and the plastic packaging is still partially wrapped around it. I also notice that the ashtray has been cleaned out, and I see no signs of old ashes on the dashboard or in crevices anywhere. So he’s a clean person, he keeps a clean vehicle. So what? I tell myself this and try to push the feeling away. The feeling that I don’t know what it is yet.

I look out the window, and that’s when I see them. Drops of water. I look around me. There are drops of water collected into the outside edges of all the windows. It hasn’t rained in days and the morning dew has already burned off from the warm weather, but the drops are there; little ones, vibrating together into bigger drops that slide downward like tears. In a few minutes, the breeze will have dried them all and they’ll be gone. But right now, they are here. And the emotion that I’m feeling reveals itself to me:
Assurance
. Because I know that before he came to my house to pick me up, Corey Livingston stopped at the car wash and cleaned his truck out. Corey Livingston cares what I think of him. I try to push the feeling away, but it’s growing. Fed by those tiny drops that are almost gone, the assurance is blooming.

Into hope.

I snap to it and tell myself that I’m reading into things.

“So you quit smoking?” I ask.

“How’d you know?”

“Clean ashtray. Plus, you don’t really smell like it anymore. No offense.”

“None taken. Perceptive. Yep. One month tomorrow.”

“Good for you,” I say and look out the window again. I’m usually full of wit and conversation at the bakery, but my mind is tripping over itself to find something to say.

“Not that smoking hasn’t been replaced by another addiction,” he says.

He pulls something out of the compartment of his door and holds it up, wiggling it at me. Nicotine gum. Okay, cool. We’re still on smoking. I rally and try to think of something clever to say.

Smoking…

Cigarettes…

Cancer…

Lungs…

Got it!

“Ah, but think of your lungs,” I say. “They’re thanking you with every chew.”

Not my best material, but not a complete sinker.

“True. But my wallet sure isn’t thanking me. Stuff’s pricey. I’d be better off going back to smoking.”

“In the short term,” I say, pointing a highly enlightened finger upwards. “But think about when you’re sixty and paying cancer bills. Think about being shackled down to one of those oxygen tanks and sporting one of those weird mechanical voice box thingies. You don’t want to be the old scary guy who talks like a robot and smokes from a hole in his neck.”

He laughs.

“As usual, Sid, you paint a picture.”

Bull’s-eye.

He snaps a square piece of gum out of the pack and pops it in his mouth.

“What’s it taste like?” I ask.

“It ain’t Dubble Bubble, that’s for sure.”

I take the pack off the seat, snap out a piece, and pop it into my mouth. I bite down and it’s pure awful. Like mint-flavored candle wax. My mouth is tingling, going numb.

“Agh…” I say and roll the window down to spit it out.

He laughs.

“Told ya.”

“Yep. Dubble Bubble, it ain’t.”

When we get to school, he asks, “You need a ride home?”

I start to say something like,
Well, if you’re not busy
or
As long as you don’t mind
, but I force myself to say what I mean, say what I want. And it practically kills me to do it, but I cling to the scent of leather air freshener that is now embedded in my clothes and hair and I somehow manage to force the words out of my mouth. They are quiet, but they are there.

“Yeah. I do. Thanks.”

“Sure. Meet me at the truck.”

“Okay.”

And then the day drags on at an excruciatingly slow pace. Sluggish hours are divided into minutes, minutes are broken down into seconds, and seconds split themselves into nanoseconds. The first half of the day is especially taxing. My calculus teacher’s words are heavy and thick and make me feel like I’m wading through a tar pit.

I stare at the clock.

Three thirty-five is Mount Everest, and I am an ant with a boulder tied to its back.

I perk up for a minute during fourth-period health when I overhear a girl who is dating one of the guys in Corey’s group tell another girl that a bunch of them are going to Mr. Hero for lunch.

Then I remember that Kirsten has no car today.

And the clock groans to me from across the room.

20

Kirsten, Paige, and I
are sitting in the courtyard eating lunch. Well, I mean,
they’re
eating lunch. I’m more or less pushing around the leaves of a wilted side salad that I bought for a dollar. After the usual small talk concerning things like the pig slop being served in the cafeteria and Paige’s inability to find a size four shoe that isn’t made for kids, Kirsten finally asks the million-dollar question, the one I’ve been waiting for her to ask for ten minutes now.

“So how was your ride to school today?” she says and opens her carton of milk. She is trying to be casual but failing miserably.

“I’m here, right?” I say. Then I hold up my wrists and add, “Look, no rope burns, no duct tape residue.”

“That’s not what I
meant
,” she says, feigning insult.

“Yeah, it is,” Paige says, popping a Tater Tot into her mouth.

“It is not,” Kirsten says. “I was just asking a question.”

“Sure you were,” I say, taking a bite of my salad.

“Well, is it so wrong to want to know a little more about him?” She pauses, then raises an eyebrow. “He is pretty good-looking, now that I’ve seen him up close. I passed him on my way to the bio lab yesterday. He was at the water fountain, so I got in line behind him, and when he turned around, I had myself a good long stare. He’s actually hot, if you’re into that sort of thing.”

“I’m not
in
to anything. We’re just friends.”

“Yeah, right,” Paige says, popping another Tot. “Your eyes are this psychedelic green color. They always do that when you’re excited or nervous.”

“What?” I say, looking around at anything but Paige.

She’s right. My eyes do that. My mother says she can always tell when I am excited or nervous because my eyes go from light green to this bright, watery turquoise color.

I try to take the focus off myself and throw it back on them.

“I mean, why does it always have to be so… so scandalous all the time with you two? And what do you mean by ‘if you’re into that sort of thing’?”

“Please. Like you don’t know,” Paige says.

And I do know. I know exactly, but I want them to do the talking so I can focus on getting my eyes back to normal.

“Oh, you know all right. That whole long-haired, rebel-rocker stoner thing,” Kirsten says.

“Okay, first of all, he’s not a stoner.”

They roll their eyes in unison.

“Well, he’s not a rocker! And second of all, his hair is not that long. Have you seen the hair on Jake Rivers? He’s like a freaking chick out there on the football field. That’s how guys wear it now. Don’t you two watch TV?”

I flash a snotty look at Paige.

“Oh, wait. I forgot. You don’t. No cable.”

“Nice,” Paige says, narrowing her eyes.

I sigh; that was bitchy.

“Okay, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. It just feels like you two are ganging up on me is all.”

“Oh, relax, already,” Kirsten says. “We’re just curious about what you see in him. I mean, you’re our friend and we tell you our stuff. I told you about my date with that guy from Westlake. Justin with the biceps?”

I glom onto the change of subject and run with it.

“Oh, yeah. Justin Biceps. How’s that coming along?”

“Okay.” She shrugs. “I’m going to his prom. He asked me last night.”

“Don’t act excited about it or anything,” Paige says.

“I’m excited,” Kirsten says.

Paige and I groan. She’s still heartbroken about Pat. She tries not to show it, but it pretty much devastated her.

“No, really,” she says, trying to sound convincing. “I’ve been looking at dresses online and everything.”

She pauses, then adds, “I have to admit, though—I’m more excited about the idea of walking into the Callahan kegger with him, those biceps wrapped around me. Because if there’s a God, and if He loves me, then Pat-piece-of-shit-Callahan will be home that weekend. Probably with what’s-her-face.”

“Tierney-the-flautist-from-Nantucket!” Paige and I shout in unison.

“Yeah, bite me. And don’t think I’ve forgotten what we were originally talking about. We were talking about you and Corey Livingston. My point was, we tell each other our shit. I told you about Justin. And Paige, she tells you about her letters from Bible Benny.”

“His name is Ben! For the millionth time!” Paige says.

Ben’s a guy from Cincinnati whom Paige met at a teen retreat in Columbus. While they’ve only seen each other in the flesh a total of four times, they’ve been in a “relationship” for two years. He’s homeschooled and writes her letters with real pen and paper. It’s kind of sweet, actually. A bit strange, but still, kind of sweet.

“Ben. Fine, whatever,” Kirsten says. “And also, the elven cowboy. What’s his name again?”

“Trent,” Paige growls. “His name… is Trent. And he’s not an elven cowboy. He’s a seventeen-year-old hottie from Dallas who just happens to play Warcraft.”

I grin. “Yeah, I wonder what Bible Benny would say if he knew about your cozy late-night raids with Kickin’ Your Ass from Texas.”

That would be Trent’s avatar name: KcknUrAssfromTX.

Kirsten and I laugh. Paige defends herself, as if she somehow needs to do this.

“It doesn’t count as cheating because Mendelora and KcknUrAss aren’t real. Just because we hack and slay jungle trolls online, that doesn’t make us a couple.”

“Yeah, so if you’re not a couple,” Kirsten says, “then why do you race home every day to chat him up on TeamSpeak and then scribble his name all over the inside of your physics folder?”

I try to grab her folder, the one that she’s wallpapered end-to-end with “KcknUrAssfromTX” in shiny red hearts. Paige snatches it back and sits on it.

“Ha!” I scoff, pointing at her. “See, doesn’t feel so good, does it? Having someone you like picked apart by your friends?”