Where We Belong (40 page)

Looking back, I guess I sort of got it in my head somehow that he’d follow my example. That if I could get a little braver, so could he. But six months and two Rachel visits went by. And he still didn’t take the risk.

It was June again, and it was four o’clock in the morning.

I left a note on the table for my mom.

It said, “You need to trust me. I know I’m technically a minor, and I know you’ll be pissed, but I’m almost seventeen now, and I think I’m grown up enough to do things by myself. I have to go talk to somebody (actually, a couple of somebodies), and the phone just won’t do it. Sometimes you have to look at somebody face to face and say what you need to say to them. I should be back tomorrow (but it might even be the next day, so please don’t freak), and then you can be as mad as you want.”

I thought about signing it, but then I decided that was stupid, because there was only one person it could possibly be from.

I slipped out of the house and walked by flashlight into town. All the way to the bus station.

Then I pulled Nellie’s hundred-dollar bill out of my jeans pocket, the one she gave me after the fact for my inventory labor all that time ago, and bought a round-trip ticket to go home. Except that wasn’t a good way to say it, because that didn’t feel like home anymore. This did.

I got the window seat. And I got that view of the mountains I never got on the way up. When we’d driven up three years before, it had been sheeting rain, and I’d mostly either been asleep or hiding my head.

The bus was full, so I didn’t get to spread out over both seats the way I was hoping to. A woman sat next to me who reminded me a little bit of Nellie. I’m not really sure why, though. She didn’t look much like her. But she was about the same age, and seemed smart in all the same places. I knew because we’d chatted a little about this and that, and then she’d taken out her book and started to read.

I took out
The Tibetan Book of the Dead
, even though I knew I wouldn’t be able to read much of it, because I get sick if I try to read for long on a moving bus. I figured I’d read a page and then look at the view for a while.

Just as well, because it wasn’t what you might call light reading.

“I tried to get through that once,” the woman said. “It was too dense for me.”

Her voice startled me. I wasn’t expecting it.

“I think it’s too hard for me, too,” I said.

“Did you know that Tibetan Book of the Dead is just an informal title for the English translation? The real translation from the Tibetan would be something more like ‘The Great Liberation Upon Hearing in the Intermediate State.’”

“I did
not
know that. What does it mean?”

“I don’t have the first clue. I told you, it was over my head. And I’m a librarian. And you’re… what? Sixteen or seventeen? So it’s a little intimidating for me to watch you stick with it.”

“The fact that I’m still reading doesn’t mean I understand it. I don’t. I don’t understand about dying at all. That’s why I’m reading it. I thought maybe it would help explain it. Not so far.”

“Did somebody in your life die?”

“Yes,” I said.

But then I didn’t say any more. After a while, she went back to her book.

“My dad,” I said. Because by then, I knew I didn’t really have to. I wasn’t feeling trapped, once she’d started reading again. “But that was more than ten years ago. And one of my best friends at the end of last year.”

“Oh, dear. I’m sorry. Someone your age?”

“No. She was old.”

Actually, she was much younger and much older than me, both at the same time. Which is a riddle, like one of those Zen koans. The answer is dog. I didn’t say any of that.

“Do you believe what that book is teaching?” she asked me. Like my opinion mattered. “That part of us goes on, and there are choices when we leave our body?”

“I want to,” I said. “I’m trying to decide.”

I had to take two city buses from downtown.

Eventually, I got off the bus right across from the park with the fountain. The one that used to be the end point of my walks with Rigby and Sophie, back before we all moved. Back when Paul used to pay me to walk her. Because we weren’t exactly friends yet.

I set off on foot for the old neighborhood, Aunt Vi’s neighborhood, my backpack slung over one shoulder. I realized right away that the walk would take me right past Nellie’s bookstore. Which I hadn’t really thought out in advance. I wondered if it was on purpose that I hadn’t thought it out. Oh, I knew I’d be sticking my head in the bookstore and saying something to Nellie. At some point. She was part of the plan. Maybe thirty or forty percent of the important stuff I had to do on this trip. Just, somehow, I didn’t have it down in my head as the first thing. More tacked on as an afterthought for the end of the day.

First I wanted to put it back in that old position. After all, I’d walk by her store again on the way back to the bus. But then I thought, What if she looks out the window and sees me walk by? Without sticking my head in and saying a word?

She’d think I hated her.

I got hit with a thought so sudden and so strong, it stopped me. Literally. I stopped walking and stood still on the sidewalk. And just thought it.

She might already think I hated her. That was the thought. She’d had nothing to go on but her own imagination, all this time. I’d put her in a position where she had to guess how that whole thing was left. Make it up in her head. You know. That place where things can get out of hand. Get blown all out of proportion.

At least, in my head, things do.

That really was the first moment it dawned on me how big an apology I owed her.

I started walking again, then had another thought that stopped me cold.

Maybe the bookstore wasn’t even there anymore, three years later. Little bookstores close all the time. Maybe Nellie was out of business. Then the apology would never get delivered, because I’d never find her. I didn’t even know her last name.

I started to walk again, and my steps got fast, because I was anxious to find out.

The bookstore was still there.

I slowed down, but I kept walking. Closer and closer. I expected my heart to pound, and my hands to get shaky, but it didn’t happen. I just felt numb. Like my body and my brain were made of petrified wood. I just felt heavy and numb.

When I got to her door, I paused a minute. With my hand on the door pull. Just froze there, looking at my own hand. Just seeing and feeling what I was doing. I knew it was a being-alive thing, but I still just felt numb.

I opened the door and stuck my head in.

“Hey,” I said. Quiet. Like a breath.

“Good afternoon,” she said. Flat and regular. Nothing special at all.

My heart dropped into my gut. And I felt it. Where was all that numb when I needed it most? It had never occurred to me that maybe
she
hated
me
. She liked me in the letter, and that’s how I’d expected things to stay.

I almost turned and walked right back out again.

Then I heard, “
Angie
?”

That’s when I realized she hadn’t even known it was me.

“Yeah. It’s me.”

“Oh, my God. Angie! I didn’t even recognize you! You’re all grown up.”

“It’s been a long time,” I said.

“Is there a reason just your head is inside?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have Sophie and that huge dog with you?”

“No.”

“Then what’s the reason?”

“I’m a big coward.”

She laughed. It turned out I liked to make her laugh just as much as I’d always used to.

I opened the door the rest of the way and went in. I stood in front of her counter, shifting back and forth from one foot to the other. Trying to feel if I was still numb or not. I had this thing in my stomach that felt like a little buzz of electricity. So probably not.

“I have to be honest,” she said. “I figured you were gone forever. I never thought I’d see you or hear from you again.”

I nodded. A little too much, in fact. “It was looking that way for a while.”

“What changed?”

“Me. I guess.”

“Duh,” she said.

I got hit hard with how much I’d missed her, without even knowing it.

“I meant, what changed in
you
?” she added.

“Hmm. Well. I watched a friend of mine being a big coward. And I thought he shouldn’t be. And then I realized I was, too, more than I’d been admitting. And I didn’t want to be anymore. And also, I sort of felt like I owed you a big apology.”

“Want to know how you can totally make it up to me?”

“Yes.”

“You can sit down. That thing you’re doing is making me nervous. You look like a racehorse fidgeting in the starting gate. Factor in our history and it makes me think you’re about to bolt out of here.”

“Sorry.” I sat down in her big stuffed chair. Set the backpack on the rug. Slipped off my shoes and crossed my sock feet. “Better?”

“Much. So. I was wondering if you were even still in town.”

“I’m not. We got thrown out of my aunt’s house that same day. That last day I saw you. We moved out of town that day.”

“Oh. Well. That explains a lot.”

“Not really. I still could have called you.”

She laughed out loud, but I had no idea why.

“That’s such classic Angie. I’m trying to let you off easy, but you have to turn yourself in. I don’t think you owe me an apology. I think it was all me. I think I could have handled things better. I should have told you who Cathy was right at the beginning. I should have said right up front that she was my girlfriend. No surprises, you know? Hey. Are you hungry? I’m thinking pizza.”

Part of me didn’t want to stay. Or, at least, commit to staying. But I hadn’t eaten all day, and I was pretty damn hungry.

“I could eat some pizza.”

She picked up the phone and ordered it. And I got a chance to watch her while she wasn’t watching me watch her. It was a weird experience, because I was bowled over by how big and strong denial can be. I couldn’t grasp how I ever looked at her and didn’t completely know how much I wanted to get closer to her, and why. That’s a pretty damned big secret to be keeping, especially from yourself.

When she got off the phone, she said, “So…”

And I said, “So… is Cathy still your girlfriend?”

Which, the minute it came out of my mouth, I knew was a stupid question. Because what difference did it make? If Cathy wasn’t, somebody else was. Or would be. Because Nellie was still in her thirties, and I was still in my teens. It was a brick wall I knew damn well we’d never get around. So I don’t even know why I asked.

“Yes and no,” she said. “More like my wife now.”

“Ah. Well, that’s good. If you’re happy.”

It was. It was good. And it hurt to hear it. Both at the same time. I only told her the half of it, but I had a funny feeling she knew both halves all the same.