AS I LED Petty out of the bus station, I wondered if I was making yet another mistake. But I felt confident that for once I was doing the right thing. It didn’t have anything to do with how good--looking she was.
We got in the truck.
“Just don’t ask me any questions,” Petty said.
“Deal,” I said. “And don’t threaten me with bodily harm.”
“Deal,” Petty said.
“This girl I’m going to call I haven’t seen in over a year.” I opened my phone and dialed. “But we’re old pals. She’s from Saw Pole too. Did you ever know Ashley Heussner?” I shook my head. “No, of course you didn’t.”
A raspy voice said, “Hello?”
“Hey, Ash. It’s Dekker. I’m in town and I wondered if me and a friend could crash there tonight.”
A prolonged squeal made me pull the phone away from my ear. Petty’s face showed alarm, so I covered the mouthpiece with my hand and said, “Everything’s okay. This is her way of saying she’s happy to hear from me.”
“Dekker! I’ve missed you so much! Why haven’t you called? I can’t believe it’s really you! Yes, yes, yes! Come to my place and we’ll catch up! It’ll be so much fun!”
I kept trying to interrupt and cut the call short, but Ashley made it impossible. “Okay—-okay—-when’s a good—-”
“Just come on over. We’ll go out and get shit--faced. You’re buying, right? You owe me! You know you owe me!”
“Okay. We’ll see you soon.” While she was still talking, I clicked end, pocketed the phone and said to Petty, “You have to do that. She’ll keep talking. She’s probably still talking.”
Then I pulled out the wad of hundreds Petty had given me. “I can’t take this.” I held the bills out to her.
“Yes, you can,” she said. “I’m not taking it back. I can’t tell you how sorry—-”
I held up a hand. “Let me explain how this whole apology--slash--forgiveness thing works. You say you’re sorry, and you really mean it. I say that’s all right, but, like, please don’t point a gun at me ever again. And you say I won’t, and you really, really mean it. And then we move on. But please take your money back.”
“No.” She turned away and looked out the windshield.
“All right, then,” I said, but I felt like I was taking the last remaining vial of a diabetic’s insulin. “I’m taking you out for dinner, and you’re going to order whatever you want to eat and drink, and I’m paying.”
The silence that greeted this made me turn toward Petty, whose lips were trembling.
“You okay?” I said.
“Yes.”
“You have any favorites? Places you like to eat?”
She shook her head and turned it toward the window.
“Ashley said to come on over. Would it be cool with you if we made a stop? I need to get some more cigarettes if we’re going to Ashley’s. She only smokes OPs.”
“OPs?”
“Other -people’s.”
“That’s fine,” Petty said.
We pulled into a Walgreens lot, parked and got out. I remembered not to wait for Petty to go through the door first and walked inside past the automatic sliding door toward the beverages. I turned to say something to her and realized she was not beside me. I backtracked to the front of the store, where I found her standing and staring with her mouth open.
“What is it?” I said.
She gestured. “This,” she said. “I’ve never been inside a store before.”
“Never?” I said, a little too loudly. I wondered what it would be like to see a place like Walgreens for the first time, dazzled by all the products and colorful packaging in real life instead of on TV.
She was so awed, in fact, that she turned in circles—-she must have been so happy to be out in the world that she was twirling. I hoped she’d stop soon, because it was a little embarrassing.
“You want anything?” I asked her. “Soda? A snack?”
“I’m thirsty,” she said.
I led her over to the drink case and she stared at the rows of energy drinks, sports drinks, flavored teas, sodas and water.
“You want a Coke?”
“Never had one,” she said.
Had she ever eaten Twinkies or Doritos or any of the staples I grew up on? I didn’t want to ask, to draw more attention to her weirdness.
“How about a bottle of water?” I said.
“Okay.”
I handed her a chilled bottle of Aquafina. Up at the counter, I asked the clerk for two packs of Camels and paid for everything with my new cash.
“Thank you,” Petty said as we walked out the door.
I nodded. As we stepped onto the sidewalk, two guys on skateboards whizzed toward us at high speed. I reflexively reached for Petty’s arm to pull her out of the way.
What came next happened so fast I barely had time to process it. Petty brought her arm up whip--smart, instantly and painfully breaking my grip on it, then bounced backward with her fists up. Just as quickly she dropped her hands in front of her, embarrassed when she saw the skater boys and realized I was only trying to keep her from getting creamed.