“Excuse me,” he says, nudging my JanSport. “I think your backpack is singing.”
I sling my bag around and pull out my cell. The dulcet tones of Stevie Wonder’s “I Just Called to Say I Love You” echo off the walls of our little canvas-and-water prison. Stevie only croons when Kathy calls, altogether negating the sentiment of the lyrics.
“That’s sweet,” says Poncho Man. “Your boyfriend?”
“Stepmom,” I whisper, staring at her name on the LCD screen. Kathy preloaded the song to be her “special ring.” I’ve been meaning to change it to something more appropriate, like Darth Vader’s “Imperial March” or that robotic voice that just yells “Warning! Warning!” over and over again.
“You guys must be close.”
Singing phone in hand, I turn to face this guy. “What?”
“The song. Are you and your stepmother close?”
“Oh yeah, sure,” I say, summoning every sarcastic bone in my body. Leaving the phone unanswered, I toss it in my bag. “We’re tight.”
He nods, smiling from ear to ear. “That’s terrific.”
I say nothing. My quota for conversations with a stranger has officially been met. For the decade.
“So where’re you headed, hon?” he asks.
Well, that’s that.
I take a deep breath, step through the mini-waterfall and into the rain. It’s still falling in sheets, but I don’t mind. It’s the first rain of autumn, my favorite of the year. And maybe it’s this, or the adrenaline of my day’s decisions, but I’m feeling reckless—or honest, maybe. Sometimes, it’s hard to tell the difference.
Turning toward Poncho Man, I notice his eyes are wet and shiny, but it’s not from crying or the rain. It’s something else entirely. And for a split second, I have the peculiar sensation that everyone and everything around us has dissolved. It’s just the two of us, cursed to face one another amid the ravenous elements of this bus station for all of forever.
“You know,” I yell over the rain, breaking the curse. “I’m sixteen.”
The other people under the awning are staring now, unable to ignore the uncomfortable nearness any longer.
“Okay,” he says, nodding, still smiling with those glassy eyes.
I push a clump of sopping hair out of my face and pull the drawstrings of my hoodie tight around my head. “You really shouldn’t talk to young girls. At bus stations. It’s just creepy, man.”
Soaked to the bone, pondering the madness of the world, I stomp through puddles to the doors of the Jackson Greyhound station. Next to Gate C, a short man in a tweed hat hands me a flyer.
LABOUR DAY SPECIAL
FOUR $DOLLAR-FIFTY GENERAL TSO CHICKEN
WHY U PAY MORE? DROP BY! WE FAMOUS!
The flyer is a domino, the first, tipping over a row of memories: a blank fortune knocks over Labor Day traditions, knocks over Elvis, knocks over fireworks, knocks over the way things used to be, knocks over, knocks over . . .
From a thousand miles away, I feel my mother needing me. This is a thing that I know, and I know it harder, stronger, fuller than I’ve ever known any other thing.
Four days until Labor Day.
Ninety-six hours.
I can’t be late.
3
Northbound Greyhound
September 1—afternoon
Dear Isabel,
So I’m bored. On a bus. Stuck next to an old lady who keeps leaning over like she wants to start up a conversation. To maintain sanity, I shall write.
Labor Day is Reason #2.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. Really, Mim? Labor Day? And rightfully so. What’s so special about the first Monday of September that the government would shut down the country in its honor? Honestly, if it weren’t for school closings and extended happy hours, I’m not sure anyone would know it exists.
But I would.
One Labor Day, six or seven years ago, Mom stood up in the middle of dinner and asked if I’d like to go for a walk. Dad kept his head down, toying with the food on his plate. “Evie,” he whispered without looking up. I remember laughing because it looked like he was giving his food a name. Mom said something about the digestive benefits of exercise after eating, grabbed my hand, and together we walked out the door, down the hushed streets of our subdivision. We laughed and talked and laughed some more. I loved it when she was like that, all young and fun and eager to keep being young and fun, and it didn’t matter what happened the day before or the day after, all that mattered was the Young Fun Now.
Such a rare thing.
Anyway . . .
That’s when we found it. Or rather, them. Our people.
They lived on Utopia Court, if you can believe it—a little cul-de-sac tucked in the back of the neighborhood. When we turned the corner, it was like stepping through Alice’s looking-glass, only instead of the Jabberwock and a Red Queen, we found revolutionaries and idealists, people who damned the Man, people who refused to bow to suburban mediocrity. While the rest of the neighborhood watched TV or played video games, that little cul-de-sac set off explosions for the ages.