But no. She lives a few doors down from me. If Angelica had been caught, I would have heard about it.
The urge is there, sudden and overwhelming: I need to see Lena. I need to talk with her, to spill everything, to tell her about Fred Hargrove, who has already had and given up one match, and his mother’s obsessive weeding, and Steve Hilt, and the Devil’s Kiss, and Sarah Sterling. She will make me feel better. She will know what I should do—what I should feel.
This time, when I go downstairs, I make sure to tiptoe; I don’t want to have to answer my parents’ questions about where I’m heading. I get my bike from the garage, where I stashed it after riding home last night. A purple scrunchie is looped around its left handle. Lena and I have the same bike, and a few months ago we started using the scrunchies to differentiate them. After our fight I pulled the scrunchie off and shoved it in the bottom of my sock drawer. But the handlebars looked sad and naked, and so I had to replace it.
It is just after eleven, and the air is full of shimmering, wet heat. Even the seagulls seem to be moving more slowly; they drift across the cloudless sky, practically motionless, as though they are suspended in liquid blue. Once I make it out of the West End and its protective shelter of ancient oaks and shaded, narrow streets, the sun is practically unbearable, high and unforgiving, as though a vast glass lens has been centered over Portland.
I make a point of detouring past the Governor, the old statue that stands in the middle of a cobblestone square near the University of Portland, which Lena will attend in the fall. We used to run together past the Governor regularly, and made a habit of reaching up and slapping his outstretched hand. I always made a wish simultaneously, and now, although I don’t stop to slap his hand, I reach out with a toe and skim the base of the statue for good luck as I ride past. I wish, I think, but don’t get any further. I don’t know exactly what to wish for: to be safe or to be unsafe, for things to change or for things to stay the same.
The ride to Lena’s house takes me longer than usual. A garbage truck has broken down on Congress Street, and the police are redirecting people up Chestnut and around on Cumberland. By the time I get to Lena’s street, I’m sweating, and I stop when I’m still a few blocks away from her house to drink from a water fountain and blot my face. Next to the fountain is a bus stop, with a sign warning of curfew restrictions—SUNDAY TO THURSDAY, 9 P.M.; SATURDAY AND SUNDAY, 9:30 P.M.—and as I go to chain my bike up, I notice the smudgy glass waiting area is papered with flyers. They are all identical, and feature the crest of Portland above bolded black type.
The Safety of One Is the Duty of All
Keep Your Eyes and Ears Open
Report All Suspicious Activity to the Department of
Sanitation and Security
If You See Something, Say Something
**$500 reward for reports of illicit or unapproved activity
I stand for a minute, scanning the words over and over, as though they will suddenly mean something different. People have always reported suspicious behavior, of course, but it has never come with a financial reward. This will make it harder, much harder, for me, for Steve, for all of us. Five hundred dollars is a lot of money to most people these days—the kind of money most people don’t make in a week.
A door slams and I jump, almost knocking over my bike. I notice, for the first time, that the whole street is papered with flyers. They are posted on gates and mailboxes, taped to disabled streetlamps and metal garbage cans.
There is movement on Lena’s porch. Suddenly she appears, wearing an oversized T-shirt from her uncle’s deli. She must be going to work. She pauses, scanning the street—I think her eyes land on me, and I lift my hand in a hesitant wave, but her eyes keep tracking, drifting over my head, and then sweeping off in the other direction.
I’m about to call out to her when her cousin Grace comes flying down the cement porch steps. Lena laughs and reaches out to slow Grace down. Lena looks happy, untroubled. I’m seized by sudden doubt: It occurs to me that Lena might not miss me at all. Maybe she hasn’t been thinking of me; maybe she’s perfectly happy not speaking to me.
After all, it’s not like she’s tried to call.
As Lena starts making her way down the street, with Grace bobbing beside her, I turn around quickly and remount my bike. Now I’m desperate to get out of here. I don’t want her to spot me. The wind kicks up, rustling all those flyers, the exhortations of safety. The flyers lift and sigh in unison, like a thousand people waving white handkerchiefs, a thousand people waving good-bye.
Chapter Four