“I couldn’t have done it without you.”
“Yeah, you could have. You just don’t know it yet.”
“I’m going to leave now,” I say, because I don’t want Donna to patronize me, even if she is trying to be kind. I could never do what she does. I sleep on a school bus. I’m a freak. I couldn’t even take first place at the Marketing Club regionals.
“Okay,” Donna says. “See you tomorrow morning?”
“True,” I say, and then leave without saying goodbye to Ricky, because—all of a sudden—I’m feeling sorta down for some reason.
It’s cold outside. North Pole cold. And I don’t have a proper winter coat.
As I’m walking toward the school bus compound, I remember what I said about visiting Franks’ house, and since I don’t want JC to think I am a damn liar, I make a detour. Franks lives in the neighborhood, in a grasshopper green rancher with a big old addition on the back—bedrooms for all of his redheaded kids.
It’s kind of late for a school night, but B Thrice and I walk up his driveway and knock on his basement window. Franks is playing Halo 3 in his basement, probably against Ty of the Franks Freak Force Federation and people all over the world, which boys and men do through something called Xbox Live. He looks up at me, then points to his watch and shakes his head. But before I can knock again, I hear Franks’ mean redheaded wife say, “I’m calling the cops if you don’t get off our property! I know who you are, Amber Appleton. Go home and leave my husband alone! He’s not working now!”
“I’m totally in love with your man,” I say to Franks’ wife, just to get her riled up. “He’s going to leave you and marry me as soon as I’m of age!”
“I’ll kill you with my own bare hands!” she yells, stepping out of the kitchen and into the cold night. She’s wearing a depressing bathrobe and slippers, which makes her look really sad and homely.
“Just kidding, Red. Your husband is an honorable man, and he loves you to death and would never leave you or the kids. Not for a million bucks. That’s why I want to hug him so much. I don’t expect you to understand, but please know that I’m praying for you and your family every night.”
“What are you talking about?” Mrs. Franks says.
“You’re a lucky woman,” I tell her, and then BBB and me walk away.
B3 is a little lackluster at night. He’s a morning dog. So I usually talk to JC on my long walk home to Hello Yellow.
“JC,” I pray. “You see us at the school board meeting? Whatcha know about that, sucka?” I laugh because it’s sorta fun to call JC sucka when I’m praying. “Were you proud of me, Heavenly Father? Did your daughter do you proud?”
I look up into the sky and there are no stars. Just streetlights and blackness.
I don’t really feel like JC is listening tonight, so I stop praying and start to cry.
I cry a lot when I am alone, probably because I am a chick and all, but maybe because I’m not strong like Donna, and I think about stuff too much—like, for example, sometimes I get this idea that my dad has really been watching over me the past seventeen years sorta like a guardian angel or something, only he’s really alive and waiting for me to earn the right to have a dad, and once he sees me doing enough good, he’s going to run up behind me and surprise me with a big old fatherly hug, picking me up off the ground and spinning me around like in the damn movies. Sometimes, after I have done something pretty kick-ass, I turn around really quickly, because I sorta believe that he might be there ready to hug me. But he never is.
I don’t want to turn around tonight, because I’m seventeen, so I realize that the fantasy is silly and even delusional maybe, but as I’m walking home tonight, I think about how I protected Ricky from Lex Pinkston today, and how happy The KDFCs looked when we were performing “You Can’t Hurry Love,” and I know that Father Chee is definitely proud of me, and I got my boys to save Franks’ job, which is something that any good father would be proud of, and as I’m walking down the street, I start to feel like my father is really behind me—I even think I hear his footsteps.
I don’t want to turn around and be disappointed once again, but I also still believe in hope and the possibility of beautiful things happening in this world. I still believe that JC and God have a kick-ass plan for every one of us, so I say, “Dad?”
With so much hope in my heart, I spin around in the middle of the sidewalk and there is no one there—like always.
And so I cry—so hard that BBB gets scared and starts barking, so I pick him up and carry his butt back to Hello Yellow.
Mom’s asleep under the comforter, so I let her be.
I don’t do my homework.
I sit in the quiet darkness for a long time.