“I did. But not anymore. Listen, my sound guy’s giving me the stink eye. I should go.”
They promised to talk again, which maybe would happen and maybe wouldn’t. Then they got off the line. Arlo was shaking when it was over. Relief and something else. He’d felt enormous shame for a long time, to the point where hearing his own music had been like needles under his skin. But after apologizing to Danny, some of that subsided now.
Baby, run away with me.
We’ll shake these blues…
The song finished playing, and Arlo remembered why it had resonated with so many people. It’s nostalgic for something that isn’t real, and it’s sad about that. Everybody’s nostalgic for glory days that never happened.
“Kennedys in the River” ended. The latte guy was looking at him with recognition. Arlo nodded as if to say: Yeah. I’m that guy.
The latte guy’s face scrunched in anger. He pointed the phone at Arlo. “I know you,” he said.
Like always happened when threatened, Arlo’s hands turned to fists. The latte guy stood from his table and walked backward, phone held higher, like a weapon. Now the barista, the other patrons, and Julia and Larry were looking, too.
“I know what you did to that little girl!” Latte guy screamed.
Creedmoor Psychiatric Center
Wednesday, July 28
Another day at the hospital. Julia’s parents were angry but not saying why they were angry, which made Julia think they were mad at her. If she’d been faster, grabbed Shelly by the arm or taken the fall instead, this wouldn’t be happening. People wouldn’t be saying bad things. Strange men at Starbucks wouldn’t be yelling. Their house and pictures of their family wouldn’t be on the TV.
A lot of this was happening because Shelly’s body was missing. Everybody knew, for her dad to prove his innocence, they needed the body.
After visiting hours, they didn’t go back to Starbucks, because people in Starbucks are crazy and yell crazy things. They did get ice cream at Baskin-Robbins. In cups not cones, even though Julia preferred cones. But her dad did the ordering, and he looked tense as a rubber band about to snap. She’d decided to go with the flow, take the cup.
Julia got plain vanilla with chocolate sprinkles. Larry got pistachio for the green. Their dad got three scoops of chocolate plus syrup. He acted pretend happy. She hated when he did that. He said all the right, reasonable things, and underneath, you could tell he was boiling.
“You’re gonna get fat,” Larry told him, deadpan. “Mom says keep the ice cream, spare the syrup, or it’s jelly belly city.”
Julia leaned forward, just in case she needed to get between her brother and her dad. Just in case he really did snap.
Arlo threw the ice cream in the garbage, hard, so it passed all the random pink plastic and stuff and sank straight to the bottom. Then he stood in the doorway, waiting for Julia and Larry to follow. So Julia got up and threw away her ice cream, too. She stood next to her dad. Didn’t say anything. Tried not to cry. She’d wanted that ice cream. That ice cream had been the only good thing to happen in weeks.
Larry took another bite like nothing was happening. The more nervous he got, the weirder and more obstinate he acted.
“Get up. Now. We’re leaving,” Arlo said.
Julia went over to him because right now, Larry was especially her job. If she could take care of him, at least she was doing one thing right. Even if she’d failed Shelly. There wasn’t time to nice-talk him. So she took a chance, grabbed him by the arm and pulled, which worked 90 percent of the time. The other 10 percent, he tweaked. She used too much force. He got taken by surprise and shoved her. Little brothers. She reacted instead of thinking and shoved him back. He fell, landing upright, his ice cream intact.
The Baskin-Robbins was crowded. Everybody was looking at them, even the people in uniform who worked there. This was bad. They weren’t allowed to fight, especially now that Julia was twelve years old. But the golden rule was Never in Public.
Larry scrambled to get up. He used Julia’s leg for support and Julia yelped. It looked like more tussling.
“Let go of each other! NOW!” Arlo shouted.
Still holding Julia’s leg, Larry froze, too scared to do anything else. Julia tried to shrink inside herself without actually moving her body or looking away or attracting attention.
Arlo rushed at them in two lanky strides, then jerked Larry up by the arm. He made this grunt that wasn’t pain, but probably sounded like it to strangers. Everybody in the shop got quiet. Somebody took out their phone and pointed. Larry’s pistachio ice cream dropped, and it slimed their clean floor.
Arlo’s voice went low and rasping. It carried the way lead singers’ voices fill any room, no matter the volume. “Why can’t either of you ever do as told?”
“Sorry,” Julia whispered.
“You know you can’t act like this. Not now! What the fuck are you thinking?”