“Can you make this thing go any faster?” This time Charlie’s complaining is purely perfunctory.
“Say whatever you want, but you know my car is awesome.”
“It’s a station wagon.”
Technically, it’s a 1968 Saab delivery van—one my grandfather gave my mom when she was a teenager. She’s kept it all this time, strangely sentimental of her considering they haven’t spoken in over ten years.
When my grandfather bought the Saab, it was olive, but decades have morphed it to an oxidized green. Outside it looks like an old-fashioned ambulance. Open the door, and you fast-forward a couple millennia. Most of the interior had to be replaced, so the dashboard and controls look like what 1950s television writers thought spaceships would look like one day. There’s a lot of curvy silver and enormous red buttons, but the weirdest part’s the centrally located heating vent that looks exactly like a robot’s face.
Charlie turns on the heat—probably to make a point about his lack of jacket—and the round robot mouth glows red.
“Just be grateful I have a car,” I say, “or I’d be carrying you on the front of my bike.”
“My parents could afford to buy me a car if they didn’t have nine million kids.” I walked right into that one. “Anyway, pretty soon I’ll be able to buy my own car.”
“That’s great, man.”
“So,” he says, “I hear you groped Emerald during English today.”
“Who told you that?”
“Everyone.”
“It wasn’t groping. It was hugging. I needed the oxytocin.” In third period our teacher went off on some tangent about the healing properties of oxytocin—the chemical produced when people touch. When I tried it on Emerald later, she consented like a princess allowing a peasant to kiss her hand, then attempted to break contact after about four seconds. I had to remind her that it takes twenty seconds for the chemical to activate, which was weird since she has the second-highest GPA in our class and should’ve remembered that.
Charlie rolls his eyes. “Right.”
“It’s true. Ms. Webb said that people who don’t get enough physical contact can actually die.”
“I guess I don’t have to worry about that. Me and Allison are making plenty of oxy-whatever.”
“Good to hear.”
“So you just happened to pick Emerald for this? At random?”
I know what he’s getting at. Emerald and I went out for a month—in the sixth grade. But he’s convinced there must still be burning suppressed feelings.
“You know she has a boyfriend,” I remind him. Not just any boyfriend either, but a guy so badass he doesn’t even sound like a real person. Brett’s a college sophomore, on the rowing team, who’s a pilot in his spare time. Like he flies actual planes.
“I know,” Charlie agrees. “But if she didn’t—”
“But she does.”
Charlie heaves a defeated sigh. “Yeah, I guess. And if that guy’s Emerald’s type, there’s no way you’d—”
“Let’s talk about how much I’m gonna kick your ass tonight at laser tag.”
“No! You said we’d be on the same team this time.” He looks so upset, like a six-foot-five six-year-old, that I burst out laughing. Then consider pulling over to hug him.
“All right. All right.” I’m still laughing. “No splitting up this time.”
“Same side?”
“Same side.”
AT TEN O’CLOCK I close the curtains on a flat wax-paper moon and get into bed. I’m tired, but my body won’t relax. The house is empty. It looks like Russell won’t be coming home tonight, and I’m always more afraid on nights when I’m alone.
Maybe it would be different if the house weren’t so quiet. I wish I still had the little portable DVD player Mom and Dad bought me for long road trips. For years I could fall asleep listening to sitcoms or my favorite movie, Swiss Family Robinson. But one day the DVD player stopped working and nights became too quiet.
I can hear the rattling thud of the water heater. Below that, the hum of the refrigerator.
Above, the scrape of tree branches along the roof. None of these sounds is unfamiliar, but I still feel the vague dread that I can’t stop or sort out.
I turn on my flashlight and roll over to gaze at my sand-colored walls. For just a second I see my old walls in my old room. Brilliant ocean blue. I close my eyes, and suddenly I’m teleporting—I’m there. The yellow light beside me is not from my flashlight, but from my lamp, the one with the pedestal shaped liked a crescent moon. Beneath my window is the little bookcase with peeling red paint and shelves stuffed with movies and Elian Mariner books. And the blue of my walls is broken by bursts of color from all the posters I’ve hung.