NOS4A2(24)

Here, Iowa


AND SHE SPILLED ONTO THE SIDEWALK, SANDPAPERING HER RIGHT KNEE.

Vic rolled onto her back, grabbing her leg.

“Ow,” she said. “Ow ow OW ow.”

Her voice running up and down through several octaves, like an instrumentalist practicing scales.

“Oh, kittens. Are you all right?” came a voice from somewhere in the glare of midday sunshine. “You sh-should really be more careful jumping out of thin air like that.”

Vic squinted into the light and was able to make out a scrawny girl not much older than herself—she was perhaps twenty—with a fedora tipped back on her fluorescent purple hair. She wore a necklace made out of beer-can pull tabs and a pair of Scrabble-tile earrings; her feet were stuck into Chuck Taylor Converse high-tops, no laces. She looked like Sam Spade, if Sam Spade had been a girl and had a weekend gig fronting a ska band.

“I’m okay. Just scraped myself,” Vic said, but the girl had already quit listening. She was staring back at the Shorter Way.

“You know, I’ve always wanted a bridge there,” the girl said. “Couldn’ta dropped it in a better s-spot.”

Vic raised herself up onto her elbows and looked back at the bridge, which now spanned a wide, noisy rush of brown water. This river was almost as wide as the Merrimack, although the banks were far lower. Stands of birch and century-old oaks massed along the water’s edge, which was just a couple feet below the sandy, crumbling embankment.

“Is that what it did? My bridge dropped? Like, out of the sky?”

The girl continued to stare at it. She had the sort of unblinking, stuporous stare that Vic associated with pot and a fondness for Phish. “Mmm-no. It was more like watching a Polaroid develop. Have you ever s-s-ssseen a Polaroid develop?”

Vic nodded, thinking of the way the brown chemical square slowly went pale, details swimming into place, colors brightening steadily, objects taking shape.

“Your bridge faded in where there were a couple old oaks. Good-bye, oaks.”

“I think your trees will come back when I go,” Vic said—although with a moment to consider it she had to admit to herself she had no idea if this were true. It felt true, but she couldn’t attest to it as fact. “You don’t seem very surprised about my bridge showing up out of nowhere.” Remembering Mr. Eugley, how he had trembled and covered his eyes and screamed for her to go away.

“I was watching for you. I didn’t know you were going to make ssssuch an ass-kicking entrance, but I also knew you might not sssss—” And without any warning at all, the girl in the hat stopped talking, midsentence. Her lips were parted to say the next word, but no word would come, and a look of strain came across her face, as if she were trying to lift something heavy: a piano or a car. Her eyes protruded. Her cheeks colored. She forced herself to exhale and then just as abruptly continued. “—get here like a normal person. Excuse me, I have a ss-ss-ssstammer.”

“You were watching for me?”

The girl nodded but was considering the bridge again. In a slow, dreamy voice, she said, “Your bridge . . . it doesn’t go to the other side of the Cedar River, does it?”

“No.”

“So where does it go?”

“Haverhill.”

“Is that here in Iowa?”

“No. Massachusetts.”

“Oh, boy, you’ve come a long way. You’re in the Corn Belt now. You’re in the land where everything is flat except the ladies.” For a moment Vic was pretty sure she saw the girl leer.

“Excuse me, but . . . can we go back to the part where you said you were watching for me?”

“Well, duh! I’ve been expecting you for months. I didn’t think you’d ever sh-show up. You’re the Brat, aren’t you?”

Vic opened her mouth, but nothing would come.

Her silence was answer enough, and her surprise clearly pleased the other girl, who smiled and tucked some of her fluorescent hair back behind one ear. With her upturned nose and slightly pointed ears, there was something elvish about her. Although that was possibly a side effect of the setting: They were on a grassy hill, in the shade of leafy oaks, between the river and a big building that from the back had the look of a cathedral or a college hall, a fortress of cement and granite with white spires and narrow slots for windows, perfect for shooting arrows through.

“I thought you’d be a boy. I was expecting the kind of kid who won’t eat lettuce and picks his nose. How do you feel about lettuce?”

“Not a fan.”

She squeezed her little hands into tight fists and shook them over her head. “Knew it!” Then she lowered her fists and frowned. “Big nose picker?”

“Blow it, don’t show it,” Vic said. “Did you say this is Iowa?”

“Sure did!”

“Where in Iowa?”

“Here,” said the girl in the hat.

“Well,” Vic started, feeling a flash of annoyance, “I mean, yeah, I know, but, like—here where?”

“Here, Iowa. That’s the name of the town. You’re right down the road from beautiful Cedar Rapids, at the Here Public Library. And I know all about why you came. You’re confused about your bridge, and you’re trying to figure things out. Boy, is this your lucky day!” She clapped her hands. “You found yourself a librarian! I can help with the figuring-out thing and point you toward some good poetry while I’m at it. It’s what I do.”