The Impossible Knife of Memory(15)

Option C was no longer an option.

“So,” Finn continued, “were you going to put on some pants or go to school pretending that your T-shirt there is a dress?”





_*_ 22 _*_

I hadn’t paid much attention to Finn’s car when I bummed the ride from him on Tuesday. At one point in the distant past, it had been a Plymouth Acclaim, but there wasn’t much left to shout about. It had four bald tires, four doors, a trunk that had to be wired shut with a twisted coat hanger, a dented roof, and more rust than paint.

“Somebody must really hate you,” I said.

“Awesome, right?” He patted the roof. “Bought it on my own.”

The engine started without catching fire. Finn backed down the driveway and shifted into drive. We drove down the road slowly. Part of my head was trying to figure out where Dad went and why. Another part was trying to figure out if it was better to stare out the windshield or to look at Finn and pretend I knew what I was supposed to say in a situation like this. Another part of my brain was trying to figure out what that stench was.

“How much body spray did you put on today?” I blurted out.

“Too much?” He braked for a stop sign.

“You qualify as a hazmat site.”

He snorted and laughed and, for some reason, the sound drowned out everything that I was worried about. He turned to look at me, still chuckling, still ridiculously stopped at the stop sign and I realized that for a tall, skinny dude with shaggy hair, he was a little hot. Maybe it was the way he blushed, or the silver hoop in his right ear, or the fact that he had green eyes, the same color green you can see in the summer if you lie under an oak tree and look up at the sun coming through the leaves. And they slanted up a little. And he had killer eyelashes. Just the right amount of beard scruff on his chin.

You know how some babies are blessed by good fairies when they’re born, fairies with names like Beauty and Brains and Kindness and Laughter? I was blessed by their evil underworld troll cousins, Gawky and Awkward. I stared at him and my troll fairies whacked me upside the head with their pointy wands, making me spectacularly. . . . gawkward.

I was dressed like a bag lady. Probably smelled like one, too. I hadn’t showered, of course. My plan had been to stay in my pajamas all day. I hadn’t brushed my teeth, either. I just threw on clothes picked out of the laundry heap, ran a comb through my hair, swiped deodorant on my pits and ran.

OMG, did he put on extra body spray because I smelled this bad on Tuesday? Then why would he let me in his car again?

My good sense bitch-slapped my estrogen and told her to get a grip.

I sniffed the air again: a lethal amount of body spray, a little of my stank, and . . . something that was definitely coming from the engine.

“Do you smell that?” I asked.

“I get it, Hayley. Too much body spray. Point taken.”

“No, I’m serious.” I sniffed again. “When was the last time you checked under the hood?”

“Um, never.”

“What? When was the last time you checked your fluids?”

He accelerated. “That sounds perverted.”

“It’s not. You’re burning oil.”

“I thought that was coming from another car.”

“Pull over for a second.” I leaned toward the dash as the car rolled to a stop. “See that?” I pointed to a wisp of white smoke rising from the edge of the car’s hood. “You probably have oil leaking from a valve cover.”

He reached for his key. “Is it going to blow up?”

I shook my head. “That’s not much smoke, don’t panic. Just check the oil the next time you get gas.”

“You’re sure it’s safe to drive?”

“A couple drops of oil hit the exhaust manifold. We’re fine. But remember to check it.”

He drove in silence.

“You do know how to check the oil, don’t you?” I asked.

“Of course.”

“Liar.” I pushed the button on the armrest to put down the window. Nothing happened. “Are the windows broken, too?”

“No.” He jabbed at a button on his armrest. My window screeched down two inches and stopped.

“I thought you said it wasn’t broken.”

“Well.” He braked to a stop as the green light in front of us turned yellow. “It might be a little broken.”

“A little broken is still broken,” I pointed out.

“But fixable.”

As he pulled away from the light, I leaned my head against the shoulder strap and took a deep breath of October morning air. Maybe my blood sugar was low, but it felt like I was in a bubble, a perfect, shimmering bubble moving forward with my eyes closed, air soft as cold silk brushing over my forehead, smoothing back my hair.

And then Finn ruined everything.

“So,” he said as we pulled into the parking lot. “That article. You wrote it, right?”

The bubble popped.

“Oh my God, are you still on that?” I asked.

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“’Cause it’s stupid! Nobody gives a crap about the resources in the library. Why is that even a word, ‘resources’? It doesn’t mean anything.”

“That’s not the point.”