The Rest of the Story(50)

“I’m not convinced,” I said after a moment. “The fact it’s lacking a cape is kind of a deal breaker.”

“You want a cape?” the salesgirl asked, dismayed. “Well . . . I guess we could look for something. . . .”

“She’s kidding,” Roo told her. Again. Like a translator I never knew I needed. To me he said, “Seriously, though, you should get that. You look great.”

I felt my face flush, hearing this, and quickly turned back to the mirror. Which was stupid, because of course he was still there in the reflection, although he immediately turned his attention back to the shoe rack. What was happening here? We were friends. Not even that. Acquaintances whose parents had been closer than close. But relationships were not passed down like hair or eye color. Were they?

I looked down at the tag, hanging from my armpit. The dress was ninety bucks, which I knew was a lot more than Bailey had spent on hers from Bly County Thrift, even with the alterations it had needed. Nana Payne, though, would have plunked down three times that without hesitating, for herself or me. It’s important to remember this, I told myself, whether I was here three weeks or always. Don’t forget.

“Okay, I’ll take it,” I said. “But only because we have ice cream to sell.”

“And you don’t want a cape,” the salesgirl said, clarifying.

“No,” Roo and I replied in unison. Then he looked at me in the mirror again. And smiled.

After I paid, it was back to the parking lot, where we were still one of the only cars present. Which did not make me any less nervous about having to drive out of there.

“You know,” I said as Roo slid into the passenger seat, “you can drive if you want.”

“Not our deal,” he reminded me, shutting his door. I stayed where I was, outside on the driver’s side. A moment later he swung it open again. “Are you getting in?”

“Eventually,” I replied.

“Can’t drive from outside.” Still, I didn’t move. “Saylor. Come on.”

“I’m nervous!”

Now he got out of the car, so we were both standing by our open doors. “About what?”

I thought for a second. “Crashing.”

“What else?”

“That’s not enough?”

“Planes crash. You still fly.”

“You don’t know that. For all you know, I’ve never even been on a plane.”

He considered this. “Okay, fine. How about this: pedestrians get struck by cars. You still walk. And I know, because I have seen you.”

“That is not the same.”

“As the car thing or the plane?” he asked.

“Neither,” I replied. A seagull flew by, cawing above us. “Look. I never wanted to drive. I was fine without it. Then my dad forced me, and I hit that car. It was traumatic.”

“Trauma can be educational,” he pointed out in that same maddeningly reasonable voice. “And even if you fail, at least you tried.”

“Fail?” I said. “Do you think I can’t do it?”

“You won’t even get in the car,” he said.

I slid behind the wheel, feeling like I’d show him. Until I realized that was probably exactly what he wanted. By then, though, I’d already shut my door. Crap.

“Okay. Put your foot on the brake.” I did, and he reached over, turning the key I’d put in the ignition so the engine revved to life. Like one of Pavlov’s dogs, just the sound made my heart jump. “Now, tell me what you’re feeling.”

I was too scared to go into more detail than “Terrified.”

“Why?”

“Because I might kill someone.”

Roo took an exaggerated look around the mostly empty parking lot. “Who?”

I tightened my grip on the wheel, right at the ten and two spots. “You. Me. Everyone.”

“The only way to overcome a fear is to face it,” he said. “You have to knock down the power it has over you.”

“Have you done that with clowns? Because if not, I don’t see why I have to do this.”

“Because,” he shot back loudly, over the A/C, which had just come on and begun blasting us, “as we discussed earlier, clowns are location-specific. I see them on TV or at the circus. My fear of them does not prevent me from fully living my life.”

“I am living my life!”

“We’ve been sitting here for seven minutes,” he said, poking a finger at the clock on the dashboard. “Seven minutes, spent in fear, that you won’t get back.”

Great. Now I was a failure and a waste of human energy. “You know, a lot of people don’t drive. They are just happy and grateful passengers.”

He sat back, looking at me. “Yes, but when you only ride, you’re never in control. You get taken from point A to point B through no volition or work of your own. It’s like drifting. If life is a journey, wouldn’t you rather be the person behind the wheel than the one just being carried along?”

I bit my lip, looking out the window at the empty row of spaces beside us. Put like that, I couldn’t help but think, again, of my mom. So willful, so strong in so many ways, and yet in the end she succumbed to something that drove her, so to speak, and not the other way around. I’d worried for so long about all the ways we were alike and what that meant for my own future. Here was a way to make one choice, at least, to be different.