What We Saw(25)

“How long did you make it during first practice last year? Must’ve been at least a quarter mile.” I poke Christy in the ribs, and she jumps, then tries to scramble after me. I spin around in the hall, and run smack into a six-foot-four tower of human. It’s Ben.

“Hi,” he says.

I smile up at him. “Oh. Hi.”

He leans down and pecks me on the lips. Christy immediately makes a barfing sound and starts tossing loose papers over our heads from the landfill that is her locker. Rachel whistles with her fingers in her mouth. I hear LeRon down the hall holler, “Get a room.” It’s been like this all day—everyone is wound up.

It’s overcast as we head into the parking lot. Ben holds my hand and explains that he swapped trucks with his mom today. “I can drive and drop everyone off back here,” he offers. “That cool with you?”

I nod. “How come you have your mom’s car?”

Ben glances around for half a second, taking stock of who’s within earshot. Christy is grabbing an umbrella from her trunk and dumping her backpack. Rachel is laughing with Lindsey about finding a tie-dyed dress for the dance. I hold up a hand to stem the tide of his explanation. I get it. No words needed.

There is relief in his eyes as he opens the back door of his mom’s Explorer for Lindsey and heaves a laundry basket over the headrests into the space behind the seats. It’s filled with unopened packages of tube socks. The whole team wore those awful black socks pulled up to their knees during the last three regular games of the season. A show of solidarity. Sock-erstition. At the time, I wondered where they’d come from. Now I know: Adele’s shopping habit strikes again.

Will calls my name, and I see him walking up with Tyler as Christy, Rachel, and Lindsey pile into Ben’s backseat. “Where you going?” he asks me. “I thought you were gonna drive me home.”

“’Sup, Pistol?” Ben holds out a fist and Will grins as he bumps back, glancing at Tyler to make sure he caught the exchange. Tyler is appropriately impressed.

“Meant to text you,” I say. “We’re going to the thrift store. Can you get a ride home with Tyler?”

“He wanted a ride home with us.”

I turn to Ben. “Sorry. Looks like I have to run carpool first. Meet you there?”

“We’ve got room.” Ben jerks his head for Tyler and Will to follow him and pops open the hatch behind the backseat. “Just don’t flip off any cops or anything. Everybody’s supposed to have a seat belt.”

Tyler just stands there, staring. “Dude . . .”

“C’mon, man.” Will elbows him and jumps in. Hurry up. We may never get another opportunity to ride in a varsity player’s way-back ever again.

Will sits down on the laundry basket and Tyler crouches across from him. “Are these all the leftover rally socks?” Will’s voice contains the hushed awe of the first man to see Niagara.

“All yours,” says Ben.

“Really? Won’t you guys need ’em for the tournament?”

Ben shakes his head once. “Plenty more where those came from. Trust me.”





UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE


HarperCollins Publishers

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fifteen


CONNIE BONINE BARELY looks up from the TV when the bell jangles over the door at Second Sands Treasures. Her husband, Willie, had three storage units packed with crap when he died in the First Gulf War. His jeep got smacked by an armored Humvee in a freak accident on a base in Afghanistan, and in a town without a Goodwill at a time before eBay, Connie smelled a goldmine.

Using Willie’s pension, she leased an empty storefront to sell off his junk, and though she never cashed in on much of her late husband’s stuff, she has successfully cornered the market on the old clothes of anyone who’s passed on since 1992. Now most funeral arrangements include an appointment with Connie the week after the graveside service or internment. Her rusty old delivery van will show up anywhere in town to cart away the belongings of your deceased friend or loved one, free of charge. For those too overwhelmed with grief to do the job themselves, the fact that Connie will sell everything off at a small profit seems to be a fair trade.

The people who left this stuff behind may be dead, but the smell of Connie’s store is a living thing. Mothballs from your grandma’s basement mixed with old rubber shoe soles, and long velvet drapery panels filled with cigarette smoke that can stand up on their own. It’s the scent of trash that never became treasures, left to molder for a couple decades.

Mrs. Bonine’s hair is a bomb blast of wiry gray curls that would spill down her back if she didn’t have it all tucked up into a bright blue Buccaneers bandanna. This grooming annoys my mother. Once a year or so when Mom manages to wrestle away from Will the shoes he’s destroyed and jeans he’s outgrown, she drops off a bag of donations and huffs about why Connie won’t cut that mess once we’re out of earshot. Or at least color it, for heaven’s sake.

Behind the counter, an old thirteen-inch black-and-white TV with rabbit ears pulls in a grainy signal. It looks like Mrs. Bonine’s watching the news on a microwave. I imagine saliva pooling inside her down-turned mouth as she waits for the beep and am jolted back to reality by a voice I recognize. Sloane Keating gives a preview of her “full report at five” on the “Coral Sands Rape Case.” Something about those words—lined up all in a row like dominos—stops me in my tracks.