Where the Stars Still Shine(32)

“Extradited? What does that mean?”

“It means kidnapping in Florida takes priority over stealing a license plate in Illinois,” he says. “So she was brought here to face charges, her parents bailed her out of jail, and she’s free until her court date.”

“Really?” Excitement takes hold of my stomach. “Where is she? When can I see her?”

“They, uh—they wired the money Friday and haven’t heard from her since,” he says. “I hate to say this, but she’s probably already gone.”

No. My mom wouldn’t be here in Florida and not contact me. She’d find me. Except doubt creeps in as I remember the night she was arrested and the cold chill in her voice when she told me not to tell the sheriff’s officer anything. What if she thinks I betrayed her? What if she thinks I had a choice? What if she left me behind?

“I, um—” I push my plate away, wishing Greg had been able to wait to tell me until after I’d eaten. My appetite is gone. “Thanks for telling me.”

“If you need anything—”

“Thanks,” I say. Except I don’t know what I need. Or how to feel.

He nods and pulls a box of aluminum foil from a drawer. “I’ll wrap this up in case you get hungry later, okay?”

The sweet, simple gesture makes me feel like crying again. “Thanks.”

I walk out to the Airstream, but I don’t know what to do with myself. It’s early and the afternoon sun is still high enough in the sky to count. Too early to sleep. And too early to sit in my room and drive myself crazy wondering where my mom might be. I change out of my work T-shirt and leave a note for Greg on the trailer door:

I have to run, but not away. Even though this will probably extend my grounding, I need to move. P.S. Yes, I have my phone.

I tell myself I’m not going to the docks. I’m not going to go looking for Alex. But my feet—or maybe a part of my body slightly higher up than my feet—propel me toward Dodecanese. Visitors are still poking through the gift shops and sitting clustered around tables on restaurant patios as I round the corner from Athens Street.

Alex’s boat is gone.

I’m not surprised. Well, maybe a little surprised that he left without telling me. Except Alex is not mine and I’m not his, and he doesn’t owe me any explanations. Still, it doesn’t prevent a tiny bud of disappointment from breaking the surface of my heart.

As I walk home, I send a text message to Kat: Movie night is a go … if you still want it to be.

I don’t really want company, but I don’t want to be alone, either. Thirty minutes later Kat flops down on the couch in the trailer, pulling me down with her. “So glad Greg changed his mind.” She leans her head against mine. “Sorry I gave you a hard time about Alex,” she whispers. “I forget that just because you haven’t lived here doesn’t mean you can’t see him for what he really is.”

I wonder which of us—or if either of us—is seeing Alex for what he really is, but with Nick and Connor huddled over the television as they connect the DVD player, I can’t ask. “What are we watching?”

“Only the best movie ever,” Nick says.

He sits down on the other side of Kat and she tilts away from me to him, curling up under his arm with her head against his shoulder. Connor stands awkwardly by himself—there’s not enough room for all four of us on the couch—before sitting on the floor, leaning against the couch between Kat’s legs and mine. His shoulder touches my knee and it sends a warm flutter down my spine. It’s not the same as with Alex, but it’s still nice.

The best movie ever turns out to be the original Star Wars film, the one we were allegedly going to watch the night of the party. I might not be as current on popular culture as other teenagers, but even I’ve seen it. More than once. The scrolling A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away … text has barely crawled up the screen before Kat and Nick are making out as if Connor and I aren’t there.

I slide to the floor beside Connor. “Do they do this a lot?”

“Yeah, pretty much,” he says.

“Did you bring any other movies?”

He shakes his head. “Sorry.”

I stand and walk over to the door, motioning Connor to follow me out to the backyard. “Wait for me at the picnic table, okay?” I say, and he nods. “I’ll be right back.”

Greg and Phoebe have a variety of board games stashed in their entertainment center. I imagine them having friends over for drinks and a few rounds of Apples to Apples. They seem like the kind of people who would do that. I don’t know the rules to most of the games, but at the bottom of the drawer is an old checkerboard and a plastic bag of checkers.

I unfold the board between us and upend the checkers onto the picnic table. Connor smiles. “Prepare to be annihilated,” he says.

I claim a black checker and return the smile. “You wish.”

We don’t talk about what happened at the party. We don’t really say much, except to talk a little smack between moves and gloat over successful jumps. At some point during our first game the weirdness evaporates. We still don’t have much to say to each other, but it feels as if we’ve moved past my shirtless debacle.

We’re nearly finished with the game and my annihilation—as he’d predicted—is impending when Kat and Nick come out of the trailer. Her braid has come half undone, and her lips are puffy and lip-gloss-less.