Along for the Ride(58)

‘True,’ Maggie agreed. ‘But a car is a consumable item, not an asset. Esther’s not investing the money she puts into it, because it will automatically begin to depreciate. So while it’s tempting to liquidate her savings, and cash in the bonds, the better bet is probably to take advantage of the rate you can get from the local credit union on a loan.’

‘You think?’ Esther asked.

‘Absolutely. I mean,’ she continued, ‘what is the rate right now, like, 5.99 percent or something? So you do that, and keep your bonds in savings where they retain their full market value. It’s a more cost-effective use of the money.’

I just looked at her. Who was this girl?

‘What about these?’ the customer called out.

Maggie glanced down the hallway, her face breaking into a big smile. ‘Oh, man,’ she said, clapping her hands. ‘What do you think?’

‘I think,’ the woman said, ‘that they’re speaking to me.’

Maggie laughed, and as I watched her head back down to the fitting rooms, I sat there, trying to process what I’d just seen. It wasn’t easy. In fact, later that night, when she came in before locking up, I was still thinking about it.

‘That financial stuff,’ I said to her as she slid the cash drawer onto the desk. ‘How did you know all that?’

She glanced up at me. ‘Oh, mostly from my riding days. My mom wasn’t exactly supportive of it as a hobby, so I had to finance my bikes and equipment and stuff.’

‘It’s pretty impressive.’

‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘Too bad it’s not what impresses my mom.’

‘No?’ She shook her head. ‘What does, then?’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Maybe if I’d agreed to do the debutante thing like she wanted. Or taken up pageants instead of riding jump bikes with a bunch of grungy boys. I’d always tell her, why can’t I do both? Who says you have to be either smart or pretty, or into girly stuff or sports? Life shouldn’t be about the either/or. We’re capable of more than that, you know?’

Clearly, she was. Not that I’d seen it, really, until now. ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘That does make sense.’

She smiled, then grabbed her keys off the desk, sliding them into her pocket. ‘I’m going to go clean up the denim section while you finish up. Finding those slim boot cuts for that woman was work. But it was so worth it. Her butt looked great when she left here.’

‘I bet,’ I said, and then she was gone back down the hallway to fold. I sat there for a minute, in that pink and orange room, thinking about what impressed my mom, and the either/or I’d been stuck in for so long. Maybe it was true, and being a girl could be about interest rates and skinny jeans, riding bikes and wearing pink. Not about any one thing, but everything.

Over the next couple of weeks, I fell into the perfect routine. Mornings were for sleep, evenings for work. My nights were for Eli.

These days, I didn’t have to make it look like I was bumping into him accidentally. Instead, it was understood that we met each evening after I got off work at the Gas/ Gro, where we fueled up on both gas (coffee) and gro (you never knew what you might need) and planned our evening’s activities. Which meant errands, eating pie with Clyde, and working on my quest, one item at a time.

‘Really?’ I said, one night around one as we stood outside Tallyho, Leah’s favorite club. There was a neon sign in the window that said HOLA MARGARITAS! and a beefy, bored-looking guy sitting on a stool by the door, checking messages on his phone. ‘You think I need to do this?’

‘Yup,’ Eli said. ‘Hitting a club is a rite of passage. And you get extra points if it’s a bad club.’

‘But I don’t have an ID,’ I told him as we walked closer, passing a girl in a red dress, puffy eyed and stumbling.

‘You don’t need one.’

‘Are you sure?’

Instead of answering, he reached down and grabbed my hand, and I felt a jolt run through me. Since that night at the hot-dog party, we’d been closer, but this was the first real physical contact between us. I was so busy worrying about what it might mean that it took me a minute to realize how natural and easy his palm felt against mine. Like it wasn’t new at all, but something I’d done recently and often, that familiar.

‘Hey,’ Eli said to the bouncer as we approached. ‘What’s the cover?’

‘You got ID?’

Eli pulled out his wallet, then handed over his license. The guy glanced at it, then at him, before giving it back. ‘What about her?’

‘She forgot hers,’ Eli said. ‘But don’t worry, I’ll vouch for her.’

The guy gave him a flat look. ‘Honor system doesn’t fly here, sorry.’

‘I hear you,’ Eli replied. ‘But maybe you can make an exception.’

I expected the guy to react in some way, but if anything he looked even more bored than before. ‘No ID, no exceptions.’

‘It’s fine,’ I said to Eli. ‘Really.’

He held up his hand, quieting me. Then he said, ‘Look. We don’t want to drink. We don’t even want to stay long. Five minutes, max.’

The bouncer, now starting to look annoyed, said, ‘What part of no ID, no entry, do you not understand?’