Not If I See You First(31)
THIRTEEN
It’s almost one o’clock on Saturday and I’m riding Aunt Celia’s Silent Shuttle Service to the mall. There was an awkward moment when she suggested Sheila go with me but before I could open my mouth, Sheila said, “Can’t—homework” and ran upstairs. My disbelief was silenced only by my agreement that I didn’t want her along. The conversation about me going on a date and having Jason drive me home took longer, but in the end it was settled by promising to reply to any texts and getting home by ten. I complained about that last one mostly for show. I’m meeting Jason at five so that’s still plenty of time.
For whatever reason I never bumped into Jason Thursday or Friday. He was probably at tryouts or at least at the track. I promised myself I wasn’t going to wander out there hoping he’d see me, and I can’t look for him without asking around. I talked to Coach Underhill again and we decided to meet a week from Monday, after the chaos of tryouts and the aftermath have ended, to talk about what we might do. After my tumble, though, I’m even more ambivalent about the whole thing.
It was Thursday night when I realized Jason and I didn’t have each other’s cell numbers, but I convinced myself that if anything had changed, he’d have found me. By Friday night I wasn’t so sure. Logically, everything was fine, but I’d be lying if I said I was logical all the time. Sarah tried to help by talking casually about it, but Sarah going out of her way to talk casually about anything puts me even more on edge.
Despite all this uncertainty, though, I’m surprisingly optimistic. Sarah and Faith are waiting for me at the curb, and Aunt Celia drives away without throwing out any more rules or reminders or anything.
I’m struck by the oddness of how this outing is so ordinary and yet so remarkable. I see friends every day, and we talk and text a lot outside of school—though mostly Sarah and I—but we hardly go out to do anything. A lot of it’s me not wanting to bother with movie theaters and restaurants and all that, but we used to do more as kids when our parents drove us around and organized stuff. It stopped when we got to high school.
Sarah says it’s me, not just that I’m blind but also that I changed when Scott pissed away any hope I ever had of trusting a guy who wasn’t my dad—her words. I don’t deny it, but what we don’t talk about is her parents’ divorce, which happened around the same time, and how her dad mostly disappeared. It really dimmed the light in her. Once I said it broke her laugh box and that conversation ended so fast I promised myself I’d never bring it up again. But I did hear a note of genuine interest in her voice when we talked about going shopping with Faith so I’m hoping for the best, that afterwards we’ll kick ourselves for having gone so long without doing this.
“Aren’t you going straight to a date from here?” Faith asks.
“What’s wrong with this?” I hold out my arms, slowly so I don’t whack anything. I’m wearing jeans with a dark-blue cotton collared shirt, both of which actually fit instead of being a more comfortable one size bigger like usual. For my scarf I’m wearing Autumn Leaves—it’s fall after all—and I’m wearing my army vest loaded with buttons, of course.
“Should I start at the pile of leaves on your head and work my way down,” she says, “or from the bottom up starting with those black basketball shoes?”
“Jason sold me these shoes! And they’re not high-tops—they’re for running!”
“Maybe we can get something for you here. Something less—”
“I’m not going to change!” Though I look into the future and suspect I might.
“Here comes Molly,” Sarah says. “She looks pretty sour. And she’s not alone.”
“Hey,” Molly says. She doesn’t sound sour to me. More resigned. “Parker, Sarah, Faith… this is my sister, Danielle.”
“Call me Dani,” says a higher-pitched voice that sounds nothing like Molly. “I just landed early this morning and have some things I need to pick up. Mind if I tag along?”
“Of course not,” says Faith, utterly sincere or acting brilliantly; the only one of us classy enough to answer instantly and save us all from an awkward silence waiting for someone else to answer. “The more the merrier. Are you away at college, or…?”
“What? No!” Dani laughs. “Molly’s the smart one.”
“And Dani’s the pretty one,” Molly says, like she’s said it a million times before.
Dani laughs again. “That’s not true! I just have an army of experts working on me all the time. It’s hard work, trust me!”
And we’re off. Into the mall, Faith and Dani up ahead, outpacing us already, or at least me, with Faith getting up to speed on what Sarah and I already know, that Dani’s a professional clothes hanger slash walking coatrack just back from Milan and heading out to Chicago and then New York as soon as… well, I lose track at this point because Sarah startles me by breathing into my ear, “Oh. My. God.”
“It’s fine,” I say. “It’ll be fun. It’s not like we have a routine she’s going to mess—”
“No, I… That’s not it… I… I wish you could see this… She’s… she’s…”