Sorta Like a Rock Star(39)

I don’t see anyone on the streets.

Just trash swirling in the wind.

If the bar is closed, it must be well after midnight—I know this much. And since the bar is closed, the liquor store is definitely closed, but for some stupid reason, BBB and I start walking toward the liquor store very quickly, as if we might actually find my mom there.

I’m desperate.

I’m a little loopy tonight.

I’m alone.

I’m scared.

I’m stupid.

I pass a crazily bearded insane-looking homeless man who throws an empty beer can at me and yells, “Catch a cat by the tail ’till you spin around and drown! Catch a cat by the tail—”

BBB and I start running.

The icy wind cuts my face.

I hear car alarms going off in the distance.

When I get to the liquor store it is closed and the doors are chained shut. No one is around.

For some stupid reason I bang on the doors, yell, “Mom?” and then I bang on the doors of the Korean Catholic Church, and yell up to Father Chee who lives above the church, but no lights go on.

Then I remember where I am and what time it is.

I start to get really scared, especially when this crappy-looking car—with silver rims and tinted windows and booming bass and neon-pink lights that make the road under the car glow—this crazy car pulls up and idles right next to me.

I start to walk down the street, back toward the town of Childress.

The car follows, going only as fast as I can walk.

It follows me for an entire block—rap music blasting—before BBB and I start to run.

When I get halfway down the next block, the car speeds up and turns, and then screeches to a stop, cutting me off at the corner.

The door opens and this tough-looking white dude with a blond spiky haircut and too many gold chains gets out.

“Where’s the fire? Where you going so fast, little girl?” he says, smiling at me.

He’s wearing a white tracksuit that is very baggy.

Because I am so tired and confused and worried, I start to cry again—like a wimp.

“Don’t cry. It’s okay,” he says, taking a step toward me, moving very slowly. “What’s wrong?”

BBB is now barking at this man skeptically. Like Ms. Jenny, B Thrice is a good judge of character, but for some reason I want to believe that this guy is not evil—that maybe JC is sending me some help.

Blondie’s actually kind of handsome, if I’m being truthful, and almost innocent looking—like Billy Budd.

“I’m trying to find my mom,” I say, because it’s the truth, and I’m so very tired.

“Get in—I’ll help you look,” he says. “You’re very pretty, you know.”

When he calls me pretty, something in my stomach begins to churn, and the man begins to look more like Claggart than Billy Budd. “I think I’ll just walk, thanks for the offer, though.”

“Bad things happen to girls like you when they stray out of their neighborhoods in the middle of the night,” he says. “You should come with me.”

“Amber!” a voice yells, and when I look over my shoulder, Father Chee is running toward me in slippers through the cold night and wearing only his black pajamas, making him look sorta like some crazy martial arts ninja or something.

“Who are you supposed to be?” the blond man asks FC when he reaches us. “Jackie Chan?”

“Amber, come,” FC says, and then takes my hand.

“Is he your pimp or something?”

“He’s my priest,” I say.

“Well, maybe another time then,” the blond man says, smiling kind of funny, chuckling. He gets into his car and drives away.

“Come,” Father Chee says, and then we sorta jog back to The Korean Catholic Church.

“Please tell me what are you doing here in this neighborhood at night?” Father Chee asks when we are inside with the doors locked.

I’m scared for my mom, so I come clean.

As I tell him everything about Mom and our living on Hello Yellow and Mom’s not coming home tonight, the adrenaline rush wears off, and I start to get seriously nervous and upset and worried.

My voice becomes all tiny and whiny, which makes me feel like I’ll never be as brave and strong as Donna—like I’ll never get into Bryn Mawr College.

When I finish, I am crying again, so FC gives me a fatherly hug, patting my back very gently, which is cool of him. He’s a good man.

“We should call the police so they will start looking for your mother,” Father Chee says.

“Do you think I should consult my attorney first?” I ask.

“You have an attorney?”

So I tell him all about Donna, and then we wake her with a phone call, using the pay phone in Father’s Chee’s church, after which FC puts on his penguin suit.

We take a cab to Ricky’s house, where I tell Donna the whole story as Father Chee makes coffee.

I can tell that Donna is mad at me for not telling her how bad things were with my mom and my living on Hello Yellow for months, because, very loudly, she says, “Months?”

And when I nod, she asks me why I didn’t tell her earlier, and I start to cry again because I am so weak and stupid—even though I’m sorta mad at her for not figuring it all out earlier. Why else would I need to take a shower at her house every morning?