Underwater(38)

I can picture my grandpa with his car. My family didn’t come from money, so that convertible was a really big deal. He told me how, as a teenager, he’d worked summers scrubbing barnacles off the bottoms of rowboats and school years mopping up puddles of grease at a local auto shop to save up enough money to buy it. He said it was just a Chevy at first. But as the years passed, it became a classic. He loved it like some people love their kids. He polished it to a blinding shine. He drove it up and down the coast on weekends. He showed it off at car festivals in beach towns and inland empires. He dropped the top. He hung one arm over the side of the door. He wore sunglasses and a baseball cap. Sometimes I went along.

He refused to pick up hitchhikers.

His car was the only thing he ever had that was worth anything. Now, it sits under a tarp in a parking space in the back of our building.

I used to love that car and the freedom it gave me to get around. It’s hard to believe there was a time when I couldn’t stand the idea of being stuck inside. All I wanted was to be out in a world that was bigger and fuller than what I already knew. Eight months ago, in September, one month before October fifteenth, I drove the car to an away football game. Chelsea, Brianna, Sage, and I wore T-shirts we’d tie-dyed with our school’s bright blue and orange colors. At the kitchen table at Brianna’s house, we’d cut the bottoms into fringe and strung beads at the ends. We had ponytails with blue and orange ribbons and we chewed on red licorice vines and bubble gum. We matched. We had school spirit. We had dreams for the future.

We drove inland with the top down. We talked about boys we’d kissed and the text messages they’d sent that interrupted homework. There was a full moon and bright stars. Chelsea and Brianna sat in the backseat. Sage sat beside me. (Best friends always got dibs on the front seat.) And that night on the way to the football game, we sang along to an AM station because it was the only reception we could get. It was crunchy with static, but ripe with the kinds of pop songs where you know the words no matter what. You know them because they play them in the grocery store and on television commercials and in the juniors section of department stores.

A month later, everything changed.

*

I haven’t wanted to be in the Bel Air since October fifteenth. Not since that morning that I saw Aaron Tiratore trudging through the rain.

I see him clearly in my mind. He walks down a wet sidewalk, his backpack hanging heavy over both his shoulders. The rain splats at his feet. His dark hair is matted wet against his head. I slow down because I think I know him. I think we had a math class together when I was a freshman. I feel bad letting someone walk to school in the rain, knowing they’re going to be late because of it.

I pull over to the curb. I lean over to roll down the window. He stops. He stares.

“Want a ride?” I ask.

He twitches. He shrugs.

“Come on, you’re getting soaked.”

“Only if you’re sure.”

“I’m sure. Geez.”

He gets in my car, trying to carefully settle his backpack between his feet, but it lands with a heavy thump that makes him do a double take. I didn’t notice the sound then, but I hear it now. I hear it every day. It startled him. He picks the backpack up and sets it in his lap, holding it gently—the way I hold Ben during the scary parts of a movie.

I twist the dial for the heater, but only a halfhearted whir of warm air comes out.

“Sorry. Old cars are cool, but their heaters suck.”

He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t look at me. He just looks out the window like nothing matters. I figure he’s simply glad to be someplace that’s dry. His jacket is a blue so bright that it almost hurts my eyes to look at it. It’s thick and puffy, like a down comforter. It holds him in tight. It makes him look bigger than he is.

Aaron has bad skin. He smells gross, like old sweaty shoes. People make fun of him for the way he smells. People have always made fun of him. There’s something achingly distant about him as he watches the world whiz by through the passenger side window.

“Thanks for the ride,” he finally says. He doesn’t look at me. He only says the words. “My bag is heavy.”

He taps his fingers against his knee and doesn’t stop.

“No problem.”

I don’t know what else to say to him. I don’t know what Aaron does or what he likes or where he hangs out. I don’t know if he has any friends. Practically everyone at school calls him “Wallpaper” because he’s something that’s there, but isn’t particularly necessary. I know he isn’t on the swim team, but I don’t know whether he’s on another sports team. I don’t know if he hangs out at Clyde’s Coffee on Friday nights like most people do. I don’t know if he can read music or even what kind of music he likes to listen to. I don’t know if he’s ever kissed a girl. Or a boy. I don’t know anything about him because I’ve never bothered to notice.

I fiddle with the radio dial because that’s easier than talking and better than wondering. I settle on a morning sports program the radio was tuned to the day after my grandpa’s funeral when my grandma handed me the keys to drive the car back to Pacific Palms.

Aaron says, “I’ve walked this same route to school for the last three years and nobody has ever stopped to give me a ride.”

His words feel like something he’s pulling from his mouth and handing over to me because he has to, not because he wants to.