What Happens to Goodbye(64)

It was the weirdest feeling. As my feet slid beneath me, my heart was lurching, pounding with that scary feeling of having no footing, no control. But then I looked over at Dave. He was laughing, his face flushed as he wavered this way, then that, pulling me along, equally clumsy behind him. Same situation, two totally different reactions.
So much had happened that morning. Yet it was this image, this moment, that I kept going back to hours later, after we’d made it safely to the walkway and gone our separate ways to classes. How it felt to have the world moving beneath me, a hand gripping mine, knowing if I fell, at least I wouldn’t do it alone.
The snow kept coming down, piling up into drifts, leading to school being cancelled a little bit before lunchtime. As I pushed out the front door with everyone else, all I could think was that I had a whole free afternoon, a ton of laundry that needed doing, and a paper to hand in the next day. But instead of taking the bus straight home like I planned, I got off two stops early, right across the street from Luna Blu.
The snow had killed the lunch rush, so the restaurant was mostly empty, which made it easier to hear my dad, Chuckles, and Opal, who were in the party-and-event room just off the bar area. I could see them all gathered at a table, coffee mugs and papers spread out all around them. My dad looked tired, Opal tense. Clearly, the magic wand hadn’t materialized.
I walked through the dining room, to the door that led to the stairs. As soon as I opened it, I heard voices.
“. . . totally doable,” Dave was saying as he came into view. Deb, still in her coat, scarf, and mittens, was standing beside him, both of them studying the boxes of model parts. “Complicated, yes. But doable.”
“All that counts is the doable part,” she said, glancing around the room. When she saw me, her face brightened. “Hey! I didn’t know you were coming!”
Neither did I, I thought. “I had a hankering to serve my community,” I told her, just as Dave turned around to look at me as well. “What are we doing?”
“Just getting together a game plan,” Deb said, pulling off her mittens. “Did you have any ideas about the best way to proceed? ”
I walked over, standing beside her, feeling Dave watching me. I thought of that morning again, the solid circle on his wrist, the same one I’d been holding on to for dear life as we slid across the ice. He’s not my type, some voice in my head said, but it had been so long, I didn’t even know what that meant anymore. Or if this girl, the one I was now, even had a type at all.
“Nope,” I said, glancing at him. “Let’s just start and see what happens.”
Fifteen minutes later, a meeting was called.
“Okay, look.” Deb’s face was dead serious. “I know I just joined this project, and I don’t want to offend anyone. But I’m going to be honest. I think you’ve been going about this all wrong.”
“I’m offended,” Dave told her flatly.
Her eyes widened. “Oh, no. Really? I’m so—”

“I’m also joking,” he said.
“Oh, okay. Whew!” She smiled, her cheeks flushing. “Let me start by just saying that I’m so glad you invited me here. I love this kind of stuff. When I was a kid, I was crazy for miniatures.”
“Miniatures?” I asked.
“You know, dollhouses and such. I especially loved historical stuff. Tiny re-creations of Revolutionary War cottages, Victorian orphanages. That kind of thing.”
“Orphanages?” Dave said.
“Sure.” She blinked. “What? Anyone can have a dollhouse. I was more creative with my play.”
“Dave was, too,” I told her. “He was into model trains.”
“It was not trains,” Dave said, annoyed. “It was war staging, and very serious.”
“Oh, I loved war staging!” Deb told him. “That’s how I ended up with all my orphans.”
I just looked at both of them. “What kind of childhood did you people have?”
“The bad kind,” Deb replied, simply, matter-of-factly. She slid off her jacket, folded it neatly, and put it with her purse on a nearby table. “We were always broke, Mom and Dad didn’t get along. My world was messed up. So I liked being able to make other ones.”
I looked at her, realizing this was the most she’d ever volunteered about her home life. “Wow,” I said.
Dave shrugged. “I just liked battles.”
“Who doesn’t?” Deb replied, already moving on. “Anyway, I really feel, from my experience with large model and miniature structures, that the best approach in construction is the pinwheel method. And what you have going here is total chessboard.”
We both just looked at her. “Right,” Dave said finally. “Well, of course.”
“So honestly,” she continued as I shot him a look, trying not to laugh, “I think we need a total re-approach to the entire project. Are those the directions?”
“Yeah,” I told her, picking up the thick manual by my feet.
“Great! Can I see?”
I handed them over, and she immediately took them to the table, spreading them out. Within seconds, she was bent over the pages, deep in thought, drumming on her lip with one finger.
“Can I tell you something?” Dave whispered to me. “I love Deb. She’s a total freak. And I mean that in a good way.”
“I know,” I said. “Every day she kind of blows my mind.”
It was true. Deb might have been a spazzer freak, speed-metal drummer, tattoo expert, and constructor of orphanages. What she wasn’t was timid. When she took something over, she took it over.