Stolen Car Page 12

  “It’s like this song I heard on an oldies station once,” Vic says.

  “What song?” I punctuate my question by slamming the rusty door behind me.

  “It’s by Tom Petty,” Vic says. “I think it’s called ‘Even the Losers Get Lucky Sometimes.’”

  11

  FRIDAY, JULY 25

  “Is Ashley there?” I ask, trying to stifle a yawn.

  “Good morning from the Great White North, Danielle, eh?” Ashley’s father says, trying to sound Canadian. “What’s that about, eh? Everybody’s loony up here, eh?”

  “Can you tell her I called?”

  “It would be more efficient to tell her when you don’t call, eh?” He’s trying to be funny, but he’s being kinda mean. I’ve called Ashley every day she’s been on vacation with her parents in Canada, and this is the last day. They’ve cut off her cell phone—same as my mother will do to me the second she checks my minutes—so I’m calling her at the hotel in Toronto.

  “Sorry,” I mumble.

  “I was just kidding, Danielle. Ashley is lucky to have a friend like you,” he says, dropping the attitude and the accent.

  “Thanks,” I mumble again, wondering if she’ll feel the same when she comes home tomorrow and discovers that the conspiracy that she hatched with Vic and Evan to get me to break up with Reid didn’t work. Every time they push me, I just pull closer to Reid.

  “She’s just finishing in the shower.”

  Then comes the awkward pause. A long awkward pause.

  “So, is Toronto as much fun as Tawas?” I ask, desperate to break the silence.

  “Tawas?”

  “Ashley said you used to vacation there and—”

  Before I can finish, he cuts me off. “Who told you that?”

  “She did,” I respond, but I can tell he’s not listening. I struggle to hear the muted conversation my comment inspired.

  “Danielle, just a moment.” It’s her mother now. “Ashley will be—”

  “Did I say something wrong?”

  More silence. Not awkward, but agonizing—which turns into endless.

  “Hey, BFF,” Ashley finally says.

  “Hey, Ash,” I say. “That was so weird, I asked your parents about Tawas, and—”

  “How’s Reid?” she asks, much to my surprise. But before I can answer, she says, “Let me guess, he’s perfect.”

  “Ashley,” I say, “I don’t know where to start,” and then the words rush out of me like water from a broken dam. I tell her that what other people think of Reid doesn’t matter, all that matters is the time he and I spend together. The monologue ends with this: “It’s like I was just waiting for my life to begin.”

  She sighs from a thousand miles away. “Oh, sweet young naive Danielle.”

  “Oh, wise Wizard of the Great North.” I tease her right back.

  “All of that is half a world away,” Ashley announces.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Yesterday we went to the CN Tower and looked out over the city. There’s millions of people here from all over the world. The drama of Flint seems very distant.”

  “I guess,” I mumble.

  “That’s what everybody needs in their life, a high tower so they can see their life from afar. Then they’d know the things that are really important.”

  “Like?” I ask. But she doesn’t answer. We’re trapped in our thoughts, which can’t bounce off of satellites. After another pause, she tells me about her trip, the shows they’ve seen, stuff they’ve done, and she says she’ll tell me more when she gets home tomorrow. We say our last long-distance goodbye. Even though I love every second with Reid, I can’t stop feeling angry at Ashley’s perfect parents and perfect life. Like Vic said, some people are born lucky, and others of us find luck where we can.

  • • •

  “Danielle, you awake?” It takes me a moment to place the voice. It’s Carl’s, and his bald head is sticking into my room. I must’ve fallen back asleep after hanging up with Ashley.

  “What do you want?” I ask, pulling the covers tight around me.

  “I need to say something,” Carl says, very slowly. I can’t tell if he’s hungover or just having a hard time speaking. Hangovers come easily to Carl; conversations between us do not.

  “What?” I ask, but he’s looking at the floor, not at me.

  “I’ll be at the table,” he mutters, then shuts the door behind him.

  I quickly get dressed, not because I want to see Carl, but because Reid and I are going driving again later today. Sometimes I wonder what would happen if Mom caught me, but most times, I just don’t care what she thinks. I fix my hair and then drag myself out to talk to Carl.

  He’s sitting at the kitchen table, drinking coffee and smoking. When I got home last night, just seconds before curfew, he was on the sofa, drinking beer and smoking. Carl doesn’t change, only his beverage does.

  “Sit down,” he mumbles. I walk slowly toward the table, unsure what’s going on. For most of this summer, Carl and I have wanted the same thing: to leave each other alone. We share my mom’s attention, an occasional meal, and this cramped crappy trailer, but nothing else.

  “I’ll stand,” I say, then walk past him to get some juice from the fridge.

  “Your mom wants me to apologize,” Carl starts, and for once I’m interested in his words. If he’s going to apologize, I’d better sit down, although I’ll be near the edge of my seat wondering which of his many sins he wants to say he’s sorry for first.

  “For what?”

  “For that thing in the car with your friend.” He’s speaking to the table in front of him, not to me. “Your mother said I was wrong to go off on her like that. You’ll tell her, okay?”

  I sip the juice, letting the coolness trickle down my sore throat, from which no words will come. Carl’s only apologizing because Mom wants him to; I guess since I won’t be the obedient daughter anymore, she needs somebody else to boss around. Carl’s not the bully, Mom is.

  “Okay,” I finally say, not so much to accept the apology but to break the silence. Carl grunts and I turn toward my room.

  “I’m doing the best I can,” I hear him mumble, almost like he doesn’t really want me to hear what he’s saying, maybe because he knows I can’t believe him. If drinking, hitting my mom, and not working are the best he can offer, what’s the worst?

  “The best I can,” Carl repeats, the words drifting toward me on smoke clouds. I know he’s begging for acceptance in his own pathetic way, but even in the silence between us, I still hear faint echoes of his hand bouncing off Mom’s face.

  “Whatever, Carl,” I say in a tone that smacks like the back of my own angry hand. I can’t give in to this overture, so not only won’t I accept it, I’ll dramatically reject it. I head toward the bathroom, but the door’s locked. After a few seconds, Mom emerges.

  “You talk to her?” she asks Carl. Her hair is wet and in need of a new dye job.

  “I tried,” Carl mumbles, looking away from me. “In one ear and out the other.”

  “I’m going down to the pool to read,” I announce.

  “Don’t you mean go meet your boyfriend?” Mom says. She puts on a robe and comes out to the kitchen table, quickly lighting up a smoke. “It’s time for us to have a talk.”

  “A family talk?” I say, waiting for Mom to nod, which she does, so I can add, “I guess that means you can leave, Carl.”

  “That’s enough of that,” Mom says, but the message gets through. Carl puts out his smoke, then heads outside to do whatever it is he does to pass his day. Once the door closes, Mom sits at the table and asks the question I’ve been dreading. “When can I meet him?”

  “Who?” I knew it was only a matter of time before Mom confronted me about where I was spending my days. I’ve run out of lies and excuses; she’s run out of patience.

  “This boy you’re really spending time with,” she says. “I know it’s not Evan.”

  “You won’t like him
,” I tell her. I’ve been avoiding home not just so I can spend as much time with Reid as he can spare, but also to avoid this conversation with my mother. “But it doesn’t matter if you like him or not, because I do.”

  “Thank God you didn’t say you loved him,” she says, then sighs. I wanted to tell her that very thing, but I just knew this would be her reaction. My mom’s so boring and predictable; no wonder I’d rather spend time with Reid.

  “Why do you even care?” I say. She points toward a chair and I obey.

  “What’s his name? What grade is he in? Does he go to Carmen?” Mom asks. I find myself wishing Carl were here to throw me some slow softball pitches; Mom’s tossing high hard ones. I duck her scorn by telling her little lies, figuring she’d rather hear those than the whole truth.

  “He’s going to be a senior, so he’s just one year older.” I’m trying to talk normal, trying to hide my deceit and the five-year difference between Reid and me. Maybe because I’ve never lied much to Mom before—I didn’t have much of anything to lie about—she doesn’t know what my truthless tone sounds like. “He’s really nice and drives a really cool car.”

  “I worry about you so,” my mom says.

  “Why’s that?”

  She makes a half-grunt, half-laugh sound. “That’s what I told my mom about your dad.”

  I bite my bottom lip, but don’t say anything.

  “When I gave you permission to date, I thought it was going to be with that nice boy Evan,” she says, then adds yet another sigh.

  “You thought wrong,” I say sharply, wanting to ask her what she knows about nice boys.

  “Lose that tone,” she snaps back.

  “Sorry,” I say, but what my mother thinks is just not important anymore.

  “Carl has a softball game to night, and I’m not working,” she says. “We’ll all go to dinner together beforehand so I can get to know this boy who is taking so much of my daughter’s time.”

  “I don’t want to,” I counter. “Watching Carl play softball belongs in the Guinness Book of World Records for most boring event in history.”

  Mom’s tongue turns sharp. “I’m not asking you, I’m telling you.”

  “No.”

  “What did you say?” she says, pretending she didn’t hear me, or maybe giving me another chance.

  “I said no, I’m not going to see Carl’s stupid softball game or have dinner with you two.”

  “Danielle, you’re my daughter, you don’t get to say no,” she replies.

  “Maybe you should learn how to say no yourself,” I shoot back.

  “What does that mean?” she says.

  “You know what it means,” I say, but I’m not angry with Mom; I’m feeling sorry for her. I want to save her from the ticking Carl time bomb.

  “I said, lose that tone.” She can’t correct me on the facts, so she goes after the delivery.

  “You lose Carl and I’ll tell you what you want to know,” I tell her, thinking about all the different things Reid’s taught me. Now I can drive a car and a hard bargain.

  “When did you get to be such a smart-ass?” is her non-response.

  “When did you stop standing up for yourself?” I act on my words by standing up, leaving her behind, and slamming my bedroom door so hard that our trailer shakes.

  • • •

  As soon as Mom leaves for work, I call Reid. He tells me that Wayne and Becca are over, and I should get myself there. He doesn’t offer to pick me up, so I’m back on my bike. But after arriving, I slide behind the wheel, not of a real car, but one in a video game.

  “Ready to race again?” Reid asks. He’s beaten me four times in a row; I don’t expect number five to be any different. “There ain’t nobody that can beat me at this or any game!”

  “Bring it!” I shout, and we start another race. We’re racing on the big screen at speeds up to two hundred miles per hour; I’m racing inside at about twice that speed. At the start of the summer, my days were spent sitting in my room, talking on the phone with Ashley, reading books, and riding my bike. A month later, I’m in Reid’s basement room with his cool friends talking, laughing, and becoming a Race Car Hero.

  “I own you!” Reid shouts as he passes me repeatedly. “Bow to the master.”

  “You just wait,” I shout back.

  “Is that a promise or a threat?” he cracks, then throws a hip in my direction.

  “Both!” I tell him, bumping him back as our cars on the screen also crash into each other.

  The fifth game finishes like all the others: with Reid in the winner’s circle, leading him to sing out, “I’m the champion.”

  Wayne starts pouring a beer over Reid’s head. Reid laughs, snatches the bottle from Wayne, shakes up the beer, then lets it loose on me.

  “That’s cold!” I shout, trying to cover up.

  “That’s the idea,” Reid says, slapping fists with Wayne. “Better get out of those wet clothes.”

  “Very funny.” I shoot him a mock pout, followed by a smile.

  But Reid just stares and repeats, “I said, you’d better get out of those wet clothes.”

  “Reid, come on, cool it,” Becca cuts in.

  I’m looking at Becca, my eyes asking for more help, but she turns away.

  “I was just busting you,” Reid says, breaking the stare with a kiss as he pulls me closer to him. “Here comes my girl.”

  “Okay,” I whisper.

  “I’ll get my own show later,” he whispers, then kisses my neck.

  “Reid, are we getting baked or what?” Wayne says, taking the first hit off a joint.

  “Hell yes,” Reid says. He sits down and pulls me onto his lap. Wayne’s on the sofa and Becca’s sitting on the floor, the back of her head resting between Wayne’s legs.

  “Danielle, this is good shit, you’re sure?” Wayne says, offering me the joint.

  “I’m good,” I say, then reach for one of the open beers. I don’t know how Carl can drink six or seven of these in a night when I can barely manage one; they taste so foul.

  “Come on, this is some of our best stuff,” Wayne says, then he takes a hit.

  “Be cool, Wayne,” Reid says.

  “I am, she’s not,” Wayne mutters.

  “What did you say?” Reid says.

  “I’m sorry, Reid,” Wayne says, earning a knee kiss from Becca. “Sorry, girl.”

  “She can do whatever she wants to do, isn’t that right?” Reid says, taking the joint from Wayne. He gives me a big kiss before taking his extra-long house-rules hit.

  Wayne just grunts, then stumbles over to the stereo, cranking up the sounds of 105FM, Flint’s best radio station. I feel like I’m outside in the July heat: everything’s hazy, and it’s not just a contact high or the buzz from my one beer. The past month with Reid has been more like a dream than my waking life. Like the characters in Narnia or another fantasy world, I’ve walked into a strange land I never imagined.

  There’s no sense in letting Mom meet Reid because she won’t be able to understand something that I can barely make sense of myself. You can’t put love into words. I guess that’s why poets, painters, and songwriters are always suffering, they’re all trying to explain the unexplainable secrets of the human heart.

  “Reid, do you have a camera?” I ask, which makes everybody laugh.

  “A few of them,” Reid says, then he and Wayne high-five. “Why?”

  “I want some pictures of us, that’s all,” I reply. This sends Becca into action. She pulls her bright red cell out of her purse and snaps a quick photo of me with it. Reid kisses me on the lips, and Becca captures that moment as well. Everybody’s laughing as we take turns snapping pictures. I linger on the photo that Reid takes of the four of us, our heads together like some multi-headed mythical beast, then think back to the wedding in Traverse City. I think of all the happy pictures of Brittney, her new husband, and his happy family, and how glad I am that there are no pictures of my mom’s bruised face from the morning after
. When your own family’s let you down, your friends become your family.

  12

  SATURDAY, JULY 26

  “Danielle, what are you doing driving?” Ashley asks as she walks over to the Viper.

  “Cool, huh?” I say, then motion for her to get in the car. Reid’s up front with me. He only let me drive the Viper into Ashley’s driveway, but it was still a huge thrill.

  “I guess,” she says. She sounds about as unexcited as Reid was when I suggested this get-together. He said he really didn’t want to meet Ashley, but with the summer halfway over, I had to show her not only that I could drive, but that I could drive the coolest car around.

  “Welcome back,” I say as I get out of the car to give her a big missing-you hug. We’d talked on the phone a lot, more than Mom wanted and less than Ashley desired. About the only people I can please anymore are Reid and my cell phone company’s billing department.

  “I brought you some stuff from Toronto,” she says, returning the hug but sounding distracted. “Maybe to night we could—”

  “I’m a driving machine,” I announce. “Come on, climb in, and let me show you.”

  “I don’t know,” Ashley says, very tentatively.

  “I’m driving,” Reid says, then gets out of the car. “She can’t handle my six hundred horses.”

  I take a deep breath and hope for the best. “Reid, this is Ashley.”

  “Your BFF Ashley,” she corrects me, poking me gently as she says it.

  “What does that mean?” he asks.

  “Best friends forever,” we both say at the same time.

  “Oh, I forget, your friend is still in high school,” Reid says to Ashley.

  “Are you from the Matrix?” Ashley asks, pointing to Reid’s sunglasses. “Nice shades.”

  I snatch the glasses from Reid’s face, then put them on. “Don’t I look like a star?”

  “You wanna buy a pair?” Reid asks Ashley, his now-naked green eyes looking annoyed.

  “No, thanks,” she replies, staring back at him. “Nice to meet you too.”

  “He’s just kidding, Ash,” I reassure her, but her response is just to keep staring at Reid.