Stolen Car Read online

  I try not to look him in the eye. He doesn’t seem to remember me from Reid’s house.

  “He’s working today,” Vic says.

  “Okay,” I cry over the noise.

  “Hey, sorry I can’t turn this junker off—I’m not sure if it would start again!”

  “Okay,” I say, wondering why my years of reading books with advanced vocabulary now leave me able to speak only one word.

  “I need to get this piece of shit out on the road. You wanna ride to the mall?” he shouts.

  “No, that’s okay,” I tell him, taking one step back.

  He takes two steps forward, then says, “Look, you’re my brother’s girlfriend and—”

  “I’m not his girlfriend,” I remind him. I’m guessing he’s only being nice to me to help his brother’s endless if futile quest to label me his lady fair.

  “Well, he thinks you are, and that’s what matters,” he says, then walks away from me. Once he gets near the passenger door, he shouts, “I’m not going to hit on you, I’m just offering you a free ride. You can stand here in this killer sun or you can get in. Your choice.”

  He doesn’t seem drunk or high. He’s not really a stranger, and I think he’s telling me the truth. Since I’d rather be any place other than home, I take a little risk. “Okay.”

  “Cool,” he says, leaving the car door open. I climb in. The car smells of smoke, and Vic lights up a Newport almost as soon as he sits down, like a reflex. I take the cue and pull out a Camel, but he says, “Hey, you’re too young to smoke.”

  “You sound like my mom,” I crack, but he doesn’t laugh or even grin.

  “I’m serious,” Vic says, and I put the cigarette back in the pack. “It starts with that, then you start smoking weed, and before you know it, you know what you become?”

  “No, what?” I ask.

  Over the rattle of his junker car, Vic mumbles, “Someone like me.”

  • • •

  “So you know Evan from school?” Vic asks as we rumble down Fenton Road. I can tell Vic doesn’t remember me from when I hung out at Reid’s. Either he’s smoked too much weed or I’m just not that memorable.

  “Yeah, from school,” I say. It’s hard to hear him over the engine and the heavy metal music he’s turned on that’s shaking the car’s already creaky frame.

  “He’s good in school, not like me,” Vic says, tossing his spent cigarette butt out the window. The car hasn’t got any airconditioning. My window’s broken and only rolls down halfway. I feel myself starting to sweat, from heat and from nerves.

  I’m not sure what to say. Does he want me to reassure him? Ask him a question? I’m better with adults than with people my own age, but clueless about in-betweens like Vic. He looks older, maybe twenty, but he lives at home. He’s not a child, not a teen, but certainly not an adult.

  “He’s probably going to go to college,” Vic offers. “How about you?”

  “Probably,” I mumble. Mom always says I’ll go to college, but I have no idea.

  “I wish I’d stayed in school and gone to college, but maybe someday I’ll go,” Vic says. “I gotta get out of Flint, maybe drive down south or go up to Canada.”

  I’m speechless as I realize that Vic reminds me of Mom. Same crappy car. Same regret list. Same hope that a good-luck lightning bolt will strike. Same dreams that turn into lies.

  “I got to get another job and a better set of wheels,” he adds.

  “What do you do?” I ask. Since so few of Mom’s boyfriends actually have or keep jobs, I’m curious about what Vic thinks he can do.

  “I install car stereos,” he answers. “I hate working for other people, so I got fired by my asshole boss at Best Buy. I’ll find something, maybe.”

  “Good luck.”

  “Maybe Evan can get me a job at Halo. As hard as he works, he’ll probably manage the damn place before he’s out of high school.” He laughs. “Little bro is all right.”

  “He’s a good friend,” I shout, making sure that anything I say that might get back to Evan won’t get misrepresented and give him any false hopes of making me his “big squeeze.”

  Vic doesn’t say anything. Since we don’t have much in common, I just let the music fill the void. Vic’s right: Evan’s a good kid. All last year, he’d talk with me at school, always gently asking me out, even though I always said no. Evan tries so hard, and that’s the problem. You shouldn’t have to make someone like you. I know Evan will be there for me, but I can’t tell Vic that his little brother is always going to be my plan B.

  “Hey, I gotta make a stop,” Vic says casually. “It won’t take too long.”

  “We’re still going to the mall, right?” I ask.

  “Hell yes,” Vic says.

  “I need to call my mom. My battery’s about dead. Do you have a cell?”

  “Go ahead,” he says. He reaches into his pocket and hands me what would have been a super-fancy cell phone four years ago. Now it’s another junker, like his crappy car.

  There’s no answer at home, but before I can leave a message, I’m distracted. I hadn’t been paying attention, but the neighborhood we pull into off Jennings Road is familiar. Too familiar. Before I have a chance to say anything, we’re parked in the driveway of Kate and Reid Barker’s house.

  Vic gets out of the car, then waves at me. “Hey, move over to the driver’s side.”

  “I don’t know how to drive,” I tell him.

  “If you hear the car start to stall, just pump the gas,” he says. Before I can tell him I don’t even want to do that, he’s gone into the house. I move myself over to the driver’s seat and sit clutching the wheel, my right foot filling with a thousand sparks. My dad used to let me pretend to steer, but other than arcade games, I’d never really sat behind the wheel before. I feel my hands shake, but then I realize it’s just the car starting to stall. I pump the gas, hear the roar, and smile. I turn the rearview mirror so I can see myself. Staring into the mirror, I imagine myself behind the wheel of my own car, my friends in the car with me, music playing, and everybody laughing as we tear down the highway.

  I turn down the face-melting metal Vic put on. With the volume lower, I can now hear the sound of a booming bass coming from inside Kate’s house. In between songs, I hear lots of shouting. Not angry shouting like my mom and Carl do, but shouting to be heard in the middle of a party. In the middle of the day. While Mom doesn’t throw parties, there are few weekend nights in Circle Pines when someone isn’t hosting one. Most of the time they’re loud parties, with lots of empty beer cans on the street and at least one visit by the police. I usually sit in my room, headphones on and eyes in a book, trying to ignore the sounds—not because they aggravate me, but because deep inside me, I feel them call me like sirens.

  I’m lost in my thoughts with my eyes closed when a tapping sound startles me. I open my eyes to see, through the cracked and dirty windshield, Reid Barker’s bright green eyes and brighter smile shining like a crescent moon.

  • • •

  “Danielle, right?” he says as he slips around to the driver’s side of the car.

  I run my fingers through my messy hair, smile back at him, and say, “You remember?”

  “Of course I remember you,” he says as he touches the small gold ring embedded in his left eyebrow. His arms are tanned and tattooed; there’s a dark green fire-breathing dragon at the top of his right arm. He’s shirtless, so there’s a lot of skin, and not an inch of fat, to see.

  “Is Kate home?” I ask, hoping he won’t catch the mix of sadness and relief in my voice that he didn’t greet me by saying, “Oh, Danielle Griffin, I remember you. You’re the girl who got drunk, came on to me, got rejected and humiliated, and then disappeared.”

  “She’s spending the summer with Dad over in Port Huron,” Reid says. He’s kneeling by the side of the car, leaning in to talk to me. “It’s just me and Mommy Dearest here.”

  “I don’t see Kate much at school anymore,” I mumble. Truth is, I don
’t want to see her, and she doesn’t want to see me, so we avoid each other.

  “Well, let’s get a look at you,” he says. He backs away from the car, then opens the door. He’s wearing worn black pants with a big gold belt buckle to match the gold rings and studs in his eyebrow and ears. He’s got a light-brown soul patch on his chin and he’s wearing a backward black cap that pushes his hair back onto his shoulders. He’s still gorgeous.

  “Vic said I needed to sit here and make sure the car doesn’t stall,” I say.

  “Vic’s an idiot,” he cracks. “I’ll take care of him if he messes with you.”

  “Okay, I guess.” I run another quick hand through my hair.

  “The stories I could tell about Vic are—” He stops short when I stumble in my usual clumsy fashion getting out of the car. I’m just about to fall fat facefirst onto the driveway when Reid reaches his arms out to save me. I end up with a slightly scraped elbow.

  “Thanks,” I mumble, my face turning scarlet as it points toward the gray concrete.

  “Good Goddamn, woman!” he shouts as I stand up. “You look fine!”

  My eyes stay frozen on the ground. I realize the last time Reid saw me was probably in eighth grade before I grew into this body. There’s a lot more for him to see, so I instinctively move my arms to cover my eye-magnet breasts. I’d started the day thinking I’d just be hanging with Ashley, so I didn’t put on much makeup and dressed in my usual ill-fitting—in this case one-size-too-small—black T-shirt and pair of scuffed-up jeans. Reid must be lying: God hasn’t been good to me. I don’t look fine or like a woman. I just look like me.

  “Hey, you’re bleeding,” he says softly, and touches my left elbow with his right hand. I notice that he has numerous small circle-shaped scars on the top of the hand, as well as on his arms.

  “I’m all right,” I answer quickly.

  “You better take care of that,” he says. “Maybe Vic can kiss it and make it better.”

  “Vic’s not kissing me,” I tell him.

  “Like I said, Vic’s an idiot,” he says, and I blush.

  “I’m friends with Vic’s brother.”

  “Didn’t know the Victim had a brother,” Reid says. “Maybe if Kate comes home this summer, she can hook up with him instead of the loser she’s been hanging around with.”

  “Evan’s really nice,” I say.

  “So, he’s your boyfriend, good for him,” Reid says, but I just shake my head and frown.

  “Really? Well, hey, you should come inside, we’re just chillin’,” he says, pointing toward the house. The music and shouting don’t seem as loud as they were before Reid came outside.

  I look back down at the ground to avoid his green eyes sucking me in.

  “Well, we gotta fix that cut,” he says, touching my elbow again, then showing me the blood on the tip of his finger. He points to a big scar on his left arm. “This is what happens when you don’t get stuff taken care of.”

  “Skateboard injury?” I say, remembering that Reid and his pals were hardcore skaters.

  “Skating sucks,” he says, making me feel stupid. “No, it comes courtesy of the same thing as the rest.”

  Reid takes my right hand, then grabs my index finger and runs it softly across the scars on his left arm, ending with a large one just below the shoulder. “Old gifts from my asshole father. He used my skin as an ashtray. I fucking hate that flesh-burning bastard.”

  “Oh my God, Reid,” I say, pulling my hand away and then covering my mouth.

  “Is your dad an asshole too?” he asks.

  “My mom’s like that,” I say, yet even as the words exit, I know they’re not true. I don’t hate Mom; I just hate some of the things she does and says. As bad as things are, she’s never done anything as horrible to me as what Reid just told me his dad did to him.

  “Wow, I don’t know why I just told you that,” Reid says, leaning closer.

  “I won’t tell anybody,” I almost whisper.

  “Our secret then,” he whispers back. It looks like he wants to say something else, but he gets distracted by some guy on the porch yelling his name.

  “You sure you don’t need me to fix that?” Reid asks.

  “I’m fine, I’ll fix it at home,” I reply, so unsure what Reid really wants. What I want.

  “I gotta get back inside. We’re playing this cool new racing video game I just scored. It’s my turn to get behind the wheel, kick some ass, take some names, and make them bow to the master!”

  I nod and turn to get back into the car, which luckily hasn’t stalled.

  “God, what a piece of shit Vic drives,” Reid says, opening the car door for me. “Maybe one day he’ll have a kick-ass car like mine.”

  “Which one is yours?” I ask, looking at the cars and SUVs that fill the driveway.

  “Check out that cold-as-hell Viper,” Reid says as he points to a flaming red sports car with fancy silver rims. Before I can respond, Reid lays a small tender kiss on my cheek and says, “Great to see you again, Danielle. Any time you wanna come back over, it’s cool.”

  “Thanks, Reid,” I say, stumbling over my words as I sit in the unfamiliar driver’s seat.

  “I’ll tell Vic to get his head out of his ass and get you wherever it is you want to go,” Reid says. I’m back in the car, but my hand is on the door, underneath Reid’s scarred paw. He gives my hand a gentle squeeze, then puts his fingers to his lips, kisses them, and touches the cut on my elbow. I’m embarrassed and overwhelmed, so I avert my eyes.

  “Hey, look at me,” he says, reaching his hand into the car. “You got a cell?” I answer by handing my phone to him. He turns it on, then quickly punches in a few numbers—his, I pray. He doesn’t say anything after that. He just walks away, which causes my head and heart to start spinning like an out-of-control merry-go-round. Seeing Reid again leaves me with both strange and familiar feelings, but it also creates one more question I need to answer this summer: is there any truth in the cliché that time heals all wounds?

  4

  TUESDAY, JUNE 17

  “What do you want to do now?” Evan yells from the driver’s seat of his mom’s car.

  “Let’s just go someplace,” Ashley says. She’s not a fan of driving around in circles, but it seems right to me because my mind’s been racing in circles ever since I saw Reid again.

  “No, let’s just drive,” I say.

  Evan speeds up, but he’s still going way under the legal limit. “You want to go to the drive-in? Maybe to a drive-thru? Maybe we could do a drive-by? Go to—”

  “Could we just get out of this car, please?” Ashley asks. It looks like she’s carsick.

  “Then where to, Ashley?” I turn to ask her. Sitting next to me in the back, she shrugs, then looks, almost trance-like, out the window. I knew she’d prefer it if just the two of us spent time hanging out, but Evan invited me to a movie, and I dragged her along so it wouldn’t be a non-Mom approved date, much to Ashley’s, and Evan’s, disappointment. No matter what I do, it seems that I just can’t make anyone happy anymore, especially myself.

  “Wanna get something to eat?” Evan asks.

  “I don’t have any more money,” I confess. Evan probably would have paid for the movie if I hadn’t brought Ashley with me.

  “I have a Capitol idea!” Evan shouts. “Is your mom working?”

  “I don’t know,” I say, stalling. When I got up this morning, she and Carl were already yelling at each other, so I left without saying goodbye. Their promises to change stuck like a cheap Band-Aid. “I don’t care what we do or where we go, as long as I don’t have to go home.”

  “I’m Hungary. I need Turkey but without too much Greece,” Evan says, still trying to get a laugh.

  “Can you just take me home?” Ashley sighs.

  I take a quick glance at our location, a quick reading of the other faces in the car, and a deeper look at what I’ve been thinking about for the past twenty-four hours, and then say, “Why don’t we see if Ka
te Barker is home?”

  “Kate?” Ashley and Evan say in surprise at the same time.

  “She lives near here, just off Jennings Road,” I say, ignoring their reactions.

  “I thought that you two were—,” Ashley starts.

  “I feel bad about what happened with us,” I say, feeling worse about telling so many lies.

  “If that’s what you want, then just tell me where to go,” Evan says.

  “We don’t have to stay long,” I say.

  “I need to be home in an hour. I have a ballet class,” Ashley announces.

  The loud music streaming out of the Barker house is anything but ballet background noise. There are a couple of cars in the driveway, most of them nicer than Vic’s junker or Evan’s Mom-mobile. Some older kids are sitting on the porch smoking. I don’t know these people, but I recognize a few faces of seniors from last year and a few from Circle Pines.

  “I don’t know about this place,” Ashley says to me as Evan parks on the street.

  “Come on, Ashley, be cool,” Evan says, although his voice sounds anything but.

  I get out of the car and walk toward the house. The street’s littered with cigarette butts, pop cans, and various fast-food trash items. I turn around to see Ashley still sitting in the car. Evan’s outside at least, but he’s not moving any closer.

  I start to knock on the door when one of the longhairs on the porch giggles. “Kid, the door’s always open at Reid’s.” The other guys laugh louder, then I go inside. The music hits first, the smell of smoke hits next, and the smell of pot hits last. All the shades are pulled, so even in the middle of a bright June day, it’s as dark as December.

  “Who are you?” some buzzed guy asks as he bumps into me. Like the guys out front, he looks a lot older than me.

  “Is Reid here?” I shout over the music.

  “He’s in the cave,” the guy mumbles, never even looking at me.

  “The cave?” I ask.

  “The basement, bitch. Get a fucking clue,” he says sharply, then stumbles past me.