Extraordinary October. Diana Wagman

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СКАЧАТЬ I ran out the front door.

      The rain had stopped but the streets were wet and shiny. I drove at a speed definitely ticketable, but I couldn’t help it. I was excited both with my news and to see Trevor. Would I have my first kiss along with everything else—like the cherry on top of a dish of fireflies and college? When I pulled up, Trevor was waiting for me out front of the Stop N Shop. I started to get out, but he came and got in the passenger seat.

      “Hi,” I said. “I can’t stay, I—”

      “I’ve missed you.” He interrupted.

      “Really?” It had only been a few hours.

      “I keep thinking about you.”

      “You do?”

      “For real.” He turned to face me.

      The neon light from the Stop N Shop sign turned his face icy blue. I had never seen such perfectly smooth skin, as if he were a marble statue. He looked down and his long black eyelashes brushed his cheeks.

      “Why?” I whispered. “Why me?”

      “I want to know,” he began, smiling impishly. “Do you like to play in the leaves? Have you ever been swimming in a river? Have you climbed up a mountain to see the view?”

      Each thing he said conjured up images so real I could smell the dusty leaves, taste the river water on my tongue, and feel the breeze from the top of a mountain.

      “Have you ever played Hide And Seek in a forest?” He kept going, “Danced on moss? Watched a mother fox with her babies?”

      I laughed. I had to. He looked like such a city boy. “Sure,” I said. “Some of those things. With my dad.”

      “Would you like to—with me?”

      “I think so.”

      He put out his hand as if would lead me to the woods right then and there. In the shadowy car, his hand looked huge, almost inhuman. His nails were too long and dirty. Involuntarily, I leaned back.

      “Let’s go right now,” he said.

      I could see my reflection in his eyes and my face was stretched and distorted like in a funhouse mirror. He bent toward me. His breath smelled like green plants and very faintly of rot. I frowned, but for some reason I wanted to kiss him so badly I didn’t care what he tasted like. He smoothed my hair off my face and blinked and my reflection was gone. I leaned toward him—

      Crunch! The car jerked forward at the same time I heard metal meet metal. We’d been hit. “What the?” My mom’s car was a lot nicer than my dad’s. I looked at Trevor. He was furious and in his anger his chin looked pointier, his eyes larger. Then he shook all over like a dog waking up and shrugged at me.

      “What a drag,” he said.

      “No kidding.”

      I got out of the car. Jed’s fancy red Charger was somehow connected to my bumper.

      “Oh wow,” Jed said. “It’s you. Wow, man, I’m sorry.”

      “What were you doing? Are you wasted?”

      “Absolutely not. I dropped my phone. I just looked down for a minute.”

      “Oh my God. You are such an idiot.”

      When I glanced back in the car for Trevor, he was gone, and the passenger door was wide open. I was disappointed in him, running off at the first sign of trouble. What did I know about him? Nothing much. For a second I saw again his odd angry face and I could smell something dead. I shivered.

      Jed jumped up on his bumper and rocked his car up and down. The two bumpers disconnected. “No problem-o,” he said.

      “What? Look at my car!” But surprisingly, the bump hadn’t done any damage.

      “Those plastic bumpers you got are awesome,” he said. Then he looked around. “Where’d your friend go?”

      “I don’t know.”

      “Lock your doors on the way home, okay? This isn’t such a safe neighborhood anymore.”

      “That’s funny coming from you.”

      “There are worse things than a fender bender.”

      “Bye, Jed.”

      Another perfect opportunity with Trevor—ruined. Angrily I got into my car and started it up. Jed watched as I backed around him and drove away.

       6.

      The computer screen was the only light in my room. Sometimes I think the Internet was invented for insomniacs. I have never been a good sleeper, but the web—the perfect name for the way it catches you and won’t let you go—makes the middle of the night much more pleasant. There is a whole world out there that is never asleep.

      I carried my laptop into my bed and rested it on my knees. I had that WWI paper to write, due next Monday, and I hadn’t even started. But instead of Gallipoli or the Treaty of Versailles, I Googled Walker Smith. Nothing—and I mean nothing—came up. Then I tried Hayden College. Turned out Hayden College was one of those for profit schools where you took classes only online. It didn’t even offer a Psychology major, only dental hygienist and computer tech. I thought of how warm his hand had been, how blue his eyes. And then there was Trevor. I looked for Trevor Rockman and he came up on the school’s page. He had joined the football team. What the hell? There were only three months of school left and nobody was playing football. Maybe they meant baseball.

      My cell phone pinged, a text. I got out of bed and found my phone.

      “This is Jeb. Have you seen Luisa?”

      I texted back. “It’s almost midnight.”

      “Look out your window. See her?”

      I looked, but there was no one outside and no strange cars in front of the house. It was the night before trash pick up and all up and down the street people had put their big rubber containers out at the curb. I thought I saw movement behind one. What would she be doing out there? I looked closer. Nothing. Just a branch moving.

      There was something white in the middle of the street. It looked like a paper plate that had fallen out of someone’s recycling. On closer look, it wasn’t a paper plate. It was a Frisbee.

      “Frisbee in the middle of the street.” I texted.

      He texted right back. “On my way.”

      I pulled on my jeans, conveniently lying right there on the floor. I took off the T-shirt I slept in—one of my dad’s and enormous—and put on an old hoodie. I tiptoed downstairs carrying my shoes. I looked toward the den. The door was closed and I could hear my parents in there fighting, but in low voices as if I wouldn’t know. I always knew when they were arguing and lately it had been more often. My mom was gone a lot to conferences and mycology meetings. She said it was important, but I think Dad thought it was just СКАЧАТЬ