Going Places Page 4

  When he went upstairs to get his checkbook, I took the opportunity to look around the room. To be honest, it was pretty sterile. The house was small, but newish, unlike Mrs. Dickinson’s house, which seemed loaded with history. The furniture looked generic and kind of depressing. You could tell a woman didn’t live there. An ashtray on the coffee table showed no sign of ever being used. A picture on the wall looked exactly like one I saw in a hotel once when Mom and I were on vacation. A whole collection of Reader’s Digest condensed novels sat on the bookshelf. How was it possible, I wondered, to hide yourself so well in a room where you lived?

  I heard his footsteps coming down the stairs, and then I heard the exhalation of his breath, imposing, like everything else about him. Just before he entered the room, a slice of sunlight cut through the shuttered window, catching a glint of glass in the dark corner of a bookshelf. I took a step forward to get a better look and saw the tiny framed picture of a small girl. She grinned from beneath a halo of ringlets. Her clothing, I could tell, was from long ago.

  >>>

  Mr. Pirkle lived about six miles from my home. Close enough to get to on my bike if necessary, especially if I used the canal trail that connected us more directly than the city streets. But it wasn’t a part of our town I normally visited. In fact, I knew nobody on this side of town except Griffin, and whenever we got together he usually came to my house because he missed the old neighborhood.

  The house directly across the street from Mr. Pirkle’s had a basketball hoop set up in the driveway.

  When I was leaving, the biggest girl I’d ever seen was outside shooting hoops. There were girls on my high school volleyball and basketball teams who were tall, but this girl was an Amazon. Definitely six feet, probably more. And strong. Even the dark brown braid down her back was thick and muscular. There was nothing about her that would be considered feminine, and yet she was. Of course, she was female, therefore “feminine,” but she was pretty too. And graceful, the way she moved and jumped to make the basket. Her arms and legs were amazingly toned and copper-colored. She wore really short shorts and a tight tank top. I had to avert my eyes to keep from staring, which was my natural inclination. I could have stared at her all day long.

  She bounced the ball a few times before allowing it to leap into her strong and capable hands. Then she raised her eyes to observe me as I tried to slip into the car without being noticed. This girl, whoever she was, had obviously never had the option of not being noticed a day in her life.

  She pulled the back of her arm across her forehead to wipe away the sweat that darkened her hairline.

  “Hi,” she said in the most natural way, as if we were next door neighbors ourselves. Her voice was rich and low, like the oboe I’d unsuccessfully tried to master in middle school.

  “Hi,” I squeaked back, smacking my head on the door frame while lowering myself into the driver’s seat.

  It took a few weeks . . .

  . . . but my muscles did eventually loosen up, and aspirin was no longer a post-yoga habit. I was actually starting to feel some benefits from yoga, which I honestly never expected having thought it was just something girls did to be cool. Gus Ligety and I were the only guys remaining in the class, the other two having apparently realized it wasn’t everything they hoped it would be. With the new shrunken class size, Gus had maneuvered several spaces closer to me, like a pawn in a chess game moving in on the queen. Due to his closer proximity, Gus and Penelope got in lots of talking time before and after class. Because he pretended to hang onto her every soulless ha, ha, ha, Penelope rewarded him with her nearly undivided attention.

  I can’t say I minded. I wasn’t ready to butt antlers with Gus over Penelope. I’d reached my tolerance level for her days earlier. Occasionally Alana would unwind herself from an advanced yoga pose like the sleeping yogi (which was an amazing thing to see) and share a secret smirk with me. It’s funny how something as simple as a shared secret smirk could brighten my day. But Alana was with Bryce, that much was clear, and maybe because of that, I started to relax. I dumped the hard-to-get playacting like unnecessary baggage. Something happened during all those fifteen-minute passing periods. Alana and I became friends.

  >>>

  “So then I said to him . . . you call that a joke? You’d better go back to clown school.” Gus Ligety smiled fondly at the memory of his clever putdown.

  “No!” Penelope gasped. “You did not.”

  The four of us moved through the hallway as one, Gus, Penelope, Alana, and me.

  “I did.”

  “Oh my God, you’re crazy. Ha, ha, ha.”

  “And you’re sweet enough to eat.”

  “Ha, ha, ha. Oh my God, you’re too cute.” Penelope slapped Gus on his shoulder, which actually looked painful, but Gus didn’t even flinch.

  Alana sent out an invitation for a shared secret smirk but I pretended not to see. Try as I might to feel superior to Gus, I suspected one of us would finish up the school year with a girl, and it wasn’t going to be me.

  Our group split into two when Alana and I arrived at art class. I started walking towards the side of the classroom where I always sat when Alana grabbed my arm.

  “Come sit with me,” she said, pulling me towards her table.

  “What about Bryce?” I didn’t see him there, and he was almost always there before us.

  “He dropped the class,” she said, her mouth turned down in a mock pout.

  “Why? What happened?”

  “I don’t know if you heard about that whole football thing . . .”

  “Gus said something about it.”

  “Yeah, well, Bryce quit the team when the coach gave the backup quarterback position to that sophomore kid, Wyatt. Then in the last game Wyatt got his shoulder separated and . . .”

  “Colin, the starting quarterback tore his ACL. I heard.”

  “So the coach called Bryce and begged him to come back. I told him he shouldn’t do it, but he wanted it badly. He said he couldn’t play football and carry a full load, so he dropped art.”

  “But he didn’t drop you,” I said half-hoping, as though Alana and football couldn’t coexist in someone’s world.

  “He didn’t drop me.” She jabbed me playfully in the ribs as I sat myself down in the new starting quarterback’s chair.

  It was great working next to Alana like that, glancing over from time to time to see how her project was coming along. We were working on reflections, and Alana’s sketch was a self-portrait of her looking into the humped side of a spoon. Mine was a wild turkey pecking at his own reflection on the side of a car. Once, I looked up and noticed Alana watching me intently.

  “That’s amazing, Hudson,” she said like she really meant it. “You’re so talented.”

  Our teacher walked by at just that moment. “Yes, he is,” she agreed.

  I was in Heaven.

  After class, it was as though our friendship had taken a step to the next level, if there is such a thing as a level between friendship and love.

  “You wanna meet me after school?” she asked. “We can hang out. Bryce’s busy with football.”

  I didn’t exactly want to be that guy who was free after school while the other guys had football practice, but since I was, it was hard to say no. If I focused when I got home, I could get everything done and have a free afternoon.

  “Why don’t you come to my place?” she suggested. “You know where I live, right?” I blushed at the memory of the first time I walked by her house. “Bring the dogs, and I’ll walk back with you. It’ll be fun.”

  I knew what I was to Alana, just a friend. But having her to myself in art class . . . winning her praise . . . being invited to her place after school . . . priceless. The rational side of my brain told me to put the brakes on, or at least not to totally give in to my fantasies. But the irrational side commanded my heart to deliver hormon
es at super-optimal levels. I ran around the house like a superhero on steroids, accomplishing everything I needed to and more by the time school let out for Alana.

  I even had time left over and enough inspiration to tackle my graphic novel. The last attempt involved an ice monster in the Arctic Circle, but it went nowhere. This time I started playing around with characters like the walking-talking popcorn, sodas, and candy bars you see onscreen before the movie trailers. Only these characters had more depth and complexity. Difficult relationships and existential angst. It could work. At least I was finally doing something, and it felt great.

  A late-night phone call is the thing parents dread the most . . .

  . . . or so my mother tells me. But for me, a late-night phone call is filled with endless possibilities. So when my cell phone buzzed and lit up around midnight, I was psyched. Was Alana calling to talk after the full afternoon we’d spent together? She’d been waiting for me in her front yard when I arrived with the dogs. Never in my life did I have so much to say to another person in such a short period of time. We just clicked, and I think both of us were aware of that by the time her dad picked her up from my place on his way home from work.

  So I was thinking Alana, but what I got was Mr. Pirkle. At least, I knew it was him from the Caller ID on my phone. Otherwise, I never would have guessed.

  The voice was muffled and pretty much incomprehensible. It alternated between too loud and barely audible. There was a roaring, almost electronic background noise you get when somebody’s walking around with a phone in their pocket. So he butt-dialed me. I tried yelling and even whistling, but he couldn’t hear, so I hung up and went back to sleep.

  The next morning, Friday morning, he called me just after the bell rang at the end of art class. Alana was waiting to tell me something.

  “Hudson, Pirkle here,” he said. “Sorry to bother you, but I wonder if you could stop by. I think there’s a problem.”

  “What’s wrong, sir? Do you want me to call for help?”

  “No, no, just come by. Nothing I want to discuss over the phone.”

  I thought about the walk home and the long bike ride over to his house. I couldn’t let him know it was a big deal for me. It had to seem effortless. Still I wish he’d give me a clue as to the problem. I hoped he wouldn’t turn out to be another Mrs. Dickinson.

  “Would it be okay if I was there in an hour?”

  “Of course. I’m not going anywhere. Just get here as soon as you can.”

  Alana tapped her foot impatiently. She had three minutes to get to her next class.

  “So do you want to do something tonight?” she asked. “Bryce has a football game, and you know I can’t stand football.”

  “Sure. How about I call you after school?”

  “Let me call you,” she said. “Bryce and I are going to hang out after school for a while.”

  >>>

  By the time I got to Mr. Pirkle’s house, I was drenched in sweat, having beat every speed record I ever dreamed of setting. I rolled the bike into his driveway and leaned it against a hedge.

  Inside, Mr. Pirkle was a mess, and I wondered what happened to “imposing.” The word of the day would be “flustered” or maybe “agitated.” The tidy room I’d observed during my last visit was a disaster. Books on the floor. Ashtray in pieces. Sofa pillows upturned. The picture of the little girl was missing.

  “What happened?” I asked the second I walked in.

  “I’m not sure,” he spoke slowly, as though going over the events in his head. “I think I’ve been robbed.”

  “Did you call the police?”

  “No, this is none of their business,” he snapped.

  I took a deep breath while carefully choosing my next words. This wasn’t what I’d bargained for when I came up with Distress Dial. The idea of forgotten passwords and runaway dogs seemed very appealing at that moment.

  “I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but it is the business of the police if you’ve been robbed.”

  He just gave me the look. I’d come to know the look very well in the next few months but this first time, well I just crumbled under its weight.

  “Do you have a burglar alarm?” I asked, but I already knew the answer. I’d seen the keypad in his kitchen during my first visit.

  “Yes . . . I . . . I’m not sure if I turned it on last night before I went to bed.”

  “Were there any broken windows?”

  “Nope.”

  “How do you think they got in?”

  “I’ve been asking myself the same question all morning. Maybe I forgot to lock the back door last night?”

  “Did they take anything valuable?”

  “I don’t believe so.”

  “Did your neighbors hear or see anything?”

  “I don’t know my neighbors well. But I’m sure if they saw something, they’d have let me know.”

  “And you didn’t hear anything either? It didn’t wake you up?”

  He hesitated for just a moment too long before answering. “No, I didn’t hear anything.”

  This wasn’t going anywhere. I couldn’t imagine why someone would break into his house in the middle of the night and turn his living room upside down but not steal anything. And then leave the whole rest of the house undisturbed.

  “Okay,” I finally said. “What do you think we should do?”

  “You’re the professional,” was his unreasonable answer. “What do you think? Clean up, I suppose.”

  So clean up we did. And we talked. It was the first glimpse I got into the cracks of Mr. Pirkle’s imposing exoskeleton. And it was only later that night I remembered the midnight call.

  When I left, the girl was in the driveway again, methodically shooting hoops. The Amazon. Every step she took looked like it had been choreographed. She paused long enough to wave before resuming her shot-in-progress. I wondered what she was doing home from school so early, but she could have been a college student for all I knew. I returned her wave and swung my leg over the seat of my bike.

  “What’s your name?” she called from across the street.

  “Hudson.” I balanced on the bike with my feet already on the pedals.

  “What’s your first name?” she asked.

  “Hudson.”

  “What’s your last name?”

  “Wheeler.” It was beginning to feel a little like an inquisition. I glanced up and saw Mr. Pirkle watching us through the little window above his kitchen sink.

  “Why are you always going over to Pirkle’s house, Wheeler? You his grandson or something?” She dribbled the ball while speaking.

  Wheeler?

  “He’s my client.” I was majorly overpowered in this conversational match. I still didn’t even know her name.

  “Client? You a lawyer or something?”

  I seriously wondered if I looked like a lawyer to her. In my t-shirt and jeans. Riding my bike. I was turning eighteen in a week, but everyone always said I looked young for my age. But her eyes were sincere and truthful like a little kid’s. I could tell she wasn’t messing with me.

  “No, I’m not a lawyer. I have a business . . . for older people. Distress Dial.” Even as I said it, I suspected it would only open up a whole new round of questioning. Maybe I should have said I was his grandson and let it go at that.

  “Distress Dial,” she took a shot and the ball swished through the net. “You never know,” she said. “I saw a show on TV about a kid who graduated from Harvard law school when he was seventeen.”

  Mr. Pirkle was still staring out the window, so I moved my bike over to her side of the street.

  “That’s pretty young. I’m seventeen myself.”

  “Me too,” she took another effortless shot. “Half day?”

  “Huh?”

  “Teacher work day? Is that why you’re out?�
��

  “Oh! No, I’m only taking two classes this year. I homeschool.”

  “Cool,” she looked me up and down. “Religious?”

  “Nah, I . . .” I stopped myself. This whole thing was too one-sided, and it was time for me to take some control. “Half day for you?”

  I thought about Alana, who I’d be seeing in a few hours. The gauzy thing she wore to school which sort of floated over her soft curves. The flowering vine on the side of her neck that seemed to give off a whiff of lavender (or was I just transposing Mrs. Dickinson’s scent to Alana’s vine?). I thought about the conversation we’d had the day before—sharing our deepest thoughts as if we’d known each other forever. There wasn’t a single topic that led to a dead-end with Alana. Certainly none that led to the rocky dirt path I was traveling at that moment.

  “Yep.” Bounce. “Love it.” Bounce.

  “And what’s your name?”

  Go boy, you’re on a roll.

  “Lauren Fritz, but you can call me Fritzy. Everyone does.”

  “Okay, well. Nice to meet you, Fritzy. I’d better get going.”

  “Wait! You never told me what you do for Pirkle.”

  I looked across the street, thinking it would be an untrustworthy thing to speak about my client to a stranger, even if it was only to confirm his business. But he wasn’t looking out the window anymore so I relaxed a bit.

  “It’s a business I have where I help out mainly elderly people who live on their own. You know . . . anything that falls just below the level of an emergency.”

  “Are you going to be a doctor?” Bounce.

  “No. It’s not medical or anything like that. Just . . .” Oh how I hated trying to explain my business to myself and others.

  “Oh, like . . . handyman stuff?”

  “No, not that either.” Maybe it was that. Maybe I was just a rent-a-grandson, after all.

  “Like when something’s wrong but not wrong enough to call 911?”