Chasing AllieCat (8 page)

Thirteen

Joe and Allie

June 15

Joe got a job painting with a group of teachers who always paint in the summer. Uncle Scout hooked him up, his first morning in LeHillier. So Joe worked from seven a.m. until four every day. He was sleeping in Scout’s study, near the gun cabinet and in the midst of heavy cigar scent. The study was less private, but had more atmosphere than my sewing closet. The only time I saw him much was at dinner.

When I told Barb at the Blue Ox about Joe, she said, “You be careful with him, Sadie Lester. I still say there’s something dark inside that boy.”

I smiled. “Guess I’ll find out.”

I grabbed six coffee cups, a pot of coffee, my pad and pen, and put on a smile and went to work.

June 18

At dinner a few nights later, Joe asked me, “Ride today? How long? Where’d you go?” After I answered, he was quiet except when somebody asked him a question. I wanted to just hang out with him, but I didn’t know how to ask. He disappeared after the meal to go have a smoke, and I don’t know where he went after that.

The next night, I asked him, “You want Allie and me to ride at four thirty so you can go with us?”

“Would you?”

“Can’t get ahold of Allie now, but tomorrow, I’ll ask her about the next day.”

So Allie and I waited to ride until four thirty in the afternoon so Joe could go with us. Allie still wouldn’t tell me where she lived or give me a phone number. I stopped asking.

Joe wasn’t a bad rider. He got winded quickly, which wasn’t surprising, I guess, considering how much he smoked. The weirdest thing about him was that he froze at the top of tricky descents before he could force himself to let go of the brakes and
go.
It was almost a freaky fear.
Otherwise, he was a decent bike handler.

June 23

The third time Joe rode with us, his cell phone rang. He slowed down, fished it out of his jersey pocket, and answered it.

Allie charged ahead, not waiting for him. I followed her. When he finally hung up and caught back up almost a mile later, she said, “You don’t bring a goddam cell phone when you ride mountain bike. If you can’t go without civilization, stay home.”

“Sorry,” Joe said. “Holy crap, I didn’t think it would be such a big deal. It’s for emergencies.”

“Bullshit,” she said. “Why’d you answer it then?”

After a three-and-a-half hour ride, including Embolism Hill where Joe fell way behind Allie and me, we pulled into SuperAmerica in Mankato and bought giant cherry slushies. We leaned our bikes against the building and sat on the curb, dusty, grimy, sweaty, and thirsty, sucking down the sweet ice.

“Cell phone’s bad enough,” Allie said, digging for cherry syrup at the bottom of her tall paper cup, “but how come you smoke?”

“It relaxes me. And pretty much everybody in my school smokes.” Joe took a big gulp of icy juice. “And I like it. How come you don’t?”

“So I can ride fast, you moron. And so I don’t screw up the air for everybody else. And it costs a fortune, too.”

“At my school, the only guys who don’t smoke are endurance athletes, like distance runners or swimmers.”

“You’re a mountain biker. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

Joe shrugged. “All the artsy kids, musicians, theater geeks, everybody smokes.”

“So are you artsy? What else do you do?”

“Oh, I play bari-sax. I like Jazz band best. I like jazz. I’m not too bad at it, but I’d like to be really good. And I jump in track—long jump, high jump. I’m not any good, but I like going out for it. Smoking doesn’t matter if you jump.”

“It matters on your bike,” Allie said.

“I haven’t heard you play your sax,” I said, hoping to change the subject and save Joe.

“It’s in Scout’s study.” He looked at me, and my heart sort of twitched. “There’s not exactly air space in that house to make music. You like jazz?”

“Yeah, I do, actually. I love blues. If you played, I’d listen. You could probably play in my sewing closet. There’s so much fabric in there, it’d muffle the sound.”

I could practically feel Allie rolling her eyes.

“Hmm,” said Joe. “Maybe.”

We were quiet.

“We don’t smoke,” Allie said. I looked at her, wondered why she brought it up again, and for a second I almost hated her for badgering Joe so much.

“I noticed,” Joe said, staring at the pavement.

“It affects your riding. Have you noticed that?”

“As a matter of fact, yeah. I notice when I ride with you two. Never noticed before. Not with anybody I ride with.”

“You’ll notice when you race. Around here, you won’t have a chance with shitty lungs.”

“I was afraid of that.”

“So quit.”

“Riding?”

“Smoking, idiot.”

“Can’t stop just
like that.
And … I like it. It tastes good. And it relaxes me, like I said.”

Allie jumped to her feet. “That’s such bullshit. Bullshit. You know how many times I hear that excuse?
‘Oh, sorry, can’t stop. Just can’t help myself. You don’t know what it’s like to be addicted …
’ To cigarettes, to pot, to sex, to booze, to soap operas, to the frickin’ Internet, to gambling. To crack, to meth … It’s all the same excuse. It’s
bullshit
. You decide how you want to live and you
do
it. You wanna smoke, be a smoker. But frickin’
stop
if you want to keep riding with us. I won’t wait for you on the hills anymore if you’re still smoking.” She jumped up, threw the rest of her slushie in the trash, and grabbed her bike. “If you quit, I’ll wait for you any day, anywhere, and I’ll bust my ass to help you get faster, but I’m not sitting waiting for somebody to catch up who can’t keep up ’cause he’s ruining his own lungs!” She threw her leg over her bike. “Or ’cause he’s on the goddam cell phone!”

“Allie!” I said. “Chill out. What’s with you? Let him be!”

“It’s okay,” Joe said. “I just think she doesn’t want me riding with you.”

“No, you moron. You smoke-sucking idiot,” Allie said. “I like you, don’t you get it? If I didn’t like you, I wouldn’t give a rat’s ass. But I do, so I don’t want to see you die of lung cancer or blow your chances at being really
good
on the bike. You are—you could be. But that extra lung power for the big climbs? You’ll never have it. You won’t have anything. Except maybe an early coffin or a hind-end view of the guys ahead of you, who dropped you ’cause they
don’t
smoke. So decide.”

“Holy crap, calm down,” Joe said. “Sorry.”

“Sorry?
Sorry
?” Allie glared at him. “Don’t be sorry to me. They’re your lungs. And, while I’m at it, what’s with this
holy crap
bullshit? Why don’t you swear and get it over with? Too holy or something to swear, but not too holy to wreck your own body?” And she was on her bike and starting to pedal.

“How do you really feel?” Joe said to her disappearing backside. She flipped up her middle finger behind her back and accelerated away.

“Holy crap,” Joe said. He looked so deflated, I felt my own heart sinking a little. He sure wasn’t the Hollywood-cool tough guy he’d appeared to be at the Blue Ox. He was just a guy. Still sexy as all get-out, but just an ordinary guy. I ached for him. And for some crazy reason, the more I got to know him, the more I wanted to kiss those lips. But now I couldn’t stop thinking about what Allie had said, and it made me sad and mad.

“I think she likes you,” I said.

“I don’t think so,” Joe said. “I think she likes
you.
Maybe that means she hates me a little bit ’cause she’s jealous. And she sort of hates the world and is taking it out on me. And smoking is just her excuse.”

“Hates the world? Jealous? She said she likes you. My impression is,” I said, “that Allie says exactly what she means. She thinks you can be good. If she says she likes you, she does. I don’t think she bullshits anybody. She doesn’t want you to screw up your chances on the bike. Or maybe screw up your life.”

Joe just looked at me.

“Wait.” I chewed my lip. “What did you mean? When you said maybe she’s jealous?
Jealous?
”

“Maybe she likes
you
and she’s jealous of me, doesn’t want to share you with me.”

“Share me?” I stared at him and my heart thumped. “What are you talkin’ about?”

“She had you all to herself before I showed up.”

“So?” My heart hammered with a little bit of hope that Joe might be feeling what I was feeling. That maybe he meant Allie was jealous that Joe liked me.

“Don’t you think she’s a dyke?” he asked. “I think she
likes
you. Didn’t you see how she jerked away that day at the Last Chance when Thomas just
touched
her?”

“Well, we’d just gotten creeped out. That was really scary. I was jumpy, too.”

Joe shrugged. “Not like that. She doesn’t like to be touched, at least by a guy, that’s for sure.”

“We were both freaked out. That doesn’t mean she’s a—shouldn’t you say ‘
lesbian’
?”

“Maybe not,” Joe said. “But I still say she
likes
you. And she doesn’t want to share you with me.”

I jumped to my feet. “I can’t believe you said that.”

“Don’t get all defensive. What? Are you sayin’ that you
like
her that way, too? And I walked into the middle of it? Sorry.”

“Joe, I
like
her a lot, too, but it doesn’t mean I
want
her. Or that she
wants
me.” I grabbed my bike. “I really don’t believe you said that. What makes you think—?” I stared at him, wondering if I’d misinterpreted every little sign that maybe he liked me. “I thought you were a decent guy. That’s sort of twisted. We’re just friends.”

Before he got up from the curb, I was riding away, leaving him sitting with his stupid slushie.