Going Nowhere Faster (15 page)

I looked down. He was right. I put my hands in my pockets.

“It’s fine,” I said. “Bike accident.”

Dr. Felder scribbled furiously in his pad, which was no longer being used for floss.

“What are you writing?”

He ignored my question. “Okay, so how’s it going otherwise?”

“Not so good,” I said. I’d never told him a word about Ellen and I didn’t intend to start now. Besides, there was so much else horrible going on, it wasn’t like we’d be lacking subjects. “Okay, first thing? My friend Dos has been arrested. I don’t know what to do.”

“Arrested?”
Dr. Felder said in his concerned/startled voice. “For what?”

“Happy Video was broken into the other night,” I said. “They think he did it.”

“Hmm . . . ,” Dr Felder said, chewing his pencil, “hmmm . . .”

“And I, like, know for a fact he didn’t. There is something seriously wrong going on here. Like, for one thing —”

Dr. Felder scratched his nose thoughtfully. “The only way you could know that for a
fact,
Stan, is if you were the one who did it yourself.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Ha-ha. Anyway, there was this red doll, and . . .”

Dr. Felder adjusted his sweater and squinted at me. After a while I realized he wasn’t joking.

“Me? Are you kidding, Doc? I mean, do you really think I would . . .”

“Well, there was the locker incident,” he said, about to reel off some other examples, except there weren’t any others.

“How long have I been coming here, Doc?” I asked. Did I really have to explain the locker thing again? How many roads must a man push a bike with slashed tires down, before you could call him a man?

“Umm . . . a year?”

“So haven’t you been
listening
?”

Dr. Felder was taken aback. He stuttered, trying to form a response. I stood up, the lyrics to “Feelin’ Groovy” swelling in my head.

“Wait a minute, Stan.”

“I’ll let you get back to Superboy, Doc,” I said. “By the way, you’ve got mustard on your chin.”

When he looked down, I closed the door.

I got on my bike and made it about a hundred feet before the rubber started to go. Another fifty and the tires peeled off completely, rims bare and really starting to spark. And then bend. I was about a mile from Dr. Felder’s office, pedaling on ovals, when Miles pulled up alongside me. It was hard to steer and almost impossible to keep from falling over. It was like whipping across a sheet of ice on skates made of celery. Somehow I managed.

“Stan!”

I ignored him. The wheels screeched and wobbled.

“
Please
pull over, huh, Amelia Earhart? We have to talk.”

I skidded down a handicap ramp, catching some air. When I landed, the spokes began to snap. If I got through fast enough, I could cut behind the deli and avoid Miles completely. I just didn’t get through fast enough. The front tire collapsed and I almost crashed. Miles was waiting at the bottom, arms crossed, his car awkwardly parked in the gravel lot. He stood, silhouetted by the headlights.

I lifted my bike and threw it as far as I could, which was about three feet. It made an incredible clanging noise and lay there wheezing.

“I think you might need some new tires,” Miles said.

I walked toward him. When it seemed close enough, I closed my eyes and swung, hard as I could. My fist crashed into his nose. It was the first time I’d punched someone in my entire life. It felt good.

“Hey!” he said, and I swung again, missing. He charged, grabbing me around the waist. We fell to the dirt and rolled around, breathing loudly. I hit him and he hit me. Rocks poked into my back. My elbows scraped along the ground. I didn’t feel any of it. Finally, exhausted, we just sort of stopped. I rolled away, wiping my eye with my shirt. I could already feel a welt coming up. Miles held his nose, blood coming from between his fingers.

“You feel better?” he asked.

“Maybe,” I said. “A little.”

“I think my nose is broken,” he said.

“Good.”

My fist was swollen. My knuckles throbbed. I was surprised that it hurt to punch someone almost as much as it did to get punched. So all that stuff in the movies was a lie, too. Flying kicks and roundhouse punches and Tom Cruise beating up an entire room of bad guys all five feet taller than him. Also, now my Prarash-wrist had company.

Miles sniffed. Blood ran from his nose and dried in the dust. Part of me wanted to help him up. The other part wanted to hit him again, but probably not without some sort of glove on.

“I am so, so sorry,” he said, rubbing the knees of his corduroys with his palms.

“You are, huh?
Sorry?
” I kicked my bike. Now my toe hurt, too. “What good does sorry do me?”

“You don’t understand,” he said.

“What’s to understand? You’re supposed to be my friend. How
could
you?”

“I don’t know,” he said, shaking his head. “I just . . . I dunno. Somehow I got drunk . . . and really jealous.”

“JEALOUS? Of what?”

“Of you.”

“Of me?” I said, and then, ridiculously, said it again. “Of me?”

”YEAH, you,” he yelled, suddenly angry. “You idiot! You act like everyone should feel bad for you all the time, like you’ve got it so hard. You don’t have it hard. You’re smarter than any six of us put together. You could do anything you wanted, but you’re too pussy to go out on a limb and
choose.
”

“I have gone out on a limb,” I said quietly. “It’s just that the thing I chose didn’t choose me back.”

Miles nodded, rubbing his cheek.

“Besides,” I said, “what about you? You have everything. The cool hair and the girl. And the convincing line of shit.”

“I don’t have anything,” he said.

“What about Cari?”

Miles half laughed, half choked. “Cari’s going to college in Ohio, or weren’t you paying attention to that, either? I don’t
have
her. She’s leaving in two weeks. Plus, now she won’t talk to me. After you ran out of the restaurant like Forrest Gump, I had to tell her what happened.”

“That was smart.”

“I’ve called her, like, forty times. She won’t come to the phone. Her mom says she doesn’t want to talk to me.”

“That sounds familiar. Oh, well. Time for a new girlfriend, I guess.”

He shook his head and wiped dirty hands through his hair. Cars whizzed by. Someone laid on their horn suggestively,
bip bip beep!
I had a strong sense of déjà vu. Then I thought about what Daphne had said in her little blue truck, about how things came around and maybe I’d be in a position sometime to help somebody else. What she hadn’t said was what to do if this somebody else happened to try to steal your girlfriend.

“But I don’t want a new girlfriend.”

“Except Ellen,” I said.

Miles spit some blood. He examined the inside of his lip. “I know you’re not going to believe this, okay, but she grabbed me. I thought it was just a joke. I mean, sure, I was flirting, but I wasn’t gonna
kiss
her or anything. I guess I just wanted her to like me too, and then she plants one on me. I swear, I was, like, pulling away when you walked up. I was more surprised than you were.”

“Unlikely,” I said.

“I swear to God, Stan, that girl is not who you think she is. If you ever believed one word out of me your whole life:
She. Kissed. Me.
”

I rubbed my elbow, which only made it hurt more. The thing was, I believed him. There was blood on the front of his shirt. I stepped over and helped him up. He limped around to the driver’s side and got into his car. “You want a ride?”

“No,” I said, and then noticed, in the backseat, four skateboard videos. Could it have been? Not possible.

“Where did you get those?” I snapped.

“What?”

“Those videos.”

“What do you mean, where?” Miles laughed. “I rented them. At Happy Video.”

“NATS,” I said.

He cocked an eyebrow, confused, waiting for me to explain the joke. He waited a long time.

“Never mind.” I got on my bike. It sagged and groaned. I got back off and started walking. Miles revved the engine, and then stopped.

“So are we still friends, or what?”

“I don’t know,” I said, rubbing my knuckles as he slowly pulled away. “I have to think about it.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

SATURDAY NIGHT all night, with a high fever FEVER

The next morning I got up before six and found my dad in the backyard. I was determined that today, maybe the first day ever, wasn’t going to be all about Stan. Every other day had been so far, and look where it’d gotten us.

“Dad? I need your help with something. There’s something we have to do, and it’s really, really important.”

“Well, I’m watching your sister at the moment,” he said, tapping his chin with a wrench. “Among other things.”

“That’s okay,” I said, “because she’s coming, too.”

My father sighed. “Where is this really important thing, Stan?”

I took him by the hand and led him toward the Fry-O-Lator. “You’ll see.”

“Does this really important thing have something to do with your bruised face and the cuts on your elbows and your swollen wrist?”

“No,” I said.

“If I ask where they came from, are you going to tell me the truth?”

“Probably not.”

He nodded and allowed himself to be led along.

Chopper and Olivia rolled out of the car first. I got the brushes and brooms and mops and water buckets out of the trunk. My father carried in his tools and began untying materials from the ski rack. I unlocked the back door with a key hidden in the fake rock behind the Dumpster, and set everything down in the center of the carpet.

“So this is Handy Video?” my father said, dragging in a piece of Sheetrock. It was strange he’d never been here. On the other hand, he hated movies and he hated stores, so maybe not.

“Happy,” I said.

“Huh?”

“
Happy
Video, Dad,” Olivia said. Chopper farted.

“Right.” My father pulled out a tape measure, marking a distance six feet away from Chopper. When he was out of drift range, he began sorting lumber. Olivia picked up a stack of videos and began to alphabetize them. I grabbed a hammer.

“What does ‘NATS’ mean?” my father asked.

“What does ‘NATS’ mean?” Olivia asked.

“It means Never Aim Twice, Stupid.”

They stared at me.

“It means Nobody Anticipates The Storm.”

They stared at me.

“It means Nothing Anchors The Ship.”

My father frowned. Chopper woofed.

“It’s STAN backward,” Olivia said. “And how come you have a black eye? And where’s Keith?”

“I’ll explain later,” I said to my father, cocking my head at Olivia. “Ix-nay on the Olive-ay?”

“How come you’re cocking your head?” Olivia asked. “How come you’re speaking pig latin?”

“Don’t you think,” I said, turning toward a broken display and beginning to clean up the glass, “that it’s time for some little girls to get to work?”

Ten hours later, Olivia and Chopper piled back into the Fry-O-Lator. Olivia rolled down the window. “Aren’t you coming, Stanny?”

“No, Peanut,” I said, and then kissed her forehead. “But thank you
so
much. You and Chopper were a huge help. Really.”

“Dad’s taking us for ice cream,” she said.

“I know.”

“Real ice cream. Not frogurt.”

“You earned it,” I said. “Ask if they have Alpo frogurt for Chopper.”

She laughed, a tinkly little sound as my father drove away. I walked to the pay phone in the center of town, fumbling for a quarter, and then took a deep breath. I dialed Ellen’s house. Her mother answered on the second ring. The ice cubes were still there, firmly in cheek.

“Rigby residence?”

“Hi, um . . . this is Stan. Can I speak to Ellen, please?”

“I’m sorry, Stan, but Eleanor is not at home. Now, or at any time in the future. Permanently. Not home. Do you understand?”

“So I guess I can’t leave a message, huh?”

“Correct.”

I pulled out the yellow pages, leafing through the section under Lawyers. I dialed the first three numbers, busy, busy, voice mail. The third one, Blank, Wheaty, and Mumper, picked up on the first ring. I had an appointment in fifteen minutes.

The lobby of Blank, Wheaty, and Mumper was dark and not entirely clean. There were three offices and a small waiting room with one well-thumbed magazine, issue number forty-six of
American Quilter.
The secretary was a large woman with a large mole on her very large forehead.

“Take a seat.”

I did, and watched the mole float up and down, like a coconut in the ocean, while she chewed gum and typed.

FIVE:

1. List

2. List

3. List

4. List

5. List

Finally, she said, “Mrs. Mumper will see you now.”

I walked down a short hallway and into a tiny office. Behind a tiny desk and a tiny nameplate and a tiny stack of files, sat a very large Vanderlink, my old Assisted Learning teacher.

“Mrs. Vanderlink?”

“Actually,” she said, “it’s Vanderlink-Mumper now.” She picked up the brass nameplate and looked wistfully at it. “They didn’t have one big enough for the whole name. It’s on order. Anyway, how can I help you?”

I sat down. “Don’t you remember me, Mrs. Van . . . Vander . . . Mumper?”

She looked down at her wool business suit, removing some lint from the skirt. “No, I’m sorry, I don’t.”

“I’m Stan,” I said. “Stan Smith? From Assisted Learning?”

She stopped pulling lint and looked up at me, recognition in her eyes. “Smith. Of course. The drawer of pictures.”

Uh-oh.

“Sure,” I said, “we used to draw a lot of pictures.”

She frowned, sprinkling nonexistent lint on the floor. “Yes. Particularly ones of me tied to a tree, if I recall correctly. A rather buxom version of me. Full of arrows.”

I laughed. A sad little laugh that died in my throat. “Yeah, sorry about that. I’m older now.”

“I’m sure,” she said. “At any rate, what can I do for you, Mr. Smith?”

I told her about Dos. And the need to make immediate bail, if only because of the food. And how, also, he was completely innocent, and how she needed to win the case for him. Like, right away.