Love Over Matter (9 page)

He pads off down the hall, and Mom
asks, “So what’s the big plan today?”

“
Ian wants to hit some
balls at the driving range,” I say. “It’s his only day off this
week.” Since school let out, Waterslide Village has been keeping
Ian busy, a good turn of events, I’ve decided, given his financial
woes.

“
Isn’t it nice,” says Mom,
a satisfied glow animating her face, “the two of you getting
so
chummy?
”

“
What’s that supposed to
mean?”

She wags a hand at me. “Oh, nothing.
I’m just glad to see you and Ian moving forward together, that’s
all. It’s sort of fitting, don’t you think?”

Is she implying that I
have a romantic interest in my dead love’s best buddy (besides me,
of course)?
“Yeah, I guess,” I say. “But
it’s not like that exactly. I’m just trying to be there for him as
a friend, you know?”

“
That’s how your father and
I started out,” she tells me with a smirk. “Things turned out
pretty well for us, wouldn’t you say?”

I’d love to continue this off-base
conversation long enough to set my mother straight, but time’s
a-wastin’. I down the juice. “Yes, I would,” I agree, depositing
the mug in the sink. I start toward my bedroom. “Have fun in
Massachusetts. And happy early anniversary.”

* * *

“
Why is this place so
busy?” I ask Ian as we roll into the gravel lot beside Club Tee,
the Love Machine purring like a kitten in the sun. (Before Jeanette
hightailed it back to Baltimore, she put up six hundred bucks to
get Ian’s van in tippity-top shape.)

He gestures at the sky, which is
brilliant blue with a sprinkling of cotton-ball clouds. “Need I say
more?”

We only get about fifteen days a year
like this in Milbridge, so, in fact, he needn’t.

He squeezes the van between a Smart
Car and a dilapidated fence that is missing every other slat,
giving it the appearance of a jack-o-lantern’s mouth.

We slip around to the back of the van
and fetch his golf bag, which is stuffed to splitting with putters,
irons, and whatever other blunt-force instruments we may require
for a morning of driving practice. “You gonna hit or just watch?”
he asks, the bag scuffing along behind him like a gimpy third
leg.

“
Hit, of course,” I say,
trying to mask the indignation in my voice.

He tosses me a sideways grin. “Good.
It’ll be more fun that way.”

Club Tee is headquartered in a
manufactured home—a double-wide trailer, really—with a rusty
green-and-white sign tacked over a sliding window, outside of which
customers line up to buy their buckets of balls. Ian and I fork
over nine dollars each. I lug the buckets—one per hand—struggling
to remain on my feet, the balls clunking from side to side in
rhythm with my wobbly steps.

“
Whew!” I spout when we
reach the driving range, a patch of land the size of a football
field with circular targets (think carnival dunk tank here)
stationed at various distances from golfers’ row.

The arrangement of golfers’ row is
informal: first come, first served. Ian selects a driving spot
beside a serious-looking dude in his midthirties with a buzz cut
and rippled biceps. I nab the slot to Ian’s left. “Okay, now what?”
I ask once we’re situated.

He plucks a ball from his bucket and
drops it in the dirt. “Now we hit.”

I was expecting something more
organized. I mean, even miniature golf has ordered holes, not to
mention a bunch of kitschy obstacles and a bottom line goal: par.
“Care to make a wager?” I suggest.

He laughs. “Like what?”

Smaaack!
goes the ball to Ian’s right as Muscle Man
clobbers it into the next millennium.

“
Lunch?” I
propose.

“
I’m listening.”

“
Whoever gets the most
bull’s-eyes wins. Loser buys tacos.”

We shake on it. “It’s a
deal.”

We bang through half a bucketful of
balls each, my arm aching from the repetitive motion. “How many’s
that?” I ask as he nails the target once again.

“
Eight.”

We’re on the honor system, so I don’t
challenge him. “Seven more than me,” I complain. My next shot is a
doozy, though, sailing for the finish line as if drawn by a
magnetic pull.

“
Way to go,” comments
Muscle Man on my shocking precision.

I give him a perfunctory nod.
“Thanks.”

Three or four balls later, Muscle Man
packs it in, leaving Ian and me to bask in our newfound solitude.
“You know, if you bend your knees a little, you’ll be in a more
neutral stance,” he tells me. “And you’ll get some extra spin on
the ball.”

He sounds like he knows
what he’s talking about, so I follow his advice and
. . .
miss the ball
completely!
I start listing toward him, and
he throws an arm out to steady me. And for a fraction of a second,
there’s a spark between us. A chemical reaction I’m sure is a
product of our shared sense of loss over George, Ian’s father’s
recent demise, and this intoxicating summer day.

“
Whoa!” he says as I
straighten up, employing the same club that almost toppled me as a
crutch. He chuckles. “I think you might’ve overshot that one,
Tiger.”

My ego is bruised, which explains (if
not excuses) my snippiness. “No duh.”

His gaze travels from my bucket to
his; we’ve got a quarter of the balls to go. “Wanna call it a
draw?” he proposes.

“
And let you win? No, thank
you.”

He shakes his head, fighting a smile.
“I wish George were here,” he says out of nowhere.

I somehow gulp, even though my mouth
feels like dried cotton. After an awkward pause, I respond, “Yeah,
me too.”

“
You miss him a lot, don’t
you?”

Why is he asking me this? He must
already know the answer. “He was my best friend,” I say, my stomach
gurgling with acid.

“
He liked you, you know,
even if he never told you.”

What I’m about to spill is a secret.
“He did.”

He crinkles his brow.
“Really?”

My legs go to mush; I curl
up on the ground, lay the club across my thighs. “About two months
before
the accident,
” I explain, “we were painting his room. His parents had
finally agreed to let him cover that soft baby blue with
orange-and-black racing stripes to match his
skateboard.”

Ian drops to a squat, gives
an understanding nod that says:
Go
on.

“
We worked all day, taping
the stripe pattern onto the walls, painting one section and waiting
for it to dry. By five o’clock, we were starving. He ordered a
pizza—a large—and we ate the whole thing in about ten seconds
flat.”

“
He always was a bit of a
hog,” Ian says, shrugging.

“
Really? I never noticed .
. .” I could stop the story here, let the memory of that day fade
away. But I’m afraid of erasing George. “So anyway,” I say, “we
finished the painting around midnight. His parents were asleep, so
we snuck downstairs and put on a movie:
Aladdin.
”

“
That’s a good
movie.”

“
I know. But I only lasted
fifteen minutes before drifting off.” Out of the corner of my eye,
I notice a robust woman decked in head-to-toe white shopping for a
slot. She takes one two spots down from me and starts chipping
away. “I wasn’t
asleep
asleep, though,” I continue. “I was in and out. Plus, I could
feel his fingers mesh with mine and his breath in my
ear.”

Ian’s eyes widen.

“
He was whispering,” I go
on, “but it didn’t make any difference. I heard every word.” I poke
at the dirt with the head of the club. “He said he was in love with
me, that he wanted us to be together, that he didn’t know how to
tell me.”

Ian shifts to a sitting position,
crosses his legs to mimic mine. “That’s deep,” he says, doing the
worst stoner impression I’ve ever heard.

“
No kidding.”

We go quiet for a while, the air
rhythmic with the sounds of clubs whomping balls. “I kind of felt
sorry for him,” Ian eventually says.

I’m insulted on George’s behalf.
“Sorry for him? What for?”

He pulls a ball from his bucket,
tosses it from hand to hand. “You know he was adopted,
right?”

I have the birth certificate to prove
it. “Um, yeah.”

“
Well, he was trying to
find his parents. He had a trip planned and everything.”

This might be a lie, though I’m not
sure what Ian would have to gain by fibbing. With a doubtful
squint, I say, “I never heard anything about a trip.”

“
He didn’t tell you
everything.”

I’m suddenly tongue-tied. “Oh.” I wait
a whole minute before asking, “Where was he going?”

The sun has peaked over my shoulder,
or so says the prickly heat on the back of my neck. Ian shields his
eyes, stares at my chin while he speaks. “The Big Apple. New York,
New York.”

Queens,
I think,
66th
Drive.
“Did he have a lead or something?
Last I knew, he’d hit a brick wall. Never really talked about it
after that.”

Ian hops to his feet, sloppily bangs a
ball onto the green. “I don’t think so,” he admits. “It was a
last-ditch effort. He’d given up on the internet.”

I wonder if George had planned to
invite me along. “We should do it,” I declare, “in his
honor.”

His eyes cross. “Like a road trip, you
mean?”

“
Yeah, why not? I feel
like”—I get on my feet, brush my shorts clean—“like we owe it to
him or something. We could solve the mystery and—I don’t know—he’d
be able to rest in peace.”

“
It’d have to be soon. I’ve
gotta be in Castleton in eighteen days.”

He’s in countdown mode? I guess I
can’t blame him, since he’s still bunking at New Beginnings. “Name
the time and place,” I say, feeling bold.

“
How about right
now?”

chapter 8

I can’t believe we’re
doing this,
I think as I scrawl a hasty
message to my parents, claiming an out-of-town emergency on Ian’s
part that demands my prompt and undivided attention. I promise to
call by the end of the day with the details, a move that at least
buys me six or seven hours of alibi-crafting time. Plus, if my
parents follow their usual routine, they won’t mosey home from
Massachusetts until 8 or 9 p.m. anyway.

“
You almost ready?” Ian
asks, popping his head into the kitchen.

I flash a reassuring smile. “Two
secs,” I say, my fingers forming an automatic peace
sign.

He spots my purple duffel bag stashed
under the table. “Lemme grab that.”

If he wants to play the hero, who am I
to argue? I muscle a chair out of the way and hand the bag over.
“Should I grab some snacks?” I ask.

He shrugs, tosses the duffel over his
shoulder. “Yeah, if you want to.”

“
How far is it to New
York?”

“
At least two hundred
miles. Maybe two fifty.”

Doesn’t sound so bad. “And that’ll
take, like, what?” I try some mental math. “Four hours?”

“
Maybe at midnight,” he
answers with a laugh. “I’d add about two hours for
traffic.”

I rummage through the cupboard by the
refrigerator. “You know, I don’t have a license,” I say, both to
excuse my navigational ignorance and to remind him that, should he
fall ill on this journey, I am unequipped to man the controls. I
wave a fistful of Mom’s breakfast staples through the air. “Granola
bars okay?”

“
Fiber
bars?
”

“
What? They’re good,” I
argue. “And they’re chocolate.” I shove the bars into the pockets
of George’s hoodie, which I plan to don throughout this trip in his
honor. Then I rescue some bottled water from the fridge. “What
else?” I say, felling like I’m missing something.

Ian scans the kitchen, shifts back and
forth on his feet. “Tolls,” he says. “Got any change? Or I can stop
at an ATM . . .”

There’s an old canning jar full of
coins resting on the pass-thru between the kitchen and the living
room. I gesture at it and say, “You can take those.”

He glances over his shoulder, as if my
father might show up at any moment to reprimand him. “Eh, I’ve
gotta check the oil in the van. Why don’t you get ‘em?”

“
Whatever you say.” I tuck
the water bottles under my arms, snatch the coins—jar and all—and
trail him outside, the door slapping hopefully shut behind
us.

* * *

We’ve been on the road for nearly an
hour and devoured two fiber bars each when Ian starts scanning the
roadside for turnoffs. “What about the GPS?” I ask. “Won’t that
tell us where the filling stations are?”

He shakes his head. “Maybe
if
this thing
”—he
gives the GPS’s screen a tap—“wasn’t older than you.”