Pointe (10 page)

“What?” she spits out.

“Never mind on that tea. I have to go.”

“You kids keep coming in here and ordering things then disappearing and wasting my time, I'm gonna make sure you don't come back.”

“You love us too much to do that,” I say, and I even manage a smile in response to her scowl because I know how much it bothers her. “See you Thursday!”

She grumbles and waves me away and it's just as well, because Hosea is waiting.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

HOSEA STEERS THE CAR WITH ONE HAND AND HOLDS A SAND
wich
in the other. A BLT. An unlikely choice for eating and driving, but he's surprisingly graceful.

His car is a carrot-colored hatchback with a faded black racing stripe down the center. It only starts after a couple of tries. It's cramped inside, so small that his seat is pushed back almost twice as far as mine to accommodate his long legs. My eyes sweep over the pack of cloves in the console and I think about Ellie, how she'd be furious if she could see me sitting here right now. But she won't find out. Somehow, I know Hosea won't say anything to her any sooner than I will. And knowing I have a secret with him is even more satisfying than Ellie learning we hung out alone.

There's hardly any traffic. Everything in Ashland Hills shuts down by nine and it's a quarter till. I stood outside the cloudy windows of Casablanca's as I called my parents. I looked in at Jana and the trucker as I told my father I stopped by Sara-Kate's house, that I'd be home soon. It's safer than Phil's; he lives so close that they could easily bump into him or his mother.

Hosea doesn't talk much. He's eating and the radio doesn't work but the silence makes me nervous. I don't know him well enough to be comfortable, to guess what he's thinking. To wonder if he regrets inviting me to go on this drive. I watch him take another huge bite of his sandwich, watch his jaw move sternly as he chews. I watch all of this from the corner of my eye and then, just before he takes another bite, I say, “Are you going to study music next year?”

He lowers the sandwich a bit and looks over at me like I'm crazy. “What, like major in piano?”

I shrug. “Lots of people do.”

We're driving through downtown Ashland Hills, which is just three short blocks with the usual suspects lined up on each side: the supermarket, bank, library, coffee shops, boutiques, and restaurants. We don't have a local dance studio, which is why I ended up at Marisa's. My parents like living in a small community—they say it's easier to get things done. Chicago is loud and busy, but sometimes I think I'd rather deal with the hassle than live in a town where everybody knows your business.

Hosea eases his foot down on the brake as we approach a stop sign. “I've never thought about studying music,” he finally says. “Not seriously.”

“Why not?” I inhale and decide I like the smell of his hatchback. There's an old-car mustiness to it, but it's mostly cloves and that familiar boy smell, like deodorant and soap and a hint of sweat.

Hosea finishes the last bite of his sandwich and brushes his hands against his jeans before we start moving again. “You know you have to be good enough to even audition for one of those places, right?”

“But you
are
good enough.” I look at him, think about the way he turns into a different person when he sits behind the piano. How he makes such familiar pieces sound brand-new, how beautiful and evocative the notes become under his fingers. He doesn't say anything and that's when it hits me. “Is that why you asked me not to tell anyone about your job at the studio? You don't think you're good enough?”

“I know I'm not. I should be competing or performing by now.” He pauses. “I haven't even taken lessons since I lived in Omaha. I'm not exactly on the fast track to a conservatory.”

“Some people don't need lessons.” I fold my hands in my lap. “It's called raw talent.”

“You're not so bad yourself.” His grin makes my face warm and I look out the window because I don't know what to say.

We wind through the quiet streets in silence for a while. Pass the Ashland Hills train station, then loop over to Klein's neighborhood. The hatchback's engine thrums as we drive by the sprawling houses, some of them dark save for the glowing porch lights.

“Whose party were you at earlier?” I ask when the silence is too much. It's not uncomfortable, but with the radio broken, it's easy to let my thoughts wander back to Donovan.

“No one from school. Just this guy I used to be friends with.” He shakes his head. “That's the last time I'm going over there, though. He's in over his head.”

“How do you mean?” I look out the window at an older woman walking her terrier. She's bundled up in a parka, scarf, mittens, and a knitted hat, like it's February. The dog is utterly unconcerned, taking his time as he finds the perfect place to relieve himself.

Hosea pauses, then: “He's into some hard shit now. Shit I don't touch.”

I look back at him because his voice changed. It's more serious. Somber, almost. “Like what?”

“Like everything. Tonight it was crystal.”

Oh. Nobody at school messes with meth. “How do you know him?”

“He was the first person I met when I moved here. He's a couple years older, but he grew up around the corner from my Grams and he was always cool to me, you know?” Hosea sighs. “He's the closest thing I ever had to a brother and now it's like I don't know him.”

“That's how I feel about Donovan.” I absently run my index finger along the cracked dash, come away with a fingertip of dust. “I mean, sort of.”

We're at the edge of town now, where the houses thin out and give way to more land. He pulls off to the side of the road near a paved driveway with a closed gate and a large house set back from the street, shadowed by trees. Hosea leaves the car running for the heat.

He fiddles with the pack of cloves in the console but never attempts to take one out of the box. “Klein said you were with Donovan before he disappeared.”

“Yeah.” I shift in my seat as I think about that morning.

I'd walked in the unlocked front door of Donovan's house like I always did, because the rest of his family was gone. His mother was on her way into the city to open the museum gift shop while his father dropped off Julia at kindergarten on his way to the office.

The Pratt house was messier than ours, but I didn't mind. It was clean but lived-in and you never felt weird about flopping on a couch or putting your feet up on the coffee table. I stepped over a pair of mud-caked cleats in the foyer as I searched for their owner. He wasn't in the kitchen where I'd assumed he'd be scarfing down a bowl of cornflakes next to the breakfast dishes soaking in the sink. And he wasn't sitting at the bottom of the staircase, tying his shoes before he ran out the door.

He was up in his room but when he heard me on the stairs he immediately stepped out into the hallway. And he wasn't in his pajamas like I thought, but dressed for the day in jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt with a short-sleeved one layered over it.

I had to describe that outfit to what seemed like everyone in town, because they wanted to know the last thing he'd been seen in. White sleeves with a short black T-shirt over it. Or was it the other way around? Were the jeans dark or light? Was I positive they were jeans and not shorts? Was he wearing a belt? What brand were his sneakers?

But I never got to see his shoes because he pushed me out shortly after he greeted me.

“Hey, I'll just catch up to you at school,” he said. Quickly, like he had things to do.

“What are you doing?” I asked, my hand firm on the banister as I waited for an answer.

He ran a hand over his head. He was in need of a haircut, which wasn't like him. Usually his dad buzzed his head every couple of weeks, and Donovan stayed on top of this because he didn't like longer hair, said it made his head itchy and hot.

“I need to take care of something before school.” His deep brown eyes moved from my face to the stair rail and slid across the carpet. “You should go on without me.”

Take care of something? We were thirteen. It's not like we had errands to run.

I looked at him for a long time. Until he looked at me, too, and then looked away and back again.

“What, Theo?” he said, turning his hands up like I'd seen my parents do. The universal symbol for
What do you want me to do?

“You're being weird.” I tugged on the straps of my backpack.

“We don't have to do everything together.” His eyes were elsewhere again. On the picture that hung next to the stairs—a portrait of him with Julia when she was just a baby, taken in the hospital before his mother was discharged. “I'll meet you at school later and we can ride home together, okay?”

“Do you have a note?” I pressed on, not wanting to let him get out of this so easily.

Was this my punishment for not telling him about everything I'd done with Chris? Making up secrets of his own and throwing them in my face? It wasn't fair. Hadn't I been punished enough when Chris disappeared without saying goodbye?

“Theo.” He sighed and leaned against the doorframe, dug his toe into the carpet. “You're gonna be late.”

“Fine.” I turned but I didn't walk down the stairs. Not before I looked over my shoulder to say, “But I'm not covering for you.”

“I didn't ask you to, did I?”

Those were his last words to me.

Hosea clears his throat from across the car. “That must've been tough, him being gone all this time.”

“Yeah,” I say, with a small nod for emphasis. “It was.”

I look at Hosea and wonder what it would feel like to kiss him. To touch him. To really be with someone like him. He pays attention when I talk. That was one of the things I hated about Chris. He never seemed to take anything I said all that seriously, but Hosea listens. If Ellie weren't in the way, we could be together—really together. No abandoned parks, no quickies against the sink of a gas-station bathroom when I wasn't even sure how to do it in the back of a car. We could hold hands between classes and go on dates and he would be my actual boyfriend.

I steal a look at his hands, strong but almost elegant, and I can't imagine he would ever be anything but gentle.

“Did the drive help?” Hosea dips his head a bit as he looks at me. “Even a little?”

“Yeah.” I thread and unthread my fingers in my lap. Smile at him for being so nice to me. “It did. Thanks.”

“Good.” His hand rests on top of the gearshift, inches from my knee. “You know, Marisa would be pretty pissed if I'd just left you in that diner.”

I hold my leg still as can be. Waiting. Wanting. “Why would she care?”

“You're her star dancer. I couldn't leave you all bummed out like that.” He smiles a little, then says, “You're special.”

“I'm not that special,” I say, and it doesn't come out as carefree as I wanted, but that's okay because it's true. Special girls are worthy of a proper breakup, don't have to wonder if their boyfriend was using them to get to their best friend.

“Right,” Hosea says softly. “I know shit about ballet but when you're out there, you look pretty damn special to me.”

I'm afraid to look at him, for fear of what I'll see. His voice was serious but maybe he's kidding. Maybe this is the kind of thing he says to girls all the time; maybe it's no big deal that he said it to me. But I force myself to turn my head, to meet his gaze, and whatever this is, it's not just in my head. He feels it, too. It's real, reflected in his gentle eyes. They search my face again, just like earlier at the diner. But there's an understanding this time. A look that will quicken my pulse every time I replay it in my head.

I don't know who leans in first, but moments later we are close enough for our foreheads to touch, close enough for me to breathe him in. I slide my hand up the nape of his neck at the same time he slips his arm around my waist and pulls me closer. We're so in sync, it's like our own private pas de deux, like we learned the choreography years ago, are only now putting it to practice.

Hosea's kisses are whispers, just the slightest touch that keeps me wanting more. He pulls back, looks at me, smiles. My palm is still cupped around the back of his neck as he leans in to kiss me again. Deeply this time so there is no doubt as his lips meet mine; this is real.

I run my hands through his soft, soft hair and he keeps his around my waist, tickles a trail up the small of my back with his fingers. For a while, we are the only two people in the world. A burst of light in this small, dark car, on this deserted road. A tangle of heat and breath and touch and taste and I want to stay like this forever. Being with him is safe and wonderful and—

“Theo.”

It's not fair the way he says it as he pulls away from me, like he's the only person who is allowed to say my name. It makes me want to keep kissing him for hours, ignore the fact that we have school tomorrow and my parents expect me home any minute now. It makes me forget about Donovan and whether anyone will find out that Chris Fenner and I used to kiss like this.

Only . . . this feels real in a way that things never did with Chris.

“Sorry.” Hosea brings his hand up to my face, where he runs his thumb along the curve of my bottom lip. “We should probably—”