Second Chance (58 page)

The most recent shock
is
that she bought
a cell phone
.
The gallery owners
insisted
she get one
, so she can stay in touch with clients
.
Then, Liz gave her a purse to keep her cell phone in
.
She named
her cell
phone
Frank
.
She named her automated
voicemail
service Jackie
.
Frank and Jackie, she claims, are her business partners
.
She
also tells me that Frank and Jackie
are
married and live in
Australia
on an
emu
farm
.
It’s twisted.

The phone
scares her when
it
rings
.
She
explains
she hates any electrical device that beeps
unexpectedly
.
I had to teach her how to answer it
.
She’s yet to actually call anyone on it
.
To
o
many buttons to pr
ess, she says
.
I’m realizing she’s pretty anti-technology
.
She won’t even update her
ancient camera.

She meet
s
me Monday afternoon after class
.
I’m w
alking with Todd and Liz and I see her down the sidewalk
.
It’s easy to
recognize
Dylan in the crowd because she’s a head taller than most of the girls and the streaks
of
blond
in her
hair
have a
fiery
,
golden
sheen
in the sun
.
Dylan styles her hair now
.
It’s never messy or tousled or pulled back in a ponytail
.
It’s always parted on the side and usually tucked behind one ear
.

She half runs, half skips when she sees us
.
She
trips
on her last jump and
stumbles
into my arms.

“Graceful,” I say
between laughs
.

“Can you play?” she asks me.

I
nod
and tell her we don’t have practice tonight
.
We had meetings and an early practice
th
is morning
.
Dylan’s mouth drops open.

“
Y
ou have all day off?”

“Technically.”

We stop at the
sidewalk
while
a cargo train
slowly passes, blocking our way
across the street
.

“I can barely wrap my mind around
this
.
I have all day with you
.
We need to celebrate
.
We need to do something monumental.”

“
Calm down,
Dylan,
”
Liz
says
.
“Y
ou’re way too easily excited.”
I narrow my eyes at L
iz for saying this
.

“
I’ll do whatever you want,”
I
tell
Dylan
,
because her face is the brightest I’ve seen
it
in weeks.

“
It has to be s
omething we’ve never done before
.
Someth
ing that we’ll remember forever
.
”
  She looks around at
us
for inspiration.

Liz thinks about this
.
“Todd and I are registering for wedding gifts
today
,
”
she
offers
.
I look at Todd and he plasters a smile on his face like he shares her enthusiasm
.
I offer him
a
grin that’s more out of sympathy.

Dylan
turns to me for a better idea and I point to
the train that’s passing
.

“I dare you to jump into one of those empty train cars.
”

Her eyes widen at the dare and she looks over at the tracks
.
“Really?”

“Sure,” I say
.
“Ride it for the day and tell me all about it when you get back.”

Dylan takes a flying leap off of the sidewalk and before I blink,
her butt’s in the air and
she’s pulling her legs up into the open door of an empty car
.
Todd, Liz and I stare at her as
the train s
lowly
inches
away.

“Dylan, what are you doing?” Liz yells
.
“That’s
insane
.”

“Come on
.
”
Dylan ushers us forward with her hands
.
I walk along the train to keep up with her
.

I spread my arms out in defeat
.
“
Dylan
, I was joking,” I say
.

She sits stubbornly in the open door and lifts her chin
.
The train whistles loudly and I keep up pace with Dylan’s compartment
.
She swings her feet back and forth like a little kid on a carnival ride
.
I make a mental note to never dare this girl to do anything again
.
It all backfires
.

I pass people on the sidewalk
and
see a few people from class I recognize
.
I wince as I notice
Amber
McCafrey
with her sidekick Mel, standing near the curb,
watching
me
.

“Oh, I get it,” Dylan
yells
.
“You’re scared.”  I refuse to
take
the bait she’s throwing out
.

“That’s right
.
Now get down from there.”

“No.”

“Dylan!”

She lie
s down on her side and
tosses her hair back over her shoulder
.
“I wonder what it’d be like to have sex in one of these,” she says, lowering her voice
.
 

That’s all the motivation I need
.
Before I can think another rational thought, I
throw my backpack in the open door and
heave myself up on the train, just as
it
pick
s
up speed
.

“You’re nuts,” I hear Todd yell in the distance and I lean down to wave at him and see Liz shaking her head w
ith disapproval
.
A crowd of students have gathered along the sidewalk and a few
people
applaud
.
Dylan waves
like she’s a bea
u
ty pageant winner sitting on a parade float
.

I turn and
examine
our traveling accommodations
.
There’s a layer of straw on the floor
.
The walls are made up of flat, wood
beams coarsely nailed together
and painted a brownish-red
.
The train car is abandoned,
except for
a few stacks of hay in a shaded back corner
.
It smells like wood and dirt
and
the car shakes and squeaks over the tracks as we head away from campus
.
We watch the trail of people grow tinier in the distance
.

“What do we do now?” I ask Dylan
.
She leans against one side of the open car door and I lean against the other
.

“The sex thing was a joke,” she says
.
“I don’t have condoms.”

The train’s rumbling and shaking and vibrating and it’s definitely turning me on
.
M
y e
yes trail down her body
.
I meet her
gaze
under the rim of my baseball cap and smile.