What She Left Behind (4 page)

When the bell rings, I’m out of my seat and at the door. So is everyone else. I have this urge to push everyone out of the way, but instead I wait my turn like I always do. Then I take the stairs two at a time, run outside, and cross in the middle of the street without really looking. Traffic in Scottsfield is practically nonexistent. Scottsfield doesn’t have any actual traffic lights, just this one blinking light at the intersection of Main and Scott Streets. It blinks yellow on Main (slow down, you might actually see another car) and red on Scott. All the businesses in Scottsfield—all eight of them—are on Main Street along a two-block stretch. We’ve lived in Scottsfield for six
years, and it feels like I’ve lived here forever. Even before we moved from Philadelphia, we would come for a week in the summer and during Christmas vacation, because my grandparents (on my dad’s side) used to live here.

I make my way to the Dairy Dream. Me and everyone else. We’re all going there or to Lucy’s, the only restaurant in Scottsfield. We have an open campus, which means that as long as you’re back for afternoon classes, you can go where you want for lunch.

I walk by myself, eavesdropping on the conversations around me. Amber and Melanie are talking about Amber’s roots. Melanie keeps insisting that they’re barely noticeable.
Hello.
They’re about as noticeable as a hippo in a flower garden. Cameron is laughing so hard he’s staggering all over the sidewalk.
Breathe already.
Then there’s Josh and Kevin, discussing some game on TV last night. Kevin says the word “shit” eight times. After that I stop counting. Finally, there’s me. Surrounded by people yet completely alone, already missing Amber’s roots and Kevin saying “shit” and everything about this lame-ass town.

I’m wearing jeans and a short-sleeve T-shirt and starting to feel kind of cold. Yesterday was so warm—what’s up with today?

When I get to the Dairy Dream, I’m not sure what I should do. I’m too nervous to be hungry, which is a good thing since I didn’t bring a lunch and the Dairy Dream only sells variations on ice cream, nothing actually nutritious.

For a while I sit on one of those yellow parking space markers, waiting for Mom, but then a car comes and some guy wants to park in my spot, even though there are plenty of other spaces.
Jerk.
So I
stand up and head toward the outdoor counter, keeping my eyes on the street.

Something cold smashes into my chest. Alex Maloy’s chocolate ice-cream cone.

“Shit.” That’s Alex. I’m thinking the same thing, but I hold it in.

“Sorry. Here, let me wipe that for you,” Alex says, napkin poised.

He blushes as he realizes where the ice cream landed. “I mean, here you go. Here’s a napkin.”

He chucks the remnants of his cone into a garbage can as I wipe.

“Guess I’ll get another one.” He looks me in the eyes. “You want a cone, Sara?”

I get this fluttery feeling in my stomach.

“Okay,” I say, even though I’m not hungry. I can stuff down an ice cream if it means spending a few more minutes with Alex.

I take a quick look around to see if my mom’s pulled up while I wasn’t paying attention.

“Oh, that’s right, you’re Zach’s girl,” he says, tapping his forehead.

“I’m not Zach’s girl.” I go with what I imagine to be a coy smile. “We’re friends, that’s all.”

“Huh. Does that make you available, then?”

Oh God.
I nearly faint.

“Just for the next ten minutes.”
After that, you’ll never see me again.

I can tell that he doesn’t know how to take that. He laughs. “Chocolate or vanilla?”

“Vanilla, please,” I say. I’m too wired to notice what I’m eating anyhow. I give my ponytail a nervous twirl.

“Two vanilla cones, please,” Alex says to Jessica’s mom, who’s working the lunch shift. Mrs. Hamilton was a stay-at-home mom up until last spring. I’m pretty sure the only reason she took the job is so she can keep tabs on her daughter. Jessica never goes to the Dairy Dream anymore. But Mrs. Hamilton still loves the job because she’s able to pump us for information about her.

“Hi, Sara, nice to see you,” Mrs. Hamilton says as she hands me my cone. “Have you seen Jessica today? She seemed a little down this morning.”

She seemed fine to me until I hit her in the nose with a volleyball.
Amazingly no one has mentioned that to Mrs. Hamilton yet. Apparently I still have friends, even though I haven’t been all that social lately. “Yeah, she
did
look kind of depressed.” Maybe Mrs. Hamilton will think she got the puffy nose from crying.

“See, you noticed it too. Glad to know I’m not just imagining things.”

Mrs. Hamilton hands us our cones. I move away quickly before she can ask any more questions.

I scan the parking lot.
Where’s
my
mom? Did something go wrong?

“So what is it we have to do for the history paper?” Alex asks, licking his cone.

Here I am, on the verge of totally and completely freaking out about my mom, and Alex is asking me about a history paper. I want to tell him everything right then and there. But, let’s face it: Besides the whole
Cujo
thing, Alex is basically a stranger. A dark-haired,
drop-dead gorgeous stranger, but a stranger nonetheless. So instead I say, “No idea.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Seriously, no idea. I wasn’t paying any attention and I didn’t take a single note.” I notice a streak of ice cream on his chin and point at my own chin as a hint.

He doesn’t get it. He just scrunches his eyebrows and says, “Hey, that’s my kind of girl. High five!”

I slap his hand back. Mine feels kind of tingly afterward.

“Hey, Alex!” shouts Jared from the sidewalk. “Ready to head back?”

“Go on ahead,” he says, waving. “Catch you later.” He winks at me. “Why don’t we sit at a picnic table?”

I shrug, as if I haven’t been dying for him to suggest it.

Alex sits down, facing the street. I sit next to him so I can watch the street too. He probably thinks I’m coming on to him. Maybe I am. Where
is
my mom?

“How about algebra for this afternoon. Can I copy yours?”

“Didn’t do it.” He still has that smudge on his chin. Can’t he feel it?

He looks at me suspiciously. “You always do your homework. You just don’t want me to copy.”

“Not last night.” You don’t do homework when you know you won’t be in class.

“So which do you like better, geometry or algebra?”

It isn’t the sort of question I expect from Alex. I look around to see if there are any teachers he’s trying to impress. Not a one. “Algebra, definitely.”

“Why?”

“If you follow the rules, you get the right answers.”

“Not me, man. If they had geometry two instead of algebra two, I’d be acing it.”

I raise one eyebrow.

“What? You think I’m not capable of good grades?” he says, a touch defensively.

“Are you?”

“If I like the subject, I am. Gotta love those geometric proofs.”

I make a face. “I hate proofs. They’re too much like the puzzles my dad always makes us do while we’re on vacation.”

“So where do you go on vacation that you have time for puzzles?” Alex crumples his napkin into a ball and tosses it from hand to hand.

“We used to rent this cabin—Ramona’s Retreat—about an hour away on the Au Sable River. Way out in the middle of nowhere. Even more in the middle of nowhere than here. One of those places where there’s no street signs, just a bunch of markers with arrows pointing the way to various cabins.”

“You’re kidding—my folks own a cabin near there. I remember the signs for it. The name kind of sticks out. Our sign just has our last name on it.”

“Yeah, yours and pretty much everyone else’s.”

Alex drops his napkin ball under the table and bends to retrieve it.

A silver car approaches. I hold my breath.

Not Mom’s car.
I let my breath back out and check my watch. What does “lunch”
mean
? Does my mom have any clue as to when
my lunch is? Suppose she already came before I got here. She’d come back, wouldn’t she?

I pull out my cell and dial my mom.

“Who are you calling?” asks Alex.

I ignore him.

The call goes straight to voice mail. Figures. My mom doesn’t completely embrace technology and almost never turns on her phone except when she’s making a call. I put the phone back in my pocket and check my watch again.

“You seem worried about the time,” Alex says. “You want to head back?”

I shake my head. He still has that blob of ice cream on his chin.

“It’s only ten minutes before fifth period. You’re not planning on skipping, are you?”

Alex must see the “I’m about to puke” look on my face, because he stops grinning, leans in closer, and asks, “Is something wrong?”

I shake my head and try to smile so he’ll get up and leave. What I really want to do is hold on to his hand and make him stay here so I won’t be alone.

And because I like him.

“No, everything’s fine. I just don’t feel like going back yet.”

“Well, okay then. I guess I’ll be the good student for once.” Alex gets up and stands there awkwardly a few moments.

I hand him a napkin. “You’ve got ice cream on your chin.”

He wipes it off, stuffs the napkin in his pocket, and starts walking. “Don’t worry,” he says, looking back over his shoulder. “I won’t say anything.”

The wind starts to blow. We really should have had hot chocolate today, not ice cream. I wish I had worn a sweatshirt. At least there’s one in my duffel bag, which should be here soon. Has to be here soon. I want to lay my head down because it’s spinning, but I can’t because I might miss seeing my mom’s car.

Why isn’t she here yet?
Panic bumps around inside me, like I’ve swallowed a jack-in-the-box and can’t get the lid closed again.

Mom, where are you?

P
retty soon I’m the only one left at the Dairy Dream. All the high school students have gone back to class and the few adults who stopped by have returned to work. I can feel Mrs. Hamilton’s eyes on my back. If I don’t leave, I’m sure she’ll call Altman. That’s our superstrict assistant principal. She probably has him on speed dial; she’s the type. I stand up and head in the direction of school, scanning for Mom’s car.

The problem with a town the size of Scottsfield is that there are no crowds to get lost in and no shops to even browse. Unless you count the Feed-and-Seed, which is where I stop. They have a display in front of the store. I pause to look at the salt licks. Sometimes we buy them for the deer that hang out in our field.

“Sara?”

I turn around. It’s Jack Reynolds. He stands so close I can smell
his sewer breath. Jack and my dad both graduated from Scottsfield High the same year. They were best buddies. Still are. Jack is a cop, like my dad used to be when we lived in Philadelphia.

“Hi.” I try to sound nonchalant, but I can hear the quiver in my voice. I clear my throat. “How are you?”

“Fine, just fine. How are you all holding up? It’s been four months now since—”

Tact has always eluded Jack. “Yeah, about that,” I say. “We’re fine. Just fine.” If he believes that, he’s a moron.

“Shouldn’t you be in school now?”

I examine my watch—a scratched-up old Timex with a sun and moon that rotates as time passes. No need to read the time; I already have that memorized from when I checked a minute ago. “You’re right. I was at the Dairy Dream for lunch and I must’ve lost track of time. I better get back.”

“Guess you better. Be seeing you, then.” Jack runs his fingers through his greasy hair.

Neither of us moves. I pretend to check out the price of the salt licks.

“You shouldn’t put those out for deer, you know,” he says. “Some folks will hunt them that way. Takes all the sport out of it, in my opinion.”

What an idiot.
As if we even keep guns in the house anymore.

Ignoring him, I walk away.

“Sara?”

I turn around and sweep my eyes across the Dairy Dream parking lot as I wait for him to speak.

“Say hi to your dad for me.”

I freeze. Jack is grinning like a wolf.

The day after my dad smashed the Statue of Liberty, my mom and I went to the Scottsfield police station to file a report. Jack took my mom’s statement, only he didn’t write anything down. He said, “I’ve known Ray a long time. He’s a good man. It takes a lot out of a man to see his son go that way. Give him some space. A little understanding. I’m sure things will work themselves out.” Then he gave Mom a pat on the shoulder and sent us home.