Where the Stars Still Shine (13 page)

“Callie?” Greg comes into the kitchen with his empty plate. “What’s wrong?”

“I miss her.”

He takes a deep breath as he hands me a towel that I use to wipe my face, then blows it out slowly. “Okay, I was going to wait until you had a chance to eat, but … I got a call today from Veronica’s father. Your mom was extradited this past week, and her parents posted bond Friday.”

“Extradited? What does that mean?”

“It means kidnapping in Florida takes priority over stealing a license plate in Illinois,” he says. “So she was brought here to face charges, her parents bailed her out of jail, and she’s free until her court date.”

“Really?” Excitement takes hold of my stomach. “Where is she? When can I see her?”

“They, uh—they wired the money Friday and haven’t heard from her since,” he says. “I hate to say this, but she’s probably already gone.”

No. My mom wouldn’t be here in Florida and not contact me. She’d find me. Except doubt creeps in as I remember the night she was arrested and the cold chill in her voice when she told me not to tell the sheriff’s officer anything. What if she thinks I betrayed her? What if she thinks I had a choice? What if she left me behind?

“I, um—” I push my plate away, wishing Greg had been able to wait to tell me until after I’d eaten. My appetite is gone. “Thanks for telling me.”

“If you need anything—”

“Thanks,” I say. Except I don’t know what I need. Or how to feel.

He nods and pulls a box of aluminum foil from a drawer. “I’ll wrap this up in case you get hungry later, okay?”

The sweet, simple gesture makes me feel like crying again. “Thanks.”

I walk out to the Airstream, but I don’t know what to do with myself. It’s early and the afternoon sun is still high enough in the sky to count. Too early to sleep. And too early to sit in my room and drive myself crazy wondering where my mom might be. I change out of my work T-shirt and leave a note for Greg on the trailer door:

I have to run, but not away. Even though this will
probably extend my grounding, I need to move. P.S. Yes, I have my phone
.

I tell myself I’m not going to the docks. I’m not going to go looking for Alex. But my feet—or maybe a part of my body slightly higher up than my feet—propel me toward Dodecanese. Visitors are still poking through the gift shops and sitting clustered around tables on restaurant patios as I round the corner from Athens Street.

Alex’s boat is gone.

I’m not surprised. Well, maybe a little surprised that he left without telling me. Except Alex is not mine and I’m not his, and he doesn’t owe me any explanations. Still, it doesn’t prevent a tiny bud of disappointment from breaking the surface of my heart.

As I walk home, I send a text message to Kat:
Movie night is a go … if you still want it to be
.

I don’t really want company, but I don’t want to be alone, either. Thirty minutes later Kat flops down on the couch in the trailer, pulling me down with her. “So glad Greg changed his mind.” She leans her head against mine. “Sorry I gave you a hard time about Alex,” she whispers. “I forget that just because you haven’t lived here doesn’t mean you can’t see him for what he really is.”

I wonder which of us—or if either of us—is seeing Alex for what he really is, but with Nick and Connor
huddled over the television as they connect the DVD player, I can’t ask. “What are we watching?”

“Only the best movie ever,” Nick says.

He sits down on the other side of Kat and she tilts away from me to him, curling up under his arm with her head against his shoulder. Connor stands awkwardly by himself—there’s not enough room for all four of us on the couch—before sitting on the floor, leaning against the couch between Kat’s legs and mine. His shoulder touches my knee and it sends a warm flutter down my spine. It’s not the same as with Alex, but it’s still nice.

The best movie ever turns out to be the original
Star Wars
film, the one we were allegedly going to watch the night of the party. I might not be as current on popular culture as other teenagers, but even I’ve seen it. More than once. The scrolling
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away
… text has barely crawled up the screen before Kat and Nick are making out as if Connor and I aren’t there.

I slide to the floor beside Connor. “Do they do this a lot?”

“Yeah, pretty much,” he says.

“Did you bring any other movies?”

He shakes his head. “Sorry.”

I stand and walk over to the door, motioning
Connor to follow me out to the backyard. “Wait for me at the picnic table, okay?” I say, and he nods. “I’ll be right back.”

Greg and Phoebe have a variety of board games stashed in their entertainment center. I imagine them having friends over for drinks and a few rounds of Apples to Apples. They seem like the kind of people who would do that. I don’t know the rules to most of the games, but at the bottom of the drawer is an old checkerboard and a plastic bag of checkers.

I unfold the board between us and upend the checkers onto the picnic table. Connor smiles. “Prepare to be annihilated,” he says.

I claim a black checker and return the smile. “You wish.”

We don’t talk about what happened at the party. We don’t really say much, except to talk a little smack between moves and gloat over successful jumps. At some point during our first game the weirdness evaporates. We still don’t have much to say to each other, but it feels as if we’ve moved past my shirtless debacle.

We’re nearly finished with the game and my annihilation—as he’d predicted—is impending when Kat and Nick come out of the trailer. Her braid has come half undone, and her lips are puffy and lip-gloss-less.

“Hey! Why’d you leave?” She sits too close to me,
the way she always does. She’s a space invader. It doesn’t bother me too much, though.

Connor closes his eyes and makes exaggerating kissing noises through puckered lips, making Kat giggle. I separate the checkers and push the red ones across to his side of the board.

“Another game?” I ask, and he nods.

“Sorry.” She crinkles her nose, and she looks so cute and happy that I feel a rush of affection for her. “We got a little carried away. You’re, um—you’re not mad, are you?”

Kissing Alex in the kitchen when Greg and Phoebe were right down the hall was … irresistible. And not because there was a chance we could get caught, but because not kissing him was inconceivable at the time. So, I don’t know. I guess I understand that Kat and Nick have an inability to keep their lips off each other. If Alex had been at the docks earlier, I can only imagine what we’d be doing right now. Also, I wonder if I’m supposed to be thinking about Alex when I’m playing checkers with Connor. I file that away to consider another time and nudge Kat with my elbow. “Next time, pick a movie we haven’t seen.”

Greg comes outside. If he’s surprised to see everyone after I asked him to say no, he doesn’t mention it. He joins us at the picnic table, asking Kat, Nick, and Connor
about their classes and teachers, and reminisces about when he attended Tarpon Springs High. I feel a little left out—and maybe slightly curious about high school—but not enough that I regret my decision not to go.

They stay until it gets too dark to see the checkerboard and Phoebe returns with the kids. Greg gathers up the game while I walk around front with Kat and the boys.

“Thanks for inviting us over.” Kat links her arm through mine. “And next time I promise we’ll watch the movie.”

“Deal.”

She throws her arms around me and even though I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to the demonstrativeness of this family, I hug her back. “I’ll see you at the shop tomorrow after school,” she says.

Connor lingers as Kat slides into the passenger’s seat of Nick’s green sedan. “I was wondering—” Connor runs his hand up into his hair, then pats his bangs down against his forehead. His nervousness is kind of endearing. “Do you want to go to the movies Saturday night? Without Kat and Nick, I mean.”

Alex resurfaces in my mind, but I remind myself that if I don’t warrant an explanation, neither does he. I’m not sure how I feel about Connor. I guess I like
him. Enough, at least, that he would be a good choice for my first real date. Enough to want to say yes.

So I do.

The next two days drag and I spend most of my time perched on a stool behind the cash register, studying the Dummies book between customers. I’m struggling to decipher the language of web design, and my inability to understand it, let alone master it, frustrates me. It doesn’t help that we’re always busy, but Theo explains we’re “in season” and that the flow of tourists won’t slow until after Easter.

Wednesday is my day off. I planned to sleep late, but my body has already gotten used to waking up early. As I lie in bed, I look around the Airstream. It’s strange how much I’ve accumulated in such a short time. How easy it is to start sending roots down into my personal soil. A weed of guilt sprouts in my metaphorical garden, making me feel as if I don’t deserve to own fairy lights or long silver necklaces or a finger-sponge bouquet. And when did I start thinking about my own mother as a weed?

I throw off the covers, gather my shower supplies, and head to the house.

“Morning,” Phoebe says, as I come into the kitchen.
Tucker sits in his booster chair, his mouth stuffed with pancakes. Joe gives me a bashful grin and calls me Peach. I have a feeling this nickname is going to stick.

Phoebe and I haven’t spoken much since the day I overheard her worrying about my potential for mental illness, but I don’t want to be rude. “Hi.”

“If you’re interested”—she places a plate of cut-up pancakes in front of Joe—“I brought my bike home from my parents’ house. It’s old, but it might make getting around a little easier until you get your license.”

This feels like a gesture. An apology, maybe? If not, a bicycle is still a useful thing to have, and it’s been a very long time since I’ve had one. “Definitely. Thanks.”

She smiles and I wonder if she thinks this makes everything between us good again. Does it? I’m not sure. “I’ll have Greg clean it up when he gets home from work.”

“I can probably do it,” I say. “I kind of want to find a bookstore today.”

“There’s one downtown,” Phoebe says. “It’s really nice, but they don’t have a huge selection like the big store at the mall. I can drive you there if you can’t find what you need in town.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“I’m free all day.”

I nod. “Thanks.”

“Want some pancakes?” She angles the pan so I can see the golden brown circles. My traitorous stomach rumbles.

“Yeah, okay.” I sit down beside Joe, who touches my cheek with sticky fingers. I turn my face and pretend to chomp his hand. His eyes go wide and my heart sinks to my stomach, afraid that I’ve frightened him. And verified that I can’t be trusted around Phoebe’s babies. Except, when he realizes his hand is still intact, Joe giggles. Belly giggles. Infectious giggles that make Tucker laugh and his mother smile.

“Again, Peach,” Joe says. “Again.”

I play the game over and over, until Phoebe brings me a steaming plate of pancakes. “Eat your breakfast, Joe,” she says.

“Joe eat,” he says. “Peach eat.”

We don’t talk as we all sit at the table, but Tucker zooms his fork around as if it’s an airplane and delivers a running monologue as his pancake plane crashes into his mouth. It’s really annoying and I have to bite my tongue to keep from telling him to shut up—but he keeps the silence from being uncomfortable. When I finish eating, I rinse my plate and continue on my way to the bathroom for a shower.

Phoebe’s bike is on the front porch. It’s a flat-tired blue cruiser style, coated in a layer of sticky dust. After
I wipe it down with some dish soap and the hose, she offers to drive me up to the gas station to put air in the tires.

“You don’t have to go through the trouble of getting the boys all loaded up for me,” I say. “I can walk.”

She puts on her sunglasses and digs through her purse for her keys. “It’s no trouble. I’m going to take them to the park.”

I put the bike in the SUV while she fastens Tucker and Joe into their car seats. Phoebe drops me off at the Sparta station, and as I pump air into the tires I remember the way Alex’s knee touched mine as we sat on the tailgate of his truck in this parking lot. How one little contact point could conduct so much heat. I wonder if he’s thinking about me right now and—if he is—does it make him blush the way it does for me?

From the gas station, the bookstore is only a block away. It’s a small storefront, tucked between an antique shop and an Irish pub. On the sidewalk outside the bookstore is a sandwich board with a Mark Twain quote chalked on it in blue lettering. I bet they change the quote daily and use different colors of chalk. It looks like that kind of place. I lock the bike to a one-hour-parking sign and go inside. The store has the dusty, papery scent of old books, and right in the middle of the floor is a salmon-pink,
L
-shaped vinyl couch littered
with throw pillows sewn to resemble giant Scrabble tiles. Someone has arranged four of them to spell “shit,” which makes me smile.