THE sun came up and started to bake the trailer. I woke up sweating. I sat at the edge of the couch and found myself trying to snap together a few buttons between when I left home and where I was now. Bobby was anxious and flopped around the trailer like a fish out of water. When he finally burst outside all the warmth of the couch was replaced with the creeping chill of dawn, all the romance of the night before was exchanged for the complications of sunlight.
I walked out to the car and Bobby whisked me home. The sky was lit by an overlapping pattern of mushy gray clouds. The car felt cold and had a hollowness to it that I had never noticed before. All I wanted to do was brush my teeth and curl up in my bed, but then I realized I might have to deal with Mom. Hopefully she spent the night with the astronaut. Bobby looked tired and worried and anxious to get me out of the car.
When we pulled up in front of my house I planted a major kiss on his face.
“I have to try and get a hold of Danny,” he said, checking his rearview mirror, as if we might have been followed. “He might be able to help me out.”
“I wish there was something I could do,” I said.
“I’ll be all right.” He tried to be reassuring.
“I can probably scrape together another hundred dollars,” I said.
“I feel so lame taking your money, especially after what happened.” He seemed embarrassed.
“You’re not taking it. You’re borrowing it. I know you need it and I know you’re the type to return a favor. Maybe I’m a fool, but I like the idea of you owing me something.”
“I gotta leave tonight,” he said. “Should we meet somewhere?”
“I’ll have to go downtown to get the money. How about Starbuck’s or the Tivoli Lanes? I don’t think anything else is open.”
“Let’s do the bowling alley.” He checked his mirror again. “What time?”
“Sometime after eight,” I said.
He leaned over and kissed me, then shifted the car into gear. I knew it was time for me to disappear. I didn’t know what to say. And even though he asked me to come with him, there was an overwhelming feeling in my heart that I might never see him again. He had a look on his face that was anything but reassuring.
“Be careful, Bobby.” I got out of the car and closed the door, then watched him bank around the cul-de-sac corner and accelerate up the hill. My heart sank into my stomach. There’s nothing worse than falling in love with impossibility. I picked up the newspaper and headed up the driveway.
There was a strange beeping sound coming from the side of the house. I walked around to check it out, and there was Grandma scanning the yard for treasure or something. She was wearing headphones and waving a broom-size electric wand over the grass. When she saw me she waved me over.
“What are you doing, Grandma?” I asked.
“Oh, just snooping.” She pulled her headphones off. “The microphones on this baby are so powerful I can hear the earthworms eating breakfast.”
“That’s lovely,” I said.
“You’re up awfully early,” Grandma said. “I usually never see anything stirring around here until way past nine.”
“I was just getting the paper.”
“Was that the paperboy?” she asked.
“Who? That?” I scrambled to reshuffle my story. “That was Bobby. The guy I was telling you about.”
“You look a little shook up. What’s the matter?”
I didn’t answer her and she knew I was hiding something.
“If you can’t trust me you can’t trust anybody,” she said. “And that’s a terrible place to be.” She shook her head and looked down at the grass.
“I trust you, Grandma, it’s just hard for me to talk about.”
Grandma turned off her gadget. “Some men are like holding a firecracker in your hand,” she said. “They’re exciting when the fuse is lit, but if you hold on too long the results can be real painful.”
“You can say that again.”
“Sometimes you gotta throw it and get out of the way.” She jumped a step to animate her idea. “It’s gonna hurt, but not as much as if you try to hold on.”
Grandma slipped on her headphones and went back to her lost treasure. I wasn’t sure I agreed or even wanted to agree with all of Grandma’s prophecies, but I walked up behind her and gave her a huge hug anyway.
“I love you, Grandma,” I said.
“I love you too, Chrissie.” Grandma disappeared behind an evergreen.
I gave a short prayer to the God of missing moms and slid my key into the slot, pushed the door open, and quickly unlaced my shoes. The house was dead silent. I crept into the kitchen, found the note from Mom, and felt a major sense of relief. There was a reference to money, but I’m sure that was long gone into the bloodstream of my brother. I took a banana out of the fruit bowl, then climbed the stairs and fell onto my bed. I tried to focus on some schoolwork because I’ve got so many reports due now it’s not funny. For English, I’m finishing an essay on slacker god Winnie-the-Pooh; for science, I’m taking on space junk, which basically has no real function other than to make the weather more exciting on the six o’clock news; and for history, I’m photographing the hundred and fifty Sears-Roebuck homes built in Downers Grove. I’ve only done one roll of film, so it’s gonna be hell around here for a while. Are you there, God? It’s me, Chrissie.
The trouble with love is that it’s never perfect. When it comes to mating the fit has to be tight as two puzzle pieces, any space between personalities only gets bigger. The space in between Mom and Dad was like a truck stop, a place to say hello and order pancakes. Bobby is supercharged trouble. I can deal with his messy trailer, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to be the Bonnie for his Clyde. Our relationship felt similar to riding an escalator that keeps returning to the same floor, I knew I was never going any higher on the priority list.
I closed my eyes and raced toward a whiteness so pure it was colorless, but all my thoughts circled back to the mechanic, his car, his trailer, his garage, his incredibly romantic and disasterous life. The vagabond car thief probably has a carbon copy past of his more than reckless present. He drifted here without directions and would probably disappear with the same abandon. One of these days he’s going to make the wrong turn and end up trapped by his own ambition. I just hope he survives the transition.