TWENTY–ONE

I came in the front door and Candy greeted me as usual. I had worked hard, but Mrs. Priamo had fixed me a great meal before I started work. I liked the Priamos a lot. They were always nice to me. Lots of people were nice to me. Teachers, neighbors. My friends and Harmony. I didn’t include her in the friends category because she was more than just a friend. She was my best friend. I figured even Sal knew that now.

My father was home. He didn’t respond when I said hello. He just sat there, staring at the TV. The elevator was almost all the way down. I could see it in his expression and in the way he sat on the couch. He was still functioning, but he was headed to a place where he soon wouldn’t be.

He excused himself—said how “tired” he was and went to bed. I’d make a point of setting my alarm extra early to make sure he got up in the morning. I’d make him some breakfast and pack a lunch for him and see that he got off to work.

I watched him drive away. He’d been in a reasonable mood this morning. I was positive he’d slept through the night, and sleep could make things better.

I just wished I could have slept as well as him. I’d lain awake going through all my plans and backup plans. Eventually I’d drifted off about two in the morning. I’d even gotten up and done some counting. I’d opened my notebook and since it was after midnight, I had changed the number to 1,580. That was a nice round number. Day by day it was working.

The phone rang, and I ran to answer it. I knew who it would be. Nobody else would be calling me at seven in the morning.

“Hey, Harmony, how are you—”

“It’s not Harmony, Robert. It’s Darlene—Mrs. Watson.”

“Um…hello…how are you?” There could only be bad reasons she was calling me.

“I’m sorry to call you this early.”

“Is something wrong?”

“Harmony ran away last night.”

My heart rose up into my throat.

“My husband and I have been up most of the night.”

“When did she leave?” I asked.

“Sometime after we went to bed. We didn’t discover she was gone until about one in the morning when I heard a noise. It must have been the back door closing when she left.”

“And you don’t have any idea where she is?”

“I was hoping you’d know,” she said.

“I don’t know anything.”

“We’re all pretty worried…scared.”

I was both.

“But why would she run? Things were going so well.” Wait. “Did her mother take off from rehab again?”

“Yes, she left the treatment center.”

“Then Harmony’s probably gone to the East End to look for her.”

In my mind I quickly ran through the bars we’d gone to. I remembered the name of the bar where we’d met Jeff. Should I tell Mrs. Watson that’s where she might be? If I did, I would have to explain that we’d been there before.

“We know where her mother is.” There was a pause. “I’m really not supposed to tell. It’s all very confidential, but you deserve to know. Harmony’s mother has been arrested.”

“Arrested for what?” I exclaimed.

“She was caught with drugs and then she resisted arrest. It sounds serious. The social worker told Harmony and me that it could be half a year before it even goes to court, and then Valerie could be facing at least six months in jail, maybe more, if she’s convicted.”

A year. Harmony couldn’t go home to her mother for at least a year. That was why she’d run.

“We told her that she could stay here for as long as she needs to,” Mrs. Watson said.

I knew she would have said that to reassure Harmony, but it would have done the opposite.

“Robert, you’d tell me if you knew where she was, wouldn’t you?”

“Of course! You know, she told me you’re the best people she’s ever been with.”

Mrs. Watson let out a big sigh. “That makes me feel at least a bit better. I was thinking that somehow it was our fault.”

“It wasn’t.” I wanted to tell her about Harmony saying they were so nice that their home would be a good place for me to go, but I couldn’t without telling her too much.

“If you hear, if she calls, you’ll let us know… right?”

“Yeah, of course. And if she calls, I’ll try to get her to come back.”

“Thank you, Robert. If there’s one person in the world she’ll listen to, I think it’s you.”

It was nice of Mrs. Watson to say that, but if Harmony really listened to me, she wouldn’t have run in the first place.

We said goodbye and I put the phone down. What now? Could I just go to school and try to pretend that Harmony wasn’t missing? Should I go and look for her? No, that made no sense—I didn’t know where to even start. Maybe she would show up at school or be there somewhere along the way, waiting for me. There was only one way to find out.

I gave Candy the last little corner of my toast. She gobbled it up. She had been all over me this morning. She knew I was anxious. I thought about how Candy needed me, how she was one of the reasons I’d never run away or go away. I needed her too.

I’d worked hard to follow routine this morning. Routine stopped me from thinking, stopped me from feeling, stopped me from worrying. Okay, that was a lie. Nothing stopped those things completely, but routine helped.

My father always accused me of worrying too much. I thought I was doing well not to worry all of the time.

If Harmony was planning to meet me along the way, I had to follow the routine we always followed. I’d packed a second sandwich—peanut butter—for Harmony. She would have missed breakfast and would be hungry. Then I could try to convince her to go back to the foster home—although I was worried that she’d try to convince me to run away with her. I wasn’t running anywhere. Even if her plan had fallen apart, I still had my mine, and I had to stick with them.

I said goodbye to Candy, squeezed out the door, clicked the lock and pulled the door closed. I was partway down the walk when I turned. I had to go back and check. Unavoidable. Two steps up, one big bounce across the porch. The door was locked. Time to go to school, and hopefully Harmony would be there or somewhere along the way, waiting for me….

And then I thought of where she might be instead.

I went around the side of the house and to the shed. I pulled open the door. My pack was gone.

Coming up to the railroad tracks, I saw that one of the clips for holding the mesh to the fence was on the ground. I picked it up as I looked around to see if I was being watched. There was nobody. I took off the second clip, peeled away the mesh and stepped through the opening. As quickly as possible I sealed up the fence and then ran along the embankment. I retraced the steps I’d taken dozens of times. Approaching the forest, I hesitated for a second at the path that led into the clearing. I listened as I continued to walk. I could hear birds, some traffic in the distance, but nothing else. I stepped into the clearing. There was my tent, and there was Harmony, sitting in the camping chair. She gave me a little wave.

“I was wondering when you’d show up.”

“How did you know I’d think to look here?” I asked.

“You’re smart. I thought you might have even come last night.”

“I didn’t know you were missing until this morning when Mrs. Watson called. She wanted to know if I knew where you were.”

“And what did you tell her?”

“I told her I didn’t know.”

“Thanks for not telling.”

“When she called, I didn’t know. It wasn’t until I started walking to school that it came to me, and I checked the shed.”

“I didn’t think you’d mind if I borrowed your stuff. Besides, it wasn’t like I could knock on your door in the middle of the night and tell your father I wanted to borrow your camping stuff.”

“Okay, probably better you didn’t.”

“If I had asked you, would you have said yes?” she asked.

I shrugged. “I would have tried to talk you into going home.”

“I don’t have a home.”

“Your foster home. They’re pretty worried about you.”

“I don’t care.”

“I was worried too,” I said.

“Sorry.”

I sat down on the ground right beside her. I was waiting for her to say something, and I figured she was waiting for me to say something. I knew she was more stubborn than me, so I’d have to break the silence.

“What was it like sleeping here last night?”

“I didn’t really get a lot of sleep. It was late when I left, later when I figured out to grab your stuff, and then setting up in the dark with just the lamp for light wasn’t easy. And it’s, well, a little spooky being out here.”

“The first time was for me too. I started bringing Candy with me after that.”

“I guess I should have borrowed your dog as well,” she joked.

“Yeah, that would have helped. Look, I heard about your mother.”

She didn’t say anything.

“So what happens from here?” I asked.

“She’s in jail until the trial and will probably be in jail after the trial.”

“I meant about you. What happens to you?”

“This is what happens to me,” she said.

“You’re going to stay here, in this tent?

“Isn’t that what you were going to do? Isn’t this your plan?”

“First off, it’s my backup backup plan, and we’ve both agreed it’s not a great plan,” I said. “Come on, you have to go to the Watsons’.”

“No I don’t, and you can’t make me.”

“You’re right. I can’t make you, but you can’t stop me from going there and telling them where you are,” I said.

“If you do that, by the time you get back I’ll have left, and it won’t just be me that’s gone. I’ll take some of your camping stuff with me.”

“I hope you won’t do that,” I said.

“Because you don’t want to lose your precious stuff?”

“Because I don’t want to lose you, you idiot!”

I think we both were surprised by what I’d said. Me, not that I wasn’t thinking it but that I’d actually said it out loud.

“Besides, this camping stuff isn’t even my backup backup plan anymore.”

“It’s not? Then what is?”

“You are,” I said.

“Me?”

“You. I’m counting on you to help me when things get rough.”

She chuckled. “I thought you were slightly crazy when this was your backup plan, but it isn’t as crazy as relying on me.”

“No, I do rely on you.”

“Rely on me to screw up or run away or punch you in the face or say the wrong thing. Those things you can rely on me for.”

“You’re wrong,” I said, trying to sound as convincing as I could.

“How am I wrong?”

“You just are—” I stopped.

“Well, go ahead and tell me how.”

“Not today.”

“What?” she demanded.

“Tomorrow. I’ll explain it, but not until tomorrow.”

“That is so pathetic. Do you think you can get me to go back by offering some stupid lie?” she asked.

“It’s not stupid and it isn’t a lie. It’s a promise.” I paused. “Look, if I can’t give you a reason, a really good reason, to stay, then you can run away the day after that.”

She didn’t look completely convinced, but she was softening.

“Okay, I’ll give you twenty-four hours to convince me to stay,” she said.

“And if I can give you a good reason, you have to promise not to run. Not tomorrow or the next day or the week after that. You’ll stay put, right?”

“Okay, but you need to explain one more thing to me.”

“Okay, I’ll try,” I said

“What makes you think you can get out of here when everything says you can’t make it?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. I just know I can.”

“That’s not good enough. If you can explain to me why you’re so positive you can make it, then maybe I can make it too.”

“I just don’t know.”

“Then you better start thinking about it. You can start when you’re walking me back to the foster home.”

Harmony got up. She bent over, picked up the camping chair and started to fold it up.

“Do you think you could come inside with me when we get there to talk to Mrs. Watson?” she asked.

“If you want me to be there, then I’m there.”

“She’ll probably call the social worker or even the police, and they might all come over,” Harmony said.

“I’ll be there when you talk to all of them, if that’s what you want.”

“That’s what I want.”

I started to fold up the tent and she started to put things in the backpack.

“Robert, do you know the real reason you can’t be my boyfriend?”

“Because I’m funny, I remind you of your grandmother, most relationships don’t work, and you can’t afford to lose me. Does that just about cover it?” I asked without stopping my task.

“There’s one more. You can do better than me.”

I put the tent in the pack and looked at her. “Don’t put yourself down.”

“I’m not. You deserve somebody who’ll treat you right, who’ll be a good wife and a good mother to your kids someday. Somebody who doesn’t have a bad temper and who went to university…that’s probably where you’ll meet her.”

“Stop talking like that.”

“And her family will be really normal—she’ll have two parents, and they’ll really love each other.”

“Just stop.”

“She’ll be somebody who’s completely different from my mother and—”

“Stop now!” I yelled at the top of my lungs.

To my surprise she did.

“For now, let’s just make sure we don’t lose the one friend who actually understands the other. Okay?”

She nodded.

“Good,” I said. “And just for your information, I don’t have to be the only one in this neighborhood who makes it out.” I paused. “There could be two.”