W a i t i n g  f o r  t h e  S u n

I’m in the middle of a staring contest with the tiki statue standing in Aiden’s living room. It’s framed by the picture window behind it, which overlooks the bluffs and the lake beyond. The statue is about four feet tall, but it sits on a pedestal, so we’re eye to eye. It looks like an ancient warrior, standing in the midst of an orange sunset.

It’s a pretty sweet setup. Great view. Aiden’s right. This is some decent shit. I hit Aiden’s Banana Diesel a few times, take just enough to start feeling the tingling in my fingertips. Just enough to numb the sharp edges.

The way I see it, I don’t have to have my head on straight until practice tomorrow morning on the weight deck. Plenty of time to recover before then.

I know my problems will be there tomorrow morning when I wake up, staring me down with a vengeance—but it just feels calm, and that’s something I haven’t felt in a very long time. I’m always chasing after four-year-olds. Providing. Protecting. Watching. Waiting.

Still, even though I’m not physically with my sisters, I feel an obligation to be available to them. What would happen if they needed me, and I couldn’t get there because I was ripped?

I also have Friday night to think about, and beyond. If I’m caught violating training rules, I may as well forget about that Northwestern scout who came to see our game last week, which means I may as well forget about going to college anywhere but Creekside Community, and that’s not going to happen. I can’t let Rosie be right about me.

And then there’s Chatham. Despite our Homecoming plans, I don’t know exactly where I stand with her. I get that she’s been through some crazy shit, and maybe she doesn’t want to tell me all of it, but sometimes, even when we’re physically close, I feel as if she’s holding me at a distance. It’s like as soon as we start to dig into the stuff that really matters, she shuts down.

It occurs to me for the first time: she could have left a boyfriend back in Moon River, for all I know.

Maybe I should point-blank ask her if that’s why she’s vague. But if she tells me she’s someone else’s girlfriend, I’ll have to back off. One thing I know: I don’t want to back off.

I text Chatham: See me tonight?

She responds in the most Chathamesque way:

This could mean straight-up-yes, love-to-but-can’t, or even so-excited-you-asked-but-I’m-not-sure. Sometimes it’s really hard to get a straight answer out of her. I try again: Are you working?

“Unbelievable.” Aiden’s still reacting to my story about Damien and the ring and the cop. He doesn’t even know all the bullshit my mother’s pulled lately, but this story pretty much sums it all up.

I don’t usually talk about Damien, or Richard “The Dick” Herron, or any other of my mother’s fucktard boyfriends, because it embarrasses me. I don’t know why. It’s not like anyone would’ve expected me, at fourteen, to kick the ass of a knife-wielding, six-foot-two drunk-slash-high imbecile. But sometimes, when I think of that night, and others like it, I find myself editing the script—things I should’ve said but didn’t; things I could’ve done but was too afraid to try.

“Your mother’s getting to be about as reliable as mine,” he says.

I crack a smile, although I don’t think his mother’s situation is all that funny, either. The truth is, Aiden’s mother doesn’t live that far away, but she never sees him. She has all the time in the world for charity and church—and her addiction to prescription sleeping pills. But no time for Aiden. She’s slept through his last three birthdays, and rarely even calls him on Christmas. It’s almost like he reminds her of her life before . . . and she wants to just leave it, and him, in her rearview mirror.

Which is why he’s been in business for himself since eighth grade. Her pills were the first things he started selling.

I take another hit and pass the J to Aiden.

He takes it and squints at me through his exhale. “You need any cash?”

He’s not asking me if I want to borrow money. He’s not offering to give it to me. He’s wondering if I want to work for him tonight.

“Just one drop,” he says. “Some grade-A shit to this house on Sheridan, and I’m too fucking smoked out to go there.”

I used to drop for Aiden occasionally—it’s not really that big a deal—but considering what’s at stake—football, potential scholarships—I don’t think I should. Then again, if I’m really going to make a clean break from my mother, and pay rent to stay in her house, I could probably use the cash.

“You can take my dad’s car. That way, if you have any trouble, you can claim you didn’t know what was in the package.”

“I’m not worried about it.” And this is the truth. Aiden used to peddle this shit when we were pedaling dirt bikes, you know?

“When you get back, I’ll have company.”

“Yeah?”

“Kai Watson. Shouldn’t be a problem, right?”

Kai’s a total bitch when it comes to Aiden. She’s raked my buddy over the coals and back a hundred times, but it’s like they’re magnetic—in a different way than Chatham and me. I’m drawn to Chatham because I feel like she understands and celebrates me. I feel like we’ve been traveling bumpy roads, destined to intersect one day, whereas Kai’s not even on the same map as Aiden. She keeps coming back to him because she wants to change him. Maybe I’m naïve, but I don’t feel like Chatham wants to change me . . . despite my flaws.

Aiden offers the smoke again, but I waive the opportunity. I’m already feeling just how I need to be feeling—as if Rosie and her drama and her lies are happening on another plane of existence, just far enough from where I’m rooted down.

My phone buzzes.

Chatham: At the Tiny E till close. Slow tonight. Might get off early.

In that case, I’ll get the job done now. “Where’s this package?”

“In the trunk.” He hands over his dad’s keys—silver convertible Audi R8; niiiice—and says, “Keep it under the limit.”

“Will do.”

He tells me where I’m going, and I get on the road.

It’s a little chilly to have the top down, but in a car like this, it’s a must. And the wind in my hair only helps me savor the feeling I’ve been craving. Carefree. Alive. With the sunset at my back, I sing along to the tunes blasting from Aiden’s dad’s preset station: Lithium XM. Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Soundgarden.

I glance every now and then at the passenger seat, and imagine what it would be like to have Chatham sitting there, the wind whipping through her brown curls. In my fantasy, she’s as carefree as I feel right now, arms up, dancing in her seat, belting out a tune: Black hole sun, won’t you come?

What would it feel like to know her that way? To be with her without thinking, without second-guessing my every move in her company?

I’d put my hand on her thigh, without wondering if I should.

I’d lean over and kiss her at a red light. Just a peck on the lips. Respectful, yet intimate. A moment and memory that belongs just to us.

I downshift and slow as I approach an intersection, and glance at the empty seat beside me.

Only for a second, I swear she’s there, sunglasses on, lips pursed and painted red.

I shake away the feeling. Man, this Diesel is having a crazy effect on me.

I take North Avenue all the way to the shore and turn left on Sheridan, where the scene slowly evolves from rectangular, no-nonsense architecture of Northgate Park to softer lines of Victorian-era homes.

This more affluent area is where Rachel Bachton used to live. For weeks after her disappearance, you couldn’t turn on the news without seeing the sidewalk in front of her house strewn with gifts and flowers, which I’ve never understood. All of it seemed to be put there as if it could entice Rachel to come back home. Like it was her choice to be gone. I imagine her little brother experiencing the piling up of teddy bears and dolls at their curb, and not understanding why strangers were dropping off presents no one could play with.

I hook onto Regency Street, just to see if I can pick out her house, where the Bachtons no longer live. Just to see if people still decorate the walk with what I’m sure is meant to be kind gestures, but only serves as a reminder: that little girl is gone.

A few houses down, on the left, I see the Bachtons’ place. There’s a wrought iron fence lining the property now, and a gate at the driveway, but faded pink ribbons still circle the oak tree in the parkway. I stop for a minute and stare at the house that was supposed to be the forever in which Rachel’s parents, then a young couple, were to raise their family. Maybe they thought they’d live there for all eternity. Maybe when they bought the place, they envisioned warm Christmas mornings by the fireplace, with their children and grandchildren.

Then some asshole snatched the whole dream away.

I snap a picture of the house. I don’t know why. It feels a little stalker-ish, now that I’ve done it. But maybe it’s a reminder that even the best-laid plans can go to shit.

Time to get on with things.

I circle the block and head to where I’m going.

I park at the curb, open the trunk, and find a shrink-wrapped hardcover biography of Jim Morrison. I know it’s hollowed out in the center, and that’s where the weed—or whatever—is stashed. I know this because one summer, Aiden and I spent more nights than I can count slicing away the center squares of pages in hardcover books he’d bought for pennies at garage sales just for this purpose. I was also there the day he bought a four-pack of commercial-grade plastic and a vacuum sealer at Costco.

I take the book and head toward the house in question, which is painted a pale green with plum and lavender gingerbread. It cracks me up to think of someone living in a house like this rolling up a fatty of Midnight Oil weed.

The house is enormous. You could easily fit three of my houses inside this one. And like every other house on the east side of the road, it sits so high up from the road that it’s practically looming over me, like a presence I can’t avoid. Almost like it’s looking down its nose at the town below. It’s crazy that I’m feeling, suddenly, like I should put the book back in the truck and get the fuck out of here. Probably just a side effect of the Diesel I smoked. It’s just a house, and I’m just delivering Morrison’s biography.

I count eight steps from the curb to the sidewalk—I pause there to ping a finger against the address shingle hanging from a hook on a lamppost—and an additional eight to climb the porch. You have to consider people who live an entire story above the street have some decent money to throw around. I wonder what it’s like to live like this, wonder if these people have restraining orders against ex-stepfathers, if they have to steal a twenty out of a flour canister when they want to treat themselves—or their girlfriends—to an ice cream sundae. I wonder if these people would hole up in by-the-week rentals in chase of their runaway foster sisters.

Even the bell sounds expensive, a series of clangs, like church bells.

No one comes.

I peek in the sidelight, but the place is still and quiet, like a funeral home.

I hit the bell again.

Wait a few minutes.

When nothing happens, I turn to make my way to the car.

I’m down about four steps, when I hear the door open behind me.

“Wait, wait, wait!”

Over my shoulder, I see a mass of long blonde hair catching the breeze, and bare feet with toenails painted purple.

“Hey there.”

“Hi.” I take in the rest of her. She’s thin, wearing a long, blue flannel shirt, buttoned crookedly. Her legs are as bare as her feet, and I have to wonder if there are shorts, or even panties, under the shirt.

A funny feeling skips through my system. Like an ultra-awareness. Like I know she just got laid, and I’m excited that I know it.

“Sorry,” she says. “It’s a big house. I was—”

“No problem.”

“—in the attic.” She thumbs over her shoulder.

“Is that my guy?” The deep, male voice comes from the innards of the building.

“I don’t know,” she calls into the house. “But it’s a guy.”

“Yeah,” I say. “Aid’s got a busy schedule, so he asked me to drop this off. Says you’re really into the Doors.” I offer the biography.

After a second, the girl takes the book. “Who isn’t? I recently read something about the Dead Presidents.” She shakes my hand. I feel the bill, folded into a tight square, pressing against my palm. “You should look into it.”

“Maybe I will.”

She sort of scratches the toes on her right foot against her left ankle, and the ultra-awareness jolts me again. It’s a deja-vu type of feeling.

Her male friend calls again. “You gonna invite the guy in for dinner or something? What’s taking so long?”

“Want some dinner?” She tilts her head to the side and smiles, so I know it’s a joke. “He’s so dramatic. But listen, we’re hitting a rave over on Foster tonight. It’s in the basement of that old brick building with the beer sign painted on it. Know the place?”

“Sure,” I say, although I don’t. Already, I’m backing across the porch.

“Maybe, if you bring me another something-to-read—”

“I gotta go.”

She laughs a little, like she was trying to make me uncomfortable. Mission: accomplished.

In order to prevent a tumble down the porch stairs, I take the railing.

She’s heading back into the house, and I’m a few steps down now, but I see a touch of green on her ankle.

A tattoo. A clover.

“Wait.”

She pauses. I zero in on the tattoo, take a snapshot of it in my mind. Then she moves away.

“I don’t know,” she’s saying as she’s entering the house. “He kept looking at me.” I hear her laughing as she closes the door.