I stare out into the mist from my place in the old rocker on the porch of the duplex, rubbing my thumb and pointer finger over the eagle pendant on the chain at my neck. Just across the highway, the brick frame of the old railroad bridge looks kind of artsy against the white, overcast sky. I should know: I’ve been staring at it for two weeks now, ever since Mom and I moved here to Middleton. Middle-of-Nowhereton is more like it.
The thing is, I hate bridges. When your dad is driving his truck across a freeway bridge and it collapses below him, you tend to not trust them. And now there’s one right in my front yard. Good thing it’s shut down. I let the eagle pendant, the only real thing I have left of Dad, drop to my chest.
He’s been gone for almost a year now, and I’ve done everything I can to try and move on. But to be honest, I think I’m getting more and more nervous—more obsessive—as the time passes. Everything at home reminded me and my mom of Dad: our house, the front garden that he landscaped so perfectly, and, worst of all, the construction of the new bridge. Needless to say, we needed a change, so two weeks ago, Mom transferred airline hubs and here we are. Aunt Jane owns this duplex, so now it’s Mom and me on one side and Aunt Jane on the other. Kasey, my cousin, also moved in with our aunt a few years ago, after her mom died and her dad kind of checked out of being a parent. Then Kasey’s friend Patricia moved in too. Kasey told me Patricia got kicked out of her house and had no place to go, so it was nice of Aunt Jane to take her in as well.
I rock back and forth and sip my chai. Even though I only saw Kasey two or three times a year before we moved here, we have a lot in common. Given everything she’s been through, Kasey is one of the few people who, when she says to me, “I know how you feel,” really does understand.
Unlike, say, my old school counselor, who categorized me as “lacking emotional wholeness” in the file I probably wasn’t supposed to read. Or as “obsessive,” though that may be somewhat true because after Dad’s accident all I drew or wrote about was bridges. So I know that the bridge in my front yard, for instance, is an old-fashioned arch bridge constructed primarily from large, square bricks. There are iron rails on the top for the safety of pedestrians as well as three massive arches. The bridge that killed Dad was an eight-lane steel-truss arch bridge. Of course, there aren’t many people who want to talk for more than, oh, a nanosecond about bridges, so I tend to keep that information to myself.
Now that I live here, it’s too bad Kasey is so focused on working and saving money so she can start taking business classes. She went to summer school and got her GED, and now she works at the coffee shop in the mornings and delivers pizzas at night. So at Middleton High I’m Lucia Klug, Six-Foot-Tall Friendless Freak. (I’m actually only five-eleven and three-quarters, but people tend to round up.)
I would hang out with Patricia at school, but she and her boyfriend, Tony, are practically inseparable. Anyway, Patricia’s nice enough, but she and connected-at-the-hip Tony are both seniors, two grades above me, and have their own group of friends.
“Lucia!” Mom calls from inside the duplex.
I pull myself out of the rocking chair and go inside.
“I’m doing a three-day to Tokyo. I’ll be back Thursday.” She’s got her flight-attendant suit on. She wipes down the counter, the fridge, and then the sink before adding, “Aunt Jane will be back from her trip tomorrow night. You’ll be okay alone? You can see if Kasey will be around tonight.”
“Yes, Mom,” I say and give her a hug. “Be safe up in that metal tube hurtling through the air.”
From the porch I watch her drive past the old railroad bridge. Fighting the urge to shiver, I sit back down in the rocking chair. A cool fall breeze blusters across the porch, and dark clouds hover at the horizon. There will be a storm, but the plane will still take off. The most harmful thing to a plane in the sky is not rain or lightning—it’s flocks of birds that get sucked into the engine upon takeoff, disabling the plane and sometimes forcing the pilot to make an emergency landing . . . or worse. Close to five hundred planes have hit bird flocks over my lifetime—or at least since I stopped checking this month, when I made a deal with Kasey that she would get me a job at the Pizza Pit if I stopped researching every fact I came across.
Though the thought of making pizzas doesn’t exactly thrill me, having a job would be nice, especially if it was with Kasey. Then we could hang out more, and I’d have spending money, as well as something to do when Mom’s flying. I might even make some new friends. Tonight Kasey’s early shift should end at eight, and hopefully she will bring home a mistake pizza.
Something sweet wafts out of the open window on the other side of the duplex. I peer in and see Kasey flip her long, black ponytail before taking a cherry pie out of the oven. When she stands up again, I wave at her and walk inside.
“Hey, Lu!” she says with a smile. “Just doing a little baking before my shift. It’s the late one tonight.”
Working the late shift means she won’t be home until after midnight. I’ll be home alone again. Dang. “Okay,” I say, trying not to sound disappointed.
“You all right?” she asks.
I nod, but it feels like there is a five-hundred-pound elephant sitting on my chest.
“Missing your dad?” she asks. “Obsessing?”
“No. Yes. Okay, looking at that weird bridge makes me think of Dad. I keep thinking that if only there was something I could have done—”
“Hey.” Kasey points her finger at me. “There is no use going there. I know because I’ve done it a million times. What if I’d insisted that Mom go to the doctor the first time she told me she was having heartburn? Maybe then they would have caught the cancer earlier. But you know what? It is what it is—nothing will change it—and we just have to stop with the what-ifs. Besides, we can’t waste our energy looking back; we’ve got a coffee shop to plan!” She steps back, gesturing to the pie on the counter. “And we are going to serve some awesome pies.”
I laugh, glad that we’re done talking about this heavy stuff. “Where’s Drew?” I ask, just now noticing that he’s not here.
She shrugs. “Somewhere. I’m not worried about him.”
“You don’t keep track of his every movement?” I feign surprise.
She smiles. “He’s not going anywhere. I’ve got him hook, line, and sinker.” Looking over my shoulder, she says, “Speaking of boyfriends.” She frowns and motions to the drive. “Here comes Creepy now.”
We watch through the front window as Tony’s green truck rumbles up. Patricia is in the front seat, laughing. Then he and Patricia kiss for practically eternity, like they don’t even see us standing here, until Patricia finally gets out.
“Hey, what’s up?” Patricia says as she walks through the front door.
“Hey,” I reply.
Tony waves from the truck, but Patricia doesn’t see him so he beeps and waves again.
“Bye!” Patricia blows him a kiss and smiles as if she’s just won the lottery. I take a sip of my now-cold chai. Tony revs the engine and backs out, making loose gravel fly.
“What’s his rush?” I say.
Patricia shrugs and says, “He’s just a goofball,” then vanishes into her bedroom.
Tony fishtails as he zooms past the old bridge. He’s so reckless, even when he’s so close to that bridge. Something about it gives me the creeps.
I need to get over this fear because I can’t live always afraid of bridges—how will I get anywhere? Like, literally? I’m certainly not staying here in Middle-of-Nowhereton forever. I’m moving with Kasey to Portland or Seattle to start that coffee shop right after I graduate.
I set my empty cup on the porch ledge and walk down the old road, stopping at the bank of the river. The bridge looms a few feet ahead. Tall grass and weeds have grown over the train tracks, and new three-foot-tall wood barriers stand on both ends of the bridge. There must have been an accident recently.
Still, it’s not reasonable to be afraid of bridges—of this bridge. There’s no construction equipment, like there had been on Dad’s bridge; heck, there aren’t ever any cars or trains on it either. I step up to the bridge and lift my leg over the barrier.