by Sarah Dessen
“I wish you’d taken pictures,” I said now.
“I’m sure somebody did,” he replied. “All I remember is that even barefoot in a borrowed dress, your mom was gorgeous.”
“Until she got drunk,” I said.
Another pause, this one to let me know I’d crossed a line. “Anyway,” he said a moment later, “you must need something to wear. I left you a credit card, didn’t I?”
He had, for emergencies: it was tucked in a spare pair of sneakers in my closet. “I should be able to borrow something from Bailey, I think.”
“Well, if not, buy something,” he replied. Then, quickly: “Within reason, of course.”
“Of course,” I agreed. How hard could that be?
“I just filled it up, so there’s plenty of gas,” Mimi said, handing me her keys. “Bly Corners is pretty much a straight shot once you get into Delaney. You can’t miss it.”
“Great,” I said. “Thanks.”
“Oh, I remember when Waverly and Matthew were going to that dance over at the Club,” she said, somewhat wistful. “Ancient history, but it feels like yesterday.”
Then she just stood there, clearly waiting for me to get behind the wheel. So with dread building in my gut, I did.
In a perfect world, driving Trinity to birth class would have been just what it took to get me over my fear of being behind the wheel. In reality, though, it just made everything worse.
Sure, I’d gotten us there and home alive. But between the traffic jam and near panic attack going, followed by having to slam on brakes to avoid hitting a car that stopped suddenly on the way home, I’d stepped out from behind the wheel swearing I’d never return. Which wouldn’t be a big deal, I figured, because this was North Lake, a place small enough to get anywhere on foot. Except, as it turned out, a place to buy a dress for Club Prom.
It had all started innocently enough. That morning, I’d been minding my own business, having breakfast and reading the obits, when Bailey came down to go to work.
“It’s dress day,” she informed me as she loaded slices of bread into the toaster.
“Actually, it’s Thursday,” I replied, still reading about Daniel Polk, 74, who had left this earthly plane after a long illness.
“I just wish I didn’t have to work,” she said, ignoring this. “I’m worried about you picking out something at the mall on your own.”
“Well, don’t,” I said, “because I’m not doing that. I’ll just find something around here that will work.”
She turned, looking at me. “Here? What are you going to wear, a Calvander’s tie-dye? One of Trinity’s maternity dresses?”
“Maybe.” I felt her glare at me. “Look, you have your dress, so what are you worried about?”
“Your dress,” she replied, as if I was stupid. “We’re going together, remember? And this is a big deal.”
“I’ll find something,” I said again.
“I know you will.” BING! went the toaster, spitting out her slices. “Because I told Mimi you were borrowing her car to go to Bly Corners today.”
This got my attention. “You what?”
She walked to the fridge, pulling it open. After scanning the contents, she sighed, then shut it. “I told her you needed to borrow her car to go buy a dress. She’s fine with it. Said to come grab the keys whenever you’re ready to go.”
“Never,” I said. “That’s when I’ll be ready.”
“You don’t like shopping?”
“It’s not that,” I said.
“Then what is it?”
I just sat there, not wanting to get into the whole driving thing with another Blackwood sister. “Well, I have to work, for starters.”
“No, you don’t.” She took a crunchy bite. “Mimi says there’s no turnover and only three rooms for housekeeping. Trinity can do it.”
“She can’t even bend over,” I pointed out.
“So she’ll do it standing up. You need a dress,” she replied. I sighed. “Look, I’m not taking no for an answer, Saylor. Just go.”
She made it sound so simple to get in the car and drive miles into a town I’d never been to before, all by myself. In practice, though, everything was more complicated.
“Have fun!” Mimi said now, stepping back from the car. “Can’t wait to see what you come home with!”
I smiled, waving as I cranked the engine. Then, gripping the wheel and with her watching, I drove—slowly—out of the Calvander’s lot. A block later, when I was sure I was fully out of sight, I pulled into a gas station. There, I cut the engine and wiped my sweaty palms against my shorts, trying to calm the thudding of my heart in my chest. Finally, I just leaned my head against the steering wheel, closing my eyes.
A few weeks earlier, I’d been planning a summer at Bridget’s, every detail organized and in place. Now, here I was, at the lake with my mother’s family, sort of dating a college boy and needing a formal dress. Also, driving, or trying to. Even with my imagination, I never would have pictured this.
Knock. Knock.
Startled, I jumped, my eyes springing open. There, standing on the other side of my closed window, was Roo Price.
“Hey,” he said. He had on a green collared shirt and shorts and was squinting in at me, eyes narrowed. “You okay?”
I turned my key, then put down the window. “Do I not seem okay?”
“You’re in a gas station parking lot collapsed over your steering wheel,” he pointed out.
“I was resting my eyes,” I replied.
He glanced around at the nearby pumps, the blinking neon sign out front that said COLD SODAS. “Interesting spot for a nap.”
“Well, life is busy,” I said, smiling. “Sometimes you have to take them where you can.”
A car drove by and beeped. Roo raised his hand in a wave. Did everyone know everyone here? Lately I felt like the only stranger.
“What are you doing?” I asked. “I mean, other than policing people taking naps in public places.”
“Just got off work,” he said, bending down so he was level with the window.
“I hear you have a ton of jobs.”
“Not really,” he replied, running his fingers through his hair, which was short and the whitest of blond. When he was done, a single tuft stuck up, and it was all I could do not to fix it. “Just five.”
“That’s four more than most people,” I pointed out. “I bet you could use a gas station nap.”
“I prefer to grab my shut-eye at grocery stores,” he replied.
“Different strokes for different folks,” I said. “What are the jobs?”
“Well, there’s the Station arcade. Fifteen hours a week.” He held up four fingers, then folded one down. “Then I work the night desk at the Park Palms when they need someone to fill in.”
“That’s a hotel?”
“Nursing home,” he said, folding down another finger. “The grocery store, with Celeste. That’s another fifteen a week, usually.”
“Okay if I rest my eyes again? I’m getting tired just hearing this.”
“And finally,” he continued, “there’s the Yum truck.”
“The Yum truck?”
Instead of replying, he turned, glancing behind him. There, parked only a few spaces away, was a white food truck, plastered with pictures of various frozen desserts. YUM! was painted across the hood in hot-pink letters. It was a testament to my level of distraction that I hadn’t even noticed it.
“You drive an ice cream truck?” I asked. “Seriously?”
“It’s the lake,” he replied. “Ice cream is big business.”
“Can I see?”
He stepped back, waving a hand. “Be my guest.”
Suddenly energized, I got out of the car, following him over. “Are you selling right now?”
“Not a lot of takers at ten a.m.,” he said. “The truth is my car broke down again, so I took this to work last night.”
I raised an eyebrow. “You drove an ice cream truck to a nursing home
?”
“I’m very popular with the residents,” he said, flashing that gap in his teeth again.
“I bet you’re popular with everyone.”
“That’s my charm, though,” he corrected me. “Not my access to frozen desserts.”
“Keep telling yourself that,” I replied, patting his back.
“Oh, I will.”
I was too busy laughing, at first, to realize how easily we’d fallen into this rapid-fire exchange. Like when I was with him, I wasn’t a stranger after all.
“Why do you work so much?” I asked. “Are you saving for something?”
“College,” he replied.
Of course. I felt my face get hot: I was always getting this wrong. “Oh, yeah. You mentioned journalism school in your five sentences.”
“Yup,” he said, pulling a hand through his hair again. “I’m the editor of the paper at school this year. It got me into it. There’s a good program at the U, actually, if I stay in-state. Which I probably will. It’s cheaper.”
I was beginning to realize that not thinking about money was a luxury, and one I should have been appreciating more.
“With all these jobs,” I said now, “how do you even remember where to be and at what time?”
He pulled his phone out of his pocket. “Alerts. Lots of them. If you hear a beep, it’s probably me.”
“Good to know,” I said as he walked over, sliding open the door to the truck and stepping back.
“Watch your step,” he said. “It’s perennially sticky.”
I climbed in, my footsteps clanking on the metal floor. “This is so cool.”
“It is,” he agreed. “Until you get mobbed by a bunch of damp kids all screaming for sugar. Then, not so much.”
“Tell me there’s a little song you turn on as you drive.”
He smiled, pointing to a white box with some buttons installed above the driver’s seat. “Four melodies total, with a choice of tempos.”
“Can you play one now?”
“No, because someone will want ice cream and I’m not on the clock,” he said.
I looked out the window. The lot was empty. “There’s no one around.”
“Doesn’t matter. It’s like a dog whistle. If you play it, they will come.” He stepped around me, into the narrow walkway that led back into the truck. “You can have something, though, if you’re an ice-cream-at-ten-a.m. person.”
“Who isn’t?”
“Well, me, for one. But again, different strokes.” He bent over a built-in cooler, turning a handle and then pushing it open. “Pick your poison.”
I stepped closer, peering inside at a huge selection of offerings, all individually wrapped and organized by category: frozen candy bars, push-ups, cookie sandwiches, Sundae in a Cup. Even if you didn’t like ice cream—and I did—you’d have to be excited by such a selection, at ten a.m. or, really, anytime.
“This one,” I said, pulling out a Choco-wich, two chocolate chip cookies with vanilla ice cream between them. It was cold in my hands. “Thank you.”
“No problem,” he replied, sliding the cooler shut. He leaned back, arms crossed over his chest, as I unwrapped it and took a bite.
“So you want to tell me what you were really doing collapsed over your steering wheel in a parking lot?”
“Waiting for the Yum truck,” I replied, grinning. “And it came!”
He just looked at me.
“Fine.” I swallowed. “The truth is, I’m supposed to be driving to Bly Corners.”
“The mall?” I nodded. “So what’s the problem?”
“I don’t like to drive.”
“You drove here,” he pointed out.
“And I drove Trinity to birth class on Saturday,” I said, sighing. “What I’m saying is I didn’t like it.”
“You went to birth class?” he asked. “Did Kim show one of those videos?”
“She did.”
He shuddered. “See, now that’s something to be scared of. You can handle a full dilation shot, you can handle anything.”
“You went to birth class?”
“Filled in for Celeste once, when she had to work.” He reached down, rubbing a smudge on the cooler top. “Fair to say it traumatized me.”
I tried to picture Roo in that little room, Trinity elbowing his gut as she tried to practice her ocean breathing. It actually wasn’t that hard. At this rate, we’d all be trained to help push when the baby came.
“See, that’s me when it comes to driving,” I said. “Like, I literally panic when I have to get behind the wheel.”
“Since when?”
“Always. Although it got worse when I hit another car in a parking deck.” Even as I cringed, saying this, I felt a sense of relief. The truth felt good. “I freaked.”
“Understandable.”
“Not to my dad.” I took another bite of my Choco-wich. “He’s always been so pushy about me getting my license, even when I was adamant I didn’t want to. He won’t let up. I don’t get it.”
Roo considered this for a second as I chewed. “Well, that probably has more to do with your mom than you, though, don’t you think?”
“My mom?”
“Because she didn’t drive,” he said. “She wouldn’t. Right?”
It was like time just stopped, my breathing as well, as I stood there, the Choco-wich melting down onto my wrist. Could this be true? I’d been in a car with my mom behind the wheel. Hadn’t I?
“Wait,” I said. “She was afraid to drive? Are you sure?”
He opened his mouth, then quickly shut it before pulling a hand through his hair again, this time leaving a different tuft vertical. “That’s just what Celeste said.”
“Celeste,” I repeated.
“I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “Obviously, you know your mom better than—”
“I don’t, though,” I said. I heard the catch in my voice, and hoped he didn’t. “That’s what I’m realizing. I didn’t really know her at all.”
We just stood there for a second, the truck dark and cool all around us as a car drove by, beeping.
“I’m sorry,” Roo said quietly. He looked back down at his hand, spread on the cooler. “And for what it’s worth, I can relate to having more questions than answers. My dad died before I was born.”
“That’s harder,” I pointed out. “At least I had her for a little while.”
“Or, easier,” he countered. “You can’t miss what you never had.”
I looked out the window at Mimi’s Toyota, parked where I’d left it, in the perfect center of a space, no cars anywhere nearby. “I guess everyone’s afraid of something.”
“Yeah.” He was quiet for a minute. “With me, it’s clowns.”
“Shut up,” I said, hitting him.
“What? I thought we were having a moment.”
“You,” I said, “are not really afraid of clowns.”
“I am. And before you mock, I’ll remind you that clowns are much more avoidable than driving.”
“Not if you work at the circus.”
“Joke’s on you. That’s my fifth job.”
We looked at each other, slightly breathless. Then, together, we cracked up, the sound amplified by all the metal surfaces around us. I laughed until I cried, harder than I had in years. Or maybe ever. There was something almost primal about it, this moment of near hysteria with a boy I’d just met and yet, again, felt like I knew.
It was hard to stop, taking some deep breaths, not making eye contact with Roo, and throwing away my mostly melted Choco-wich to get calmed down. Even then I was still sputtering a bit. “I should go,” I said finally. “I’m not going to find a dress store within walking distance standing here in the Yum truck.”
“You’re not going to find one, period,” he replied as I turned and started toward the seats up front. “Bly Corners is pretty much the only option.”
I sighed as he reached around me, sliding the door open. Immediately, I felt the heat of the day, bo
uncing off the asphalt and thick with humidity, smack me in the face. “What’s your real fifth job?”
“What if I said it was driving instructor?”
I just looked at him. “I’d say you were full of crap.”
“And you would be right.” He grinned, shutting the door with a bang. “It’s actually landscaping with my uncle. That said, I would be happy to ride along with you for moral support, if you want. I’m told I have a very calming presence.”
“Just as long as we don’t see any clowns.”
“Well, obviously,” he said. “Then you’re on your own.”
I snorted, then looked over at Mimi’s car again, remembering how happy she’d been waving at me as she left.
“How about this,” I said. “You drive my car. I’ll watch out for people in face paint wearing big shoes and spraying water bottles.”
“How about this,” he countered. “I drive there. You drive back. And we don’t talk about the other thing.”
“Clowns?”
“Watch it,” he warned me. “You want to drive both ways?”
“Nope.” I grabbed the keys, holding them out to him. “Let’s go.”
Twelve
“I love it when boyfriends come to help pick out for formals,” the salesgirl said with a sigh as I turned sideways in front of the mirror, trying to decide if I liked the long black sheath I had on. “It’s the cutest.”
I knew I should tell her that Roo, who was standing nearby examining a leather cuff with a quizzical expression, was not my boyfriend. That he was just being nice—“What’s not to like?” I heard Hannah say, in my head—tagging along, not to mention driving me, at least halfway. But for some reason, I didn’t correct her. He didn’t, either. I couldn’t help but notice.
“What’s your feeling on feathers?” he asked me.
“Opposed,” I replied. “Unless it’s on a bird, in which case, fine. Why?”
“I’m intrigued by these shoes,” he said, gesturing to a pair of green sandals that had, yes, feathers woven into the straps. “Do people really wear stuff like this?”
