I'll Be There

by Holly Goldberg Sloan

  Riddle would wander off, looking for mechanical things to draw. Sam stayed at the drop-off area. People would drive in with a pickup truck full of crap, exhausted from a long day of tearing something apart, or with remains from trying to put something broken back together.

  Sam would step forward and lend a hand, oftentimes doing most of the work. If they had books or anything interesting he wanted, no one cared if he set it aside. And at least half of the people reached into their wallets and gave him a few dollars for helping out.

  Every now and then someone would put a five or ten dollar bill into his hand, especially if the person happened to see Riddle and figured out that they were some kind of damaged team. People were, for the most part, nice enough.

  But after he got the haircut, they were suddenly nicer. A lot nicer.

  Housewives with station wagons filled with old lawn furniture and worn-out kitchen appliances smiled at him as they handed over money. Old guys with slumped shoulders and stained T-shirts slapped him on the back as he hauled old drywall out of their pickup trucks, joking that there was nothing like doing some after-school work to get ahead in life.

  Suddenly it was as if he’d changed teams. He was on the other side of an equation. The world now seemed bigger.

  He wondered if that’s what happened when people could see you.

  Riddle opened his phone book and looked at one of his drawings. A brown moth landed on the yellow paper. Riddle stared at it, his thoughts swirling.

  Some things are born with wings. Like butterflies. Or birds.

  And they can fly.

  Some things only have legs. Like spiders. But they have lots of legs so they can crawl and run and hide. When you have two legs, it is harder to hide.

  Light is always moving. Even in tiny, tiny, tiny ways.

  Light makes all shape.

  I taste wild berries. Just by seeing them.

  I listen. Always. If you are quiet, you hear more than things that make noise.

  I see the insides. Turning pieces. Even if the pieces are broken. I put them back together.

  I start downside up.

  It hurts, but the inside is always worth seeing.

  Then Riddle shut the phone book hard, crushing the moth. He opened it slowly and stared at the flattened insect, now only a lifeless smudge against two pages. And his eyes filled with tears.

  6

  Bobby Ellis could drive with other kids in the car.

  He was eighteen but in the same grade as Emily. His parents had told him that he’d had the mumps just before kindergarten and missed the first three weeks and so they had him wait a whole year later to enter school. They said he wasn’t held back. He just had a false start.

  The plan had been in place all week. Bobby would pick up Rory. Then Bobby and Rory would get Nora. Then Bobby, Rory and Nora would get Emily. Emily had secretly hoped that her parents would say that driving with Bobby Ellis was a bad idea. But part of the new philosophy of giving her freedom since they’d made her sing solo meant they said yes to more things.

  Tragic.

  Emily took a shower after school and picked out what she thought was a nice sweater. It looked good, but it didn’t suggest that she was trying too hard.

  After Emily was dressed, she put on her favourite song and listened to it three times in a row. That was usually guaranteed to put her in a good mood. She was trying to psych herself into caring. But it was hopeless. With twenty minutes remaining before they were supposed to arrive, Emily went downstairs to have a yogurt.

  Her parents had gone to a music recital at the college. Her little brother had a friend over, and they were playing some kind of annoying video game that involved a lot of screaming.

  The mail was on the counter. It was always just a bunch of bills, so she ignored it except when a good catalogue showed up. And this batch of stuff looked unremarkable.

  Emily got a spoon and then went to the refrigerator and took out a peach yogurt. She looked at the clock. Eleven more minutes before they’d arrive. The book she was reading was upstairs. Jared and the annoying friend had the big TV monopolised.

  So she picked up the stack of mail. On top was the PennySaver with ads for dog groomers and estate agents. She flipped it over and froze, saying out loud, ‘Oh my God . . .’

  There he was. In two pictures.

  One looking just like she’d seen him, scruffy, vulnerable, like he had some kind of secret. And in the other photo he was all cleaned up. And he looked amazing. Under his pictures were the words, Sam Smith, Before and After. Superior Cuts! We Make Change Happen!

  ‘Sam Smith.’ He had a name.

  And then the doorbell rang.

  Emily had the picture in her purse. It took all the willpower she had to keep from taking it out and looking at it as they drove away from the house.

  She could tell that Bobby Ellis was watching not just the road but her. Rory and Nora were in the back. They sat so close that Nora may as well have been on his lap. Nora was giggling about something and generally acting in a way that Emily had never seen before.

  Up front, the radio was on. Thank God. She thought it made talking to Bobby Ellis impossible.

  Wrong.

  She suddenly heard, ‘So what do you have on tap for the weekend?’

  Emily’s mind was still reeling from the photograph and her discovery. She’d lost her ability to concentrate. Or at least her ability to concentrate on anything other than the Superior Cuts advertisement and Sam Smith. She did her best to ignore Bobby’s question and pretended to closely check something on her left index fingernail. And then she heard, ‘You got anything exciting going on?’

  Emily felt herself tense. Didn’t he know that his eyes should be on the road? What if he wasn’t paying attention, and they got in an accident? Then she’d never be able to find Sam Smith. A small voice came out of her body. ‘I’m just hanging out.’

  Hopefully that would put an end to it. She turned back into her own world. Sam Smith. Before. After. Superior Cuts.

  ‘Sounds good. People don’t appreciate how important it is to do nothing. My dad and I are going fishing up at Blue Lake tomorrow.’

  He was talking again. She continued looking straight out the window. She just couldn’t do this right now. Would it be wrong to turn up the radio? She couldn’t bring herself to do it.

  The awkward silence was broken from the back seat when Nora chirped, ‘Emily likes fishing.’

  Emily turned around to look at the traitor. She scrunched up her face. ‘I do not.’

  Nora looked confused. ‘Yeah you do. You go all the time with your grandma.’

  Emily exhaled through her nose. Why was Nora selling her as some kind of fisherman? She and Bobby Ellis did not have common interests. And why was the conversation spreading to include the back seat?

  ‘I like canoes. That’s different. And I like hanging out with my grandma. I don’t like killing fish. At all.’

  The last two words were delivered with such intensity that now even Rory was paying attention. He sort of snorted and said, ‘Whoa, girl.’

  In the front seat, Bobby leaned forward and turned up the volume on the radio. Conversation was now impossible. Emily was both grateful and humiliated.

  Walking towards the multiplex, Nora and Rory held hands. Bobby and Emily trailed behind them, but Bobby kept his distance. After they got tickets, Nora told the boys that she and Emily needed to go to the bathroom. Once the girls disappeared behind the swinging door, Bobby looked at his friend. ‘Dude, she hates me.’

  Rory sort of laughed. ‘Yeah. Seems like it.’

  Bobby leaned against the wall. ‘The weird part is, she’s always been so easy to talk to. That’s what I liked about her. She’s always seemed so interested. She wasn’t one of those mean girls.’

  Rory shrugged. ‘I guess you don’t bring out the best in her.’

  Bobby half smiled. ‘Guess not.’

  Inside the bathroom, Nora turned on her friend. ‘What is wrong
with you?!’

  Emily opened up her purse and pulled out the PennySaver flyer. She handed it to Nora. ‘There. It’s him. Mr Last Row.’

  It was bright in the bathroom, and other people were going in and out of the stalls. A few of them didn’t hide the fact that they glanced over at the flyer. Nora looked down at the paper, confused. ‘He’s a male model?’

  Emily pulled the flyer back. ‘If he was a model, what would he be doing at Superior Cuts? He got a haircut. They do before and after pictures.’

  Nora brushed it aside. ‘Well, he looks like a model.’ The tone of Nora’s voice made it clear that this was a very bad thing. And then she continued, ‘Emily, you are here with Bobby, not with some guy you don’t know who does advertising for Superior Cuts —’

  Emily interrupted. ‘I don’t think they pay you for —’

  Nora continued, ‘You’ve got to turn it around. Right here. Right now. You’re embarrassing.’

  Emily stared at her friend. Nora looked like she was shaking. Emily glanced back down at the flyer. She suddenly felt foolish. ‘I’m kinda in shock. I mean, I only saw the picture when you guys showed up. And I didn’t know his name. And now . . .’ Her voice trailed off.

  Nora’s voice was still hard. ‘You still don’t know anything. So get over it.’

  Emily folded up the flyer and put it back in her bag. ‘I’m sorry.’

  Nora started for the door. ‘Tell Bobby that, not me.’

  Emily apologised once they’d taken their seats. She smiled at Bobby three times during the previews and tried hard to just relax.

  The movie was about a crazy killer who wore a clown/nun costume, and a few times she found herself involuntarily gasping at some act of unspeakable violence. Once she even turned her head suddenly to look away and somehow ended up deep in Bobby Ellis’s armpit.

  And he seemed to like that.

  By the time it was over, Emily was too worn-out to be agitated. As they walked to the new SUV, Rory suggested they go get pancakes.

  The International House of Pancakes was all the way across town on River Road. It was close to the freeway and far from the university, in the neighbourhood with the car mechanics and discount tile and carpet places. Whenever Emily thought of River Road, she could picture the sign that said Low-Cost Cremation, which hung on the cement building a block from the animal shelter where they got their dog.

  She was dying to just go home, but she tried to be enthusiastic and agreed that pancakes sounded really good. So what if IHOP was a fifteen-minute drive?

  The group found a booth at the restaurant in the back next to the windows. Nora was being nice to her again, and Bobby Ellis was in the middle of telling a story about someone throwing firecrackers at crows.

  Emily was happy that he seemed to be on the side of the crows, but she was only hearing half of what he said. She stared out the dark glass and silently wondered if the waitress could bring her crêpes with the lingonberry butter and the bill at the same time.

  And then two figures passed by outside on the sidewalk. One was short with a shaved head. He carried something the size of a phone book. The other was tall. Even looking out a tinted window, half a block away, in the dark, she knew.

  Emily slid right out of the booth and got to her feet. ‘I’ll be right back.’

  Nora started to scoot out to follow. ‘I drank too much Diet Coke. I’ll come with.’

  But Emily was already moving down the aisle. And she was heading in the direction away from the bathrooms.

  Nora called after her, ‘Hey, Emily . . .’

  But she didn’t turn around.

  Outside, it had just started to rain. Emily angled past a middle-aged couple trying to open a broken umbrella and found herself in the parking lot. She looked down the street. They were in the distance now.

  He was getting away.

  Inside the restaurant, it was silent at the table as a waitress delivered their order.

  Bobby Ellis took a bite of his pancakes. Rory poured half the container of syrup over his waffles. Nora scooped off some of the whipped cream from her crêpes. More silence.

  Then Bobby Ellis turned his head, and out the window he saw Emily run by on the rainy sidewalk. He looked back across the table at his friends, saying, ‘She hates me.’

  At the corner, the two brothers started across the street. A city bus was approaching. Were they going to get on it? She had to stop him. Running hard now, Emily shouted, ‘Sam!’

  He turned. And he saw her. And he stopped.

  The rain was coming down for real now, and in a few seconds she found herself in the middle of the street, standing across from him. Emily opened her mouth, and all that came out was, ‘I . . .’

  That was it. Nothing else. Just I.

  His eyes were locked with hers. He finally said, ‘You . . .’

  Apparently, she thought, they could only speak to each other one syllable at a time.

  The younger boy next to Sam tucked his phone book farther inside his shirt to keep it from getting wet. He was looking at the ground. Sam glanced at him, his eyes reassuring, and his hand went to the younger boy’s side and he lightly touched his arm.

  When he turned back to Emily, she opened her mouth again and said the most heartfelt thing she’d ever remembered saying to a boy. ‘I . . . I . . . I’ve been looking for you.’

  He nodded and the expression on his face made it clear he completely understood.

  7

  Rory was now in the front seat. Bobby Ellis, of course, drove. Emily, soaking wet, sat silently in the back with Nora, who was completely ignoring her.

  After what seemed like forever, they pulled up in front of Emily’s house. The rain was still falling, but it was only a drizzle now, and the windshield wipers scraped at the glass. Emily managed to say, ‘Thank you. I’m sorry that I didn’t . . . that I was so . . .’

  Bobby turned around and looked at her. He wasn’t mad. If anything, he only seemed sort of intrigued. ‘No big deal, Emily.’

  Emily felt relieved. At her side, Nora wasn’t being as forgiving. She was now texting someone. In the front seat, Rory looked down at his phone. He’d just received a text.

  Emily addressed the whole car. ‘Goodnight.’

  She had the door open and was moving fast now. It sounded like more than one of them mumbled back ‘Goodnight.’ She couldn’t really be sure.

  Emily entered her house to find her mother standing on the hooked rug in the entryway doing her best to not look like she couldn’t fall asleep until her kid was home. Her mom gave her a tired smile. ‘How’d everything go?’

  Emily meant it when she said, ‘Tonight changed my life.’

  And then she headed up the stairs.

  They had made a plan.

  She was going to meet him the next night in front of the restaurant with the blue roof at seven o’clock. Sam could tell time. But it meant nothing to him. He didn’t have a watch. He didn’t have a cell phone or a computer or anything that even displayed time. The clock on the dashboard of the truck had been broken for years and Clarence liked it that way.

  Time for Sam was about the position of the sun. It was about feeling hunger in his stomach. It was about the temperature just after dawn. Time wasn’t measured in minutes or even hours. It had a rhythm that had to do with days and seasons, animals and insects, flowers and plants.

  Time was measured by the number of pages of drawings in Riddle’s phone books. It was seen in Sam’s jeans that were short since he’d grown another three inches. Very little in his life had been predigested and explained.

  Now, staring up at the ceiling at a brown water spot that looked like a cowboy boot, he was worried.

  Sam pushed those thoughts away and went back to thinking about the girl. She’d just appeared on the street. She’d called out his name. She knew him. No one knew him.

  She told him that her name was Emily. Emily Bell.

  He could see Emily now, soaking wet, standing on the sidewalk. Because
of her, he now had to organise a plan.

  He would do laundry tomorrow. He’d gather up stuff and take it down to the Clean Quarter. Riddle liked laundromats. A room of working machines was his idea of heaven. Yes, they’d go to the Clean Quarter.

  He hadn’t been there in about a month. It was amazing how many days in a row you could wear something before it just grossed you out. Maybe he’d throw in the two grey towels in the bathroom and wash them, too.

  He guessed they might not just meet in front of the restaurant with the blue roof, but maybe she’d want to go inside. And then they might get something to eat. He’d only been in a place that nice on a rare, rare occasion, and that was really only to use the bathroom.

  So he’d need to have some money. He wasn’t sure how much. He’d better go to the dump early and help people unload stuff. He couldn’t risk not being able to pay for something.

  All of a sudden, everything was getting so complicated.

  Emily wondered if he drove.

  Since he was on foot late at night, she decided he didn’t yet have his license. She could walk to IHOP, but she’d have to leave about two hours early.

  Emily suddenly wished that they’d picked someplace closer. But what she really wished was that they’d exchanged cell phone numbers and email addresses and regular addresses.

  Because at this point, she couldn’t call him or even find him online to change the plan.

  She could ride her bike out there, but then she’d be stuck with it. And she didn’t have a way to tell him to ride there to meet her.

  She hoped he liked mountain bikes. She loved going up into the hills and riding down on the different trails that ran along the stream. It was rocky and the paths were full of turns and you had to be in a crouch, half standing, gripping the handlebars like your life depended on it. Because it sort of did. At least the way she rode anyway.

  She figured he wasn’t someone who sat inside playing video games at all hours, because he looked weathered, and those kinds of kids looked pale and sort of fidgety.