DEDICATION
In memory of our grandmothers:
Adele Pollard
Shirley Terrones
Mary Frances Greider
& Marion Mack Holloway
For raising the best people we know.
CONTENTS
Dedication
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Nine
Thirty
Thirty-One
Thirty-Two
Thirty-Three
Thirty-Four
Thirty-Five
Acknowledgments
Back Ad
About the Authors
Books by Julia Durango
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
ONE
WE’VE ALL HAD THAT ONE DREAM.
No, not the one where your teeth crumble and fall out of your head, and you desperately try to catch the shards of bicuspids, incisors, and shattered molars in your hands, to no avail.
Not the one where you can fly or where you wake up right before you hit the ground. Those are kind of exciting.
And no, not that one either. My head isn’t that far in the gutter.
I’m talking about the other one. The one where you’re suddenly in school wearing nothing but your underwear. Where the hell are your pants? And why the hell is no one noticing?
That dream.
I’ve had it regularly since kindergarten, and it’s never any fun. I don’t even wear underwear in real life. I mean, I don’t go commando—I wear boxer briefs, to be specific—but why am I always wearing the damn tightie-whities in that dream?
You know the only good part about that dream, though? It’s the enormous relief you feel when you wake up and consciousness washes over you like a warm, soothing wave. Even as you stumble into your mundane, everyday life filled with alarm clocks, midterms, and your crazy family—and my family’s crazier than most, believe me—at least you’re wearing pants.
But pants or no pants, those dreams were nothing compared to how bad my real life had been going.
It had been exactly forty-seven days since Mom had uprooted me and my little brother, Grub, from our lifelong home in Chicago and transplanted us a hundred miles west to the small town of Buffalo Falls, aka Nowhere, Illinois.
Seriously, it’s small. Like, one high school, two supermarkets, three burger joints, six churches, and eight bars small. Plus, one brand-spanking-new vegetarian café, owned and operated by none other than my mom, Coriander Gunderson. Free delivery all summer between eleven and two!
That’s right, after being the new kids at school one month before summer break, my eight-year-old brother and I had been tasked with the “free delivery” part of my mom’s new business venture. Mom insisted Grub needed “fresh air and new scenery” every day and would be a “good little helper.” Apparently, she’s a little hazy on child labor laws, workers’ rights, and occupational safety hazards.
Which is how, the second week of June, I happened to be pedaling across town on her old Schwinn bike with Grub standing on the foot pegs behind me. No waking up from that nightmare.
As always, Grub wore a plastic green army helmet, a camouflage vest over his T-shirt and shorts, and a Nerf bazooka strapped to his back. His little claws dug into my shoulders as I pedaled through town, making salad deliveries.
As we crossed the bridge over the Stone River to the south side of Buffalo Falls, some guy must have noticed our thirst, because he graciously offered us a blue Slurpee out the window of his convertible Jeep Wrangler.
By offered, I mean he winged it at us.
It splattered to our left, spraying cold, sticky sugar water all over our legs. He may have yelled “Losers!” out the window too, but I couldn’t hear him over the music playing through my earbuds.
“Fire in the hole!” yelled Grub, which I did hear since he was only two inches from my head.
My brother’s real name is Manuel (pronounced man-WELL, not MAN-you-el), but I’ve called him Grub as long as I can remember. I don’t know why. He’s always looked like a little grub, I guess. A little Puerto Rican–Norwegian grub.
That’s right, he’s a Puertowegian.
Never heard of a Puertowegian? No surprise. That’s probably because one hasn’t ever existed in the history of, well, ever. Except for my World War II–obsessed brother, Manuel Thor Gunderson.
If you think his name is bad, get a load of mine: Jesús Bjorn Gunderson (hey-ZOOS bee-YORN). I know what you’re thinking. Another Puertowegian, right?
Wrong.
I have the honor to be Mexiwegian. I think that sounds better than Norwexican. Yep, I’m half Mexican, half Norwegian, like a lutefisk taco. Apparently my mom has a thing for Latin men. Unlike Grub, though, all of my mom’s Norwegian features were downloaded into my DNA, so I look more Bjorn than Jesús.
But everyone calls me Zeus.
I’m pretty average looking, I guess. Brown hair, blue eyes, fair skin, 145 pounds. I’m trying to grow sideburns, but so far it looks more like someone glued random hair plugs to my face.
At the moment, though, I was bright red, trying to get the bike ride from hell over as quickly as possible. Grub and I recovered from the Slurpee grenade and made our way up the hill. The director of Hilltop Nursing Home had recently signed up for the 5-Day Deal. It was a coupon special my mom had come up with to attract business to her new shop, the World Peas Café. That day’s deal? Make Quinoa, Not War.
I told you my mom was terrible with names.
For the past few weeks, I’d mainly been delivering to downtown business owners, “downtown” referring to the little collection of buildings surrounding a shady park. The nursing home would be our first venture across the bridge to the south side of town.
Following my phone’s map app, we turned right at the next stoplight, then a left, then another right into a residential area. The tidy-looking homes on either side of the street provided a stark contrast to the ramshackle houses in our own neighborhood where we rented a ground-level apartment.
Hilltop Nursing Home finally appeared—you guessed it—at the top of the hill, and holy hell, it was huge. Buffalo Falls must have a surplus of old people. And the old-people business must be booming, because this place looked like Buckingham Palace. Not that I’d ever been there, but Jesus (JEE-zus).
A sea of lawn surrounded the castle-like structure.
“Drop-off point at nine o’clock!” Grub yelled in the best army voice an eight-year-old can muster.
You know how I mentioned Grub is obsessed with World War II? That’s putting it mildly. Not only had he spent the last few years having Nerf gun fights with his friends in our old Chicago neighborhood, but he could give you a detailed breakdown of the Battle of the Bulge and Operation Overlord. By the time he was seven, he’d checked out every volume on World War II history the Chicago Public Library had to offer. He was too young to read them cover to cover, of course, but he loved studying the pictures and maps.
I know, I know, what mother would allow her little boy to immerse himself in that kind of violence and bloodshed?
That would be our peace-loving, antiwar mom, Coriander Gunderson, who also doesn’t believe in “shielding her children from hard truths.” As long as Grub and I were reading and not staring at a screen, she gave us free rein among the library shelves.
I chained the bike to a bench, and Grub and I headed to the arched entryway of Hilltop Nursing Home. I carried the cardboard salad container—100 percent recycled material, mind you—while Grub dove and tumbled behind me, avoiding imaginary machine gun fire and mortar explosions.
The glass doors opened automatically as we approached, and a wave of nursing-home odor smacked me right in the olfactory receptors.
Now—disclaimer—I have nothing against old people. In fact, I hope to be one someday. But we all know that nursing-home odor. It’s like if you bottled up the smell of a hospital, added a splash of grade-school cafeteria, then threw in a little diarrhea, and tried to cover it up with Lysol.
Grub commando-crawled past me into the lobby. I heard someone playing the piano in the distance.
Grub ducked beneath a nearby reception desk, Nerf bazooka at the ready. “All clear, Sarge!” he shouted.
Do you know one good thing about nursing homes? Old people love little kids like they love their hard candies. That means it’s nearly impossible to be embarrassed by your little brother “playing army,” Grub’s favorite game.
I approached the lady at the reception desk.
“Hi, are you here to visit someone?” she asked.
“No, actually I’m making a delivery to . . .” I checked the receipt again. “Missy Stouffer.”
The woman glanced down at a day planner. “Ms. Stouffer is in a meeting right now, but if you’d like to have a seat in the common room, she’ll be with you shortly.” She pointed down the hall.
“Thanks,” I said, then turned to Grub. “Let’s move, Private.”
“Sir, yes, sir!” he shouted, barrel-rolling past me to clear the path of enemies.
As we made our way, the piano music got louder and louder. What was that song? It had an old-time, dreamy feel to it. It reminded me of the Beatles for some reason, but I couldn’t place it.
The hallway opened up into a large room, where a crowd of white-haired, wrinkly people sat in various armchairs and sofas around a black grand piano, nodding and tapping in time to the music.
As the final chords resonated through the room, the crowd burst into applause, and I glanced over at the piano player. I was expecting some old guy to be sitting there, but I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Instead, it was the girl who changed everything.
TWO
EVER GET CAUGHT STARING AT SOMEONE? IT’S STRANGE HOW FROM across a room, forty feet away, you can tell when you’ve made direct eye contact. How big is the pupil in the human eye anyway, a few millimeters? Isn’t it crazy that we can tell when someone else’s millimeter-sized dot of blackness is directly lined up with our own? I don’t know about you, but when this happens to me, I find the best approach is to suddenly jerk my vision a few degrees away, and act as if I’ve just seen the most interesting thing in the universe.
That’s exactly what I did when the piano girl looked up at me. I don’t know if it’s because I was caught by surprise, or if I had a mild Lysol high, but I completely panicked. First of all, she was smoking hot, and I mean that with all due respect and admiration. Shiny black hair. Dark eyes. Coppery skin. Dimples. Yellow sundress. A thin silver chain around her neck that made me realize just how inviting a collarbone could be. Second of all, she looked to be my age. Third, and possibly most important, whatever that song was, she’d played it like a pro, without any music in front of her. The melody still lingered in my brain, taunting me with its familiarity.
I stood there frozen in the middle of the hallway, salad in one hand, receipt in the other, and stared at a spot on the wall like the world’s lamest statue.
Thankfully, the moment was interrupted by the cackling of an old woman in the crowd. “Enough of this sappy shit, Cupcake! How ’bout some Tom Jones!”
I looked back over to Hot Piano Girl for a reaction and—get this—she smiled at me. My brain said, “Smile back,” but my gut said, “Look back at that spot on the wall.”
Hot Piano Girl then went into what must have been a song by Tom Jones, for Cackling Woman hopped up—pretty spryly, I might add—snapped her fingers over her head, and started singing: “Well she’s all you’d ever want, she’s the kind I like to flaunt and take to dinner . . .” Some of the neighboring residents sang along, while others slept through the performance. A man in the far corner rose from his wheelchair, put a hand over his heart, and in his best tenor started belting out, “O say can you seeeeee . . .”
I remained frozen in the hallway, in awe of the spectacle.
I dared to look back at Hot Piano Girl.
She smiled again.
I smiled back this time but screwed the whole thing up. Imagine school-photo day, when your smile doesn’t reach your eyes. I immediately wished I had thought of something cooler to do. Hot Piano Girl motioned toward the crowd with her head and raised her eyebrows in amusement. I still had the cheesy smile on my face, but I couldn’t take it off now, because she’d notice. So I continued smiling, and raised my eyebrows back at her, like a ventriloquist’s dummy.
Suddenly, I snapped out of my hypnotic state, remembering I had an eight-year-old I was responsible for. I hadn’t heard any battle cries since the Tom Jones song began, so I knew he must be hiding somewhere nearby.
“Grub?” I yelled.
Nothing.
“Private Grub, what’s your twenty?” I called again.
“Behind the tree, sir,” called his tiny voice from behind a potted plant.
“Copy that, carry on,” I replied, relieved I hadn’t lost him.
I looked back at Hot Piano Girl, who gave me the “d’awwww, that’s adorable” face. I’m pretty sure my own face turned a dark shade of maroon, but for the first time all day, I began to feel glad I had my weird brother with me.
The moment was cut short when a nurse wheeled a big skeleton of a man with a face like a bulldog around the corner. He looked like he was a hundred and fifty years old.
“Right behind you, soldier!” he shouted at Grub, whose plastic helmet peeked above the plant.
My brother paused for a moment, taking in the man’s gray sweatshirt adorned with military patches and medals.
“Were you in the army?” Grub asked from behind the plant.
“Damn straight I was. Sergeant John Porter, Fifty-Ninth Artillery Regiment, G Battery. Fort Hughes, Philippines, World War II.”
Grub’s eyes widened—he’d never met anyone who’d actually fought in World War II before. Grub must have recognized the insignia of a superior officer, because he immediately hopped out from behind the plant and stood at attention. “Heavy action there, sir?”
Sergeant Porter snorted. “Got our asses handed to us in Corregidor. What’s a little boy like you know about it?”
I took a step toward Grub at the man’s harsh words, but the nurse behind him smiled at us reassuringly. She put a gentle hand on the man’s shoulder. “Be nice, Blackjack. This little soldier’s just curious.”
The man eyeballed my brother for a moment and nodded. “At ease.”
Grub’s body relaxed. “I’ve read a lot of books, sir.”
“Well, believe you me, I’ve got stories that’s not in any books.”
“Okay, Blackjack,” the nurse said. “Time to say good-bye so we can listen to Rose.”
“Rose who?” Blackjack asked, turning toward the nurse.
“My daughter, Rose. We listen to her play the piano every day after lunch.”
“Right.” The man lifted his chin and looked at Grub. “Keep an eye out, soldier. I’m goin’ in.”
“I got you covered,” said Grub, repositioning himself behind the plant. He peeked out one last time. “Sir, would you tell me some of those stories sometime? The ones that aren’t in any books?”
Blackjack grinned. “You bet.”
I looked back to the girl named Rose playing piano, to find her watching me and laughing.
And wow, what a smile. I gave a stiff wave.
The place was really rocking now. A few of the female residents had coupled up to dance and were singing the repeating refrain: “She’s a lady . . . whoa, whoa, whoa, she’s a lady!”
Off in the corner, the national anthem met its climax as the tenor continued: “And the rockets’ red glare! The bombs bursting in air! Gave proof through the night, that our flag was still there.”
Then—and I couldn’t make this up if I tried—the girl named Rose perfectly segued from Tom Jones to Francis Scott Key with a couple of chord changes.
The tenor took his cue: “O say does that star-spangled banner yet waaaave . . . o’er the land of the freeee, and the home of the brave?”
“To victory!” Blackjack shouted, raising a fist and grinning over his shoulder at the potted plant.
Grub raised a small fist in response.
The room broke into applause just as a woman in a black pantsuit rushed into the common room, typing away on her cell phone.
“Enemy, twelve o’clock!” shouted Blackjack. “Prepare to fire!”
The woman shot a quick glare at Blackjack’s nurse.
Grub looked at Blackjack, then at me, as if he couldn’t believe a grown-up was playing army with him.
I shrugged. Hell, I didn’t know what was going on. My mind was still on the girl.
“Target locked,” confirmed Grub, followed by “BZSHOOO!” which, I imagine, was the sound of the bazooka firing.
“Watch your crossfire!” yelled Blackjack.
“Target missed! I repeat, target missed!” shouted Grub.
“Retreat!” yelled Blackjack, his voice fading as the nurse quickly ushered him out of the room.
The woman in black marched straight toward me, never looking away from her phone. She was striking, in a sort of a sharp-businesswoman way, her hair pulled back into a tight bun. She held out cash between her first and second fingers without ever looking up.
“Missy Stouffer?” I asked.
“Ms. Stouffer, yes.”
I checked the receipt. “Eight ninety-five.”
Here, There, Everywhere Page 1
