Inside the bus, a strawberry air freshener scent was everywhere, and it was inconveniently dark as well.
“Excuse me!” I said after I stumbled on somebody’s foot. I turned my head back and glared at the driver who seemed not to notice the boarding passengers needed some light. There were few empty seats. I feared it might not be possible for Edward and me to sit together.
“There are two empty seats in the last row, Justin.”
At the back of the bus, instead of the strawberry scent, there floated this greasy and vinegary tang of hamburgers and French fries. A McDonald’s paper bag containing leftovers lay on the floor.
“It’s shocking the way some people just leave trash lying around,” Edward said in a curt whisper.
He picked up the bag and got off the bus to throw it into the proper recycle bin. When he came back, I’d already taken the window seat, leaving the one on the aisle for him. He sat, frowned and got up. I just stared at him bewildered and he shrugged. “It’s still warm. I hate that. I’ll wait ‘till it cools.”
It made me smile. Edward seemed to be so righteously fussy. Everything had to be perfect. He himself seemed to act exactly by the book, helping me after finding me sleeping on the sidewalk, standing alert when the officer had talked to him, and picking up the rubbish. Were all Boy Scouts that goody-two-shoes?
Minutes later, the driver called on the loudspeaker, “Sir, please take your seat, we’re leaving.”
Edward complied as the bus started to move. Large raindrops began trickling down the glass. The drizzling was turning into proper rain.
“Wanna sandwich?” He took one out of a paper bag.
“No, thanks.” I was not hungry and feared I’d puke again.
“Then try to sleep, you totally need it. You’ll feel better tomorrow morning.”
As the bus exited the parking yard, I kept peeking outside—I wanted to be sure the redheaded cop would not follow the bus. In spite of the street’s emptiness, the bus paused before taking Fulton Drive. A police car had parked in its way. The street was as dark as any other Somerset street—the town’s standard—but the car’s warning lights, flashing red and blue, allowed me to glimpse the redheaded cop and another one assisting old Mrs. Olsen in pink pajamas and hair-curlers to get out of the police car. She looked exactly as I’d seen her earlier tonight, which made me feel better. It would have felt so bad if I’d hurt her. The other officer struggled to protect her from the rain with an open umbrella.
Edward was peeking out of the window too, almost leaning on me. “That old lady is getting all soaked. My old man wouldn’t allow that to happen to any citizen. The officer holding the umbrella is an idiot. I wish I were back in Abbeville.”
Mrs. Olson looked up at the bus and I’d swear she stared at me through the window. My heart skipped a beat. It was the end of it. She’d just recognized me.
“She saw me!” I hastily pull down the shade.
Edward leaned back in his seat. “Who?”
“Mrs.—That old woman.”
“So what?” He shrugged.
All at once, the bus began to move and my cell phone purred. I flinched, but then I felt infinitely relieved. Jenny was back ahead of schedule. All my problems would be solved. God existed. I pulled the cell phone out of my shorts back pocket and looked at its screen.
It read: Laura.
Mom?
I didn’t know what to do. I thought she’d never call me again. Where was she, at Yago’s, or at her new boyfriend’s? Was she gonna tell me she’d pick me up tomorrow or rather tell me how to travel to wherever she was? I was not sure whether I wanted to live with her again until I knew more about this new boyfriend of hers. Who was he anyway? Another drunkard? Another addict? Another pervert or another guy who would beat her or try to rape me? I twisted toward Edward and stared at him like he had a reasonable answer. My cell phone rested on my open palm. He glanced at it.
“Is Laura that friend of yours who’s out of town?”
I answer nothing but kept staring at him. It would have been great had it been Jenny instead of Mom. I couldn’t decide whether to pick it up. The phone’s vibration massaged my palm.
“Aren’t you gonna answer?”
“Hello,” I said, picking it up. My heart beat a thousand miles per hour. Only silence could be heard at the other end. “Hello?”
More silence.
“Laura, is that you?”
Still more silence. Then, the connection went dead.
July 2, sometime before sunrise
The bus was as silent and dark as a graveyard. Everybody but the driver slept. It took a while for the engine’s hum to lull me, if it did at all. I couldn’t be sure if I slept or just plain lost my mind because I saw people who couldn’t be riding that bus.
My dead dad, for example. I saw him walking down to the restroom located across the aisle from Edward’s seat. I even called to him, “Dad,” but he didn’t pay any attention to me. He visited the restroom again sometime later. He didn’t look like an adult but like a teenager. However, I knew it was him. I wondered how old you remain after you’re dead.
Maybe you can take whichever age you prefer, and that’s why Dad looks now like a teenager.
Jenny was in my dreams too. My cell phone rang again and even though ‘Laura’ blinked on the screen, it was Jenny. At first, she didn’t answer. I shouted on the phone until she finally talked, only to tell me she’d be delayed forever. I cried, ‘No way!’ but she explained to me she’d gotten this new boyfriend, an Orlando guy, and that she was gonna move in with him. Jenny talked about Orlando and Disneyworld, about Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, and some other stuff, but I didn’t pay attention. I choked instead. I couldn’t breathe. My heart pounded so fast and loud, Jenny asked if a drum major was playing nearby.
I woke up with a start. Tons of sweat trickled down my face, like I’d been out in the rain, and my hands trembled like I was 80 years old.
It’d just been a dream—Jenny would never do that to me.
Next I saw my grandparents¬—my mother’s folks. Twice, I saw them leaving their seats and walking to the restroom. Prob was I couldn’t be sure if it was really them or somebody else because I barely remembered them. Once I saw their wedding picture—a yellowish copy Mom kept hidden in a drawer under her panties—but I couldn’t quite remember their faces.
I sighed and looked out the window, afraid of falling sleep again. We rushed along a black, empty highway. Occasionally, I’d glance at the lights of a lonely farm in the middle of nowhere. Only once another car crossed in the opposite direction.
Had my dad lived, my life would have been different. Why did he have to die? An accident, Mom said. An accident because he was drunk. Mom’s and Dad’s folks blamed it on her. They said she turned him into a drunkard and alienated her so we left Abbeville when I was four years old. At least that’s what Mom had told me once. I wondered if my grandparents had been right.
July 2, 8:23 am
When I awoke the next day, my stomach growled—I bordered on starvation. Some breakfast would be cool. Hunger was causing my temples to throb and I also had a headache. Maybe it wasn’t hunger but the heat because it boiled inside my jacket—the air conditioning seemed to be off. I found my cell phone inside its right pocket with the word ‘Laura’ still blinking on its screen.
I glanced to my right. A pair of legs in blue jeans rested in the neighboring seat, some long, long legs, wearing black sneakers like the ones I wore—I bet I looked like a clown in that oversized jacket with those Goofy-like shoes.
The blue jeans beside me matched a soccer team t-shirt, and the t-shirt was worn by a dark guy with faint stubble. He seemed to be all muscles. His Starbucks espresso brown eyes were staring at me. He said, “Morning. How you feeling?”
“Fine… I guess.”
“Feeling hungry? You only had some coffee last night. There’s one sandwich left, but we’ve run out of coffee.”
I smiled. Edward was permanently gent
le. “Yes, Eddy, thanks. I’m starving.”
He frowned and raised a finger just like Mr. Turner, my school master, would have done. “Let’s get this clear. I don’t like nicks. I never use them and don’t like being called nicks. I’m not Eddy, Ed, ‘Dward, Wardie, or some other nonsense. You’re Justin, and I’m Edward. Period.”
I lowered my head feeling like a jackass that had just hee-hawed. I’d just met the guy last night and had already pissed him off. “I’m sorry.”
Edward grinned and flashed his Colgate MaxFresh teeth. “Don’t worry about it. We’ve just met and you don’t know me. I’m not angry. I just wanted to make myself clear. My old man says only cons and their buddies use nicks.”
I felt embarrassed and didn’t want to face him, even though my face was half covered by my dark sunglasses. I turned. The window had steamed up. I wiped it with my sleeve and saw several factory buildings lined along the highway.
“Edward, what’s that?”
“What?” He leaned on me to gaze through the window. His aroma flooded my nostrils— the strong sweat and lime cologne combination I’d noticed since the previous evening. I closed my eyes and relished it. “Oh, that! It’s the old AMI, car manufacturing plant. Shut down 10 or 11 years ago. Big mess. Whole town lost their jobs. There even was a riot.”
A riot? A full revolution-scale uprising! The buildings looked like the ones in zombies-and-mutants-survival films: crashed windows, battered chain-link fences and gates, and burnt cars littered in the yards.
“Did it happen here? The riot, I mean.”
“Hell, no! Seems so, doesn’t it?” Edward still leaned on my leans, gazing outside through the window. Delighted by his aroma, I inhaled again, closing my eyes—butterflies fluttered inside my stomach. He must have realized what I’d just done because he sat up immediately and moved back to his seat. “Sorry, I must stink. Didn’t have time to shower after the game. I changed into clean clothes and threw the full cologne bottle on myself, but I bet I stink anyway.” He smelled his armpits, grimaced and laughed. Then he pointed at the buildings outside. “The plant manager lived in Magnolia Hall, the mansion of an old cotton plantation on the byway to Rock Mills. The union camped outside Magnolia Hall. They wanted to see the manager—everybody wanted their jobs back. On the third day, the manager and his wife fled in a chopper and the riot started. Half of the town broke into the property and raided the house; they almost set it afire. The police arrested over 300 people.”
Wow! I could imagine the mayhem: crazed zombies searching the place for humans to eat and babies to snack on.
“How do you know so much? Were you there?”
He smiled. “Hell no. My old man’s the sheriff. He was an officer back then. Got shot and almost lost a leg. He’s told me the story many times. Some buddies and I will go camping at Magnolia Hall today. Not inside the house, of course. It’s falling apart. Nobody’s allowed inside. But the place’s gotten a forest and a lake. They gave us permission to camp in the forest.”
Now it seemed we’ve just entered the city. Houses and streets passed by the window. Inside the bus, some passengers got up and took their bags down from the luggage rack.
“Do you guys camp a lot?”
“Totally. Like I told you last night, I’m an Eagle Scout. I’ll go camping with my patrol, the Wolves—four guys and me. We’re practicing for our troop’s big summer camp—a full three weeks out in August, but now it’ll only be five days.”
He rose from his seat and pulled his backpack down from the luggage rack. I pictured myself camping, fishing or swimming in a lake. So cool. “So, this place like, is it nearby?”
Edward threw himself back to his seat and placed the backpack on his lap. “Fifteen minutes by car, half an hour walking. Abraham Lincoln’s old man’s gonna drive us. It’s gonna be cool. People say the place’s haunted.”
It all sounded so cool. I wished to go with his group, however crazy. “I’ve never gone out camping, but I’d love to.”
“Really? Camping’s awesome.” Edward stood silent for a moment as if thinking about something. “If you wish, you can join our scout troop. I’d invite you to come along with us today, but I don’t believe you’re up for it. We’ll leave in 2 hours at half past 10.”
If he only knew he’d just invited a girl to go camping with a bunch of guys…
“Thanks, but I don’t even have the stuff. I mean a sleeping bag, a tent and that stuff.”
“Don’t worry ‘bout that. I can lend you a sleeping bag. Got several. You don’t need a tent either. We’ve two tents. We share them.”
“Where will you guys meet?”
“Right where we get off this bus.”
It would have been cool camping out with them, but it wasn’t gonna happen. It’s impossible for a girl to go camping with a bunch of guys no matter how tomboyish she might look.
Edward placed a hand on my shoulder and my stomach hardened. “I’m sure your gram will get you new clothes. If you need anything in the meantime, call me. I can lend you a coupla things. Coupla sizes big, though.”
I closed my eyes and nodded. Since Mom left, everything had been hard. At least this guy was being supportive, and he was sooo very hot.
July 2, 8:49 am
Edward and I got off the bus at the corner of Main Street and some dead president, Lincoln or Jefferson, or one of those guys. He led me almost to Abbeville’s outskirts, which was not far away—the town was barely a ten-blocks-square village. There stood grandma’s house: a small, white, single-story cottage, with a cute garden around it.
Edward checked his watch. “Got a lot of stuff to do and little time. But I can stay until you talk to your gram, if you wish.”
It’d be awesome if he would stay in case anything would go wrong. Chances were infinite. What would happen if my grandma was no longer living here or if she didn’t recognize me? After so many years, she could have forgotten she ever had a granddaughter. Edward could have been mistaken and that house might have belonged to somebody else. So, the best thing would have been if he waited, just in case.
On second thought, it was better if he left. When my grandma opened the door and I’d tell her who I was, Edward would discover I was not a boy. He’d ask many questions, and so would grandma. One too many freakin’ explanations at the same time, which would make me pull my hair out.
I shrugged and tried to fix a smile. “Don’t worry ‘bout me. What could ever go wrong? It’s not like she’s traveling abroad.”
“I don’t think so. Her car’s parked down there.” Edward pointed at a white Toyota. “She must be at home. Okay. See ya next week. I promise I’ll drop by.”
“But, how ‘bout your jacket and your sneakers?”
“No prob. Give them back to me later. Ask Granny to wash the jacket, deal?”
Jeez, of course! I’d almost forgotten last night. I’d became the fastest jacket-ravager in the Wild West, soiling Edward’s with coffee. Had it been my jacket, I’d hate myself. The temperature of my face started to rise. “Sorry for ruining your jacket.”
“You can’t be serious. It only needs a wash.” Edward extended his hand. “See you soon.”
I hesitated. Nobody would have guessed I was going to take a hot guy’s hand, even if it was only gonna be a handshake. This was totally new to me—hot guys never paid me any attention.
Note to self: Be honest, Alexandra. Nerds didn’t pay any attention to you either.
I shook his hand and he crushed mine like he’d done before. My face boiled over 1,000 degrees. Surely, I resembled a tomato and Edward had no clue what was going on. I immediately told myself I was not developing a crush on Edward. Not in this lifetime. I was Jenny’s girlfriend, period.
And yet… I wanted him to hold my hand forever and feel his warmth. My stomach hardened and then softened, then it started to tingle more and more the longer he kept shaking my hand. I was not used to guys being nice to me, so I couldn’t figure out how to behave.
“So…”
he said, “see you later.”
I realized I was the one not releasing him, not the other way around. I couldn’t talk. I knew I’d babble if I tried to because my tongue felt numb. Confusion dominated me. I hiccuped. Then I hiccuped again and then a third time. Edward burst into laughter.
“God!” I burst into laughter too and hiccuped a fourth time. This time louder. Edward couldn’t stop guffawing, and neither could I. The more I laughed, the more I hiccuped. My face radiated heat like a forest fire.
“Got to rush.”
“Sure.”
He winked me an eye, turned and walked down the street whistling a song. Somebody appeared at a window and called to him. He waved. A kid riding a bike passed by his side and shouted, “You’re back. Cool! Did you guys win?”
Edward waved to him. “Of course. Four to nothing!”
“Awesome!”
Edward disappeared some minutes later around a corner and I couldn’t stay any longer in the middle of the street like an idiot. Time to get hands on. I crossed the street and approached Grandma’s house. Knocking on her door should have been the easiest thing on earth to do, shouldn’t it? Well, it wasn’t. I couldn’t. My fist froze in midair, and my arm didn’t obey me. I gulped. I waited some seconds before raising my fist again. Once more, I couldn’t knock—unbelievable. I stamped a foot on the floor. It was so frustrating that I couldn’t figure out what on Earth was happening to me.
Correction, I actually did know Fear. Fear was happening to me: I feared my granny might not recognize me. I feared she might disapprove of my idea of living with her and would send me to a children’s home instead. I feared she was dead. She might have died years ago without anybody telling Mom. I feared somebody else might live in her house now. I gulped. I couldn’t give up to my fears. I had to do it.
I closed my eyes and knocked. “Granny! It’s me, Alexandra!” Nobody answered. I knocked harder. “Granny! Hello!”
Amber Eyes Page 7
