by Sara Beitia
And second, he was planning on finally taking a swing at someone as soon as he had that bastard MacLennan’s face in front of him. When his knuckles connected with MacLennan’s nose and turned it to hamburger, it was going to be the sweetest moment of his life. He was too pissed to worry anymore about the exact reason why MacLennan thought he’d had to butt in. As long as he recovered Lily’s journal and smashed MacLennan one, Albert was going to be satisfied.
Then after that, Albert planned to go straight to the police station. He wouldn’t stop until he forced Lily’s journal into Andersen’s hands and it was officially evidence in the case.
When he was still standing in his bedroom, right after MacLennan had left, the first thing Albert experienced—after the initial shock of discovering the journal was gone—was blind and complete panic. It was all he could do not to scream once he was sure it was really gone.
He couldn’t wrap his mind around it: this guy he hardly knew showed up out of the blue and took the most important thing he had, but why? What did he think Albert was planning to do with the journal except turn it over to the cops? And how the hell had he known Albert had it? He couldn’t understand what MacLennan thought he was doing.
The only thing that was clear to Albert was that he had to confront MacLennan and he had to do it immediately. All that mattered was getting that book back and getting it to the cops. He cursed himself for losing Lily’s journal—no matter how it had happened—in the first place.
But he couldn’t get to MacLennan unless he could get out of the house first, and he couldn’t leave unless he could sneak past his parents. And though he was willing to find out if it came down to it, Albert was pretty sure his father was still strong enough to restrain him physically. So leaving by the front door when they were in the living room, or even by the kitchen door, since he had to pass through the living room to get to it, was out. That left the old standby, the bedroom window.
Pulling on a heavy sweatshirt, Albert crept out of his room and down the hall to check on his parents. He hung back far enough to stay hidden. He heard a laugh track from the TV and, over that, the sound of his parents’ voices. They were settled in, Albert decided, so he could make his exit and they wouldn’t know he’d gone. That was no guarantee they wouldn’t lift the silent treatment, come to his room to continue lecturing, and find him gone, but he could think about that later. Satisfied enough, he backtracked to his bedroom.
His mind racing, Albert opened a dresser drawer and scooped the contents into his arms. He lumped the pile of clothes under his bedcovers in what he hoped was the shape of his body. As he examined his work, he decided that stuffing his bed was kind of an obvious move, but this was the best he could do. He didn’t have time to make it perfect.
Albert turned off the light. Leaning, tense, against the windowsill, he took a deep breath, then flipped the lock on the window and lifted the sash, wincing at the squeaky groan the glass made. He stuck a leg through the opening and dropped to the ground, landing with a frosty crunch on the grass. Then he reached up and pulled the window closed behind him as quietly as he could.
Now Albert was hurrying away from his own house toward MacLennan’s, with a page ripped from the phone book in the pocket of his jeans. There were only two MacLennans listed, and only one of them in Little Solace. He couldn’t be sure that the address was the right one, or that MacLennan had actually gone home, but he was hopeful—if only because it seemed like it was about time he caught a break. His lungs ached from panting in cold air but he barely noticed, only enough to hope his mild asthma wouldn’t choose now to pop up.
The address from the phone book was on Holly Street, right next to the community college and probably at least a mile from Albert’s house, so he had some time to think as he half walked, half ran through the dark. His thoughts wavered between fantasizing about kicking Patrick MacLennan’s ass and worrying about what might go wrong when he got to Holly Street.
A couple blocks from his destination, Albert slowed from a run to a jog and from a jog to a walk. Now that he was nearly there, he wasn’t sure what he was actually going to do. His breath came out in harsh gusts, a ghostly vapor in the streetlight. It hit him—a dull, surprising blow like an elbow to the forehead—that he could have saved a lot of time and effort if he’d just taken an extra couple minutes to get his bicycle. It was frustrating to think that once again he’d screwed up by missing the most obvious thing. The realization didn’t do much for his belief that he might actually be able to help Lily instead of making everything worse.
The light snow had stopped. He left the street and stepped onto the uneven sidewalks of this older part of town. His mind grasped for a plan as he drew closer to MacLennan’s house. Shoving his hands into his pockets, he tried to walk as if he belonged on this street. He scanned the house numbers in the dark until he saw the one he wanted. Two doors away, he stooped down to tie his shoe, buying himself a moment to think. He couldn’t just stand out here and stare without drawing the attention of someone who belonged in this neighborhood and knew that he didn’t.
Finally Albert straightened up, having untied and tied the same shoelace a ridiculous number of times. He’d been in a major hurry to get here, but now he was stalled out before the actual confrontation. Just go, said the furious voice in his head. Go bang on the door until MacLennan comes out … tell him to give it back. Heart pumping hard, he held on to his anger, willing it to suffocate any fear he felt over the stand he was about to make.
MacLennan’s house was an old two-story, and even in the dark, from across the street, Albert could see that it was a run-down place with flaking paint and a seedy yard. The lights were off on the first floor even though it was early, and there was a mini-pickup in the driveway. Patrick MacLennan’s pickup, Albert was sure—he’d seen this same yellow truck with its teal racing stripe in the parking lot at school.
There was nothing to do but go up to the house and knock. And if that didn’t work, he would pound on the door until MacLennan came out.
Albert was not a naturally confrontational person. Most of the time he preferred to fade into the background, unnoticed. That’s just how he was built. But nothing in the past few days had been normal, so his stepping out of character—skipping school, breaking into someone’s house, sneaking out to face a thief—made a weird kind of sense. But he wasn’t thinking about any of that. He gave himself the distance between one side of the road and the other to get ready, no hesitation and no excuses allowed.
Just as Albert made it as far as MacLennan’s driveway, the front door opened and someone stepped outside. Instinctively, Albert ducked down behind the first big thing he found—the truck, just a few feet away. Inches from his face was MacLennan’s Gas, Grass, or Ass: Nobody Rides For Free bumper sticker. His first thought was a disgusted Do girls really go for that? followed immediately by the thought that in this town, they probably did. Most of the girls Albert saw seemed to go for athletic guys and pickup trucks; what was more, any guy in school who wasn’t like that—who was bookish, maybe, or didn’t go out for a team—was a fag. At least, that was the name Albert had been called a few times since his family moved here. MacLennan and his stupid bumper sticker were just a couple of the reasons why Albert hated this stupid town—reasons Lily hated it, too.
Hunkered down behind the tailgate of the pickup, Albert peered around the back tire, trying to see who was coming out of the house and which direction they were going. The figure was coming closer—right toward the truck, in fact—and Albert was able to make out Patrick MacLennan’s face. He was headed for the driver’s side door of the truck, and two thoughts ran through Albert’s head in an instant. First, that he had to confront the guy right now before he got away again; and second, if he didn’t move somewhere and quickly, he would likely be backed over.
But instead of getting into the truck, MacLennan just leaned against the door. His cell phone was against his ear. “I can’t,” he said in a low voice. “My parents think I�
��m in my room and if they hear me start my truck, they’ll be pissed.”
Albert strained to catch the words.
“Yeah, I got it.” Pause. “No, I don’t think he noticed. I gave him a story about homework.” Another pause, then, in an indignant voice, “Why would I want to read it? I’m not a freak like her boyfriend.”
Albert’s ears turned red as he listened to MacLennan talk about him, and he felt a fresh rush of anger.
“How many times do I have to tell you?” There was a soft metallic echo as MacLennan gave the side of his truck a frustrated thump. “I did what you asked, to help her. We’re even now, right? Like you promised?”
There was a pause and whoever was on the other end did all the talking. And loudly, Albert judged, from the way MacLennan shuffled and winced and held the phone away from his face. Finally MacLennan said, “Can’t you pick me up on the corner of—” He stopped. “Fine. I’ll meet you at … where? How about Federated Oil by the stockyards? I’ll see you in a few. But this is the last—” He stopped talking again and jammed his phone into his pocket with an angry grunt.
Albert just had time to roll away from the wheel and into the hedge along the driveway before the engine roared and MacLennan was backing down the driveway. No sooner had Albert pulled himself from the greenery than he was, once again, chasing Patrick MacLennan.
The railroad tracks were two blocks away from MacLennan’s house. Cutting away from the road, Albert made his way straight to the tracks themselves. By moving along them he could make good time, going straight through to where the trains ran by the stockyards across from Federated Oil. Albert’s lungs were exploding as he hurried over the uneven ground, focusing on the movement of his legs and not twisting his ankle.
By now he was past being surprised by anything that happened or that he was doing. In the span of one day, his understanding of Lily had changed and his perception of her had changed with it. So far, everything that had happened today had come on fast, and he hadn’t needed to process things, only to react to them. Like now. He had no idea of the time or how long he’d been gone, or what he planned to do when he got to Federated Oil except maybe wait and see which one of MacLennan’s stupid friends was waiting for him. He wasn’t even sure what day it was anymore … the way this one stretched on and on without ending seemed impossible for just one day. All Albert wanted was to get Lily’s journal back, and though he was exhausted and scared and confused, he promised himself that once he had the little book in his hands, he would go directly to the police station and stop for nothing.
Ten minutes after he began racing MacLennan to the gas station, Albert was almost there. He slowed his run and cut away from the train tracks and down toward the stockyards. A dirt lane cut between two giant pens of cattle, and, at the end of the lane just before the paved road that ran in front of the station, there was a windowless shed. Hunkered down low, Albert scuttled as best he could over the uneven ground, feeling ridiculously conspicuous. He was thankful, at least, that he was wearing dark jeans and a black sweatshirt.
He arrived at the little building with the crazy expectation of hearing angry shouts of recognition from MacLennan, but the only sound was the wind in the Russian olives along the ditch and the lowing of the cows in the stockyards.
The shingled outer wall of the shed was rough under Albert’s palms as he leaned against it, watching the gas station from the shadows. He could see MacLennan’s truck idling next to the gray cinderblock Federated Oil office, which was closed at this time of night. Albert couldn’t see anyone else in the parking lot.
Pressed against the wall, he watched MacLennan with a curiously light head and found he was holding his breath. The sense of “what next?” drew out as nothing happened—MacLennan just sat, unmoving, behind the wheel of his truck, his head down so far his chin seemed to be on his chest. No one showed up to share the stage. The air felt thick and hard to breathe, and Albert felt like the world was paused in this moment. The only proof of reality and time was the cattle, their shifting and bellowing making Albert think they knew he was there. Nothing more happened; the scene was frozen.
With a jolt, Albert realized that when something did begin to happen—when the other guy showed up and MacLennan was no longer alone in his truck—he would be too far away to hear what was happening. Too far away to act. What he planned to do, Albert didn’t exactly yet know, but he had no intention of letting Lily’s journal get any farther than it already had in MacLennan’s grubby, thieving hands. So he had to get closer, closer to the parking lot where MacLennan sat waiting.
And with his heart in his throat, terrified of getting caught, terrified of missing something, terrified of failing Lily, Albert bent low again and left the company and smell of the cows and the cover of the building.
Glancing in all directions, he quickly backtracked up the dirt road to the shallow ditch that ran behind the stockyards, then made his way toward the road. When the ditch narrowed into a culvert, he scuttled out of its groove and farther away from Federated Oil, up the dark hill below the highway and away from the floodlights that were lighting the pumps and casting the tanks and the parking lot into half-light. Albert darted across the road and into the darkness of the scrub that choked the large, triangular slope between the gas station below and the highway above.
Hoping his rustling in the weeds wasn’t loud enough to draw attention, Albert circled closer to his target destination: a vantage point near MacLennan’s truck on the other side of the parking lot. As he struggled to find his way quietly in the darkness of the parking lot’s outer edges, he saw the appeal of the Federated Oil station as a meeting place. It was on the other side of the freeway, down the hill in a quiet little spot. The station mainly served truckers who all seemed to pay with gas cards, so there was usually no one around at night except the cattle in the stockyards across the street. It was a quiet, private place.
Albert decided to hunker down behind the dumpster, along the back side of the gas station, because it put him just a few feet away from MacLennan’s truck. Crouched on the ground against a big blue trash bin, Albert could hear the radio in MacLennan’s truck very clearly. He hoped that the sound of voices would carry half as well.
He also hoped he would know what to do and when to do it. At this point, he was still winging it. The anger he’d been feeling had calmed to a hard, hot coal in his stomach, and Albert concentrated on bringing it back to full flame. He would need it for courage.
The sound of MacLennan singing tunelessly along with a new song on the radio was as clear as Albert could have hoped. He ignored the cold blacktop digging into his hands and knees and gazed up the long, weedy hill. There was a green, decaying smell that may have come from the dead, damp weeds or from the cattle feed, and with it was the manure smell of the feedlots and the sharp tinge of the dumpster beside him. The horizon at the top of the hill was a low, straight line, broken only by the silhouette of the old Odd Fellow’s Home and a dark sky with a few darker clouds. It was beautiful in a heartbreaking kind of way, Albert thought. It was the first time he’d found any view in this town worth appreciating, and it struck him what an odd time this was for that to happen. But the view and the silence sucked him in.
The tinny sound of the radio cut abruptly and Albert heard a car door open and shut, echoed by another car door opening and shutting. The sound of metal on metal hung in the air. He hadn’t heard another engine. He leaned as far back against the gas station wall as he could, trying to see between it and the dumpster, but the space was barely a slit and it was too dark to see. He crawled to the outer edge of his cover, wondering if he should risk a glance around the edge.
“I’ve been waiting forever, man,” he heard MacLennan grumble. His voice was coming from very close by and Albert hung back, staying completely out of sight. He heard MacLennan ask, “My parents are going to freak if they heard me leave. What took you so long?”
The person MacLennan had been waiting for ignored the question, demanding
instead, “Do you have it?”
At the sound of the voice, Albert felt like his chest would cave in. He didn’t need to see the speaker to know him. That voice belonged to Kogen.
“T hought you said you knew the way,” Albert gripes as Olivia brings them to an unsure halt. “Don’t tell me we’re lost.”
“I got us this far, didn’t I?” Olivia snaps back at him. “I just need make sure we’re on track. I’m pretty sure we are, but I want to be completely sure when we’re this close.”
Albert smacks his hand against his forehead but manages to hold his tongue. It’s hard to hold back with Olivia glaring up at him from under her thick fringe of bangs.
After he’d returned to where Olivia slept on the bus bench, Albert hadn’t known what to do. Seeing their faces on the laundromat TV had shocked him more than it should have. After all, what was so surprising about it? They were missing minors or fugitives or something, connected to the Lily Odilon story, so it was bound to make the news.
He’d sat next to Olivia, waiting for her to wake up so they could move on, and after a while his eyes had dropped and the next thing he’d known, it was maybe an hour before dawn. The sky had gotten light and it was bitterly cold and Albert was stiff from sleeping on a bench.
He’d shaken Olivia awake, and as they walked the cold and stiffness from their limbs, Albert filled Olivia in on what he’d seen through the laundromat window. She’d taken it with less surprise and more pessimism than he had, shrugging and saying little.
Now here they are, desperate to get through the last leg of their journey. Olivia leads them, since it’s on her memory alone that they will find the lakeside house where she and Lily spent so many summers of their childhood.
Neither of them speaks of what comes after that, or what they will do if Lily isn’t there or if she’s been forced to move on. Albert can’t stand to think of the possibility, much less say it out loud.
