If You're Reading This

by Trent Reedy

  “Oh, you know. No big deal. Best to forget about it.” I wouldn’t forget it, but I wished everyone else would.

  She rubbed her hand up and down my back. “But your shirt’s all stained.”

  The back rub felt good, but it didn’t feel right. I checked my watch. It was after two in the morning, September 22. I was sixteen years old.

  “It’s late,” I whispered to Laura. “I have to go.”

  She pouted. “Oooh, are you sure?”

  I stood up. “Thanks for a good time, everybody.” I waved as I headed out. “See you later.”

  A small chorus of “good nights” followed me up the slope toward the tracks. I let out a little sigh of relief when Laura waved and stayed sitting. For a moment, I was worried she’d follow me.

  Even though I was walking along flat railroad tracks, remembering the ups and downs of the night felt like a roller coaster. I stopped on the Runaway Bridge as a cool breeze blew through my hair. I smiled, looked at the stars, and whispered to myself, “Happy birthday.”

  “Congratulations.” Mom held up her glass of water in a toast. We were in the Brown Bottle restaurant in Iowa City. “How does it feel to be a driver?”

  “Pretty good,” I answered.

  “Was the test hard? Were you nervous?”

  “Not really. I mean, I guess I worried a little that they’d randomly pick me to go drive with the DOT lady.”

  Mom smiled. “Yeah, she didn’t look very pleasant.”

  “I think that’s a job requirement for working for the DOT. But the test was kind of easy. Stuff about road signs and right-of-way.”

  She pulled a small, wrapped box out of her purse and set it down in front of me. “Happy birthday,” she said.

  I held it up and smiled. “Okay if I open it?”

  “Yeah, come on. Hurry up.”

  I ripped off the paper, popped open the little box, and pulled out a black leather wallet. “Hey, thanks, Mom.” My family was never very big on presents, so this was pretty great.

  “The guy at the store said this has a fifteen-year guarantee. It was kind of pricey, but that little canvas kiddie wallet you’ve had forever is falling apart, and I figured you needed something to put your new license in. Go on, try it out.”

  I slipped my new driver’s license into a pocket with a little plastic window and showed it to Mom. She squeezed my hand. “Thanks. This is great,” I said.

  The waitress approached the table with our food. “Here you go, lunch-portion spaghetti.” She put Mom’s plate down. “And for you. Careful, that’s real hot.” She placed the small steak in front of me.

  After she’d gone, Mom closed her eyes as she took a bite of a meatball. “Wow,” she said. “That’s really good. I haven’t been here in a long time. The food’s still great.”

  “And the waitresses don’t wear plastic pig snouts.”

  Mom laughed. “That place is too much. But yes, it is nice to see normal waitresses.”

  “You’ve been here before?”

  “Oh, yes. Your dad and me used to come here once or twice a year, at least back when we were first dating. We ate here the night he asked me to marry him. He had flowers delivered and put on the table.” She smiled and little wrinkles creased the corners of her eyes. “One thing I loved about him. He was such a romantic.”

  Outside of D-Day, this was more than Mom ever talked about Dad. “Sounds like you two used to have a lot of fun together.”

  She held a bite of spaghetti twirled on her fork as she stared out the window. “We did. We really did. For a while.”

  I wanted to ask more about him, but I couldn’t rush her. “All those nights at Nature Spot …”

  Her attention snapped back to me. “What do you know about that?”

  “Nothing, really,” I started.

  “Because if kids are still going to Nature Spot, I want you to stay away from there.”

  I twisted my napkin in my lap. “Mom, no … I mean, yeah. I’ve heard people talking about the place, but it’s, like, exclusively for football guys. I’d never go there.”

  “Good.”

  We turned our attention to our lunches. I gnawed my steak. If I could help her recover her good mood, maybe she’d open up to talking. “So did Dad propose here in the restaurant?”

  A faint smile returned to Mom’s face. “No. We went for a walk down by the river. He said, ‘I want to spend the rest of my life with you.’ Then he went down on one knee, held out the ring, and asked me to marry him.”

  “Sounds cool, Mom.” Now. She had a smile on her face. Now was my chance. “Did Dad ever send any letters? Like from the war?”

  “Why would you —”

  “I’m just curious.”

  “Well, he did in the beginning. But things started to … Anyway. That was a long time ago.”

  I couldn’t quit now. “Did Dad have any good friends? I mean, before he shipped out to the war, were there guys he hung out with in town? Someone he trusted, maybe.”

  “What?” She shook her head. “I don’t know. Not really. He worked a lot. Why are you asking me so much about your dad lately? We were having a nice lunch. Let’s not spoil it, okay?”

  She’d put the topic away. Again. We didn’t talk about that, or much of anything else, for the rest of lunch.

  * * *

  With my brand-new license in my pocket, I should have been the one driving home. But Mom said it was best not to start driving in Iowa City traffic, so I sat in the passenger seat. I had a full stomach and nothing to do, so I blinked in the bright sunlight, trying to stay awake after my late night.

  Mom squeezed my forearm, and I jerked my head up and opened my eyes wide. “Listen, Mikey, I want to say sorry about blowing up at you last night. I should have known you were just working. I know you won’t leave me waiting up without calling again. You work so hard. You’re such a good boy. I need to learn to trust you more.”

  A spring that had long ago popped through the worn upholstery poked me in the thigh as I slid down lower in my seat.

  “I can’t believe you’re already sixteen with a license,” Mom said. “You’re growing up so fast. It seems like just yesterday that you were a little boy, tottering around the house on wobbly little legs, carrying Binky Bear. Whatever happened to Binky Bear? Do you still have him? You two were so cute together. I’d come into you and Mary’s room and hear you talking to him. ‘Binky Bear,’ you’d say …”

  I sat up and looked out my window while she went on, stuck in the past as usual. My movement made the stupid spring poke into me harder.

  “… Did you hear me?”

  “What? Sorry, I must have spaced out a little.”

  “I was trying to tell you that this is an intermediate license. You can have this license and drive unsupervised with certain limits, provided you have signed parental permission. I checked with the Department of Transportation. At any time, I can write a letter to them telling them I’ve changed my mind. Then your license is revoked.”

  I folded my arms over my chest. “Is this part of learning to trust me more?”

  “Think of it as your chance to prove to me that I can trust you.”

  I reached forward and cranked the heater down a quarter turn.

  “What are you doing?” Mom maxed out the heater again. “It’s cold.”

  I wiped the dampness above my lip and felt the sweat under my arms. In a strange way, her overprotectiveness made me feel better about sneaking out last night.

  * * *

  In the early afternoon, I rode up the hill to the farm. Until I could afford a car, Scrappy remained my only ride. I lurched forward and nearly racked myself on my seat when all resistance in the pedals gave way. The bike had thrown its chain again.

  I walked the rest of the way to the farm.

  “Chain trouble?” Derek called to me from the front yard where he stood next to the open door of the Falcon. He wore nicer jeans, a pair of good Nikes, and a decent sweatshirt, not his work clothes.
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  I threw the bike down in the grass by the windmill. He had washed and waxed the Falcon until it shined in the sun. It looked amazing, almost like new.

  Derek leaned into the cab and put a black-and-orange FOR SALE sign in the window. “What’s up?”

  “It’s my birthday,” I said. “Had lunch with Mom. Got my license.”

  “I thought your big day was coming up. Happy birthday!” He rubbed a rag on a spot on the Falcon’s hood. “You get any presents today?”

  I held up the wallet. “Something to keep my license in.”

  “Nice. A lot more grown-up.” Derek gestured to the truck. “What do you think?”

  “I can’t believe you’re selling the Falcon after all that work you put into it. Why?”

  He patted the panel by the pickup’s bed. “I had to fix it up or I’d never sell it.”

  “It looks great,” I said. “Wish I had enough money saved up. I’d buy it.” There was a little silence. “So, do you have work for me today?”

  “What?” Derek looked surprised. “Oh. Yeah, I did have something I needed you to do. But something just came up. Sorry about that. I would have called you before you rode all the way out here, but you were already gone before I knew about this business.”

  “Oh,” I said. That was weird. “Is everything okay?”

  “Oh yeah!” He laughed. “Everything’s fine, really. So, you say you’d be interested in buying the truck? I’d really like to get it off my hands. What will you give me for it?”

  “Yeah, right,” I said.

  Derek walked around to the front of the truck, keeping his gaze locked on the vehicle. “Come on, how much?”

  “I don’t have enough,” I said.

  “How much you got?”

  Why would he even bother asking me? This was stupid. “About five hundred fifty.”

  “I’ll take eight hundred.”

  “There you go, then,” I said. “I don’t have enough.”

  “You give me five-fifty next time you come to work, I’ll take twenty bucks a week from what you earn working here. You’ll have her paid for in about a year or so.”

  I looked at the sky-blue Falcon shining in the sun, a pickup with the cool old-style Chevy body and big new tires. If I said yes, could I really be driving home in my own vehicle, not riding that bike like a little kid? But it wasn’t right. “Just the improvements you’ve made to it in the last few months are worth more than eight hundred. I can’t pay so little.” I slowly let out a breath. “Sorry, I’m going to have to pass.”

  “It doesn’t matter what work I’ve done on the truck. If you don’t buy it, I won’t get much more than eight hundred anyway.”

  “Yeah, but you’d get more.”

  “Eight hundred is fine with me, really. Or, if you’re worried about paying it off, maybe I could go down to seven.”

  “Seven? No way. Derek, don’t rip yourself off on this.”

  “Would you just buy the thing!” He slapped the hood. I’d heard Derek swear before when he hit his thumb with a hammer or something, but he’d never shouted at me like this. “I want to sell you a truck. Would you let me sell you a truck? It’s a fair enough price, believe me. You’re sixteen. You’ve worked hard to earn a vehicle of your own so you don’t have to ride that bike. You’re gonna have to start thinking of yourself for once, Mike.”

  I didn’t move. I’m not sure I breathed. What could I do? Why was Derek so set on selling me the truck so cheap? Because he felt sorry for me?

  He pointed to the garage on the house. “The truck I drive now is getting old. I’m going to make it my farm truck and buy a new one or maybe a car for driving around. So I have to get rid of the Falcon, and it will take me forever to sell it, probably to some guy who won’t even take care of it. I’d rather you had it.”

  “Eight hundred?” I said. I could have my own vehicle.

  “Eight hundred,” Derek said. He held out his hand and we shook to seal the deal.

  He said he trusted me to bring the money when I came to work Monday after football practice. Then he signed over the title deed and explained insurance, license plates, and registration. I’d have to figure something out for the insurance, but I’d make it work. I put Scrappy in the bed of the pickup and climbed up on the bench seat behind the wheel of my truck.

  I strapped myself in and started the engine. The Falcon fired up, and I could feel the power of her engine vibrating through me. “Hey, thanks a lot,” I called out the window to Derek. “I really appreciate this.” I put the truck in gear and rolled out onto the road.

  Hardly able to believe I was free to drive around on my own, I hooked a right up Weigand Street and headed for the square. On my second lap around the square, Ethan emerged from Williams Hardware, carrying a small paper sack. I honked the horn and pulled into a diagonal parking spot in front of him.

  “What’s up?” Ethan said as he approached my window. “Where did you get this?”

  “I just bought her from Derek Harris. Got a great deal. What are you doing?”

  “Oh, man, my dad sent me to buy some more drywall screws. He’s finally finishing the back bedroom in the basement. Don’t know why he doesn’t get them himself since he can drive and all.”

  “Want a ride?”

  Ethan smiled and looked the truck over. “You sure it’s safe?”

  I laughed. “Shut up and get in before I change my mind.”

  He went around and climbed up in the passenger side. “Geez, this thing’s an antique.”

  “Beats walking,” I said, a little irritated.

  “No … I mean, yeah. It’s cool, though. We should take this baby out for a little bottle tag sometime.”

  I’d seen some of the guys playing bottle tag. They drove around with different teams in different cars, each trying to throw an empty soda bottle to hit the other group’s car. Whichever car got hit was “it.” “Yeah, that would be cool. Gabe has his license, right?”

  “He does,” said Ethan. He patted the seat. “Bench seat like this could be real handy for dates. You and Isma planning on taking advantage of this?”

  “Yeah, you know, especially since I just bought this today, I’ve never actually walked up to her and asked if she’d like to mess around in my truck.” I spoke in a jokey way, but the idea of parking with Isma had already occurred to me.

  “Well, like I said last night, it’s good that you’ve been cool lately, Mike,” Ethan said as I turned the Falcon onto his street.

  “Thanks, I think?”

  “I mean it’s good to see you getting out more, doing things, talking to people. For a while there you kind of vanished.”

  I knew exactly what he meant, and I smiled as I pulled over to drop him off. “Give me a call sometime. We’ll play bottle tag or go up to Iowa City. Catch a movie or something.”

  “Yeah, man. Cool.” Ethan shut the truck door and went up the path to his house.

  With the window down, the cool air blew through my hair as I drove off. I was sixteen. I had a license and my own truck. Anything could happen. Anything at all.

  After driving around town for a while, I went home to clean up, check the mail (not yet delivered), and change clothes. Then I drove to Isma’s house. It looked even nicer in the daylight, a newer brown house with a brick front and a chimney on the side. A big cement driveway led to a double-car garage. I pulled over and parked on the side of the road, accidentally bumping the curb a little with my tire.

  I leaned forward and checked my hair in the mirror. I made sure nothing was stuck in my teeth and my breath wasn’t nasty. I was wearing my jeans with no holes and I’d found a sweater in the back of my closet that I could still fit into if I kept pulling it down at the bottom. I didn’t want her parents thinking I was a slob.

  The path from the street to Isma’s front door probably measured about twenty feet, but the walk seemed like twenty miles. My mouth felt dry, and I licked my lips while wiping my palms on my jeans.

  “Relax,” I wh
ispered to myself as I pressed the doorbell button. “It’s just Isma.”

  The door flew open at once and Isma came out on the little cement porch. This was definitely not just Isma. She wore dark jeans and a gray V-neck shirt with a white shirt underneath that fit kind of close and showed off her figure a little. She leaned against the door frame and grinned at me for a moment, then she flung herself forward and hugged me. “I’m so glad you’re here,” she said.

  I looked past her through the open front door to see if her parents were watching. Nobody was there. Slipping my hands to her waist, I gently tried to push her back a little. “Um … Isma, maybe we shouldn’t … you know, right here.”

  She sprang back and checked the street as if someone in the neighborhood might see us. “You’re right.”

  “How do you like it?” I pointed to the Falcon.

  “That’s yours? You got a truck?”

  “Yeah, I just sort of bought it from Derek Harris, the guy I work for.”

  “I love it. It’s old and cool. You don’t see that color much.” Isma took my hand. “Come on.” She pulled me into the house, throwing the door shut behind us. My back hit the door as Isma pounced, kissing me deep with her soft hands on my cheeks. She felt good, and I gave in for a moment, closing my eyes and sliding my hands to the small of her back. Then my brain reactivated and I knew I had to push her away again before her parents caught us like this.

  Isma backed up first, but still leaned close. “Happy birthday.”

  The living room was empty, and I couldn’t see anyone in the dining room through the archway. “What if your mom and dad see us?” I whispered.

  She slipped her hands into her pockets and tilted her head in a sort of pout. “Nobody’s here,” she said.

  “Huh?”

  She laughed and took both my hands in hers. “Relax. My brother’s birthday was Tuesday. Usually the most my parents will do is a small party at home or maybe something at Riverside Roller Rink, but for months he begged to take some of his friends to Laser Tag Pizza Funland in Iowa City. They gave in, I think just to shut him up.”