I nudged Morgan. “She sounds good!” I whispered.
Morgan shook her head, like I was an idiot. “She’s in shock, Keeley.”
Then Emma leaned close to the phone and asked, “When are you coming back?”
The silence crackled between us, and I was about to repeat the question when Elise broke apart. Between heaving sobs, she managed to say, “I’m not sure if we are. We don’t really have anything to come back to.”
• • •
Morgan and I hit the bathroom together. I wanted to talk about Elise, maybe call her again now that it was just Morgan and me, but there were a bunch of women already in there. One was old, like a grandmother’s age, the other two were younger than my mom. They had one of the windows cracked and raindrops were spraying the floor at their feet. The women blew the smoke from their lit cigarettes into the night.
It dawned on me that they probably went to our high school years ago.
Morgan and I quietly set up at the sink with our toothbrushes.
The older woman kept touching the back of her hair gently. “Governor Ward is planning to do something big. Why else would he be coming here tomorrow to make an announcement?”
The other two silently considered this as they puffed.
And then the one with long brown hair said, “Funny that he didn’t come once during his campaign, but now he wants a photo op.”
The third woman rolled the tip of her cigarette along the wall, clearing the glowing tip of ash. “Some photo op. Look at this school. Practically falling down. Ridgewood gets all the funding, they have a damn television studio in that high school, and meanwhile our kids get the old computers they were going to throw out.” She peeled a piece of cracked paint off the wall and tossed it carelessly onto the floor, where it shattered into tinier pieces, like glass. I glanced over at Morgan, but she kept her eyes on the sink. “We’re even worse than the schools in the city, and that’s saying something.”
The older woman nodded. “It’s the land that’s worth something to them, controlling the river. They’re going to try and squeeze us out.” Then she gestured at me and said, “Ask Jim Hewitt. He’ll tell you. He’s the one that just tricked Sheriff Hamrick into admitting that the governor is coming to address us personally in the morning. Why would they be keeping secrets like that from us if there weren’t something shady going on?”
I quick spit into the sink and dried off my toothbrush, even though I’d only brushed my bottom teeth. “I’m going to check in on my parents.” I was already pushing open the bathroom door.
“I’m just going to wash my face and I’ll be right there!” Morgan called after me.
I walked quickly over to our cots in the gym. My mom was asleep, her laptop open on her chest, light glowing on her face. Mrs. Dorsey was next to her, awake, with a book open. But she wasn’t looking at the pages. She was watching my dad.
He was over by the coffee table talking to some people. He was pointing his finger through the air. I thought he was just doing that to illustrate a point, but then I realized he was looking right at Sheriff Hamrick. The sheriff had his arms folded, and he was a few feet away from Dad, so they weren’t having a conversation. It was clear my dad was openly talking shit about him. And Sheriff Hamrick was not happy about it. Levi stood next to him and glared at me the same way his dad was glaring at my dad.
I spun around and bumped right into Jesse Ford. He was holding two Styrofoam cups, and both sloshed about half their liquid onto his sneakers.
“I’m so sorry!”
Jesse peered into the cups. He poured one into the other to make it full and slid that cup into the empty. “No, it’s cool. I was just complaining that I wasn’t wet enough.”
I laughed too hard. Jesse gave a tight-lipped smile and tried to step around me, but someone was walking past us and made it so he couldn’t. “I can get you another drink and bring it to your cot.”
“No big deal. Don’t worry about it.”
“I . . . I’m sorry,” I repeated, that time for what I’d said to him at the dance, or whatever it was that had suddenly put the chill on us.
Again, Jesse looked as if he was going to walk away, but then seemed to decide against it. Maybe because I looked so desperate. Whatever the reason, he leaned down close to me and whispered, “Cots are for suckers anyway. I scored a cave.”
“A cave?”
Jesse pointed to a blanket draped over the space between two chest-high stacks of gym mats. Light glowed out from the seams. He nudged his chin toward it. I tentatively walked over and peeled back the blanket. Julia was asleep inside, curled up on a gym mat. Jesse had his laptop open on the floor, facing her. I knew it must be his, because he had a soccer ball sticker on it.
“It took her twenty-three videos of pigs cuddling with other animals before she fell asleep,” he whispered.
“Is that all?” I whispered back. “Amateur.”
Jesse laughed. It felt good to make him laugh again. I knelt down, unzipped my book bag, and handed him the Mad Libs. “This is for when Julia wakes up. Or when your battery runs out. Whichever comes first.”
He looked surprised. Genuinely surprised and also a little embarrassed. He mumbled, “Thanks. That’s really cool of you.” Then Julia twisted, groaned. We both held our breath as she settled back down, her breathing turning heavy again.
I couldn’t tell if I’d just managed to fix whatever was broken or not. I don’t think Jesse knew either. But before either of us said anything more, Dad shouted out, “Keeley!” He was walking away from the people, toward my mom and Mrs. Dorsey. “We’re going home.”
His words seemed to echo throughout the gym. A lot of people were asleep, but the ones who were still awake lifted their heads and turned to see what was going on.
“Holy shit,” Jesse said. “Is that your dad?”
I didn’t answer him. I was hustling over. Mom sat up. She’d been asleep. “Jim, what . . .”
Mrs. Dorsey said, “Come on, Jim. Just relax.”
If Dad heard Mrs. Dorsey, he didn’t show it. He handed me my raincoat.
Sheriff Hamrick came up. A few of the other officers were behind him. “Jim, put your things down.”
“I know my rights,” Dad said.
“This is a mandatory evacuation,” one of the other officers said, puffing up and stepping forward.
Dad wasn’t intimidated. He stayed focused on putting his laptop back into the Viola’s plastic bag and calmly said, “Just because it’s mandatory doesn’t mean you can forcibly detain me here. That’s the law.”
Sheriff Hamrick put his hand up to settle his officer. To my dad, he pleaded, “It’s just a couple more hours. You’ll be allowed back by morning.”
Dad folded his arms. “I don’t trust that you’re being honest with me, or with anyone in this gym for that matter.” I didn’t know what trusting them had to do with anything. It wasn’t like the flood was some elaborate fake-out. My friend’s home was gone. This was clearly, undeniably real. “Tell you what. I’ll put my things down if you answer this honestly. Does the governor coming here tomorrow have anything to do with those surveyors that were down by the river, taking measurements earlier this spring?”
I vaguely remembered my dad being worked up about that. He’d brought it up at a town meeting. Mom usually took Dad to them, but that time I was allowed to do the driving with my brand-new learner’s permit. I sat in the back row, doing my homework. Dad wanted to know who they were and what they were up to, but no one had much of an answer for him. Honestly, I was barely listening, it was all so boring.
I swear, you could have knocked Sheriff Hamrick over with a feather. He looked at my father for a few seconds, blinking, and red tinged his cheeks. “Jim, come on. Be reasonable.”
“That’s what I thought,” Dad said. He turned to Mom and said, softly, “Okay, Jill?” When she didn’t answer, he reached out his hand to her. “You know I would never put you or Keeley in danger.” His eyes were big and bright.
>
“I know that,” Mom said.
And I knew it too. But still . . .
Mrs. Dorsey let out an uncomfortable laugh. “Jill! Please talk some sense into him!”
Mom shrugged. “Keep your phone on, Annie.” To me, she said, “Kee, get your things.”
Morgan appeared just then, her face pink and freshly washed. “What’s happening?”
“Umm, I think we’re leaving.” It came out sounding like a joke, but it clearly wasn’t because Dad was already walking across the gym, his head held high, the tip of his cane tapping the hardwood floor.
Morgan was aghast. She looked at her mom, but Mrs. Dorsey had sat back down on her cot, making the metal springs squeak.
Following Mom, I walked past Jesse, who watched me with his mouth hanging open. I gave him a little wave good-bye.
Levi Hamrick peeled off from the other officers and hustled over to the gym doors. My gut squeezed, wondering if he was going to try and stop us, even though the other officers weren’t. He beat us to the door but he just stood there, watching, as Dad pulled it open. I even waited for him to say my name again, like he had in the hallway at Spring Formal, but he just looked down at his shoes as my family stepped into the rain.
I shrugged off my book bag and balanced it on my head as the water climbed higher and higher up my legs. Each step forward was slick and muddy, and I couldn’t see where my feet were landing. It was significantly deeper than it had been when we first arrived at the gym. And it was still pouring. A few times I nearly bit it going over the curb or one of those slabs of concrete that mark a parking space. Still, I tried to be quick about it because . . . we were on the run.
Dad stopped when he reached the boats tethered to the school’s bike rack. Neighbors had brought their own rowboats, dinghies, and kayaks. But Dad chose to untie one of the police boats, a long canoe, and he guided it away from the others.
“We’re stealing a police boat?”
He tipped the canoe on its side to drain the water that had collected in the well. “Borrowing. We’re borrowing it.”
Mom scrambled into the canoe and carefully sat down on the wooden plank seat at the very front, in the hopes of steadying it. “Here,” she said, “pass me your bag.” I did, then climbed in after her and took the plank in the middle. My leggings were caked with grit, my sneakers, too.
Dad tossed in his cane. Mom reached out to help him, but he climbed into the boat on his own—a little too eagerly, considering his physical state—and nearly tipped us over. He had to sit with one leg stretched out, as stiff as the paddle next to him. After the wobbles settled, Dad untied the rope and began to use the paddle like the pole of an Italian gondolier, plunging it into the parking lot lake until it hit pavement, and then leaning against it to drive us out into even deeper water.
He was already soaked.
I craned my neck to see past him to the gym doors. I figured any second the cops would find us with their flashlights in the misty dark and shout for us to stop. But they never did. Instead, my high school shrank farther and farther away, until I couldn’t see the building through the dark, just the glow from the parking lot lights through the rain. Those got smaller too, fuzzier, like stars.
By then my dad was paddling us down Main Street.
There were two distinct parts of Aberdeen—the valley and the hill—and the shape of our town always reminded me of a skateboard ramp. Most of the hill was still densely forested, from the tippy top until about three-quarters of the way down. That’s when you began to see a few houses pop up, linked by winding country roads.
But the majority of people in town lived in the valley, on a mile-long grid of residential streets that went from the bottom of the hill to the river. At the very center of the grid was Main Street, with its shops and stores and the movie theater. In all the years of flooding we’d had in Aberdeen, I never remembered the water reaching Main Street. But now Main Street looked like a stream.
Which meant at least half our town was flooded.
We paddled up to Main Street’s one traffic light, that red blinker, but the light was out. Dad stopped paddling for a second and let us drift. We all looked at the bright floodlights shining up through the trees on the hillside, likely set up by emergency workers near where the slide had taken place.
I wondered if that would be enough for Dad to turn the boat around and bring us back to the gym.
But no, he went back to paddling, puffing out air in thick blasts from his cheeks. Even in the dark, I could see his face was flushed.
“Jim, give me the paddle,” Mom pleaded. “I’ll take over for a while.”
Dad shook his head. I was about to offer too, but he drove the paddle into the water and pulled it through super-hard, pushing us forward even faster than before, as if to prove to us that he could do it just fine.
Mom couldn’t take her eyes off him, her lips slightly parted in surprise. I’m pretty sure I was making the same face. Here was the man we hadn’t seen for more than two years.
As we neared the north end of town, the water finally became shallower. When the bottom of our canoe scraped against the street, Dad tied it to a stop sign, saying the cops would have an easier time finding it that way.
There was at least another mile uphill until we reached our house.
It was still raining.
Halfway through the walk, and despite Mom’s pleas that she was managing fine on her own, Dad took her rolling suitcase and pulled it along with one hand, pushing himself forward with his cane in the other. His pace was crazy quick, determined, a man on a mission, and he led the way up our street about fifteen feet ahead of us, his cane tapping the road in an even, steady beat. Mom held her laptop bag underneath her rain jacket to make sure it didn’t get wet. I was soaked straight through to my shirt, my bra.
We didn’t walk through our front door until almost dawn. Dad promised to keep watch, but he said he didn’t think the water would reach us. We didn’t have power, but Dad set up his laptop and turned it on with what little battery juice he had left.
I went upstairs, peeled off my wet clothes, changed into a nightshirt, and went to the window of my bedroom. Usually, I could see down to the river. The view reminded me of a Christmas village, like the kind people set up under their trees, miniature houses with twinkling lights. But that night there was only darkness.
11
* * *
Monday, May 16
Partly cloudy in the afternoon, high of 49°F
* * *
With all that rain, I’d almost forgotten how warm the sun could feel. But I woke up that next day with rays shooting straight through my comforter, turning my white sheets a honeyed shade, like yellow cake batter baking in the oven.
I kicked the covers off and sat up, cross-legged, in my striped nightshirt. I used to have matching pajama pants that went with it, but they split open while I was doing an impression of the weird way that Wes fast-walked through the movie theater parking lot—exaggerated lunges and leg splits—the one time I went to the movies with them and we were late for the show. It honestly was more embarrassing than those weird old people who speed-walk through the mall for exercise. Morgan didn’t want to laugh at first. She actually seemed a little mad, but eventually she gave in, and I had her cracking up so hard she was in tears.
The sun was everywhere in my room. I clicked on my bedside lamp, just to see if we had power, and thankfully, we did. The combination made me so hopeful that things would be okay.
I returned to my window.
Our front lawn looked more like a bog, pools of water collecting wherever the ground sloped. Tree branches were splintered, snapped. But it was minor damage. At most, a day of yard work.
Down the hill, into the valley, was like nothing I’d ever seen before.
The river had poured into the first few streets, filling them up like little streams and tributaries, transforming the houses into islands. You couldn’t see any blacktop. Just water. It gave the neighborho
od a creepy, surreal look. The water cut everything in half and then doubled it, like a rippling fun house mirror. Houses with two roofs, trees with trunks that sprouted two sets of leaves, cars with two tops and no tires. When the wind picked up, everything shimmered, and it reminded me of the moment right before you wake up from a dream.
But it was no dream. Things were not good for a lot of people. The flooding had never, ever been this bad. Elise and her family had lost everything, and it hardly felt like the rest of town was much better off.
I patted around for my cell in the sheets, but it had fallen onto the carpet sometime during the night. The screen was full of missed calls and texts. One text was from Jesse, the other nine were from Morgan.
I sat on the edge of my bed and scrolled through Morgan’s in reverse order, newest to oldest.
OMG KEELEY CALL ME!!!!!
Can they even do this? Like, legally?
I think I’m going to puke.
This is so not right.
Okay. That did it.
I’m honestly five seconds away from crying.
Kee?
Wait up. Kee, are you hearing this?
Last chance for speaker phone.
Our old middle school crossing guard (remember him? Bert?) offered my mom his chair. So sweet! Too bad he’s eighty years old.
If you want, I can call you and hold the phone up so you can hear what’s happening.
The women in the bathroom had said some kind of presentation with the governor was supposed to go down this morning. And from Morgan’s texts, it was clearly not good news. Maybe the emergency order was extended and they were forcing people to stay in the gym. Or maybe they weren’t telling people which houses had been flooded, or worse, destroyed. Morgan and her mom lived about six blocks from the river. I hoped their home was safe.
I felt like the worst friend in the world as I dialed her number. My call went right to her voice mail without a single ring. I sent a text to her right after. Though I knew she was upset, I tried to keep things light until I knew more about what exactly was going on.
The Last Boy and Girl in the World Page 10
