CHAPTER
TWENTY-THREE
It was dark, and I squinted when the headlights from an oncoming car flashed into the bus. We’d found a good place for a quick dinner that was only a few miles off the highway and were now just about ready to make our way back to that humming interstate. We were supposedly in Ohio, at least according to all the signs and maps. No offense to Ohio, but it’s one of those states where sometimes it’s kinda hard to tell whether you’re there or not. Rodeo was settling the bill and hitting the bathroom and the rest of us were hanging out in Yager, ready to get back on the road. Lester, bless his soul, was saddled up in the driver’s seat after telling Rodeo, “You know, I feel like driving for a while tonight.”
Salvador and I were sitting back on the couch, letting our stuffed bellies settle.
“So,” Salvador asked me, “I think you should give your answers now.”
“My answers to what?” I asked him.
“To the questions. The ones you asked us before you let us on.”
“Why should I answer those?”
“Well, we all did. You know our favorite books and places and sandwiches. And I don’t know yours.”
“All right, Mr. Salvador. Fine. Favorite sandwich is definitely a BLT. It ain’t fancy, but it’s perfect. If you put plenty of mayo on the bread and plenty of pepper on the tomatoes, it doesn’t get any better.”
Salvador curved a doubtful eyebrow at me.
“Okay. I mean, I’d throw away the lettuce and the tomato and just eat the bacon, but whatever.”
“Well, then, you’re an idiot, Salvador Vega. It’s the balance that makes it great.”
“I don’t want balance on a sandwich, weirdo. I want cheese.”
“You’re not allowed to argue with the answers. You asked me my favorite sandwich, not yours. Don’t mansplain my own sandwich to me. Or, boysplain, I guess.”
“What’s ‘mansplaining’?”
“Mansplaining is when a man explains something to a woman like she’s an idiot when really he’s the idiot. It’s a thing. I read about it in the Times.” Rodeo makes me read the New York Times front to back anytime we see it for sale, so I’m generally super informed about most of the important things going on in the world. It’s a blessing and a curse. There are a lot of awful things going on in the world.
“Fine,” Salvador conceded. “BLT it is.”
“Okay, best book is easy, too. The One and Only Ivan, hands down. Fantastic.”
“I haven’t read that one.”
“Well, then, you’re gonna. Nonnegotiable. I’ve got the book, I’ve got a reading light … You can start tonight.”
“Maybe. Now, last question.”
“Favorite place,” I mused, looking off into the night. Funny, as many times as we’d asked other folks that question over the years, I’d never really thought about my own answer to it.
Several places floated right to the top of my mind. Sampson Park, of course, the very place I was headed. Just picturing that place brought back all sorts of memories. Memories of laughter, of chasing, of seasons, of warm hands holding mine. But I couldn’t say that one. I couldn’t make my very favorite place be a place I hadn’t been to in five years, a place that was about to get bulldozed into oblivion. Too sad.
I thought of my grandma’s house, with its cozy library and huge, comfy couch and bunk bed in the basement. Well, it used to have a bunk bed in the basement. I guessed maybe it didn’t anymore—no need for it. I thought of my own bedroom in our old house, the room I’d shared with Rose, the room that had a fish tank and our scribbled pictures taped to the wall and the giant stuffed bear in the corner. No. I couldn’t pick any place that I wasn’t allowed to ever go to again. Also just … too sad.
It was a tough question. With me and Rodeo, places weren’t places we loved. They were places we just passed through and left in our rearview mirror. Like people.
I looked up at the ceiling, thinking. And then I smiled. ’Cause I was looking at my answer.
“I’m not gonna tell you,” I said, and when Salvador opened his mouth to argue I held up a finger and continued, “I’m gonna show you. Remember when you very first saw Rodeo?”
At that moment, the man himself came bounding up the bus stairs and patted Lester on the shoulder in the driver’s seat and flopped down into one of the seats. I jumped up and said, “Rodeo! Permission for a ride in the Attic.” I pointed a thumb at Salvador. “With a wingman.”
Rodeo squinted out the window. I knew he was checking to make sure we were within his very strict Attic rules.
“It’s dark,” I said. “Pitch. And we got, like, five quiet miles to the highway, all on back roads.”
Rodeo pursed his lips, then shrugged, then flicked his chin at Salvador.
“Check with his mom. Tell him all the rules. Be safe.”
“Got it.”
I filled Salvador in on what was going on and his eyes lit up and he begged his mom and eventually got a yes, and next thing you knew I was pulling down the rope ladder from its hooks by the hatch to the roof. It was back by the curtain to my room, and we’d painted clouds on the ceiling all around it so that when we opened it during the day it looked like sunlight shining on a cloudy day.
“Keep it below thirty-five, Lester,” I heard Rodeo saying from the front as I clambered up the swinging rungs. A few clicks of the latches and then I swung the hatch open and pulled myself up onto Yager’s roof.
A second later Salvador was beside me, looking around at the little rooftop world.
I mean, there wasn’t that much to see. It was pretty much just the yellow metal roof of a bus. But there was a metal railing that Rodeo had installed all around the edge, proving he had at least a little more sense than he let on sometimes. And it was all lit up by stars and silver moonlight seeping down from the sky.
“This is cool,” Salvador breathed, crawling to the edge to peek down at the ground.
“Yeah. This is the Attic. We eat up here sometimes, or hang out. Sometimes we even drag our blankets up and sleep out here.”
Beneath us, Yager’s motor rumbled into action and Salvador’s eyes went wide.
“Come on,” I said, and he followed me at a careful crawl up to the front of the bus. I lay down on my stomach with my fingers on the front rail, and Salvador settled in beside me.
“Are we, uh … Are we really gonna ride up here?”
He was acting all tough, but I smiled ’cause I could hear the nervousness in his voice.
“Sure. But we never go fast and it’s only on little roads with no traffic and it’s not scary at all, you’ll see. The rules are easy: No standing up. Knock three times on the roof if you want to stop. That’s it. All right?”
Salvador breathed through his nose and nodded fast, like yeah-sure-obviously-I-ride-on-the-top-of-buses-all-the-time-what’s-the-big-deal.
He still looked scared. So I decided to share one more thing with him, besides my favorite place in the whole world. I leaned in close so our faces were almost touching and I said, “You can shout secrets.”
“Huh?”
“Once we’re moving. With the engine roaring and the wind and everything, you can shout your secrets. Just shout ’em out at the world, or up at the moon, or into the wind. And no one will hear them.”
Salvador swallowed.
“Why would you do that?”
“Because … Because it feels good. To say stuff you normally can’t. To shout the truth. Sometimes I just shout … names.”
“Whose names?” he asked, but he asked it quiet and serious and in a way that kinda told me he already knew the answer.
“Their names,” I whispered. “Up here, I can say them. Up here, I can shout them.”
Salvador nodded.
“So,” I said, looking away from his eyes, which looked like they were very close to feeling sorry for me, which would be a broken promise, “feel free to shout a secret, if you want to. No one’ll hear.”
“You’ll hea
r, Coyote.”
I looked back at him and grinned.
“Yeah. But I won’t tell.”
He smiled back. And then we started moving.
Slow at first, but faster by the second. We turned out of the little diner parking lot and onto the two-lane road and then we really started moving and the wind pushed our hair back and blew tears into our eyes and Salvador tightened his grip on the rail and lowered his body even farther.
Thirty-five miles an hour don’t seem like much when you’re in a bus. But I’m telling you, it feels like something else altogether when you’re on a bus.
I turned my head to Salvador, and he was smiling big, his teeth shining white in the moonlight.
“You gonna do it?” I hollered.
“You first!”
All right. All right.
That secret-shouting thing, that was personal. I’d never shared it. So, yeah. I was a little nervous. Come on, Coyote—I was shaking.
I’d never really had a friend before, maybe, and I’d never shared my favorite place with anyone before, maybe, but both those new things felt like good new things, so I figured maybe I had room in my life for even a little more courage.
I wriggled up onto my knees, still holding the rail with both hands. The wind whipped through my hair and I narrowed my eyes against the rushing air.
I looked up from the glare of the headlights to the softer light of the stars up above. And I thought of my big sister, the sister who helped me learn to write my name and who let me crawl into her bed when I was scared at night. I breathed it all in—the wind, the stars, the memory—in one big breath and then I threw my head back and let it out.
“Ava!” I shouted. “Ava!”
I closed my eyes and thought of my little sister, the sister who loved blowing the puffy heads off dandelions but always messed up and called them dandyflowers, the girl who cried whenever I got in trouble, even if she was the one who’d told on me—and I sucked in another breath and then let it out, too.
“Rose!” I hollered into the darkness, into the world, into my memories. “Rose!”
I didn’t have to even try to remember my mom, didn’t have to work to bring up a memory of her. She was always there, smiling, waiting. I could feel her fingers on my forehead, brushing my hair out of my eyes and tucking it behind my ears.
“Mom!” I yelled, pushing past the break in my voice. “I love you, Mom!”
My chin dropped to my chest and I knelt there, my eyes closed and my lungs heaving.
There was a stirring beside me and I knew Salvador was pulling himself up onto his knees.
He knelt next to me for a second, and then his shout rang out over the wind.
“I act tough,” he yelled, “but I’m afraid almost all the time!”
Whoa. That was a good one. A big one. Salvador wasn’t playing around with this secret-shouting thing.
I opened my eyes just as Salvador turned to look at me. His eyes were big, his mouth open, his T-shirt whipping around his body. There were tears in his eyes. But that could’ve just been the wind.
I had tears in my eyes, too. But that could’ve just been the wind, too.
We both looked so darn serious, shouting on our knees into the night on top of a moving bus.
Every once in a while in life you kind of zoom out and see what you must look like from outside your body.
We looked ridiculous.
I mean, we looked awesome, but … also ridiculous.
I laughed. A big, guffawing sort of laugh.
Salvador’s eyebrows dropped for a second, but I think he realized pretty quick that I wasn’t laughing at him or his secret.
Then he laughed, too. A real wide-mouthed, shoulder-shaking sort of laugh. He leaned over, bumping me in the shoulder. I bumped him back. We both faced back toward the front.
“I miss my family!” I shouted at the road up ahead.
“Sometimes I cry at night when my mom is asleep!” Salvador screamed.
Our shoulders were pressed together.
“I want to go home!” I hollered.
“I miss my friends!” Salvador shouted.
“I don’t have any friends!”
Oops. My mouth snapped shut. I hadn’t planned on sharing that particular secret. I may have gotten a little carried away.
Salvador’s head turned toward me, but I kept my eyes straight ahead.
He looked at me for just a second. Then he looked forward again.
And then he shouted, “I really want Coyote to be my friend!”
My throat went tight and my stomach went all topsy-turvy. I blinked extra hard.
Salvador waited, then looked into my face. I had a hard time meeting his eyes.
“So?” he shouted right into my face like I couldn’t hear him, and then he added “Will you?” and I laughed and then I screamed right back into his face, “Well, I won’t not be your friend!” and he laughed, too, and then he yelled into my face, “Good enough!” and we both laughed and dropped back onto our stomachs and then somehow without saying anything we both rolled over onto our backs and lay there, looking up at the starry sky.
“Thank you,” Salvador said in a not-shouting voice, his eyes still on the sky, and I wasn’t even sure what he was thanking me for, but I wasn’t raised in a barn so I just said, “You’re welcome,” but then that felt weird so I also said, “Thank you,” and he said, “No problem.”
He’s all right, that Salvador.
More than all right, maybe.
But the next day, I had to say goodbye to him forever.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FOUR
Petoskey, Michigan, came just too darn soon.
Petoskey, Michigan, wasn’t just a city or a dot on a map or even a waiting tía; Petoskey, Michigan, was a goodbye.
Nothing personal against the good people of Petoskey, but by the time I got to Petoskey I hated Petoskey.
I thought I’d never fall asleep the night before, but next thing I knew I was blinking my eyes awake and the sun was rising. I could just feel in the air that we were deep in Michigan, and I hated it. I yawned and then scowled at the sunlight.
Ivan was lying next to me, blinking his sleepy blue eyes at me.
“Well. No sense in dragging this out, amigo. Time to tear off the Band-Aid, I guess.”
Ivan just yawned at me, so I got up and walked out through my curtain.
Lester was heroically still up behind the wheel and Rodeo was snoring in his blanket pile and Ms. Vega was asleep on the couch. Salvador was awake, though, sitting in the chair across from the couch, reading the dog-eared copy of The One and Only Ivan I’d given him the night before. He looked up at me when I walked out and then away real quick, so I knew he kinda felt the same way I did, maybe.
I clenched my jaw and walked up to him.
“Hey,” I said, and he said “Hey” back, and I leaned down to look at the pine trees whizzing by the window that looked distinctly like Michigander pine trees and I said, “Where are we, exactly?” and Salvador shrugged and then said, “Lester said we’re, like, an hour away—about half an hour ago,” and I said, “Oh, cool.” A few seconds passed and then I said, “Hey. I don’t do goodbyes, all right? You’re cool, and we’re kinda friends, and we’re dropping you off, and that’s fine. When we get there, could you just grab your stuff and hop on down? I don’t wanna say goodbye. It’s easier that way. Okay?” This was a lesson I’d learned the hard way, from all the times I’d almost made friends with some kid in a campground or hotel or city park or public library and then we’d left ’em behind. I know goodbyes, and the best goodbyes are the ones you don’t say out loud.
Salvador blinked at me.
“Okay.”
And I started to walk away toward the front of the bus but Salvador said, “Wait,” and then he handed me a folded piece of paper. I took it and walked away and plopped into a seat by Lester and opened it up and all it had written on it were the words “Your Friend Salvador” and a phone number.
I held the paper in my hand and looked out the window, some weird version of a smile on my face.
* * *
I’ll give it to Salvador: He was totally good about honoring requests from kinda friends. The drop went just like I’d asked. There was a phone call with his aunt to find out where she was and then Salvador and his mom bustled around, gathering up all their stuff. At one point Salvador came up to me with my copy of The One and Only Ivan and I said “Keep it,” but other than that I kept my eyes on the pages of the book I was reading. And then we were there.
We met his aunt at a restaurant next to the hotel she was staying in. We pulled into the parking lot and Salvador and his mom got all excited when they saw her, through the window, sitting in a booth. I kept reading, my hand scratching at Ivan’s furry back.
There were some goodbyes, but none for me. Rodeo and Lester wished them well and helped them unload their suitcases and stuff, and there were probably some hugs and whatnot, but I wasn’t really paying attention.
Rodeo and Lester climbed back aboard and the door shut, and I accidentally looked up a little and saw, through the restaurant windows, Salvador’s aunt jump up when he and Ms. Vega walked into the restaurant and there was some more hugging and what looked like a lot of excited talking.
Reuniting with family must be nice.
I put my nose back in my book.
Rodeo eased down into the driver’s seat and looked at me for a second before asking, “How you doing, sugarplum?” and I just said, “Get this pile of junk moving, old man” without even looking up from my book but out of the corner of my eye I saw him nod and then the engine fired up and we were off.
I did sneak one more peek, though. Just one quick glance out the window, since I had to clear my throat anyway.
Ms. Vega was talking with her sister; they were holding both of each other’s hands and looking right into each other’s eyes, talking close and nodding. The way sisters do.
Salvador was standing next to them. He was standing there in the restaurant holding that dirty old hubcap under one arm. He was looking at me, and his other arm was raised in a wave.
The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise Page 13
