Macey scrubs at the dishes, rubbing so hard and fast, the suds multiply. “Ask that guy Nate. He seems to like you.”
Only when no one’s watching. I picture Nate dropping my hand when he recognized his friends. I feel the coldness spreading across my skin. I get up from the table, grab a dish towel on the counter, and dry the bowl in the drainer. I rub and rub until the cold goes away. “Please, Macey. I need someone to do this with me.”
Her hands and the suds grow still. “I can’t.”
I knot the dish towel around my hands. “Why?”
“I need peaches.”
“Peaches? You need peaches?”
The corner of Macey’s mouth tilts a fraction, and her eyes brighten. “I need to go to the farmers’ market. The first peaches of the season arrive today.”
I toss the dish towel onto the counter, tension lifting from my knotted fingers. “I can deal with peaches.”
“The hardest thing is starting,” I tell Macey, imparting all my newfound tandem wisdom from Bubba the Bike Sage. “Rest your right foot on the pedal, and when I push off, push. Got it?”
Macey looks as if she’s about to dive into a tank with Herman the shark, but she nods. Like me, she doesn’t seem too thrilled with the whole let’s-connect-on-a-bike thing. I don’t know much about her life, and for a moment I wonder how she ended up here with me. Maybe she too was homeschooled and missed the lesson on how to play nicely in the sandbox. Or maybe she had some kind of trauma that made her turn inward. Or maybe it’s none of my business.
I push off the bricks around the salsa garden. The tandem lurches forward. Macey and I sway to the right. “Lean left!” I scream. We lean, but not fast enough. We tumble onto Macey’s front lawn. “We can do this. We have to do this.”
I untangle my legs from the bike and stand. Macey lies on the grass, her pale, thin hair spread out like a spiderweb, her mouth curved in a grin. Her teeth are unexpectedly bright. I hold out my hand. She reaches, and the sleeve of her hoodie pulls back and exposes her forearm. My fingers twitch. A series of lines stripe her skin. Some are short and thick, others long and narrow, the width of a few strands of hair. All are the color of old chalk. Macey yanks her sleeve over the scars and scrambles to her feet. A speckled red creeps up her neck.
I haul the bike upright and straddle the frame, facing forward. “Let’s try this again. I think we pushed off too slowly.”
Behind me Macey remains motionless. In my head I see her on that day in the detention room when Ms. Lungren told us we needed to examine our deadly behaviors and write bucket lists. No wonder Macey bailed. The knife, the razor, the tip of a pen—whatever it was that had caused those scars—could have gone deeper. Maybe it already had.
“Come on,” I say. “Let’s try again.”
“I hurt my knee.” Macey’s voice is low and breathy, borderline panicky. “I need to get inside.”
I picture the sweat on her face as she cuts and dices and mixes, the light in her eyes as she peeks into the oven. I have no idea why Macey’s suddenly obsessed with pies, but I know they’re important to her. “No, Macey, you need peaches.”
At last Macey’s sandals pad through the grass, and she gets onto the bike. After one more tumble, we get the tandem into motion. We shift our bodies and maneuver around corners. We brake together and come to a controlled stop. After ten minutes of starts and stops, we’re pedaling down the bike path to the farmers’ market, our bodies working in tandem.
At a red light, we lower our feet at the same time to balance on the curb. I keep my eyes trained straight ahead. Behind me I feel Macey tugging on her sleeves.
I should say something. Kennedy would know what to say, something thoughtful and encouraging, something straight from a greeting card. The light for cross traffic turns yellow.
But I’m not Kennedy. “Stop kicking yourself in the ass,” I tell Macey. “We all fall down. We all have scars. Some are more visible than others, and anyone who tries to deny it is full of bullshit.”
I can’t see Macey, but on the tandem, we are connected. We feel each other’s slightest movements. She nods. The light turns green.
By the time we lock the bike at the rack outside the farmers’ market, Macey’s cheeks are flushed, but not from embarrassment or shame or anger. She grabs my elbow and squeals. “Look, Rebel! Peaches!”
Macey drags me to a produce stand, where she ogles the rosy, gold mounds of peaches. Her fingers hover over the fruit on the far right, and at last she selects a blushing, perfectly shaped peach and holds it to her nose. She inhales slowly and holds the breath. I hold mine.
Her shoulders slump. “Not ready.”
An odd sense of disappointment settles over me as she puts the peach back into the bin. “I’m sorry.”
“Me, too,” she says in a near-whisper.
On our way out of the farmers’ market, we pass a berry vendor. Macey finds two cartons of ripe raspberries, and her mood brightens. By the time we reach the tandem, she is talking about raspberry pie toppings. “I can go with a dark chocolate drizzle or milk chocolate shavings or”—her grin deepens—“white chocolate chunks. What do you think?”
With her flushed cheeks and bright eyes, there’s nothing deathly or ghostly about Macey now. “One of each.” I unfasten the lock. “So I’ve been meaning to ask … what’s up with the pies?”
“It’s stupid.”
“Says who?”
Macey puts her cartons of raspberries in the tandem basket, rearranging them four times. “I’m experimenting with pies to enter in the Great American Bake-Off.” At my look of utter stupefaction, she gets onto the back of the bike. “See? It’s stupid.”
“No, no, I’m just surprised. Is this a pie-baking contest?”
“Pies, tarts, savory items like quiches. You bake things using certain products, and if you win, you go on national TV and win a bunch of money.”
I think of leatherback turtles and application costs for 501 (c)(3) charities. “A bunch of money would be nice.”
Macey steadies the bike as I get on. “It’s not about the money, Rebel. It’s just something I always wanted to do. Crazy, huh?”
“No, not crazy. You’re being true to you.” Just like Kennedy had had the need to straighten the produce display after she took an apple. Just like I need to wear a streak of blue in my hair to remind me of a happier time and place.
We wheel the tandem to the curb, where we push off and pedal out of the market parking lot, the noise of vendors and shoppers dimming until all I hear is the squeak and rattle of Bubba’s bike. Somewhere past Calle Bonita, Macey’s feet slow. She fidgets with the handlebars, twisting the grips, which grind and squeak.
“Why don’t they bother you?” Macey asks me.
I know she’s not talking about peaches or raspberries. “The scars?”
She doesn’t say anything, which is answer enough.
“They’re faded, a part of your past.” I hear Macey’s foot slip off the pedal. That was the wrong thing to say. If I were better at the whole friend thing, I’d know the right words. I nibble the inside of my cheek and wonder what Kennedy would do. Easy. Kennedy would talk. “Do you … uh … want to talk about it?”
Macey’s legs get back in rhythm. “No, not really. I talked about it for two years to a therapist.”
“Good. I mean, not that I don’t want to talk or anything, just that you talked to someone. I think.” I wonder if there’s any way I can possibly make this more awkward.
“Most people who see them get hung up or freaked out,” Macey says. “When they look at me, all they see are scars.”
Down the center of the room I share with Pen is the Continental Divide. On one side of the divide, a half dozen designer pillows are neatly arranged on a matching bedspread, and the only item on the shiny hardwood floor is a color-coordinated throw rug perfectly parallel to the bed skirt. That would not be my side. I dig through the detritus poking out from beneath my bed, unearthing a dried set of finger paints and a
petrified donut. Underneath an eighth-grade report card I find a pair of sneakers, the plain white kind with boxy toes.
Time for another item on Kennedy’s bucket list: Run a seven-minute mile.
Pen runs. The Cupcakes run. Therefore, I refuse to run. There’s some mathematical principle at work, but I choose not to contemplate it.
This Sunday afternoon the running path winding through the coastal hill neighborhoods to the beach is full of people. I start slowly, my feet hitting the pavement with heavy thwunks. At the end of the block, a pebble slides into the gap between the sneaker and my foot. I kick, but it falls into the bottom of my shoe and gouges the tender flesh of my arch. I screech to a stop and dig out the boulder. I despise Kennedy Green.
After another two blocks of uphill running, my lungs revolt. They refuse to pump air. A wave of nausea slams me. I slow to a walk and check my watch. Three minutes, and I haven’t even made it to the quarter-mile mark. People who jog for fun are warped. People who run seven-minute miles are sadists.
The path curves down a long, sloping hill, and I welcome gravity to Team Rebel. Halfway down, my sneaker slides off the asphalt. My foot jams and twists. Pain shoots through my ankle.
Huffing, I lower myself until I’m sitting on the edge of the path. I take inventory: no blood, no protruding bones.
A shadow slices the sun. “What are you doing?” The voice is high-pitched and accusing. Cousin Pen.
I gulp in air, but it feels as if I’m sucking through a straw. “Run … ning.”
“The cops after you?”
“Go”—huff—“to”—huff—“hell.” Huff, huff.
“Seriously, are you okay?” Pen asks.
I gulp in another ten breaths, and my heart settles back in my chest. “I’m not dead.”
“Let’s see if you damaged anything.” She squats in front of me and studies my foot. I brace myself, ready for her to yank at me and add to my misery. She slides her hand along my ankle and gives the bottom of my foot a push. “Does that hurt?”
“No.”
She rotates my ankle. “And that?”
“Slight twinge.”
“Let’s see if you can stand.” She holds out her hand.
I keep my butt on the ground. “What are you doing here?”
“Following you. I saw you leave the house. No stretching, no warm-up, your hair in your eyes. You do realize how stupid that is, right?”
“The backs of my calves, lungs, and right ankle are letting me know, loud and clear.”
She jabs her hand at me again, and this time I take it. My right ankle twinges, but I can stand. Pen hands me a water bottle from a pack around her waist, and I shoot a stream of water into my mouth, rinse out my stupidity, and start hobbling back to the bungalow.
Pen falls into step beside me, walking as if she has a running shoe up her butt. Snob. But as the captain of the track team, she knows a lot about running.
“How long does it take you to run a mile?” I ask.
“That’s random.”
I shrug. Pen has no idea I’m completing the bucket list, and I can’t wait for the day when I hand her the list, a check mark next to every item.
“My personal best is five fourteen.”
“Please tell me that’s five hours and fourteen minutes.”
Pen doesn’t dignify the comment with an answer.
When we get to the bungalow, I sink onto the bottom step of the porch and prop my ankle on the middle step. To my surprise, Pen settles her shoulder against the post. “First off,” she says, “you’re wearing the wrong shoes. You need something with better cushioning and traction. Before you start running, you need to warm up. At minimum, do leg stretches and back warm-ups. And for God’s sake, Reb, get rid of those disgusting cigarettes. They are ruining your lungs.”
Those “disgusting cigarettes” do such a good job of annoying those I wish to annoy, like Aunt Evelyn and my-lungs-are-in-perfect-shape Cousin Pen.
I take a long drink of water. “Why are you giving me advice?”
“Honestly?”
I jack my eyebrow at an angle.
“So you don’t kill yourself and make my parents more upset.” She seems almost wistful, not angry. “They never used to fight before you came into our lives.”
A SHOE BOX HAS MAGICALLY APPEARED AT THE foot of my bed. Inside sits a pair of pink running shoes, slightly used. They must be a pair of Cousin Pen’s from her Amazon-growth days. In junior high she grew half a foot, while I added half an inch. She called me lima bean; I called her string bean.
The shoes have more tread than the pair I wore when I fell, and they’ll fit tighter at the sides, keeping sharp rocks from impaling me. She must be serious about keeping me safe so I don’t cause any more tension between her parents. I can’t argue with her on that point. Most of Uncle Bob and Aunt Evelyn’s shouting matches are about me.
During the past week, the bungalow has been oddly peaceful. To my surprise, Aunt Evelyn didn’t gloat about getting me the Red Rocket trees, or, if she did, I was too busy doing bucket-list items to notice. Now Pen has gifted me with a pair of running shoes.
A week of wonders. Next thing we know, Tiberius will stop digging under the fence in search of sweets, and Macey and I will give each other manis and pedis.
For the next week I slip into Pen’s old shoes, warm up, and run before school. My lungs burn, and muscles in my calves protest. Technically, I walk more than run, and I return gasping and covered in sweat, clocking in a dismal fourteen-minute mile. Aunt Evelyn watches me from the living room window. She probably thinks I’m on meth.
With Percy, I plant the Red Rocket trees in the school parking lot and start work on another bucket-list item: Learn American Sign Language, although I’ll still need to work on the second part, and volunteer to sign for the hearing impaired at church. The tiny point of contention being, I don’t have a church. I never felt at home in Uncle Bob and Aunt Evelyn’s church. Too many rules about shoes.
At school I do my best to avoid random encounters with Nate, which isn’t too hard since we swim in different oceans. I bypass the breezeway in front of Unit Five where he and the other jocks hang out. I steer clear of the baseball field where he works out most days after school. Biology is a bear. All week I listen to Nate breathe. It’s crazy how I can distinguish his breathing from everyone else’s. Maybe it’s because we’d breathed as one. On the beach. In the cab of his father’s truck. For his part, he doesn’t mention anything about that moment in the truck and hasn’t made any more attempts to get within a foot of the air I breathe this week.
So imagine my surprise on Friday afternoon when I get home and find Nate sitting on the porch, the right side of his hair a mess.
“Pen has track practice today,” I say. “She’ll be home after five.”
“Reb—”
“And if you’re selling, we don’t need Scout-O-Rama tickets, our house number painted on the curb, or homemade enchiladas.”
“We need to talk.” He shifts his legs, making room for me on the step.
So many choices. I can leap over his legs and make a mad dash through the yard to the back door. Or I could dive over the fence and hang out with Tiberius.
“You were right,” he says on a wobbly breath of air, which freaks me out because Nate is the type who doesn’t wobble.
I sit and sigh. He toes the dried husk of a flower at the base of one of Aunt Evelyn’s flowerpots.
“In this lifetime would be nice,” I say.
He throws back his head and makes a sound, half laugh, half groan. “You’re doing it again.”
“Doing what?”
“Not giving a crap about trying to make me feel comfortable or making this any easier.” He studies the porch step. “You’re just being you.” He crushes the husk, grinding it to dust. “You know who you are, and you refuse to be anything else. Honestly, on some days I wish I were you. I’d love to tell off my smart-ass friends. I’d love to tell my baseball coach I don’t want
to do another round of burners. I’d love to tell Mr. Phillips he has ugly ties and that it’s cruel and unusual punishment to those of us in the front row.”
I try to hold it back, but a laugh escapes.
“You don’t care what others think. You don’t compromise.” Nate shifts one tennis shoe and then the other. “You’re true to yourself and true to your word. Take this whole bucket-list thing. You said you’d complete Kennedy’s list, and you’re doing it.” He shakes his head in amused disbelief. “And I have no doubt you’ll do everything within your power to finish. You’re true blue, and you were right that other night in the truck. For a moment I was worried about what my friends would think if they saw me with you. But sometime this week I stopped thinking.” He doesn’t say it, but I know the words hanging between us: and started feeling.
Nate’s foot shifts and brushes against mine, the touch as light as the brush of the flower husk, but it hits me like a spring storm. I’m not denying what sparks between us, but it’s scary. Nate likes perfect, and I am everything but perfect.
“You don’t have to say anything,” Nate says. “I just wanted you to know where I stand. If all we ever do is paint fake birds together, I’m fine. Well, not fine, but I can deal with it.”
He lowers his head and studies his hands.
A silence settles between us.
I let out a Tiberius-like growl. “Do you always say the right thing?”
He contemplates me through the full black fans of his lashes, a slow smile curving his lips. “I try.”
This can’t work. I should run. But the truth is, I don’t want to. I like the feel of Nate’s foot against mine. I like the way he’s looking at me. I like the fact that he’s not filling the porch with noise. Perfect. Because he’s Nate.
I rub invisible dust from the shark teeth on the strap of my messenger bag. “Do you know how to tango?”
“As in the dance?”
I nod.
“Bucket list?”
Another nod.
He stands and holds out his hand to me. “No. But I know someone who does.”
Goodbye, Rebel Blue Page 9
