Along for the Ride

by Sarah Dessen

  Reaching down, I tried the knob: it turned easily, the door opening, and I leaned my head inside. ‘Hello?’ I called out, my voice bouncing down a nearby empty hallway painted yellow and dotted with framed prints. ‘Anyone here?’

  Silence. I stepped inside, shutting the door behind me. It was only then that I heard it: the sound of the ocean again, although it sounded a little different, and much closer by, like just around the corner. I followed it down the hallway, as it got louder and louder, expecting to see an open window or back door. Instead, I found myself in the living room, where the noise was deafening, and Heidi was sitting on the couch, holding the baby in her arms.

  At least, I thought it was Heidi. It was hard to say for sure, as she looked nothing like the last time I’d seen her. Her hair was pulled up into a messy, lopsided ponytail, with some strands stuck to her face, and she had on a ratty pair of sweatpants and an oversize U T-shirt, which had some kind of damp stain on one shoulder. Her eyes were closed, her head tipped back slightly. In fact, I thought she was asleep until, without even moving her lips, she hissed, ‘If you wake her up, I will kill you.’

  I froze, alarmed, then took a careful step backward. ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I just –’

  Her eyes snapped open, and she whipped her head around, her eyes narrowing into little slits. When she spotted me, though, her expression changed to surprise. And then, just like that, she was crying.

  ‘Oh, God, Auden,’ she said, her voice tight, ‘I am so, so sorry. I forgot you were… and then I thought… but it’s no excuse…’ She trailed off, her shoulders heaving as, in her arms, the baby – who was tiny, so small she looked too delicate to even exist – slept on, completely unaware.

  I took a panicked look around the room, wondering where my dad was. Only then did I realize that the incredibly loud ocean sound I was hearing was not coming from outside but instead from a small white noise-machine sitting on the coffee table. Who listens to a fake ocean when the real one is in earshot? It was one of many things that, at that moment, made absolutely no sense.

  ‘Um,’ I said as Heidi continued to cry, her sobs punctuated by an occasional loud sniffle, as well as the fake pounding waves, ‘can I… do you need some help, or something?’

  She drew in a shaky breath, then looked up at me. Her eyes were rimmed with dark circles: there was a pimply red rash on her chin. ‘No,’ she said as fresh tears filled her eyes. ‘I’m okay. It’s just… I’m fine.’

  This seemed highly unlikely, even to my untrained eye. Not that I had time to dispute it, as right then my dad walked in, carrying a tray of coffees and a small brown paper bag. He was in his typical outfit of rumpled khakis and an untucked button-down shirt, his glasses sort of askew on his face. When he taught, he usually added a tie and tweedy sport jacket. His sneakers, though, were a constant, no matter what else he was wearing.

  ‘There she is!’ he said when he spotted me, then headed over to give me a hug. As he pulled me close, I looked over his shoulder at Heidi, who was biting her lip, staring out the window at the ocean. ‘How was the trip?’

  ‘Good,’ I said slowly as he pulled back and took a coffee out of the carrier, offering it to me. I took it, then watched as he helped himself to one before sticking the last on the table in front of Heidi, who just stared at it like she didn’t know what it was.

  ‘Did you meet your sister?’

  ‘Uh, no,’ I said. ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Oh, well!’ He put down the paper bag, then reached over Heidi – who stiffened, not that he seemed to notice – taking the baby from her arms. ‘Here she is. This is Thisbe.’

  I looked down at the baby’s face, which was so small and delicate it didn’t even seem real. Her eyes were shut, and she had tiny, spiky eyelashes. One of her hands was sticking out of her blanket, and the fingers were so little, curled slightly around one another. ‘She’s beautiful,’ I said, because that is what you say.

  ‘Isn’t she?’ My dad grinned, bouncing her slightly in his arms, and her eyes slid open. She looked up at us, blinked, and then, just like her mom, suddenly began to cry. ‘Whoops,’ he said, jiggling her a bit. Thisbe cried a little louder. ‘Honey?’ my dad said, turning back to Heidi, who was still sitting in the exact same place and position, her arms now limp at her sides. ‘I think she’s hungry.’

  Heidi swallowed, then turned to him wordlessly. When my father handed Thisbe over, she swiveled back to the windows, almost robotlike as the crying grew louder, then louder still.

  ‘Let’s step outside,’ my dad suggested, grabbing the paper bag off the end table and gesturing for me to follow him as he walked to a pair of sliding glass doors, opening one and leading me outside to the deck. Normally, the view would have left me momentarily speechless – the house was right on the beach, a walkway leading directly to the sand – but instead I found myself looking back at Heidi, only to realize she’d disappeared, leaving her coffee untouched on the table.

  ‘Is she all right?’ I asked.

  He opened the paper bag, pulling out a muffin, then offering it to me. I shook my head. ‘She’s tired,’ he said, taking a bite, a few crumbs falling onto his shirt. He brushed them off with one hand, then kept eating. ‘The baby’s up a lot at night, you know, and I’m not much help because I have this sleep condition and have to get my nine hours, or else. I keep trying to convince her to get in some help, but she won’t do it.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Oh, you know Heidi,’ he said as if I did. ‘She’s got to do everything herself, and do it perfectly. But don’t worry, she’ll be fine. The first couple of months are just hard. I remember with Hollis, your mom was just about to go out of her mind. Of course, he was incredibly colicky. We used to walk him all night long, and he’d still scream. And his appetite! Good Lord. He’d suck your mom dry and still be ravenous…’

  He kept talking, but I’d heard this song before, knew all the words, so I just sipped my coffee. Looking left, I could see a few more houses, then what appeared to be some sort of boardwalk lined with businesses, as well as a public beach, already crowded with umbrellas and sunbathers.

  ‘Anyway,’ my father was saying now as he crumpled up his muffin wrapper, tossing it back in the bag, ‘I’ve got to get back to work, so let me show you your room. We can catch up over dinner, later. That sound good?’

  ‘Sure,’ I said as we headed back inside, where the sound machine was still blasting. My dad shook his head, then reached down, turning it off with a click: the sudden silence was jarring. ‘So you’re writing?’

  ‘Oh, yeah. I’m on a real roll, definitely going to finish the book soon,’ he replied. ‘It’s just a matter of organizing, really, getting the last little bits down on the page.’ We went back to the foyer, then up the staircase. As we walked down the hallway, we passed an open door, through which I could see a pink wall with a brown polka-dot border. Inside, it was silent, no crying, at least that I could hear.

  My dad pushed open the next door down, then waved me in with one hand. ‘Sorry for the small quarters,’ he said as I stepped over the threshold. ‘But you have the best view.’

  He wasn’t kidding. Though the room was tiny, with a twin bed, a bureau, and not much room for anything else, the lone window looked out over an undeveloped area of land, nothing but sea grass and sand and water. ‘This is great,’ I said.

  ‘Isn’t it? It was originally my office. But then we had to put the baby’s room next door, so I moved to the other side of the house. I didn’t want to keep her up, you know, with the noises of my creative process.’ He chuckled, like this was a joke I was supposed to get. ‘Speaking of which, I’d better get to it. The mornings have been really productive for me lately. I’ll catch up with you at dinner, all right?’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, glancing at my watch. It was 11:05. ‘Sure.’

  ‘Great.’ He squeezed my arm, then started down the hallway, humming to himself, as I watched him go. A moment after he passed the door to the pink-and-brown room, I heard
the door click shut.

  I woke up at six thirty that evening to the sound of a baby crying.

  Crying, actually, was too tepid a word. Thisbe was screaming, her lungs clearly getting a serious workout. And while it was merely audible in my room, with just a thin wall between us, when I went out in the hallway in search of a bathroom to brush my teeth, the noise was deafening.

  I stood for a second in the dimness outside the door to the pink room, listening to the cries as they rose, rose, rose, then fell sharply, only to spike again, even louder. I was wondering if I was the only one aware of it until, during a rare and short moment of silence, I heard someone saying, ‘Shh, shh,’ before quickly being drowned out again.

  There was something so familiar about this, it was like a tug on my subconscious. When my parents had first started to fight at night, this had been part of what I’d repeated – shh, shh, everything’s all right – to myself, again and again, as I tried to ignore them and fall asleep. Hearing it now, though, felt strange, as I was used to the sound being private, only in my head and the dark around me, so I moved on.

  ‘Dad?’

  My father, sitting in front of his laptop at a desk facing the wall, didn’t move as he said, ‘Hmmm?’

  I looked back down the hallway to the pink room, then at him again. He wasn’t typing, just studying the screen, a yellow legal pad with some scribblings on the desk beside him. I wondered if he’d been there the whole time I’d been sleeping, over seven hours. ‘Should I,’ I said, ‘um, start dinner, or something?’

  ‘Isn’t Heidi doing that?’ he asked, still facing the screen.

  ‘I think she’s with the baby,’ I said.

  ‘Oh.’ Now, he turned his head, looking at me. ‘Well, if you’re hungry, there’s a great burger place just a block away. Their onion rings are legendary.’

  I smiled. ‘Sounds great,’ I said. ‘Should I find out if Heidi wants anything?’

  ‘Absolutely. And get me a cheeseburger and some of those onion rings.’ He reached into his back pocket, pulling out a couple of bills and handing them to me. ‘Thanks a lot, Auden. I really appreciate it.’

  I took the bills, feeling like an idiot. Of course he couldn’t go out with me: he had a new baby at home, a wife to take care of. ‘No problem,’ I said, even though he was already turning back to his screen, not really listening. ‘I’ll just be back in a little bit.’

  I walked back to the pink room, where Thisbe was still going full blast. Figuring at least this time I didn’t have to worry about waking her up, I knocked twice. After a second, it opened a crack, and Heidi looked out at me.

  She looked more haggard than before, if that was even possible: the ponytail was gone, her hair now hanging limp in her face. ‘Hi,’ I said, or rather shouted, over the screaming. ‘I’m going to get dinner. What would you like?’

  ‘Dinner?’ she repeated, her voice also raised. I nodded. ‘Is it dinnertime already?’

  I looked at my watch, as if I needed to confirm this. ‘It’s about quarter to seven.’

  ‘Oh, dear God.’ She closed her eyes. ‘I was going to fix a big welcome dinner for you. I had it all planned, chicken and vegetables, and everything. But the baby’s been so fussy, and…’

  ‘It’s fine,’ I said. ‘I’m going to get burgers. Dad says there’s a good place right down the street.’

  ‘Your father is here?’ she asked, shifting Thisbe in her arms and peering over my shoulder, down the hallway. ‘I thought he went down to campus.’

  ‘He’s working in his office,’ I said. She leaned closer, clearly not having heard this. ‘He’s writing,’ I repeated, more loudly. ‘So I’m going. What would you like?’

  Heidi just stood there, the baby screaming between us, looking down the hallway at the light spilling out from my dad’s barely open office door. She started to speak, then stopped herself, taking a deep breath. ‘Whatever you’re having is fine,’ she said after a moment. ‘Thank you.’

  I nodded, then stepped back as she pushed the door back shut between us. The last thing I saw was the baby’s red face, still howling.

  Thankfully, outside the house it was much quieter. I could hear only the ocean and various neighborhood sounds – kids yelling, an occasional car radio, someone’s TV blaring out a back door – as I walked down the street to where the neighborhood ended and the business district began.

  There was a narrow boardwalk, lined with various shops: a smoothie place, one of those beach-tat joints that sell cheap towels and shell clocks, a pizzeria. About halfway down, I passed a small boutique called Clementine’s, which had a bright orange awning. Taped to the front door was a piece of paper that read, in big block print, IT’S A GIRL! THISBE CAROLINE WEST, BORN JUNE 1, 6 LBS, 15 OZ. So this was Heidi’s store, I thought. There were racks of T-shirts and jeans, a makeup and body lotion section, and a dark-haired girl in a pink dress examining her fingernails behind the register, a cell phone clamped to her ear.

  Up ahead, I could see what had to be the burger joint my dad mentioned – LAST CHANCE CAFÉ, BEST O RINGS ON THE BEACH! said the sign. Just before it, there was one last store, a bike shop. A bunch of guys around my age were gathered on a battered wooden bench outside, talking and watching people pass by.

  ‘The thing is,’ one of them, who was stocky and sporting shorts and a chain wallet, said, ‘the name has to have punch. Energy, you know?’

  ‘It’s more important that it be clever,’ another, who was taller and thinner with curly hair, a little dorky-looking, said. ‘Which is why you should go with my choice, the Crankshaft. It’s perfect.’

  ‘It sounds like a car shop, not a bike place,’ the short guy told him.

  ‘Bikes have cranks,’ his friend pointed out.

  ‘And cars have shafts.’

  ‘So do mines,’ the skinny guy said.

  ‘You want to call it the Mine Shaft now?’

  ‘No,’ his friend said as the other two laughed. ‘I’m just making the point that the context doesn’t have to be exclusive.’

  ‘Who cares about context?’ The short guy sighed. ‘What we need is a name that jumps out and sells product. Like, say, Zoom Bikes. Or Overdrive Bikes.’

  ‘How do you go into overdrive on a bike?’ another guy, who had his back to me, asked. ‘That’s stupid.’

  ‘It is not,’ the guy with the wallet muttered. ‘Besides, I don’t see you offering up any suggestions.’

  I stepped away from Clementine’s and starting walking again. Just as I did, the third guy suddenly turned, and our eyes met. He had dark hair, cut short, incredibly tanned skin, and a broad, confident smile, which he now flashed at me. ‘How about,’ he said slowly, his gaze still locked with mine, ‘I just saw the hottest girl in Colby walking by?’

  ‘Oh, Jesus,’ the dorky one said, shaking his head, as the other one laughed out loud. ‘You’re pathetic.’

  I felt my face flush hot, even as I ignored him and kept walking. I could feel him looking at me, still smiling, as I put more and more distance between us. ‘Just stating the obvious,’ he called out, as I was about out of earshot. ‘You could say thank you, you know.’

  But I didn’t. I didn’t say anything, if only because I had no idea how to respond to such an overture. If my experience with friends was sparse, what I knew about boys – other than as competitors for grades or class rank – was nonexistent.

  Not that I hadn’t had crushes. Back at Jackson, there was a guy in my science class, hopeless at equations, who always made my palms sweat whenever we got paired for experiments. And at Perkins Day, I’d awkwardly flirted with Nate Cross, who sat next to me in calculus, but everyone was in love with Nate, so that hardly made me special. It wasn’t until Kiffney-Brown, when I met Jason Talbot, that I really thought I might actually have one of those boyfriend kind of stories to tell the next time I got together with my old friends. Jason was smart, good-looking, and seriously on the rebound after his girlfriend at Jackson dumped him for, in his words, ‘a juvenil
e delinquent welder with a tattoo’. Because of Kiffney-Brown’s small seminar size, we spent a fair amount of time together, battling it out for valedictorian, and when he’d asked me to prom I’d been more excited than I ever would have admitted. Until he backed out, citing the ‘great opportunity’ of the ecology conference. ‘I knew you’d be okay with this,’ he’d said to me as I nodded, dumbly, hearing this news. ‘You understand what’s really important.’

  Okay, so it wasn’t like he called me beautiful. But it was a compliment, in its own way.

  It was crowded at Last Chance Café, with a line of people waiting to be seated and two cooks visible through a small kitchen window, racing around as orders piled up on the spindle in front of them. I gave my order to a pretty, dark-haired girl with a lip ring, then took a seat by the window to wait for it. Glancing down the boardwalk, I could see the guys still gathered around the bench: the one who’d talked to me was now sitting down, his arms stretched behind his head, laughing, as his short, stocky friend rode a bike back and forth in front of him, doing little hops here and there.

  It took a while for the food to be ready, but I soon realized my dad was right. It was worth the wait. I was digging into the onion rings before I even got out the door to the boardwalk, which by then was crowded with families eating ice-cream cones, couples on dates, and tons of little kids running along the sand. In the distance, there was a gorgeous sunset, all oranges and pinks, and I kept my eyes on it as I walked, not even looking over at the bike shop until I was almost past it. The guy was still there, although now he was talking to a tall girl with red hair, who was wearing a massive pair of sunglasses.

  ‘Hey,’ he called out to me, ‘if you’re looking for something to do tonight, there’s a bonfire at the Tip. I’ll save you a seat.’

  I glanced over at him. The redhead was now giving me the stink eye, an annoyed look on her face, so I didn’t say anything.

  ‘Ah, she’s a heartbreaker!’ he said, then laughed. I kept walking, now feeling the redhead’s gaze boring in somewhere between my shoulder blades. ‘Just keep it in mind. I’ll wait for you.’