Recovery Road Page 7

  Suddenly, all I can think of is Stewart. The two of us slouched in the back of The Carlton theater, our feet draped over the seats.

  And then I know I can’t do this. No movies. Not with Martin Farris.

  “I don’t think I want to see a movie,” I say.

  “You don’t? Why not?”

  “Because.”

  Martin is confused. And a little hurt. “I thought that’s why we came here?”

  I avoid meeting his eye.

  “Is it because you’re with me?” he asks. “Because this isn’t a date. I know that. Not at all.”

  “I just don’t want to,” I say. “I want to do something else. I want to go ice-skating.”

  “But you said you hated ice-skating.”

  “I want to try it,” I lie, “I think it sounds like fun.”

  Martin leads us down the escalator to the ice rink. I don’t know how to ice-skate. I’ve never even thought about ice-skating before.

  We rent skates. We sit together on a wood bench and put them on. Martin is not speaking to me now. I’ve hurt his feelings. I should probably apologize. Or maybe he just needs to get over himself. He is a geek, after all. He said so himself.

  With our skates on, we stand at the edge of the rink. I like the way the ice looks: perfectly flat, perfectly white. I like the bracing cold of it.

  Martin is smart enough to know I don’t want help, I don’t want any hand-holding or other physical contact. So he leaves me to fend for myself.

  I take my first cautious steps onto the ice. I think I’m going to take off and go flying around the rink like the other people, but in fact, the minute I step forward, I fall. And then I can’t get up. And when I do, I fall again.

  It’s the skate blades. They bend over to the side. I stand up and try again and I fall backward this time, hard, on my ass.

  Meanwhile, Martin has already glided off into the flow of the other people. He’s totally skating.

  I crawl to the wall and pull myself up. He completes a lap and comes up behind me.

  “Jesus, Martin,” I say. “How do you do this?”

  “You have to hold your ankles straight,” he says.

  “How do you do that?”

  “You have to flex your muscles a certain way.”

  He offers his arm and I hold on to it. I try again. I get a little speed going and then I fall again. I slide a few feet and then stop, sprawled on my back on the ice.

  “This isn’t fun,” I say. “Why do people think this is fun?”

  Martin helps me up and I try again, complaining bitterly the whole time, though the truth is, I don’t mind it that much: falling, sliding to a stop, lying there on the cold whiteness.

  It numbs me. Which I like.

  Afterward, we go back to Martin’s car. We pull out of the Lloyd Center parking lot.

  “I guess we should head home,” says Martin.

  “We don’t have to,” I say. “It’s only nine thirty.”

  “Yeah, but what are we going to do?”

  “Let’s go downtown,” I say.

  “What’s downtown?”

  “Life, Martin. The world.”

  We drive over the bridge into the city. Martin doesn’t know anything about downtown. I have to tell him how to get there, what streets to take, where the cool places are.

  We drive by Pioneer Courthouse Square, which is where the street kids hang out. I used to hang out there myself on occasion. I see some people I know standing around the MAX station. I see Jeff Weed, one of the local pot dealers, in a trench coat that has the word subhuman spray-painted on the back of it.

  “See that guy?” I tell Martin. “That’s Jeff Weed.”

  “Is that his real name?” Martin says, gawking out his window.

  “And there’s Bad Samantha.”

  Martin can’t believe I know these people. He stares at them like they are aliens from outer space. “Are these the people who gave you drugs?”

  “They don’t give you drugs,” I say. “You have to buy them.”

  I direct Martin to a different block and we park. As amusing as it is to watch Martin geek out, I feel a little unsettled myself. What if Jeff Weed tries to talk to me? What if Bad Samantha recognizes me? We almost got in a fight two summers ago.

  I keep my head down as we slip inside the Metro Café.

  Martin is not prepared for this scene either. He didn’t know that young people actually go places other than Math Club or their next-door neighbors’ basement to play video games. He doesn’t know what to make of the stylish downtown girls. Or the cool skater dudes.

  He orders a decaf latte. I get a triple espresso. I make him pay, and we find a table in the back and sit there, not talking. Martin mostly stares at people: two sexy girls in miniskirts, a boy wearing makeup. At one point, a loud, drunk girl wanders in and starts kicking someone. Her friends try to restrain her and she kicks them too. A manager appears and tries to wrestle her out the door.

  “See that girl?” I say to Martin, sipping my espresso.

  “Yeah?”

  “That was me.”

  When he drops me off at home, Martin thanks me for taking him downtown.

  “You can go there yourself, you know,” I tell him.

  “I don’t think I’d go there myself. But I’m glad I went.”

  I get out. I look back at Martin as I close the car door. He’s staring out the windshield thinking about everything he just saw. He’s probably realizing for the first time how utterly clueless and sheltered he is.

  “Night, Martin,” I say.

  “Yeah,” he says. “Okay. Night.”

  I wave and walk up my driveway. By the time I’m inside I’ve forgotten the entire evening.

  Stewart will be home in four days.

  11

  The night Stewart is released from Spring Meadow, I go for a long walk around my neighborhood. I picture Stewart waiting at the Carlton Greyhound station. I imagine him getting on the bus, settling into a seat, watching out the window, the long ride to his mom’s house in Centralia.

  I walk down our street, past the little playground by the park. I think about other boys I’ve liked over the years. Craig Lessing, from fourth grade. Ryan Jones, in junior high, who used to sell pot behind the bowling alley. Rex Hemple, the guy I lost my virginity to in a nearby field after we drank a fifth of his father’s best whiskey.

  I remember that night especially, stumbling up the street, still drunk, my clothes askew, my body not quite my own. And other nights from the Mad Dog era: getting dropped off by older boys in cars full of throbbing beats and dope smoke. Or being dumped at the bottom of the hill by pissed-off girlfriends. Or being released into my parents’ custody by the always helpful officers of the West Linn Police Department.

  Tonight, though, the neighborhood is perfectly calm, perfectly quiet. I can clear my mind of everything but the image of Stewart and our future together. Whatever happens, he will always be the first boy I truly gave my heart to. Which makes him a caretaker, a holder of something. He holds me. I am his in a way he probably isn’t even aware of.

  And a good thing too. Boys shouldn’t know what power they have. They would panic probably, or just mess things up. But boys are who you give yourself to. Not your parents, or your teachers, or your “future.” You give yourself to a boy.

  And then you go for long walks at night and think about them and wonder what they will do to you in the end.

  12

  Friday is the day.

  I wake up early, take a long shower, dress carefully in an outfit I have been planning for weeks.

  I go to school. I go to my morning classes. At lunch, I sit in the library and eat my carrots.

  I go to my afternoon classes. The teachers teach. The students listen. I hear nothing, see nothing.

  When school gets out, I walk the three blocks to the MAX train station and ride it downtown. I walk to the big Central Library where I’m meeting Stewart at five.

  I’m wearing my
favorite skirt, leggings, a cinched vintage raincoat, sunglasses. I remain in a trance until I see the actual library. That’s when my heart starts to race, my palms begin to sweat. But I must remain calm. No schoolgirl-crush behavior. I have to be worthy of Stewart.

  I walk up the stone steps and sit on the bench outside. Though it is still February, there is a hint of spring in the air. Birds chirp in the trees. A row of purple flowers are trying to bloom along the sides of the building.

  Library-type people walk up the stone steps. I watch a college girl getting signatures for Greenpeace. A man with a briefcase strides up the steps with purpose.

  For a moment, I have trouble imagining Stewart in this scene. It’s hard to imagine him in any part of normal life. He’s too cool, too larger than life.

  But then he appears. He comes striding down the street and I am shocked — like I always seem to be — by how young and carefree and innocent he appears.

  Whatever plan I had, whatever dignified welcome-home speech I had prepared, is completely forgotten once he’s in sight. I leap up and run toward him. He sees me and his face lights up. I race down the steps and throw myself into his arms, as onlookers make way, grinning to themselves.

  “Hey, you,” he says, lifting me off my feet.

  I cannot speak. Stewart, my love, my Lost Prince. I hug him so long and hard my arms start to hurt. And even then, I stay like that for as long as he’ll let me.

  13

  We head toward the center of town. The sun is coming out a little. I smile at people on the street. I am so happy.

  We stop at a Starbucks and I order us both hot chocolates, even though I think Stewart wants a normal coffee.

  “Tough,” I tell him. “You’re having hot chocolate and I’m buying.”

  Stewart grumbles and finds us a table. He’s being his awkward, adorable self. A foursome of high school girls totally stop talking to gawk at how gorgeous he is.

  I ignore this. I bring the hot chocolate and give him his and sit.

  For a moment we don’t speak. We just grin at each other.

  “So what’s it like, out here in the real world?” he asks me finally.

  “It sucks,” I say. “But it just got a whole lot better.”

  He smiles into his cup.

  We talk about stuff. His living situation. The weirdness of high school. I tell him about Trish and our day at the hospital.

  At one point, he looks at my finger. He sees the ring. I see that he sees it and I smile bashfully.

  I don’t say anything, though.

  After Starbucks, we walk around downtown. We watch some kids skateboarding. We eat some Chinese spring rolls from a trailer. We sit on a park bench and I lean against him, holding his arm, doing nothing, basically, just getting to know each other again.

  When it gets dark, Stewart suggests we go to a movie. I feel like our time is too precious for that, but if that’s what he wants…

  It’ll be like movie night, I think.

  We go inside and get tickets. This is a real theater, though. It costs twelve bucks a ticket. Popcorn costs six dollars. I pay.

  We sit and watch the previews. I cuddle up next to Stewart as best as I can, but it’s hard because the seats are stiff and plastic and there’s cup holders in the way and headrests on the seats in front of you so you can’t put your feet up.

  “I haven’t been to a movie since I went with you,” I tell Stewart.

  “Yeah?” he says.

  “This guy wanted to go, but I wouldn’t.”

  “Huh.”

  “He was just a friend. Not a guy guy. Just this boy from school who I got stuck with one night.”

  Stewart doesn’t say anything. I shouldn’t have mentioned it. That was stupid.

  The movie starts. I barely watch it. I just try to snuggle up with Stewart as much as I can. I take deep sniffs of him, I can’t really help it.

  He pats me on the head like I’m a love-starved puppy. Which is pretty much what I am.

  When we leave the theater, the streets are quiet and the air is cold and still. I slip my hand around Stewart’s elbow. I want to walk him back to the bus station, but since it’s ten o’clock, he wants to put me on the MAX train and get me home to my parents.

  “You’re in high school,” he says, teasing me. “You have homework.”

  I let him walk me to the MAX station and the minute we get there, the train comes. I refuse to leave until he gives me a real kiss good-bye, so he does and it’s heavenly. But it’s weird too, in some way. I don’t know how to describe it. There’s a reserve on his end. Like he’s scared of me, or he thinks I’m too young. I can’t tell what it is.

  The love-starved puppy thing. Maybe he doesn’t like that. Or the fact that I’ve paid for everything.

  When the next train pulls up, it’s 10:30 and he insists I go. I refuse. So he picks me up and carries me onto it. He puts me down in a seat and then dashes out just as the doors are closing. I immediately run to the window and press my forehead against the glass and stare at him.

  I still have his ring. I point at it, through the glass.

  He grins and gestures not to worry. I blow him a kiss. He waves good-bye.

  The train starts to move and I stare at him, watching him as long as I can. Then he is gone and I collapse in my seat.

  I feel so happy I can barely stand it. I feel so happy I want to get high. For half a second I wonder if Jeff Weed is still downtown. Could I call Jake? Or Raj?

  But then I remember who I am, what I am, what my situation is.

  No, I tell myself. I cannot.

  14

  The next day at lunch, Martin Farris is waiting for me in the library for some reason. He is sitting at our usual table.

  Martins got a big Taco Bell bag in front of him.

  “What’s that?”

  “That’s our lunch,” he says. “I have an idea.”

  “What’s your idea?”

  “That you come eat this with me in the cafeteria.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “Because you can’t hide in the library every lunch period for the rest of your life.”

  I look at him. “Don’t do this, Martin.”

  “What?” he says. “You think it’s a good idea to never go into the cafeteria again?”

  “It’s none of your business. Who cares if I go or not?”

  “I do,” he says confidently. “It bugs me that you won’t eat in the cafeteria. It’s not right.”

  “It’s not your problem,” I say.

  “Who are you so afraid of that you can’t go in there?”

  I glance up at him for a moment. “Trust me, there’s nobody in this high school that I’m afraid of.”

  “Then why won’t you eat where everyone else eats?”

  I have no response to these arguments and so, to shut him up, I follow him into the cafeteria.

  When we first walk in I see immediately that I was right to avoid this place. It is loud and awful and full of shrieking children. We walk by a table that includes Emily Brantley and some of her crew. She sees me and says something and immediately all her friends start laughing.

  Thanks, Martin.

  Oh yeah, and another thing. I’m with Martin Farris. That helps a lot. To finally show my face in public with one of the biggest geeks in the school. This is such a great idea.

  But then we sit and nothing particularly bad happens. Martin patiently opens the Taco Bell bag. He hands me a burrito. He takes one himself. He opens his and takes a bite. “Eat,” he commands.

  I’m still sort of looking around at the other people. But I do as I’m told. I take a bite. The burrito is pretty good. I take another bite. The weird panic in my chest settles down. And nobody really notices me anyway because I’ve barely even gone to this school if you think about it. The worst of “Mad Dog Maddie” was over a year ago. Nobody remembers. Nobody cares.

  And then I find myself watching the other students: infant-sized freshmen, an artistic-looking
girl with round glasses, a little gang of long-haired sophomore skater boys who are totally cute.

  So as people-watching goes, it’s okay. Not the greatest. But not the worst either.

  15

  After school, Emily Brantley catches me in the parking lot. I’m calling my mom to pick me up and Emily swings in front of me in her black Saab.

  “Hey, Rehab Girl, wanna ride?” she calls out. She’s wearing a Hurley baseball cap that once belonged to Raj.

  “No, thanks. My mom is coming.”

  “Call her back,” she says. “Tell her you got a ride. I need to ask you something.”

  I don’t know what Emily wants with me. But I’m a little curious to find out. Also, my mom has a cooking class and won’t be here for a half hour.

  I get in the car with Emily. She takes off, flying over the speed bumps and then rocketing out of the parking lot. “Wanna get a slice of pizza?” she says.

  “Not really,” I say, hanging on for dear life.

  “I do. Do you mind?”

  “I guess not.”

  We bounce into the parking lot of Hot Lips Pizza down the street. There are other people from Evergreen there. Emily Brantley is notorious at our high school for partying, for being hot, and for hooking up with people. So the other kids take notice when we walk in.

  Emily gets a slice of pepperoni and we sit in the prized corner booth that miraculously opens up as soon as we need it.

  Emily slides in and takes a big bite of her pizza.

  “So,” she says.

  “So what?” I ask, sitting there, watching her.

  “How are you doing?”

  “I’m doing fine, Emily. Is that all you wanted to know?”

  “No, actually. Why are you being so touchy?”

  “Maybe because you and your friends were laughing at me today in the cafeteria?”

  “What are you talking about? We weren’t laughing at you. Don’t be so paranoid.”

  It occurs to me that I’m not actually sure they were laughing at me.