All We Know of Love (12 page)

Vroom. Vroom.

Sarah was right beside me. I turned to smile and wink at her so we could shift our gears and speed off first. She was looking back toward me, but something was wrong. Her expression was locked and blank.

And afraid.

It was a beautiful day.

The sun shining down on the world, my world.

I am a car. Vroom. Vroom.

Then I turned my head immediately back to see what Sarah was seeing. The truck’s window was wide open.

The driver was looking back at us. He had one hand on the steering wheel and the other hand in his lap. My eyes were drawn to a movement of his hand, the color of flesh he was holding, the indistinguishable but unmistakable shape. An image imprinted forever on my brain.

Danger. Immediate and primitive, for although I had no reference, it was real. Neither one of us had to understand to know we needed to run.

I flipped my head back to Sarah. Then without a word, and with tears streaming from our eyes, we both turned our bikes around and rode directly into the shelter of the cornfield. When we couldn’t ride over the dry mud any longer, we dropped our bikes and ran, as fast as we could. The spiky, broad corn leaves cut at our bare arms, but we kept running until we reached the river.

Nothing happened. Nothing. We waited until the bugs drove us crazy, and we stepped back out to the road. The truck was gone. Our bikes were right where we had left them.

Nothing had happened. But everything had changed.

Sarah’s mother forbade her from riding her bike to my house. Too long an empty stretch of road. There were things girls needed to understand. She had been foolish to allow it before.

You rode into the cornfield?
She was livid.

I never told my dad.

I wouldn’t have known what to say.

P
eople’s heads and a bunch of loose belongings suddenly lurch forward.

A water bottle comes rolling under my feet like it’s in a big hurry. Then everything jerks back and stops.

The bus is no longer moving.

“Are you all right?” The guy next to me is asking.

“Yeah,” I say slowly.

A smattering of overhead lights go on around us, as people wake up and the quiet of the night turns to murmurs and then more panicky voices. The wind still howls outside, and the rain is steady. I turn to look out the window but it is black. All I can see are beads of water and our reflections.

“What happened?” I ask, because this guy is the only grown-up I know here. For some reason, in the dark, this becomes important.

“I don’t know yet. I think maybe there’s an accident or something. Looks like traffic is completely stopped.”

“Shit. You’ve got to be kidding,” I say. I am still groggy. My magazine is no longer on my lap but on the floor by my feet. I must have fallen asleep.

The man murmurs a soft laugh, which I know is for me, for my cursing. “When I was your age . . .” he begins. His voice is almost feminine, calming.

“I know. I know. I’m sorry.”

“It’s just different now,” he says. “By the way, I’m Paul. Paul Brown.” He says his name with an odd urgency, like he wants me to believe him. I think he must be much older than I first thought. Maybe my dad’s age or even older.

“Hi, Mr. Brown,” I say.

“Paul. I prefer it.”

“I’m Natalie.”

The driver’s voice comes abruptly out through the tiny speakers in the roof of the bus. “There seems to be an obstruction in the road. Power lines. I have radioed in for assistance. Please remain seated.”

“Shit is right,” Paul says, which makes me laugh. I don’t think I’ve laughed since I left home. What? Ten hours ago? Twelve? I look at the time on my cell phone. Fifteen hours ago. I shut off the power.

“I’m going to lose battery,” I say out loud.

“Do you have someone else to call?”

I realize he must have heard me on the phone before, clearly lying to my dad, but he doesn’t say anything.

“If you need to, I have a phone.” He pats the briefcase that is still on his lap.

“Thanks. I’m fine.”

“Kids always say that nowadays, don’t they?”

“Say what?”

“I’m fine, instead of no. Or yes. Language is funny like that. It changes.”

There doesn’t seem to be any particular judgment in Paul’s tone. Just interest.

“I never thought of that.”

“Oh, yes. Language changes all the time. It reveals so much about a culture. Just to study their words. Names, too. Names change.”

Then a red emergency light appears outside beside the bus, spinning around, reflecting off the trees in the darkness, the bus windows, and into the rain again. The police must be here. I sigh, figuring it’s going to be a long time.

“Are you in a hurry?” Paul asks me.

I am not in any hurry at all. In fact, I have no reason to believe my mother will be at 1711 Fernando Street when I get there,
if
I get there. I have never heard of St. Augustine, Florida, though it does have a nice sound to it, like a make-believe place.

I have just enough money to pay a cab, find her house, and get a bus ticket back home, hopefully all before spring break is over and I can show up at home without explanation.

“Trying to get somewhere fast?” he adds.

“Yeah,” I say. “I guess I am.”

Paul Brown nods. “I used to be like that.”

Arnie Braunschwiegger loved his English teacher, Mr. Cowell, plain and simple. And he did so from the first moment he saw him, which was the exact moment he knew his love would never be reciprocated.

Not in quite the same way.

Not ever.

Only this understanding did nothing to lessen Arnie’s obsession. Once it began, he carried it with him day and night. During the day, it took the form of “arrangements.” Arnie drove to school — his father’s old Dodge Dart — so he was able to arrive early. Just early enough to pass by the main office, and look casual.

“Has the
New York Times
arrived yet?” Arnie would ask the office ladies. He would be careful to act as if it were the paper he was interested in, its owner only secondary.

But he knew. He already knew, because he had seen the truck outside. Certainly no one else in Harrisonburg, Virginia, got the
New York Times
delivered every weekend. Maybe nobody else in Harrisonburg even read the
New York Times,
to Arnie’s knowledge, at least not regularly, as Mr. Cowell did.

“Yes, as a matter of fact,” the principal’s secretary said. She passed Arnie the heavy paper, tied in twine, across the counter. “Are you going to bring it to Mr. Cowell again, Mr. Braunschwiegger? How nice of you.”

She spoke slowly, and the way she said his full name, it was as if she knew his secret. Arnie hated his name in that moment, and he vowed, that morning, that someday he would change it.

“Yes, thank you. I’ll take it to his room.” Arnie hurried along. She couldn’t know.
How could she?

Mr. Cowell always read the whole paper. It took him the entire week, and by that time a new edition would arrive. If any of his students so desired, they were welcome, encouraged, to join him and read it as well. Mr. Cowell taught them how. He explained all the different sections. There were so many. He showed them how to fold a towel across their laps so the ink wouldn’t leave a stain. How to fold the paper and snap it smooth, so you could read without having to take up so much space. And he showed them a whole new world, of “Travel” and “Real Estate.” And Arnie’s favorite, “Arts and Leisure.”

Mr. Cowell arrived at school early each day and thought to bring extra cups of coffee and doughnuts for any student who showed up. But Arnie could never eat in Mr. Cowell’s presence. It was as if his hunger vanished, replaced by a new sensation, a kind of joyful agony he came to feel he couldn’t live without. In fact, it was almost as if the more Arnie felt his love unrequited, the greater his love grew. The deeper it ran.

The first part of Arnie’s arrangement was simply showing up, learning to read the
New York Times,
without appearing too overanxious, too eager. To become as easy and comfortable as the
Times
itself. So Mr. Cowell would look forward to his visits and miss him when he didn’t show up.

“Mr. Braunschwiegger, I see you brought the paper.”

It was his voice: deep and masculine, but tender, as if he had really listened and thought about what he was saying in advance. It was also the smell of his cologne, and the way he’d hold his own hands together, rubbing one thumb over the joint of the other, while he was thinking.

“I can always rely on you,” Mr. Cowell said. He was behind his desk, grading papers.

Arnie smiled back, but inside, his heart twisted with pain, so much he could hardly enjoy their time together. It was as if every moment simply brought them closer to the end. The bell would ring, and first period would start. He would not see Mr. Cowell again until English, last period of the day. And then there would be other people around. Distractions. It was not as easy to arrange to be seen or even heard by Mr. Cowell. Mr. Cowell might call on another student. He might be standing in the hall, talking in hushed tones to another teacher.

Sometimes, if he was diligent, Arnie could arrange to be leaving school at the same time that Mr. Cowell was heading for his car. And they could talk on their way to the parking lot.

But it was at night, in Arnie’s dreams, in the dreams that occurred just before he fell asleep, the ones he still had control over but were magical enough to carry him away, that he could go anywhere he wanted to go. Be with anyone he wanted to be with.

And make them love him, him alone.

I have such an appetite for you.

If only, and forever, in his dreams.

Dreaming, but no sooner do I realize this than I forget what it was I was dreaming about.

I open my eyes, and it is dark.

Where am I?

On a bus?

I’m on a bus?

Why?

A sense of panic that I haven’t felt before seizes me in the dark. Not in all these hours. What time is it now? How alone I feel in the dark. Every thump of the bus tires taking me farther away from everything I know to be real, my house, my room, my dad, school, Sarah.

It moves without my permission — and me along with it.

It is the night, I tell myself. Things will look better in the day. Don’t listen to your night voice. The night voice is always afraid. It starts to come back to me as I rub my eyes, my forehead, the top of my head. The roadblock was cleared, and the bus had gotten under way. The next few hours are harder to recover in my mind. My legs are aching; my neck hurts.

I look next to me. Paul Brown is sleeping. All over the bus, people are sleeping. I remember: we stopped in North Carolina two hours ago. We waited there how long?

Then how long before we got to South Carolina? Manning, South Carolina? A few more people got off the bus.

What time is it now?

The dream I was having is beginning to seep into my brain, but it disappears again as soon as I try to remember it. I need to check the time, but I don’t wear a watch.

I press the power button on my phone; it takes a while to start up. If I’ve gotten a call
(did I get a call?),
a message, it will beep, even with the ringer silenced. I hold the phone deep in my lap to muffle any sound. It takes forever. Somebody a few rows back sneezes, and then all is quiet again. My cell phone slowly lights up.