Since You've Been Gone (10 page)

“Let me get that,” Frank said, bending down as well to grab one side of it. We hoisted it up together, and only then did it occur to me that I could have filled up the container in the
truck bed, and made things easier for us. It was just one more thing that had gone wrong tonight, and I added it to the list. “James said we should keep it in the back,” he said as we placed the container into the truck bed. “And even after it’s empty, you should keep the container in your trunk unless you want your car to smell like a filling station.”

“James?” I asked as I walked around the back to the passenger side. I hadn’t noticed a name tag, but maybe Frank had, or maybe they’d just bonded while doing the word search.

“Yeah,” Frank said, nodding toward the guy inside the store, who waved at us. “Nice guy. I think he’s going to give Sudoku a try.”

We got into the truck, and Frank started the engine and dropped a piece of paper into the cupholder with the origami frog—which was when I noticed that what had been my receipt was now folded into a crane. I wanted to ask him about it, but instead, I just put on my seat belt and looked out the window. If Sloane had been there, sitting next to me, I could have gotten her to ask with one look. She would have done it, too. She had never, in the two years I’d known her, backed down from any kind of challenge.

We were halfway back to the Orchard before I broke the silence and spoke up. Our interaction was coming to an end; I could almost see it shimmering in the distance like the finish line at the end of one of my long cross-country races. “Thank you again,” I finally said after silently trying out a few different
versions of this. “I really appreciate it. I swear, I’ve never run out of gas before.”

“And I bet you won’t again,” Frank said. He nodded toward his dashboard, which was lit up like a spaceship, bathing his whole side of the car in a cool blue light. “Mine starts flashing and beeping at me if I get below a quarter of a tank, so I’ll usually fill up immediately just to get it to stop.”

“The gauge on my car is broken,” I explained. Normally I wouldn’t have shared this, but I didn’t want Frank Porter to think I was some kind of airhead, in addition to being the sister of a preadolescent adrenaline junkie. “So I just try and be aware of how much I’ve driven.”

Frank glanced over at me, eyebrows raised. “I’m surprised you haven’t run out before now.”

“No, I’m usually really careful,” I said. “But this week . . .” My voice trailed off when I realized I wasn’t about to tell Frank these kinds of details about my life: Sloane vanishing, me driving all over town looking for her, the list. “It’s just been a little crazy,” I finally supplied.

He nodded as he made the turn back into the Orchard. It looked like, while we’d been gone, the evening had started to wind down—there were only a handful of cars still parked there. Frank pulled up next to my car, and even though I’d just been expecting he would drop me off, he helped me lift the container down and then held it steady while I filled up. I dropped the empty container off in the trunk, and when I walked back
to the driver’s side, I saw that Frank was reading the bumper stickers that covered the left side. He looked at me, and I could see the question in his eyes, but I looked away as I got behind the wheel and crossed my fingers. I turned the key, and after a moment of sputtering, the car came to life again.

“Working?” Frank asked, leaning in my window a little.

“Working,” I said. I tapped on the gauge. “But don’t look at this. It’s always stuck on half empty.”

Frank leaned closer, contemplating it. “I would say it’s half full.” He smiled at me, and a moment later, I got the joke. But rather than laughing, or saying something in return, I just gave him a tight smile and stared ahead at the steering wheel. Frank turned to head back to his truck, and I suddenly wondered if this had been incredibly rude.

“But seriously,” I said, leaning out the window a little, “thank you. Let me know if there’s anything I can do to pay you back.”

He nodded and held up a hand in a wave as he turned his truck around to leave. But then he stopped and leaned across his truck to look down at me. “Actually,” he said through the open window. “There is something. Can you teach me to run?”

This was so not even close to anything I’d expected him to say that I wasn’t sure how to react at first. This might have been apparent in my expression, because Frank went on quickly. “I mean, I know how to run. I just want to get better at it, maybe
train for a 10K or something. You’re on the cross-country team, right?”

I nodded at that, trying to disguise my shock that Frank had any idea what I’d been involved in at school—or, honestly, that he knew anything about me at all. And after I’d started missing practices and meets regularly this past spring, I wasn’t sure that I would still be on the team come fall. But I didn’t think that he needed to know any of that. “Sure,” I said, easily. I was pretty certain that this wouldn’t come to anything, that he would forget he’d asked me, and the next time I saw Frank Porter, it would be at the first day of school in September, when he would be welcoming us all as the senior class president. He had probably only asked so that I wouldn’t feel like I owed him anything. “Anytime.”

“Great,” Frank said. He gave me a smile, then pulled forward, signaling as he turned to leave, even though there was no reason for it. I watched his brake lights until they faded from view, then I turned on my iPod, connected to the ancient stereo via a line in, put my car in gear, and headed for home, ready to put this entire night behind me.

I opened the door slowly, so the hinges wouldn’t squeak, and stepped over the threshold. It was almost one thirty, and I held my breath as I waited for lights to turn on and my parents to thunder down the stairs, furious and demanding explanations. But there was only silence, punctuated by the loud ticking of the grandfather clock that had been in the house when we
moved in and had proven too heavy to lift. I let out a breath just as I felt something brush against my legs.

I froze. Heart hammering, I looked down and saw that it was only the cat. “Move,” I whispered to him as he sat down on the threshold and started washing his paws, like he didn’t know that he was sitting right in the path of the door. We’d been in Stanwich a year before he showed up, mewling at our door one night. I was thrilled to be finally getting a pet, which had never been possible before. But even though we put a collar on him and filled his food and water dishes, it quickly became clear that he was not going to be a typical housecat. He came and went as he pleased, mostly living outside in the garage, only spending large amounts of time in the house once it got cold out. But just when you had given up on him ever turning up again, there he would be in the kitchen in the morning, waiting impatiently by his dish, like he’d never been gone. My dad had named him Godot, and over the years, we’d all gotten used to his
I’ll be there if I feel like it
presence.

“Come on,” I said, nudging him with my foot, but gently, since I just had flip-flops on, and Godot was not shy about using his claws when he felt offended. But it was late, I was exhausted, and it been a long enough day, without having to deal with our cat. I wanted to go upstairs, cross
Apple picking at night
off the list, and then fall into bed. But just as I’d taken a breath to tell the cat to move again, something occurred to me. Had I earned the right to cross it off? I had gone to the Orchard at night, but
I hadn’t picked an apple, and I wasn’t sure how literal Sloane wanted me to be with some of these. So before I could really think it through or talk myself out of it, I was pulling the door closed, startling the cat, who hissed at me halfheartedly and then stalked away into the night.

By the time I got back to the Orchard, I could see that the last few remaining cars were gone. The place was deserted, empty except for the occasional red cup left crushed on the ground. Now that I was here by myself, the place no longer seemed like the scary battlefield it had been earlier, and I found myself walking easily though the same space I had been tiptoeing around the edges of only hours before. I walked across the grass, my eyes adjusting to the darkness, my path lit by the moon that had come out of its cloud cover. As I walked through the rows of trees, I looked for one with a mostly intact ladder, one that wasn’t as visible. I figured this was my best bet, since the really prominent ladders were the ones that got jumped on by drunk people, and those were the ones with most of the rungs broken. But the ladder I finally picked seemed to be in one piece, except for the first rung, which I skipped. I climbed it carefully, and when I reached the top and hadn’t gone plunging to the ground, I felt myself relax. I was up in the branches of the tree, and I could also see the view from up here—the parking lot with only my car now in it, the endless dark roads that led back to town.

It was months away from being apple season, but I was
hoping that there would be a few. The apples I did see looked like the tiny, sour ones, and I had resigned myself to one of these when I spotted one, just a little out of reach. It wasn’t as big or as perfectly formed as a supermarket apple, but it was the best one that I could see. I grabbed it, and made sure to hold on to the ladder with my other hand as I gave it a hard yank. It came free of the tree, and I polished it on my tank top before I turned around and leaned back against the top step. Then, making sure I was balanced, I took a bite.

It wasn’t bad. It wasn’t quite ripe yet, but it wasn’t bad. And it really was pretty up here—maybe Beckett was onto something after all. I leaned more fully against the ladder and looked out at the view as I ate my apple, slowly, in the moonlight.

I stood in the parking lot in front of 55 Stanwich Avenue and stared at the sign in front of me.
Paradise Ice Cream
, it read in neon-colored letters.
Where Every Cone Is a Dream!

I was in a small shopping plaza off one of the main roads that ran through town. I had been here many times before, but I had never paid attention to the numbers, so hadn’t know what 55 was until I’d pulled into the parking lot, following the directions on my phone. There were only a handful of stores in this shopping plaza—Captain Pizza, which was our go-to to-go pizza place; a beauty supply store; a running shop where I’d bought my last pair of sneakers; an accountant’s office; and at the end, Paradise Ice Cream.

It was the day after I’d gone to the Orchard. When I’d woken up that morning, out of habit, I’d reached for my phone to call Sloane, not remembering the current situation until a few seconds later. But unlike the previous two weeks, the realization didn’t send me into a tailspin. I’d gotten a letter from her, after all. I had instructions. I’d already crossed one of the items off the list, and I was sure I could do the rest just as quickly. I had a plan.

I took a deep breath and crossed the parking lot, passing Captain Pizza as I walked, my stomach growling at the scent of the fresh-baked pizza wafting out, despite the fact that it wasn’t even noon yet and I’d just eaten breakfast.  Through the window, I could see a blond girl behind the counter, leaning close to a guy standing by the register, smoothing his hair down and giggling.

I pulled open the door to the ice cream parlor and stepped inside, and a blast of cold air hit me. The place was very bright, with white walls and tables, and fluorescent lights overhead. It wasn’t huge—five tables with chairs, a long counter with the ice cream below in glass cases, and a freezer that displayed ice cream cakes and pints to go. There were large framed posters covering most of the available wall space. There was something about the photography, or maybe the way the models were styled, that made me think these hadn’t been changed in a few years. They all pictured people holding cups or cones of ice cream and looking blissfully happy about it.
Take a Chance!
read one that pictured a smiling woman with a cone stacked five scoops high.
What’s Your Ice Cream Dream?
read another, with a pensive-looking little boy contemplating a sundae.

There was a girl behind the counter wearing a shirt with a rainbow across the front. I guessed she was around my age, maybe a little younger. She hadn’t looked up when I’d entered the store, but instead was examining the split ends at the end of her braid.

“Hi,” I said, as I stepped up to the counter. She had a name tag pinned to her shirt that read
Kerry
, and I felt myself deflate a little as I looked at it. Because of course she couldn’t have been Mona—that would have made this too easy.

“What can I get you?” she asked, looking away from her hair and picking up the ice cream scoop from where it was resting in a cup of water.

“Oh,” I said quickly. “No. I mean—I don’t want any ice cream.” Kerry stopped shaking off the ice cream scoop and gave me a look that clearly said
Then what are you doing here?
I swallowed hard, and tried to make myself get through this. “I was . . . Is Mona here?”

“No,” Kerry said, looking at me strangely. I didn’t blame her.

I nodded, wondering if I maybe should have started with buying some ice cream; maybe that would have made this process go a little easier. I stood there for a moment, trying to think of how to ask this. It would have helped if I had any idea who Mona was, or if I knew why I was supposed to ask for her. “I just . . .” I started, not exactly sure how to describe
what I needed when I knew so little about it myself. I took a breath and decided to just tell her, trying not to care how crazy it sounded. “A friend of mine left me a note, saying to come here and talk to Mona. So . . .” I stopped talking when I realized I didn’t know how to finish this sentence, without demanding that Kerry somehow procure her. This had already become much more humiliating than I had imagined it would be, which was, in a weird way, kind of liberating.

“Well, Mona’s not here,” Kerry said, speaking slowly and deliberately, like maybe the reason I was still standing in front of her, not ordering ice cream, was that I didn’t understand English well. “So if you’re not going to get something, you can’t—” The store phone rang and she picked it up. “Hello, Paradise,” she said, keeping her eyes on me the whole time, like maybe this was all part of an elaborate ruse to rob the place. “Hey, Mona. No. Not a customer. Just—”