Stealing Air (14 page)

After brushing his teeth, he looked in the cabinet until he found the mouthwash that his father used. In the commercials, a guy always swished this stuff around in his mouth, and then some beautiful girl would put her arms around his shoulders and smile because his breath was so fresh. Brian poured some into the cap and then tipped it back.

It burned! His eyes watered while his mouth was on fire. Brian spat the mouthwash into the sink, turned on the water, and put his mouth under the faucet. He spat again. How could the guys on TV look so happy while they used this crap? He had to rinse and spit again and again to get the sick chemical taste out of his mouth. It was a battle to keep from throwing up.

When the mouthwash ordeal was finally over, Brian searched the bathroom cupboards for cologne. He thought he remembered Dad having some, but he hadn't ever paid too close attention to his father's bathroom stuff. Finally, he found it on the top shelf of a side cupboard, a small green bottle with a gold-colored cap and
Old World Fire
written in fancy gold letters on the front.

Brian took the cap off the bottle and sniffed the cologne. It was strong stuff. He'd just pour some on his hand and then put it on his neck. When he tipped the bottle, though, a lot of it poured out way too fast. He didn't need anywhere near that much. Dumping most of it out into the sink, he dabbed a little on his neck.

He sneezed. The smell was powerful. He put the cap back on the bottle and put the cologne away. That didn't make a difference. The smell was still
everywhere
.

Even with the bathroom fan on and the door open, the fragrance nearly made his eyes water. He scrubbed his hands with a ton of soap and the water as hot as he could stand it, but the cologne only backed off a little bit. He washed his hands again and then a third time.

Finally, Brian gave up. If he didn't get down to the skate park soon, he'd be late, and then all of this preparation would be for nothing. He looked himself over in the mirror one last time, then took a deep breath and spoke to his reflection. “Ready as you'll ever be.”

When he rolled into the skate park, Wendy was perched with her board on the lip at the top of the half-pipe. She didn't seem to hear him coming, and Brian didn't call out to her. Her purple helmet caught a glint of sunlight as she looked at the ramp in front of her.

Then she put her foot on the raised front end of her board and rolled, skating smoothly all the way to the other lip where, after a kickturn, she rolled back down. The next part of the run was a little wobbly, and Wendy stomped the tail to bring her front trucks up, scraping to a stop on the flat. She took her helmet off and brushed her fingers through her long dark hair.

Wendy Heller was the most perfect girl in the universe, Brian thought. And now he might be on a date with her.

“Nice trick,” he said. Wendy jumped, dropping her helmet. It hit the metal ramp with a clang. He held his hands up. “Sorry.”

Wendy shook her head. “I can't get it right. I could go back and forth probably all day if I rode back fakie, but I'm never going to get air in reverse.”

“Your kickturn was good,” he said. “But you're leaning the wrong way coming back down the ramp. You were sort of off to the side, and you need to get repositioned to lean into the roll on the way down.”

Wendy folded her arms. “Can you show me?”

“I'll give it a try.” He took
Spitfire
up on the platform of the half-pipe. “It's not just in how you move the board. You have to make sure your body is positioned right too.” He launched himself down the ramp and skated back and forth from one platform to the other, building speed. Finally, when he rolled up on the other side and shot into the air, he reached back to grab
Spitfire
and yanked the board around in a good spin — too long maybe? He bent his knees to bring the board tighter to him.

He made the 360! The wheels slapped the ramp just in time to roll back down to the flat bottom. He jumped off and ran to a stop, spreading his arms wide in triumph. He'd totally just nailed the Ultimate Trick!

“Have you done that before?” Wendy clapped. “That was amazing.”

“Yeah, I've …” His heart was pounding through his whole body. He took a deep breath to steady himself. “Done it all the time.”

“You liar!” She laughed. “That was totally your first time. You're lucky you didn't fall on your butt.”

“Okay,” Brian said. “I've been trying to carve that trick for years. This was the first time I did it.”

“What did you do different?” she asked.

He shrugged. “I don't know. Maybe you're my good-luck charm.”

“Maybe I would be …” Wendy said, “if you didn't use such
terrible
lines!” She put her finger in her mouth, pretending like she was gagging.

Brian laughed. “Maybe we should try something easier for a while.”

“Deal.” She frowned and sniffed, then her eyes widened. “Brian, are you wearing cologne?” She tried to hide her giggle behind her hand.

“Um, no.” He kicked
Spitfire
forward to hide his blush, heading toward a small ramp off to the side. “Just soap.”

“You lie again!” Wendy laughed and skated after him. They skated all sorts of tricks, hitting some smaller ramps and jumping their boards up to grind on some low rails. Brian didn't worry about Frankie, or the Wolf Pack, or dates, or anything. He just skated and had fun. It was a lot like hanging out with Alex and Max in the Eagle's Nest, he thought. Only Wendy was beautiful, and she didn't belch like Alex or spout off super-complicated science stuff like Max. She was different. Special. She was … she was Wendy Heller.

When they were both pretty tired, they sat on a bench to rest for a minute. Brian wondered if Wendy's silence was one of the signals Alex had talked about. Then she stood up. “Come on,” she said. “I want to show you something.”

Brian would have followed her anywhere, but after they walked a couple blocks up to the square, he became curious. “Where are we going?”

She led him through the square and past the fountain in the middle of Carl Jacobs Park. They stopped outside a two-story red brick building. The year
1912
had been carved into a large stone block up near the roof in the middle of the storefront. A round sign painted to look like a clock swung in the breeze, squeaking on its rusted chains, with the words
Time Remembered
in fading letters at the center.

Wendy put her hand on the doorknob and glanced at Brian, but then quickly looked away. After a moment she opened the door. A bell jangled over their heads as they entered.

They stood in a crowded antique shop with almost too much to look at right at first. A blue glass ball lamp hung from a chain in the store window. Next to that stood a bird-cage with chipped white paint. Shelves filled with old glasses and bottles lined the brick walls to the right and left. Some antique farm tools were mounted on the wall in one corner. A few ancient-looking painted wood tables in the center held a jumble of other items.

“Hey, babe. Who's your friend?” A woman with brown curly hair pulled back into a ponytail came through a door at the back. She went behind a glass display case near the cash register.

“This is Brian Roberts,” Wendy said.

“Roberts. Roberts. Hmm.” The woman leaned over the counter and looked closely at him. “What's your mother's name?”

“Diane,” said Brian.

“Diane Davis?” she asked. Brian nodded. She smiled. “Wow. I'd heard she was back in town! I'm Gwen Smith — Dakota's mom. I was in school with your mother. How do you like Riverside so far?”

Most of the time when adults asked how he liked something, they really just wanted him to say how good it was. Brian decided to be polite. “I really like it,” he said. He looked at Wendy. Why had she brought him here? To introduce him to Dakota's mother?

“I know you're closing soon,” Wendy said. “But I wanted to show Brian the book room.”

“You want to take this boy upstairs?” The woman grinned.

Wendy's cheeks flared red. “Gwen!”

Gwen laughed and motioned toward the stairway. “I'm just kidding. Go ahead, and don't worry about closing time. Stay as long as you like. I have some paperwork to catch up on anyway.”

Brian followed Wendy up the wooden stairs to the second floor. Clothes racks displayed suits, dresses, jackets, and old shirts. Hats and ties dangled from hooks on the back wall. A few antique chandeliers hung from the ceiling, but Wendy switched them off. Plenty of light spilled across the floorboards through the three tall windows in the front. More shelves lined the brick walls on both sides, but these were packed with books.

“Gwen used to babysit Frankie and me sometimes,” Wendy said. She went to stand by the windows, so Brian could only make out her silhouette against the bright sunlight. “When we were younger. A long time ago.” From somewhere in the store came the sound of a ticking clock. She came away from the window and gave him a sad smile. “I used to play up here while Frankie would play in the courtyard or with some of the toys downstairs. I'd put on the dresses and pretend I was a princess locked away in a tower.” She smiled. “One time Dakota tried to be a prince and rescue me. He found a metal helmet downstairs, and he came charging up with a yardstick for a sword and the lid from a skillet as his shield.”

Brian sat down on a small cushioned wooden couch. “How did that go?”

“Frankie decided he'd play too. Only he was a robot, I think.” She laughed. “He had one of those old-fashioned hand-crank mixer things and walked around saying ‘Frank-O-Tron-5000-will-grind-your-face-off.' He kind of ruined it.”

“He's good at that.” Brian said the words before he realized that was probably a bad idea. Wendy froze. “I'm sorry,” he said. “I didn't mean —”

“It's okay,” she said. “I know. I know he's been mean. He wasn't always this way, you know. He used to be really nice. He still is nice to me, but … he's changed.” She pulled a book from the shelf and flipped through its pages without seeming to look at it. “These last few years, I feel like I hardly know him sometimes. Now I come up here to hide out.” She made a sweeping gesture with her arm. “All these old things. They weren't always forgotten junk. They used to belong to people, you know. They were Christmas and birthday presents. Wedding gifts.”

Brian waited for her to go on. She was silent for a long time, but somehow he knew this wasn't one of the signals Alex had talked about. Finally, the quiet was uncomfortable. “Frankie's not that bad,” he said.

Wendy nodded, but tears were in her eyes. She put the book back on the shelf. “I'm sorry,” she said. “You don't want to hear about all this.”

“No,” he said. He couldn't stand to see her cry. How could he fix this? “I mean, whatever. It's cool.”

She wiped her eyes. “Frankie was a really nice guy. Then, about two years ago, there was a bad snowstorm. Mom was on her way home from Iowa City.” She breathed deeply. “It wasn't anybody's fault. Nobody to blame or anything. Just ice and snow and … a crash.” She shrugged. “Mom was dead.”

Brian had never known a kid his age with a parent who was dead. He wanted to help her, to do something or say something to make her less sad, but there was nothing he could do. “I'm sorry,” he said. The words felt useless. He couldn't help her. Not really.

“It's a little easier to deal with now,” she said. “Still, it's like the guys, the other girls, even the teachers just want me to move on and forget it.” She wiped her eyes again. “Forget her. And at home it's just … Here in the store …” She pointed at the clothes in the back. “Where some of Mom's old things are for sale … I come up here and read or write in the quiet, and I feel like I don't have to forget. Time remembered, right?”

Neither of them spoke. The clock ticked.

“You're different than the others, Brian,” Wendy said.

What did she mean by that? “Different bad or diff —”

“Different good. You're a good skateboarder. You're not a show-off like Alex or David or Red.” Brian could feel his cheeks turning red. He wasn't used to getting compliments from a girl like Wendy. He didn't get very many compliments at all. “Thanks for coming here with me. I've never shown anyone my book room.”

He felt good, closer to Wendy now that she had shared these secrets with him. He couldn't tell her about
Blackbird
or the Eagle's Nest, but he could share something to let her know he trusted her too. “Before I left my house today, Alex told me all these things I should do or say —”

Wendy giggled. “Oh no, did he tell you about his famous yawn maneuver?”

“What?” Brian said. How could she know about it? Had she and Alex dated?

“A bunch of us went to the movies last year. He had this big crush on Jess O'Claire, and he did this thing where he acted like he was yawning and stretching his arms, but then he put his arm around her like he was all smooth. She moved to a different seat.”

Brian nodded. “What I mean is that, with you, I haven't had to worry about all that stuff Alex was talking about.” He looked at her. “You're just … really great to talk to.”

“Thanks,” she whispered. “You too.”

The quiet that followed somehow felt very different than it had a few moments ago. Brian pretended to read the spines of some of the books. Finally, he worked up the courage to say something. “Would you like to go get some ice cream?”

“Sure,” she said.

He stood up, and they went back down the stairs and said good-bye to Gwen. The Tasty Freeze was too far away, so they picked up soft-serve cones at the gas station. Just like with the hot chocolate at the football game weeks ago, Brian felt really good buying something for Wendy, even if it was just something cheap. It made the whole afternoon feel more important somehow. More like a date, maybe.

They walked through town with their skateboards under their arms, licking their ice-cream cones. Wendy led the way to the railroad tracks and then headed south. She stopped in the middle of the bridge and sat on the limestone edge with her feet dangling.

Brian chuckled. “You sure aren't afraid of heights,” he said. “It must be fifty feet down.” He sat down beside her, but not too close. He didn't want to weird her out.

Her ice cream was down to just the cone. “Yuck,” she said. She threw the cone off the bridge and it landed with a tiny splash in the gurgling water. “I hate the cone. It gets all soggy.”

Brian actually liked eating the cone, but he dropped his off the edge as well, watching it tumble to its final plop. “I'd hate to fall off this thing.”

“You mean
you're
afraid of heights?” Wendy said. She closed her eyes, seeming to enjoy the sun on her face and the breeze in her long hair.

“I'm not afraid of anything,” Brian said.

“You liar.” She opened her eyes, her smile fading to a serious expression. “I think you're afraid of my brother.”

Brian looked away. He couldn't tell this girl that he sort of hated her brother.

“And maybe,” she said, “you're still a little nervous about living in a completely new place.”

“What?” he said. What was her deal? If he wanted to be called a coward, he'd go find Frankie. “I'm totally fine here.”

“Yeah.” Wendy moved closer to him on the bridge. “Me too.” She watched him for a moment with those deep green eyes. Finally, she looked away. “They call this the Runaway Bridge,” she said. “They say that a long time ago, like in the sixties or seventies, these two kids were in love, only the girl's father didn't want her to be dating her boyfriend. One day the boy was over at her house. He was supposed to leave before the father got home from work, but on that day, the girl's dad showed up early. The boy and girl weren't doing anything, just talking. But the dad went crazy and threatened to beat the boy up. He chased him out of the house and kept after him for blocks and blocks.”