This One Time With Julia (18 page)

“Are you sure?”

“Houston even admitted that he killed Alvin.”

“Really?”

“And plus you wanted me to do it.”

“Stop saying that,” said Julia. “Don’t ever say that again. That’s a terrible thing to say. Why would you think that?”

“How am I supposed to know?”

“This is hard enough without you saying that.”

“But I love you.”

“I love you too,” said Julia. “I’ve never met anybody like you, Joe. But now I’m off to college, and I’m going to start caring about things again. And I don’t want to make you have to care about anything.”

“But I love you so much,” I said. “And I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Please. You’re going to make me cry.”

Julia put the car in gear again, and eased us back on the road. I knew if she cried I’d start crying too, so I didn’t say anything else for the rest of the ride. I just sat there trying to remember what I’d done to make her love me in the first place so I could start doing it again, before it was too late.

The station was almost empty. The last bus to Los Angeles was leaving in half an hour. I’d lost all my money playing pool, so Julia bought me a ticket and gave me some cash for the trip. I held my book bag in my lap while we waited on a bench together for my bus. Julia took my hand. “I didn’t mean for this to happen,” she said. “I even said it, didn’t I? Remember? I said, ‘Julia, you can’t be falling in love with any boys right now.’”

“Can’t I just keep you until tomorrow?” I asked. “We’ll just spend one more day together. Then I’ll go home and I won’t complain at all.”

“That wouldn’t help.” She shook her head, and wouldn’t let me see her eyes. “Does it have to be tragic? Let’s try not to make this too sad, if we can help it. Here, I’ll get some candy.”

Life is so full of impossible things that I can’t understand. The main thing I did with Julia in our last few minutes at the station was wait for her to come back with some candy. While I waited, I opened up my book bag and took out the picture I had stolen of her—the one where she was standing in front of Golden Oaks, before the place burned down. Something occurred to me the day I stole that picture, and I’d forgotten it right away, but it came back pretty easily now. It occurred to me that Julia hadn’t really turned out how she seemed she would from that picture. It was like she’d taken a wrong turn somewhere—just a small one—but it was enough to make her come out a little crooked. When Julia came back with the candy and looked at the picture, I think maybe she saw the same thing, because it seemed to make her a little sad.

“That seems so long ago. Where did you get that?”

“I stole it from your room at the hotel. You want it back?”

“No, you keep it.”

“Should we play poker one more time while we wait?”

“We don’t have time. Your bus is almost here.”

We held hands on the bench and sucked on candy for the last couple of minutes until the bus showed up. Julia gave me my ticket and walked me to the gate. Then she kissed me, but not on the lips. “I’m going to miss you,” she said. “Do you realize we’ve known each other for over two months? We met on the first day of summer. Thanks for everything, Joe. Good-bye.”

“Good-bye,” I said.

I stood in line with my book bag and gave my ticket to the driver, and then I climbed onto the bus and sat there while everybody else got on. The bus was already half full, and I was starting to feel sick already because it smelled so terrible in there. Someone sat down beside me with two screaming babies. Then I thought maybe I could have stopped all this if I had said or done something different. I pushed my way off the bus and ran back through the station to the parking lot, where Julia was cleaning out the trunk of Alvin’s car. She looked more beautiful than the last time I’d seen her. It was like she’d taken a shower and had a nap since she left me.

“Do you want to have lunch?” I said. “Before you drive away?”

Julia looked up at the sky, where a plane was flying overhead. She tossed her keys into the air and caught them. “I should really get going.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m supposed to have dinner with my dad.”

“Is he really a criminal?”

“You know he is.”

“Are you going to be a criminal too?”

Julia smiled. “We’ll see.”

“Will you hug me?”

“You’ll miss your bus.”

“But I need it.”

We hugged for a while next to Alvin’s car. When she pulled away, she pointed at my empty shoulder. “Where’s your book bag?”

“On the bus.”

“You’d better get back. It’s going to leave without you.”

“Please don’t remember me this way.”

“As what?”

“As being so sad.”

Julia laughed.

“Don’t worry. I promise only to remember the good times. Soon that’s all you’ll remember too.” She rattled the keys in her hand. “Okay, I’m getting in the car now.”

“Okay.”

She got into the car.

“I’m driving away now. Good-bye.”

“Good-bye,” I said. “Good-bye, Julia.”

“Good-bye, Joe.”

I watched her drive away, and then went back into the station. Julia had been right that I would miss my bus. One of the other drivers told me it had left three minutes ago. I’d lost my book bag and Houston’s jacket and everything. I didn’t really care about any of it, except for the picture of Julia.

I spent the whole night on that bench until another bus came in the morning. I got on the last empty seat and stayed on it for two days, next to a man who was heading to California to see his family. He took the bus across the country six times every year to see some children he had there. Later he spilled boiling coffee all over my legs.

We arrived in Los Angeles in the middle of the afternoon, and I spent the last of my money on a cab to Sherman Oaks. All the apartments looked the same as ever. I eventually remembered where Marcus lived—from the purple iron fence around the swimming pool—but when I stood outside his door and heard nothing but singing inside, I still wondered if I’d come to the right place.

It was excellent singing, but it was also completely different from how Ms. Delancey sang. Ms. Delancey’s singing made you want to cry, but this singing sort of made it easier to breathe. I wouldn’t have minded standing there and listening to it all day long, but I knew it was probably illegal. When I rang the doorbell, the singing stopped and this girl opened the door in flip-flops. She had on this snappy orange tank top, and her black hair was all shiny and loose. As soon as I saw her I remembered Marcus didn’t live here anymore. He’d gone off to play basketball in China and would never take care of me again.

The girl had a movie script in her hand. She looked at me, waiting.

“I love your singing,” I said. “Are you an actress?”

She nodded and smiled. It wasn’t a very friendly smile, but I can’t blame her. I was just this strange person who’d knocked on her door.

“I’m Marcus’s brother,” I said.

“Who?”

“The guy who used to rent this place.”

“Oh, Marcus. Right. And you’re his brother. What was your name again?”

“Joe.”

“That’s right. He mentioned you. He came by and left something for you, in case you ever stopped by. Hold on a second.”

She left the door open while she disappeared into the apartment, back toward where my old bedroom used to be. I could see that all the furniture was different, and in different places. The walls were lighter too. If I didn’t already know I’d lived there, I never would have recognized it. She came back with this little box, tied up with black string.

“You’ll see there’s a note in there too.”

“Do you mind reading it for me?”

“Are you serious?”

“I’d really appreciate it. I can’t read just now.”

She untaped the yellow note and looked it over.

“You sure you want me to read this?”

“Please.”

“It says that Marcus still hasn’t forgiven you, and that you should only call if it’s absolutely necessary. Otherwise he simply doesn’t have the energy.”

“Okay, thanks.”

“And there’s a phone number.”

“Will you write down your number too?”

“Why?”

“I could call you sometime. I could call you on my phone. Will you at least give me your name? You’ve known mine for a while already.”

She laughed. I’d made her laugh.

“Sheryl,” she said, and then she went off and got a pen and wrote her name and number on the yellow paper next to Marcus’s little note.

When she closed the door I thought,
I made her laugh
. On my way out of the building, I passed the dumpster where Marcus had thrown away all my clothes one time. Now it was filled with bags of disgusting trash and a couple of broken chairs, and this ironing board. I took off my suit jacket and threw it in the dumpster. I threw my dress shirt in there too, so I was just in a T-shirt now. I only kept my pants on because I didn’t have any other pants.

I wandered down to the McDonald’s on Ventura Boulevard, but Francisco wasn’t there. I sort of recognized the manager from before, and I explained who I was looking for.

“We called him Pancho here,” he said.

“Did he finally kiss her?”

“Kiss who?”

“Carmen. She was always cooking in the back.”

“Oh, Carm?” He blushed a little. “I think he probably did. They got married and went to live with his family in San Juan. That’s where Pancho’s mom is from. They have a baby on the way already.”

“That’s such good news,” I said. “I mean it really is. That’s such an awesome piece of news. He must have really kissed her then.”

“Listen, would you like to order something?”

“I’m going to order one cheeseburger,” I said. “And one chicken sandwich.”

“Anything else?”

“Just let me get some money from an ATM. I’ll be right back. I can’t believe he kissed her!”

I ran out of the restaurant, still excited. But when I tried to take some money from an ATM, I found out I couldn’t do this anymore. I remembered that Marcus had predicted this also, that before I knew it all my money would be gone. I tried a few more times, then pressed random buttons until the machine swallowed my card.

The sun was setting as I wandered over to the park where I used to play basketball. Somebody had recently paved all the courts and repainted all the lines; and all the nets were brand new too, but nobody was there. The tennis courts and baseball fields were empty. Nobody was playing sports that afternoon. Everyone was somewhere else. The sky was empty too. I sat down on a bench next to the court, and soon Alvin came out of the trees beside the baseball fields. He was, by this time, maybe four or five years old. He had these chubby little legs, and his hair was even lighter back then, and his head had a rounder shape now. His eyes were so healthy and clear. He had some caramel smeared on his cheeks and this big red ball stuffed in his pocket.

“Do you have any more caramel?” I asked him.

He shook his head. “I’m saving my last piece until just before dinner.”

Then he took the red ball out of his pocket and sort of threw it at the ground.

“Throw this ball for me, Joe. Just throw it as far as you can.”

I threw the ball onto the baseball diamond. He ran over and brought it back to me proudly. “Come on, throw it farther,” he said.

“I killed Houston,” I told him.

“Houston? Who’s Houston?” Alvin started to laugh.

“How can you not remember?” I knew Alvin just wanted me to throw the ball again, but I had the feeling this might be my last chance to ask him. I started yelling at him, “Hello! Hello, Alvin! Where are you?! I want to talk to you!”

He stopped laughing and got himself together, and then he started acting more like the age he was when he died.

“How strange,” he said. “At thirteen I was less interesting than I remembered. Now I am more interesting. But it’s harder to remember things I haven’t done yet.”

“You ran away to Tennessee, remember? Then you came back. We were going to go sailing.”

“Ah, yes,” said Alvin. “It’s all coming back.”

“I couldn’t ever do that.”

“Do what?”

“Leave Julia. I don’t understand how you did it.”

He flickered a little bit, and held the ball out toward me. “Come on, throw it again.”

“How could you leave her?”

“Throw it.”

“I want to know.”

“Oh, shoot,” he said. “Her tummy was so soft in the morning. But I realized that she still belonged to her family, and I didn’t want to live around a bunch of gangsters all my life.”

“I would,” I said. “I wouldn’t care, as long as they were nice to me.”

“I figured that a sailing trip around the world was a place that nobody would find her. But when she didn’t go for it, I realized that she never would.”

“And so you came and asked me.”