Neil looked, for a moment, like someone upon whom the sun had begun to shine after months of rain . . . like he hardly dared believe it.
"Do you really think so?" he asked eagerly.
"Absolutely," I said. "That's all there is to it."
But while this news appeared to have made Neil's day - possibly his week - it caused Craig to scowl.
"What is this?" he wanted to know. "He should have died! Not me!"
"Apparently not," I said quietly enough so that only Craig could hear me.
This, however, did not prove to be the right answer. Not because it wasn't true - because it was - but because Craig did not like it. Craig did not like it one little bit.
"If I have to be dead," Craig declared, "then so should he."
And with that, he lunged forward and seized the steering wheel.
Neil was driving down a particularly quaint street, shady with trees and crowded with tourists. Art galleries and quilt shops - the kind my mother squealed over delightedly, and that I avoided like the plague - lined it. We were crawling along at a snails pace because there was an RV in front of us and a tourist bus in front of that.
But when Craig grabbed the wheel, the back of the RV suddenly loomed large in our field of vision. That's because Craig also managed to bring a leg over the backseat, and rammed his foot over Neil's on the accelerator, something Neil couldn't feel. All he knew was he hadn't pressed the gas pedal. If Neil hadn't reacted by slamming on the brake with his other foot - and I hadn't dived into the fray, yanking the wheel hard back the other way - we would have zoomed into the rear of that RV - or worse, into a thick knot of tourists on the sidewalk - killing ourselves, not to mention taking a few innocent bystanders out with us.
"What is wrong with you?" I shrieked at Craig.
But it was Neil who responded shakily, "It wasn't me, I swear. The wheel just seemed to turn without my doing anything. . . ."
But I wasn't listening. I was screaming at Craig, who seemed as stunned as Neil was by what had transpired. He kept looking down at his hands, like they had acted of their own volition or something.
"Don't you ever," I yelled at him, "do that again. Not ever! Do you understand?"
"I'm sorry," Neil cried. "But it wasn't my fault, I swear it!"
Craig, with a pitiful little moan, suddenly gave a shimmer and disappeared. Just like that. He dematerialized, leaving Neil and me to deal with his mess.
Which fortunately wasn't that bad. I mean, a lot of people were looking at us, because we had stopped in the middle of the street and done a lot of screaming and yelling. But neither of us was hurt - nor, mercifully, was anyone else. We hadn't so much as tapped the back of the RV. A second later, it started rolling forward, and we followed it, our hearts in our throats.
"I better take this car in for an overhaul," Neil said, clutching the steering wheel with white-knuckled fingers. "Maybe the oil needs to be changed or something."
"Or something," I said. My heart was drumming in my ears. "That'd be a good idea. Maybe you should start taking the bus for a little while." Or until I figure out what to do about your brother, I added mentally.
"Yeah," Neil said faintly. "The bus might not be so bad."
I don't know about Neil, but I was still somewhat shaken by the time he pulled up in front of my house. I had had quite a day. It wasn't often I got French-kissed and nearly murdered in the course of only a few hours.
Still, in spite of my own unease, I wanted to say something to Neil, something that would encourage him not to be so depressed over his being the sibling who'd lived . .. and also set him on his guard against his brother, who had seemed angrier than ever when he'd disappeared minutes earlier.
But all I could come up with, when it came down to it, was a very lame, "Well. Thanks for the ride."
Really. That was it. Thanks for the ride. No wonder I was winning all those mediation awards. Not.
Neil didn't look as if he was paying much attention anyway. He seemed to just want to get rid of me. And why not? I mean, what college boy wants to be saddled with a crazy-looking high school girl with giant blisters on her feet? None that I know of.
The minute I'd stepped from the car, he tore down our deeply shaded, pine-tree-lined driveway, apparently unconcerned about the accident he'd nearly suffered just moments before.
Or maybe he was so glad to be rid of me, he didn't care what happened to him or his car.
All I know is, he was gone, leaving me with the long, long walk up to my front door.
I don't know how I made it. I really don't. But going slowly - as slowly as a very, very old woman - I made it up the stairs to the porch, then through the front door.
"I'm home," I yelled, in case there was anybody around who'd care. Only Max came running to greet me, sniffing me all over in hopes I had food hidden in my pockets. Since I didn't, he soon went away, leaving me to make my way up the stairs to my room.
I did it, step by agonizing step. It took me, I don't know, like ten minutes or something. Normally I bound up and down two steps at a time. Not today.
I was, I knew, going to have a lot of explaining to do when I finally ran into someone besides Max. But the person I least wanted to have to face was going to be, I felt certain, the first person I'd see: Jesse. Jesse would be, more likely than not, in my room when I hobbled through the door. Jesse, who was not going to understand what I was doing at Paul Slater's house in the first place. Jesse, from whom I thought it was going to be difficult to hide the fact that I had just been playing tonsil hockey with another guy.
And that I'd sort of liked it.
It was, I told myself as I stood with my hand on the doorknob, Jesse's fault. That I'd gone off and made out with another guy. Because if Jesse had shown me the slightest shred of affection these past few weeks, I would never even have considered kissing Paul Slater back. Not in a million years.
Yeah, that was it. It was all Jesse's fault.
Not that I was ever going to tell him that, of course. In fact, if I could possibly avoid it, I was going to keep from bringing up Paul's name altogether. I needed to think up some story - any story, other than the truth - to explain my poor, abused feet. . . . . . not to mention my bruised lips.
But to my relief, when I threw open the door to my room, Jesse wasn't there. Spike was, sitting on the windowsill, washing himself. But not his master. Not this time.
Alleluia.
I threw down my book bag and shoes and headed to my bathroom. I had one thing, and one thing only on my mind, and that was to wash my feet. Maybe all they needed was a thorough cleaning. Maybe, if I soaked them long enough in warm, soapy water, some of the feeling in them would come back. . . .
I opened the taps full blast, put the stopper in place, and sitting on the edge of the tub, swung my legs painfully over it and into the water.
It was all right for a second or two. In fact, it was a soothing relief.
Then the water hit my blisters, and I nearly keeled over with the pain. Never again, I vowed, clutching the side of the tub in an effort not to pass out. No more designer shoes. From now on, it was strictly Aerosoles for me. I don't care how ugly they might look. Not even looking good was worth this.
The pain ebbed enough for me to make a tentative foray with a bar of Cetaphil and a sponge. It wasn't until I had gently scrubbed for nearly five minutes before I got through the final layer of dirt and saw why the bottoms of my feet were so desensitized. Because they were covered - literally covered - with giant red burn blisters, some of them blood filled and all of them getting bigger by the minute. I realized, with horror, that it was going to be days - maybe even a week - before the swelling was going to go down enough for me to walk normally again, let alone put on shoes.
I was sitting there cursing Paul Slater - not to mention Jimmy Choo - for all I was worth when I heard Jesse utter a curse that, even though it was in Spanish, burned my ears.