"I can't get the notes tomorrow," I said. "Joanne's going to her grandma's tomorrow. Tonight's the only time I can get them."
"Hush," my mom said.
"Reefer today," Great-aunt Rose said, shaking her head. "Heroin tomorrow."
"You don't know anybody named Joanne," Douglas leaned over to whisper in my ear.
"Mom," I said, ignoring Douglas. Which was kind of mean, on account of it had taken a lot for him even to come down to dinner at all. Douglas is not what you'd call the most sociable guy. In fact, antisocial is more the word for it, really. But he's gotten a little better since he started a job at a local comic book store. Well, better for him, anyway.
"Come on, Mom," I said. "I'll be back in less than an hour." This was a total lie, but I was hoping that she'd be so busy with her guests and everything, she wouldn't even notice I wasn't home yet.
"Jessica," my dad said, signaling for me to help him start gathering people's plates. "You'll miss pie."
"Save a piece of each for me," I said, reaching out to grab the plates nearest me, then following him into the kitchen. "Please?"
My dad, after rolling his eyes at me a little, finally tilted his head toward the driveway. So I knew it was okay.
"Take Ruth with you," my dad said, as I was pulling my coat down from its hook by the garage door.
"Aw, Dad," I said.
"You have a learner's permit," my dad said. "Not a license. You may not get behind the wheel without a licensed driver in the passenger seat."
"Dad." I thought my head was going to explode. "It's Thanksgiving. There is no one out on the streets. Even the cops are at home."
"It's supposed to snow," he said.
"The forecast said tomorrow, not tonight." I tried to look my most dependable. "I will call you as soon as I get there, and then again, right before I leave. I swear."
"Well, Joe." Mr. Lippman walked into the kitchen. "May I extend my compliments to the chef? That was the best Thanksgiving dinner I've had in ages."
My dad looked pleased. "Really, Burt? Well, thank you. Thank you so much."
"Dad," I said, standing by the heart-shaped key peg by the garage door.
My dad barely looked at me. "Take your mother's car," he said to me. Then, to Mr. Lippman, he went, "You didn't think the mashed potatoes were a little too garlicky?"
Victorious, I snatched my mom's car keys—on a Girl Scout whistle key chain, in case she got attacked in the parking lot at Wal-Mart; no one had ever gotten attacked there before, but you never knew. Besides, everybody had gotten paranoid since Mastriani's burnt down, even though they'd caught the perps—and I bolted.
Free at last, I thought, as I climbed behind the wheel of her Volkswagen Rabbit. Free at last. Thank God almighty, I am free at last.
Which is an actual historical quote from a famous person, and probably didn't really apply to the current situation. But believe me, if you'd been cooped up all evening with Great-aunt Rose, you'd have thought it, too.
About the license thing. Yeah, that was kind of funny, actually. I was virtually the only junior at Ernie Pyle High who didn't have a driver's license. It wasn't because I wasn't old enough, either. I just couldn't seem to pass the exam. And not because I can't drive. It's just this whole, you know, speed limit thing. Something happens to me when I get behind the wheel of a car. I don't know what it is. I just need—I mean really need—to go fast. It must be like a hormonal thing, like Mike and Claire Lippman, because I fully can't help it.
So really, my parents have no business letting me use the car. I mean, if I got into a wreck, no way was their insurance going to cover the damages.
But the thing was, I wasn't going to get into a wreck. Because except for the lead foot thing, I'm a good driver. A really good driver.
Too bad I suck at pretty much everything else.
My mother's car is a Rabbit. It doesn't have nearly the power of my dad's Volvo, but it's got punch. Plus, with me being so short, it's a little easier to maneuver. I backed out of the driveway—piece of cake, even in the dark—and pulled out onto empty Lumbley Lane. Across the street, all the lights in the Hoadley place—I mean, the Thompkins place—were blazing. I looked up, at the windows directly across the street from my bedroom dormers. Those, I knew, from having seen her in them, were Tasha Thompkins's bedroom windows. The Thompkinses, who had grandparents visiting—I knew because they'd turned down my mom and dad's invitation to Thanksgiving dinner on account of their already having their own guests—had eaten earlier than we had, if Nate had been sent out two hours ago for whipped cream. Tasha, I could see, was upstairs in her room already. I wondered what she was doing. I hoped not homework. But Tasha sort of seemed like the homework-after-Thanksgiving-dinner kind of girl.
Unlike me. I was the sneak-out-to-meet-her-boyfriend-after-Thanksgiving-dinner kind of girl.
And at that moment, I was more glad than I'd been in a long, long time to be me. I didn't wonder, not even for a second, what it might be like to be Tasha, much less her brother Nate.
Except of course if I had—if I had bothered to think, even for a minute, about Nate Thompkins—he'd probably still be alive today.
C H A P T E R
3
"Gosh, Mrs. Wilkins," I said. "That was the best pumpkin pie I ever had."
Rob's mom brightened. "You really think so, Jess?"
"Yes, ma'am," I said, meaning it. "Better than my dad's, even."
"Well, I doubt that," Mrs. Wilkins said with a laugh. She looked pretty in the soft light over the kitchen sink, with all her red hair piled up on top of her head. She had on a nice dress, too, a silk one in jade green. She didn't look like a mom. She looked like she was somebody's girlfriend. Which she was, in fact. She was this guy Gary-No-Really-Just-Call-Me-Gary's girlfriend.
But she was also my boyfriend Rob's mom.
"Isn't your dad a gourmet cook?" Just-Call-Me-Gary asked, as he helped bring in the dishes from the Wilkinses' dining room table.
"Well," I said. "I don't know about gourmet. But he's a good cook. Still, his pumpkin pie can't hold a candle to yours, Mrs. Wilkins."
"Go on," Mrs. Wilkins said, flushing with pleasure. "Me? Better than a gourmet cook? I don't think so."
"Sure is good enough for me," Gary said, and he put his arms around her waist, and sort of danced her around the kitchen.
I noticed Rob, watching from the kitchen door, kind of grimace, then turn around and walk away. Maybe Rob had a right to be disgusted. He worked with Just-Call-Me-Gary at his uncle's auto repair shop. It was through Rob that Mrs. Wilkins had met Just-Call-Me-Gary in the first place.
After watching Gary and Rob's mom dance for a few seconds more—they actually looked pretty good together, since he was all lean and tall and good looking in a cowboy sort of way, and she was all pretty and plump in a dance hall girl kind of way—I followed Rob out into the living room, where he'd switched on the TV, and was watching football.
And Rob is not a huge sports fan. Like me, he prefers bikes.
Motorbikes, that is.
"Hey," I said, flopping down onto the couch next to him. "Why so glum, chum?"
Which was a toolish thing to say, I know, but when confronted with six feet of hot, freshly showered male in softly faded denim, it is hard for a girl like me to think straight.
"Nothing." Rob, normally fairly uncommunicative, at least where his deepest emotions were concerned—like, for instance, the ones he felt for me—aimed the remote and changed the channel.
"Is it Gary?" I asked. "I thought you liked him."
"He's all right," Rob said. Click. Click. Click. He was going through channels like Claire Lippman, a champion tanner, went through bottles of sunscreen.
"Then what's the matter?"