"Yeah," I said. "Sorry about that. I'm in a … well, I'm in a bar."
Rosemary didn't sound too shaken to hear that. On the other hand, she had no way of knowing that I am only sixteen.
"What can I do for you today, Jess?" Rosemary asked.
"Well," I said. I took a deep breath.
"Listen, Rosemary," I said. "This is going to sound kind of weird, but there's this kid, Sean Patrick O'Hanahan. You guys have him on a milk carton. Anyway, I know where he is." And then I told her.
Rosemary kept going, "Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh." And then she said, "Honey, are you—"
Rob shouted my name. I looked toward him, and he held up two red plastic baskets. Our burgers were up.
I went, "Rosemary, I gotta go. But real quick. That Olivia Marie D'Amato? You guys'll be able to find her at—" And then I gave her a street address, a city in New Jersey, and a zip code, for good measure. "Okay? I gotta go. Bye!"
I hung up.
It was funny, but I felt relieved. Like I had gotten something off my chest. Isn't that weird? I mean, I know Sean had told me not to tell anyone.
Told me not to tell? He'd begged me.
But he had also looked so scared at being found out that I couldn't imagine whoever he was with could be any good for him. Not if they were making him lie about his name and stuff. What about his parents? He had to know they were missing him. He had to know they would protect him from whoever these people were who had him.
I had done the right thing, calling. I had to have. Otherwise, why would I have felt so good?
I ended up having a good time. Rob, it turned out, had quite a few friends at Chick's. All of them were guys who were way older than he was, and, for the most part, they had really long hair and were heavily tattooed. Their tattoos said things like 1/31/68, which I remembered from World Civ was the day of the Tet Offensive in the Vietnam war. Rob's friends seemed strangely astonished to see me—although they were very nice—which led me to believe that either:
a) Rob had never brought a girl to Chick's before (unlikely), or
b) the girls he'd brought there had looked more like the girls who were hanging around the Hell's Angels—i.e., tall, blond, excessively made-up, named Teri or Charleen, and who probably never wore gingham in their lives (more likely).
Which might be why, every time I opened my mouth, the guys would all look at one another, until finally one of them said to Rob, "Where'd you get her?" to which I replied, because it was such a stupid question, "The girlfriend store."
Everybody but Teri and Charleen laughed at that one.
So, overall, when I got home that night, I was one happy camper. I had saved a kid's life—maybe even two kids' lives, although there was no way I was going all the way to Jersey to check Olivia D'Amato's situation. And I had spent the afternoon and part of the evening with a totally hot guy who liked going fast, and who, if I wasn't mistaken, seemed to like me, too. What could be better than that?
Not having my parents find out about it, that's what.
And there was no chance they were going to, either. Because the minute I walked in the door, around nine or so—I made Rob drop me off way down the street, so my folks wouldn't hear his bike—I saw that they hadn't even noticed I was gone. I had called, of course, from Chick's, and said band rehearsal was running long, but nobody had picked up. When I walked in, I saw why. My mom and dad were having a huge fight. Over Douglas. As usual.
"He's not ready!" my mom was screaming.
"The longer he waits," my dad said, "the harder it's going to be for him. He's got to start now."
"Do you want him to try it again?" my mom wanted to know. "Is that what you want, Joe?"
"Of course not," my dad said. "But it's different now. He's on the medication. Look, Toni, I think it would be good for him. He needs to get out of the house. All he does is lie up there, reading comic books."
"And you think slaving away in a hot restaurant kitchen is the cure for that?" My mom sounded very sarcastic.
"He needs to get out," my dad said. "And he needs to start earning his keep."
"He's sick!" my mom insisted.
"He's always going to be sick, Toni," my dad said. "But at least he's being treated now. And the treatments are working. The doctors said as long as he was taking his medication, there's no reason why he can't—" My dad broke off because he saw me in the doorway. "What do you want?" he asked, not rudely.
"Cereal," I said. "Sorry I missed dinner."
My dad waved at me. A whatever wave. I got down a box of Raisin Bran and a bowl.
"He's not ready," my mother said.
"Toni," my dad said. "He can't stay up there in his room forever. I mean, he's twenty years old, for Christ's sake. He's got to start getting out, seeing people his own age—"
"Oh, and back in the kitchen at Mastriani's, that's what he'll be doing. Getting out." My mom was being sarcastic again.
"Yes," my dad said. "With kids his own age. You know the crew back there. They'll be good for him."
My mother snorted. I ate my cereal, pretending to be very interested in the back of the milk carton, but really listening to their conversation.
"Next thing, you'll probably want to send him to one of those halfway houses," my mother said.
"Well, Toni," my dad said, "it might not be such a bad idea. He could meet other kids with his same problem, learn he's not alone in this—"
"I don't like it," my mother said. "I'm telling you, I don't like it."
My dad threw his hands in the air. "Of course you don't like it, Toni," he said. "You want to keep the kid wrapped up in cotton wool. But you can't do it, Toni. You can't protect him forever. And you can't watch him forever. He's going to find a way to do it again, whether you're keeping an eye on him or not."
"Dad's right," I said with my mouth full.
My mother glared at me. "Don't you have some place to be, young lady?"
I didn't, but I decided to go to my room to practice. Nobody bothered asking me why I was practicing after I'd just—supposedly—been at band practice for like six hours or something. That's just the way my family is.
Claire Lippman's not the only one who can hear me practicing. Ruth can hear me, too. As soon as I was done, the phone rang. It was Ruth, wanting to know all about my bike ride.
"It was okay," I said as I ran a cloth through the inside of my flute with this metal stick to clean out all the spit.
"Okay?" Ruth echoed. "Okay? What'd you do? Where did you go?"
"Just for a ride," I said. Don't ask me why, but I couldn't bring myself to tell Ruth about Sean. I hadn't even been able to tell Rob about Sean. In answer to his persistent questioning, I'd finally said, "He's my loan shark, okay?" which had gotten a hoot from Rob's friends.
"You went for a ride?" Ruth's voice rose incredulously. "To where? Chicago?"
"No. Just around. And then we went to Chick's."
"Chick's?" Ruth sounded close to spontaneous combustion. "That's a bar. A biker bar."
"Yeah," I said.
"And you didn't get carded?"
"No," I said. We didn't get carded because Rob knew the bartender.
"Did you drink?"
"Of course not," I said.
"Did he?"
"Duh, Ruth. Do you think I really would have gotten onto a bike with a guy who was drinking? We just had sodas."
"Oh. Well, did he kiss you?"
I didn't say anything. I was taking my flute apart, putting it into the little velvet compartments inside my case.
"Jeez," Ruth breathed. "He did. I can't believe he kissed you. Was there tongue?"
"Regrettably, no."
"Oh, my God," Ruth said. "Well, that's probably better. You shouldn't let him tongue you on a first date. He might think you're easy. So, are you going out again?"