“You haven’t changed a bit, Sadie,” he said.
“I’ve changed several thousand dollars’ worth, Max McCall.”
Sonia interrupted her son’s reply. “I think Max is trying to say the roses are lovely.”
I swiped the roses from him and handed them to Sonia, feeling my cheeks turn pink with embarrassment. I wondered what that color looked like against my scar.
“We’ll put them in water when we get home. It’ll be nice to have that fresh smell in the house.” She turned to Mom. “George said the house looked wonderful. Thank you so much for taking care of us.”
Mom touched her friend on the arm. “It was a pleasure to help.”
The two of them linked arms like sisters and leaned their heads together. Max and I let them walk on ahead of us. He pointed to the Baggage sign and I fell into step with him down the short concourse.
When we arrived at the baggage carousels, Mom split away toward the exit and said, “I’m going to go pull the car up.”
Max spotted his mom’s bags immediately. He tugged two large crates and three pieces of luggage off the belt and dropped them next to me.
As I stepped away to grab a cart, a little girl, probably three or four, tugged on her mother’s shirt. “Mommy, Mommy, what happened to that lady’s mouth?”
“Trisha, it’s not nice to point,” the mom scolded the girl, and shot me a silent Sorry.
I shrugged to make the woman feel better, but everyone near us had already caught the spectacle. Great. Love being the local freak show. I made a mental note to stop smiling. Resting bitch-face calmed the scar at my mouth to a thin red line.
Max stroked my back the way Gray once had—in a way I could get used to—and said, “Shake that off. Kids are crazy.”
I went with it. “Yep,” I said, knowing my bravado failed.
Max pulled me into another full-body tackle-hug.
Somewhere in the distant past, I heard Trent’s voice say, “Hold on. Hold on. Hold on.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
I ran in my sleep that night—a route much longer than usual. In my dreams, I searched for Ponce de Leon’s Fountain of Youth, and I was convinced finding it was the key to everything. I awoke tired until I remembered Max.
He was back, and we were going to hang out. Social time: A posse ad esse. He had promised he’d call as soon as he finished everything his mother needed. If I knew Sonia, she’d have him tied up until late afternoon. That meant I had time to go out to the salvage yard.
In the still-dark morning, I scribbled a one-word note—Out—for my parents, checked the mailbox—empty—and hopped on my scooter. The scooter was a compromise. Mom and Dad didn’t want me dependent on them. I didn’t want to drive. Fletcher suggested the scooter as middle ground. So I chose a black Spree and a really expensive helmet. It was—basically—one step above a golf cart, and I drove it like an old man.
It was too damn hot to walk everywhere, so it was a good battle to lose. Plus, the air felt good on my skin. Jenni, owner of the Donut Barista, leaned out the pick-up window of her shack and waved. I cut the Spree’s engine, pocketed the key, and left my helmet on to order.
“The Friday usual?” she asked, bubbly as ever.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Coming up in two shakes of a dog’s tail. Lovely day, isn’t it?”
If today were a category five hurricane, it would still register as a lovely day on her scale. Jenni loved doughnuts and coffee and serving people the way preachers loved long prayers. She wore her heart in her eyes, and I liked her more than I knew how to show. I’d never seen her outside the shack, but I imagined her as a grandmother. At home, she probably wore jeans with an elastic band, a pair of mall-walker white shoes, and answered to little kids who called her Nana.
I liked to imagine things about people.
There weren’t many people in my life anymore, so for the few I interacted with, I tried to cultivate real relationships.
“Jenni, you know Max? The guy I’ve been telling you about.”
“Absolutely. He’s your sweet honey in El Salvador?”
I nodded. “He came home yesterday.”
She howled with delight. “You want to make this a triple?”
“Naw, we’re getting together later. I just wanted to tell someone.”
She heard how happy I was. Hell, I heard how happy I was. It sounded strange.
“You’ll have to bring him by.” She fitted the lid on one steaming-hot cup of joe and stuck a straw in my iced latte, patting my hand before reaching for my credit card.
I flipped up the visor on my helmet and thanked her. There was something very satisfying about knowing someone in small percentages.
“Thanks, Jenni.”
“You are most welcome, Sadie Kingston.”
Jenni made note of my whole name on the first day and repeated it once a visit. I added a three-dollar tip to the card. I couldn’t afford to do that all the time, but today was special. I felt generous. No envelopes in the mail, Mom and Dad were satisfied with my going-to-the-airport effort, and I was pretty sure I’d get another hug from Max. Maybe more.
Jenni felt generous too. The weight of my doughnut bag equaled more than my order.
Sprinkler systems on the main drag forced me to back streets and the back streets led me into the country. The sun sprinted up the sky, and sweat tickled my back in a matter of minutes. By the time I rolled up to the gates of Metal Pete’s Fine Salvage Yard, I’d sucked down half my iced coffee and considered chugging the rest.
“Cool it down, Florida,” I pleaded.
Florida stuck out both middle fingers and zapped away the tiny breeze.
I hiked my sleeves to three-quarter length, parked the Spree, and grabbed Metal Pete’s breakfast.
The auto salvage business fascinated me. From the road, it looked like an unorganized metal shit-fest. Up close was a different story. Row after row of damaged cars, in various states of decay, took up fifteen acres of land. Every car, truck, RV, school bus, motorcycle, and boat had been inventoried and arranged with customers in mind. I’d been here dozens of times, and the ocean of debris still made me stare in awe and sadness.
“Metal Pete,” I called out.
Headlight came instead, tail wagging, and nosed the doughnut bag with interest. “Where’s Metal Pete?” I asked her.
Both ears rose into spikes as she trotted ahead to the office. The door was open, and I sauntered in as if I worked there.
“Hey there, you.” Metal Pete glanced up at me as he worked some sunblock into his weathered face. “I thought you’d forgotten about your favorite salvage yard.”
“Been trying to cut back,” I told him. Although he knew I didn’t mean it.
I placed his breakfast on a table that had once been in the galley of some yacht, and played with seat-belt riggings that held fern planters. Everything around here got repurposed.
Metal Pete peeked inside the bag, rubbed his nonexistent belly, and said, “Me too.”
The man never met a pastry he didn’t like, but he walked this place every day, refusing to ride in the Gator the way I’d suggested. The yard was his gym, and it was pretty damn effective. His old never sagged.
“You look different,” he said, tossing a doughnut hole into his mouth.
“Max is back.”
“And you’re here? Kid, I haven’t been your age in a long time, but that’s not how dating works.”
“He’s busy this morning, and we’re not dating, exactly, we’re just . . .”
“Dating,” Metal Pete concluded. “And . . . like usual . . . I’m your distraction.”
I smiled around my straw.
“Okay”—he drummed his fingers on his cheek—“I’ll give you a dollar if you can find a 1998 red Chevy Impala with an intact bumper.”
From there, I followed the script of a conversation we’d had many times. “You know exactly where it is.”
“Yeah, but you don’t, and you, my dear, are looking pea
ky. Why don’t you go wander around in the sunshine?”
“For a dollar?”
“You drive a hard bargain. How about two?”
“Make it five, and you’ve got a deal,” I told him.
This was a game we played. He wanted to pay for his breakfast, and I never let him. Scavenger hunts were a different story. I charged him double for those.
“Give me a hint of which direction to look.”
Metal Pete devoured his doughnut in three bites and scratched his chin. “It’s close to where you’ll end up anyway.”
Metal Pete and I understood each other. His wife died of cancer five years ago, and so far, I’d never seen him out of the yard, never seen him in anything but his gray Hanes V-neck, and never seen him interact with anyone who didn’t have grease on his hands. Junked metal was easier to sort out than a broken heart. I was his exception and he was mine.
I filled a cup of water and gave the ferns a drink on my way out. “I’m taking Headlight with me.”
“Thief,” he said.
“Cheapskate.”
“Red. Chevy. Impala. Go.”
He pointed, and I laughed. We were oddball friends.
I liked to imagine he needed me as much as I need him.
As soon as I rounded the first corner of cars and was out of sight, I stripped down to a tank top and hung my long-sleeve shirt off the busted mirror of an old S-10 pickup. I stood there for a moment, exposed, staring at the sky as if it were a show.
“Good morning, sky,” I whispered.
I swear I heard God say, “Bring on the vitamin D.”
Okay, it wasn’t God, but I liked the idea that the sky was listening. Trent and Gray used to say Bring on the vitamin D when I’d warn them about not wearing enough sunscreen. They’d both worked for Relax Rentals, the company that managed chairs and umbrellas for the high-rise condos on the beach. Gray was probably there today. In a different reality, the one without the wreck, I’d be there helping him drill umbrella holes in the sand or carrying chairs. In this reality, I was in the salvage yard, wishing it was already evening so I could see Max.
But still, I thought about Gray as I walked. How he looked both good and bad the other night at the beach. Fit. Too fit. He needed to lay off the protein and weights until his neck matched his head again.
But what did I know? I wore long sleeves and hung out in a salvage yard. There were certainly worse obsessions than excessive fitness. I guess it all came down to this: even on the days I hated Gray Garrison, I wanted him to be okay.
And he didn’t look okay.
I wished I could do something about that, but absolution dangled in front of me like a carrot on a ten-foot pole.
I stopped thinking about Gray and found the Impala. Using some tire grease, I wrote the location on my arm and headed in the direction I’d been going all morning.
Trent’s Toyota Yaris.
CHAPTER EIGHT
No matter how often I visited the Yaris, the first glance sent my stomach to my throat.
The metal beast was quiet and picked over, twisted and sad. The front-end damage was so severe there was never much to salvage. Someone had since purchased the backseat, a rear taillight, and the two rear tires. The first time I came to Metal Pete’s, he walked me through the yard, offering a warning that it wouldn’t be easy to see the car. I wasn’t the first survivor to arrive on his doorstep searching for closure.
In an average week, I spent four or five hours lounging in my makeshift tire seat as if it were a raft and this row of cars my lazy river. I was here more than that, playing Karate Kid to Metal Pete’s Mr. Miyagi, except without the karate. He ran me here, there, and everywhere, pretending it was the price of sitting time at Metal Pete’s Fine Salvage Yard.
I greeted the crushed roof with a sympathetic pat, as if I owed it or someone an apology, and said, “Hello, Yaris.”
The Yaris didn’t answer.
It had been very vocal on June 29 and silent ever since.
I still told it the truth. “Max is home. I might bring him for a visit.”
Seeing the Yaris the first time was as excruciating as Metal Pete had promised, but now, there was no way to look at the twisted heap without thinking, How did anyone walk away from that? The Yaris reminded me that Max and I were miracles. Considering that the hood and the front seat were practically one, I hated my scars a tiny bit less.
Coupled with that miracle was guilt, and I searched for an answer to Why Trent? Why not me? in every twist of the metal, every tiny rusted flake, every shattered piece of windshield.
When I told Fletcher about my visits to Metal Pete’s, he explained survivor’s guilt to me and said it was normal. Then he’d asked, “Sadie, do you have a time machine?”
“No.”
“So there’s nothing you can do to change what happened at Willit Hill?”
“No,” I’d said, feeling the trap in his question.
“Then, somehow, you have to accept that you’re still here, and that maybe, just maybe, there’s a reason. Find the reason.”
“Find the reason.”
I repeated those phrases, “Find the reason” and “I don’t have a time machine,” regularly.
Time machine or no, I had good memories in that car. Gray and I making out in the backseat. Trent, Max, and I going on boiled-peanut runs on Saturday mornings. Gray and I, and Gina and Trent, riding to dinner before the guys’ junior prom. Trent made a little magnet for the Yaris that said Limo, and we all cracked up because the car was not much bigger than a go-kart. I tried desperately to replace the last memory with those happy ones, so that maybe, I’d get my ass behind a wheel again.
“I will drive again. Right, Headlight?”
Headlight sat down in shade of my shadow and put her nose on the ground. Knocking the dust off her coat, I gave her a good long rub and watched her knobby tail attempt to wag. She reminded me of the cars, the way she limped, looped, and sighed with the effort of walking, and yet she had parts that still worked fine. Metal Pete salvaged more than cars.
“What do you say, buddy? Do you think I can do it?”
Headlight stood up, put two paws on the tire, and licked my cheek.
“Good. I do too,” I said, and gave her a scratch between the ears. “But not today. Today, I’m just gonna look.”
She settled down and closed her eyes. I followed suit, giving myself permission to remember many other good things about the Yaris.
I didn’t hear Metal Pete until he stood over me. He wore a visor bigger than his best grin. Before I could ask, he dropped my long-sleeve shirt into my lap, and I put it on.
“You’re roasting like a pig on a spit,” he warned.
“I was just thinking.”
“Well, think with some SPF.” He tossed me lotion from his pocket.
I applied a thick lather of sunblock while he rolled an abandoned wheel rim near me and sat down. I flipped the lotion back his way. “Better?”
“You’ll be old someday and I’ll be too dead to thank, but you’ll remember that Metal Pete’s the reason why your skin’s still pretty.”
Pretty and my skin didn’t belong in the same sentence. “I’m sure.”
“Don’t get sassy with me, Sadie Kingston.”
“No, sir,” I said, knowing Metal Pete’s threat was as harmless as Headlight.
“Five dollars for your thoughts?” he said.
“Is that five for the Impala and five for the thoughts?”
His thick shoulders lifted in a half shrug. “It’s all Monopoly money anyway.”
I tried to keep the fear from my voice. “My folks are making me go back to school in the fall.”
Metal Pete toed the bottom of my tire. “Sounds wise of them.”
“You’re supposed to be on my side.”
He held out his hands in an I call it like I see it way.
Even though Metal Pete would gladly listen to me ramble about anything, I read the location of the Impala to him and held out my han
d.
A five-dollar bill landed in my palm.
“Thanks,” I said.
“Thanks for the doughnuts.”
The end of the conversation came the way it often did, with Metal Pete saying, “Well, I guess I’d better get back to the phones. Catch ya next time, Sadie May.”
CHAPTER NINE
Some Emails to Max in El Salvador
From:
[email protected] To:
[email protected] Date: August 6
Subject: RE: the video
Max,
I like the video of the convent. Being able to see where you are helps. I imagined something much worse than cinder-block walls, your own room, and McDonald’s ten miles away. The shower is pretty old school, but at least you have running water. Can you drink the water there? Have you been sick at all? I forgot to ask in my last email.
You have to climb that volcano mountain. You’re not lacking in views. It’s beautiful there.
Sadie
From:
[email protected] To:
[email protected] Date: August 8
Subject: Nightmares
Max,
I can’t believe they told you just to go on and drink the water and get sick. Ugh. That sounds awful.
I’m glad you brought up the nightmares. No, I doubt they have to do with you being sick. I have them too. I’ve been having them so frequently that my parents forced me to see a therapist—Dr. Fletcher Glasson—last week. Believe it or not, it wasn’t terrible. We mostly did paperwork and, as a first assignment, he suggested I “free-journal” about the wreck.
Do you think it is safe to tell him how I feel? I don’t want to write everything down if he’s going to tell my parents. These are my feelings and if my parents knew all of them, they’d just worry more than they already do. Fletcher (which is what he asked me to call him) said he wouldn’t unless he had to. I want to believe him.
Sadie
From:
[email protected] To:
[email protected] Date: August 15
Subject: what I remember about June 29th