Nest (29 page)

“There’s the Pewter Pot,” I say to Joey, pointing across the street. I remember Mom bought me a chocolate-chip muffin and a mug of cocoa to warm me up after our swan boat ride. “Now all we have to do is cross
that
street and we’re in Boston Common.”

“We’re not lost?” Joey says. “You know how to get to the swan boats?” He sounds like he’s just about to cry.

“Right there is Park Street Station. That’s a T stop. Once we cross the street, we’re in Boston Common.”

“Cross the street?” Joey says. “Here? The cars aren’t even stopping.”

I look at him. His lip is trembling and his eyes are darting back and forth, watching the cars and the people dashing out in front of them.

“Listen, Joey. I’ve been to Boston, like, five times. I’m practically a city girl. All we have to do is cross with all of the other people when we get the walk light.”

“Yeah, and we can all get killed together. No one’s paying attention to the light. This was a stupid idea. I’m not crossing the street. I’m staying here.” Joey folds his arms tight in front of himself and looks down at the ground.

“You can’t stay here. We didn’t come all this way to just stand on the sidewalk.”

“Well, I’m not going. You can’t make me.”

I take a step closer to Joey. I’m so close I can smell the sun in his hair. “Listen to me,” I say. “Right across the street is Boston Common. And right across Boston Common is the Boston Public Garden, where the swan boats are. And at the swan boats is this really great guy who asked me and my mom to come visit again. Well, my mom can’t do it, she just can’t, and you know why, but I can and you can and we’re going to!”

Joey takes a deep breath. He looks at me. Then he nods and sticks out his hand. “You win,” he says.

“Good.” I grab Joey’s sweaty hand and steer us right next to a delivery guy who’s wheeling three big cardboard boxes. When he steps off the curb, we do, too. We try to stay right next to him so that his boxes are our shield, but he’s moving too fast, especially with Joey lugging his duffel bag, and people coming toward us keep bumping us backward.

“Holy mother of God!” Joey shrieks as a car cuts right in front of us.

“Just keep going,” I tell him. “We’re almost there.”

“Like I have a choice,” Joey says, just as a lady comes up behind me and whumps me in the leg with a shopping bag and doesn’t even say excuse me.

“We made it!” Joey says when we step up on the curb on the other side. “That was nuts! You owe me.”

“You’re nuts,” I say.

“Takes one to know one,” Joey says. He smiles at me, and it makes me want to touch his hair. Instead,
I stick my arm out, like I’m Carol Merrill standing in front of the curtain on
Let’s Make a Deal
.

“
This
is Boston Common.” I know it’s crazy, but I want the Common to look exactly the same as the last time I was here.

“See, a pretzel vendor!” I say, pointing. “You can buy a pretzel for fifty cents, and they warm it up for you over a little fire. You squirt mustard on it from a bottle.”

“It doesn’t seem very clean,” Joey says, looking at the pretzels dangling on a metal rod and the greasy spots on the plastic cart.

“Well, they taste really good,” I say. “Great, actually.” When Mom and I were here, she bought one for us. She held a warm pretzel out to me and said, “Most people don’t know that pretzels were the original wishbones!” We both pulled and I got the knot, and Mom laughed and said that she hoped I made a really great wish, because she had a hunch it would come true.

“Definitely not very hygienic,” Joey says.

“So that means you won’t split one with me?”

“Heck, no, I won’t go,” Joey says.

I get fifty cents out of my knapsack, since the pretzel vendor looks grumpy and I don’t want to make him wait while I fish around for it.

“One pretzel, please,” I say, holding out the money.

He grabs it and hands me a pretzel and the mustard squirt bottle without saying anything.

“Gross,” Joey says when he sees the crusty brown gunk stuck around the opening of the bottle.

I walk to the nearest bench, take a bite of the warm pretzel, and close my eyes like I’m in heaven, but the truth is that I’m really disappointed that Joey wouldn’t split it with me so I could do the wishbone trick just like last time, and my eyes are closed because I’m scared I might cry. I take my sweet time eating the pretzel. With my eyes closed, I hear pigeons cooing. I hear people walking by. I hear wind blowing past my ears. I hear a drum. Maybe it’s the man with the red hair who was with the hippie girl in the purple skirt. I want to hear her play her hippie songs. Last time, Mom and I were in a hurry to meet Dad and Rachel and had to rush right by her.

“C’mon,” I say, opening my eyes and looking around. Joey pretends he doesn’t hear me because he’s fascinated by a tree trunk, but I don’t care. I’ll find the guitar lady. She probably knows all of the cool songs, like “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” Hippies don’t mind if you sing along. She’ll probably like it if I do a dance interpretation with lots of leaps and help her get more money in her hat.

I follow the sound of the drum. Joey’s walking behind me, not next to me, which is the perfect place for him to be if he’s going to be such a lousy sport. First I’ll find the hippie girl, and then I’ll find the dark-haired, green-eyed swan boat driver and say
See, I’m
back!
and he’ll be so happy and Joey can just tag along behind me like a baby.

“Hey, girlie,” an old man in a dark jacket sitting on a bench yells, “do you know how to catch a squirrel?”

Why would I want to catch a squirrel?

I shake my head and keep walking.

“Pull down your pants and show him your nuts,” he yells. My face is burning hot, even though I don’t really get it. Some other man says, “For Christ’s sake, Sal, leave the kid alone!” My heart’s racing, because there are lots of benches with old men in dark jackets sitting on them, and unless I want to step over the black chain fence and get off the path, I have to walk right in front of them all.

“Joey!” I yell, but I don’t need to, because he’s already catching up to me.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hey.”

He does a little hitch step so that our left legs are stepping forward at the same time, which is something that usually only girls do. We walk together, perfectly in step, past a dogwood with its creamy white flowers and two leafy elms, and I start to feel better.

“That’ll be my brothers someday,” Joey says.

“What?”

“Vinnie and Donny, sitting on a bench, yelling stupid things.”

I shake my head, not because he’s wrong but because I don’t want to think about home.

“
No
, what?” Joey says.

“Talking about you-know-where.”

“They’re probably really worried about you. They maybe even called the police.”

“We’re fine,” I say. Police? I didn’t think of that. Dad having to talk to the police. Again. And Rachel. I wonder if she’s a mess.

“We know we’re fine, but they don’t,” Joey says.

“Stop,” I say. “Please.”

Joey sighs and shrugs, but he doesn’t say anything.

A fat gray squirrel runs right in front of us, then stops, like he’s playing freeze tag. It’s as if he wants to hear whatever we’re going to say next.

“Come on. If we find the drum, we’ll find the hippie girl playing her guitar. I bet she’ll be cool. Last time she was wearing a purple skirt. I bet she can really play.”

Joey points to a little hill. We step over the black chain, cut across some grass, and climb it. At the bottom, under a cherry tree just busted out in pink blooms, is the drummer. He doesn’t have red hair. He isn’t playing a bongo drum.

“It isn’t him,” I say. My throat hurts. Why isn’t anything the same?

“Well, we can listen to him if you want to. He sounds pretty good.” Joey starts drumming along on his duffel bag. The drummer is skinny with frizzy black hair. He’s hitting a white bucket with drumsticks.

Joey’s trying to be nice to me, but he doesn’t get it.

“I don’t want to listen to any old drummer,” I say. “I was looking for a
specific
drummer, because I wanted to hear the hippie girl play her guitar. She had on a pretty purple skirt. I really wanted to see her again.”

“Well, that’s not why we’re here anyway, is it?” Joey says. “That’s not why we spent ten dollars and rode a bus all the way from the Cape, is it?”

He’s right. The dark-haired driver with green eyes. He’ll be so surprised to see me! He’ll probably give me a hug and take us out in his swan boat all by ourselves. Just me and Joey and him. I’ll watch the ducks and geese with my binocs and maybe even get to see a pair of swans. And when I walk on the dock after the windy ride, my cheeks will be pink like the cherry blooms and everyone will think
What a beautiful girl!

“Cowabunga!” Joey yells, and starts running down the hill, his duffel bag in front of him thunking him on his knees.

“Bowacunga!” I yell, and run after him.

We run and run all the way across the Common until we get to Charles Street. Before Joey has a chance to freak out, I take his hand and we run across the street together and it’s not nearly as bad as last time.

“Wait,” I say, stopping in front of the black iron gate. I take off my knapsack and stand still, catching my breath. I don’t want to walk into the Boston
Public Garden panting and sweaty. I don’t want my dark-haired friend to feel disappointed when he finally sees me after all of this time. I try to run my fingers through my curls to get some of the tangles out. There’s a lady with long, shiny, perfect blond hair watching me, and I wonder if she’s thinking that I should have used Johnson’s No More Tangles to make my hair more manageable.

“Here,” Joey says. He’s reaching into his duffel bag. “You can have your own.” He hands me a moistened towelette still in its wrapper.

Wiping my face feels as good as sticking it in front of a fan on high in the middle of August.

“Ah, a taste of civilization,” Joey says, wiping his face, too.

“Ah, civilization.”

“Can I have some apple juice?”

I hand Joey the bottle. He pours juice into his mouth without letting his lips touch the rim. His hair’s all flattened and wild, like a patch of dried-out weeds after a dog’s rolled around in it. I slowly reach my hand toward Joey’s head, and he doesn’t pull away. His hair is soft and beautiful. I don’t even try to get the tangles out. I just run my hand over it really slowly, because it feels so good, and Joey closes his eyes and smiles.

The lady’s still staring at us. She’s wearing an orange pantsuit the color of Tang. I poke Joey, and he opens his eyes.

“Look,” I say, glancing at the lady.

Before I can say anything else, Joey hands me the bottle of apple juice, picks up his duffel bag, grabs my hand, and starts walking fast, tugging me along.

“C’mon, Marcia,” he says in a loud voice, just as we pass the lady. “We have to catch up to Aunt Betty. She hates when we make her wait.” I scurry to keep up with him as he turns the corner and keeps walking down the sidewalk, dodging all of the people coming toward us with briefcases and baby strollers and shopping bags.

“Don’t turn around yet,” Joey says.

“Marcia,” I say, trying not to giggle.

“Marcia,” he says.

When we’ve rounded the next corner, Joey stops, puts down his duffel bag, and leans against a skinny tree. “I think the coast is clear. But let’s just wait here for a few minutes.”

“Marcia?” I ask, cracking up.

“It’s the first thing I thought of,” Joey says, laughing, too. “Maybe because of Marcia in
The Brady Bunch
.”

“I can’t stand her,” I say. “She’s bossy and tattles and—”

“Okay. Next time, I’ll call you Scarlett.”

“Next time?” I haven’t thought about the fact that now we’re actually runaways who could get caught.

“Don’t worry,” Joey says.

I must look worried. Would we have to go to the police station? Would they lock us up in a cell until our dads come to pick us up?

“What do you think will happen if we get caught?”

“I don’t want to think about it,” Joey says.

“I guess they’d call our parents and tell them that—”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“But, Joey—”

“I mean it, Chirp,” Joey says. “Don’t talk to me about it!” He picks up his duffel bag and starts walking fast, away from me.

I catch up with him. “I like the name Scarlett.”

Joey doesn’t say anything.

“A lot.”

Still nothing.

“Thanks for the getaway,” I say. “It was smart thinking.”

Joey looks at me and smiles just a little. “Never fear, Joey’s here,” he mumbles, and I can tell that he’s not mad anymore that I made him think about stuff he doesn’t want to think about.

When we get back to the black gate, the Tang lady is gone.

“Time for the swan boats,” I say.

“One small step for man,” Joey says.

“Quack,” I say.

“Wacko,” he says.

We walk through the black gate together.

“Wow!” we say at the same time. On our left is a huge rectangle of red tulips. On our right is a huge rectangle of yellow daffodils. They’re so bright I want to eat them.

“I guess spring has sprung,” Joey says.

“I guess so,” I say.

Now that we’re almost to the swan boats, I suddenly don’t want to get there. The pond is in front of us, and my stomach’s all jumpy.

“Hold on,” I say, and pull my binocs out of my knapsack. “Do you know the difference between a starling and a grackle?”

“A what and a what?”

“They’re both in the blackbird family. People confuse them all the time.”

Joey’s staring at me. “Don’t you want to get to the swan boats? Don’t you want to hurry up and see your friend? Maybe after he gives us a ride on the swan boat, we can find a library where we can do research and figure out our next move, which place we want to visit next.”

I’m already sitting on a bench under a magnolia tree. The dark red buds are just beginning to open.

“Since I schlepped my binocs all this way, I figure I should use them. I’m offering you a free bird-watching lesson.” I look over in the direction of the swan boats. I can’t see if he’s there.