Chasing AllieCat (23 page)

Thirty-One

Allie and Me

July 5, continued

After Siren’s funeral, Allie and I went for a walk down by the river with Peapod.

We stopped and watched the sunlight dapple the water. We walked until we saw the chain-saw sign, water-logged off its nails, at the bottom of the tree.

“What a moron,” Allie said, shaking her head. “Hey, Sadie?”

“Hmm?”

“Thanks.” She looked at me, held my gaze. “For everything.”

She stepped close and touched my shoulder. All I could think about was Joe asking me if she was a lesbian. Then she let me hug her. She hugged back and started to sob, slowly at first, and then harder and harder. I let her cry.

I felt like I was distant from myself, watching this happen. I felt too young to be doing this much comforting, with death all around. This must be what it’s like in a war zone, I thought.

Then she kissed my cheek. I didn’t kiss back.

“Too bad you’re not into girls,” Allie whispered. “I really, really like you.”

I pulled back a little. She moved back a half step, but still held me. I could see in her face that she was scared she’d gone too far.

“Allie, I really, really like you, too. But not that way.”

“I know. Sorry.” She dropped her arms.

“No, no. It’s okay.” I grabbed both her hands. “You don’t have to be sorry. You’re the coolest girl I think I’ve ever met. If I was
into
girls, I would be into you! I told you before, most of the summer I’ve just wanted to
be
you.”

“Ha! That’s a good one. Not anymore, I bet. Who’d want to be me now?”

I grinned. “Well, it sure is more complicated than I thought before.”

“That’s a nice way to say my life is all fucked up.”

And we smiled at each other, a big deep smile. And I reached out and pulled her into another long hug. And she hugged back.

That night, Allie camped out with me in CCC again. For a while, I felt weird about sleeping in the same bed with a lesbian, and I wondered if she would hit on me when she was half-asleep. I mean, I wouldn’t sleep in the same bed with a guy. But when I opened my eyes in the morning and she was still curled in a tight little ball on the other side of the double bed, I felt bad for even thinking it. Allie was Allie, and she didn’t want to screw up our friendship either.

July 6

The next morning, she went back to her baking job in North Mankato, and I went back to the Blue Ox, blending into the world of red checks and twenty-four-ounce steaks.

Barb was cooking. “So,” she said when I handed her an order, “what’ve you been up to? You gotta tell me why you needed an extra day off. Or did you have a boring Fourth of July like I did?”

I laughed. I didn’t know where to start, so I said, “It wasn’t boring, that’s for sure. I got third in my mountain bike race.”

“Way to go.” She grinned at me.

“Oh, and the priest died. And Allie’s dog died. And her dad got out of prison and got arrested again. And Thomas shot Allie’s dad. And Joe kissed me.” The least important detail of the day, it seemed now, but it was probably the one Barb would be most interested in. She stood there with her mouth open, staring at me.

I just headed for my first table and let her wonder.

AfterwardS ...

Today: Staying Alive

July 8

Cecil Baker had his preliminary hearing on Friday. He’s in custody, held without bail. He pleaded not guilty, of course, but the evidence was overwhelming against him. The trial is set for November. Joe and I will have to testify, along with Allie, of course, and Thomas, Scout, and Dr. Rathburn, so Joe will come back from Phoenix and I’ll have to come down from Minnetonka for it. The lawyer said he has
no
idea how long the trial will last. At least I’ll get to see Joe in November.

No charges were filed against Thomas for shooting to wound Cecil Baker. The prosecuting attorneys wouldn’t touch the case. They said it was a no-brainer, even with Thomas and Scout on probation.

Father Malcolm Dykstra’s funeral is tomorrow morning at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church. Allie says we’re all going, and none of us dare argue with her.

I go over to Scout’s Last Chance, to meet Joe and Allie for a bike ride. With Scout’s bar broom, I sweep away the last remnants of bottle rockets and firecrackers from the steps. Then Joe pulls up, leans his bike against the building, Peapod wags without getting up, and we sprawl in the shade on the front step with Peapod while we wait for Allie.

Joe grins at me. “How ya doin’ after all this, Sadie-Sadie?”

I smile back. “It feels good to just
be
.”

Joe puts his hand on my knee. His touch sends a jolt of electricity through my legs and upward.

I say, “I’m glad it’s over.”

He looks into my eyes, like he can see all the way inside, and nods. “I feel about ten years older than I was six months ago, before John died.”

I take his hand, the one that’s on my knee, and we both squeeze.

“I sure am glad,” he says, “that if I had to go through all this, it was with you.”

I bite my lip. “Me too.”

He leans closer and I feel his lips on mine before I realize that’s what he’s aiming for. His lips are soft, a tiny bit dry, but kind against mine. It feels good, and the electricity from the touch on the knee jerks to life and shoots all through me. I close my eyes and kiss him back, and I feel warm all over, and I mean all over. Every time he kisses me, I feel like I could melt right into him.

“Sadie-Sadie,” he says, pulling his mouth far enough away to talk. He leans his forehead against mine. “Finally. Whenever I try to kiss you, something else in our world goes haywire.”

“Well, there’s always now,” I say. “What else can happen?”

Near our heads, Peapod starts a low-throttled growl, like an engine idling. We’ve grown to trust his growl, so we sit bolt upright before we hear the motor and before the dark blue pickup comes careening into the parking lot, spraying our legs with gravel.

“That,” Joe says, “is what could happen.”

The two jerks in the blue pickup, flags flying, have skidded to a gravelly stop right in front of us. Peapod is on his feet, his growl revved to full-throttle now.

“So you kids had to stick your noses where they didn’t belong, didn’t you,” says the redneck with the Schlitz cap and the watery eyes. “Got Cecil Baker in the joint again.”

“Cecil Baker got
himself
in the joint,” Joe points out.

“And Miss High-and-Mighty Allison didn’t do what her daddy said, and her puppy ended up dead.”

“Shut up,” I say, jumping up. “Just shut up about that.
YOU
killed her dog as much as Cecil did. You drugged him!”

“Well, he was a vicious thing, now wasn’t he? And Cecil said we had to go git him, whatever it took.”

The greasy ponytail guy’s reptilian eyes narrow. I know this guy is dangerous, but he’s just been a puppet for Cecil, and he’s too stupid to be a threat without Cecil backing him up. After all we’ve been through, these two aren’t so scary.

He says, “People ’round here don’t like nosey people. You better start keepin’ your nose in your own business. I’ll bet you kids took my chain saw, too, didn’t you? All the times you’re ridin’ around in them woods? I bet you took it to sell—”

“Your
chain saw
?” I almost choke.

Joe stares at the guy. “Now tell me. How exactly would we take a chain saw while we’re riding bikes?”

“You watch your mouth, boy,” the watery-eyed one says, spitting out the words.

“Is your name Steve Olsen?” I ask the ponytail guy.

“You
did
take it, didn’tcha?” He squints at me and spits tobacco sideways out his window.

“No,” I say, choking back my desire to burst out laughing, amazed at how calm I can be. “But I saw your sign. I’ve been keeping an eye out for your saw. Haven’t seen it in the woods, though.”

“Think you’re smart, don’tcha?” Droplets of saliva fly when the driver talks. “You watch yourselves.”

We shake our heads and watch them peel out of the parking lot. The pickup tailgate and its
XXFUN
license plate disappear down the gravel road toward the trailer court.

“There you go,” Joe says. “All I have to do is
touch
you and something happens. Maybe I should give up.”

“I don’t think so. Where were we?” I lean toward him, start the kiss myself. I press into him and he pulls me closer.

When we stop, Joe looks around. Nothing has exploded and nobody else has driven up.

“Hey,” he says. “We did it.”

“Yeah, we did.”

We lie back on the cool cement, Joe’s arm under my neck, him stroking my jawline with his finger, and we’re quiet. I rub Peapod’s rib cage from this almost-upside-down position.

“So you really will be my girlfriend?” Joe asks again. He takes my hand that isn’t rubbing Peapod.

“I guess,” I say.

“You guess?” He sits up, looking wounded.

“Joe, I mean I like you so much I can hardly stand it, but you’re gonna be in Arizona and I’m gonna be in Minnesota.”

“I’ll see you in November,” he says. “And we have half a summer left to figure it out.”

“Okay,” I say. “We can figure.”

“I had a girlfriend,” he tells me. “When John died, I mean. But I sort of ignored her. I hurt so bad, I felt dead. So we basically fell apart. Never broke up. Just
stopped
.”

“Kind of like Father Malcolm’s heart.”

He half smiles, and touches my cheek with the back of his fingers. “But now,” he says, “I know I’m alive again.”

He takes my hand just as Allie comes around the corner.

“Hey!” She rolls up and brakes hard, spraying us with gravel almost like the truck did. Joe lets go of my hand, but not too quickly. Peapod jumps to his feet and wags his way over to her, delighted to see one of his favorite humans, licks her hand, then returns to the cement.

“So what’s this?” she asks, nodding in the direction of our hand-holding. “Wow. I didn’t know. When did this start?”

“Oh, AllieCat,” I say, knowing my face is bright red. “On the Fourth of July, I guess. Or when we didn’t know where you were. Never really had a chance to start before this. It’s been sort of a crazy week.” I squint at her because the sun is behind her back, streaming down and glistening off her tanned shoulder muscles. I try to read her face to see if she’s pissed or sad or jealous or just surprised that I’m with Joe and not with her. I didn’t mean to flaunt it, ’cause she doesn’t need anything else to be sad right now. I don’t know how to do this—I’ve never been the one in the middle that two people wanted. But Allie grins at me and I know it’s okay.

“Mostly,” I add, “we’re just busy not being dead.”

“Funny how close we are to getting ourselves dead any old time, isn’t it?” Allie shakes her head. “Life’s pretty fragile, and you can just
stop being
, can’t you?”

I think about Father Malcolm’s heart—just stopping. About Siren overheating, having a seizure, and ending up dead. About Joe’s brother John exploding on the canyon floor. Alive one minute, dead the next. And Scout taking a bullet in his bone and living.

And we’re alive.

We’re quiet again. We’re good at being quiet together.

“So—” Allie lifts her handlebars and lets her front wheel bounce on its shock. “Are we gonna ride, or are you two lovebirds too busy necking?”

“Shut up, Allie,” I say. “Of course we’re riding.”

“Or,” Allie says, “should we just sit here and be amazed at being alive?”

“Come on, you AllieCat.” Joe grins and jumps to his feet. “Isn’t that kind of why we ride?”

Straddling her bike’s top tube, Allie takes her helmet off, shakes her spiky hair, and runs her hands through it to make it stand on end. “Guess so. I hadn’t thought of it that way. But yeah, every time we don’t kill ourselves on some hill, we’re still alive. That rush is about as alive as you get, I guess.”

“Hey, Allie,” I say, picking up my bike. “You want to move to Minnetonka with me? Want to come live with us? We’ve got room. You could ride with me on Buck Hill, and we could come stay with Scout in the summer. Want to? I can ask my mom. But I know she’ll say yes.”

Allie fingers her helmet fastener. She looks at the sky, so deep blue you can get lost looking into it, and then she looks toward the junk woods, the place where Siren is buried. She gives me half a smile, and I know and she knows that I would never offer if I weren’t completely comfortable with her, even though she kissed me.

“Thanks, Sadie. But no thanks. I belong here. And Siren might come lookin’ for me. His ghost wouldn’t know what to do in that traffic.”

“Allie, you’re not serious about being stuck here ’cause of a dead dog, are you?” Joe asks. “You’re not just saying that ’cause you’re chicken to move?”

“Naw.” Allie slides her helmet back on. “But I do belong here. I need to keep an eye on my mom when she gets out. They’re letting me stay with her since I’m sixteen and she’ll only be in day treatment. And then they got us doing some kind of family counseling. Like that’ll help.” She rolls her eyes. “But I’ll do it. And somebody has to keep Scout from blowing up the neighborhood. So I guess the chicken I gotta ride through is right here.” She grins at both of us. “We all got our own chicken, don’t we?” She fastens her helmet. “Plus, Mike told me at the bike shop that he knows somebody who needs to find homes for some puppies … some little dog needs me.”

I grin at her. So does Joe.

“I just belong here, okay?” she says, sweeping her hand across the river, the valley, and the junk woods. “So, let’s shut up and ride.”

Then we’re on our bikes. We’re flying down the hill, through the junk woods, toward the Blue Earth River, trees streaking past us, sun beating on our shoulders, wind in our faces.

And we are alive.