Joyride (10 page)

A boy on a skateboard is making his way on the sidewalk toward the bench. With a smooth agility, he jumps the board and skids it across the back of the bench, then lands with the poise of a tiger. Using his foot to flip up the skateboard into his hand, he bends down to examine the five dollar bill. He scrutinizes it for so long I wouldn't be surprised if he produced a magnifying glass. Picking it up, he pulls it to his face and sniffs it, and visibly recoils. Then he puts it in his pocket and skates away.

Arden leans back against the driver's side door. “Proof that one man's trash is another man's treasure.”

“You really are Mr. Shackleford's nephew.” It sounds like something he would say.

“He would approve of this exercise in wisdom. He's the one who thought it up.”

“Be serious.”

“No, he did! He used to take me and Amber to do it all the time.”

“Amber? Who's Amber?”

“She was my sister. She died.”

“I'm sorry.”

“What for? You didn't kill her.” With this, he smirks. It's getting harder and harder not to like Arden. “Well, my half hour is up. But on a scale of one to ten, how entertained were you?”

Ten. Hands down. “About a seven. And a half.”

“Maybe next time we'll get that up to an eight.”

“Next time?”

“Yes, next time. And the time after that.”

“I didn't peg you for an optimist.”

He scratches the back of his neck. “Come on, Carly. You don't think we had a moment today? A tiny sliver of a moment that gave our acquaintance status room to blossom into friendship status?”

I tilt my head at him. “I guess so.” I mean, we watched people dig through a shitty purse together. We seem harmonious enough.

“Great. So, now that we're friends, I have a very important question to ask you. I'd like to know if you'd do me the honor of being my accomplice.”

I wonder if everyone else notices how weird Arden Moss actually is.

 

Twelve

Arden waits at their picnic table, trying not to appear as antsy as he feels. Also, trying not to dissect why he thinks of it as “their” picnic table instead of “the” picnic table.

And where is she? She said this morning she would meet me here at lunch.

Arden's stomach growls. Waiting for a girl is an exhausting experience. All this
Will she show? Will she be pleasant? Will she be armed with whole or 2%?
business. But he's willing to go through all that again. He's willing to do what it takes to woo Carly.

He didn't realize until yesterday just how much he has missed having an accomplice. It's so much better to share the enjoyment of giving someone their comeuppance. Of course, Amber was the perfect sidekick in every way. Actually, compared to Amber and her creativity,
he
was the real sidekick. Carly will never be Amber, he knows. And it's not like he's looking to replace Amber—no one could ever do that. But Carly has undeniable potential. And loneliness has taken its toll on him.

Carly shows up late, about ten minutes later, hauling a heavy backpack, a rare grin, and a light lunch tray. Chocolate milk.

She takes the seat across from him, wasting the next two minutes carefully arranging her homework in front of her and her backpack on the bench beside her. She opens her chocolate milk with the finesse of a lunch lady. “What?” she says.

“Lunch is almost over.” Arden's stomach growls again. “You might as well have stood me up.”

“I had some questions about our assignment,” she says. “You act like this is a date.”

“It's a meeting.”

She picks up her pencil and scribbles something in her notebook. Arden doubts it has anything to do with him. She doesn't look up when she says, “So I've thought about your, uh, proposal.”

Not a good sign.

“And first I just want to say I did have a fun time yesterday…”

Yep, this is what he says when he's about to reject a girl. Nope, it doesn't feel good to be on the receiving end. Funny that he ever thought it was gentle.

“And being your accomplice in all this prank stuff sounds fun…”

She keeps saying fun.
Fun
is now the most neutral word in the world.

“But I kind of have to work for a living. Like, I have a job. It's this thing where they pay you to do stuff…”

Wait, what?
Is she mocking me?

“Like, you exchange work for money, then you buy your own things. You don't even have to ask your parents. You should try it sometime…”

“Screw you.”

She smiles. Hugely. Beautifully. Arden wants to hate that smile. It's evidence that she's entertained by his anger, after all. But the smile is just so … gorgeous. “I was just messing with you,” she says. “It looked like you zoned out on me.”

“Oh. Well. I didn't.”

“But I really can't be your accomplice.”

“Because?”

“Because of work.”

“So what part were you messing with me about?”

She blinks. Her mouth tightens into a pout. “You said we would be doing things after school. At night. I can't. I have to work. At the Breeze Mart.”

“What do you make there, minimum wage?”

“So?”

“I'm just saying, it doesn't seem like a job worth keeping.”

“Have you ever had a job, Arden?”

“I've worked for my uncle a few summers.”

She rolls her eyes. “I'll bet that was backbreaking. You probably overdosed on your aunt Dorothy's lemonade.”

Maybe. “About as backbreaking as doing homework on the clock, I guess.”

She folds her hands in front of her. “I need that job. It's not something I'd expect someone like you to understand. In fact, I need more hours.”

“Here we go again. The silver platter talk. Let's skip that today, okay? I get it. I'm privileged and that makes me a bad person.”

A glint of remorse flashes across her face, giving him hope. Until she opens her mouth again. “I don't think you're a bad person. I'm just not, well, in the same position you are. It's not that I didn't have fun with you. I did. I just have things that I
have
to do and they're more important than what I
want
to do.”

Arden runs a hand through his hair. Obviously this is a bigger deal than he'd originally thought. He knew she was different from all of his friends but he thought it was by choice. Now he can see the differences as if a flashlight were shining on them in a dark room. All of his friends have their own cars, where Carly rides a bike everywhere—even to the next town over to work the graveyard shift at a dumpy convenience store. She wears T-shirts and jeans—something he thought was preference—and as far as he can tell, she only owns one pair of shoes, which happen to be filthy off-brand Converse. What girl would wear dingy shoes every day if she could help it? But it's not that she doesn't care about her appearance. He can tell Carly would be girly if she had the chance. Even now she has a complicated-looking braid in her hair and her nails are painted a deep purple.

How he missed these things before, Arden is not sure.

So, Carly Vega is poor. But, unless she's lying, she wants to have fun with him. She just has an obstacle in her—and therefore his—way.

There's got to be something I can do
. “I'll pay you,” he blurts. “I'll pay you for your company.” Whoa, that sounded way wrong. And other people heard it. It's like the air actually gasped.

Tables of kids around them stop eating. Stop talking. He's in danger of a chocolate milk bath, he can tell. Carly's eyes flash with the ferocity of a starved predator. He wouldn't be surprised if she bared her teeth.

At this moment, there is no amount of salt that would make his foot taste better.

Carly rises from the bench seat. She gathers up her homework in a neat pile, tapping the edges straight, shutting her book with a deliberation so cool it could chill a deep fryer. She tugs at the strap on her backpack and eases it up, onto her shoulder, which is squared perfectly with the other despite the added weight.

“Carly, I—” Arden chokes out.
I what, exactly? I'm sorry
falls infinitely short of what it will take to get her to speak to him again. Miles short of what it will take to make it up to her. Years short of what it will take for everyone to forget that he said that today.

Carly turns and walks away. Before she opens the cafeteria door, she wipes her feet on the floor mat, as if symbolically. And then she's gone.

*   *   *

Out of the corner of his eye, Arden feels Deputy Glass glance at him. Once. Twice. Again. Arden shifts in his seat, slumping even farther down. “Aren't cops supposed to keep their eyes on the road?”

Glass takes it in stride, bringing the car to a halt at a stop sign, then slowly turning right. Classic patrol driving. “You're quiet tonight. Having girl problems? Thinking of that little Mexican girl?”

“Why does she gotta be Mexican?”

“Uh, because apparently her parents are Mexican?”

“I mean, how do you know they're not like Puerto Rican or something?”

Glass shrugs. “So what if she is? So what if she isn't? Is there something wrong with being Mexican?”

According to the mighty Sheriff Moss, that's a big unofficial yes. He might center his campaign around deporting undocumented immigrants, but the truth is, he doesn't care if they're documented or not. Glass knows it. Arden knows it. Sheriff Moss treats racial profiling like a hobby.

And Arden knows Glass doesn't feel the same way. So what Arden says next is unfair. “Why does she have to be anything? Why couldn't you just say ‘short girl' or ‘girl with the long eyelashes'? Who cares what race she is?”

Glass grins wide, exposing a rarely seen dimple and the fact that he's not as old as he looks in that nerdy uniform. If Arden had to guess, he'd say he's only about twenty-four, maybe twenty-five years old. “Girl with the long eyelashes huh? That ‘short girl' has Arden Moss squirming in his little ol' panties, eh?”

“It's not like that.” Arden turns to face his friend, feeling a deep scowl embedded into his expression. “I insulted her today by accident. And now she won't talk to me about it. Not even to let me apologize.”

Glass gives him a charitable shrug. “Your specialty is girls. You'll figure it out.”

“Not this one,” Arden grumbles, but Glass is turning up the radio. Dispatch issues a call for domestic violence. The address is close to them.

Glass rolls his eyes. “Copy that,” he says into the mouthpiece on his shoulder. He rolls his eyes at Arden. “It's Rose again, beating up on Henry. This'll be her third offense so I'm going to have to take her down to the station. You want to come or you want me to drop you here?”

Glass knows Arden hates coming to the station; there's always the chance he'll run into his father there. But tonight, he doesn't want to be left alone with his own thoughts. Tonight, he could use some entertainment drummed up by someone else for a change. “I'll come.”

Glass nods and flips on the blue lights, which illuminate a hedge of rosebushes outside the window. People dread the sight of the flashing blue lights. Those lights may mean a hefty speeding ticket or possibly jail. That's what they mean to Arden too. But there was a time when Arden loved them. It meant that his father had come home from work—back when his father was just a deputy. Back when Arden actually wanted his father to come home.

He and Amber would sit and wait at the front window, waiting for Deputy Moss to arrive at the end of his shift. As soon as he pulled into the driveway, he would turn on the blue lights—which were actually blue and red back then—and Arden and his sister would squeal, “Daddy's home!” and run to the door to greet him.

Arden nearly laughs aloud at the idea of looking forward to seeing his father. They say kids can sense someone's character. Arden guesses that doesn't apply to one's own dad. He never saw the real Dwayne Moss coming.

They pull into the driveway of a familiar residence—the Walkers, starring Rose the Wife, Henry the Husband, and Caden the Toddler. Caden is outside on the walkway, happily holding on to Henry's hand. Henry is a walking stick of a man, redheaded and freckle-faced, with disheveled hair and a swollen red nose that might have been bleeding before they arrived.

When Deptuy Glass opens the door to get out, Arden rolls down his window to listen in. He's not allowed to get out and actually take part in calls. But he's allowed to observe, by policy. Anyone can, in fact. It's one of the most well-kept secrets of the county.

Henry extends his hand to shake Deputy Glass's. He nods toward the yellow vinyl-sided house, where the light is on in the living room, and the front door is wide open. “Rose is in the bedroom crying her eyes out. She feels real bad about it this time,” Henry says. “If it weren't for my little man here, I wouldn't care none. But I've got to raise him right, you know? What goes in might come out one day.”

Deputy Glass nods. “That's right, Henry. That's right. You know what's going to happen now, don't you? I can't do anything about that. It's her third time.”

Henry hangs his head and nods. Arden can't tell if he's sniffling because he's crying or because he's sucking up more blood that might be oozing out. Probably both.

Glass disappears into the house and when he reemerges, he has Rose Walker in submissive tow, hands cuffed behind her back. She's in her pajamas, which are mismatched Tweety Bird pants with a Mickey Mouse tank covering her muffin top, all accentuated with hot-pink bejeweled flip-flops. Her runny mascara and mussed-up hair will make a classic mugshot. Deputy Glass allows her to kneel down so that Caden can throw his chubby little arms around his mother's thick neck.