The Last Boy and Girl in the World (18 page)

The third time I watched the video, I noticed how the sun had been setting when he'd filmed Julia, and the sky and the splashes of water took on the prettiest pinkish hue. I wondered if he'd done that on purpose.

Jesse must have been refreshing his window, because seconds after I'd clicked Like, he sent me a text.

Thanks. Julia says you rule.

Smiling, I wrote,
Girl's got moves.

Of course she does. I'm her big brother.

“Ugh, what now!” Morgan said.

I looked up. On the opposite side of the road, a line of orange cones tapered the lane down to a parked police car, lights on and flashing. Two officers stood with a flashlight and a clipboard talking to a driver. There was a line of parked cars behind them, waiting to drive into Aberdeen.

We blew past them.

“Oh, wait,” I said. “A neighbor was talking to my dad about this today. They're setting up roadblocks to make sure no nonresidents come into Aberdeen after dark. I guess the police were worried about people looting the houses that had been destroyed.”

“Looting what? What could they take?”

“I don't know. Like, copper pipes?”

Morgan shook her head. “That's beyond depressing.”

I put my phone back into my pocket and stared out of the window as we left Aberdeen and headed twenty-five minutes down the highway to Ridgewood. We played Ridgewood in high school sports, which was a total joke, because they were about five times the size of our school and totally, disgustingly rich. I bet every kid went to sports camp in the summer. They always kicked our asses. Anyway, you could tell they had money by the quality of the snacks they sold at the concession stands. I'm talking hot chocolate with real marshmallows, cookies made with butter instead of shortening, from an actual bakery, not bulk from Costco. They also had separate soccer, football, and baseball fields, while Aberdeen used the same rectangle of dying grass for all three. Their high school was enormous, like a college campus. Ours could have fit inside their junior high wing.

There weren't many old houses in Ridgewood like there were in Aberdeen, either. When my grandpa was a kid, it had been farmland, but now it was new construction, homes with big foyers and large front lawns and long driveways and in-ground pools. From a few places, you could even see the Waterford City skyline glowing off in the distance.

As we drove through the town center, it was strange to see no flooded streets, none of the wreckage that Aberdeen had endured. I mean, it had clearly rained here, probably the same amount as it had in Aberdeen. The blacktop was shiny but that was it. It wasn't anything close to the disaster area we'd just come from. Part of it was the elevation—it was on much higher ground and set a mile back from the river. But part of it felt like they were just luckier than us in about a hundred ways.

I was happy for the escape. I liked seeing people going about their normal, everyday business. Heading into the movie theater, or standing outside a restaurant waiting for a table, or waiting for a parking space at the mall. The entire world wasn't doomed to be underwater. Just our little corner of it. You couldn't drive on any block in Aberdeen without seeing neighbors huddled together in conversation, or people chatting in their cars, wondering what exactly they should be doing next. Everyone was still in shock.

The hotel where Elise's family was temporarily living was a silver high-rise near the mall where I'd bought my Spring Formal dress. The windows were reflective except for the very top floor, where the indoor pool and gym were. That part was plain glass, lit up with white lights.

Two men in navy suits and skinny black neckties stood attentively out in front, ready to assist guests with bags or getting taxis. We pulled up at the same time as a sleek black sedan with tinted windows. Morgan's crappy car stood out like a sore thumb.

Luckily, Elise was in the lobby waiting for us. Morgan barely put her car into park before Elise came running out through the doors. I don't know if this is completely accurate or if it's just my memory, but I remembered thinking Elise looked slightly more exotic, like the way you'd expect a girl who lives in a hotel to, if that makes any sense.

We got out and hugged and jumped around like we hadn't seen each other in years. It was joyous and I was glad. I was worried a bit that Elise would be cold to me over the phone thing. But she wasn't. She was just happy to see us. And then the three of us piled back into the car.

“You guys, can I just say that I am already so so so sick of hotel food,” Elise told us. “I mean, we can order whatever we want. And Lord knows my brothers have been taking crazy advantage of it. They get two desserts every night, one with dinner and one before bed. The food is good, don't get me wrong. But it's not the same as something cooked at home.”

“I like your top,” I said. “Is it new?”

It was a light pink silk blouse with tiny red hearts embroidered all over it, and it was so very Elise. She smoothed it before buckling her seat belt. “Yeah. Someone from the governor's office showed up at the hotel this morning with a big FedEx envelope full of gift cards and a handwritten letter from the governor himself, telling us to go to the mall and get whatever we needed.”

Morgan pouted. “All I did today was clean mud off of crap in our basement.”

“Honestly, it was more stressful than fun. I have to replace my entire closet. I couldn't just buy whatever cute things I saw. I had to be strategic about it. I need underwear, socks, like, everyday stuff, a new coat. I knew it'd be cold tonight, but no stores are selling sweaters anymore. Just spring stuff. And there's so much that's gone that I'll never be able to replace. All my pictures, the quilt my grandma made me.”

“So what's the latest?” Morgan asked gently. “Has your dad gone to the site yet?”

Elise shook her head. “No. An adjuster came to meet with him, though. He brought pictures of everything, but my dad wouldn't let me see them. He thought it would be too traumatic.” I was about to cut in and tell Elise about what my dad was trying to do, thinking it would be good news, but she kept talking. “Anyway, they started going over numbers.” Elise shook her head in disbelief. “Guess how much they're going to give us to move?”

I leaned forward so my head was almost in the front seat. I'd given Elise shotgun as a courtesy. “Wait. They've already made you a deal?” I remembered what Levi had said on my front porch. How quickly this was all going to go.

“Five hundred thousand dollars,” she said shyly.

Both Morgan and I gasped. Half a million dollars? Even though I wasn't super clued in to salaries, that had to be way more than most people in our town earned in a lifetime. Elise's mom didn't work. And her father was a mechanic, but only after being out of work for more than a year.

Elise quickly added, “We're probably getting more because we lost everything. And please don't tell anyone. It's supposed to be a secret, I think.”

“So are you guys taking the money?” I asked.

“We don't really have a choice,” she said. “We're basically homeless.”

“Not for long,” Morgan said. “I mean, your family could buy any house in Ridgewood you wanted with that kind of money.”

“Well . . . my uncle Rob is in real estate, and he's been sending us listings of condos near him and my aunt in Florida. There was one he forwarded today, you can almost see the ocean from what would be my bedroom window.” She bit her bottom lip. “I think we're going to take it.”

“Florida?” Morgan said, stunned. “You're not serious.”

“Uncle Rob might have a job lined up for Dad, too.”

It was quiet in the car for a few minutes, the three of us thinking about what this meant. Even though Elise and I weren't the closest, she was still part of all my visions of this summer, and then our senior year after that. Everything I had once seen clear as day was suddenly blurry.

“You know,” Elise said, “my mom said flights are actually pretty cheap, if you buy them far enough ahead. We could plan a trip so you both can come and visit. Maybe at the end of summer, when you guys know where you'll be moving to. We can go to Harry Potter World!”

I didn't know if that thing about cheap flights was true. Neither Morgan nor I had ever even been on a plane, so it might as well have been a rocket ship ticket to Mars. Morgan's eyes returned to the road, but her mouth still hung open.

Meanwhile, Elise flipped down the visor and checked her makeup. I saw it on her face, her hope that this would come true trying to butt out the reality that it probably wouldn't.

•  •  •

On our way back into town, we hit the police roadblock, and all of us had to show photo IDs to get through. Every road that led to Elise's street had been cordoned off with lengths of yellow caution tape and unmanned construction equipment parked to make an impenetrable barrier. The closest we could get was a good quarter mile away, on a wooded stretch of road that wound up the hill without any houses or streetlights. We pulled off at a place Elise said would be good, and Morgan's car rocked to a lopsided stop half in the rain ditch. We got out and clicked on our flashlights.

Morgan and Elise were whispering quietly with each other. The vibe felt extra somber since the whole Florida thing. I ran ahead to try and scare them but ended up sinking pretty far in some mud. It took both of them to pull me free. I was laughing, and I admittedly made it a little tougher on them just to be funny, but the girls didn't really get into it. And they didn't laugh when I let myself flop on my butt, staining my entire backside with mud.

Elise led the way confidently, though she did get us turned around a few times. After about thirty minutes, I felt Morgan come up beside me. “Maybe we should go back,” she whispered, but before I could say anything, Elise called out for us. She had found an open lane cut through the trees where a stretch of telephone poles and power lines snaked down the hill toward the valley.

“This leads right to my house,” she said.

Another quarter mile and we veered left and ran smack into a mountain of fresh dirt, clearly man-made, that had to be as high as a house. It smelled so earthy and wet.

We scaled the dirt like we were in army training camp or something. Scrambling up like little kids. I think every one of us slipped at some point, and by the top, we were all streaked with dirt. No one was laughing.

We looked down into the canyon that had been carved away. What had once been a street at the bottom of the hill was nothing but a pit of mud.

“Jeez,” Morgan whispered.

It was odd, because we'd already seen pictures in the newspaper and on the television. But there was something about seeing it live.

It was finally, undeniably real.

Elise scurried down first. She fell hard and smeared mud across the front of her pretty new blouse. And then once again. It didn't slow her. She took the stumbles and went with them.

At the bottom of the dirt mound, there were more bulldozers parked, and big Dumpsters filled with debris.

I had been on this street a hundred times, but there was no trace of pavement.

I had been inside Elise's house more times than I could count. I burned the inside of my forearm baking Christmas cookies in her kitchen in December. I streaked nude around her backyard with my hair in hot rollers on a sleepover dare. But there wasn't even a brick of foundation left, nothing even remotely in the shape of a house.

Morgan and I merged flashlight beams with Elise, hoping, I guess, that more light might help us find some kind of landmark. But Elise was wandering around aimlessly, spinning like a top that was running out of inertia.

“Is this it?” she said, breathless and impatient, finally coming to a stop in front of a spot that hadn't been cleared away yet. There was no house left to speak of, but plenty of broken bricks, some twisted pipes, and a bunch of wood half buried in the mud.

I shined my flashlight on a nearby tree. “That sort of looks familiar,” I tried. “Couldn't you see that from your bedroom window?”

She started to cry.

Morgan rushed to her, held her. Then they were both crying, shaking.

I hung back, continuing to look around with my flashlight, a cramp tightening in my stomach. I didn't want Elise to be upset. I didn't want her to have to see her house destroyed. I wanted to reverse the whole night, this whole idea, and go back to when Elise first brought it up. I should have pushed way harder for hotel swimming.

I felt my phone buzz in my pocket. It was a text from Jesse to a huge list of phone numbers, including mine.

He'd sent a video of himself, in nothing but a pair of soccer shorts, careening down a Slip 'N Slide while holding a beer, and he managed not to spill a single drop. He was in front of the old mill, down near the river. The person taking the video was laughing so hard, a hearty boy laugh, probably Zito. When he reached the end of the Slip 'N Slide, Jesse pointed at the camera and shouted like a general rallying his troops, “School's canceled for the rest of the week! We can sink, or we can Slip 'N Slide! Who's with me?”

It struck me then, a thing Jesse and I had in common. We both would do whatever it took to make people happy, to keep them smiling. And everyone needed that now more than ever.

The girls looked up at the sound of his voice.

I was going to wait until Elise had finished crying, but I held up my phone. “Apparently there's a Slip 'N Slide party going on at the mill tonight.”

Elise wiped her eyes. “Oh yeah?” She didn't sound that excited about it, but she and Morgan cuddled around me and I replayed the video. This time, they chuckled and sniffed back their tears.

“What do you say we drown our sorrows in cheap beer?”

Elise wrapped her arms around herself. “Is that even safe? To be that close to the river?”