“If you’re about to try to sell me on Tucker again, save it. Although it was nice of him to drive me home from prom.”
“Hey, I’m on your side. I’ll cheer for you and Christian if that’s what you want me to do.”
“Thanks,” I say.
“Even if I think it’s a big mistake.”
Great friends I have.
I’m confused by Christian suddenly coming on so strong. Just when I decide to keep it strictly professional between us, angel business only, he seems totally into me in a way that makes my head spin. But he doesn’t ask me out. He doesn’t touch me. I tell myself that I shouldn’t care whether or not he does.
“Silver Avalanche coming up the driveway,” calls Jeffrey from upstairs.
“What are you, security?” I call back.
“Something like that.”
“Thanks for the heads-up.”
I’m standing on the porch when Christian pulls up to the house. “Hey, stranger,” I say.
He smiles. “Hey.”
“Fancy meeting you here.”
“I wanted to say good-bye,” he says. “I’m being shipped off to New York tomorrow.” He makes his trip to New York sound like boarding school.
“Ah, come on, you get to have adventure in the Big Apple. My dad lives in New York, you know, but I’ve only been there once. He had to work the whole time, so I sat on the couch and watched TV for a week.”
“Your dad? You’ve never mentioned him before.”
“Yeah, well, there’s not much to mention.”
He shrugs. “Same thing with my dad.”
A touchy subject, I can tell. I wonder if my face gets like that too when I talk about my dad, like I’m totally fine, I couldn’t care less that my parent doesn’t really give a crap about me.
I pretend to pout. “This sucks. School’s only been out for two days, and everybody’s bailing,” I whine. “You, Wendy, Angela, even my mom. She’s going back to California for business next week. I feel like the only rat dumb enough to stay on this sinking ship.”
“Sorry,” Christian says. “I’ll text you, okay?”
“Okay.”
His cell phone rings in his pocket. He sighs. He doesn’t answer. Instead he takes a step toward me, closing the distance between us. It feels like the vision. It feels like he’s going to take my hand.
“Clara,” he says, my name sounding different somehow when it passes through his lips. “I’ll miss you.”
You will? I think.
“Bluebell coming up the driveway!” comes Jeffrey’s voice from an upstairs window.
“Thank you!” I shout back.
“Who’s that? Your brother?” asks Christian.
“Yeah. He’s apparently a watchdog.”
“Who’s Bluebell?”
“Uh—” Tucker’s rusty blue truck pulls up behind Christian’s Avalanche. Wendy gets out. Her expression is clouded, like she’s confused to find me here with Christian. Still, she tries to smile.
“Hi, Christian,” she says.
“Hey,” he says.
“I wanted to stop by,” she says. “Tucker’s driving me up to the airport.”
“Today? I thought it wasn’t until tomorrow,” I say in dismay. “I haven’t wrapped your send-off present. Wait here.” I run into the house and return with the iPod Shuffle I got her. I hand it over. “I couldn’t really figure out what you’d need on a veterinary internship, unless it’s extra socks. But they’ll let you listen to music while you work, right?”
She looks more shocked than I was going for, her smile still a little forced. “Clara,” she says. “This is too . . .”
“I already put some songs on it that you’ll like. And I found the score for The Horse Whisperer. I know you have that movie practically memorized.”
She stares at the iPod for a minute, then folds her fingers around it. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
Tucker taps the horn. She turns to me apologetically. “I don’t have any time, sorry. I’ve got to go.”
We hug. “I am going to miss you so much,” I whisper.
“There’s a pay phone at the general store. I’ll call you,” she says.
“You’d better. I’m feeling majorly abandoned here.”
Tucker sticks his head out the window. “Sorry, sis, but we have to take off now. Can’t miss your plane.”
“All right, all right.” Wendy hugs me one last time, then dashes for the truck.
“Hey, Chris,” Tucker says out the window to Christian.
Christian smiles. “How’s it going, Friar Tuck?”
Tucker doesn’t look particularly amused. “You’re blocking me,” he says. “I could go around, but I don’t want to mess up their grass.”
“Yeah, no problem.” Christian looks at me. “I should get going too.”
“Oh, well, you can stay for a minute, can’t you?” I ask, trying not to sound like I’m pleading.
“No, I really have to go,” he says.
He hugs me, and for the first few seconds it’s awkward, like we don’t know where to put our hands, but then the familiar magnetic force takes over and our bodies fit together perfectly. I rest my head on his shoulder and close my eyes, which keeps the business part of my brain temporarily disabled.
Tucker revs the engine. I pull back abruptly. “Okay, so call me.”
“I’ll be back the first week of August,” he tells me. “And then we’ll hang out more, okay?”
“Sounds like a plan.” I hope there aren’t any, oh I don’t know, forest fires before he gets back. But there can’t be, can there? The fire can’t take place unless he’s there, right? Is it possible to miss my purpose because my subject won’t cooperate?
“Bye, Clara,” says Christian. He nods at Tucker and walks back to the Avalanche, which roars to life and makes Bluebell look even rustier and shabbier. I wave as both trucks pull out and disappear into the woods, leaving me in a literal cloud of dust. I sigh. I think about how Christian’s good-bye seemed so final.
A few days later I help Angela pack for Italy, where she spends every summer with her mom’s family.
“Think of it as a time-out,” Angela says as I mope around her bedroom.
“A time-out? I’m not two, you know.”