“Extremely.” I can’t suppress a smile.
Arlo rolls by, retrieves a carton of eggs from the fridge, and says to Finn, “Why don’t you just go now? I’ll cut you a check, and you’re on your way.”
“I’ll go when my time’s up,” Finn tells him.
He looks from her to me, and I know what he’s thinking. I also don’t care. I’m out now, and so is she.
Finn says, “I’ll get the coffee started.”
“I’ll help.” I follow her.
Two boxes of doughnuts are stacked on the counter, and I start unloading them. “If it’s still raining when we get off, I’ll give you a lift home. Do you have a phone? Let’s exchange numbers in case you need to call me.”
Arlo yells, “Is this the pancake batter you mixed yesterday? Who made this soupy shit? And why are there still order tickets on the spindle?”
Finn gives him the finger, which he can’t see.
“He loves you,” I tell her. “He just doesn’t know how to express it with a Hallmark card.”
She snorts.
Without thinking, I encircle her braid and run my hand down it.
I see the goose bumps rise on her skin.
Arlo cranks up his radio to earsplitting volume. “We interrupt this broadcast for a bulletin from the National Weather Service.”
We both turn to listen.
“A flood watch has been issued for Eagle, Pitkin, Summit, and Park counties, including the towns of Heeney, Silverthorne, Dillon, Frisco, and Breckenridge and homes and businesses along the Blue River.”
I ask Finn, “Does that include us?”
She says, “It’s only a watch.”
A weathercaster comes on. “We’re keeping an eye on two converging weather patterns that could bring heavy precipitation for the western slope over the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours. The good news is the Eagles Nest fire was eighty percent contained, and the firebreaks have held. Those living east of the Divide will benefit from the rain, but flash floods are possible with this much rainfall in so short a time.”
Arlo shouts out the order window, “Open the joint up, Alyssa.”
Me? Wow, I’ve never been the one to open. I mean, BFD. You unlock the door and flip the sign from CLOSED to OPEN. Can I handle that much responsibility?
People are lined up outside in the pouring rain. The first one in is Rufus. He says, “Arlo here today?”
“Yeah.”
He hollers to everyone behind him, “Arlo’s back!”
There are cheers and applause. I hope Finn doesn’t catch it. She’s standing at the cash register, breaking open rolls of coins. If her feelings are hurt, she doesn’t show it.
It’s amazing how neither fire nor rain can dampen Arlo’s popularity. In fact, the rush extends an hour longer because customers stay to chat about the weather or keep dry. I don’t get to flip over the CLOSED sign until after two.
I’m wiped. Finn and I clean up and get ready for tomorrow without exchanging a word. There’s so much electricity in the air between us, though, one spark and the whole place would explode. That’s what it feels like to me, anyway.
Arlo doesn’t leave before us, the way he usually does. He rearranges his pots and sharpens his knives. I roll my eyes at Finn, but she’s avoiding looking at me. She opens the fridge to put away the carton of creamer and calls to Arlo, “We’re going to need butter before tomorrow. Do you want me to stop at Safeway?”
“No!” He points a knife at Finn. “You go away.”
She reaches for her rain slicker, and I snag the hood before she can pull it up. “You can’t ride your bike in this,” I tell her. “Let me take you home.” I call to Arlo, “I’ll stop at Safeway for supplies, if you want.”
Finn opens the back door. Outside, it’s a curtain of water, and the parking lot is a river of mud.
Right behind us, Arlo goes, “Where’s Noah when you need an ark?”
His voice in my ear distracts me, and Finn pulls away, taking off in the rain.
“Finn!” I holler. I hear the bike engine roar to life. “She can’t drive in this. It’s dangerous.”
Arlo says, “Finn does whatever the hell she wants.”
I whirl on him. “Why are you so mean to her? You’re the one who’s driving her away. What’s wrong with you?”
Arlo deadpans, “You want a list?”
I expel exasperation. He’s so deliberately irritating. I can understand why Finn would quit at the first opportunity.
“Do you need a ride?” Arlo asks.
All I can think is, I hope Finn makes it home. Why didn’t I get her number? I’m obsessing again, but I can’t help it.
“Alyssa?”
“What? Oh. No. I have Carly’s SUV.”
Arlo goes over to the bread drawer and pulls out a loaf of sourdough. He says, “That’s not Carly’s.”
“What do you mean?” I fill in my hours on my time sheet and see I’m not scheduled for tomorrow. Finn is. I write in my name. Maybe Arlo won’t notice. Sure, and mold is a digestive aid.
“The Mercedes. It’s not Carly’s.”
“Whose is it?”
Arlo saws off two thick slices of bread. “I’m making myself a grilled cheese. You want one?”
I’m famished, of course. “Sure.”
“Grab the butter and cheese. Get mozzarella, cheddar, Swiss, and Asiago.” He saws another slice. “It was Jason’s.”
I look at Arlo. Carly’s letting me drive Jason’s car?
“Bring it over here.” Arlo motions me to the grill. He moves to the side and says, “You’re going to do it.”
I dump my armload of cheeses. “But I don’t know how to cook.”
“It’s never too late to learn. Spread butter on each slice of bread. Usually I just dunk ’em in melted butter, but we’ll keep it low-fat.” He holds a hand over the grill. “Do lesbians care about their figures?”
I just look at him.
“I’m just askin’. Is that a priority with your kind? The whole beauty-queen routine?”
How do I know what lesbians’ priorities are? I don’t even pretend to represent. “I shower occasionally,” I tell him. “Twice a week I run a comb through my hair.”
He chuckles. “I can tell.”
Something bothers me about what he said earlier, before the homosexist remark. “I thought Jason and Angelica… I thought it was a hit-and-run.”
“Stack the cheeses yellow, white, yellow. For presentation and flair.”
A toasted cheese has flair?
“I guess Carly got the Mercedes fixed?” I say.
“They weren’t in the SUV,” Arlo says. “Turn the grill down so you don’t burn the bread before the cheese melts.”
I follow his instructions. “They were in another car?”
“Now the top slice of bread. And… flip.”
The first sandwich falls to pieces.
“That’s okay. Get the cheese back on the bread. Flip faster, like this.” He demonstrates with a flick of the wrist.
I try.
“Beautiful!” he cries.
I feel like I just won Top Chef.
“Jason was taking the baby to day care, and he got a call from Carly, raking him over the coals about taking her car because his had a flat. They’d been fighting; she knew he was cheating on her.”
My eyes widen at Arlo.
“Anyway, he’d taken the little girl out of the car seat and was locking the door when she ran out into the street. Jason ran after her, but a car came tearing around the corner going way over the speed limit, according to witnesses, and hit Jason. He’d just gotten to the girl and picked her up. Jason died instantly. The little girl lived for a day.”
“Oh my God,” I gasp. “Angelica.”
“Huh?”
“Her name. It was Angelica.”
“Right. They called her Angie.” He holds a plate, and I use the spatula to slide the wrecked sandwich onto it. Another plate for the good one. “You gotta slice it di
agonal.” He hands me a serrated knife. I saw through the bread, and he goes, “Beautiful. Now you can cook.”
Yeah, sure.
Arlo takes a bite out of the messed-up sandwich, which I would’ve eaten. His eyes roll back in his head like, rapture, and it makes me smile.
The grilled cheese is good. Better than good. So much better than the grilled cheese Dad used to make for me. I pull up a step stool and sit, so I’m eye level with Arlo. “Was Carly… I mean, I know she must’ve been devastated afterward.”
Arlo chews and swallows. He chomps off another bite. “She had a breakdown. Stayed with Geena for a while. Geena says she’d wake up screaming, ‘My girl! My baby girl!’ ”
I hear Carly in my head, screaming, reliving the accident. I know I would.
“Then,” Arlo says, “she woke up one day, and she was over it.”
Like snap, you’re over this major trauma in your life? I don’t think so. She just buried it.
“She moved back to the house and picked up where she left off.” Arlo sets down his sandwich. “Milk.” He rolls to the fridge, calling over his shoulder, “Everyone admired the way she was able to carry on.”
The end of that phrase is left unspoken: like nothing ever happened.
My girl! My baby girl! Angelica was Carly’s girl. I wonder if Carly ever woke in the night screaming for me? For the loss of me? Or was she like snap, over it?
Carly’s been home. She left me a note:
ALYSSA
BE CAREFUL OUT THERE. I’LL CALL YOU WHEN I GET A CHANCE.
C
I sit at the table with my phone and wait. And wait. I call her, and her voice mail picks up. I don’t leave a message.
I hate this, sitting around waiting for a call. How much of my life has been wasted sitting around waiting for Sarah to call?
The sky’s so dark that it looks like the middle of the night, and the rain hasn’t let up a bit. I check my e-mail; there’s only spam.
I watch TV for a while. Every time I feel myself drifting off, the wind kicks up and hammers rain against the picture window. There’s a continuous scroll along the bottom of the screen with flash flood warnings for Eagle, Summit, and Grand counties.
The phone in my hand rings, and I almost drop it. “Hello?”
“Alyssa, are you home?” Carly says.
“Yeah. Where are you?”
I hear a guy’s voice in the background and Carly going, “Oh, thanks, honey.” She says to me, “I probably won’t make it back tonight. This rain is washing out roads, and already there’s a mudslide near Breckenridge. Now they’re saying it’s going to get worse overnight.”
A bolt of lightning strikes so close that the hair on my skin stands up, and the charge zings my feet and legs. “Carly?”
We’re cut off.
I try to call her back, but all I get is a busy signal. I disconnect so she can call me.
She never does.
There’s another lightning flash, and a thunder boom shakes the house. I scrunch into a ball on the sofa. Thunderstorms scare me to death. Paulie’d always come running to my room, and we’d hide under the bedspread together.
Rain pummels the roof.
A streak of lightning splits the sky, and the TV flickers and then goes black. All the lights go out. Now what? When we lose electricity at home—which happens all the time because the wiring is old and we get lots of thunderstorms in Virginia—Dad goes to the garage to check the breakers. I’ve watched him flip them back on.
I creep down the stairs to Carly’s garage. I wish I knew where she keeps her flashlight. It’s pitch-black, and the floor’s wet, and I don’t have any shoes on. If lightning strikes, I’ll fry.
My phone’s in my hand, still, so I touch it on to use the lighted panel. I’m a freaking genius.
There’s the box. Sure enough, a bunch of the breakers are tripped. I flick them on one at a time and see lights illuminate behind me. The TV blares upstairs.
As I’m returning to the main level, a bolt of lightning illuminates Carly’s exercise room. Oh no. There’s water streaming in from under the window or the foundation. She has a closet with towels for the sauna, so I grab a stack and pack around the wet places. The sky lights up, and I see streams of water sluicing down the mountain.
What if the whole house floods? Or floats away? That won’t happen, will it? At least the main level isn’t on the ground floor. I wrap in a blanket on the sofa, surfing channels, trying and retrying Carly’s number. The line’s dead, and I feel cut off from the world.
The phone in the kitchen rings, and I leap up to answer.
“Alyssa?”
“Finn? Oh my God. Can you come over? I’m scared and Carly’s house is flooding and I don’t know what to do!”
Finn says, “Where’s Carly?”
“I don’t know. She left. She’s not coming home tonight.”
“How bad’s the flooding?”
“It’s seeping in around the foundation. I put towels all over to soak up the water.”
“Okay,” Finn says. “That’s good. You’ll be fine.”
“No, I won’t.”
Lightning streaks through the sky, and I hear Boner howl in the background. “I can’t leave,” Finn says. “Boner’s freaked out.”
“Then I’ll come there.”
“No! Don’t even try to drive on these roads.”
I feel so desperate for company. “Will you talk to me, at least?” The lights flicker, and I tell her, “The electricity keeps going in and out.”
“Keep calm. I’m here.”
I remote off the TV. “Stay on the phone, okay?”
A clap of thunder combines with Boner’s barking. “Boner, come here. That’s a good boy. I’ve never known such a wimpy dog.”
“Have you had a dog before?” I curl up on the sofa and shiver.
“My last foster family did. It wasn’t my dog. Nothing was mine.”
I know how she feels. I want to know the when and how and where of her. “Tell me about your foster family. Were they in Canada?”
“Tell me about your family,” she replies. “Back in Virginia.”
How does she know where I’m from? I bet everyone in town knows all the dirty details of my life. “I’d rather not talk about them,” I say. “What are you doing right now? Do you have a fire going?” I wish I could build a fire, but the fireplace is in the formal living room, and I have no idea how to use it.
“Boner and I are in bed. He’s under the covers. Boner.” She laughs softly. “He’s licking me. Boner, stop. What are you doing?” she asks.
“Talking to you. I was thinking of taking a whirlpool bath, but I might get electrocuted.”
“Yeah. Don’t do that.”
“You should come over and try out the hot tub. Before you leave,” I say.
“Maybe I will.”
Maybe if she did, she wouldn’t leave. We start talking about work, and Arlo, then music and movies and I don’t know what else. At one point, Finn says, “I hope the minutes don’t run out on my phone. I’ve never talked to anyone this long.”
“Wow, I feel honored.” She’s never had a real friend. Friends can talk on the phone for hours. We jabber until my eyelids are heavy, and I don’t know if I’m dreaming or if I really hear Finn whisper, “G’night, Alyssa. Wish you were here. Sweet dreams.”
Chapter
22
The ringing phone in the kitchen jolts me awake. I roll over—right off the sofa. The caller ID says it’s Arlo.
“Hey, boss man,” I answer.
“Don’t go out today,” he says. “Just stay put. The state patrol closed Highway 9 and Summit, and there are high-water warnings everywhere. Is Carly there?”
“Um, I don’t know.” I didn’t hear her come in.
“It doesn’t matter. She can take care of herself.” He sounds grouchy. Behind him, I hear, “Do you think we’ll be getting a pastry delivery?”
“Is Finn there?” I ask.
Arl
o says, not to me, “Hell, I don’t know. If people come out to eat today, they’re daft in the head.” He goes, “Alyssa? Everything bolted down there?”
Everything but me. I hang up and race upstairs to get dressed for work.
Thank God I brought my boots. They’re leather, and the rain will probably ruin them, but they’re all I’ve got. They’re not that comfortable, anyway. They’re too narrow, and they pinch my toes, but Paulie (via Tanith) gave them to me for my birthday.
I only have a hoodie, so I check the downstairs closet for a raincoat or a parka. Carly has a full-length fur coat. Is it mink? Ick. I’m not about to wear a dead animal.
I crank everything on in the car—the wipers, defroster, headlights—and start down the access road. It’s slick and slimy, and my foot naturally jams on the brake, and then I feel the back end fishtailing. I steer in the opposite direction, but there’s no traction at all. The car is sliding, swerving, and I can’t control it, and all I see are gray shadows blurring past me, branches scraping the windows, and I skid, slide, and scream, “Stop! Stop!” Oh my God, please stop.
The brakes catch suddenly, and I’m jerked backward and then forward. If I hadn’t latched my seat belt, I’d have been propelled right out the windshield.
At last I reach Highway 102. Fuzzy headlights are the only visible patterns as semis roar by, splashing waves of water over my hood. I’m not religious or anything, but I make the sign of the cross and pray for my life.
The high-water warnings are no joke. I hit low spots on the highway and feel like I’m driving through a riptide. My heart is pounding as I putter along, getting blinded by every eighteen-wheeler that passes.
The Egg Drop-In sign is such a welcome sight that I want to cry. Water ripples down the street, and the incline to the parking lot is pure muck. Finn’s bike is parked next to the building, covered with a tarp. How did she manage to get here?
When I blow through the back door, both Finn and Arlo stop what they’re doing to stare at me.
“Are you on crack? What did I tell you?” Arlo snipes.
“Am I late?” I ask Finn. “I wouldn’t want to get docked for being a minute late.”
She doesn’t smile. “Are you okay?”