“Amy, hi.” The words tumbled out backward of how she had intended. “I was over at the counter with my Granna Mae when I saw you come in. How are you doing?”
Amy studied Sierra carefully. The expression on her face didn’t change. She didn’t even appear surprised to see Sierra. Her face held a flat, empty look.
“I’m fine. How are you?” Amy asked.
“Good. I haven’t seen you at school all week.”
Amy paused, looking at Sierra.
“I hope you haven’t been sick or anything,” Sierra said.
“No.”
“Oh,” Sierra said. “Good.”
It was silent between them. No other customers were at the pharmacy window, and the pharmacist was in the back, apparently filling Amy’s prescription. This was as good as it would probably get as far as a private spot for their long-overdue conversation.
“So,” Sierra tried again, “how have you been?”
“Fine.”
“Good.”
Amy appeared reluctant to budge even an inch toward Sierra. Sierra knew she could always use dynamite words to break open Amy. At least that technique had worked in the past. Not today, though. This had to be done right. It was a delicate procedure, trying to gain back a lost friend.
“Have you been at school, and I just haven’t seen you?” Sierra ventured.
Amy looked down and then back up, barely making eye contact with Sierra. “I don’t go to Royal anymore.”
“Oh. I didn’t know. Why?”
Another pause.
“Is it because of your parents?” Sierra ventured carefully.
Amy nodded. She didn’t look remorseful, nor did she look as though she was willing to share any more information.
“That’s too bad.”
“It’s okay.”
“Are things any better between your parents?”
“I guess so. In some ways. It’s actually better now that they’re not living together. They treat each other a lot nicer, and they both are trying to spend time with me. So it’s okay.”
Sierra was glad Amy was opening up a little. Taking advantage of the opportunity, Sierra said, “I’m sorry I wasn’t home this summer while you were going through everything with your family. I tried to call from California, but I couldn’t get a hold of you. I left messages.”
“You did?” Amy said.
“Yes, several times. Then I went to Switzerland, you know. But it was all so sudden I didn’t have time to call anybody.”
Amy nodded.
“When I came back, it was crazy getting ready for school, working, and everything. I tried waiting for you after work one night, but you had already gone. Then I showed up at your house that one morning with a picnic breakfast.”
“When was that?” Amy asked.
“A couple of weeks ago. Didn’t your dad tell you? I think I woke him up, so he wasn’t exactly happy to answer the door.”
“He didn’t say anything,” Amy said.
“Oh. I thought he would have. I brought breakfast over. I thought maybe we could talk.”
“Look, Sierra,” Amy said, putting one foot forward as if trying to keep her balance. “I’m glad you’re telling me this. I didn’t know you had called me and come by. No one told me.”
“I’ve been hoping we could talk. I don’t like the way things are between us.”
Amy stood a little stiffer. “I know you think we need to have this huge talk and get everything out in the open, but I don’t feel that way. There are a lot of things better left unsaid. You have your life and your new group of friends and I have mine. Can we leave it at that?”
“I don’t want to leave it at that,” Sierra said stubbornly.
“Well, sorry, but you don’t have much choice.” Amy’s dark eyes began to take on a spark of the old spirit. “I don’t choose to be your friend anymore, Sierra. That’s that.”
“It doesn’t have to be ‘that,’ “Sierra said, feeling lame as she said it. She urgently wanted to express what she still felt in her heart toward Amy.
Amy shook her head and looked away. “You have certain high expectations and goals that you force all your friends to live up to, and let’s face it: I don’t match up, do I?”
Sierra didn’t know how to answer. She tried to choose her words carefully. Amy seemed like a rocket about to launch, and Sierra didn’t want to be seared in the billowing white heat that would come with the takeoff.
Before she could decide what to say, the pharmacist stepped up to the window and called out, “Degrassi?”
“Yes,” Amy said, turning on her heel. “I don’t have anything else to say to you, Sierra. Good-bye.” Amy spoke the words firmly without looking back.
Sierra didn’t know what to do. If she had been by herself and didn’t have Granna Mae with her, the fighter in Sierra would have followed Amy out of the drugstore and into the parking lot, which would have been a much safer platform for potential rocket blasts. Sierra wasn’t afraid of pursuing Amy, and she wasn’t afraid of what Amy might say to her. At least it would be out in the open. But she couldn’t leave Granna Mae alone any longer.
As Amy stood at the counter paying for her prescription, Sierra turned and went back to the lunch counter. So much for “Olly, Olly, Oxen-free.”
Amy doesn’t seem to be playing the game I thought she was. I figured she would be happy I kept after her until I “found” her. How could I have been so wrong?
Just as Sierra came to the end of the aisle that opened up to the soda fountain area, her heart stopped. There sat a chocolate malt in a silver container with two empty glasses. A cup of coffee rested on its saucer, still full. The two bar stools were vacant.
Granna Mae was gone.
fifteen
“GRANNA MAE,” Sierra called out, frantically glancing down each of the aisles. “Did you see which way my grandmother went?” she asked the woman at the counter.
“No, I didn’t see her get up.”
Sierra fled out the door into the parking lot. “Granna Mae!” she called out, not caring how silly she looked.
Amy exited the drugstore. When she noticed Sierra, she turned away and kept walking to her car.
“Amy, you have to help me. I’ve lost my grandmother!”
Amy paused and gave Sierra a skeptical look.
“She was with me at the soda fountain, but when I went back, she was gone. No one in there saw her leave. You have to help me find her. You know how she gets.”
Amy hesitated and then let out a frustrated sigh. “Where do you think she went?”
“I have no idea.”
“She’s lived here almost all her life. She knows this neighborhood,” Amy said. “Is there any place she likes to go? A park or something?”
“I don’t think so. And if she’s not thinking clearly, she could have wandered off anywhere and not known where she was. I think we should split up and drive around the blocks. That’s what my mom and I have done before. Could you look on the next four or five blocks on that side?” Sierra said, pointing to the northwest side of the street. “I’ll canvass this side.”
“All right,” Amy agreed.
“Meet back here after you’ve combed the blocks. And be sure to look in odd places like front porches and side yards.”
“I’m not going to snoop in people’s backyards,” Amy said.
“Well, okay, but just call out for her. She knows you. She would get in the car with you if you asked her. Meet back here.”
Sierra slid into her car and cranked the engine. Her heart was racing as she drove up and down the streets surrounding Eaton’s Drugstore, calling out for her grandmother. “Yoo-hoo, Granna Mae!”
There was no sign of her anywhere.
This is awful, awful, awful! What am I going to do? I never should have left her alone. Not even for a minute. What am I going to do?
She canvassed the sixth block and still saw no sign of Granna Mae. Even on a good day, Granna Mae couldn’t have made it much farth
er than this if she left the drugstore on foot. Still, Sierra drove down two more blocks, just in case.
Her search proved futile.
Maybe Amy found her. Oh, I hope Amy found her.
Sierra was in such a hurry to get back to the drugstore that she didn’t look before making a turn at the corner and was nearly hit by a car that was going way too fast. She slammed on her brakes as the driver zoomed past her, giving her a dirty look as if she were the only one in the wrong.
Calm down. Getting yourself killed will not help the situation.
Forcing herself to be extra careful the rest of the way back to the drugstore, Sierra hoped and prayed with all her might she would turn into the parking lot and there would be Amy with Granna Mae in her car.
Amy’s old beat-up Volvo was in the parking lot, but only Amy sat in the car. Sierra squeezed into a parking spot and hopped out of the car, running over to where Amy sat with her engine still running.
“I didn’t see her,” Amy reported. “I hope everything is okay. What are you going to do now?”
Sierra pounded her hand against the side of Amy’s car door. She let out a fearful, frustrated sigh. “I guess I have to go home and tell my parents.”
Amy pursed her lips together. “Well, I have to go, Sierra. I hope everything is okay.”
“Thanks, Amy. Thanks for trying. I really appreciate it.”
The two of them paused and made eye contact. No fireballs or flaming rockets traversed the space between them.
“That’s okay. ’Bye.”
“ ’Bye,” Sierra said reluctantly. She got back into her car.
On the way home, she decided to scan the neighborhood again, just in case either she or Amy had overlooked something.
What if Granna Mae went back to the drugstore?
Sierra turned around and headed for the drugstore. She hurried inside only to find the counter cleared. It was after five, and the fountain was closed. After walking up and down each of the four aisles, she asked the pharmacist if he had seen her grandmother. He hadn’t. The woman who had been working at the front register had gone home, as had the woman who had been at the fountain. A high school student was now the cashier. She said she had been there for only ten minutes, and she didn’t remember seeing an older woman who fit Granna Mae’s description.
“Thanks anyway,” Sierra said. She forced herself to realize she needed to go home, tell her parents, and call the police. There was no way to describe the way she felt at that moment. All her life her parents had lectured her about being careless and misplacing important things, like her passport, for instance. How could she look at them and tell them she had misplaced Granna Mae?
Everything inside Sierra began to go numb, from her head down. The drive home seemed like the longest drive in the world. She barely felt the bump of the slightly raised curb as she pulled into the driveway. When she turned the keys in the ignition to shut off the car, she had no feeling in her fingers. If she would have slammed her foot in the door while closing it, she wondered if she would know it.
The sentences ran through her mind like a wild game of crack the whip. Every sentence held her limp body at the very end of it and snapped her back and forth with a jolting force. She had felt nearly this bad once when she was seven and had broken one of her mom’s vases while trying to get it out of the cupboard for a handful of wildflowers. She had swept up the pieces without getting cut on the glass and kept it all in a grocery bag in the garage. Then she waited until after dinner to tell her mom. That was the most miserable dinner of her life.
Tonight there was no waiting until after dinner.
Sierra took the front steps two at a time, suddenly aware that this wasn’t about her failure or about her getting punished for losing Granna Mae. This was about her grandmother’s safety, and the sooner she told her parents and called the police, the better it would be for Granna Mae.
“Mom!” Sierra cried out as she burst through the front door. “Dad!”
“In here, Sierra,” her mom called out calmly from the living room.
“Mom, I—”
Sierra ran into the living room and stopped short. There sat Granna Mae on the living room sofa, as large as life and unharmed. Her mother sat on one side of Granna Mae, and her dad on the other. All three of them looked at Sierra with raised eyebrows, waiting for an explanation.
“Are you okay?” Sierra said, rushing to her grandmother and taking her hands. “What happened?”
“That’s what we would like to know,” her dad said. “Mr. Svenhart brought her home.”
“Mr. Svenhart? Why?” Sierra looked first at her father, then at Granna Mae, then at her mother for an explanation.
“He said she was sitting there all alone, and he was concerned.” Mr. Jensen gave Sierra a stern look. “Where did you go? Granna Mae says you got up to go to the bathroom, and when you were gone such a long time, she went to the bathroom to check on you, but you weren’t there. She waited at the counter, but you never came back.”
Sierra slapped her forehead. “The bathroom,” she muttered. “Of course. The only place I didn’t look.”
Mrs. Jensen leaned forward. “Sierra, this is serious. Where did you go?”
“I didn’t go to the bathroom. I went to the back of the store, by the pharmacy. Only for a few minutes. I saw Amy, and I went back to talk to her. It seemed like it might be the only chance I’d have to get things right with her. We talked for just a few minutes, and then I went back to the counter, but Granna Mae was gone. Amy and I went in separate cars and drove all around the neighborhood searching for her.”
Mr. Jensen looked upset. “Meanwhile, Granna Mae is sitting there, all by herself, at the counter for nearly an hour.”
“I am so sorry,” Sierra said, looking into Granna Mae’s confused face and giving her hands a gentle squeeze. “I didn’t mean to leave you like that. I thought you had left.”
“Why would I leave? I thought you were having some difficulty in the bathroom. And then you were gone.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I won’t do that again.”
“That’s right,” her mother said. “You won’t do that again.”
Her voice contained a frustrated edge. Sierra felt terrible. Here her mom had expected a few hours’ break from Granna Mae, but instead Sierra had delivered a boatload of anxiety to all of them.
“I really am sorry,” Sierra said.
She hated it when these kinds of things happened. It all seemed so innocent: a trip to the soda fountain, a chance to talk with Amy. And then it all turned around and bit her.
“Don’t fret,” Granna Mae said, letting go of Sierra’s hand and stroking back a tendril of blond hair from Sierra’s grief-stricken face. “It’s all over now, and we’re all safe and sound.”
“Would you like me to bring some dinner up to your room, Granna Mae?” Sierra asked. “Some soup, maybe?” She realized she was tilting her head and using the same voice she had used in the drugstore, the voice that mimicked the way Granna Mae had addressed Sierra when she was a child.
“That would be lovely.” Granna Mae got up and excused herself to go up the stairs.
Sierra bit her lower lip. Again Granna Mae had used the word “lovely” when Sierra was so eager to hear the word “Lovey.”
“This is much more serious than I think you realize,” her mother said the minute Granna Mae was out of the room. “What were you thinking, Sierra?”
“It’s like I told you. I saw Amy, and I thought I could talk to her for a few minutes.”
“You can’t leave Granna Mae like that. Not even for a moment. You know that.”
“I know. I was wrong. I’m sorry.”
“Go easy on her,” Sierra’s dad said, patting his wife’s arm. “Everything turned out okay.”
“This time,” her mom said. “What about next time?”
“We’ll all make sure there isn’t a next time,” Mr. Jensen said, his voice calm and soothing.
Mrs. Jensen let out a
deep, stored-up sigh. “If only it were that easy, Howard. You don’t know what it’s like.” She got up and headed for the kitchen.
“What do you mean I don’t know what it’s like?” he asked, following her. “I live here, too. She’s my mother. I know what it’s like.”
Sierra considered trailing along. Her impulse was to do things for her parents whenever she upset them, sort of a system of balances in which she did two helpful things to make up for her one colossal goof. However, it seemed better to stay back, at least for a few minutes, to let the two of them talk this through. She would wait five minutes or so and then make Granna Mae’s soup. Soup was supposed to help whatever ails a person, right? What kind of soup could possibly make any of them feel better tonight?
sixteen
JUST MINUTES after her mom and dad had exited the living room, the phone rang.
“Sierra, it’s for you,” Mrs. Jensen called out.
Joining her parents in the kitchen, Sierra took the portable phone from her mom and went over to the small, walk-in pantry in search of a can of soup.
“Hello?”
“Sierra, it’s Amy.”
Sierra stopped looking for soup and stood up straight. “Hi, Amy.”
“I wanted to see if your grandmother is all right.”
“Yes, she was here when I got home. A neighbor brought her back. You’re never going to believe this, but she was in the bathroom while we were out looking for her.”
There was a pause, and then Amy laughed. It sounded so good to hear her laugh again. “And you thought she was wandering the streets in a daze.”
“I know. I didn’t even think to look in the bathroom.”
“Is she okay?”
“I think so.” Sierra cupped her hands over the mouthpiece. “My parents are pretty upset, though.” She could hear them still quietly “discussing” Granna Mae’s condition at the kitchen counter.
Amy hesitated. “I just wanted to make sure your grandmother was all right.”
“I appreciate your calling. Thanks.”
“And I wanted to say that I appreciated your telling me that you tried to call and come over to see me. I didn’t know that, and I guess I jumped to some conclusions.”