got cold in the van. She sat with one hand on Bowzer’s back and the other tapping the steering wheel. Her eyes squinted across the parking lot, though there wasn’t anything to see. We might have sat there all day, the two of us. As time passed, that seemed more and more likely. I wasn’t going to leave her there in the parking lot. And yet, despite her refusal to admit it, there really was nowhere for her—for them, at least—to go.
And then, there was.
Our salvation came in the unexpected form—and the very unusual sight—of Haylie Butterfield getting off a bus on the other side of the parking lot. It took me a moment to recognize her—not because of the dark hair, which I’d gotten used to—but because for the last five months, I’d only seen her transported in Jimmy’s car—she never rode the bus. She was also wearing running shoes. She had on the shiny red coat and a long black skirt, and from the ankles up, she looked as glossy and glamorous as ever; but from the ankles down—running shoes. They were pastel blue with white stripes.
“Is that…?” My mother looked out the windshield with narrowed eyes.
I nodded, watching Haylie make her way to the front doors of the dorm. Several other people had gotten off the bus with her, but she was already ahead of all of them. She moved quickly, with confident strides. She was almost up at the front doors when suddenly, as if she could feel my mother and me looking at her, she stopped and turned around. She put the flat of her hand above her eyes. And she started walking toward us.
I shook my head. I sat up straight. “She’d better not come over here,” I said. “This better not be about the car.”
“Now, honey,” my mother said. “You don’t know what she wants.” But she pressed the button that locked all the doors.
When Haylie was maybe twenty feet away, she veered toward the driver’s side of the van. I unlocked my door and got out. It was not my fault that my mother was having a hard time, at least not directly. But I wasn’t about to let Haylie bother her now.
“What do you want?” I asked.
She looked at me, lowered her eyes, and tried to step around me. I moved again.
“What? You want to whine to us about your car some more? It’s so sad that you have to ride the bus? Fine.” I pointed at myself. “Whine to me, Haylie. Leave her alone.”
She gave me a look as if I were the one tormenting her and not the other way around. Her nose was pink from the cold.
“I took the bus so I could come here,” she said, her gaze lowered again. “I just want to talk to her. Her, not you. Is that okay?”
I shook my head. The bus didn’t even go out to where they lived. I looked down at her tennis shoes.
“Just talk to me,” I said.
The van’s engine started up. We both turned as my mother’s window shimmied down. She rested her arm on the door, and Bowzer’s face appeared.
“What’s going on?” My mother frowned at the cold air coming into the van and rewrapped the scarf around her neck.
“I’m supposed to give you this.” Haylie reached into her pocket and pulled out an envelope. She tried to give it to my mother. When my mother didn’t take it, Haylie looked up at the sky, which was almost the exact color of her eyes. And it was hard not to look at her, even then, or maybe especially then, and not consider how unfairly beautiful she was. Haylie Butterfield would be beautiful no matter what she did to herself. Black hair. Purple hair. Too much makeup. A bolt though the nose. It wouldn’t matter. She couldn’t get away from it if she tried.
“Jimmy told me you were staying at the dorm,” she said. “What happened this morning. He told me. I called my mom, and she wants you to call her right away. She said you can stay with her. The dog, too.”
Haylie tried again to hand over the envelope, and this time, my mother took it.
“Her phone number is in there. And I wrote out directions to her place.” She pushed a dark strand of hair behind her ears. “She lives in an apartment by the Med Center. It’s really small, and there’s no yard. But she said you could stay there and bring