have to get involved. The thought soothes me. Yes. I’ll bike home and practice piano, then go to Lukas’s for dinner.
Doug spits.
“I don’t know, honey. Building wasn’t supposed to come down until September, but now they’re saying it might be sooner. And anyways, I’ll be long gone before then.”
“Can’t somebody else hold it till I get the chance to—”
Doug crumples his beer can.
“You don’t want to deal with it, guess it’s going down with the rest of this dump. I told myself I was only going to try calling her family one more time. We’re not interested,” he says, mimicking my dad’s clipped syllables. “I don’t think so,” he continues in the voice my mom uses with telemarketers.
A blaze of shame burns my cheeks. They must have thought he was crazy. I glance at his beer can.
Maybe they were right.
“Wait,” I say. “I’m just thinking.”
I could see if Lukas’s mom would come pick me up. But she doesn’t get home from work until six, and she’d ask too many social-worker questions anyway. I guess I could drag everything on the bus. . . .
Suddenly, I have an idea. It’s a terrible idea and it will probably backfire. But it’s the only thing I can think of that might actually work, and once I’ve thought of it, I can’t let it go.
“I’ll be back in ten minutes. Will you still be here?”
“Reckon so.”
“I do want her stuff. I just need to go get—”
“Go on. I ain’t going nowhere.”
Doug crutches his way over to the doorway and sits down on the steps. He slides a half-smoked cigarette out of his pocket and lights it.
I get on my bicycle and pedal as fast as I can.
chapter nine
“Oh, hey. You brought back my light.”
Skunk slides the door open a little wider and turns the bike light over in his fingers before slipping it into his pocket. He’s blinking funny, and his hair’s tousled as if he just woke up from a nap. He’s wearing an old band T-shirt that makes him look like the kind of huge, soft, stuffed gorilla you win at a carnival for throwing a dart at a balloon. I know I should probably feel embarrassed about showing up at his house like this when he probably never expected to see me again, but all I can think about is getting back to the Imperial before Doug decides I flaked.
I wonder if Skunk can tell how edgy I am. I’m picking at the rubber grips on my handlebars and dancing in place like a monkey. He rubs his eyes.
“How’s the tire working out?”
“Great.”
He glances at my bike appraisingly, as if he thinks I came here to get him to fix something else. Like my squeaky brakes. Or my questionable sanity.
Before I have the chance to lose my nerve, I jerk my thumb at the van parked in the alley.
“Is that yours?”
He nods slowly, his sleepy eyes still half-closed. “Yeah.”
“Do you think you could give me a ride?”
I know it’s a long shot. I’m pretty sure I just got him out of bed, and by the looks of it, the van probably doesn’t even run. I know if some random stranger came and knocked on my door looking for a ride, I’d say hell no.
But Skunk just yawns and says, “Let me get my keys.”
He steps back into the house, sliding the door and curtains all the way shut behind him. I wonder what he’s hiding in there. Posters of naked death-metal chicks? Indoor grow-op? I try to steal a glimpse inside when he comes out, but he’s too fast for me, and all I see before the door snaps shut is a slice of hardwood floor.
“Want to put your bike in the shed?” he says.
“Hm? Oh. Sure.”
I follow him across the courtyard and wait while he unlocks the shed. When I hand him my bike, I get a shiver of anxiety, like I’m leaving an arm or a leg behind, or a baby, or a pet. As we walk to the van I resist the urge to run back and knock on the corrugated metal and say, I’ll come back for you soon, I promise.
Skunk’s van smells like cigarettes and sandalwood. The rust-colored upholstery is worn so thin it’s shiny. The stereo is too old to have a CD player, and the cup holders are full of dusty cassettes that must have been there since he bought the thing. Even though Skunk hasn’t asked for an explanation, I find myself babbling