good intentions and tacky gifts. Watching them now, I feel a pang. I wish my grandmother were like that—proud of me, buying me a California snow-globe paperweight.
“All aboard!” the red-faced bus driver yells. “Leaving in two minutes!”
I get in line, determined to be the last one on this stinky gas-guzzler. Out of the corner of my eye, I see another girl approaching—a skinny hippie girl wearing what Billy always called “eco-hottie rags”: a tattered patchwork skirt, a tiny tank top with no bra, a tattoo around her ankle, and bracelets that jangle on her arms. I smile politely and shift a little. I don’t want to be rude, but she smells a little funny. She doesn’t smile back but instead pushes past me and hands the driver a handful of crumpled bills.
“Mendo,” she says.
He nods, not looking at her.
“You know Rain Catcher Farms?” she demands.
The driver shakes his head.
“Well, that’s where I’m paying you to take me. Can you handle it?”
“I’m sorry,” he says, not unkindly. “I just don’t know where that—”
“Isn’t this, like, your route? Rain Catcher, okay? It’s a pretty major landmark.” She puts her hands on her hips. I’d forgotten that a lot of the kids who come to the RC are really rude and forward. My mom always taught me to be polite, no matter what. She was super into manners. I guess that makes sense, now that I know where she came from.
“Hey, I know where Rain Catcher is,” I say to the driver. “That’s where I’m going too. I’ll give you the heads-up.”
“Thanks,” he says, looking at me gratefully. The girl turns her flinty, slightly bloodshot eyes at me.
“Cool. I’m Crystal. You going up to be a trimmer?”
“What? No, I grew up there. I’m going home.”
“Oh,” she says. “I hear they’ve got this huge new crop of weed up there. My boyfriend told me about it. They just planted last month. There’s enough work for a bunch of kids to do pretty well.”
“I don’t know about that,” I say, uncomfortable. “I mean, mostly it’s produce at Rain Catcher. Organic kale and stuff.”
She shrugs. “Whatever.”
We get on the bus. She follows me to the back, not noticing the yelps of the white-haired ladies she hits with her backpack. She plops down beside me. “So what were you doing in Frisco?”
Again, I wince. My mother hated it when people used that name for San Francisco. “I was just away for a while, visiting my grandmother. But I’m back now. My boyfriend’s here and everything.” It feels so good to say it. Boyfriend. Surely I can call him that now, can’t I?
“Nice,” the girl says, stretching out in the seat beside me. “Well, I’m psyched to smoke up and crash for a few weeks. Haven’t seen my boyfriend in a while. We sort of had a fight, and he took off. Can you say make-up sex, Batman? I just hope they won’t make me do too much crap.”
I frown. This girl is exactly the kind of worker Big Jon hates—a freeloader. “Everyone does their share,” Big Jon always says. “That’s community.” I hope the people at the RC won’t think I brought her with me.
As we get closer, I become a little fidgety. I’m going to see Reggie today! It feels like it’s been years. My stomach flops over like a caught fish as I wonder if Reggie will want to take me camping right away. Probably. The kids used to go camping together all the time, but the last night Reggie took just me. That was the surprise he’d arranged for my birthday. As usual, he wouldn’t let me tell anyone we were going off together. We had to leave at midnight.
When we got there, we put on our headlamps and played cards in the tent, and then Reggie pulled out a huge bottle of wine.
“I know you hate beer,” he explained with his easy grin.
Honestly, I wasn’t that into this wine either. It tasted a lot like vinegar. But he kept pouring me more and more, until I started to seriously suck at cards and feel the uncontrollable need to lie down.
“Is that stuff stronger than usual?” I asked. But he just laughed and lay down beside me on his old, smelly sleeping bag. Then he reached over and kissed me. We’d made out a ton by then, of course, but this was more intense. In fact, he was so serious that, of course, I burst out laughing.