Crash (Visions (Simon Pulse)) (11 page)

Around seven, when I know everyone will be busy, I grab the meatball truck keys from Trey’s room and sneak out.

It takes me a little less than five minutes to get to Angotti’s. I park on the next block so they can’t see my truck. As I walk I pull my collar up and my hat down to my eyebrows and wrap my scarf around my face.

When I reach their enormous back parking lot, I do a snow-level check. There’s definitely a little snow piled up along the road, but it’s nowhere near a third of the way up the No Parking sign or the top of the hydrant across the street. One good snow could change all that, but it’d have to be a decent storm, I’d say.

I walk slowly up the sidewalk, studying Angotti’s from the back, trying to pretend that I’m just taking a walk on
this cold evening in case any of the family or employees pop out the back door to take out trash. I get a decent look into the dining room window. People sit in the booths there now, enjoying pizza and beer. I look for Sawyer but he’s not in the dining room, as far as I can tell.

As I get closer, I try to remember all the things I wrote in my notebook and curse myself for forgetting to bring it with me. I stop for a moment, push my hat back, and give myself more room to breathe around the scarf, and look inside as much as I can, trying to figure out the exact layout. I should have looked a few days ago when I was inside, but I’d had other things on my mind and didn’t think of it then. And something seems off. I can’t place it, but it doesn’t look exactly the same as the scene. I can’t tell what it is. I take a few steps closer, trying to stay in the shadows so that people inside won’t notice me. I look all around the dining room, from the service station to the giant forks and knives on the walls to the antique clock with ivy all around to the arrangement of the tables. Maybe that’s what’s off—the tables aren’t quite in the same spots as in the scene I keep seeing. I narrow my eyes. But I still can’t place it.

My teeth start chattering, but I weave my way between a few cars in the lot, trying to get a closer look at the building itself. The back door flies open and I spin around, pretending to walk toward a car. I glance over my shoulder, and it’s a short-haired blond girl with heavy eye
makeup carrying a trash bag. She props the door open with her foot and picks up a second bag, maneuvering them through the opening.

“The fifteenth,” she’s saying to someone in the kitchen. “No, I can totally work Saturday. Not going to the dance. I need the
fifteenth
off.” She lets the door close and walks over to the Dumpster, hoists the bags inside, then wipes her hands on her pants and pulls a pack of cigarettes out of her coat pocket. She flips one out and lights it, taking a deep drag.

I crouch behind a car, stuck here until she goes back in, unless I want to risk her seeing me appearing out of nowhere and walking away. A car pulls into the parking lot and I turn to look at it, its lights bouncing on me for a few seconds.

It would have been better if I hadn’t done that.

It’s Sawyer’s mother. She takes one alarmed look at me, then hits the gas and pulls up to the back door of the restaurant.

I bite my lip, not sure what to do. In a panic, I make a run for it, down the sidewalk into the neighborhood. “Shit!” I say when I’m far enough away. I keep running, turning the corner, around the block to my meatball truck. “Shit, shit, shit.” And then I’m speeding home as fast as I can so I can get back upstairs, get into my pajamas, and establish my alibi.

Thoughts fly through my head. Did I leave any fingerprints anywhere? No, I was wearing gloves the whole time. But the meatball truck’s engine will be warm. The restraining order police will check that when they come after me, and they’ll know I’m lying. Should I just tell the truth? What’s my dad going to do? I park the truck and throw snow on the hood to make it look like it’s been sitting there all day, which I know is stupid, but I’m not thinking straight, and then I fly up the stairs, hoping, pleading, that there’s no one up there waiting to catch me.

The apartment is empty.

Just as I left it.

I breathe a sigh of relief and hang up my winter things.

Five minutes later, the phone rings.

I stare at the phone, and then make a mad
dash to check the caller ID. It’s a cell number, no name. The area code is local. And I don’t know what to do. If it’s Mr. Angotti, I’ll die. But it’s probably a telemarketer. But what if it’s not? If it’s Mr. Angotti, I don’t want him to leave a message . . . or worse, try the restaurant line and get my dad.

That decides it. I lunge for the phone and pick it up, forcing myself to control my voice.

“Hello?” I say, like my mother would say.

There is a momentary silence on the other end, and I think it must be a telemarketer after all.

And then, in a puzzled voice, “Jules?”

I die inside. “Yes?” I say, my voice filled with air,
not just because of the exertion of lunging halfway across a room.

“It’s Sawyer. Look, what the heck are you doing?”

Now I’m silent. And guilty. But I’m going to fake it. “What are you talking about?”

“My mother saw you.”

“Saw me where?”

“In the parking lot. Tonight. Come on.”

I hesitate. “Dude, I’ve been home sick for two days.”

“I know that. Doesn’t mean you weren’t out in our parking lot twenty minutes ago.”

He knows that, he said. He noticed I was sick. I feel a surge of confidence bordering on recklessness. “You’re sounding a little paranoid, Sawyer. Why, exactly, would I be in your parking lot in the freezing cold when I’m sick?”

“You tell me.”

“This is an extremely weird conversation.”

He pauses, and I think I hear a soft laugh. “Yeah. Pretty weird.” His voice goes back to normal. “So you really weren’t there?”

I sigh. “Oh, Sawyer,” I say, and my voice sounds all throaty—almost sexy, which is, um, new for me. I blink at my reflection in the computer screen.

Now he laughs sheepishly. “Okay, so my mom’s the paranoid one. Sorry about that.”

“Where are you?”

“Ahh,” he says, and I wonder if he’s not sure, or if he’s afraid to tell me. “I’m . . . out. For the moment.”

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to stalk you. Look, since I’ve got you on the phone,” I say carefully, “I wonder if you’ve given any more thought to the little thing I told you last Sunday. You know, the thing where there’s going to be a crash, and I’m kind of trying to save your life, and you think I’m insane. Because, to be honest, I could really use your help.”

“Jules, no,” he says, and I can hear a hint of annoyance in his voice. “I mean, yes, I thought about it, and no, I’m no longer thinking about it, and it’s really weird and creepy, and I was hoping you’d have moved past it too. And maybe we could pretend it didn’t happen.”

I nod, phone plastered to my ear. “Yeah, that’s what I figured. Okay. Well.” Suddenly I get all choked up, because it’s all so newly real to me, and it’s so weirdly fake to him, and I can’t stop the emotion, because I’m just . . . mired in this. This thing is running my entire life, but it’s just a tiny blip in his. Until one day,
bam!
And then it’s over for him. None of this is fair in any way.

But I’m determined not to let him die without me making a complete fool of myself in an effort to stop it. I close my eyes. “Well,” I say again, my voice quavering, “I just want you to know that whether you help me or not, that’s okay. I understand. And I’m still going to, ah”—my
voice turns to gravel—“do whatever I can to . . .” I can’t say it.

He’s silent, and I wonder if he hung up.

I take a breath. “Are you still there?” I ask.

“Yeah,” he says.

“Oh.”

There’s a pause.

“Whatever you can to . . . what?” he says.

“Um . . .” I close my eyes. And I figure he’s going to die, so why not? “Save you. Yeah.”

“Jules,” he says again. “You’re nuts.”

“Sawyer,” I reply, and now I’m pissed because he actually said it to my face, or to my ear or whatever. “I’m not nuts. I don’t know what I am, but I’m not nuts. I’m not normally weird, even though this particular episode in our lifelong soap opera seems that way. But I do—I—I do—I care about you. And I’m going to save your life, and you probably won’t even know it, or believe me afterward, either.” I take a breath. “But I can’t
not
do it. So I don’t care if your father puts out a restraining order on me, or your grandfather breaks my father’s heart after he already did my grandfather in, or whatever. You just do whatever you Angottis have to do to feel superior to the Demarcos until the end of time—that’s just, you know, fine with me, and that’s, like, capitalism and shit. But goddammit, Sawyer,
despite all that, I’m going to save your fucking life anyway, because I love you, and one day you’d better fucking appreciate it.”

I wait, shocked at myself.

After a long pause, he says, “Wow.”

“Yeah? So?”

“So basically, what you’re saying is, my mother actually did see you in the parking lot tonight.”

My eyes spring open, and before I can think, I yell, “Ugh! My God! You are such a jerk!” And I slam down the phone in disgust.

Then I realize that slamming it didn’t actually hang it up, so I pick it up again and jab the off button really, really stinking hard, and bang the phone down into its cradle again.

I stare at the desk, and all I can do is shake my head at myself. “You? Are bumblefucking nuts, Demarco.”

•       •       •

Five reasons why I, Jules Demarco, am nuts:

1. I just screamed at the boy I love

2. I just told the boy I love that I love him. Ugh.

3. I pretty much admitted that I was lurking in his parking lot

4. And tried to make his mother look paranoid

5. Then there’s that vision thing

You know, though, there’s something really energizing, or, no, that’s not even the right word—empowering, I suppose one of those Dr. Phil speaker types would say—about screaming at someone, and almost not caring what they think anymore. Because what’s happening here is so much bigger than all of that. After nine years of loving Sawyer Angotti, and worrying about everything I say and do in or near his presence or in the presence of anyone who knows him, and being mad and embarrassed at myself repeatedly for laughing too loud, or saying something that wasn’t
good
enough for his ears to hear, I feel pretty freaking awesome.

Awesome enough to think about putting a big sign on my head that says, “Yeah, I love you. So the hell what?”

Before I head to bed, I go back to the phone and grab Sawyer’s cell number from the caller ID, enter it into my cell phone contacts, and erase the number from caller ID memory.

Because I just might need it one day.

I catch the scenes on TV while waiting for
Rowan to finish up in the bathroom. And they’re everywhere I go. I have to be careful driving now—all the road signs are stills of the explosion or of Sawyer’s face, so I either have to recognize the sign by shape or go by memory of where stop signs are, and remember what the speed limit is through residential areas. The trip from home to school is an easy one, but this could be a problem the next time I do deliveries.

However, I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about road signs. I don’t even bother to look at Sawyer once I get to school, as much as it pains me. I don’t think all that much about what people might be saying about me behind my back, and to my own amazement, I care even less. All
day at school my mind is occupied with details. What am I missing? How can I figure it out? Even brief thoughts of Rowan vid chatting with her boyfriend during second hour don’t sway my focus.

And then, in the middle of fifth period, when I’m going over the details of last night’s visit to the parking lot, what I need to do hits me like a freight train.

Between classes I text to Trey and Rowan: “Rowan, go home with Trey. Have to stop at library for stupid research paper.” I almost run over my former friend Roxie and her BFF Sarah, who are standing in the middle of the hallway as I type. My shoulder brushes Roxie’s armload of pink and red construction paper and sends it sliding across the floor in all directions.

“Watch it, freak!” she says.

I almost apologize. I almost help her pick it all up and let her call me a freak and just take it, take it, take it—that’s the Demarco way. But instead I look at her, and at Sarah, and back at Roxie again. “That’s
insane
freak,” I say. “Get it right.” And I keep walking.

After school I high-five Trey and head out the door, right past Sawyer and his group of friends, including Roxie. He raises an eyebrow at me, and I shrug. Yeah, I love you. Yeah, I was in your stupid parking lot. So the hell what?

That stomach flip is still there, big-time. But my sudden
decision to be the insane freak at school makes me feel like a totally different person—like nobody can touch me, because I’m on my own.

Oh yeah, baby. I’m on my own.

•       •       •

At the library I make a little wish as I head to the computers. I don’t know if this is going to work, but I’m going to try. I find a vacant station in the corner, away from others, and sit down. I pull up an entertainment website and click on the first TV video I see—some reality show called
Skinny Wallets, Fat Love
. It doesn’t matter what it is. The video loads a hundred times faster than it would at home, and I push play.

“Nice,” I mutter as the all-too-familiar scenes play out. I maximize it and expertly hit pause at just the right place, the frame where we’re looking into Angotti’s dining room. I squint, trying to see past the snowflakes, past the people in the window, to the interior wall, where the giant antique clock hangs.

I take a screenshot and zoom in, hoping I can still make out the whole pixilated mess.

And there it is—the clue I’ve been searching for.

It’s the giant clock on the wall, and its hands rest on four minutes past seven. And since Angotti’s isn’t open for breakfast, it’s definitely got to be in the evening.