Hold Still Part 22

17.

It is later. We are in my room.

Dylan sits cross-legged on my floor and sets her hands, palms up, on her lap.

"I had a brother," she says. "His name was Danny. You remember that picture in my room? The one you said was cute? That was him."

I do remember, but I just nod, don't say anything.

"When I was eleven and he was three, he got really sick."

Dylan stops. She stares into her empty hands. Stays silent until her breathing steadies. She's wearing a tank top and I can see the definition in her wiry arms. Her eyes look huge, greener than I remember.

When she talks again, her voice is so quiet I can barely hear her. "We tried," she says. "We did everything we could. At the end he was so weak."

I can't look at her anymore, so I study the carpet. I remember the picture of him on her desk, and remember asking her about it, but I can't think of the words I used. It's hard for me to accept that I didn't notice that he looked like her, or wonder why she didn't say anything about it.

"Dylan," I start. I don't know what I'm going to say next, but I know I have to say something. "That must have been-" I try, but Dylan shakes her head, cuts me off.

"After it happened, we all felt alone. I was sure there was no way my parents could understand the way I felt, and my mom thought that my dad had no clue how much it hurt her because he still went to work every day. My dad thought that my mom couldn't even begin to understand what it was like for him to lose his son. They had to split up for a year before they could understand the way they were hurting."

I'm lying on the edge of the bed, watching her. I want to take her hand like she did for me earlier. I reach out, but she pulls back, only slightly, but enough for me to know that she doesn't want to be consoled.

I sit up. "Tell me three things about him."

She looks at me, surprised, but knows exactly how to answer.

"He loved chasing pigeons. Whenever he recited the alphabet, he switched the B B and the and the D D. He'd say, 'A- 'A-D-C-B-E-F-G.' "

I smile and wait. When a minute pa.s.ses, I say, "One more."

"He had the strongest little arms," Dylan says. "He used to hug me around the neck so hard it hurt."

It's getting dark fast. Dylan tips her head up to my ceiling. Her face glows blue.

"I know how you feel," she says. "Believe me. But you are not the only one hurting over Ingrid."

She sits there for a minute longer and I think she's going to say more, but she doesn't. Instead, she climbs onto my bed and hugs me, tight and awkward, her arms squeezed around mine so I can't hug back. It takes me by surprise. It knocks the wind out of me. She lets go and walks down the stairs and out the front door.

I sit still for a long time. I can still feel the pressure of her arms around me. Down the hall my parents are talking, brus.h.i.+ng teeth, opening drawers. I unzip my backpack and take out Ingrid's journal. I lay it, exposed, on my desk. When I know my parents are asleep, I cross the room to my window. I look down at my car. Out at the sky.

An idea comes. I wait for morning.

18.

Hope starts over. At 8 A.M., I'm out the sliding-gla.s.s door and onto the patio, note left for my parents next to the espresso machine explaining everything I'm about to do, bag heavy with all the things I'll need for today. I pa.s.s the last stack of wood, the planter boxes of yellow flowers, my parents' tomatoes reddening on their vines.

When I slide into my car, the fake fur of the driver's seat feels soft against my legs. I'm wearing a skirt I haven't worn for a year-green and yellow checkered, short enough to show my pale, sharp knees. I start the ignition, remembering Taylor's fingertips running down my thighs. Deep in my stomach, something tightens. In a good way.

I s.h.i.+ft to first gear, and pull quietly out the driveway. I don't want to wake my parents on the only morning they sleep in.

Even though I love Davey's tape, I feel like listening to something new, so at all the red lights on the way to the freeway I search for good songs on the radio. Static crackles through the speakers, followed by talk radio, a sappy love song, a preacher with a voice like gravel, then a song that I love-a perfect morning song. I roll my windows down, turn the volume up, sing along loud as I roll past all the sleepy streets.

I turn left onto the on-ramp to the freeway, build up speed, then s.h.i.+ft into fifth gear. At first, the freeway is practically empty, but as I get farther from the suburbs, more cars appear. I glance into their windows and try to guess where they're going.

Asian man in a Lexus-into the office on a Sat.u.r.day? I imagine his daughter saying, Dad, you work too hard. Dad, you work too hard. I steal another glance at his face; he looks perfectly content, so I figure he enjoys his work. Old woman hunched over her steering wheel-off to breakfast with her knitting group, thinking, I steal another glance at his face; he looks perfectly content, so I figure he enjoys his work. Old woman hunched over her steering wheel-off to breakfast with her knitting group, thinking, Today, I'll finish the first sleeve on my husband's sweater Today, I'll finish the first sleeve on my husband's sweater.

As the tollbooth approaches, I grip the steering wheel harder, and try to fend off all traces of panic. I'm about to drive over the bridge for the first time, and right now it feels a little like diving off a cliff. The guy at the tollbooth is listening to headphones and dancing. I give him a ten and he hands back my change, and from there I'm on my own. I have to merge with about a million cars on each side and I let out a yelp of sheer terror, but miraculously, I survive it. What comes next is terrifying, but might also be the most exhilarating moment of my life.

I've been on the bridge so many times, but it's never felt like this. The land drops out beneath me. On each side is water and a few boats, so distant they look like toys bobbing along the surface of the bay. Above me are thick, strong cables, holding the bridge up. Above them: sky. A gust of wind comes and I hold hard to the steering wheel to stay steady. Treasure Island approaches, and I'm driving over land again, and then Treasure Island is only a speck in my rearview mirror, and I'm back over water, the city stretching in front of me, dense with possibility.

I exit onto Duboce Street, turn left, and pull out the directions I printed this morning. I navigate down streets that are new to me. The directions have me take a different route from the one Dylan and I walked that afternoon a couple months ago, but I follow them carefully, and soon I find a parking spot and turn off the car.

I drop a few quarters in the meter and walk through the door of Copy Cat.

Maddy sees me first and calls to me from behind the counter. I grin, relieved-I hadn't known for sure that she'd be working. She finishes ringing up a customer, and I wait for her in the corner of the store because I'm not sure if she's allowed to have friends visit. I don't want to get her in trouble with her boss. But as soon as she's finished, she prances toward me in her ap.r.o.n and gives me a hug.

"What are you doing here?" She c.o.c.ks her head in curiosity.

"I need to make some copies," I say, like it's obvious.

Maddy laughs. "There aren't any copy stores in Los Cerros?"

I reach into my bag, pull out Ingrid's journal.

"Copies of this."

Maddy takes the journal from me. I don't know if Dylan's told her about it, if it will mean anything to her. But she holds it in one hand, puts her other hand on my arm, says, "Oh, of course."

She looks pensive for a moment. "I can ask my manager if you can use the back room. We work on the big orders there and it's a lot more private."

Out here, light streams through the windows, faint music plays, a woman with tattoos covering both arms uses one copier, a gray- haired man with rings on all his fingers has papers spread out over a worktable. Between them, an unused copy machine and table wait against a wall of windows.

"Thanks," I say. "But I'm actually fine here."

"Okay," Maddy chirps. "Let's get you set up."

She guides me to a display of paper.

"Why don't you use this," she says, reaching for a stack near the top. "It's really nice quality. Here, feel it."

It's slightly textured and thicker than normal paper.

"It's kinda expensive," she whispers, "but you can use my discount."

I glance around for a manager, but all the people working seem young and nice.

"Yeah, okay," I whisper back.

At the machine, I breathe in the smell of ink and paper.

She shows me how to get the settings right, and once I've gotten the hang of it, she goes back behind the counter.

Out the window, people are strolling by, pus.h.i.+ng strollers, walking dogs, sipping coffee. A few couples wait, relaxed, outside a restaurant. I open to Ingrid's first page and wonder how many hours I've spent staring down at it, alone, looking for answers or comfort.

I place it down on the lighted gla.s.s, close the lid, press START.

A second later, a perfect copy spits out of the machine. I pick it up and hold it. There is her crooked smile, her yellow hair.

I press start again.

19.

An hour later, I'm finished. I carry my thick stack of copies to the counter and Maddy rings me up.

She reaches under the counter, pulls out a piece of thick, brown paper, and folds it around my copies. "So Dylan told you about Danny. That's huge. She never never talks about Danny." talks about Danny."

She pauses, but her face looks thoughtful, so I wait for her to say more.

"She doesn't let too many people get close to her. She's very guarded. But she really cares about you, and she knows how it feels to go through something like this."

She unfolds a bag and rests my copies inside.

I don't want to take it. I don't want to leave the store. Everything feels perfect-the suns.h.i.+ne, the music, the woman and her tattoos still working away on some never-ending project, Maddy smiling kindly from across the counter-then it hits me.

This is how it feels to have friends.

It isn't something fleeting. It won't end when I walk out the door.

I take the bag, reach in, and find a copy of a drawing Ingrid did of a girl's skirt and legs. At the bottom it says, Brave Brave.

"I want you to have this."

Maddy lifts it to eye level, grasping it gently on both sides.

"Tell me about it," she asks, without looking away.

I lean over the counter so I can get a better look. "It's from the middle of her journal, where she seems really confused in most of the entries. But it seemed like she still had some hope then." I shrug. "I don't really know anything else about it."

I think of driving earlier, the man on his way to work, the old woman and her sweater. "We could make it up," I suggest.

"So, let's see," Maddy says. "She was sitting outside somewhere in your town."

"On the steps by the Starbucks."

"Waiting for you."

"My mom was gonna drop me off to meet her."

"So she was just watching people, wasting time till you got there."

"And she saw a girl."

"An eleven-year-old."

"And she thought she was cute."

"But didn't want the girl to see her staring."

"So she only sketched the bottom half of her."

"And then . . ." Maddy says. "Your mom pulled up and you hopped out of the car."

"And she shut her journal 'cause she was always really private about it."

"But later that night she opened it again, and thought the picture was missing something."

"So she thought about it," I say, and as I invent the next part of the story, I really picture Ingrid, sitting at her colored-pencil and watercolor-covered desk. "And she remembered what it was like to be an eleven-year-old girl, either scrawny and flat-chested . . ."

"Or chubby and too embarra.s.sed to tell your mom you need a bigger training bra."

"And she thought that it was hard."

"It was really hard hard . . ." . . ."

"To be eleven, and be a girl."

"So she got out her black pen . . ." I say.

"And she wrote the word brave brave."

Maddy lowers the picture and smiles. I smile back.