Bingo Summer, page 11
I didn’t answer. Eddie must have taken that as a go-ahead because he stopped us in front of the next house.
“Stay behind theses bushes. And be quiet,” he said over his shoulder, while he walked toward the concrete steps of the house’s broad front porch. The porch light was off.
Eddie pushed the doorbell, then leapt off the top step. He burst through the bushes just as the front door opened. We crouched down, peering through thin spots in the hedge, as the porch light flickered on. A man stepped outside, looking right and left. A girl dressed in a princess cos-tume joined him until he led her back inside. Then the porch light blinked off.
The guys busted out laughing. Kate, Cami, and I looked at each other. They laughed, too, but I didn’t get what was so funny. Dink was the only one, besides me, who didn’t find it funny, either. He hunkered down with the rest of us but turned his back to the bushes, looking toward the street.
“Your turn,” Eddie said to Kate after Sam and Cami each took their turns.She was game. Kate tiptoed up the walk of an ivy-covered brick house. She rang the bell and ran back with sec-onds to spare. Someone moved past the stained glass sidelight near the door before it opened.
An older lady peeked out, holding a treat bowl. When she saw her porch empty of trick-or-treaters, she shuffled back inside.
“Awww,” Eddie whispered in mock sympathy. “Way to go, Kate.”
Kate made a face. “It’s not my fault. You’re the bad influence.”
Eddie waved her off. “Next is Reardon’s house. We can’t pass this one by.”
“Anna’s not so bad. Maybe we should skip her,” said Cami.
“Naw, this is a good one,” said Sam.
“You’re up, Haas,” said Eddie, pointing to me.
I felt the warmth spread to my face despite the cold night. Our breath made short, white puffs in the dark. All eyes shifted to me.
“I’ll pass,” I said simply. Let them be mad and think I was lame. It was a dumb game. Suddenly, I didn’t care what they thought.
“Don’t be such a bump, Summer. It’s not against the law or anything,” said Kate. She snickered; but when our eyes met, she looked away.
“It’s fun. Trust me,” said Eddie.
“What’s the point?” I shoved my hands in my pockets and stood up straighter.
Kate crossed her arms. “We’re not hurting anyone.”
“Never mind,” Eddie said. “I’ll go again if you’re going to be that way.”
So everyone hid again behind the bushes, except me and Dink. I wasn’t playing anymore. I backed off the sidewalk onto the grass strip next to the street and leaned against a tree. Dink left the group, too, and joined me in the shadows. I couldn’t believe Kate laughed at me. That hurt.
Silently, we watched Eddie charge back to the others before one side of the heavy double doors swung open at the Reardon house. I expected to see Delane, but instead it was Anna. Her black and blue curls silhouetted against the glow from the entryway; she looked small, dwarfed by the huge doors.
I stayed still in the shadow of the trees, holding my breath. I was sure she couldn’t see me, but Anna looked out into the night, staring for a long time. She stood in the doorway, clutch-ing her arms to her chest. Someone by the bushes giggled, loud enough for Anna to hear. It didn’t seem to faze her, though. When she stepped back inside and shut the door, I relaxed.
Dink and I watched the others pop up from their hiding places and move down the side-walk. They high-fived each other, clueless that the group had suddenly shrunk by two more — me and Dink.
CHAPTER 22
They disappeared around the corner at Center Street. That left me alone with Dink McDonough on a dark street, miles from my house. And I’d left my phone on my nightstand. Good grapes.
Dink cleared his throat. He shifted from one foot to the other, stealing looks at me. I had to say something; I couldn’t stand the quiet anymore.
“Now what?”
He shrugged and ruffled his hair, glancing down the street again.
“I was supposed to go home with Suri, but I have no idea where she is and no idea where I am, for that matter,” I blabbered. My teeth chattered.
He nodded, focused on me real serious-like. I hadn’t realized how tall he was until I looked up into his face. “I do,” he said, pointing behind us. “Downtown is that way. About ten blocks,” he said.
“I should find a phone and call my mom.” I hugged myself. It seemed like it was getting colder.
He pulled a phone out of his pocket. “Dead. Sorry,” he said when he looked at it. “We can go back to my grandparents’ place. You can call from there.” An uncomfortable few seconds passed as we looked at each other. Then he nodded in the direction of downtown and started walking.
I shoved my hands in my pockets and followed him. I tried to match his pace, but his long legs took two steps for every one of mine. Chills raced across my skin underneath the jacket. He slowed down a couple times on account of me, but Dink couldn’t help staying three paces ahead. After we got to the end of the first block, he stopped.
“You’re slow,” Dink said.
“You’re too fast,” I shot back. The muscles in my calves burned.
“You’re quiet, too.”
“Can you say something nice maybe?” I said.
“Are you serious? You’re the Queen of Mean, and you’re telling ME to be nice? That’s funny.”
An awkward quiet settled between us again. Our footsteps seemed to punctuate the con-versation that wasn’t happening. What could I say? I panicked, hoping for him to say something, anything! Every second of silence multiplied the weirdness. My brain felt like a big hollow mass, when one question suddenly popped out of thin air: “How did you get a name like Dink?”
His lips twitched. “Has that been bugging you since the pool?”
Of all the stupid things I could ask him, I picked the stupidest. Maybe not talking to him was the best choice.
A breeze picked up and swirled around us, sending the leaves into a whirlwind. The leafy cloud surged across the intersection, where it danced underneath the street lamp. Then they set-tled back down, drifting in all directions toward the culverts. I hopped over a smoldering mound of leaves, the musty smell clogging my throat.
“Don’t let…tonight bug you.” His deep voice was so low, I edged closer to him as we walked together.
“Bug me? What are you talking about?”
“How they ditched you, and laughed at you for not playing the game.”
“It doesn’t,” I said. “Not at all. It was a stupid game.”
“You don’t belong with them anyway.”
“What does that mean?”
“Take it easy. That was a compliment.” He shook his head.
“It didn’t sound like one.”
“Trust me.”
I waited for him to tell me what he meant. Ever since school started, I felt like I was try-ing to slip inside someone else’s skin, and it fit me like a too-tight shirt. Sometimes, I wanted to do whatever it took to have friends, to be popular again like I was in Stanton. Well, maybe I wasn’t really any more popular than anyone else. Maybe no one there worried about it as much.
I didn’t want to pretend that I cared about the same things that Suri and Kate liked just so they’d like me. I didn’t like shopping or running for student council or having Halloween parties even. But that’s what I felt I needed to do to belong. And I really wanted to fit in somewhere. It bothered me that it was so obvious to Dink, that I was trying so hard and failing.
“What I meant was that you seem different, but in a good way.”
“But you don’t even know me.” Secretly, I liked that he thought I was different from them. Where did that come from? All along I thought he hated me.
He looked at me sideways, as we hopped another curb. “I know enough.”
I shivered, burying my nose deeper into the folds of my fleece. The lights from the down-town area a few blocks away cast a glow on the treetops. They glistened from an earlier sprinkle, and when a breeze moved through suddenly, they rustled, whispering to us.
“So your parents are missionaries?” I asked, then cringed realizing my mistake. I was glad it was dark, so he couldn’t see the color spreading from my neck to my cheeks.
“You’ve been checking up on me?”
What could I say? I had asked Bernie Day about him that day I went to deliver Mom’s bracelets.
“I overheard someone talking.” It wasn’t a lie.
His forehead wrinkled with doubt when he glanced at me. Half of his face was silhou-etted against the street lamp. “Yes. They’ve been in Africa all summer. They’ll come home in the spring,” he said. “I could have gone, too, if I wanted. They gave me the choice.”
“Then why didn’t you go?”
“I didn’t want to miss a year of school here. And summer baseball, other stuff.”
We passed a dry cleaners and a scrapbooking store before we came to the bakery. Dink fished in his pocket and pulled out a key. He slipped it into the lock of a narrow green door be-tween the bakery and a florist on the other side.
“Home sweet home for now,” he said, holding the door open for me. We climbed a skin-ny staircase with cracked, peach-colored walls. Family pictures in random-sized frames hung in willy-nilly fashion all the way up the stairs. The door at the top was ajar, light from the apartment spilling into the hallway. The air smelled of cinnamon and fried sausage. My stomach growled.
“I thought I heard you coming up,” said someone, when Dink walked in ahead of me. I followed him into a high-ceilinged living room with windows that looked out onto Main Street.
“Hey, Nana,” Dink said, bending to kiss her cheek. “This is Summer. She needs to use our phone. Mine died.”
She took my hand in both of hers. “Welcome,” she said. “I’m Muriel.”
She had the same wild curls as Dink, though her hair was a thick, frothy white like whipped sugar. Her red apron was streaked with flour.
“It’s nice to meet you.”
“She lives on Church Road, in Jack and Marley’s old house,” said Dink.
I couldn’t resist. “Have you been checking up on me?”
“I was at your party, remember? Like two hours ago?” He grinned.
Good grapes. How come I acted so stupid around him? And how could a person be so annoying?
Dink grabbed a cordless phone off an antique table and handed it to me. “We could give you a ride, you know,” said Dink.
I turned my back to him as I started punching numbers into the phone. “That’s all right,” I said over my shoulder. “But thanks anyway.”
He followed his grandma into the kitchen, and they hovered over a pan, slicing into it and each scooping out a piece of chocolate. My stomach rumbled again.
As I finished talking to Mom and hung up, Dink handed me a brownie, cradled in a paper napkin. My skin tingled where his fingers brushed mine.
“Thanks,” I said, holding the warm brownie in my palm. “My mom’s on her way. I’m going to wait downstairs.” I thanked Muriel and walked out of the apartment, shutting the door behind me.
Seconds later, the door swung open again, and Dink thudded down the stairs.
I stopped. “What are you doing?”
“Nana told me to wait with you outside.”
I huffed. “I can wait by myself. You don’t have to.”
“I don’t argue with her,” he said and pushed open the door for me.
I laughed, and it came out high-pitched like a squawk. Silently, I prayed for Mom to hur-ry. It was impossible to be normal when he was around. I settled against a concrete urn of with-ered, frost-bitten flowers to wait. Dink leaned against a lamp post, his hands buried deep in his pockets.
I wanted to say something funny or ask him a not-too-nosy question about anything — school, baseball, his family — but my brain was empty again. I caught him looking at me out of the corner of his eye, but then he pretended to brush something from his shoulder. I laughed be-cause it was such a silly thing.
“What?”
“Nothing,” I said, shaking my head.
“You laugh at me, then don’t tell me why?”
I shrugged. “Life isn’t fair.”
“You’re the only one I know who doesn’t laugh at my jokes.” He crossed his arms, like he dared me to disagree.
“It’s nothing personal. It just takes me awhile.”
“Takes you awhile to what?” he said, puzzling.
“To feel comfortable, I guess.”
His head bobbed while he looked down the street, like he understood. Minutes of quiet passed. Main Street was peaceful. The storefronts were dark, but lights shown through the cur-tains in the apartments above. I listened to the echoes of people still out, roaming around. A small animal crossed the street a block down, an opossum or raccoon maybe.
I realized my impression of Dink had changed in the last hour. His image had softened around the edges. It was like an eraser dulled the solid bold lines of him. Even his frown didn’t seem as owlish as before.
Mom’s headlights flashed as she parked at the corner of the nearest cross street. I punched Dink playfully in the arm. “‘Night.”
“‘Night yourself,” he said, pushing away from the planter.
My heart hammered, as I hurried down the sidewalk. I glanced back before I rounded the corner, and Dink was still there, watching me.
CHAPTER 23
I woke up the next morning with one of Dana’s stars on my pillow. The adhesive didn’t work so well with the textured ceiling, I guessed. Once I kicked off my sheet, I stood on the bed and tried to re-stick it, but it fell off again even before I moved my hand away.
Frank was still asleep on the couch when I came downstairs. I put the coffee on, whipped up some pancakes, then sat down in the chair opposite Frank and listened to him snore while I ate. Finally, I poked him in the ribs with my foot because I couldn’t take it anymore. His snores sounded like a buzz saw.
“Ummm,” Frank mumbled. He stretched and rolled over, blinking. “What time is it?”
“Around eight. Coffee’s on.”
“Great. Need…some of that,” he said, setting his feet on the floor. Frank rubbed the stubble that shadowed his jaw, making a scritch-scritch sound. He looked at me through one eye. “You have a good time last night?”
I grunted and sopped up the syrup with my last bite of pancakes.
“Your mom sure went all out.”
“She always does. She and J.C. like that kind of stuff.”
“And you?”
I shrugged.
“No? I remember a birthday sleepover party of yours a few years back when you kept the whole town awake.”
I grinned. I’d turned nine. Dana, Lauren, and Erica came over. Lauren borrowed her brother’s eight-person tent. It took us two hours to set it up. Someone called the police because we were so loud. “Parties were more fun then.”
Frank chewed on his mustache. Then he held up his hands like he surrendered. “Far be it for me to give advice. I’m not exactly a role model,” he said and lay back down. “But those kids last night? Spoiled. Every last one of them.” He scratched his head with both hands, making his hair stand on end. “All right, maybe one or two of them weren’t so bad, but I bet most of them had mommas shoveling their pureed sweet potatoes into their mouths with silver spoons.”
I almost asked him which ones he thought were all right.
Frank blathered on. “Everyone’s different, but me? I’d be friendless before I mixed it up with that group again. ‘Course their daddies sure could help you land a sweet summer job, I bet.”
I thought about that while I let the steam from my coffee warm my face. I was beginning to think I’d most likely scratch off another million-dollar instant than to make friends with any-one real in Dorrance. Mara and Kate seemed so hung-up on everyone else’s problems. They didn’t notice that they weren’t so great either. Not Suri, though. She didn’t talk about anyone. Suri was like Switzerland, neutral to the core. That still bugged me about her.
Lost in thought, I must have been staring a hole through Frank’s face because he snapped his fingers at me.
“You’re gonna have a brain hemorrhage concentrating that hard, girl. Or maybe you were admiring this?” He pulled on the gold chain around his neck, so I could get a better look at the coin pendant mounted on a silver backing. “Like it? That there is a genuine Krugerrand, minted in South Africa.” He rubbed it with his thumb. “It’s worth a fortune,” he whispered.
“If it’s so expensive, why don’t you sell it?” And stop complaining about your money problems, I almost said.
He shrugged. “Because I’m still dating the lady that gave it to me. Probably will once she dumps me, though.”
I laughed even though it wasn’t funny. Disgusted, I realized I kind of liked that about Frank, his frankness. Not enough that I’d want him around again. He talked on and on, dressed like a rodeo cowboy, and polluted the air with his smelly colognes and potions. Add beggar to the list, too, since the whole reason for this visit had been to ask Mom for a loan. Still, Frank was the same on the inside as he was on the outside, kind of like a Tootsie Roll. Why couldn’t everyone be as transparent as Frank?
“You didn’t hog them all, did you?” He nodded to my empty plate. Frank slid off the couch and did a couple deep-knee bends. Then he rubbed his belly. “No telling what time the dead will rise around here to make my breakfast. At least you’re on the ball.”
Okay, Frank, you can go home now.
CHAPTER 24
“So what happened to you after we left the party?” Suri asked on Tuesday in social stud-ies. She’d missed school the day before, sick with the flu. She doodled on her folder, coloring in bubble letters that spelled “Tyler,” and looked up when I didn’t answer.
I was speechless at first. “Happened to me?” I said, almost choking on the words.
“Yeah, you disappeared while we were trick-or-treating.”
“Disappeared? I think I was left.” My meaning was lost on her. She and Tyler ditched me before the others. I hadn’t forgotten about that.
