What Happened to Goodbye(54)
Author: Sarah Dessen

“So,” he said, standing over me now, muffin in hand. “You skipping out today or something?”

“No,” I said. “Just . . . needed some breakfast. I’m about to go catch the bus.”

“Bus?” He looked offended. “Why would you take public transport when I’m right here with my car?”

“Oh, that’s okay. I’m . . . I’m fine.”

“You’re also late,” he pointed out, nodding at the clock behind me. “Bus will make you later. There’s no pride in tardiness, Mclean.”

I looked around the room. “That sounds like something that should be needlepointed on one of these samplers.”

“You’re right!” He grinned. “Gonna have to take that up with management. Come on. I’m parked out back.”

I went, following him down the hallway, past the restrooms, and out a rear entrance. As we walked, he continued to eat his muffin, leaving a trail of crumbs behind him like someone out of a fairy tale. I said, “What did you call that again?”

“What?”

“Your breakfast.”

He glanced back at me. “Oh, right. The Freaking Everything and the Procrastinator’s Special.”

“I don’t remember seeing that on the menu.”

“Because it isn’t,” he replied, starting across the lot. “I kind of created my own lexicon here at FrayBake. Translated, that’s a muffin with everything under the sun, and a coffee that guarantees multiple bathroom breaks for the next few hours. It caught on, and now all the counter people use it.” He jangled his keys. “Here we are.”

I watched him walk around a Volvo pockmarked with dents. On the passenger seat was one of those beaded covers I associated with taxi drivers and grandmothers. “This is your car?”

“Yep,” he said proudly as we got in. “She’s been in lockdown, but I finally got her sprung last night.”

“Yeah? How’d you manage that?”

“I think it was the lives of cells that clinched it.” He turned the key, and the engine, after a bit of coaxing, came to life. “Oh, and I also agreed to work in my mom’s lab after the Austin trip, until I go to Brain Camp. But you do what you have to do for the ones you love. And I love this car.”

The Volvo, as if to test this, suddenly sputtered to a stop. Dave looked down at the console, then turned the key. Nothing happened. He tried again, and the car made a sighing noise, like it was tired.

“It’s okay,” Dave called out over the sound of the engine making ticking noises, like a bomb. “She just needs a little love sometimes.”

“I know all about that,” I said. “So did Super Shitty.”

This just came out, without me even really being aware of it. When Dave looked at me, though, eyebrows raised, I realized what I’d done. “Super Shitty?”

“My car,” I explained. “My old car, I guess I should say. I don’t know where it is now.”

“Did you crash into a guardhouse, too?”

“No, just left town and didn’t need it anymore.” I had a flash of my beat-up Toyota Camry, she of the constantly blown alternators, hissing radiator, and odometer that had topped 200,000 miles before it even came into my possession. The last I’d seen it, it had been parked in Peter’s huge garage, between his Lexus and SUV, as out of place there as I was. “She was a good car, too. Just kind of . . .”

“Shitty?”

I nodded, and he pumped the gas, then the brake. I could see a car behind us, turn signal on, waiting for the space. The person behind the wheel appeared to be cursing when the Volvo suddenly roared to life, a burst of smoke popping from the tailpipe.

“Nothing like driving in the snow,” Dave said, hardly fazed as we turned out of the lot and headed down the hill to a stop sign, flakes hitting the windshield. As he slowed, the Volvo’s brakes squealed in protest. He glanced over at me, then said, “Seat belt, please. Safety first.”

I pulled it on, grateful he’d reminded me. My door was rattling, and I was just hoping the seat belt would hold me in should it fly open at forty miles an hour. “So,” I said, once we’d gotten going, “thanks for the thyme.”

“No problem,” he replied. “I just hope you weren’t offended.”

“Why would I be offended?”

“Well, you don’t like clutter.”

“It’s one spice container,” I pointed out.

“Yes, but it’s a slippery slope. First you have thyme, then you get into rosemary and sage and basil, and the next thing you know, you have a problem.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” The car wheezed, and he hit the gas. The engine roared, attracting an alarmed look from a woman in a Lexus beside us.

“How long have you had this thing?”

“Little over a year,” he said. “I bought her myself. Took all my savings bonds, bar mitzvah money, and what I’d made working at FrayBake.”

The brakes squealed again. I said, “That much, huh?”

“What?” He glanced at me, then back at the road. “Hey, this is a great car. Sturdy, dependable. Has character. She might have a few issues, but I love her anyway.”

“Warts and all,” I said.

He looked over at me suddenly, surprised. “What did you say?”

“What?”

“You said ‘warts and all.’ Didn’t you?”

“Um, yeah,” I replied. “What, you don’t know that expression?”

“No, I do.” He eased us into the turn lane for school, then took his left hand off the steering wheel, turning it over to expose the black, tattooed circle there. “It’s where this comes from, actually.”

“That’s supposed to be a wart?” I asked.

“Sort of,” he said, downshifting. “See, when I was a kid, my mom and dad were both teaching full-time. So during the week, I stayed with this woman who kept a few kids at her house. Eva.”

The snow was really picking up now, giving the wipers a workout. Just two small arcs of clarity, with everything blurry beyond.

“She had a granddaughter who was the same age as me and stayed there, too. She and I napped together, ate glue together. That was Riley.”

“Really?”

“Yep. I told you, we’ve known each other forever. Anyway, Eva was just, like, straight-up awesome. She was really tall and broad, with a huge belly laugh. She smelled like pancakes. And she had this wart. A huge one, like something you’d see on a witch or something. Right here.” He put his index finger in the center of the tattoo, pressing down. “We were, like, fascinated and grossed out by it at the same time. And she always made a point of letting us look at it. She wasn’t embarrassed at all. Said if we loved her, we loved it, too. It was part of the package.”