Since You've Been Gone Page 7

  I looked ahead to the dashboard, to the useless gauge, and considered my options. Going with Frank Porter to get gas was, unbelievably, the best of the lot. Another car zoomed around us, the driver leaning on his horn as he went. “Emily?” Frank prompted.

  “Yes,” I said quickly, realizing that Frank was being incredibly nice in offering this, and probably didn’t have all night to stand around while I dithered. I took a long breath and then let it out. “Let’s go.”

  We drove in silence up the road together. Frank and I had pushed the Volvo to the side of the drive, almost right up against the sign with the cherries. Then he’d opened the passenger side door for me, and I’d gotten in, not remembering to say thank you until he’d closed it and was walking around to the driver’s side. As I sat in the truck, buckling my seat belt as the lights dimmed, I realized I was in a boy’s car. Not that I’d ever spent much time picturing the inside of Frank Porter’s vehicle, but it wasn’t what I’d expected. It wasn’t spotlessly clean, maybe with some SAT prep books neatly stacked in the backseat. There was stuff everywhere. On the floor in front of me there was a digital camera, a thick biography on John Lennon, and a baseball cap with a robot where the team name normally was. In the backseat, I could see a pair of sneakers and an iPod and a bag from the art supply store on Stanwich Avenue. In the front cupholder, there was a fountain soda cup, the straw bent, and in the back one, a tiny origami frog. I was trying to process all of this, but it pretty much came down to a revelation that hit me like a punch to the stomach—Frank Porter was an actual person and, despite his ubiquitous presence on campus, one I knew nothing about. And that made the fact that we were going to do this all that much stranger.

  Frank pulled open the driver’s door and got in, turned off the hazards, and started the engine. The stereo came to life, but not playing music, just the sound of people laughing and clapping before Frank reached over, fast, and hit the button to turn it off. He didn’t comment on this, and so I didn’t either as we pulled out onto the dark, quiet road. Frank turned right, the opposite direction of going back to town. I actually had no idea where we were heading now, and was very grateful that he seemed to know where the nearest gas station was.

  Being so far out from the lights of town—and with no houses around—it was pitch-black, the truck’s headlights bright against the darkness and the stars above taking over the sky, seemingly twice as many of them as I saw at home. I glanced at his profile, lit up by the dashboard lights, then out the window again, trying to get my head around what was happening. I was alone with Frank Porter, in the dark, in a confined space.

  The truth was, I really just wasn’t used to being by myself with guys. Even with Gideon, when we were alone together, it was usually at a larger party, or with Sam and Sloane. I couldn’t remember when—if ever—it had just been me and a guy, alone in a car, on a dark road.

  “So did you have fun tonight?” Frank asked, looking over at me after we’d been driving in silence for several minutes, me pulling my feet up to avoid stepping on John Lennon. I didn’t respond right away, and he added, “Until the car troubles, I mean?”

  “Oh,” I said. I looked down and saw that the truck was a stick shift, and that Frank was driving it with ease, moving between the gears without even looking down. “Um, it was okay,” I said, feeling like the last thing Frank Porter needed was a recap of how terrible my night had been. He nodded and looked out at the road, and I realized after a moment too long that it was now my turn to ask him a question. If it had been Sloane in the car and not me, she and Frank would have been talking and laughing like old friends, and would have established their own inside jokes by the time they’d reached the gas station. And if it had been the three of us, I would have been able to sit quietly, happily, joining in with the laughter, feeling part of it, comfortable enough to jump in with a comment or an aside, but knowing the weight of the interaction wasn’t on me. “Did you?” I finally asked. “Have fun, I mean? Tonight?” Managing to mangle this simple question, I looked out the window, rolling my eyes at myself.

  There was a small pause, and Frank cleared his throat before responding. “Yeah, sure. I mean, it was fine.” I nodded, and looked back out the window, thinking this was the end of our attempt at a conversation. But a second later, he added, “I don’t usually go there. It’s not really our scene. Mine and Lissa’s,” he clarified after a tiny pause, as though I didn’t know what we he was a part of. I nodded again, and realized that, in fact, I’d never seen him at the Orchard before. “But Collins asked me to come along as his wingman, so . . .” He shrugged.

  “How, um,” I said after another too-long pause, “how did that go?” I had a feeling I knew, since the girl Collins had been hitting on hadn’t seemed too thrilled about it.

  “The same way it always does,” Frank said, shaking his head.

  I turned to look out the window again, feeling relieved, like we had made enough small talk, and now Frank Porter wouldn’t feel obligated to try and carry on a conversation with me. He switched on his brights, and the outside world was much clearer, showing us things that had been hidden in the shadows before—including a possum that was dashing across the road, right into the path of the truck.

  Frank slammed on the brakes. I was jolted forward into my seat belt, and felt something slide out from under my seat and hit me on the ankle. Thankfully, the possum didn’t freak out and play dead in the middle of the road, but just kept running, disappearing a second later into the trees on the other side. “Sorry about that,” he said, glancing over at me as he downshifted and started to drive again, more slowly this time. “You okay?”

  “Fine,” I said. I reached down and picked up what had slid out from under the seat. It was a CD case, the cover showing a mournful-looking guy on a curb in the rain, holding a microphone. Something about the picture made me think it was a few years old. Curtis at the Commodore, it read in stylized cursive. Frank looked over at me, and I quickly set the CD down on the seat next to me, hoping he didn’t think I was pawing through his stuff.  “Sorry,” I said quickly.  “This was just under the seat, and when you stopped—”

  “Right,” Frank said, reaching over for it and dropping it behind his own seat. “Thanks.” He looked straight out at the road, and I wondered if I’d looked at something I shouldn’t have. But since I had no idea how to apologize for that, I didn’t even try. Before the silence could get uncomfortable, I saw the bright neon lights of the gas station up ahead. Route 1 Fuel, the sign read. It probably would have stood out in the daylight as well, since there was nothing around it, like it had popped up from the ground. Especially after the darkness of a road without streetlights, it seemed to appear almost like a mirage. But it was a mirage I was very happy to see at the moment. It was small, just four pumps and a mini-mart that looked very mini indeed. I could see a yawning employee behind the counter, and a flickering neon sign in the window that read Snacks Drinks Candy.

  “I’m really—,” I started, then stopped and tried again. “I mean, I’m just glad that you knew about this place. All the way out here.”

  Frank nodded as he swung up to one of the fuel pumps, pointing at the trees behind the very mini mini-mart. “See those?” he asked. “That’s the habitat of the gray tree frog. There were plans last year to expand the convenience store, add a car wash. Lissa and I spearheaded the petition that shut it down.”

  “Oh,” I said, nodding. This was impressive, and while I was happy for the gray tree frog, I also couldn’t help but wish that we had gone to a gas station where someone wouldn’t have a grudge against Frank—and by association, me. “Well, I’ll just be a second,” I said, unbuckling my seat belt and opening the door.

  “I’ll come in,” Frank said, unbuckling his own seat belt, apparently not worried that management would kick us out before we could get gas. I didn’t feel like I could say no, though, so I just headed up to the mini-mart, Frank pulling open the door and holding it for me before I could even reach for it.
“Thanks,” I muttered. I walked up to the counter, hoping that in a place this small, they would sell something I could put gas in. “Um, hi,” I said, and the guy behind the counter straightened up from where he’d been leaning over a folded section of the paper, a pencil in his hand. It looked like he’d been doing the word search, a few words already circled.

  “Hey,” he said, as Frank came to stand next to me. Frank leaned forward, turning his head to the side, and I realized he was trying to look at the word search. “What do you need?”

  “Do you have something I can put gas in?” I asked, looking around the store, but only seeing the normal mini-mart stuff—bags of chips, sodas in refrigerated glass cases, candy and magazines.

  He nodded and pointed toward the back of the store. “Against the wall.”

  “Thanks,” I said, hurrying back there, not wanting to take up any more of Frank Porter’s time than I already had. But I wasn’t really sure Frank minded all that much, because I saw him lean forward, looking at the newspaper.

  “You doing the word search?” I heard Frank ask as I reached the back of the store. I found the very small section that seemed to deal with car maintenance stuff—motor oil and funnels and tire pressure readers. I found a giant plastic container with a nozzle attached, but I really didn’t think I’d need that much, plus I wasn’t sure I could afford it, especially considering I’d also have to buy the gas to put inside it. After I’d overpaid for beer I hadn’t drunk, I only had twenty dollars on me. I had an emergency credit card, but it was linked to my parents’ card, and I really didn’t think I wanted them to see that I’d been buying gas in the middle of nowhere at one a.m.

  I returned to the counter with a container about a third of the size of the giant one to find Frank and the guy both leaning over the counter, the newspaper between them.

  “Renaissance,” Frank said, tapping his finger on the newspaper, and I somehow wasn’t surprised at all that Frank Porter was now doing the word search with the mini-mart employee. The guy leaned closer, then nodded and circled the word.

  “Backward,” the guy said, shaking his head. “They always try and get you that way.”

  “Is that it?” Frank asked, looking down at the paper. “Any left?”

  The guy must have noticed me then, as he straightened up and reached for the container, scanning it and giving it back to me. “And the rest on pump four?” I asked, handing him my twenty.

  “Nicely done,” Frank said. He nodded down at the search, which was now just a collection of pencil circles, the list of words crossed out, and the few lone letters that didn’t fit in anywhere. “Emily, check it out.”

  “Oh,” I said, not really sure what to say about this, since I’d never before been in the position to need to compliment someone’s word search. What was I supposed to say? That it looked really thorough?

  But before I needed to decide this, Frank was already moving on, plucking my receipt from the counter and starting to fold it absentmindedly. “You ever do Sudoku?” he asked.

  “Nah,” the guy said, tucking the pencil behind his ear. “Not my scene.”

  “You have to try it,” Frank enthused as I turned to leave, suddenly feeling like I was in the way. “Once you get the hang of it, it’s addictive. Oh, man. You have no idea.”

  I heard the guy laugh before the door closed, and I walked over to the pump. I tried to concentrate on fitting the nozzle into the container, and then not spilling the gas everywhere as it started to fill up, but really I was trying not to think about how acutely aware I was that there were two types of people—the type who could talk to anyone and make friends with them, and the type who spent parties hiding and sitting against trees.

  “Hey.” I looked up and saw Frank coming to stand next to me. “You okay? I was going to help.”

  “I think I have it,” I said. The numbers had started to slow down, and when they stopped, I put the nozzle away, firmly closed the container, and then bent down to lift it—but it didn’t budge.

  “Let me get that,” Frank said, bending down as well to grab one side of it. We hoisted it up together, and only then did it occur to me that I could have filled up the container in the truck bed, and made things easier for us. It was just one more thing that had gone wrong tonight, and I added it to the list. “James said we should keep it in the back,” he said as we placed the container into the truck bed. “And even after it’s empty, you should keep the container in your trunk unless you want your car to smell like a filling station.”

  “James?” I asked as I walked around the back to the passenger side. I hadn’t noticed a name tag, but maybe Frank had, or maybe they’d just bonded while doing the word search.

  “Yeah,” Frank said, nodding toward the guy inside the store, who waved at us. “Nice guy. I think he’s going to give Sudoku a try.”

  We got into the truck, and Frank started the engine and dropped a piece of paper into the cupholder with the origami frog—which was when I noticed that what had been my receipt was now folded into a crane. I wanted to ask him about it, but instead, I just put on my seat belt and looked out the window. If Sloane had been there, sitting next to me, I could have gotten her to ask with one look. She would have done it, too. She had never, in the two years I’d known her, backed down from any kind of challenge.

  We were halfway back to the Orchard before I broke the silence and spoke up. Our interaction was coming to an end; I could almost see it shimmering in the distance like the finish line at the end of one of my long cross-country races. “Thank you again,” I finally said after silently trying out a few different versions of this. “I really appreciate it. I swear, I’ve never run out of gas before.”

  “And I bet you won’t again,” Frank said. He nodded toward his dashboard, which was lit up like a spaceship, bathing his whole side of the car in a cool blue light. “Mine starts flashing and beeping at me if I get below a quarter of a tank, so I’ll usually fill up immediately just to get it to stop.”

  “The gauge on my car is broken,” I explained. Normally I wouldn’t have shared this, but I didn’t want Frank Porter to think I was some kind of airhead, in addition to being the sister of a preadolescent adrenaline junkie. “So I just try and be aware of how much I’ve driven.”

  Frank glanced over at me, eyebrows raised. “I’m surprised you haven’t run out before now.”

  “No, I’m usually really careful,” I said. “But this week . . .” My voice trailed off when I realized I wasn’t about to tell Frank these kinds of details about my life: Sloane vanishing, me driving all over town looking for her, the list. “It’s just been a little crazy,” I finally supplied.

  He nodded as he made the turn back into the Orchard. It looked like, while we’d been gone, the evening had started to wind down—there were only a handful of cars still parked there. Frank pulled up next to my car, and even though I’d just been expecting he would drop me off, he helped me lift the container down and then held it steady while I filled up. I dropped the empty container off in the trunk, and when I walked back to the driver’s side, I saw that Frank was reading the bumper stickers that covered the left side. He looked at me, and I could see the question in his eyes, but I looked away as I got behind the wheel and crossed my fingers. I turned the key, and after a moment of sputtering, the car came to life again.

  “Working?” Frank asked, leaning in my window a little.

  “Working,” I said. I tapped on the gauge. “But don’t look at this. It’s always stuck on half empty.”

  Frank leaned closer, contemplating it. “I would say it’s half full.” He smiled at me, and a moment later, I got the joke. But rather than laughing, or saying something in return, I just gave him a tight smile and stared ahead at the steering wheel. Frank turned to head back to his truck, and I suddenly wondered if this had been incredibly rude.

  “But seriously,” I said, leaning out the window a little, “thank you. Let me know if there’s anything I can do to pay you back.”

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nbsp; He nodded and held up a hand in a wave as he turned his truck around to leave. But then he stopped and leaned across his truck to look down at me. “Actually,” he said through the open window. “There is something. Can you teach me to run?”

  This was so not even close to anything I’d expected him to say that I wasn’t sure how to react at first. This might have been apparent in my expression, because Frank went on quickly. “I mean, I know how to run. I just want to get better at it, maybe train for a 10K or something. You’re on the cross-country team, right?”

  I nodded at that, trying to disguise my shock that Frank had any idea what I’d been involved in at school—or, honestly, that he knew anything about me at all. And after I’d started missing practices and meets regularly this past spring, I wasn’t sure that I would still be on the team come fall. But I didn’t think that he needed to know any of that. “Sure,” I said, easily. I was pretty certain that this wouldn’t come to anything, that he would forget he’d asked me, and the next time I saw Frank Porter, it would be at the first day of school in September, when he would be welcoming us all as the senior class president. He had probably only asked so that I wouldn’t feel like I owed him anything. “Anytime.”

  “Great,” Frank said. He gave me a smile, then pulled forward, signaling as he turned to leave, even though there was no reason for it. I watched his brake lights until they faded from view, then I turned on my iPod, connected to the ancient stereo via a line in, put my car in gear, and headed for home, ready to put this entire night behind me.

  I opened the door slowly, so the hinges wouldn’t squeak, and stepped over the threshold. It was almost one thirty, and I held my breath as I waited for lights to turn on and my parents to thunder down the stairs, furious and demanding explanations. But there was only silence, punctuated by the loud ticking of the grandfather clock that had been in the house when we moved in and had proven too heavy to lift. I let out a breath just as I felt something brush against my legs.