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And then she starts crying quietly, her shoulders shaking.
Oh, man. What am I supposed to do now? I feel bad. Immediately, I backpedal.
“We’re go
I’m trying my best to believe what I’m saying, but it’s a pretty empty statement. I’m really not feeling it, though it seems to help Kylie. She stops crying, wipes away the tears.
The truck stops. The front doors pop open and then quickly close. The two dudes have left, for the moment. We hear them talking as they walk away.
Kylie shoots up, pulling herself together. It’s as if the crying somehow bolstered her. She’s definitely rising to the occasion. I am not. I’m feeling defeated before I’ve even begun to fight, which is totally lame of me.
“This is it. It may be our only chance,” Kylie tells me. Shit. What’s she doing this time?
Kylie straps on her backpack and crawls to the window that divides the front from the back of the truck. She peers out and, without warning, shimmies her way through the window, landing in the front seat. I’m not sure whether to follow or stay put. I mean, the guys could be right outside. With guns.
“What are you doing, Max? C’mon,” Kylie insists.
I’m terrified. I don’t move at first. I can’t believe Kylie’s got more balls than me.
“I don’t see them. We need to go. Now,” Kylie commands.
There’s something firm and reassuring in her voice. It urges me on. She’s all badass again. The way she was earlier. The girl is totally bipolar, but she does manage to get me going. I push myself up and over the pile of electronics I’ve been sitting on for the past hour and pull myself through the window.
Kylie and I are crouched down in the front seat. We peek out through the windshield and can see that we’re parked on a small side street, somewhere in Tijuana, presumably. All the signs are in Spanish. Across the street is a store that sells phone cards; I can make out the words Lagos, Nigeria and Sin limite. I look up and see blue sky above.
I realize we’ve been in the dark for a long time. Something about the purity of the light and the brash blue reminds me of Sunday mornings on the beach with my Dad. He used to take me and my brother to explore the tide pools, in the days before he got too busy to hang out on weekends. I would stick my finger into the middle of the rubbery sea anemones until they snapped shut. I thought it was the sickest thing ever. Those mornings, the sky looked like this.
I am jolted back to the present by the sight of a kid ru
“We’re going to make a run for it. Into that store,” Kylie says, as though she’s had the whole thing pla
Kylie opens the front door of the truck and jumps out. I’m on her heels. We sprint toward the store. We’re nearly there. Almost in the clear. Home safe. And then I see them. They’re hard to miss, with their shiny heads and multiple tattoos. They’re standing in a doorway, talking to a ski
There’s one of those interminable pauses where time slows way down as they turn and stare straight at us.
hat part of “meet me on the front lawn at noon” didn’t Max understand? We had a date. We decided to blow off third period so that we could carve our initials on the palm tree, go to the mall for lunch and a quick shop, and then make it back for senior assembly. Somehow, I’m the only one who remembered. Alone on the front lawn. This is so not where I live. I really need Max now. This is not the time for one of his disappearing acts. Last night was possibly the worst night of my life, and I haven’t even told Max about it yet. I’ve already given up on lunch, but I need to hit the mall. I’ve got nothing to wear tomorrow. Mom’s been so completely wrapped up in her own stuff, she didn’t get me a dress for graduation. I get it under the circumstances. But still…
This is not even close to the fabulous last day of school I had in mind. I call Max for the fifth time in the past two minutes, but it goes straight to voice mail. I’m sure he’s playing squash with Charlie and completely spaced on our date, which has happened too many times to count.
Max and I have been together for almost a year now. People we don’t even know in La Jolla are always telling Mom and Dad how amazing we are together. It’s weird to find your soul mate in high school. But it happened. It’s done. And I’m not letting go. Especially not now, with things so seriously wrecked on the home front. I don’t even know the full extent of it.
When I walked in the door last night at midnight, Mom’s eyes were red and puffy. I thought she was going to tell me she and Dad were getting a divorce. I wish she had. That, at least, I could deal with, get over eventually. This is worse. Way worse. I’m not sure how I even hurdle this one. Ever.
Mom kept talking and talking. There was too much information to take in. After a while, I couldn’t listen anymore. How could I go from having everything one day to nothing the next?
“Your father is being investigated by the federal government. There’s going to be a trial.”
Those were Mom’s exact words. I’m still not entirely sure what it even means. But I know we’re in trouble. Big trouble.
“Dad is declaring bankruptcy. We’re going to put the houses on the market. We’re looking for a temporary place to live, maybe a condo somewhere downtown. We’re going to be okay. I promise. But we’ll have to rethink things. Pull back…” It was all coming at me fast and furious, like a tornado.
In a heartbeat, my life had gone from awesome to awful. We were broke. Dad was potentially a criminal, and how in the hell were we going to afford Stanford? I know I should have been more concerned about Dad, but honestly, Stanford was the first thing that came to mind. It so isn’t fair. I worked my ass off to get in, and now it seemed like it was being snatched right out from under me.
I got nearly perfect scores on my SATs. I got into Stanford, Swarthmore, Pomona, Michigan, and Williams. I took more AP classes than anyone in the history of Freiburg. I was captain of varsity te
How could Dad do this to me? To us?
I should have seen the early warning signs. But the truth is, I wasn’t interested.
About three months ago, Dad came home from work in the early afternoon and said he was done working for people. Done with the bank. He was going to start his own business. He set up shop downstairs, in the media room. I’m not sure, but I think he may have been fired. He didn’t want to talk about it, and I certainly didn’t want to talk about it. With him. Or anyone else, for that matter. The less said the better. I just assumed he would figure it out.
He was trading stocks, I think. Sometimes he was down there all day and all night. For a while, nothing seemed to change. Mom and I still went shopping, Janice cleaned and cooked for us, we went to Cabo for spring break. And then, about a week ago, Dad got all psychotic. He took away my credit cards, stopped delivery of all the flowers, fired the housekeeper, traded in his Porsche convertible for a Ford Focus (a Ford Focus?!), and sold the yacht.