“How’s it going?” I finally asked. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”
“Yeah, sorry I couldn’t make it sooner. I didn’t realize the café closed at four. I usually don’t leave Hilltop until five.”
I waved it off with a flick of my wrist. “No big deal,” I lied. “Glad you made it.” That much was true. “Mom just serves breakfast and lunch here for now. I should’ve told you.”
“It’s a really nice place.” Rose looked around, nodding her head in approval as if seeing it for the first time.
“Were you—have you been here long?” I stammered.
Rose shrugged her shoulders. “Not really. I’ve been hanging out with your mom. She’s awesome.”
“She’s pretty cool,” I agreed, eyeing the kitchen door, wondering if Mom could hear us.
I took a few steps toward the booth, unsure of what to do next. I hadn’t thought this through. Just minutes ago I’d convinced myself Rose didn’t exist. Now, here she was. This was what I’d wanted, right? For her to show up at the café?
Yes.
Maybe.
Pretty sure.
Oh, hell no.
Most definitely.
Now what?
I took a quick survey of my surroundings. Mom would be closing soon to clean and prepare for the next day. Not a cool place to hang out if I wanted to be alone with Rose, which I did. “Do you want to go somewhere?” I asked, nervously shuffling some pamphlets on the counter.
“Sure! I’m up for whatever. Where do you want to go?”
My mind went blank. If we’d been in Chicago, I’d have had a hundred ideas. But Buffalo Falls? Where the hell was there to hang out? Under the bridge? My eyes fell upon the pamphlet in my hand, titled Top 10 Hikes at Metea State Park.
“Hiking?” I said, surprising myself at the sound of the word. I’d never been hiking in my life. In fact, I had no idea where Metea State Park even was. Where I grew up, hiking meant taking the Orange Line train downtown to Navy Pier. And how would we get to the park anyway—with Rose on the back pegs of the Schwinn? Or worse, take the Lego?
“That sounds fun,” Rose exclaimed, her eyes lighting up.
Damn. This wasn’t going to end well at all.
Rose popped up. “Ready?”
“Yep.” I paused, glancing at the parking lot. “Cool if we take your car?”
Rose paused too, and bit her lip. “I don’t have a car. I walked here.”
“No problem.” Plan B it is, I thought. “Hold tight just a second.” I stuck my head in the kitchen where Mom and Grub were washing dishes and lowered my voice. “Hey Mom, can I borrow the Lego? Just for a couple hours?”
“Sorry, the Lego is reserved for friends only, not customers.”
Ouch. She clearly hadn’t forgotten my less-than-civil proclamation the other night that I’d never make friends here. “Please?”
She turned to face me with a smug mom look, then grabbed the car keys from her purse and tossed them to me. “Just be home before dark.”
“Thank you.” I whirled out of the kitchen and joined Rose near the front counter. “All good,” I said, jangling the keys.
We walked back outside, where the humidity hovered between Amazon rainforest levels and the inside of a mouth. I walked to the passenger door first and unlocked it for Rose.
Grub came running out of the café. “I’ll ride bazooka!”
“Wait! Grub!” I said, trying to grab him, but he’d already pulled the passenger seat forward to climb in back.
“Ride bazooka?” Rose repeated, looking amused.
“It’s what Grub calls riding in the back seat of the car, or on the back pegs of my bike. You know, instead of riding shotgun in the front. Riding bazooka.”
Rose looked at Grub, who’d taken up position in the rear, guarding us from enemy attack. “That’s really cute,” she said.
“Yeah,” I said, unconvinced. How the hell was I going to get Grub out of there without looking like a jerk?
Mom appeared in the nick of time.
“Come on, Manny, I need you to stay here and guard the café,” she said, leaning into the car. “We can make banana bread.”
Grub whipped his head at Mom, then hopped out of the Lego. “Yes!”
“And here you go,” said Mom, handing me a full thermos and a baggie of homemade trail mix. “In case you two get hungry.”
“Thanks, Mom,” I said, holding her gaze a second longer to let her know I really meant it.
“Sure thing. Have fun!” she called, herding Grub back into the café.
“Let’s try this again,” I said, holding the passenger door open for Rose.
“What a gentleman,” she teased. I shut the door behind her, then walked around to the driver’s side and let myself in.
Next came the fun part: driving that fucker.
It had been a while since I’d last driven, months ago, in fact, when I’d borrowed our neighbor’s car in Chicago to make a food run.
And it hadn’t been a stick shift.
“You can drive stick shift?” asked Rose as I strapped on my seat belt. Despite the windows being down, the inside of the car was surface-of-the-sun hot, and the vinyl seats blistered the back of my legs.
“Yeah, I got this.” I replied. I was fairly certain the clutch had something to do with starting the car.
“You just push the clutch in,” I began.
I pushed the clutch in.
“. . . turn the key,”
I turned the key.
“. . . and give it a little gas.”
The engine turned over, I floored it, released the clutch, and screamed as the car backfired and shut off.
Rose clapped a hand over her mouth, unsuccessfully trying to suppress her laughter.
I laughed too, which made her laugh more, which made me laugh more, which turned into an all-out laughing fit. She actually had tears in her eyes and hiccups by the time we were done. After a few more attempts, I got the Lego running, and we headed off to Metea State Park, wherever that was.
EIGHT
“MIKINAK OVERHANG,” ROSE READ OFF A SIGN AS WE WALKED FROM the asphalt parking lot onto the hiking trail.
“I wonder what that is?” I replied.
Rose shrugged. “I guess we’ll find out.”
“So you’ve never been here either?”
“Nope.”
“When we aren’t back by Christmas, they’ll send search parties, right?”
Rose laughed. “We won’t get lost, look.” A map of the park lay just ahead on a brown metal stand, cemented to the ground. Plexiglas covered the map, upon which people had etched proclamations of eternal love, For a good time call so-and-so, and a number of rudimentary phalluses.
“You are here,” I said, pointing to the respective balloon-shaped arrow on the map.
Rose turned her head toward me. “See? We aren’t lost. We’re here.”
I laughed. “Glad that’s settled. Okay then, onward?”