Hence, the time bomb I had thrown at her.
When my phone sounded, I nearly sliced my neck with my seat belt.Dad!I jumped.Mom!
But it was only Ryan, sneaking a call from the gym locker rooms. “Dude,whatare you doing?” he said after I answered.
“Creating character sketches and plotting complex but ultimately solvable relationship dynamics for the next big Netflix teen drama,” I deadpanned. “The miscommunication trope is next-level.”
A beat of silence, and then, “Huh?”
I rubbed my temples.
“Did you ditch school?”
“Yeah.”
“Unger’s gonna slit your throat.”
“Unger ditched for the day, too,” I told him. “She said it was her ‘own personal, private business’ when I asked.”
Ryan laughed. “I don’t know how you do it, Barbour,” he said. “That woman haunts my dreams.”
“Total nightmare,” I agreed, putting the Subaru in park. My foot had fallen asleep and my leg was cramping from holding down the brake. Fan-freaking-tastic.
“Where are you now?” Ryan asked.
“Home,” I lied. “Just keeping our designated survivor company. Tell Caleb and Alayna that she loves the Edible Arrangement they sent….”
It had been delivered just as I was heading out after lunch.
We shot the shit until Ryan’s free period ended, and afterward I shifted the car back into drive. It finally looked like the traffic was thinning, and to celebrate, everyone broke into a resounding encore of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.”
Naturally.
Your Mets, Adlers,I thought.Your Mets better win!
When I finally inched into Philadelphia proper, I drove straight to the parking garage my family used whenever we took day trips into Center City together. There hadn’t been one in a while. Mom’s birthday back in December? We’d had dinner and hot cocoa at Parc before going to the ballet and watchingThe Nutcracker.The dancing had been great and all, but I remembered the orchestra beingin-fucking-credible.
More,I’d thought.I need to branch out and learn more instruments.
I had piano well under my belt, was getting pretty good at the guitar and violin thanks to YouTube, and Margot Adler was always happy to teach me some stuff on her clarinet.
It was a work in progress.
I stopped at the garage’s entrance, rolled down my window, and reached through to press the magic button to request a parking slip. The machine spit out a timestamped ticket, and voila, the red-and-white barrier lifted so I could continue on my way.
You should know that I prefer garages over anything else. It’s not a “status” thing; I just feel like there are too many risks parking street-side. Your car could get stolen, scratched, breathed on wrong—a pigeon could crap on it, who knows.Grace’s and my car was only a humble Subaru Crosstrek, but it wasourSubaru Crosstrek.
Plus, I hadn’t seen many open meters on the way here, and Philly was now doing this thing where they towed curbside cars without warning. Ryan, Caleb, and I’d gone to a concert last month and found Ryan’s truck missing after the encore. Long story short: There’d been a big event happening the next day, so all the cars parked in our area had been towed to a dark and scary lot under the highway. We’d needed to call the cops to track it down. Fun, right?
So, a garage. The first floor was full, as was the second, but I found a Mazda that had just vacated a choice spot on the third.Don’t mind if I do,I thought, and carefully backed in the Subaru once the car was gone. Not that I really expected anyone I knew to be here, but if they somehowwere,I didn’t want them getting a glimpse of my rear end. Grace and I had amassed a few bumper stickers, and even if you weren’t that clever, you could put those puzzle pieces together. There was the navy-and-white block-letteredNORTHfor our high school, similar stickers for our future colleges, the silhouette of a tennis player serving up a ball, and a logo for my favorite band. The Subaru had “Barbour” written all over it.
“Well done, James,” I said after walking around the front to admire my parking job. This morning I’d felt like a permit-ink-barely-dry driver, but now I was back to being a pro. “Well done, indeed.”
Excellent, I was talking to myself. That was a great sign. “You talk to yourself when you’re tired,” Isa once observed.We’d been up late choosing the final song for the family talent show. Frankie Valli’s 1960s classic “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” (me) or our contemporary version of “Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered” (Isa). “It’s adorable,” Isa said. “Referring to yourself in the third person?” She saw me scrunch up my nose. “Come on, J! It’s cute!”
Then she fell back against the living room couch cushions and giggled, and I watched her the whole time.She’s just too good to be true,I’d thought.
I needed an energy jolt, and soon. Because once I realized I was tired, I faded fast. Find My Friends told me that Grace and her two collaborators had left Pat’s in South Philly. It looked like they were now en route to Center City. How convenient! I’d had a hunch that today’s festivities in Rittenhouse Square would be impossible to ignore.
