“Max, sweetie, I’m not sure this story is for little ears,” Mrs. McKinley said.
I wanted to tell her that Max’s stories never are, but he held up his hand, holding her off, and barreled on.
“So anyways, I wanted to tell all that, about what I saw to my uncle Mack, because he used to hang around Channing’s mom a lot and sometimes buy her things like baby diapers and stuff when she ran out. So I told that whole story to my mom and she was supposed to be writing it down and she only wrote one sentence on the paper. And I said to her, ‘Mom, why didn’t you write down my story?’ and she says, ‘I did, hun. I just concentrated it.’”
“What did she write, your mom?” asked Henry.
“She just wrote, ‘Natalia Fiore got arrested for prostitution.’”
He shrugged.
“Huh,” I said. “And what story did you want me to concentrate?”
“The story of what happened to us!” Max said. “So Batiste will remember us.”
He tapped the paper, like I should get to work.
I looked at him, his blue eyes sparkling and ready to roll.
“You know what, Max? That would take me a really long time to write.”
“You’re a good writer. It won’t take too long.”
“How do you know I’m a good writer?”
“You better be. You write in your journal every day!” Max exclaimed.
“Hey, do you write about me in your journal?” Chloe demanded.
“I do,” I told her.
“Do you write good stuff or bad stuff?” she asked, her mouth set in an expectant curl.
“About you? Only good.”
“Will we be in the story, too?” Caroline wanted to know.
“I’m sure you’ll all be in the story,” Mrs. McKinley said. She kissed Caroline on the top of the head. “Now it’s time to put the markers and papers away and go get our trays.”
* * *
Back in Tent J, I handed Astrid the meatloaf-on-a-roll sandwich I’d managed to smuggle out under my sweatshirt.
Watching her face light up was worth the glaze stain I now had on the inside of my shirt.
“Mmm,” she said, digging in. “Thanks.”
I handed her the apple I’d pocketed as well.
“Apple a day…,” I said.
Slightly lame, but I wasn’t entirely sure where I stood with her.
“I’m sorry about me and Jake,” I apologized. “I know it drives you crazy when we fight like that.”
She waved it away with her sandwich.
“Do you think I’m being ridiculous?” she asked after she took a sip of water.
She looked up at me.
When she looked at me like this, when she really focused on me, it made me shy for a moment. She was so smart and so perceptive, I felt like she could see right through me.
How could someone as beautiful as she was like me at all? Would she ever feel the same reckless love that I felt for her? The do-anything kind of love?
“Do you think I’m being ridiculous?” she repeated.
I looked away.
“You know that woman, the one from the line?”
I nodded.
“I’ve looked for her every day. At the listings, in the Clubhouse, I’ve never seen her again.”
“You think they took her away,” I said.
Astrid nodded, her blue eyes wide with fear.
* * *
I remembered the woman.
We had been on line for breakfast.
It was a really beautiful morning, the Clubhouse was filled with the scent of maple syrup and Astrid was being funny.
“How’s my hair?” she asked me.
I had given her possibly the worst haircut in the history of personal grooming back at the Greenway when we all got lice. Sahalia had since done her best to shape it up. But still … Astrid now basically had a blond faux-hawk, a style from around 2002 that our old barber had always tried to sell me and Alex on. Some of Astrid’s hair curled but in other places it just frizzed out.
“You look like a deranged baby chick,” I told her.
“Nice,” she said. She ran her hand through the blond mess of it. “Don’t you know you’re supposed to flatter pregnant women shamelessly.”
“I meant, a beautiful, radiant, deranged baby chick,” I said. “Obviously.”
Astrid winked at me and pulled on the knit green ski cap I’d given her back at the Greenway.
“Maybe it’s better for everyone if I wear this,” she said.
“Yeah, I think it’s for the best,” I agreed.
We put our trays on the metal serving table and slid forward. Suddenly I was jostled from behind. Pushed aside and some woman was grabbing for Astrid.
“Barbie! Barbs?” the woman was saying, her voice frantic.
She was thin, maybe in her twenties, with blond hair. Wearing a baggy sweater.
The woman spun Astrid around.
She looked at Astrid’s face and gave a cry.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I thought you were my sister.”
“It’s okay,” Astrid said kindly. “I think we all hope to find our lost family members here—”
“No!” the woman moaned. “It’s not that. It’s not like that at all!”
The woman kind of slumped and swayed. I put my hand on her shoulder.
“Are you okay?” I asked. She seemed like she might faint.
“Come over here.” I led her to a table and sat her down.
Astrid sat down next to the woman and took her hand.
“I saw your belly and I thought you were my sister Barbie,” the woman said.
“Where did you see her last?” I asked, expecting her to say Castle Rock or Denver or Boulder.
“At the medical center,” she said. “Just two days ago. She had some pains and she went in to be checked and they took her!”
“Took her where? To a hospital?” I asked.
“I don’t know! These men from the US government went and talked to her and told her she was needed in the States for medical testing. But she wouldn’t go. She was scared to leave me and she said she just wanted to stay here.”
Astrid’s breathing was speeding up. I saw her put a hand to her throat, absentmindedly.
“What does she look like, your sister?” Astrid asked.