Текст книги "Let It Snow"

Автор книги: John Green

Соавторы: John Green,Lauren Myracle,Maureen Johnson
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Текущая страница: 14 (всего у книги 16 страниц)

Chapter Ten

I set the steamer in the sink and twisted the faucet. As I waited impatiently for it to fill, I turned and leaned against the sink’s edge. I drummed my fingers against its metal rim.

“Mayzie says I need to forget myself,” I said. “What do you think that means?”

“Don’t ask me,” Christina said. Her back was to me as she blew out the steam wand, and I watched the puff of steam rise above her shoulders.

“And my friend Dorrie—you know Dorrie—she kind of said the same thing,” I mused. “She said I always have to make things be about me.”

“Well, I won’t argue with you there.”

“Ha ha,” I said. I grew uncertain. “You’re kidding, right?”

Christina looked over her shoulder and grinned. Her eyes widened in dismay, and she gestured furiously. “Addie, the . . . the . . . ”

I twisted around to see a sheet of water spill over the edge of the sink. I jumped back, yelping, “Ahhh!”

“Turn it off!” Christina said.

I fumbled with the faucet, but water continued to pour into and over the sink.

“It’s not working!”

She pushed me aside. “Get a rag!”

I dashed to the back room, grabbed a rag, and dashed back. Christina was still twisting the faucet, and water was still pouring onto the floor.

“See?” I said.

She glared.

I wormed in and pressed the rag to the sink’s edge. A second later it was soaked, and I had a flashback to the time I was four and couldn’t turn the bathtub off.

“Crap, crap, crap,” Christina said. She gave up on turning the water off and applied pressure to the spurting faucet. It squirted past her fingers in an umbrella-shaped arch. “I have no idea what to do!”

“Oh, God. Okay, um”—I scanned the store—“John!”

All three Johns looked up from their corner table. They saw what was happening and hurried over.

“Can we come behind the counter?” John Number Two asked, because Christina was hard-core about customers not coming behind the counter. Starbucks policy.

“Of course!” Christina cried. She blinked as the water sprayed her shirt and face.

The Johns took charge. Johns One and Two came to the sink, while John Number Three loped toward the back room.

“Move aside, ladies,” John Number One said.

We did. Christina’s apron was soaked, as was her shirt. And her face. And her hair.

I pulled a stack of napkins from the dispenser. “Here.”

She took them wordlessly.

“Um . . . are you mad?”

She didn’t respond.

John Number One hunkered down by the wall and did studly things with the pipes. His Tar Heels cap bobbed as he moved.

“I didn’t do anything, I swear,” I said.

Christina’s eyebrows rose to her hairline.

“Well, fine, I forgot to turn the water off. But that shouldn’t have caused the whole system to break down.”

“Musta been the storm,” John Number Two said. “Probably burst one of the outside pipes.”

John Number One grunted. “Just about got it. If I could only”—more grunts—“get this one valve . . . durn it!”

A stream of water nailed him between the eyes, and I clapped my hand to my mouth.

“Don’t think you got it,” John Number Two observed.

The water chugged from the pipe. Christina looked like she was about to cry.

“Oh God, I am so sorry,” I said. “Please make your face go back to normal. Please?”

“Why, look at that,” John Number Two said.

The gurgling sounds slowed. A drop of water trembled on the rim of the pipe, then sploshed to the floor. After that, nothing.

“It stopped,” I said in amazement.

“I disconnected the main line,” John Number Three announced, emerging from the back room with a towel.

“You did? That is so cool!” I exclaimed.

He tossed the towel to John Number One, who dabbed at his pants.

“You’re supposed to mop the floor, not your pants,” John Number Two said.

“I already did mop the floor,” John Number One grouched. “With my pants.”

“I better call an actual plumber,” Christina said. “And Addie . . . I think you should take your break.”

“Don’t you want me to help clean up?” I said.

“I want you to take your break,” she said.

“Oh,” I said. “Um, yeah, sure. That’s what I was going to do before, but then Crazy Travis showed up, and then Crazy Mayzie—”

She pointed toward the back room.

“It’s just that you were the one who asked me to stay. I mean, who cares, right? But it was—”

“Addie, please,” Christina said. “Maybe it isn’t about you this time, but it sure feels like it. I need you to go.”

We stared at each other.

“Now.”

I jumped and headed for the back room.

“Don’t worry,” John Number Three said as I passed him. “She’ll be over it by the next time you break something.” He winked, and I smiled wanly.

Chapter Eleven

I sloughed off my wet shirt and borrowed a new one from the shelf. It was for Starbucks’ DoubleShot and read, BRING ON THE DAY. Then I fished my cell from my cubby and punched in Dorrie’s speed dial.

“Hola, cookie,” she said, picking up on the second ring.

“Hi,” I said. “Do you have a minute? I’ve had the weirdest day, and it just keeps getting weirder, and I have got to talk to someone about it.”

“Did you get Gabriel?”

“Huh?”

“I said, did you get—” She broke off. When she spoke again, her voice was overly controlled. “Addie? Please tell me you remembered to go to Pet World.”

My stomach slammed down to my feet, like an elevator whose cables broke. I quickly closed my phone and grabbed my coat from the hook. As I was leaving, my phone rerang. I knew I shouldn’t answer, I knew I shouldn’t answer . . . but I gave in and answered anyway.

“Listen,” I said.

“No, you listen. It’s ten thirty, and you promised Tegan you’d go to Pet World at nine o’clock on the dot. There’s no excuse you can give that’ll justify why you’re still at Starbucks futzing around.”

“That’s not fair,” I argued. “What if . . . what if an iceberg fell on my head and left me in a coma?”

“Did an iceberg fall on your head and leave you in a coma?”

I pressed my lips together.

“Uh-huh, well, let me ask you this: Whatever your reason really is, does it have to do with you and some ridiculous new crisis?”

“No! And if you’d stop attacking me and let me tell you all the weird stuff that’s happened to me, you’d understand.”

“Do you even hear yourself?” she said incredulously. “I ask if it’s about some new crisis, and you say ‘No, and by the way, let me tell you about my new crisis.’”

“I didn’t say that.” Did I?

She exhaled. “Not cool, Addie.”

My voice went small. “Okay, you’re right. But, um . . . it has been an unusually bizarre day, even for me. I just want you to know that.”

“Of course it was,” Dorrie said. “And of course you forgot about Tegan, because it’s always, always, always about you.” She made an impatient sound. “What about the sticky note that said Do Not Forget Pig? Didn’t that ring any bells for you?”

“An old lady stole it from me,” I said.

“An old lady . . . ” She broke off. “Yeah, uh-huh. It’s not that you spaced it; an old lady had to steal it from you. It’s The Addie Show all over again. Every channel, every network.”

That stung. “It’s not The Addie Show. I just got sidetracked.”

“Go to Pet World,” Dorrie said, sounding tired. She hung up.

Chapter Twelve

Sunlight glinted on the snow as I hurried down the road and over to Pet World. The sidewalks were mostly clear, but there were spots here and there where the shoveled-off drifts had crumbled down, and my boots made oomph sounds as I trudged through those deeper stretches.

As I oomphed, I kept up a running monologue inside my brain about how The Addie Show was not on every channel. The Addie Show wasn’t on the monster-truck channel, and it wasn’t on the pro-wrestling channel. It most certainly wasn’t on whatever channel aired Let’s Go Fishing with Orlando Wilson, and I was tempted to call Dorrie back and tell her that. “Is it called Let’s Go Fishing with Adeline Lindsey?” I’d say. “Why, no! It’s not!”

But I didn’t, because no doubt she’d find a way to turn that into an example of my being self-absorbed, too. Worse, she’d probably be right. A better plan was to get Gabriel in my hot little hands—well, my cold little hands—and then call Dorrie. I’d say, “See? It turned out okay.” And then I’d call Tegan and let Gabriel oink into the phone or something.

Or, no. I’d call Tegan first, to spread the joy, and then I’d call Dorrie. And I wouldn’t say, “Ha-ha,” because I was bigger than that. Yeah. I was big enough to admit my wrongs, and I was big enough to stop cowering when Dorrie scolded me, since the new, enlightened me would need no scolding.

My cell rang from within my bag, and I cowered. Holy crud, does the girl have ESP?

A worse possibility entered my mind: Maybe it’s Tegan.

And then a wildly unworse possibility, stubborn and fluttering: Or . . . maybe it’s Jeb?

I fumbled in my bag and snatched out my phone. The display screen said DAD, and I deflated. Why? I railed silently. Why couldn’t it have been—

And then I stopped. I cut that whiny voice off midsentence, because I was sick of it, and it wasn’t doing me any good, and anyway, shouldn’t I have some say over the endless thoughts running through my head?

In my brain—and in my heart—I experienced a sudden absence of static. Wow. I could get used to that.

I hit the ignore button on my phone and dropped it back into my bag. I’d call Dad later, after I’d made things right.

Eau de hamster hit me as I stepped inside Pet World, as well as the unmistakable scent of peanut butter. I paused, closed my eyes, and said a prayer for strength, because while eau de hamster was to be expected in a pet store, the smell of peanut butter could mean only one thing.

I approached the cash register, and Nathan Krugle glanced up midchew. His eyes widened, then narrowed. He swallowed and put down his peanut butter sandwich.

“Hello, Addie,” he said distastefully, á la Jerry Seinfeld greeting his nemesis, Newman.

No. Wait. That would make me Newman, and I was so not Newman. Nathan was Newman. Nathan was a super-skinny, acne-pocked Newman with a taste for shrunken T-shirts inscribed with Star Trek quotes. Today his shirt said, YOU WILL DIE OF SUFFOCATION IN THE ICY COLD OF SPACE.

“Hello, Nathan,” I replied. I pushed my hood off, and he took in my hair. He semi-snorted.

“Nice haircut,” he said.

I started to say something back, then restrained myself. “I’m here to pick up something for a friend,” I said. “For Tegan. You know Tegan.”

I’d thought the mention of Tegan, with her bottomless sweetness, might distract Nathan from his vendetta.

It didn’t.

“Indeed I do,” he said, his eyes gleaming. “We go to the same school. The same small school. Surely it would be hard to ignore someone in a school that small?”

I groaned. Here it came, again, as if we hadn’t spoken for four years and still had to process that one regrettable incident. Which we didn’t. We had processed it many times, and yet apparently the processing was one-sided.

“But wait,” he said in the robotic voice of a bad infomercial host. “You ignored someone in a school that small!”

“Seventh gra-ade,” I said in a gritted-teeth, singsong voice. “Many many years ago.”

“Do you know what a Tribble is?” he demanded.

“Yes, Nathan, you’ve—”

“A Tribble is a harmless creature desperate for affection, native to the planet Iota Geminorum Four.”

“I thought it was Iota Gemi-blah-blah Five.”

“And not that many years ago”—he arched his brows to make sure I understood his emphasis—“I was such a Tribble.”

I slumped next to a rack of dog treats. “You were not a Tribble, Nathan.”

“And like a specially trained Klingon warrior—”

“Please don’t call me that. You know I really hate being called that.”

“—you obliterated me.” He noticed the location of my elbow, and his nostrils flared. “Hey,” he said, snapping his fingers repeatedly at the offending body part. “Don’t touch the Doggy de Lites.”

I jerked upright. “Sorry, I’m sorry,” I said. “Just as I am very sorry I hurt your feelings four years ago. But. And this is important. Are you listening?”

“In galactic terms, four years is but a nanosecond.”

I made a sound of exasperation. “I didn’t get the note! I swear to God, I never saw it!”

“Sure, sure. Only, know what I think? I think you read it, tossed it, and promptly forgot it, because if it has to do with anyone else’s woes, it doesn’t matter, right?”

“That’s not true. Listen, can we just—”

“Shall I recite the note’s contents?”

“Please don’t.”

He gazed into the distance. “And I quote: ‘Dear Addie, will you go steady with me? Call me with your answer.’”

“I didn’t get the note, Nathan.”

“Even if you didn’t want to go steady, you should have called.”

“I would have! But I didn’t get the note!”

“The heart of a seventh-grade boy is a fragile thing,” he said tragically.

My hand itched toward the tidy rows of Doggy de Lites. I wanted to peg a pack at him.

“Okay, Nathan?” I said. “Even if I did get the note—which I didn’t—can’t you let it go? People move on. People grow. People change.”

“Oh, please,” he said coldly. The way he regarded me, as if I were lower than a straw wrapper, reminded me that he and Jeb were friends. “People like you don’t change.”

My throat closed. It was too much, that he would come down on me in the same way that everyone else on the planet had.

“But . . . ” It came out wavery. I tried again, and in a voice that wobbled despite my best intentions, I said, “Can’t anyone see I’m trying?”

After a long moment, he was the one who finally dropped his eyes.

“I’m here to pick up Tegan’s pig,” I said. “Can I just have him, please?”

Nathan’s brow furrowed. “What pig?”

“The pig that was dropped off last night.” I tried to read his expression. “Teeny-tiny? With a note that said, Do not sell to anyone but Tegan Shepherd?”

“We don’t ‘sell’ animals,” he informed me. “We adopt them out. And there was no note, just an invoice.”

“But there was a pig?”

“Well, yes.”

“And it was really, really small?”

“Maybe.”

“Well, there should have been a note attached to the pet carrier, but it doesn’t matter. Can you just get him for me?”

Nathan hesitated.

“Nathan, oh my God.” I envisioned Gabriel alone through the cold night. “Please tell me he didn’t die.”

“What?! No.”

“Then where is he?”

Nathan didn’t reply.

“Nathan, come on,” I said. “This isn’t about me. It’s about Tegan. Do you honestly want to punish her because you’re pissed at me?”

“Someone adopted him,” he muttered.

“I’m sorry. What’s that?”

“Some lady, she adopted the pig. She came in about half an hour ago and forked over two hundred dollars. How was I supposed to know he wasn’t for sale—I mean, adoption?”

“Because of the note, you idiot!”

“I didn’t get the note!”

We realized the irony of his protest at the same time. We stared at each other.

“I’m not lying,” he said.

There was no point pushing the issue. This was bad, bad, bad, and I had to figure out how to fix it, not get all over Nathan for something that was too late to change.

“Okay, um, do you still have the invoice?” I said. “Show me the invoice.” I held out my hand and wiggled my fingers.

Nathan jabbed the cash register, and the bottom drawer sprung open. He drew out a wrinkled piece of pale pink paper.

I grabbed it. “‘One teacup piglet, certified and licensed,’” I read aloud. “‘Two hundred dollars.’” I flipped it over, zeroing in on the neatly penned message at the bottom. “‘Paid in full. To be picked up by Tegan Shepherd.’”

“Damn,” Nathan said.

I flipped it over again, looking for the name of who rebought Tegan’s pig.

“Bob gets in new animals all the time,” Nathan said defensively. “They show up and I, you know, adopt them out. Because it’s a pet store.”

“Nathan, I need you to tell me who you sold him to,” I told him.

“I can’t. That’s private information.”

“Yes, but it’s Tegan’s pig.”

“Um, we’ll give her a refund, I guess.”

Technically, it was Dorrie and I who should get the refund, but I didn’t mention that. I didn’t care about the refund.

“Just tell me who you sold him to, and I’ll go explain the situation.”

He shifted, looking incredibly uncomfortable.

“You do have the person’s name, right? Who bought him?”

“No,” he said. His eyes darted to the open drawer of the cash register, where I saw the tail end of a white credit-card slip.

“Even if I did know, there’s nothing I could do,” he continued. “I can’t reveal the details of customer transactions. But I don’t know the lady’s name anyway, so, um . . . yeah.”

“It’s okay. I understand. And . . . I do believe you about not seeing the note.”

“You do?” he said. His expression was bewildered.

“I do,” I said truthfully. I turned to leave, and as I did, I hooked the toe of my boot under the Doggie de Lite display rack and tugged. The rack toppled, and cellophane bags tumbled to the floor, bursting open and spilling dog treats everywhere.

“Oh, no!” I cried.

“Aw, crap,” Nathan said. He came around from behind the counter, knelt, and started piling up the bags that were still intact.

“I am so sorry,” I said. As he fished for a stray dog cookie, I leaned over the counter and plucked the white receipt. I shoved it into my pocket. “You must hate me even more now, huh?”

He paused, straightening up and propping one hand on his knee. He did a weird thing with his lips, as if he were going through some sort of struggle.

“I don’t hate you,” he said at last.

“You don’t?”

“I just don’t think you realize, sometimes, how you affect people. And I’m not just talking about me.”

“Then . . . who are you talking about?” I was very aware of the receipt in my pocket, but I couldn’t walk away from a comment like that.

“Forget it.”

“No way. Tell me.”

He sighed. “I don’t want this to go to your head, but you’re not always annoying.”

Gee, thanks, I wanted to say. But I held my tongue.

“You’ve got this . . . light about you,” he said, turning red. “You make people feel special, like maybe there’s a light in them, too. But then if you never call them, or if you, you know, kiss some asshole behind their back . . . ”

My vision blurred, and not just because Nathan was suddenly saying things that instead of being rude were dangerously close to sweet. I stared at the floor.

“It’s just cruel, Addie. It’s really cold.” He gestured at a bag of Doggy de Lites by my boot. “Pass me that, will you?”

I bent down and picked it up.

“I don’t mean to be cold,” I said awkwardly. I handed him the Doggy de Lites. “And I’m not trying to make excuses.” I swallowed, surprised by how much I needed to say this to someone who was Jeb’s friend and not mine. “But sometimes I need someone to shine a little light on me, too.”

The muscles of Nathan’s face didn’t move. He let my comment hover between us, just long enough for regret to start pressing in.

Then he grunted. “Jeb’s not exactly the most demonstrative guy,” he acknowledged.

“You think?”

“But get a grip. When it comes to you, he’s totally whupped.”

“Was whupped,” I said. “Not anymore.” I felt a tear, and then another, make its way down my cheek, and I felt like a fool. “Yeah. I’m going now.”

“Hey, Addie,” Nathan said.

I turned.

“If we get another teacup pig, I’ll call you.”

I looked past his acne and his Star Trek shirt and saw just plain Nathan, who, as it turned out, wasn’t always annoying, either.

“Thanks,” I said.

Chapter Thirteen

As soon as I was ten feet away from the pet store, I fished out the pilfered receipt. On the “item” line, Nathan had scrawled, pig. Where the credit-card info was printed, it said, Constance Billingsley.

I swiped away my tears with the back of my hand and took a steadying breath. Then I sent a psychic message to Gabriel: Don’t worry, little guy. I’ll get you to Tegan, where you belong.

First, I called Christina.

“Where are you?” she said. “Your break ended five minutes ago.”

“About that,” I said. “I’m having a bit of an emergency, and before you ask, no, this is not an Addie moment. This particular emergency is about Tegan. I have to do something for her.”

“What do you have to do?”

“Uh, something important. Something life-or-death, although don’t worry, no one’s actually going to die.” I paused. “Except me, if I don’t get it done.”

“Addie,” Christina said. Her tone that suggested I pulled this kind of crap all the time, which I did not.

“Christina, I’m not fooling around, and I’m not being dramatic just to be dramatic. I swear.”

“Well, Joyce just clocked in,” she said grudgingly, “so I suppose the two of us can cover things.”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you! I’ll be back in the quickest jiffy possible.” I started to hang up, but Christina’s tinny voice said, “Wait—hold on!”

I raised the phone back to my ear, antsy to be on my way. “What?”

“Your friend with the dreads is here.”

“Brenna? Ugh. Not my friend.” I had a horrible thought. “She’s not with anyone, is she?”

“She’s not with Jeb, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Thank God. Then why are you telling me?”

“Just thought you’d be interested. Oh, and your dad came by. He said to tell you he took the Explorer.”

“He . . . what?!” My gaze flew to the north end of the parking lot. There was a rectangle of smushed snow where I’d parked the Explorer. “Why? Why in the world did he take my car?”

“Your car?”

“His car, whatever. What was he thinking?”

“No idea. Why, do you need it for your thing?”

“Yes, I need it for my thing. And now I have no clue how I’m going to—” I broke off, because ranting to Christina wouldn’t help.

“Never mind, I’ll figure it out,” I said. “Bye.”

I hit the end button, then called my voice mail.

“You have three new messages,” the recording said.

Three? I thought. I’d only heard my phone ring once—although I guess things got kind of loud when the Doggy de Lites came crashing down.

“Addie, it’s Dad,” Dad said on message number one.

“Yes, Dad, I know,” I said under my breath.

“I rode into town with Phil, because your mom needs some groceries. I’m taking the Explorer, so don’t worry if you look out and see that it’s gone. I’ll swing by to pick you up at two.”

“Nooooo!” I cried.

“Next message,” my phone informed me. I bit my lip, praying that it was Dad saying, “Ha-ha, just kidding. I didn’t take the Explorer; I just moved it. Ha-ha!”

It wasn’t Dad. It was Tegan.

“Hola, Addikins!” she said. “Do you have Gabriel? Do ya, do ya, do ya? I cannot wait to see him. I found a heat lamp down in the basement—remember that year my dad was trying to grow those tomatoes?—and I set it up so Gabriel will stay warm in his little bed. Oh, and while I was down there, I found my old American Girl stuff, including a Barcalounger that is just the right size for him. And a backpack with a star on it, though I’m not sure he’ll need a backpack. But you never know, right? Okay, um, call me. Call me as soon as you can. The snowplow is two streets over, so if I don’t hear from you, I’ll just head on over to Starbucks, ’kay? Bye!”

My stomach sank all the way to my toes, and I stood there dumbly as my voice mail announced the final message. It was Tegan again. “Oh, and Addie?” she said. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

Well, that made me feel better.

I shut my phone, cursing myself for not going to Pet World at the crack of nine like I’d planned. But rather than whimper pathetically, I had to deal with it. The old me would have stood here feeling sorry for myself until I got frostbite and my toes fell off, and good luck finding strappy heels to wear on New Year’s Eve then, buster. Not that I had anywhere to go wearing strappy heels. But whatever.

The new me, however, was not a whimperer.

So. Where could I get a last-minute pig-rescue car?