1:34 p.m.
She stands on the road, not sure where to go now. Home, or back to Henry’s. Her head tells her one thing.
But when her stomach growls, she knows the answer.
Doesn’t feel right about eating her father’s food. So she trudges to the bus stop. Thinking, always thinking.
She knows she’s going to have to say good-bye to Cabel.
Forever.
It’s just really hard to imagine doing it.
2:31 p.m.
At home, Janie fixes three sandwiches. She eats one, wraps the other two in plastic and stows them in her backpack. Dorothea makes a rare appearance, scrounging around in the refrigerator.
“You want me to make you a sandwich, Ma?” Janie says, not really wanting to. “I’ve got all the stuff out.”
Dorothea dismisses the suggestion with a careless wave and a grunt, and grabs a can of beer instead. She shuffles back to her room.
And then the front door opens.
“Hey, Janers, you home?” It’s Carrie.
Janie groans inwardly. She just wants to go back to Henry’s house. “Hey, girl. What digs?”
“Nothin’.” Carrie saunters into the kitchen and hoists herself up on the counter. Sticks her feet out. She’s wearing flip-flops. “Check out my pedi. Aren’t you so jel?”
Janie fixes her attention on Carrie’s toes. “Totally! Really cute, Carrie.” Janie fills up a water bottle at the tap and tosses that in her backpack too.
“You going somewhere?” Carrie looks a little disappointed.
“Yeah,” Janie says.
“Cabe’s?”
“No.” Janie sighs. She’d been forced to lie to Carrie when on assignment during their entire senior year. Doesn’t want to now. “Can I trust you to keep a secret?”
“Der.”
Janie smiles. “I—I found Henry’s house. I’m going to go back out there and try to learn more about him.”
“Sweet!” Carrie hops off the counter. “Can I come? I’ll drive.”
“Uh . . .” Janie says. She wants to be alone, but after trekking out to Henry’s once already today, the thought of having a ride there and back is too tempting to say no. “Sure. Can you be ready to go, like, now?”
“I’m always ready to go. I’ll go start up the little diva and meet you in the driveway.”
2:50 p.m.
“So,” Janie says from the passenger seat of the ’77 Nova. “No plans with Stu tonight?”
“No.” Carrie frowns as she steers the car out of town, following Janie’s directions. “Why does everybody ask me that whenever they see me without him?”
“Because you’re almost always with him?”
“So? I am my own person too. Is that all there is to talk about? Where Stu is?”
Janie sticks her head out the window to catch the breeze on her face and hopes for no dreamers.
“Are you guys fighting or something?”
“No,” Carrie says.
“Okay. So . . . when does school start for you?”
Carrie brightens. “Right after Labor Day. And it’s going to be a blast. Finally! I get to learn about something I actually want to learn about.”
“You’ll be the best in your class, Carrie. You got mad hair skillz.”
“I do, don’t I,” she says. “Thank you.” She turns her eyes from the road for a moment to look at
Janie. They glimmer just a little. Maybe they’re just watery from the wind. Or not.
Janie smiles, reaches her arm around Carrie’s neck and gives her friend a little half-hug. Forgets that Carrie doesn’t get a whole lot more encouragement at home than Janie gets.
Carrie pulls Ethel into the bumpy driveway. Ethel protests in squeaks and groans, but Carrie presses onward. “Why the heck does he live all the way out here in freaking . . . freaking
Saskatchewan?” Carrie says, giggling.
Janie doesn’t bother to point out that the nearest Canadian province is actually Ontario. Nor that they were going south.
Outside of the car, Janie goes immediately to the house as Carrie takes it all in—the overgrown bushes, the tiny, run-down cabin, the door left unlocked. “What, he doesn’t lock it?”
“He didn’t—at least not the last time he left.”
“Well, yeah, I can see that. It’s not like he lives in the ’hood, yadamean? Who comes way out here? It’d be a real crapshoot. People out here’d either pull a gun on you or invite you for pot roast.”
Carrie yammers on.
Janie ignores.
It’s all good.
3:23 p.m.