Upstander by James Preller (free ereaders .TXT) 📕

brother. Darkness fell without her noticing. She was in shorts and a T-shirt and sneakers.

An orange pickup truck juddered up, rolled along beside her. The passenger window slid down. “Mary? Mary?”

Mary shook her head, clearing out the cobwebs, and stopped. It was Ernesto. She should have recognized his truck; it had sat in her driveway many times. The guy loved the color orange.

“You all right?” he asked.

Mary stood on the sidewalk, bent at the waist so she could peer into the truck.

“I’m great,” she stated in a flat voice.

Another car passed. Ernesto watched through the front windshield, checked the rearview mirror. He looked at Mary and nodded. “Okay.”

“She told you to come looking for me?”

Ernesto was silent. Shook his head once, a small movement. “I came on my own.”

Mary almost smiled. He was actually a sweet man who was in way over his head. Ernesto reached across to push open the car door. “It wasn’t easy finding you. Come on, get in. I’ll give you a lift home.”

Mary walked to the car and firmly, politely closed the door. “Thanks, really,” she said, ducking her head through the open window. “I get what you are doing, and it’s nice, but I need time alone right now.” She stood, hands on her hips. There was a shaggy-haired boy seated on a bicycle, balanced on one leg, watching from across the street. Ernesto followed her gaze, turned his torso around to the left to get a good look at the boy. “Friend of yours?”

Mary nodded.

“Look,” Ernesto said, “I need to get back there, in case your mother, she needs me.”

“Is Jonny gone?”

“Yeah, yeah. He stormed out not long after you. Broke the front hall mirror, though I don’t think he meant to. Lot of emotions, lot of glass.” Ernesto drew out the words with a weary sigh.

Mary made the calculation. Breaking a mirror was what, seven years bad luck? It also meant that her mother was alone—and probably freaked out.

Ernesto pulled a bill from his wallet, extended an arm outside the window. “Here’s twenty. Get yourself a cone. Roberta’s Ice Cream isn’t far from here. I like the mint chocolate chip. Good milkshakes, too. Times like this, I’m a big believer in ice cream.”

Mary accepted the money.

He looked back at the boy again, who still sat watching the car. “You sure about that guy?” he asked, throwing a thumb over his shoulder.

“Yeah, I’m good.”

Ernesto flicked on the turn signal, pointed a stubby finger at Mary, and said, “You need anything, call me. You have your phone, right? You know my number?”

Mary started to shake her head.

“Listen, just text your mom. You call, I will come. That’s a promise. Any time. When you’re ready to come home, I’ll come pick you up. All right?”

“Yeah, thanks,” Mary said. “I just needed to get out of there.”

Ernesto nodded, “Stay safe.” He checked the rearview mirror, put the car into drive, and pulled away.

Mary lingered on the sidewalk, watching the red lights of Ernesto’s pickup fade into the distance. A breeze kicked up and she shivered. It was chilly for an August night. She glanced across the street at the boy slouched over his handlebars, still watching. She waved the twenty dollar bill in the air. “Woo-hoo! Twenty bucks! You like ice cream?” she called. “My treat.”

Griffin Connelly pedaled over. “Well, that was weird,” he said, blowing the hair from his eyes. “Sure, ice cream sounds good to me. But don’t believe that guy about the mint chocolate chip. It sucks.”

11[roberta’s]

Mary and Griff sat in a booth at Roberta’s Ice Cream Palace—which was about as far from an actual palace as you could get. Still, the ice cream was sweet and creamy, and the space itself wasn’t bad. There were booths along one wall, scattered plastic tables in the middle, and a long, low counter opposite the booths. It had a retro black-and-white tiled floor and fake rock star memorabilia on red walls. Everyone in town went there, especially on a Friday night in August. On any other day, Mary would have been reluctant to be seen eating ice cream with Griffin Connelly—people might get ideas—but on this night, she couldn’t care less.

Twenty dollars didn’t buy much in the United States of America, Planet Earth, so they shared an extra-thick chocolate milkshake and a three-scoop Cosmic Crunch sundae. Mary threw the extra change in the tip jar. There wasn’t much, and she didn’t get a big thank-you.

Griff leaned back, swung his legs onto the booth bench, and groaned. “I’m stuffed.”

They hadn’t talked about anything important. Just ate, ravenously. Griffin gave Mary space, didn’t crowd her with questions. She was grateful for that, and glad to have normal human company.

Mary leaned forward, peering closely at Griffin’s face.

“What?” he said.

“You really do have incredibly long eyelashes,” she observed.

“Yeah, I hear that a lot. My sisters are jealous.” He shrugged and smiled in her direction.

“What were you doing out, just riding around?” Mary asked.

The shrug again, signaling whatever. “Actually, I was headed to Cody’s. He’s an amazing mechanic. Loves to take things apart and sometimes he even puts them together again,” Griff said with a grin. “I was supposed to help him out. He’s rebuilding a dirt bike, but I texted that I wasn’t coming.”

“That’s neat, that he can fix things,” Mary said a little awkwardly. Neat, how sad.

Griff nodded and looked away. He watched a group of high schoolers walk into the shop. Lacrosse guys and girls. Then he pulled his feet back around to the floor and said, “Do you want to talk about why you were wandering around with tears leaking out of your face? Because I can go either way. You don’t have to. But if you want to,” he said, looking directly into Mary’s eyes, “we can do that.”

“I wasn’t crying that bad!” Mary protested.

Griff interlaced his fingers, stretched his arms toward the ceiling. “Okay, I’m not here to argue.”

For the next thirty minutes, Mary babbled in a steady stream of words. She