Chapter 17
After finishing up three streets, we’re out of rolled newspapers and still haven’t run across my car. Aimee pulls over and brings a bundle from the back around to the cab so we can get some more ready to throw. She shows me her method of folding, then rolling, then slapping on the rubber band, but there’s no way I can keep up with her once we get started. Her hands are magic. I swear the girl gets three done for every one I finish.
“How many of these things have you folded in your life?” I ask as she pitches another finished product onto the floorboard by my feet.
“I don’t know.” Her hands keep working. “It feels like about a hundred million.”
I ask if her mom has a day job too, but she says no, the paper route is her only job. Her mom’s boyfriend is on disability with a bad back. He collects his disability check and buys and sells things on eBay. That’s when he’s not sitting around watching TV in his sweatpants. A lot of kids might have sounded bitter about that, but not Aimee. Her voice is gentle, like she’s talking about someone with a terminal disease.
We trade a few stories about our parents. Her mom’s a real gamble-oholic it sounds like to me—the Indian casinos, the lottery, bingo, anything to try to make a quick buck. Only she hardly ever wins. She has the luck of an armadillo trying to cross a six-lane highway. Still, Aimee doesn’t judge her. Losing the gas bill money is just a fact of life for her. She probably thinks it happens to everybody.
I mention a few things about Mom and Geech and my real dad’s office at the top of the Chase building. Nothing too deep, although I have the feeling that I could say anything to Aimee and she wouldn’t judge me. Her voice would remain cool and soft, like a pillow to lay your head on after a hard day.
She’s cute, too, in a nerdy sort of way. You know the look—glasses that ride down on the nose, pale skin from staying inside too much, mouth hanging slightly open in that classic nerd mouth-breather style. But she has full lips and sweet, little blond eyebrows and a nice, slender neck. Her hair isn’t pure Scandinavian blond like Cassidy’s—it’s more dirty blond and sort of lank. And she doesn’t have the fjord-blue eyes either—hers are paler, more like a public swimming pool. Still, she has a way about her that makes me want to do something for her. Not to her. For her.
“You know what?” I say. “If we find my car, I’m still going to help you finish off your route.”
“You don’t have to do that,” she says, but her eyes tell me she’d like nothing better.
“I know I don’t have to,” I tell her. “I want to.”
Once we get a good-size batch of papers folded, we’re on the road again. Still no sign of my car, but the further we go the better we work together. I start calling her Captain and tell her to call me Special Agent Danger. Instead of having her point out which house to throw to by saying something boring like “here” or “this one,” I coax her into yelling, “Fire the torpedo, Special Agent Danger, fire the torpedo!” After a while, we’re zipping down the road at almost the speed limit and I never miss a yard.
“You know what?” she says. “I think this is the first time I’ve ever actually had fun doing this.”
“We make a good team.”
“You think so?” There’s a hopeful look in her eyes.
“Absolutely.”
Then all of a sudden, there it is—my car, sitting sideways in the middle of a lawn. One of Aimee’s customer’s lawns yet.
“Jesus,” I say. “I can’t believe I walked all that way from here. It must be a mile and a half.”
“What’s it doing in the yard?” she asks.
For a second the vision of me cutting across lawns yelling at the top of my lungs shoots through my mind. “I don’t know,” I say. “I guess it’s a pretty safe place to leave a car if you have to. But I’d probably better get it off before these people wake up or the cops come by.”
Turns out, the car’s out of gas, which is a relief. I’d hate to think I didn’t have a good reason for leaving it there. Getting it off the lawn is simple in concept but not so simple to actually do. Aimee gets behind the wheel to steer and I push from behind. The problem is that the yard is real spongy, so it takes all the effort I have. By the time we finally get it parked decently by the curb, I feel like I’m about ready to pass out.
“I guess I’ll have to go get some gas,” I say as Aimee steps out of the car.
She’s like, “I guess so,” and looks back at my car like it’s some annoying person that broke up our good time. “There’s a convenience store just a couple of blocks over. I’ll drive you.”
“What about the rest of your route?”
“That’s all right. I can finish it by myself. I’m sure you probably need to get home.”
But I’m like, “No way, Captain. I said I’d help you finish and whatever Special Agent Danger says he’ll do, he does. Do you roger that?”
The light flips back on in her eyes. “Yes.”
“No, you have to say ten-four. Say, ‘Ten-four, I roger that.’”
She looks down, her pale eyelashes hiding her eyes. “Ten-four,” she says. “I roger that.”
It takes about another hour to finish throwing her papers, and I keep her spirits high most of the time, but both of us lose a little enthusiasm toward the end, mostly because we know time is running out. She’ll have to go back to her empty house, and I’ll have to go back to meet the wrath of Mom and Geech.