Page 86 of Fade into You

I fuel up Daniel’s car at the gas station near Jessa’s house. I clean all the windows with the dirty/soapy water squeegee thing by the pumps. I go in and buy us two very special gourmet gas station crappuccinos, two bottles of water, a giant pouch of overpriced beef jerky, a bag of chips, and a sleeve of waxy chocolate-covered doughnuts for the road. At the register, I spot a cardboard display of small foil balloons mounted on plastic sticks. They say things likeHAPPY ANNIVERSARYandCONGRATSandHAPPY BIRTHDAY. I grab the birthday one and add it to my order.

In the car, I pull my black permanent marker out of my bag and writeUN-with a little arrow in front of the word “Birthday.”

Even with all that stalling, I arrived at nine forty-five instead of ten in the morning, like we planned. I wanted to leave early in the day, even though it’s only three hours away and the doors won’t open until seven. I don’t want to waste a single minute of this rare weekend of freedom by not being together.

I wait in the car for a couple of minutes outside her house before I decide I should probably just go up and let her know I’m here. I ring the bell, and I almost don’t recognize the girl who opens the door. Mack. Except this is not the Mack I met that night at Touchstone. This Mack is clean and fresh and bright, and her hair is shiny and falls loosely over her shoulders. She isn’t wearing any makeup, and it strikes me that she could be one of those au naturel, clean-faced Neutrogena models like Jennifer Love Hewitt.

“H-hi, hey, Mack,” I say.

“Um… hi?” she responds, looking confused. “Do I know you?”

“Um, um, n-not really. I’m Bird, Jessa’s friend? We met like a month or so ago?”

“Oh.” She nods slowly, but I can tell she doesn’t recognize me. “Sorry. Uh, yeah, come in. Jessa’s… somewhere.”

And then Jessa appears behind her sister. “You’re early!”

“Yeah, I couldn’t wait.”

“Mack, did you meet Bird?”

“I guess I did,” she says. “So where are you two going?”

“I don’t know,” Jessa tells her with a shrug.

“It’s sort of a surprise,” I whisper.

“Let me go grab the rest of my stuff and I’ll be right back,” Jessa says, and jogs off, leaving me and Mack alone in the entryway of their house.

She sizes me up as we stand there, and grins a little. “So, how long have you and my sister been friends?” she asks, and I can’t be sure, but I think she might be asking something else.

“N-not too long,” I answer. “We met right before the school year started, but it feels like a lot longer than that.”

She nods andhmms.

“Um,” I begin, keeping my voice quiet, “can you keep a secret?”

She steps closer to me; her eye contact is intense. “Do tell,” she says.

“I’m taking her to a Tori Amos concert up near Bentley Falls College.”

“Good job, Bird.” Her smile is enormous. “She’ll love that.”Just then, Jessa comes into the room, and Mack makes like she’s zipping her lips and throwing away the key.

Jessa sees and draws her eyebrows together, asking, “What did I miss?”

“Nothing,”we both say at the same time.

“Go,” Mack says, gently pushing Jessa toward the door. “Have fun.”

“O-kay,” Jessa says, turning around to look at Mack. “And you’re sure you don’t want me to—”

“Go!” she repeats, and then blows us kisses as she shuts the door on us.

As we walk to the car, I glance back at the house. “She seems good,” I tell Jessa.

She looks over her shoulder too, but when she turns back to face me, she doesn’t look like that makes her happy.

“Yeah, for now,” she mutters. But before I can say anything else, she pivots in that practiced way of hers, her whole demeanor changing seamlessly. “So, no hints, huh?”