Part 18 – In Which Bridie Visits The City Alone
“I’ve got good news and bad news.” Darcy was surprisingly cheery this morning but I wasn’t quite ready to buy it.
It could be a trap.
“I’ll take the bad news first.” I sigh, resting my cheek in my hand and taking a drippy spoonful of a strange, unmarked red cereal that had suddenly appeared in the pantry. “At this point my life couldn’t get any worse.”
“Well, as you know, the entire mansion knows we are looking for the culprit.”Darcy frowns and I roll my eyes. “Also-I’m-not-going-in-to-town-with-you — but, the good news is that not everyone will suspect that this whole ‘celebration of life’ is actually just a ruse because we suspect them. Basil did a little tinkering around and he figured out just how much everyone heard. Turns out: it wasn’t much.” Darcy smiles blazingly.
“Wait, what did you just say?”
“You mean the part where Basil is a freakish nerd and probably stalks people for a living? I don’t even wanna know how you can hack a soundboard—”
“No. The thing before that.” I have a suspicion Darcy knows exactly what I’m talking about.
With a nervous chuckle Darcy suddenly starts inspecting her — immaculate — nails. “Oh, uh, heheh. Well… something kinda came up… and I can’t make it into the city today. But it’s okay ’cause you’re going with Hale.” Darcy looks up for a split second to grin sheepishly and then goes back to frowning at her fingers.
“Alone.” I say.
“Yeah.” Her voice is overly cheery.
“With Hale.”
Finally she looks at me. And whines. “C’mon Birdy, you know Hale. He’s my brother!” The Darcy Swann. Throwing a tantrum. “We’ve all been friends since we were little.”
“Darce, I haven’t seen him since we were tiny, and he isn’t my best friend who came to visit me every summer vacation with my parents. He wasn’t… there.”
She sighs. “I know, Birdy, it’s just. I really want you to have fun today. I know we’ve been planning this for a while, and even though I can’t go I want you to have fun. Plus, I think Hale could use the day away too. He’s been moping about ever since he got here.”
“I hadn’t noticed.” I sulk.
“You’ll go?”
…
“Fine.”
~*~
10:00 am.
I had spent a good two hours doing my hair, my makeup, my outfit. I had traveled a lot, but unfortunately most of the cities I had visited with my parents were anything but local, and as an incredibly fair-skinned individual, I usually stuck out like a sore thumb. This was my chance to blend in like a normal human being, to get lost in the big city. Just another fish in the sea. Not a young, European-heritage millionaire with eccentric parents and a mysterious dead grandfather.
So apparently distressed denim shorts and a frilly yellow camisole with sandals and my hair half up in a samurai bun screamed ‘normal.’
Hale rips up the driveway in an odd little car. Pulling to a halt in front of me he cranks down the passenger window. “Ready to go?”
“In that?” My voice doesn’t hide a thing.
“This?” Hale nearly sounds offended. “This is a 1978 Volkswagen Golf. Show some respect for your elders.”
“We’re not taking the limo?”
“The limo? I had no idea you were so posh, Birdie. Fortune doesn’t suit you.”
My whole life doesn’t suit me.
“No, no, the limo is all wrong. No such vehicle would even fit in the big city — much too large. We need something small to traverse the crowded streets. Plus, a limousine is much to overt. No need to draw such attention.”
Some how I doubt a limo would draw half as much attention in a big city as this lemon would, but I figure it must be a car thing. Or a boy thing. And I don’t know anything about cars. Or boys.
“It’s orange.”
“Burnt umber.”
Definitely a boy thing.
I get in the car despite my objections, and Hale once again rips out of the driveway in a way that I most certainly object to, but I’m not sure if it is a car thing or a boy thing so I say nothing.
In fact, I say just about nothing the whole ride through Roseville — all two minutes — and as we drive past the place where Waif had run away, I suddenly miss him again. ‘It’s just a dog.’ Comes Basil’s voice.
“I’m writing a speech.” I don’t know what comes onto me but the words blurt out of my mouth before I can take them back.
“Really?” I’m not sure if Hale’s interest is sincere.
“Yeah. I was supposed to deliver it last night but uh…”
“Oh yeah, Darcy told me you weren’t feeling well last night. Are you better now?”
“Uh, yeah, totally. So I’m going to deliver it tonight instead but I kind of have a really big problem you see considering I haven’t exactly wrote it yet cause I was gonna wing it last night but I don’t think that’s a very good idea when the fact is that I really want to say something meaningful about my grandfather y’know? Cause he was a really big part of my life for a while there, I mean you understand right? This has to be… right.” Realizing I had been rambling I force myself to stop. Roseville is far behind and as far as the eye could see there is rolling green hills. We pass a cow. Hale still doesn’t say anything.
Maybe he doesn’t know what to say. Maybe I said something wrong. Maybe he thinks I’m crazy. “It’s just… Grandpa meant so much to me. I wouldn’t be who I am today without him. I want to say exactly how I feel, but it’s so hard to express that. Does that make any sense?”
“Perfect sense.”
More silence.
“I could help you write it.”
I study Hale. He gives me a half smile and I know this isn’t a car thing.
~*~
Put, put, put, achoo!
This is the sound Hale’s car makes before we come to a halt, just as the high rises come into view. At least now the cow pastures have turned into suburbs and we aren’t completely at a loss. After some hopeless tinkering, Hale finally calls a tow truck.
“What’s the damage?” I ask when he appears out of the car garage.
“Just some minor fix ups. But uh…” He gives a small chuckle. “We’ll be good to go soon enough. Until then, let’s take a bus?”
“Alright. Let’s go.”
“You’re not angry?”
I smiled. “Why would I be angry? Things happen. We meant to spend most of the day in the city anyway, at least until the thing tonight.”
“Yeah, tonight is the… thing.”
I suddenly found my excitement mounting. We had the whole day ahead of us to just… live. We could go anywhere. We had nothing but what we carried. We were just… people.
“Where do we start?”
Two in a million.
February 4, 2017
MeganHannah
Bridie's Domain 