Page 56 of The Girl in the Wind

Auggie opened his mouth to apologize again, but before he could, Theo grabbed his arm and dragged him from the office.

10

They drove in silence. What passed for rush hour in Wahredua was over, and the city had settled into the dinnertime lull. The streets were quiet, and in the west, the sun hung on the horizon, a smoldering red. They passed a Taco Bell, where a girl with blue hair was trying to ride a unicycle in the parking lot, pancake makeup melting in the heat. They passed Muffler King, where some poor schmuck was cooking alive inside a foam suit shaped like a muffler, waving a sign to entice prospective muffler customers. They passed a park, where a red-faced man was trying to coax a red-faced child down the slide. The child was screaming his head off, and Auggie thought, Same.

Theo broke first, saying, “If you’ll drop me off at school, I can pick up Lana—”

“What is going on with you?”

Theo didn’t say anything, but his shoulders sagged.

“What happened back there?” Auggie asked.

Breathing out slowly, Theo worked fingers through his hair. Auggie had seen Theo hungover—not often, because Theo was so responsible, and, on top of that, he had some sort of built-in, country-boy tolerance for beer that verged on death-defying. But a few times. Enough that Auggie was struck by the similarities: the slowness of Theo’s movements, the drawn look of his face, the half-closed eyes. Which was strange because Theo hadn’t been drinking. But then, everything had been strange that day. Everything.

They stopped at a light, and a Chrysler 300, black, rolled up next to them. The windows were tinted. Music thudded. Even with the windows closed, Auggie caught a whiff of a joint.

Theo said, “I don’t know.”

The light changed, and the Chrysler sped away, engine roaring. No license plate. That was a nice touch, Auggie thought.

Instead of Market Street, Auggie cut through one of the neighborhoods close to the river. Even with rush hour over, Market Street still might be a snarl at this hour—families trying to get to dinner, or trying to get home from dinner, or people who were already heading out for a drink. The houses in this neighborhood were a mixture of brick and frame construction, a lot of Arts and Crafts homes like Emery and John-Henry’s—low-pitched roofs, deep overhangs on the eaves, exposed beams, wide porches, lots of windows. In those windows, warm light. Against that light, families moved back and forth.

“I’m sorry,” Theo said. “I lost my temper.”

Auggie nodded. He wasn’t trying to peep—he was trying not to look at Theo, which meant looking anywhere else—so when he saw the woman in the window, he felt a flash of guilt, like he’d somehow invaded her privacy. She was Black, leaning over the kitchen sink, laughing: head thrown back, the lines of her neck exposed, a pearl earring like a comet when the sun caught it. A man came up behind her, arms wrapping around her waist. He was laughing too.

“Auggie,” Theo said.

Auggie turned to him. If anything, Theo looked worse than Auggie had first thought. The color in his face was bad, and he had sweat at his hairline, even though the air conditioning was going full blast.

“Are you on something?” Auggie asked.

Theo leaned back. He wrapped a hand around the seat belt. He swallowed once before he said, in a thick voice, “No.”

“Are you using again?”

He shook his head, and this time, his voice was steadier. “No.”

Auggie let out a breath. He wanted to touch his eyes. He wanted to stop the car. He wanted, in a weird way, to laugh. Ten and two, he told himself. Hands on the wheel.

“I wouldn’t lie to you about that,” Theo said. “I’ve always been honest with you.”

“I didn’t say you were lying.”

“You’re thinking it.”

“Oh yeah? What else am I thinking?”

And because Theo was, for the most part, mature, and good at relationships, and an excellent communicator, he said, “Uh.” And then, with perhaps the quickest recovery in the world, he added, “That’s not what I meant.”

Auggie wrestled with the next words. He wanted to say,You know what I’m thinking? I’m thinking I don’t know what’s going on with you. I’m thinking I don’t know what you’re going to do, or how you’re going to act, not lately. I’m thinking I don’t know what’s going to set you off, and since I don’t know, I have to worry about everything. But he couldn’t say that. He couldn’t say any of it. Because, of course, how would Theo react?

“I’m sorry,” Theo said. “That wasn’t the right thing for me to say. Will you please tell me what you’re thinking? I can tell you’re upset. I’m sorry for how I acted with John-Henry; I…I shouldn’t have reacted so strongly. I wasn’t even angry at him, you know? It was everything, all of it. Seeing how Leon had been living. The fact that nobody seems to care if he and Shaniyah are alive—”

“You need to stop saying that.” Auggie fought for control of his volume and won. In a more even voice, he said, “I want you to stop saying that, ok? Because it’s not true.”

Theo pushed his hands through his hair again. They went over a badly patched pothole. They passed a Midas. The spinning sign had gotten stuck halfway around so you couldn’t read any of it. Theo nodded.

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