Trent Reedy - Stealing Air

“What did you do different?” she asked.

He shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe you’re my good-luck charm.”

“Maybe I would be…” Wendy said, “if you didn’t use such terrible lines!” She put her finger in her mouth, pretending like she was gagging.

Brian laughed. “Maybe we should try something easier for a while.”

“Deal.” She frowned and sniffed, then her eyes widened. “Brian, are you wearing cologne?” She tried to hide her giggle behind her hand.

“Um, no.” He kicked Spitfire forward to hide his blush, heading toward a small ramp off to the side. “Just soap.”

“You lie again!” Wendy laughed and skated after him. They skated all sorts of tricks, hitting some smaller ramps and jumping their boards up to grind on some low rails. Brian didn’t worry about Frankie, or the Wolf Pack, or dates, or anything. He just skated and had fun. It was a lot like hanging out with Alex and Max in the Eagle’s Nest, he thought. Only Wendy was beautiful, and she didn’t belch like Alex or spout off super-complicated science stuff like Max. She was different. Special. She was… she was Wendy Heller.

When they were both pretty tired, they sat on a bench to rest for a minute. Brian wondered if Wendy’s silence was one of the signals Alex had talked about. Then she stood up. “Come on,” she said. “I want to show you something.”

Brian would have followed her anywhere, but after they walked a couple blocks up to the square, he became curious. “Where are we going?”

She led him through the square and past the fountain in the middle of Carl Jacobs Park. They stopped outside a two-story red brick building. The year 1912 had been carved into a large stone block up near the roof in the middle of the storefront. A round sign painted to look like a clock swung in the breeze, squeaking on its rusted chains, with the words Time Remembered in fading letters at the center.

Wendy put her hand on the doorknob and glanced at Brian, but then quickly looked away. After a moment she opened the door. A bell jangled over their heads as they entered.

They stood in a crowded antique shop with almost too much to look at right at first. A blue glass ball lamp hung from a chain in the store window. Next to that stood a bird-cage with chipped white paint. Shelves filled with old glasses and bottles lined the brick walls to the right and left. Some antique farm tools were mounted on the wall in one corner. A few ancient-looking painted wood tables in the center held a jumble of other items.

“Hey, babe. Who’s your friend?” A woman with brown curly hair pulled back into a ponytail came through a door at the back. She went behind a glass display case near the cash register.

“This is Brian Roberts,” Wendy said.

“Roberts. Roberts. Hmm.” The woman leaned over the counter and looked closely at him. “What’s your mother’s name?”

“Diane,” said Brian.

“Diane Davis?” she asked. Brian nodded. She smiled. “Wow. I’d heard she was back in town! I’m Gwen Smith — Dakota’s mom. I was in school with your mother. How do you like Riverside so far?”

Most of the time when adults asked how he liked something, they really just wanted him to say how good it was. Brian decided to be polite. “I really like it,” he said. He looked at Wendy. Why had she brought him here? To introduce him to Dakota’s mother?

“I know you’re closing soon,” Wendy said. “But I wanted to show Brian the book room.”

“You want to take this boy upstairs?” The woman grinned.

Wendy’s cheeks flared red. “Gwen!”

Gwen laughed and motioned toward the stairway. “I’m just kidding. Go ahead, and don’t worry about closing time. Stay as long as you like. I have some paperwork to catch up on anyway.”

Brian followed Wendy up the wooden stairs to the second floor. Clothes racks displayed suits, dresses, jackets, and old shirts. Hats and ties dangled from hooks on the back wall. A few antique chandeliers hung from the ceiling, but Wendy switched them off. Plenty of light spilled across the floorboards through the three tall windows in the front. More shelves lined the brick walls on both sides, but these were packed with books.

“Gwen used to babysit Frankie and me sometimes,” Wendy said. She went to stand by the windows, so Brian could only make out her silhouette against the bright sunlight. “When we were younger. A long time ago.” From somewhere in the store came the sound of a ticking clock. She came away from the window and gave him a sad smile. “I used to play up here while Frankie would play in the courtyard or with some of the toys downstairs. I’d put on the dresses and pretend I was a princess locked away in a tower.” She smiled. “One time Dakota tried to be a prince and rescue me. He found a metal helmet downstairs, and he came charging up with a yardstick for a sword and the lid from a skillet as his shield.”

Brian sat down on a small cushioned wooden couch. “How did that go?”

“Frankie decided he’d play too. Only he was a robot, I think.” She laughed. “He had one of those old-fashioned hand-crank mixer things and walked around saying ‘Frank-O-Tron-5000-will-grind-your-face-off.’ He kind of ruined it.”

“He’s good at that.” Brian said the words before he realized that was probably a bad idea. Wendy froze. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean—”

“It’s okay,” she said. “I know. I know he’s been mean. He wasn’t always this way, you know. He used to be really nice. He still is nice to me, but… he’s changed.” She pulled a book from the shelf and flipped through its pages without seeming to look at it. “These last few years, I feel like I hardly know him sometimes. Now I come up here to hide out.” She made a sweeping gesture with her arm. “All these old things. They weren’t always forgotten junk. They used to belong to people, you know. They were Christmas and birthday presents. Wedding gifts.”

Brian waited for her to go on. She was silent for a long time, but somehow he knew this wasn’t one of the signals Alex had talked about. Finally, the quiet was uncomfortable. “Frankie’s not that bad,” he said.

Wendy nodded, but tears were in her eyes. She put the book back on the shelf. “I’m sorry,” she said. “You don’t want to hear about all this.”

“No,” he said. He couldn’t stand to see her cry. How could he fix this? “I mean, whatever. It’s cool.”

She wiped her eyes. “Frankie was a really nice guy. Then, about two years ago, there was a bad snowstorm. Mom was on her way home from Iowa City.” She breathed deeply. “It wasn’t anybody’s fault. Nobody to blame or anything. Just ice and snow and… a crash.” She shrugged. “Mom was dead.”

Brian had never known a kid his age with a parent who was dead. He wanted to help her, to do something or say something to make her less sad, but there was nothing he could do. “I’m sorry,” he said. The words felt useless. He couldn’t help her. Not really.

“It’s a little easier to deal with now,” she said. “Still, it’s like the guys, the other girls, even the teachers just want me to move on and forget it.” She wiped her eyes again. “Forget her. And at home it’s just… Here in the store…” She pointed at the clothes in the back. “Where some of Mom’s old things are for sale… I come up here and read or write in the quiet, and I feel like I don’t have to forget. Time remembered, right?”

Neither of them spoke. The clock ticked.

“You’re different than the others, Brian,” Wendy said.

What did she mean by that? “Different bad or diff—”

“Different good. You’re a good skateboarder. You’re not a show-off like Alex or David or Red.” Brian could feel his cheeks turning red. He wasn’t used to getting compliments from a girl like Wendy. He didn’t get very many compliments at all. “Thanks for coming here with me. I’ve never shown anyone my book room.”