Since You've Been Gone (18 page)

“It’s nothing,” I said, trying to grab it back from him. “Just . . .”

“You have a song on here called ‘Aw Naw,’ ” he said. He turned to me, and I could see he looked incredulous. “Emily, is this
country
?”

“Well, what are
you
listening to?” I asked, feeling uncharacteristically bold as I grabbed his iPod, looking down at his playlist.

I didn’t recognize most the songs, so I pressed Play on the song that had been paused, slipping one of his earphones in. I was confused at first, because I didn’t hear music. There was just the sound of laughter, some people clapping, like I’d heard that first night in his truck. And then a guy with a Boston accent saying, “But seriously . . . in a well-ordered universe, we wouldn’t have doormen, am I right? Like, we open doors for ourselves all day long. But in this one instance we become totally helpless?”

I looked up at Frank, who wasn’t laughing anymore. “Is this that comedian?”

“Curtis Anderson,” Frank said with a nod. “I don’t know, I’ve always thought he was funny. Lissa thought he was really juvenile, but . . .” He shrugged.

“Is that what you’ve been running to?” I asked. Frank nodded, and I shook my head at him. “That’s your problem. You need to make a mix with songs that will pump you up and get you through the run.”

“I see,” Frank said, nodding, his expression serious. “Like songs about fishermen?” I laughed at that without even thinking about it first and looked back down at his playlist.

“These aren’t real bands,” I said, as I scrolled through it. “Like, these have to be made-up names.”

“You mean like the Beatles?” Frank asked, deadpan, as he tried to take his iPod back, and I pretended not to notice.

“Not like the Beatles,” I said, as I finished scrolling through the songs. “But there
are
a lot of their songs on here.”

“Told you I was obsessed.”

“But ‘Department of Eagles’ is fake, right?” I said as I handed him back his iPod and he gave me mine. “That’s not a real band.”

Frank just looked surprised. “You’ve never heard them? They’re great. I’ll make you a mix.”

He said this so easily, like he was sure we’d be seeing each other again, like these weren’t just isolated incidents. But I suddenly realized I didn’t want them to be. And so when we reached Frank’s house and he said, “Do this again soon?” I nodded, hoping that it would be true.

“Got any big plans for the weekend?” he asked as he stretched out his quads, and I found myself watching, with more interest than I probably should have had, to see if he’d lift up his shirt to wipe his face again.

“Oh,” I said, thinking fast. For a second, I thought about telling him the truth, but then immediately decided against it. “Not that much. You know.”

“Well, hope it’s good,” Frank said, giving me a wave. I waved back and I started to walk toward home, telling myself that I’d done the right thing. Because even if he had offered to help me out with the list, I had a feeling that the student body president would not have been happy to learn that I was planning on crossing off number three on Saturday night. I was going to steal something.

I sat inside my car at the Hartfield drive-in and looked around, wishing I knew what, exactly, was involved in casing a joint. The heist movies I’d seen hadn’t really been very specific. Luckily, though, it wasn’t like this place was unknown to me. Sloane had introduced me to it after she’d only been in town for a month. I had never been to a drive-in before, but I’d loved it after the first movie—the big screen set up at one end of a field, the cars parked in slightly crooked rows, the speakers you could hang over the window of your car, the way they always played double features.

We went a few times every summer, the first year with my parents dropping us off, sitting on beach towels or blankets in
front of the screen. But last summer, I’d driven us, and we’d been able to park with everyone else.

I let out a long breath, hoping that I didn’t seem suspicious, and that I looked like I was just there, like everyone else, to see a Hitchcock double feature of
North by Northwest
and
The Lady Vanishes
, and not to commit my first crime.

Number three had been a question mark since I first read the list. It wasn’t so much the stealing itself, but figuring out what to steal. But when, driving home from the gas station, I’d passed a billboard for the drive-in, I’d remembered a promise I’d made to Sloane two years earlier, and just like that, I’d known what it had to be.

JULY

Two Years Earlier

“The usual?” Sloane asked, and I nodded.

“Definitely.” Sloane and I had only seen a handful of movies together so far, but we already worked out our routine, snack-wise. She was the one who had introduced me to the concept of shaking M&M’s into the bag of buttered, salted popcorn and using Twizzlers as straws for Diet Coke. I had, in turn, gotten her hooked on the sour gummy candy that I never liked to see a movie without.

We pooled our cash as we made our way up to the concession stand, a tiny building that looked like it had been
there forever, and when Sloane reached the front of the line, I took a step back to let her order. “Large popcorn,” she said as I looked around the stand. There were vintage posters on the walls and framed pictures of the drive-in throughout the years. “M&M’s, Twizzlers, two Diet Cokes.” The guy behind the counter nodded and grabbed a bag for our popcorn, and I was happy to see that it looked like a fresh batch had just been made. I was about to remind Sloane to get extra butter when she grabbed my arm and pointed to a sign resting on one of the concession stand shelves, half tucked behind a display of Hartfield Drive-In T-shirts and mugs. “Look.”

It was a small sign, the kind you put magnetized letters on, the kind I associated with bowling alley snack menus. But this one, instead of telling you how much the hot dogs were, read

SLOANE

LOVES

FERRIS

I just stared at it for a moment until I realized that it was a reference to
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.
I didn’t understand what it was doing behind the concession stand, but it had a very cool, vintage look to it. “Neat,” I said as I reached for my phone. “Want me to take a picture?”

Someone else brought our snacks around to the side of the cash register, and Sloane paid without taking her eyes off the sign. “Is that for sale?” she asked as she handed our
change over to me. I was in charge of the money when we were together. Sloane wasn’t absentminded, but she seemed to have trouble to hanging on to money and was always finding bills in the pockets of her dresses and shorts, which she then treated as something to be celebrated, and would insist on buying both of us the biggest, most extravagant blended coffee drinks that Stanwich Coffee could make.

“Is what for sale?” the guy asked, already looking behind us to the next person in line, who was sighing loudly.

“The sign,” she said, pointing to it. “The Sloane sign.”

The guy looked at Sloane like she was crazy. “No,” he said. “It’s been here since the eighties.”

“Are you
sure
it’s not for sale?” she asked, giving him a big smile. But the guy seemed immune to this and let out a barking laugh.

“I’m sure,” he said. “First time I’ve been asked that in twenty years, though. Next!”

Sloane’s shoulders slumped and we headed back to our blanket. “Think I should have offered him something for it?”

I shrugged. I wasn’t sure it would be helpful to point out that, after we’d bought the snacks, we had a grand total of $1.35 between us. “I’m not sure it would have made a difference.”

“But it might have . . . ,” Sloane said, glancing back toward the concession stand. It was getting dark; there were fireflies beginning to wink off and on in the grass, but the
sign, and the letters that formed her name, were still visible, catching the fading light and reflecting it back. She turned to me, and I could see her normal cheerfulness had returned. “Promise you’ll help me get it,” she said, leaning forward. “This is my new life goal.” I laughed at that, and Sloane smiled too, but she didn’t take her eyes from mine. “Promise, Em?”

“Sure,” I said, easily. “We’ll do what we have to. We’ll come here every weekend and wear him down.”

Sloane grinned and grabbed a handful of popcorn. “Awesome,” she said. “We have a plan.”

So I would steal the sign for her. We’d never been able to get anyone to sell it to us, so this was the only option—and this way, I would get to cross something off the list and keep my promise to her, all at the same time. It was a perfect solution—unless, of course, I got arrested while trying to pull it off.

I didn’t get in the concessions line right away, but circled around it, double-checking that the sign was still there. Luckily, it was off to the side where people picked up their food, not where they ordered it. So concession workers were dropping things off, then hurrying away to get other people’s orders. I mentally walked through the mechanics of this, and I realized that I could make it look like I was just reaching for my order, grab the sign, and drop it into my bag. If someone caught me,
I could just pretend it had fallen in and I hadn’t even noticed. I had brought my largest purse with me for this very reason, the better to conceal the evidence.

It wasn’t the best plan, but at least it was a plan. I let out a breath and got in the line that was quickly filling up, feeling like everyone around me could tell what I was about to do.

“Emily?”

I felt my stomach plunge as I looked behind me and saw Frank, standing a few people back in line, with a surprised look on his face, raising one hand in a wave. I gave him a small smile in return, but then turned around to face the concession stand again, not caring if this seemed incredibly rude. What was Frank Porter doing at the drive-in?

“Hey.”

I turned and saw that Frank had joined me in the line. He took a step closer to me and said in a low voice, “Mind if I jump the line?” He glanced behind him, at the older couple who were pursing their lips in disapproval, and said, too loudly, “Thank you for saving my place in line, Emily!”

I really wished he’d stop saying my name in front of potential witnesses. “You shouldn’t—” I said, glancing ahead to the counter, and wishing that the line wasn’t moving quite so fast. “I just . . .” I tried to get my head around how to explain that he couldn’t wait in line with me because I was about to steal something. Even though he knew about the list, and this wouldn’t seem
quite
so random, I didn’t want to have to go into
an explanation with everyone in the line able to hear me talk about it. Also, what if Frank was still with me when I had to try and take it, and he tried to stop me? Or he got in trouble too?