Throat (27 page)

Another room had books everywhere and what I think was a
cello … a violin on steroids, anyhow. A hat with pink-and-white-striped fur was propped on a lava lamp.

“Charlotte’s.”

We walked a little farther, then I made him stop, turning to look into his eyes.

“They’re all really nice,” I said. “Have I been okay?”

Sagan returned my gaze, brushing back my hair. “Perfect. Except for that part about John Smith barbecuing his wife …”

“That’s not what I—!”

A couple of screeching wet kids brushed past, hurtling up the hall.

“You’re beautiful,” he said. “Thanks for coming. They all love you, you know.”

“Sure they do.”

“No, really.”

“Is it like this all the time around here?”

“Only on weekends,” he said. “The rest of the week’s not so calm.”

Sagan’s room was not what I had expected. I had pictured posters of supernovas, planet models, astronomy textbooks. It was kind of spare. A laptop on a desk that was really only a wooden table. A bed with no headboard shoved up under the window. A dresser and an oak armoire with a dinky TV inside.

“Wow, this is really … neat,” I said. “As in, where is all your stuff?”

“I get tired of all the crap all over the house,” Sagan said. “This is my space. I like to keep things simple. Streamlined. So I don’t have to spend a lot of time thinking about useless junk.”

“I’m … impressed. No, really. Shut the door.”

“Why?”

“Just … shut it.”

Sagan shut the door, then turned around looking embarrassed. There was a life-sized poster on the back of his door: a cowboy with a bearded, scowling face, a broad-brimmed dingy white hat, and twin pistols crossed over his chest. The top of the poster said
THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES
.

“Look out. Who’s this?” I said, grinning.

“Um. You know. Come on, don’t tease me.”

“No, really, Sagan, who is it?”

“You’re kidding, right? You know who it is; it’s Clint Eastwood!”

“The old guy?”

“Yeah. Um, no … Well, it’s a movie he made when he was a lot younger. You know, he used to be in all those Westerns.”

“I seriously have never seen this.”

His eyes got big. “But it’s a classic! My dad’s all-time favorite movie. He’s the one who turned me on to
Josey Wales
. It has some of the most famous lines in the history of movies.”

“Oh wow. So no wonder you hide this thing behind the door. So you can lie in bed all day and look at him …”

“Oh, shut up.”

“Your secret’s out!” I tickled his stomach and he knocked my hand away.

“Stop it. That’s been up there since like … seventh grade.”

“So why don’t you take it down? You like it, don’t you? Your hidden passion, to be a cowboy.”

“Hey. That’s not why I like it.”

“So you get off on Westerns, huh.”

“I mean it, quit teasing me.”

“I’m not teasing,” I said, still smiling. “But I can hardly resist.… The big astronomer who wants to rope little doggies.”

“You mean
dogies
, don’t you? Motherless calves?”

“See!”

“I don’t want to be a freaking cowboy!”

I pinched him playfully. “So why do you like Westerns?”

“Not just any Westerns. His Westerns. Well, this Western.”

“Okay. So tell me one of them.” I crossed my arms. “I’m waiting.”

“One what?”

“The famous quotes. You said this movie had the most famous quotes like … ever. So you must have them memorized, right?”

“You’d just laugh.”

“No, I promise I won’t laugh. It’s important to you, so it’s important to me, huh?” I was giggling under my breath as I said it. “Like, pick one. The most famous. The one I’m most likely to have heard.”

Sagan was quiet, looking at me, probably trying to figure out just how deep he was in it.

“Okay. The one probably everybody remembers is this,” he said.

He held up his arms like he was holding six-guns and put on a scowl that made him look kinda sorta like a Scandinavian Clint Eastwood. In a raspy voice, almost a whisper, he said, “ ‘Are you gonna pull those pistols or whistle Dixie?’ ”

I stared at him, waiting for him to finish.

“Is that it?” I said.

He looked at me, disbelieving. “Well, of course that’s it!”

“Never heard it.”

“Not possible.”

“No, truly, I’ve never heard it. I don’t watch a whole lot of old movies, you know.”

“It’s not that old. Not like it was made in the Dark Ages or something.”

I put my hand on the side of his face and pushed in a little closer. “Pistols, huh? So you got a thing for pistols. Ever fire one?”

“No.” He grinned sheepishly. “Unless you count Halo 3.”

“Okay, gimme another one. Another quote.”

“No.”

“Why?”

“I don’t feel like it. You’ll just make fun of me.”

“Oh, come on. You get your feelings hurt too easy.”

“I do not,” Sagan said, puffing himself up a little. Now his arms were crossed too.

“Really. It doesn’t take much,” I said. “My mom would say you can dish it out, but you can’t take it.”

“I can take it.”

“Okay, then tell me another one. Not something random, but—your favorite, pick your personal favorite. I swear, I won’t make fun of you.”

Sagan watched me.

I raised my hand, crossed my fingers.

He rolled his eyes. “I know I’ll regret this,” he said. “But … okay. There is the part near the end of the movie … Wait, I don’t want to spoil it for you.…”

“Oh please … like I’m ever going to watch it.”

“Okay … Josey, you know, Clint Eastwood, Josey Wales is a real loner because his whole family was murdered by some renegade soldiers. He’s always pretending he doesn’t care about anything or anybody else the whole movie, yet the entire time he keeps picking up these friends, you know? Misfits, loners like him, or just people who need help. Well, in the end he and his friends—women, children, old people—they’re all about to be trapped in this cabin by the same bunch of murderers who killed Josey’s family. And this … this is what he says.… Wait … no, I can’t do it.…”

“Yes you can. Come on. Say it.”

“Okay. Jeez, Emma. Okay. So they are heavily outnumbered. Basically going to die in that cabin. And Josey …” He swore.

I looked at him closely.… His eyes were shining.

Sagan dropped his head, raised it again. “So stupid.”

“It’s not stupid. Tell me what Josey said.”

I watched him swallow. “Okay. He said this: ‘When things look bad, and it looks like you’re not gonna make it, then you gotta get mean. I mean plumb mad-dog mean. ’Cause if you lose your head and you give up, then you neither live nor win, that’s just the way it is.’ ”

I suddenly felt my bottom lip quivering, my eyes bunching, blurring out. Sagan started to say something.

“I know, it’s not what you—”

I leaned into him and touched my mouth to his. We kissed and it turned into a long kiss. His lips tasted of vanilla ice cream.

Finally I just clung to him, feeling his breathing going in and out. I wondered what his folks would say if they came in.

“Wow,” Sagan said. “Where did that come from?”

“I’m sorry about the way I was acting back at the base,” I whispered. “I know it must have seemed pretty … strange.”

“You’re fine.”

“I know, but …”

“What?”

“It’s just … everything … it has all reminded me of what it was like. I had almost forgotten. Today has been a little bit like going back in time. Are your parents happy?”

“Sure, yeah. I guess so,” Sagan said.

“So it really does work out for some people.”

“Well, yeah. I mean … I guess it’s just what you’re used to. This is all I’ve ever known. So I guess you start thinking everybody is this … lucky.”

“Will we be lucky?”

“Are you saying …?”

“No, I’m just saying, us. Me and you. Not talking anything about white houses with a yard and two-point-three kids or any of that.”

“You know, probably we never would have met,” Sagan said. “If—whatever happened to you hadn’t happened. So I feel … I feel
lucky already.” He tilted my head up to look into his eyes. “I don’t see how somebody could be any more lucky.”

“So … if something happened to me … would you—”

“Don’t talk about stuff like that. I’m superstitious.”

“You mean black cats and all that?” I said. I rubbed noses with him. “I’m surprised.”

“No. I don’t believe in ladders and salt over the shoulder and the number thirteen. I just mean in general. Like maybe it’s possible to be so happy that … it almost doesn’t feel … safe?”

“Oh yeah. I know that. I know it exactly.”

“Why, do you think something is going to happen?”

“Something is always going to happen,” I said. “Or it’s boring. Who wants boring?”

“Safe. Right now I’ll settle for safe.”

“Not me,” I said. “Well, my little sister, sure. If anything ever hurt her … it would kill me. Completely. But I’ve never cared about being safe my whole life.”

“Please start,” Sagan said.

The party didn’t break up until well after dark. The finale to the evening was Sagan’s sister Charlotte playing a concerto by somebody named Rostropovich on her cello. She was tall and slender and of course blond, and had pulled on jean shorts over her bathing suit. She was fourteen, and something about her intense concentration and the way everybody paid attention to her while she played broke my heart.

On the way back I made Sagan stop at a convenience store with a phone. “You have to stay in the Jeep,” I told him.

Mom wasn’t at home, so I left another rambling, teary message that basically said the same stuff I’d told her before: I’m fine, just
checking in, don’t worry, tell Manda I love her, I’ll be home as soon as I can.

Papi was tougher, because he actually answered. He got right to it, no BS, just as I knew he would.

“
Enkelin
, where are you?” he said in his sternest voice.

“Papi … please, I can’t tell you where I am. But I’m okay. I really am. Please … I know it’s hard not to worry, but you have to …”

Papi swore. Something he never did. “Come home.
Sofort
. Immediately. No. Be quiet. There is no discussion, you hear me? Now. I demand you to come home now.”

I started to cry. It felt as if I were tearing out both our hearts. “I can’t, Papi. You know I would if I could. It’s not me. It’s something that has happened to me. I don’t know what Mom has told—”

“You are killing your mother,
Enkelin
. Do you understand this? Every day you are gone. She is killed a little bit more.”

“Manda, how is Manda?”

“Her too. She weeps every night. Weeps herself to sleep, do you hear? For missing you. Afraid for you. We are all so afraid.… If it is a boy, I will …” I could almost hear him spitting with anger as he grasped for the words. “If a boy has made you do this, given you drugs … I can’t say. I can’t say.”

“It’s not a boy, Papi. It’s not drugs. You know I wouldn’t lie to you! I have never lied to you. It’s … something else. Something I can’t say, because I have to keep everybody safe. If I tell you, if I tell Mom, anybody, nobody will be safe anymore. You have to believe me!”

“Then tell me where you are. Right now. I will be coming to pick you up. Just give me the address, the street, anything, I will be there. I am putting on my coat,
Enkelin.
”

“No, Papi. You can’t. It would … everything would be too dangerous. I have to do this by myself.…” I trailed off into a whimper
that I hoped he didn’t hear. I rubbed my arm across my eyes, clearing my blurred vision. Tried to stand a little straighter.

“Papi … I swear to you … I will be okay. You know me. I wouldn’t be doing this without a very good reason. You have always trusted me. All I am asking you … all I can ask you … is to keep trusting me. Don’t think I can’t do it. Don’t believe that. I have to know you believe in me. It would help so much.…”

His voice softened and I heard him take a very deep breath. He let it out again. “I know you,” he said, voice breaking. “I know you,
meine
 … granddaughter. You must know it’s not that I don’t believe. You are my … strength. That is what I believe in you. But this … I only want … help you …” I heard him sniff. Was he trying not to cry?

“I love you, Papi,” I said in a broken voice. “I’ll be back. I promise.…”

After I got back in the Jeep, I wouldn’t speak. Sagan drove me to the entrance of the Space Center. “What’s wrong?” he said. I didn’t answer and he tried to keep me in the car, almost fighting with me, grabbing at my arm.

“No,” I said finally. “No!” And I broke away, running up the highway, loping so he wouldn’t see how fast I really was. He tried to follow, but the traffic was going the other way. By the time he got the Jeep turned around, I was gone.

At least five minutes passed before I realized where I was going.

I had to wait for them outside their dirty little cave room for nearly two hours. I passed the time basically weeping and feeling sorry for myself. Papi’s words blazed in my head:
You are my strength
. I was still cursed. Right now I was nobody’s strength.