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Tuesday, 5 p.m.

You, You and Mimi

“Love Crazy—Part 1.” Mimi gathers a group of her celebrity friends to dish about the ill-advised things they did for love.

My plan was just to get on my bike and ride home, but as I’m cycling down Main Street I see a rusty brown van in front of the hardware store.

The
rusty brown van. It’s not every girl’s dream car but it’s mine.

I ride right past it because, I mean, what else can I do? I can’t just stop. I can’t just go in and say,
Hi, Levi, I’m here!
Krystal could pull it off maybe but not me.

I’m halfway over the bridge when I realize I can’t go back to the hostel. I have to turn around and bike past the hardware store again. I have to.
Treat opportunities like gift certificates to your favourite store. Cash them in before you lose them.
That’s what Michael Davis—Mimi’s life coach—always says. Normally I think he’s full of it but now I see the wisdom. I wouldn’t forgive myself if I just went home without even trying.

I smooth my hair, suck in my gut and ride really slowly past the hardware store. Maybe Levi will notice and call me over.

When he does, I’ll pretend I don’t hear him. Then when he calls again, I’ll sort of jump and swing around with my hand on my chest. I’ll say something like
Oh, you scared me. I didn’t know you were here!

Am I nuts? I can’t even talk half the time Levi’s around. Now I’m supposed to pull off some Oscar-winning performance?

I pick up speed and don’t stop pedalling until I’m almost back at Mrs. Hiltz’s. This is crazy. I better go home before I do something I regret.

But I don’t. I can’t blame it on Michael Davis any more either. It’s me doing this now—but it’s a me I barely recognize. I spend weeks of my life when I can’t even get up off the couch, when I can’t move. Now I
have
to move. It’s like I’m obsessed or possessed or jet-propelled or something. I’m going back to the hardware store whether my brain thinks I should or not.

I ride back as fast as I can because it dawns on me that while I was sitting there wondering what I should do, Levi could have been driving away without me and I’d have missed my chance.

As soon as I see that his van’s still parked out front, I slow down. I slow down so much that the bike wobbles. It’s like I’m a kid out on a two-wheeler for the first time.

What if he’s not in the van? What if he’s in the store? I can’t ride by
again.
I do have
some
pride.

I’ll just go in. I’ll buy something.

Buy what?

What difference does it make?

A hammer. Yes. I’ll buy a hammer.

I pull up and lean my bike against the store window. I’m all klutzy. It slips down a couple of times before I can make it stay.

I look up just as Levi’s coming out the door. My lungs inflate as if they’re airbags and I just crashed into a brick wall. He’s carrying a couple big grey sacks of cement.

“Hey! Opal!” he says with this huge smile. His black eye is mostly green now. He leans over and kisses me right on the mouth.

I jump back. The airbags inflate again. I can’t believe he kissed me. My face goes blank but my mouth is buzzing like I overdosed on lip-plumping gel.

He laughs. “Did I surprise you—or did you just feel that spark of electricity go between us?”

I stand there doing this fish-gasping-for-air thing. He jerks his head at the van. “Get the back door for me, would you?”

I open it. He drops the bags on the floor with a big
thump.

A guy in a store uniform comes up behind him carrying some tools and puts them in the van too. Something about him gives me the creeps.

Levi goes, “Thanks,” and then puts his hand on my shoulder. “Gershom Bister, this is Opal Schwartz. She’s here in town doing some research on Port Minton.”

The guy looks straight at me for a couple of seconds, turns around and leaves. Levi watches him go into the store, then says, “Don’t take offence. He’s just shy. He’s not a bad guy.”

I manage to say, “That’s okay.”

I’ve got all these things I want to tell Levi, questions I want to ask him, but I’m too awkward. I don’t know if it was the kiss or running into the Embree clone or just being this close to Levi again—but
I’m totally messed up. I just stand there, looking away, dying.

“So,” he says, “what are you doing here, all gussied up like that?”

He noticed. That just makes things worse.

“Oh. Um,” I say, “I just came to—you know, like—buy a hammer.”

He leans against the van with his legs apart and his arms folded across his chest. He says, “A hammer.”

“Yeah,” I say. “A hammer. They sell hammers here, don’t they?” I try to look at him but I just can’t. He’s so cute and I’m such a bad liar.

“They do,” he says. “It’s a hardware store. They got lots of hammers.” He seems to find that funny.

“So what’s the big deal, then?” I try to sound all huffy.

“Nothing. I’m just wondering what you need a hammer for. Planning on building something?”

I go, “Yeah.”

“Really?” he says. “What?”

“Well. Uh…” My brain sits there like a big lump of raw meat.

Levi starts laughing. His whole body’s shaking. He reaches out and puts his hands on my shoulders. “You are so lame! I saw you riding back and forth. You didn’t come for a hammer. You came to see
me
!”

I push him away. I go, “I did not!” I’m trying not to laugh.

He pulls me into a hug and rocks me back and forth. “You did so! C’mon! Admit it!” He nuzzles his face into my neck. He’s all scratchy.

I’m laughing despite myself. “Okay, okay,” I say. “Now would you quit it?” even though I don’t want him to.

“No,” he says. “Why should I?”

“Because everybody’s looking!”

He keeps hanging onto me but he lifts his head and looks over my shoulder. “Like who, for instance?”

“That lady over there.” I suddenly realize she
is
looking at us. I’m embarrassed.

He waves. “Hi, Mrs. Copps!” She waves back at him. “Don’t worry about her. She’s my old grade five teacher. She’s used to me.”

“She’s used to you, is she? So you do this all the time?” I pull myself away.

“Now, now, that’s not what I meant and you know it. Come here…” He pulls me back.

He’s doing that thing against my neck again when this girl walks up and says, “Hi, Levi.”

I jump away with my shoulders up and my arms straight at my sides as if some general just yelled, “Attention!” I’m terrified it’s Krystal—but it’s not. It’s just that skinny friend of hers.

Levi goes, “Hi, Rachel.”

No big deal. She gives him one of those twiddly-finger waves and keeps walking.

He takes me by the hand again but that’s all. He can tell by the look on my face that he’s not going to get away with nuzzling anymore.

He checks his watch. “Look. I got to help my uncle with a retaining wall tonight—but I got to eat first. Want to go down to the park and share a couple of sandwiches with me?” He sidles up to me again. “I don’t usually offer to share my meal with anybody, but since I know you don’t eat much…”

I roll my eyes and try to look reluctant. “Yeah, okay. I don’t have anything else to do right now so, like, I may as well…”

He pulls his eyebrows way down like he’s all concerned. “You
sure? You don’t have to clean your ears or clip your toenails or anything important like that?”

I stick my tongue out at him. He sticks his tongue out at me.

Next thing I know he throws my bike in the back of the van and we’re heading down to a little park near the bridge. There’s nobody there. Levi gets an old blanket out of the van. We put it on the ground and sit against a tree, our shoulders touching. The river’s sparkly. There’s a bit of a breeze. Levi takes out this big bag full of food.

I go, “That’s all for
you
?”

“I said I’d share!” He hands me half a bologna sandwich. Before I can take a bite, he kisses me again. “I’m glad you came back,” he says. “Gershom was taking so long at the cash, I was worried I was going to miss you.”

I look at my sandwich and try not to implode. What am I supposed to say to that? Sometimes being too happy is as bad as being too sad.

He nudges me. “Eat up or I’m confiscating my sandwich.”

We pass a carton of chocolate milk back and forth. We work our way through his food. Eventually we talk. I knew he’d laugh when I told him what Mrs. Hiltz said about all the women Embree could have if he just cleaned up his act.

“That’s totally like Mrs. Hiltz.” He doesn’t say it in a nasty way. Everybody seems to like her.

“What do you mean?” I say.

“She’s, just, you know, proper or something. She’s not a snob or anything, but trust me—you’d never see her outside without lipstick on. She puts a lot of importance on that kind of thing. And you know, she probably has a point.”

“About lipstick?”

“Nooo.” He practically knocks me over with his elbow. “About the Bisters. People are stupid. We’d probably all rather spend time with a clean jerk than a dirty good person.”

“That’s not true,” I say. “I’m happy here with you.” I make this big deal about looking at his filthy T-shirt.

“Ha-ha,” he says. “I could take it off if you want.”

I go, “Keep your clothes on, if you don’t mind,” and look away so he doesn’t know what I’m thinking.

After a while he says, “What are you thinking?”

I have to come up with something. I say, “Why didn’t you tell me Mrs. Hiltz’s name was Opal too?”

He makes this exasperated face.

“I
tried
to tell you on the way to Port Minton but you were all in your snobby
don’t talk to me you lowly underling
mood. I said something like, ‘Want to know something neat about Mrs. Hiltz?’ and you went, ‘No.’ Remember?”

I’m embarrassed. I say, “Vaguely.”

He goes, “You are
so
lucky I put up with you. The crap you dish out…”

He stands up, then pulls me up too. I can’t help laughing at myself. He’s right. I can be such a jerk. He puts his hands in my hair on either side of my head. I stop laughing. I freeze.

He says, “Do they call this auburn?”

I shrug. “Yeah. I guess.”

“It’s pretty. It’s kind of red where the sun shines on it.”

“Thank you,” I say. I feel ridiculous. We just sort of stand there. I try not to look at him but he tilts my face back up. He’s smiling.

“My damn uncle,” he says. “Why’d I go and say I’d do this for him?”

He takes his hands out of my hair and rubs them down the sides of my arms. He leaves them on my hips. He closes his eyes, takes a big breath and shakes his head.

“We better go. I can’t trust myself,” he says. “You have no idea what you’re doing to me.”

I don’t know what my reaction to that is but it makes him laugh.

“Again, Opal, that was a compliment. You don’t have to look so horrified every time I compliment you.”

He gets my bike out of the back of his van. “You better start home now. There’s still a good hour or so before sunset but I wouldn’t want you on the highway after that.”

“Yes, Dad,” I say. Sometimes I just can’t help myself.

“Okay. Fine,” he says. “Make fun of me all you want. I just want to be sure I can see you tomorrow.”

He puts one hand on the handlebar and one on the seat, then leans over the bike and kisses me. It’s just a little kiss. It doesn’t seem like a Charming Billy kiss at all.

When it stops, I say, “Me too. I want to see you tomorrow too.”

Finding that old ring suddenly seems like the best thing that ever happened to me. This probably sounds exactly like something Mimi would say but—I wonder if that’s the reason fate sent me here.

Tuesday, 7:30 p.m.

You, You and Mimi

“Unsafe at Any Speed.” Mimi adopts road safety as her new cause—and not a moment too soon. Eighty-four percent of her studio audience fails the test on basic driving rules.

I do leave right away—just as soon as Levi’s van disappears around the corner and there’s no hope of me getting another glimpse of him.

I head off down the highway. The sun’s beginning to set but it’s not dark yet. There’s no fog or rain or wind. There aren’t a whole bunch of cars on the road. It’s like you’d expect, pretty much deserted.

I’m a bit lost in my daydreams but I’m not totally out of it. I manage to pull over onto the shoulder every time a car comes by. I always make sure there’s lots of room to go around me. I want to see Levi again too.

I’m almost back at the hostel when I hear the sound of another engine coming up behind me. I pull over onto the shoulder. But this time, the car doesn’t go around. The motor revs. I feel the air change somehow. There’s this tiny moment when I kind of know
something’s going to happen. Maybe I sort of half turn my head to see what’s going on. I don’t know. I don’t remember seeing anything. I just remember the shock when the car hits me.

There was this mean kid at my elementary school. He took this little girl’s doll, threw it up in the air and then slammed it with a baseball bat. It went flying. Its head was bent back and its little arms and legs were spinning and the fluff was bursting out its belly. I figure I look just like that.

Everything has suddenly gone quiet, and slow too. I’m hurtling through the air but part of me is calmly thinking,
A car just hit me and I’m going to land in the ditch. I wonder if I’m going to die.

Time starts up again really fast once I land and the noises pour in again. I hear a
thump
and a grinding sound and my own voice going “Ouf!” when the wind’s knocked out of me. I don’t know if I’m just lucky or if I actually manage to save myself somehow—but I don’t hit headfirst. I skid with my arms out in front of me like I’m sliding into home plate.

It must be the shock that keeps me from feeling the pain for a while. I stand up thinking,
Well, that wasn’t so bad.
I’m kind of expecting that whoever hit me is going to come scrambling down into the ditch any second, all worried and apologetic. I’ll just say,
It’s okay. I’m fine. I’m fine.

But no one comes.

I’m standing there and I realize I must have slammed my ankle against a rock or something. Leaning on it makes the pain shoot up my leg like that red stuff in a thermometer. I get down on my hands and knees and start to crawl out of the ditch. That’s when I notice that my palms are scraped raw and that the whole left side of my shirt is torn and that my new jeans—the only jeans
that actually look halfway good on me—are all ripped to hell too. There’s blood all over me—my fingers are sticky with it. The smell makes me feel sick.

If that stupid driver ever shows up now, he’d better be offering something more than an apology. I’m going to kill him.

Something clicks. Everything flips over. I hear that car revving again in my brain and I
know
this wasn’t an accident.

No, I think,
he
was going to kill
me.

Someone ran me off the road on purpose.