The Miles Between Read online

  I hear the distant sound of the late bell. It echoes through the air in a strange curvy way, like it’s trying to find its way to me, to let me know, Don’t hurry, Des—it’s too late anyway. You’re too late again. I walk farther down the gravel path to a long stone bench that sits among the well-trimmed hedges and slowly ease myself down, like if I am quiet enough and gentle enough, maybe the world will leave me alone. I feel the emptiness of the garden. No wind. No clouds. No Aunt Edie. The stillness is odd, like the garden is holding its breath, or maybe it is just me who is doing the holding. Four tires, all gone. A sufficient excuse. Aunt Edie will not be coming.

  A cold tremble crawls the length of my spine and spins around in my chest, and only because I am completely alone, I allow myself to lean forward and bury my face in my hands. The trembling grows, until it is shaking my throat like a furious switch. I rock, keeping my mouth shut tight. If I keep it tight, I will win. I silently count. One, two, three . . .

  “Shouldn’t you be in class?”

  A gasp of air explodes from my throat and I sit up straight. A stranger sits on the other end of the bench.

  “Who are you?” he asks.

  “None of your business! It’s rude to interrupt someone that way!” I clasp my hands between my knees, trying to keep them still. “You startled me,” I add.

  “Were you crying?”

  I narrow my eyes at the stranger. “Are you a serial killer?”

  “Mr. Nestor.”

  “I’ve never seen you here before.”

  “A visiting teacher. Calculus.”

  “Why aren’t you in class?” I ask.

  “And now we’re back to where we started, aren’t we?”

  I study the stranger. He is an odd man. Not odd in his features. Those are mostly plain. Professorish. A thick tuft of hair that needs a comb. A short, trimmed beard with a frosting of white on the edges. A cheap dated suit in need of a good pressing. But the way he speaks, slow and calm, like he has all the time in the world, like he has planned to meet me out here in this garden. And that is impossible since I didn’t know I was coming here myself.

  “You came out of nowhere. I didn’t hear you walk up,” I say.

  He points to his shoes. Rubber soled. “You didn’t answer my question,” he says.

  “No. I was only stretching. Yoga. Haven’t you heard of it?” He is trying my patience and rapidly turning my trembling to agitation.

  “Yoga.” He draws the word out and rubs his chin, the wiry hairs on his chin bristling like a hemp doormat.

  Extreme agitation.

  “Yoga,” he says again, like there is some deep hidden meaning to it.

  “All right, it wasn’t yoga! But I wasn’t crying.”

  He is not an observant man. I can see that already.

  “But you were distressed. What is there to be distressed about on such a beautiful October day?”

  I stand. I have no time for dense thinkers. “We’re done.”

  “Have I said something?”

  Rude! Forward! Intruding on my space! I don’t even know him!

  I sit. He’s not going to drive me away. Even if he is a teacher. Even if I am late for class. I was here first, and today that matters. Today. I will make it matter. I glare, hard and deep, drilling into his eyes, so he can see I am not distressed.

  “It’s not a beautiful day for everyone, Mr. Nestor. It’s not for me.”

  “Is there something I can do? Something you want?”

  Why doesn’t he leave me alone?

  He raises his eyebrows in the most annoying fashion and then, as if that is not bad enough, he tilts his head! Like I am obligated to tell him!

  That’s it. That is absolutely it. I stand. I sit. I look away. I look back. The trembling that circled my spine has shot to my mouth like a burst of fire, ignited by this doltish teacher. Counting to three or a hundred won’t keep my mouth shut.

  “Something I want?” I stand again. “Something I want?”

  “Yes.”

  My vision explodes. My hands fly over my head. “Want?” I circle around the bench and stop when I am standing inches from his cheap-trousered knees. “You really want to know?”

  “I don’t ask idle questions.”

  I squeeze my eyes shut and pinch the bridge of my nose. One, two, three . . .

  “Four tires! I want four matching tires! Is that too much to ask?” He begins to open his mouth, but I stop him. “I’m not done! Not by a mile! I want oatmeal without lumps! For one miraculous day, I want Cook to stand there and stir the mush the way it’s supposed to be stirred!” I walk three steps away and three back, this time even closer to his face. “I want a bed that will be mine, not just for a month or a year, but for the rest of my life! I want letters from home! I want my parents to know what it’s like to be abandoned!”

  “Is that—”

  “And I want Seth to get extra credit!” My knees ache and my throat knots. I sit on the bench and look at him, an unblinking, impossibly long stare. “I’ll tell you what I want,” I whisper between gritted teeth. “All I want is one day where the good guys win. One day where the world makes sense. Just one day, where the world is fair. Where it all adds up to what it should be. Just one single fair day. Is that too much to ask? That’s what I want.”

  “A fair day,” he says, like he has never heard the words before. He stands, his index finger tapping his lips. “A completely fair day. Interesting.” He turns and looks at me. His pale eyes narrow, looking so far into mine, I shiver. “What would that do?” he asks. “How would one fair day make a difference to you?”

  How? I don’t know.

  There is no answer for a question like that. It’s an endless circling question that feeds on itself over and over again like a snake eating its tail. It can only go so far. I know. I’ve asked myself that exact question countless times. I look at my lap. My knees bounce, and I press with my hands to steady them. One day. Maybe I would feel less like a pawn in a game. Or maybe it would make me feel that the inequity of the world comes full circle eventually and it all evens out. Maybe it would make me believe again, in what, I’m not sure. Some sense of order. Meaning. Purpose. Maybe it would give me courage to make it through the other days that aren’t so fair. Or maybe it would just make me feel like someone is listening. Or . . . maybe it would just plain feel good. All the way through every inch of me, it might feel wonderfully and deliciously good. For one day. Is there anything wrong with that?

  “Maybe—” I look up to answer. Mr. Nestor is gone. I stand and twirl around. Gone! My first assessment of him was accurate. A rumpled rude clod! He didn’t even wait for me to answer! Calculus! I bend down and grab a handful of gravel. “Go calculate this!” I yell, flinging it as far as I can. The gravel and my words are swallowed up by the empty garden, and the silence returns. I dust off my hand on the front of my uniform.

  Wasted emotion. But no one has seen it. I sigh and shake my head. Any remnant of trembling is shaken off. I head back down the garden path. I’ve missed half of civics by now, all because of a cloudless sky that mattered to no one but me and because of an ill-bred teacher who couldn’t be bothered to wait and hear my answer to his stupid question. And it is all my own fault, really, for not sticking with the prescribed routine.

  I turn at the end of Carroll Hall, and I see a peculiar sight. Not ten yards from me, parked on the lawn beneath a giant spruce, is a car. I am not familiar with the makes of cars, but it is a very long, barely pink thing with a white leather top that has been folded back, unusual but attractive, something I might choose for myself if I were to have a car. I have never seen it at Hedgebrook before. All the teachers here drive modest, sensible cars, and they certainly never park them on the lawn. The driver’s-side door is wide open, and I can hear the engine humming. Who would be so careless? When the headmaster sees this . . .

  I walk closer and reach out, running my fingers along the buttery smooth fender. The tires catch my attention. An old-fashioned sort w
ith white on the sides. The two I can see are in pristine condition, like they have never seen the road. I bend down and look at myself in the convex, shiny hubcap, the world behind me distorted, my own image strangely accurate.

  I stand. Someone is quite irresponsible to leave it running unattended like this. I turn and walk away, and a thought stops me. It must belong to the rude teacher. He is just the type who would be so irresponsible as to leave a car with the engine running—and on the lawn, of all things! I fume, wondering how someone in his position could be so foolish. I stomp up the steps toward the center quad. It would serve him right if someone just took off with it. It would serve—

  I whirl around and look at the car still purring beneath the trees, its four precious tires begging to hit the road. It would serve me right. But a technicality as wide as the ocean lies between me and those tires. I am a newly minted seventeen, and I have never had a single driving lesson. My parents haven’t provided for that little detail. I don’t know how to drive. Not like many of the other students—

  Seth! I turn again and run up the steps. I heard Mira say he has his own car back home. He must be able to drive. And right now he is wandering around Hedgebrook picking up trash, probably disgruntled at the injustice of it all. It’s time for his break. I am granting it. I stop at the edge of the quad and scan the garden for movement. The only human form is the grotesque statue of Argus Hedgebrook at its center, an art commission gone terribly wrong, and the butt of every school prank. His bronze arm extends out in an arthritic gesture like he is about to fall from his perch, instead of the sweeping welcoming pose that was intended. I sigh. Timing is everything, and Seth is not here, and the gargoyle Argus is of no use to me.

  I look to the perimeters of the three other dorms and then over to the headmaster’s office. No sign of Seth, trash, or any excuse for a driver. Of course. Why should it be any other way? Today is turning out just as I suspected it would. I shake my head and begin to walk away, but then the tiniest movement catches my eye. Peeking out from the base of Argus’s statue is a foot. I look closer. A jiggling foot. The slug! I run across the quad to the other side of the base, drop to my knees, and grab Seth by the shirt.

  “I have a car waiting for us. It’s break time. Can you drive?”

  His eyes are wide and startled, like he has been caught slacking, which he has. “What—”

  “I need a driver! Can you drive me? Please!”

  He stares at me like I am nuts. “I have trash duty—”

  “But you deserved extra credit. And you know it. A short ride—that’s all I’m asking for.”

  His stunned expression fades, and he stands, brushing my hands loose from his shirt, swiping at the wrinkles I have created. Face-to-face, I am surprised at how tall he is. He looks at me and I know he is going to say no but I don’t turn away and I don’t stop looking because ever since Mira said I noticed him I have made a point not to notice him and for the first time I am noticing that his eyes have a dark ring of brown around a golden iris and I find that infinitely interesting because my eyes are the same color and I think he notices this too at the exact same moment and a chill shivers over me, and like a miracle, he says, “Let’s go.”

  “I’ll say this, Des—you sure know how to choose them.”

  “It chose me.”

  Seth runs his hand over the hood and along the fender until he is standing at the open driver’s-side door. “Just a short ride. Right?”

  “Right,” I repeat, but I know it is already more than that. It is written in the day and in our eyes. Seth can’t control this matter of circumstance any more than I can.

  We take a last sweep of the grounds before we slide in. The white leather seats are as buttery as the fenders and Seth makes a gesture of ecstasy with his fist. “Who would guess that trash duty could be this sweet?” He gently closes the door, and I feel the world closing behind us.

  My heart pounds in my ears. “Go!” I whisper. “Go!”

  Seth steps on the gas and we rev forward, bouncing off the lawn and onto the narrow road that twists through the campus. He stops before we reach Gaspar Hall, where the classroom windows face the road. He looks at me. We both slink down in the seats, and he eases forward slowly like we are pulling up the skirts of the car and tiptoeing.

  Students seated near windows turn as we pass, their eyes widening to saucers but their lips remaining sealed in solidarity. Civics. English lit. Jillian and Curtis turning in unison, their jaws dropping. Geometry. Seth lifts a hand and waves to Justin Thomas like we are only strolling across the common. Economics. Physics. Mira. Her eyes grow so wide that her irises look like a tiny dot of ink on a sea of white. She disappears from the window. “Maybe you should go faster,” I say.

  “We’re doing fine. Relax.”

  I realize I don’t really know much about Seth. Like the others, I know his habits at breakfast. I know that he is always late. He works hard to make Mrs. Wicket smile, like it is a clever game for him. He taps his fork on his plate between bites, which drives Aidan to distraction. But I don’t know anything about what is inside of him. I don’t know what he likes or hates or fears, and I realize that, for all my observing—of which I am very proud—I don’t really know any of my classmates beyond their easily observable habits. A breath catches in my throat.

  “Can I come?” Mira has barreled around the corner, and Seth stops the car.

  “Shh!” he says.

  “Did Miss Boggs see you leave?” I whisper.

  “Of course not,” Mira says proudly. “She was one copy short for our test today and stepped out in a tizzy to get another. But I’ll never be able to slip back in now.”

  Ancient Miss Boggs prides herself on her organization and is never short anything. Why does she have to break her perfect record today?

  “Get in,” I sigh. She has already opened the rear door and is sliding into the seat. “But don’t say a word,” I warn her, holding my fist up. She happily nods and raises two fingers in an oath as she sinks down in the seat to prove she is trustworthy. Another time I might be struck at how she takes life’s unexpected turns with such cheer, but right now I am seriously keeping my fist ready.

  Seth eases forward. We only have to pass the infirmary and the library before we are at the gate to Hedgebrook and the open road.

  “Can we get Aidan?” Mira asks.

  Seth and I both whip around, but Seth speaks before I can lash Mira for breaking her oath in less than a minute. “Of course, Mira,” he says sweetly. “Why don’t you skip into his class and ask his teacher for a pass to ditch all his classes for the day?”

  The dawning is slow but visible as her arched expectant eyebrows slowly fall. She sinks lower in the seat. We are just passing the infirmary when a muffled squeal erupts from Mira. “There he is!”

  Aidan is approaching the infirmary doors with a bloodied handkerchief pressed to his nose when Mira stands up in the back seat and waves her entire body at him. He stops and stares over the kerchief, and I imagine he thinks his bloody nose is causing him to hallucinate.

  “Unbelievable,” Seth whispers, hitting the brakes.

  “No! Don’t stop,” I say. “Not him too!” But it is too late. He is already walking toward us, his eyes sweeping our extraordinary pink car. Mira throws open the rear door.

  “We’re going for a ride. Get in.” He does and I am almost not surprised, even though Aidan is an annoying stickler for rules, because maybe today, some things are beyond his control too. He leans back, still pinching his nose.

  “Whose car?” he asks.

  “Des’s,” Seth answers. “Don’t drip on the seats!”

  My car? Did I say that? But I do take note that he is looking out for my upholstery. “Seth, this isn’t—” Perhaps now is not the time.

  “Isn’t what?”

  “This isn’t . . . the time to be talking. Go!”

  4

  THE WIND RUFFLES MY HAIR. Surely this will do it. This will end my days at Hedgebrook. It’s
time. I find that I am . . . thinking too much about others, and that is not a wise thing to do. By the time we return today, the papers will probably already be written up. My parents will be glad for the excuse. I’ve always been a good girl. There now, be a good girl, Destiny. Mama’s good girl. No more tears. Let me see you smile. Give Mama a nice good-bye.

  There are so many different ways of being good. It’s all about perspective.

  Seth hoots and swerves onto the shoulder, causing a plume of dust to trail behind us. He slows to a stop. “Sweet car, Des.”

  “When did you get it?” Mira asks.

  “Just today.”

  “It’s against the rules, you know?” Aidan says. “Students aren’t allowed to keep cars on campus.”

  “It’s not staying, Aidan, so don’t worry about your precious rules,” I tell him.

  He sits up defensively. “Do I look worried about rules? If I was worried about rules I wouldn’t be sitting here right now, would I?”

  “Why are you here?” Seth asks.

  “I needed fresh air.”

  “Teased about your nose again?” Mira asks with genuine concern because there is nothing covert about Mira.

  Aidan glares at her. I am surprised. I thought Aidan was used to being the resident geek. He almost seems like he works hard to live up to it, even wearing a tie with his uniform on Fridays, when it is not required.

  “It’s stopped bleeding,” I say. “You can toss the hanky.” He folds it, bloody splotches inward, and tucks it into his pocket.

  “Now what?” Seth asks, looking through the steering wheel and checking out the gauges. “Should we go back?”

  “Goodness, no!” Mira says, standing up on the rear seat and throwing her hands over her head. We are all startled and turn to look at her. She sheepishly shrugs and sits back down. “Sorry. I mean, no,” she whispers.

  “She’s right,” Aidan says. “We all have guaranteed trash duty at this point. We might as well make it worth it. And I need a day off. If I were president, I would make more vacation time mandatory. Do you know that in other countries where vacation time is mandatory, they have higher productivity levels? It’s just a matter of—”