Some Place Better Than Here

Chapter 14: Have You Ever Seen the Rain?

The rain began. Sitting, leaning against the screen door, lacing up my white Converse, there was only a subtle tonal difference between the gray light and the transparent shadow crossing over the sailboat painting mounted on the wall. Through the mesh screen, I watched how the rainwater ran in thin lucid lines along the bottom of the canopy, and then dropped in a stream of beads onto the floor. From an unseen distance on the road, I heard the tires of a car roll over the damp concrete and slash through the puddles. I stood up, ready to get mad at Danny, but instead, as the oncoming vehicle came into view, I saw that it was a white van coming towards my house.

I panicked.

The van crunched the loose stones as it hauled up into my driveway. But then, to my relief, I saw that it was a Splendid Arrangements floral delivery van. Now, unless Jim had some secret admirer, or someone had actually thought of us, there was only one damn person in this world who would send flowers, and that meant he was beginning to spread like a contagious disease, showing up everywhere in my life. I bit down on my lower-lip, resisting my cheeks from rising as I watched the delivery dude open the trunk and pull out a bouquet of the richest red roses I had ever seen. My palm pressed and pushed open the screen.

"Oh my gosh! Those are so pretty!" I gushed as the guy jogged through the rain up to the porch steps, holding one arm above his head. "Um. Whom might these be for?" I asked, recomposing myself, curbing my stupid girly embarrassment.

He quickly scanned the card. There was a card. And before he said anything, I just hinted, "For a Mary? Maybe?"

"Uh, yeah. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's what the order form says."

The delivery dude handed off the roses with a smile before power-walking back to his van through the intensifying rain. Pelting louder against the porch canopy, the rapidly flashing lines zipped to the left with a swell of wind. The ignition of the van rumbled, and with a flash of the headlights onto my house, it pulled away. I lurched forward down the steps, expecting to see The Stang parked somewhere around the corner. I hated Squeegee Boy so much. But his car wasn't in sight.

I took a step back under the canopy and looked down at the bouquet in my hand. Feeling the long thornless stems through the plastic wrapping, and admiring the perfectly flourished curves of the petals; not a spot of discoloration or wilt along any of the brims. These were some hella quality roses. I removed the taped-on card, and let my inner girly-girl savor the moment, holding it dear and close to the center of my chest. Never in my life had I received flowers from anyone, let alone roses from a boy. All I could think of was how so right I must've been that the Danster was writing something about me—for me.

The wind wheezed through the crevices in the porch. My bottom teeth sunk deeper into my lip. With a surge of effort, I was able to pull the card away from my chest, peel open the sealed flap, slip the letter out, and unfold it crease by crease. I felt my heart flutter and held the roses right up to my nose and inhaled the sweetness—and then read the headline.

The letterhead was addressed to Jim. And then when my eyes followed the trail of words to the bottom of the page, and there were no more words left to read, my eyes fell down with the letter drifting out of my numb fingers to the floor.

=========DANNY===========

"You've just been crushing that pussy, huh?"

A random comment from Max. We were in the middle of rag folding during my first shift at the carwash in over a week. Just as I was about to accept what he'd said, to tolerate what he had said—writing it off as just Locker Room Talk—he then had to follow it up with: "Does Mary have a stank?"

I stopped folding. Placed two upright fists on the worktable, and stared out the window. Raindrops rolled down the glass. Slowly trickling down, occasionally merging with another. I exhaled deeply through my nose, and then continued folding, ignoring Max to the point where I didn't talk to him for the rest of our shift. From time to time, out of the corner of my eye, I'd gaze at him, and see him just smirking—proud of the fact that he'd been able to piss me off. I'd clock anyone who dared talk about Mary that way. The only reason why I didn't punch Max was because he was my friend.