He pulled up short, spraying me with snow.
“Hey,” he said, powering down the window. He jerked his chin at my hair and grinned. “Look at you, Pink!”
“Stop smiling at me,” I warned him. “Don’t even look at me.” I trudged to the passenger side and heaved myself in, straining my quads. I felt like I was climbing into a tank, which, basically, I was.
“Did you bring the phone book?”
He flicked it with his finger, and I saw that it was resting on the seat beside me. I found the residential section and flipped to the Bs. Baker, Barnsfeld, Belmont . . .
“I’m glad you called,” Charlie said. “I’ve missed you.”
“Shut up,” I said. “And no, you haven’t.”
“You’re being awfully mean toward someone who’s giving you a ride,” he said. I rolled my eyes. “Seriously, Adds. Ever since you broke up with Jeb—and I’m sorry about that, by the way—I’ve been hoping we could, you know, give it a go.”
“That’s not going to happen, and seriously, shut up.”
“Why?”
I ignored him. Bichener, Biggers, Bilson . . .
“Addie,” Charlie said. “I dropped everything to come pick you up. Think you could at least talk to me?”
“I’m sorry, but no.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re an asshat.”
He guffawed. “Since when have you been hanging out with JP Kim?” He shut the phone book, and I just barely managed to keep my finger in it to mark my place.
“Hey!” I said.
“Seriously, why don’t you want to go out with me?” he asked.
I lifted my head and glared. Surely he knew how much I regretted our kiss, and how much I hated just being here in this ridiculous Hummer with him. But as I took in his expression, I faltered. Was that . . . ? Oh good grief. Was that plaintiveness in those green eyes?
“I like you, Addie, and you know why? ’Cause you’re zesty.” He said “zesty” with the same intentional cheesiness as when he’d said “venti.”
“Don’t call me zesty,” I said. “I am not zesty.”
“You’re zesty, all right. And you’re a good kisser.”
“That was a mistake. That was me being drunk and stupid.” My throat closed, and I had to gaze out the window until I pulled myself together. I turned back and attempted to divert the conversation. “Anyway, what happened to Brenna?”
“Brenna,” he mused. He leaned back against the headrest. “Brenna, Brenna, Brenna.”
“You’re still into her, aren’t you?”
He shrugged. “She seems to be . . . involved with someone else, as I’m sure you know. At least, that’s what she tells me. I, myself, can’t see it.” He swiveled his head. “If you had the choice, would you pick Jeb over me?”
“In a heartbeat,” I said.
“Ouch,” he said. He gazed at me, and beneath his posturing, I saw that plaintiveness again. “Once, Brenna would have picked me. But I was a cad.”
“Um, yeah,” I said glumly. “I was there. I was an even bigger cad.”
“Which is why we’d be great together. We might as well make lemonade, right?”
“Huh?”
“Out of our lemons,” he explained. “Which is us. We’re the lemons.”
“Yeah, I got the reference. I just . . . ” I didn’t finish my sentence. If I had, it would have gone something like, “I just didn’t know you saw yourself that way. As a lemon.”
He snapped out of it. “So what do you say, Pink? Trixie’s having a rocking New Year’s Eve party. Want to go?”
I shook my head. “No.”
He put his hand on my thigh. “I know you’re having a rough time. Let me comfort you.”
I pushed him off. “Charlie, I’m in love with Jeb.”
“That didn’t stop you before. Anyway, Jeb dumped you.”
I was silent, because everything he said was true. Except, I wasn’t that girl anymore. I refused to be.
“Charlie . . . I can’t go out with you if I’m in love with someone else,” I finally said. “Even if he no longer wants me.”
“Whoa,” he said, drawing his hand to his heart. “Now that’s rejection.” He laughed, and just like that, he was back to being obnoxious Charlie. “What about Tegan? She’s hot. Think she’d go to Trixie’s party with me?”
“Give me back the phone book,” I demanded.
He let go of it, and I pulled it into my lap. I opened it back up, scanned the entries and—aha!
“Billingsley, Constance,” I read out loud. “108 Teal Eye Court. Do you know where Teal Eye Court is?”
“No clue,” he said. “But never fear, Lola is here.”
“Do guys always name their cars?”
He punched commands into his GPS system. “Quickest way, or most use of highways?”
“Quickest.”
He hit SELECT, and a sexy female voice said, “Please proceed to the highlighted route.”
“Ahhh,” I said. “Hello, Lola.”
“She’s my girl,” Charlie said. He shifted the Hummer into gear and bumped over the ridges of snow, slowing when he reached the parking lot’s exit. At Lola’s prompting, he took a right, drove half a block, and took another right into the narrow alley behind the stores.
“Prepare for a left turn in point one miles,” Lola purred. “Turn left now.”
Charlie wrenched the wheel to the left, taking the Hummer down a dinky, unplowed cul-de-sac.
There was a bing, and Lola said, “You have reached your destination.”
Charlie stopped the Hummer. He turned to me and lifted his eyebrows. “This is where you needed a ride to?”
I was as baffled as he was. I craned my neck to read the street sign at the corner of the cul-de-sac, and sure enough, it said Teal Eye Court. A hundred feet away was the back of the Starbucks. The entire ride had taken thirty seconds, tops.
A laugh rolled out of Charlie.
“Shut up,” I said, willing myself to stop blushing. “You didn’t know where it was either, or you wouldn’t have had to use Lola.”
“Don’t you tell me you’re not zesty,” Charlie said. “You are zesty with a capital Z.”
I opened the door of the Hummer and hopped out, sinking deep into several feet of snow.
“Want me to wait for you?” he called.
“I think I can make it back on my own.”
“You sure? It’s a long way back.”
I shut the door and started walking.
He rolled down the passenger’s-side window. “See you at Starbucks—I’ll be waiting for my chai!”
Chapter Fifteen
I waded across the snowy alley to the apartment complex at 108 Teal Court, praying that Constance Billingsley didn’t have a little kid, because I didn’t know if I could take a baby pig from a little kid.
I also prayed she wasn’t blind, or paralyzed, or a dwarf like that lady I saw on the Discovery Channel who was less than three feet tall. I could not take a teeny-tiny pig from a teeny-tiny woman, no way.
Someone had shoveled the walkway leading to the individual apartments, and I climbed over the ridge of packed snow and hopped down to the much less treacherous pavement. One-oh-four, one-oh-six . . . one-oh-eight.
I set my shoulders and rang the bell.
“Why, hello, Addie!” exclaimed the gray-braided woman who opened the door. “What a treat!”
“Mayzie?” I said, befuddled. I glanced at the credit-card receipt. “I’m . . . uh . . . looking for Constance Billingsley?”
“Constance May Billingsley, that’s me,” she said.
My brain struggled to catch up. “But . . . ”
“Now, think about it,” she said. “Would you go by ‘Con-stance’ if you had a choice?”
“Uh . . . ”
She laughed. “I didn’t think so. Now, come inside, I have something to show you. Come, come, come!”
She led me into the kitchen, where on a blue quilt folded several times over sat the most adorable piglet I’d ever seen. He was pink and black and looked soft to the touch. His snout was a funny, squished thing, and his eyes were curious and alert. The curl of his tail said sproing even without being stretched and released, and yes, he was just the right size to nestle snugly into a teacup.
He oinked, and my insides went buttery.
“Gabriel,” I said. I knelt by the edge of the quilt, and Gabriel stood and trotted over. He nosed my hand, and he was so sweet, I didn’t care that I was being slimed with pig snot. Anyway, it wasn’t snot. Gabriel had a damp snout, that was all. No biggie.
“What did you call him?” Mayzie said. “Gabriel?”
I looked up to see her smiling quizzically.
“Gabriel,” she said, trying it out. She scooped Gabriel up. “Like the Angel Gabriel!”
“Huh?”
She put on an I’ll-be-quoting-now face. “‘The time has come,’ the Walrus said, ‘to talk of many things: Of shoes—and ships—and sealing-wax—of cabbages—and kings. And why the sea is boiling hot—and whether pigs have wings.’”
“Okay, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said.
“‘And whether pigs have wings,’” Mayzie repeated. “An angel pig, you see? The Angel Gabriel!”
“I don’t think my friend was being that deep,” I said. “And please don’t start talking about angels again. Please?”
“But why not, when the universe has such fun revealing them to us?” She looked at me with pride. “You did it, Addie. I knew you would!”
I put my hands on my thighs and pushed myself up. “What did I do?”
“You passed the test!”
“What test?”
“And so did I,” she went on exuberantly. “At least, I think I did. We’ll find out soon enough, I suppose.”
Something tightened under my ribs. “Mayzie, did you go to Pet World and buy Gabriel on purpose?”
“Well, I didn’t buy him on accident,” she said.
“You know what I mean. You read my note, my pig note. Did you buy Gabriel just to mess with me?” I felt my lower lip tremble.
Her eyes widened. “Sweetie, no!”
“I went to Pet World, and Gabriel wasn’t there . . . and do you know how frantic I’ve been?” I fought back tears. “And I had to deal with Nathan, who hates me.” I sniffled. “Only it’s possible he doesn’t hate me anymore.”
“Of course he doesn’t,” Mayzie said. “How could anyone hate you?”
“And then I had to deal with Charlie, which, believe me, you don’t want to hear about.” I ran the back of my hand under my nose. “Although weirdly enough, I handled it pretty well.”
“Go on,” Mayzie said encouragingly.
“I think he’s even more messed up than I am.”
Mayzie looked intrigued. “Maybe he’ll be my next case.”
With those words, my next case, I remembered that Mayzie wasn’t my friend anymore, if she ever had been. She was just a kook who had my friend’s pig.
“Are you going to give Gabriel back?” I said, keeping my voice as level as I could.
“Why, yes. I was never going to keep him.” She lifted Gabriel so that she and he were nose to snout. “Although I will miss you, Mr. Gabriel. It was nice having company in this lonely apartment, even for just a while.” She nestled him back into the nook of her elbow and kissed the top of his head.
I curled my toes inside my boots. “Are you going to give him back today?”
“Oh, dear. I’ve upset you, haven’t I?”
“Whatever, just let me have Gabriel.”
“And here I thought you’d be happy to have an angel looking out for you. Isn’t that what you wanted?”
“Enough with the angel bit,” I said. “I’m not kidding. If the universe gave me you as my angel, then I deserve a refund.”
Mayzie chuckled. She chuckled, and I wanted to throttle her.
“Adeline, you make things so much harder for yourself than you have to,” she said. “Silly girl, it’s not what the universe gives us that matters. It’s what we give the universe.”
I opened my mouth to tell her how stupid and hokey and woo-woo that was—but then I didn’t, because something shifted inside me. Big shift, like an avalanche, and I could no longer resist it. The feeling inside of me was so big, and I was so small. . . .
So I let go. I gave myself over to it and let go . . . and it felt marvelous. So marvelous that I couldn’t understand why I’d resisted at all. So marvelous, in fact, that I thought, Holy cow, has this been here all this time? A state of being that isn’t tight and tangled and full of me me me? Because damn it felt good. And damn it felt pure. And maybe I could be full of light, like Nathan said, and maybe I could just . . . let that light be, and let it shine, and say screw it to being pinchy-squinchy-life-sucks-I suck-guess-I’ll-go-eat-worms. Was that possible in this existence of mine? Could I, Adeline Lindsey . . . could I evolve?
Mayzie escorted me to the door. “I think it’s time for you to get going,” she said.
“Uh, okay,” I said. But I dragged my feet, because I no longer felt bitter toward her—and, in fact, I felt bad that I was about to be leaving her all alone. I wanted her to feel as expansive inside as I did, and I worried that might be hard in her single-person, soon-to-be-pigless apartment.
“Hey!” I said. “Can I, um, come visit you sometimes? I promise I won’t be boring.”
“I don’t think you could possibly be boring, even if you tried,” Mayzie said. “And I would absolutely love it if you came to see me sometimes.” To Gabriel, she said, “See what a good heart she has?”
