Dad says, "Will you put Ethan in the car seat while I call your mom?"

Ethan's a happy boy, smiling and playing with his toys. He's started crawling, and his vocabulary's growing every day. He even has a name for me that sounds like "seesee," for Sissy.

Dad gets in the driver's seat and we both strap into our seat belts. He still hasn't told me where we're going. I suspect it's someplace really exciting, like OfficeMax or Safeway.

I must be lost in thought because I barely notice when the car pulls into a lot and stops.

"Where are we?" I ask.

Dad c.o.c.ks his head. "You really do need gla.s.ses."

The enormous sign smacks me in the face: LAKEWOOD FORDLAND.

Dad gets out and detaches Ethan's carrier from the car seat. He starts toward the entrance, and then turns and sees that I'm still sitting in the car. "Are you coming?"

I guess I'm coming.

I follow Dad into the showroom, where he's immediately ambushed by a salesman. "Good morning. What can we do for you today?" the salesman asks.

Dad says, "We're here to buy a car."

He didn't tell me they were buying a new car.

Dad adds, "For my daughter."

What?

The salesman smiles at me. "What's the occasion?"

h.e.l.l if I know.

"She's earned it," Dad says.

I have?

"Do you a particular model in mind? I'm Bob, by the way." He extends his hand to shake ours.

Dad hands Ethan's carrier to me and pulls out a fistful of papers. "I've done some research," he says, "and it looks like the Ford Focus is a good choice." He goes on about safety rating and price and value and blah, blah. "It'll have to be used. If that's okay with you, Alix."

Okay? I'd take a Go Kart at this point.

The front door opens and Mom rushes in. Another salesperson attacks her, but she says, "I'm with them." She catches up to us and asks, "Did I miss it?"

Dad glances over at me. "No. I think she's still exhibiting signs of shock and awe."

Mom smiles and takes the baby from me. As we trail Bob out into the lot, Dad babbles on about all the cars he found online that seem suitable, and keeps asking me if I'm good with that, and all I can do is nod my head yes yes yes.

The first car we stop at is a red Ford Focus hatchback. Bob pitches the slew of features and the pristine condition, but all I can see is the color.

"Alix?" Dad says. "What do you think?"

"Not red."

"Okay." He sorts through his papers and moves all the red cars to the back.

Bob shows us this black hatchback, which he calls Tuxedo Black. Again with all the features. It looks pretty cool. "Do you like it?" he asks me.

"I guess."

"Want to take it out for a spin?"

As in, drive it? I look to Mom, and then Dad. Everyone's waiting for my answer. "Sure."

"Let me go get the keys," Bob says.

It looks brand-new, but Dad tells me it's two years old. He reads the online report and informs us it only has a little over ten thousand miles. Bob comes back with the key and opens the driver's side for me.

"You do have your license, right?" Mom asks. To Dad she says, "Did you make sure she brought her license?"

"Oops."

"I have it," I say. I don't go anywhere without it, just in case my parents decide to buy me a car. Right?

Bob slides in on the pa.s.senger side and I sit there waiting for Mom and Dad to climb in the back. When I realize they're not going to, I tune in to all the features and functions Bob is rattling off. He says, "It's a stick. Do you know how to drive a stick?"

"Both of my parents' cars are manuals." When I go to put it into reverse, though, I grind the gear. I wince and he says, "You always have to get used to different cars."

That makes me feel better. He instructs me to head toward Sixth Avenue so I can see how it feels on the highway. My whole body is shaking and I'm gripping the steering wheel so hard my knuckles are white. I manage to merge into traffic without killing anyone and finally take a breath. Someone honks at me and zips around my left side to pa.s.s. "You might want to speed up just a little," Bob says, and smiles.

My eyes dart up and down, up and down, and I finally find the speedometer. I'm going forty in a sixty-five-miles-per-hour zone. When we get to Wadsworth, Bob says, "You can exit here if you want."

I want. He directs me back to the dealers.h.i.+p on side streets to show me how it handles in the city. When we pull into the dealers.h.i.+p, Mom and Dad are sitting outside on a bench with Ethan between them in his carrier. They get up and walk toward us as I pull into a parking s.p.a.ce.

"Well?" Dad says.

"I'll take it."

Dad laughs.

"What?"

"I think you should drive more than one before you decide."

That only increases the odds I'll add to the toll of teenage accidents and/or road rage incidents. Numbly, I follow Bob as he shows me a white car (boring), and then a silver one. My eyes stray to the one next to the silver car. "What about that one?" I ask.

It's metallic blue and not a hatchback. Sleek, and more sporty. Dad riffles through his papers and says, "I don't have any research on it."

"It just came in yesterday," Bob informs us. "Three years old, but it only has eight thousand miles."

"Wow," Dad says. He asks all kinds of questions about the safety inspection and Blue Book value, while I run my hand along the hood and look inside. It has a white leather interior. Not very practical, Mom would say, but since this is my car, practical doesn't play into the decision.

"Can I take it out?" I say before Bob even asks.

He looks at Dad and Dad shrugs. "She's the customer."

Oh my G.o.d. Dad was right about driving more than one. This one is so much better. It feels solid and steady in my hands, like it was meant to be. I don't even want to go back to the dealers.h.i.+p; I want to just keep driving and never look back.

Bob jolts me out of my reverie by asking, "Are we headed to Vegas? Because I should probably call my wife."

He winks at me, not in a perverted kind of way, but a jokester-guy way.

When we get back, I tell Mom and Dad, "This is definitely the one."

"If you're sure," Dad says.

"I'm positive."

Dad says to Bob, "Write 'er up."

As we're walking into the showroom, I ask, "Is this going on my Visa, which I'll never be able to pay back in a million years?"

Mom looks at Dad and they both crack up. Mom links her arm in mine. "This one's on us."

Chapter 24.

As soon as all the paperwork is done, I ask Mom and Dad if I can take a drive. Dad replies, "I don't know how else we're going to get the car home, unless they're handing out driver's licenses to nine-month-old babies now." He adds in a mutter, "Wouldn't surprise me."

I know the first place I'm going. Ten minutes later, when I pull to the curb, she's just getting out of her car. She's wearing her uniform.

We both stand for a minute and look at each other. I know she hates me, and there's no excuse for my behavior, and even if there was, she might not accept my apology. But I have to try.

"Hi." I approach her.

At least she doesn't run away.

"How are you?" I ask.

"Good," she says. "And you?" Kind of icy.

The conversation stalls. "I got a new car," I say. "Well, it's used."

She peers around me. "Nice."

"That not what I came to say. I wanted to tell you I'm sorry. I'm sorry about everything that went down. I cherish your friends.h.i.+p, and I'd never do anything to hurt you, and I know I did and if there's any way I can make it up to you, I want to because I miss you and need you in my life." I'm choking and tears are filling my eyes.

Betheny crosses the lawn and puts her arms around me. "I'm sorry, too. For months I've tried to figure out ways to say how sorry I was about Swanee, but you didn't seem to really want to talk about it."

"I know."

"It must've been incredibly hard for you."

She doesn't know the half of it. I burst into full-blown tears, and she lets me cry it out on her shoulder. "So, are we okay again?" she asks.

"We are so okay."

She hugs me and I hug her back. When she lets me go, she shrieks at the top of her lungs, "You got a car!"

We leap into the air together and high-five.

She puts her hands onto her hips and goes, "Are you even going to offer me a ride?"

"If you have a death wish, get in."

The rain starts as a drizzle on Thursday, and by Friday it's a monsoon. But guess what? I have a car to drive home from school! As I'm changing from my school clothes into sweats, listening to the rain spatter against my windows, I remember the party Swanee took me to the first weekend after our ski trip. There was a really great DJ and I could've danced the whole time. But Swanee wanted to get stoned, so that's what we did.

In my memory, her face morphs into Liana's and I think, We never even got to dance. She'd probably dance circles around me, and we'd lose ourselves in the music and in each other.

I feel a catch in my throat and swallow it down. Forget feeling sorry for myself. That isn't even one of the five stages of grief.

Downstairs, Mom's stirring a vat of chili.

"Smells yummy," I tell her, snaking my arms around her waist.

"If you want to help, you can slice the bread and b.u.t.ter it," she says.

As soon as I saw off the heel of the bread, the doorbell rings. Mom sets down her spoon and says, "I'll get it."

I hear the door open, and then silence. Mom says, "You're sopping wet. Come in. It's for you, Alix," she calls.

Joss always picks the worst times, I think.

I round the corner and stop dead.

Liana's in the foyer, drenched from head to toe.

Nothing-not a word-pa.s.ses between us.

"Where's your car?" Mom glances over Liana's shoulder.

"It died," Liana says. To me, she adds, "I've been driving around the block for hours, and it ran out of gas."