Free Before You Go by James Preller Page B

“I mean, it totally sucked, and I guess it still does sometimes, but you kind of get used to it.” He looked away, uncomfortable and embarrassed, not used to it at all. He didn’t want to talk about it, had already said too much.
    “How did she—?”
    Jude turned to her, eyes dull and brown. “I can’t talk about it, Beck,” he apologized. “Not now.”
    Becka nodded and didn’t try to make it better. She just sat with him, silent, together. He loved that Becka didn’t try to smooth it over with idle nothings, all the empty words like Band-Aids he’d heard over the years, how sad it was and how it must have been so hard for him and how terribly unfair everything was. People like his neighbor Mrs. Buchman, who prodded and poked and made sympathetic noises when all he ever wanted was to be left alone.
    Jude was grateful that Becka didn’t probe for facts.
    “Hey, you know what?” Becka said. “I heard we’re getting a new closing manager—that guy Roberto told us about.”
    “Kenny ‘Half-Baked’ Mays, the man, the myth, the legend,” Jude said, grateful for the change of subject. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”
    “Roberto says he’s the coolest boss ever.”
    “Yeah, like Ernie from Sesame Street,” Jude said.
    “Ernie? What?” Becka asked, her eyes like bright beams, smiling.
    “I guess this guy, Kenny Mays, is supposedly the biggest partier on the planet. They call him Half-Baked.”
    Becka laughed, “Half-Baked Mays—like the potato chips. Who comes up with this stuff? I don’t know, it doesn’t sound right. How does the world’s biggest partier become a manager?”
    Jude shrugged—no idea.
    Becka seemed to chew on that for a while, ever the queen of speculation. Her face immediately brightened. “I just remembered. Did you see that notice about the softball game on the bulletin board? It’s coming up.”
    Jude raised both hands. “Don’t tell me, you’re like a ninja when it comes to softball.”
    Becka blew on her fingernails, brushed them on her shirt. “Seriously? I’ve got mad skills. Are you going to come? It’ll be fun. We totally need you—we can’t lose to Field Six.”
    “No, that would be humiliating,” Jude commented. “If you can give me a ride home, I’ll play.”
    “Great!” Becka answered. And her smile was so genuine, her happiness so pure, it was all Jude could do to keep himself from leaning in and kissing her on the lips. He wanted to, but something stopped him. Not yet, not here, but they were close. On some unspoken level, Becka hadn’t given him permission yet.
    Uncertainty crept into Jude’s thoughts.
    Maybe she never would . Maybe they were falling head over heels into a mineshaft of disappointment called Let’s Just Be Friends.
    Ugh, anything but the F-word.

 
    THIRTEEN
    The cards came like clockwork around the date of Lily’s birthday, June 28, though fewer arrived as the years passed. Jude’s mother displayed the condolences and prayer cards on the refrigerator, then mercifully packed them away shortly after. Jude hated those cards, hated the way everyone knew about his “family tragedy”—poor Jude, that poor family. As if anyone knew how he felt, as if they had a damn clue.
    His neighbor, Mrs. Buchman, was the worst, with that bittersweet smile, the way she always asked, “How are you, Jude? Everything okay?” She watched him with those eyes of hers, a gaze that looked upon him with such tenderness and pity that it burned his skin and made Jude turn away.
    Lily had been playmates with the Buchman girls, forever bouncing on their trampoline, doing what little girls do. Drawing pictures, practicing cartwheels, chasing after cats. Lily used to say that Zoe Buchman was her best friend in the whole big world. Jude still saw Zoe out on the block. Ten years old now and skinny as a pole. They never talked, never said a word, just warily watched each other out of the corner of their eyes, thinking whatever it was they thought. Jude