Free The Diary by Eileen Goudge Page A

she couldn’t quite make it out. At first she thought it was Bob coming to fetch her after all. Then she saw that it wasn’t her boyfriend’s dark-blue Buick but a battered green-and-tan Studebaker station wagon.
    A head was thrust out the window, and a familiar male voice called, “Hey, lady. Need a lift?”
    Elizabeth, her pulse quickening, squinted to get a better look. It was him, all right. That distinctive face, with its clean planes and lines. Those blue eyes, which ought to have been declared illegal, given their effect on her. That breezy air of recklessness, as if he lived so close to the edge that he had little to lose. What was AJ doing in this neighborhood? she wondered. Had he been on his way to see her? The thought caused her heart to lurch in her chest, partly in delight at the prospect and partly in panic at what her mother’s reaction would have been had he come knocking at the door when they were home.
    In her senseless joy at seeing him, she blurted, “Well, for heaven’s sake, where have you been all this time?”
    He broke into a grin, clearly pleased to learn that his absence hadn’t gone unnoticed. “Here and there,” he replied with maddening vagueness. “I just came from the county fair up Kingston way. Funny I should run into you. I was on my way to your place to drop this off.” His head disappeared back into the car. He resurfaced a moment later, clutching a rolled-up sheet of drawing paper fastened with a rubber band. He held it out to her. “I wanted you to have it.”
    She didn’t have to look at it to know what it was: the caricature he’d done of her at the fair. “You certainly took your time,” she chided, annoyed at him for no reason she could think of.
    â€œI only just got back into town. Anyway, I didn’t realize you were keeping track.” He sat there, the engine idling and his arm hooked over the open window, grinning up at her in that infuriating way, as if he knew something she didn’t.
    â€œWho said I was keeping track?” She felt suddenly, inexplicably on the verge of tears. “It’s just that when I didn’t hear from you …” She let the rest of the sentence trail off, fearing she’d already said too much.
    â€œGet in.” It wasn’t a request.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œI said get in,” he repeated in the same amiable but firm tone.
    Elizabeth obeyed. Not because of her blistered heels or even because she feared a nosy neighbor would spy her chatting with a known miscreant. She obeyed because she couldn’t not get into the car. It was as simple as that.
    The interior of the station wagon smelled like AJ himself: a combination of worn leather, crisp drawing paper, and freshly washed clothing left in the sun to dry. He might have been living out of his car, but it was clean and uncluttered. Not painstakingly so—the knapsack and rolled-up sleeping bag stashed in back were testament to his itinerant lifestyle—but enough to give the impression of someone who took care of his things, not at all the sort to set fire to other people’s cars.
    â€œI would’ve dropped you a line, but I didn’t know that you’d want to hear from me,” he explained in a matter-of-fact tone. He dropped the Studebaker into gear, and moments later they were cruising along Grand Street, Hank Williams crooning softly on the radio about a cold, cold heart. “You look nice, by the way.” He darted her a sidelong glance. “You on your way to a party?”
    â€œOn my way home from one, actually.”
    â€œIsn’t it a little early to be leaving?” he remarked, glancing at the clock on the dash, which showed the time to be just a little past nine.
    â€œIt’s a long story,” she said with a sigh.
    AJ didn’t press for details, but she had the sense that it wouldn’t come as a surprise were she to tell him that the