Free Stay by Deb Caletti Page B

Christian was smart and well-read and Dad
    liked that. There was something, though, that I knew could hap-
    pen, which was that Dad could see things, he was an observer,
    and maybe I just didn’t want him seeing and observing any-
    thing that might ruin this. I needed him to like Christian and
    keep his mouth shut and leave it at that.
    Finally, on Friday night, Christian came over to pick me up to
    go to a movie. I introduced him to Dad and they stood in the hall
    by the front door as if no one wanted to venture further in. There
    was this strained kind of chitchat about the number of daylight
    hours Copenhagen experienced in the winter or some such thing,
    and I kept seeing each of them through the others’ eyes, and I got
    us out of there fast.
    It was so good to see him. God. I felt so happy that we were
    finally at Friday. The word Friday —streamers could have hung
    from it, balloons. It was such a great word.
    “I love watching you drive,” I said.
    “I love seeing you in the seat beside me,” he said.
    It felt very Mr. and Mrs., being in his car with him driving,
    but I also felt a little nervous. We had talked about anything and
    * 71 *
    Deb Caletti
    everything for hours and hours, but it was still all new; being in
    his car was new, that careful new that made you worry you had
    mascara tracks or would say something stupid, the exactly stupid-
    est thing to make him know he didn’t want to be there with you
    after all. You did that when you started to care a lot—you worried
    he was watching your every move to make sure he really wanted
    you. You could forget that maybe you were supposed to being
    doing that too. You forgot it wasn’t just you being watched and
    judged and trying to pass some test.
    I looked around his car for pieces of him, ways to know him
    better, but it was very clean—no wrappers or dust or books or
    empty bottles. Dylan Ricks had had a soccer ball hanging from
    his rearview mirror and sports equipment piled in the back,
    water bottles and empty PowerBar wrappers, dirt from cleats and
    muddy games on the carpets. Athlete leftovers everywhere. I pic-
    tured Christian vacuuming the rugs for me, catching the crumbs
    between the seats, making sure everything shined. Actually, he
    always kept his car like that, but I didn’t know that then. He liked
    things clean.12* I watched his finger adjust the radio dial. His
    hands were clean, too. So neat, nails trimmed. I liked that, I told
    myself. I wasn’t sure I really did, but I told myself I did. It was dif-
    ferent from Dylan or from any other guys I knew, even my father,
    with his spilled spaghetti on his shirts, or the back of his car, so
    messy with books and empty coffee cups.
    12 Even if, weirdly, he could never seem to throw anything away. In his room he kept
    piles of papers—old tests, schoolwork, cards, photos—and stacks of old clothes folded
    in his closet. Obviously, he couldn’t part with things easily. Maybe this should have
    been a warning sign.
    * 72 *
    Stay
    “You’ll like this song,” Christian said. “I hear it and I think
    of you.”
    “The Way She Moves”, by Slow Change. I’d never really liked
    them—Hunter Eden seemed like a dick, but that didn’t matter
    now. I couldn’t wait to go home and really listen to the lyrics. “I
    hear the neighbor’s TV and I think of you,” I said.
    He didn’t quite know what I meant. He looked at me side-
    ways. “I mean, anything will do it,” I said.
    “Right,” he said. “Exactly.”
    He took my hand. His skin on mine—it sent a zip line of
    energy through me. A physical hum. I rubbed the underside of
    his arm with my fingertips until we hit a stoplight and he had to
    shift gears. I squeezed his forearm—I just kept wanting to touch
    him. He smelled so good, even from there, that I kept sniffing the
    air like a dog in the back of a pickup.
    We stood in the ticket line. He put his arms around me from
    behind and I leaned in tight. “We’re stuck,” I