Free Love Over Matter by Maggie Bloom Page A

heard.
    “ No kidding.”
    We go quiet for a while, the air
rhythmic with the sounds of clubs whomping balls. “I kind of felt
sorry for him,” Ian eventually says.
    I’m insulted on George’s behalf.
“Sorry for him? What for?”
    He pulls a ball from his bucket,
tosses it from hand to hand. “You know he was adopted,
right?”
    I have the birth certificate to prove
it. “Um, yeah.”
    “ Well, he was trying to
find his parents. He had a trip planned and everything.”
    This might be a lie, though I’m not
sure what Ian would have to gain by fibbing. With a doubtful
squint, I say, “I never heard anything about a trip.”
    “ He didn’t tell you
everything.”
    I’m suddenly tongue-tied. “Oh.” I wait
a whole minute before asking, “Where was he going?”
    The sun has peaked over my shoulder,
or so says the prickly heat on the back of my neck. Ian shields his
eyes, stares at my chin while he speaks. “The Big Apple. New York,
New York.”
    Queens, I think, 66th
Drive. “Did he have a lead or something?
Last I knew, he’d hit a brick wall. Never really talked about it
after that.”
    Ian hops to his feet, sloppily bangs a
ball onto the green. “I don’t think so,” he admits. “It was a
last-ditch effort. He’d given up on the internet.”
    I wonder if George had planned to
invite me along. “We should do it,” I declare, “in his
honor.”
    His eyes cross. “Like a road trip, you
mean?”
    “ Yeah, why not? I feel
like”—I get on my feet, brush my shorts clean—“like we owe it to
him or something. We could solve the mystery and—I don’t know—he’d
be able to rest in peace.”
    “ It’d have to be soon. I’ve
gotta be in Castleton in eighteen days.”
    He’s in countdown mode? I guess I
can’t blame him, since he’s still bunking at New Beginnings. “Name
the time and place,” I say, feeling bold.
    “ How about right
now?”

chapter 8
    I can’t believe we’re
doing this, I think as I scrawl a hasty
message to my parents, claiming an out-of-town emergency on Ian’s
part that demands my prompt and undivided attention. I promise to
call by the end of the day with the details, a move that at least
buys me six or seven hours of alibi-crafting time. Plus, if my
parents follow their usual routine, they won’t mosey home from
Massachusetts until 8 or 9 p.m. anyway.
    “ You almost ready?” Ian
asks, popping his head into the kitchen.
    I flash a reassuring smile. “Two
secs,” I say, my fingers forming an automatic peace
sign.
    He spots my purple duffel bag stashed
under the table. “Lemme grab that.”
    If he wants to play the hero, who am I
to argue? I muscle a chair out of the way and hand the bag over.
“Should I grab some snacks?” I ask.
    He shrugs, tosses the duffel over his
shoulder. “Yeah, if you want to.”
    “ How far is it to New
York?”
    “ At least two hundred
miles. Maybe two fifty.”
    Doesn’t sound so bad. “And that’ll
take, like, what?” I try some mental math. “Four hours?”
    “ Maybe at midnight,” he
answers with a laugh. “I’d add about two hours for
traffic.”
    I rummage through the cupboard by the
refrigerator. “You know, I don’t have a license,” I say, both to
excuse my navigational ignorance and to remind him that, should he
fall ill on this journey, I am unequipped to man the controls. I
wave a fistful of Mom’s breakfast staples through the air. “Granola
bars okay?”
    “ Fiber
bars? ”
    “ What? They’re good,” I
argue. “And they’re chocolate.” I shove the bars into the pockets
of George’s hoodie, which I plan to don throughout this trip in his
honor. Then I rescue some bottled water from the fridge. “What
else?” I say, felling like I’m missing something.
    Ian scans the kitchen, shifts back and
forth on his feet. “Tolls,” he says. “Got any change? Or I can stop
at an ATM . . .”
    There’s an old canning jar full of
coins resting on the pass-thru between the kitchen and the living
room.