“What?” Liv demanded.
“What is with you?” he asked.
Liv ground her teeth and resumed walking. The car crept alongside her.
“That’s creepy, you know,” she said. “That’s stalking.”
“Get in. I’ll drive you.”
“Even creepier.”
“I’m the one who should be worried! You’re acting like you’re going to knife someone!”
“I am.” She stopped, and the car stopped, too, chuckling exhaust. She breathed it in on purpose, craving the toxic taste. It was too much and she coughed, leaning over with the force of it, and when she rose, wiping her mouth, she was weaker. Her muscles still ached from the skinner interrogation, and she was tired of pretending they didn’t.
“You don’t even know where I’m going,” she mumbled.
“To the knife grinder, obviously. Get in—you can tell me.”
He pushed open the passenger door. She gave him a lengthy warning glare, but he was the least threatening boy she’d ever met, and besides, what did it matter? She almost wished he did try something, so she could bite off his finger.
“The vet clinic. By the Best Western. My mom works there. She’ll drive me home.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
He got the car moving again. The interior smelled like its own foreign land, as strangers’ cars always did, and though it rated only a notch below her own clunker, as well as Doug’s, it was, like Bruno, exceedingly clean. Not so much as a gum wrapper obscured an inch of the sun-roasted upholstery. Liv futzed irritably with the air-conditioning until she sensed Bruno beginning to enjoy her futile effort. She turned her face to the wind. Inside a car was, at least, out of the sun.
“Fuck,” she sighed.
“You’re a barrel of monkeys today.”
“I didn’t ask for this ride.”
“Will you take ten chill pills?”
Liv took a deep breath. She’d been so heated minutes ago she’d been lucky she hadn’t punched a fist through the station wagon window. Here Bruno was doing her a favor, and she was being a bitch about it.
“What’s a knife grinder, anyway?” she asked.
“It’s an old-fashioned job where you sharpen knives. There’s a song in Oliver! that mentions it.”
“So you got your wish. You’re in the play.”
“You really have it out for Baldwin, don’t you?”
“Aren’t you skipping out on practice?”
“It’s called rehearsal, Fleming. And no, they were done with my scenes.”
“Then why were you still there?”
“I don’t know. Just to hang out?”
“Seriously? You have nothing better to do?”
“What are you doing that’s so important?”
The car slunk into a shadow the exact shape of the Armory.
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Bruno said, “but were you always so mean?”
“No.” There: honesty. It felt good. “I guess I made myself this way.”
“And are you happy?”
She gazed out of the window. Even their speed of travel couldn’t make Bloughton, a town that moved at a creep, go any faster. Bruno’s question was so simple, yet was one she’d never been asked. There had to be a way to be strong without being horrible. Be the tallest you can, Major Dawkins had urged, and maybe sitting inside this car, where no one could gauge her true height, was the best place to try.
“I don’t want to make things weird,” Bruno said. “I’ll just drive.”
“It’s not weird. It shouldn’t be.”
“I mean, I get why the play would make you sad. I just don’t get why it makes you mad. That’s not a productive emotion. If you were sad about it, then, you know, you could kind of work through it, and then it’d be over. You know how it is after you cry. You feel better.”
“So be a girl, you’re saying. Cry it out.”
“Man, you’re unbelievable.”
“Sorry. Sorry.”
She was. Every conversation she’d had with Bruno had been a revelation of disarming candor. Another conversation like it was suddenly all Liv wanted in the world.
“What’s Oliver! about?” she asked. “I mean, I saw my dad’s version, but it was a little confusing.”
“The story itself? It’s idiotic. I only like it for the songs. I’ve been reading the book to see if it’s any better.”
“The book? The Charles Dickens book?” She laughed, and the laugh, coming as it did so abruptly, made her smile. “That’s like grade grubbing in a class where you don’t even get grades.”
“It’s about this old guy Fagin, who lures all these orphans to his house to become his army of pickpockets. Now that’s creepy. Makes a guy like me picking you up on the road pretty harmless, huh?”
“And Oliver’s one of these kids.”
“Right. He gets caught pickpocketing, but it ends up helping him find his parents.”
“And who are you playing?”
“I’m the Artful Dodger. He’s like the old man’s assistant.”
“So you’re a tall, Mexican Artful Dodger. What would Dickens think?”
“Dickens calls Fagin ‘the Jew’ for like half the book. He would’ve lost his shit if he ever saw a Mexican Dodger.”
“Maybe I should audition. Be an understudy in case someone keels over. Really blow Baldwin’s mind.”
“I wouldn’t bother. It’s a crap play for girls. There’s not a single female main character except Nancy.”
“Who’s Nancy?”
“She’s a hooker in love with an abusive maniac.”
“What happens to her?”
“He murders her.”
“It’s so nice the school keeps supporting this inspirational drama.”
Bruno laughed. “Well, they always cast a girl as Oliver. Guys can’t hit those high notes.”
Liv’s stomach seesawed as Bruno turned into the vet clinic lot. She hadn’t realized they were already there. She’d been distracted, honestly amused, and only realized the extent of her smile when she felt it retract into the afternoon’s established scowl.
She didn’t move for a moment too long.
“What’s wrong?” Bruno asked.
“Nothing. Thanks for the ride.”
She bucked from the seat back, but there was a hand on her upper arm. Her instinct was to recoil, rip it away, and swing at it with Doug’s table-leg baton. Instead she looked at its owner. Bruno’s bright white teeth were hidden. The honest brown eyes, though, did not change.
“I just want you to know that everyone knows how you feel,” he said. “I mean, as much as we can. We’ve talked about it. Everyone’s sympathetic. If there’s anything we can do to make you feel better, just tell me. We’re not bad people. We’re theater geeks.”
Anger had so overwhelmed Liv lately that a trickle of gratefulness was enough to drown her. She gripped the door handle in hopes of keeping her head above it.
“I’m sorry I yelled at you guys. Everything is confusing right now.” Liv gestured at the clinic. “My mom’s got two jobs and can’t pay the bills, and I’m not helping at all. At all. I don’t know what I’m doing. You don’t understand.”