Page 4 of The Getaway List
“I’m flying as close to the sun as I can today. Both.”
“Atta girl,” says my mom as the car sputters reluctantly into drive.
By the time we’re settled in the parking lot and taking our concoctions to the McFace, I’ve found the bus schedule and done a mental checklist of things I need to pack and have “New York, New York” stuck in my head despite not being entirely certain of any of the words aside from those two.
I clear my throat. “So I was thinking—it’s Friday.”
“Astutely observed,” says my mom, fishing out an Oreo chunk.
I hike my knees farther up on the dash. “And I’m not starting at the coffee shop until Monday. I might take the bus up this afternoon to finally see Tom in New York.”
My mom blinks like a bug just tried to fly into her eye. “Wait, what?”
I laugh. “Seriously. You realize it’s been almost three years since I’ve seen him?” I stare down at my phone. “And Tom seems kind of—well, I don’t know.”
I really don’t, and I haven’t for a while. I know about the broader things in his life, like that he’s been traveling with his mom, and finally settled on a psychology major out of the myriad of topics he has nerdy expertise in. I know how he spends some of his time, like watching the Tides of Time television adaptation or continuing to do bike deliveries for the “Dear, Love” Dispatch app people can use to send anonymous gifts to everyone from friends to crushes to family all over the city. The specifics were things I always meant to find out when we were together.
My mom’s hands tighten around the steering wheel. “I was hoping we could hang out this weekend, you and me. Celebrate a bit. It’s been ages since we’ve had a whole day together.”
The McFlurry sours in my mouth, and not because of the leftover gummy worms I jammed into it. My mom’s right. But that feels like more her fault than mine—in an effort to keep me out of “trouble,” she signed me up for pretty much every extracurricular under the sun. I’m talking everything from track to Science Olympiad to salsa to Model UN, all of which had one thing in common, which is that I have no particular talent for any of them.
My mom thinks I didn’t get into any colleges because of the two-day suspension on my record. I’m pretty sure it’s because I don’t have any discernable hobbies or personality traits—since she kept signing me up for things and I kept trying to weasel out of them, I never stuck to any of the school clubs long enough to look even remotely committed to them. It didn’t help that coffee-shop shifts got in the way of me doing any of the competitions on weekends, too. As a result my college application probably looks like it was written by an AI chatbot that just regurgitated every hobby and part-time job in our hometown, and my semi-decent grades and test scores weren’t enough to sway them back into my court.
Whatever the case, we’re here now, with more free days than I’ve had in years. I’ve wasted enough time doing things I don’t like to pass up on a chance to do something I’ll love.
“Well, we could celebrate next weekend then?” I ask. And then, even though I’m itching at the seams to click PURCHASE on that bus ticket, I add, “Or we could hang out this weekend and I could visit Tom the next one.”
My mom’s not quite looking at me, staring into her melting ice cream. “I don’t think that’s smart, going up there on your own.”
The tone of the conversation has shifted into territory we’ve never been. I feel not unlike our neighbor’s dog Ribbit when they put up that electric fence—like I’m suddenly testing the edges of a boundary I didn’t know was there.
“It’d just be two days,” I say carefully.
“Two days?” My mom tries for a teasing smile, but the words still come out tight. “I know you. You could get in trouble in a paper bag in ten seconds. You expect me to trust you in Manhattan for forty-eight hours?”
“Trouble” isn’t exactly the right word and she knows it. More like “mischief.” Harmless stuff that mostly involved pranks and the occasional interruption in class and, okay, a handful of times playing hooky on dweeby endeavors like Tides of Time meetups with other kids on our local fandom Discord. But it’s not like we were ever doing anything all that dangerous, unless the few times Tom trusted me to read a map counts.
I let out a laugh, also trying to keep it light, and say, “Yeah, well, I’m eighteen.”
I don’t mean for the words to start a fight, because that’s just something we don’t do. Even if we wanted to, between both of us working and going to school there’s just no time for it. But my mom flinches like I didn’t just start a fight but swung both fists without warning.
“I have to get to work,” she says suddenly, starting up the car and pointing us toward home.
I grip the McFlurry in my hand like it’s a tether. “Okay, but really, when can I go up to the city? There’s a bus that leaves from the Metro, I can take myself whenever I want.”
I mean for the words to come out as an offer, not a threat, but my mom immediately snaps her head toward me and says, “So that’s it? You’re just going to run off and do whatever you want now?”
“No.” I squirm uncomfortably. “I’m just saying—technically I don’t have to ask.”
My mom shakes her head. “You’re not going to New York.”
My mouth opens in surprise, and the only words I manage to string together are, “Why not?”
“Because that city is nothing but trouble, and the two of you together are a magnet for it. We got all through high school without anything going too wrong, can’t we just let it be? I mean it’s been years, why do you suddenly need to see Tom so badly?”
I set the McFlurry down, strangely light-headed. “Wait a minute. Wait a minute,” I say, like my mouth can’t catch up to the gears turning in my brain. “This whole time—were you not letting me go up there on purpose?”
My mom sidesteps the question entirely. “I just think you need to take a beat here. You’ve never even been to the city. And now the second after graduation you’re going to hop on a bus with two minutes’ notice?” She shakes her head, clearly not looking for an answer. “I know you were talking to Tom today. You only did that handshake because he must have been watching. But that’s not a reason to drop everything to see him.”
