Sweethearts by Sara Zarr

Author:Sara Zarr [ZARR, SARA]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: JUV013000
ISBN: 9780316029261
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Published: 2008-02-01T05:00:00+00:00

It was dark out, and a little drizzly. We drove down the hills of the Avenues and into downtown. Cameron gave directions; I turned and turned and turned again.

“Pull over here,” he said when we’d reached the edges of the Rose Park neighborhood, notorious for gangs and a sludge pit that the federal government had to come clean up. “It’s down the street a little bit,” he said, pointing to a falling-apart fourplex with a pile of tires in the front yard. “Wait in the car.” He opened the door and started to climb out.

“Hold on! How long should I give you? What if you don’t come back in a certain number of minutes? Should I call the cops?”

“Don’t do anything. Don’t call anyone. I’ll be fine.”

“But what if you’re not?”

“Then go home.”

And with that, he got out and jogged down the street, like if I heard screams or gunshots or whatever I would just drive on home like nothing happened. Well, good for you, I thought, watching him climb a short cement staircase and put a key in the door. You don’t need anyone. Fine.

I watched the clock. Three minutes went by, four. I thought about knocking on the door, having of course no idea what I would actually do once I got there. Maybe I’d have to break the door down, wrestle Cameron away from the bad men, and then carry him out the way you hear people when they get a huge burst of adrenaline. Except the person I pictured rescuing was little Cameron, in shorts and a striped T-shirt, his arms wrapped around my neck.

Then there he was, bursting out of the apartment door and bounding down the steps, a big garbage bag in hand. He ran to the car, fast. I reached over and opened the passenger door and he jumped in.

“Go.”

You can’t exactly peel out in a ’94 Escort, but I did my best. Cameron breathed hard, clutching the garbage bag to his chest.

“What happened? ” I drove a good fifteen miles per hour over the speed limit, convinced we were being chased by angry roommates with guns.

“Nothing. You can slow down.”

I didn’t. “Nothing? Nothing happened?”

“They weren’t even there.”

Then I did slow down. “No one was there? At all?”

“Right.” His breathing had returned to almost normal.

“Then what’s the deal with freaking me out like that?” My voice came out high and hysterical and I realized how nervous I’d been, imagining some dangerous scenario from which Cameron had barely escaped, an echo of that day at his house.

“I don’t know. I started to picture one of them pulling up and finding me there and . . . I panicked.” He rummaged through the garbage bag in his lap angrily. “My tools were gone. They probably already sold them.”

“Tools?”

“How I make my living. Or made my living in California. Handyman stuff, day labor for subcontractors. Like that.”

I thought about the dollhouse. I wanted to say something like, Yeah, you’ve always been good at that, like with the dollhouse.

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