The Mutual Friend by Carter Bays

Author:Carter Bays [Bays, Carter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2022-06-07T00:00:00+00:00

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After fourth grade, Penelope and Mrs. Pidgeon agreed it was time for Alice to “find the next gear,” so Alice was enrolled at the Youth Conservatory of Westchester, an expensive private school in an old stone armory rumored by the students to have once been a prison. It was twenty miles away, in Dobbs Ferry, but thankfully there was a bus.

So one September morning, at some punishingly early hour, Alice and her mother sat in the old Subaru in the nearly empty parking lot of Alice’s elementary school. In a few hours, the lot would fill up with cars, as all of Alice’s old classmates arrived for fifth grade, and some of them, like Rudy, would wonder why Alice wasn’t there. But now there were only two cars, idling in the misty quiet. The sun was not yet over the trees and the grass was still dewy.

“Remember to be a good listener,” said Penelope, blowing on her coffee.

“I know, Mom.”

“You’re going there to work, remember that.”

“Of course.”

“I love you.”

“I know.”

“Your dad loves you too.”

“I know.”

A few minutes passed, and at last a little yellow bus rolled up the long country driveway and came to a stop in the loading zone. Alice got out of the car. Penelope, still in slippers and a nightgown, rolled down her window and blew a kiss goodbye.

A slim girl about Alice’s age got out of the other car. Alice had seen this girl at her audition in the spring, and again once over the summer at the public pool. She must have lived in Bedford or Mount Kisco. There was a violin case under her arm, and she held it like a soldier going into battle. Her name, Alice would eventually learn, was Meredith Marks.

Alice and Meredith climbed onto the bus and, discovering that theirs was the first stop and the bus was empty, sat down across the aisle from each other. They didn’t talk that first day, just quietly collected their nerves and churned with the anticipation. The next stop was in Chappaqua, a ten-minute drive. It was ten minutes of silence.

The second day, when they boarded the bus, they acknowledged each other in bashful whispers. It was just a “hi” and another “hi,” and then they sat in the same seats as yesterday, across the aisle from each other, and spent ten quiet minutes looking out the window and watching the leaves of Route 172 go by.

It was the third day when Alice noticed Meredith’s skinned elbow.

“What happened?”

Meredith looked at her elbow, then at her fellow passenger. “I fell off my bike.”

“Does it hurt?”

“Yeah,” she said. “I was supposed to be wearing elbow pads. I got in big trouble.”

“Oh my God,” said Alice. “My mom would be so mad at me if I did that.”

“She was like, ‘Meredith, that’s your bow elbow! You need that elbow!’ ”

Alice laughed, and scooched over to Meredith’s side of the bus, and remained there for the next seven years. By the end of the week, they were best friends.

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