WEB EXCLUSIVE:
Excerpt of The Day I Killed James
By Catherine Ryan Hyde

Copyright (c) 2008 by Catherine Ryan Hyde. Reprinted with permission by Random House Children's Books.

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September 2008




One: I’m Sorry I Washed Your Car

Maybe I should have been nicer about it. But it was early. It was so damned early. It was daybreak, damn it to hell. And I didn’t have to get up for school yet. And that’s one of those things it just doesn’t pay to rush.

I guess I should have been nicer about a lot of things. But that’s hindsight. Isn’t it?

I couldn’t just roll over and go back to sleep, because there was water running somewhere. And there shouldn’t have been.

So I rolled out of bed, and put on Randy’s red pin-striped shirt. I love that shirt. If we—God forbid—ever break up, he’d better kiss it goodbye. And I went to the window. And there was James in the driveway, washing my car.

I opened the window. Thought that would get his attention, but not quite. Usually it was not hard for me. To get James’s attention.

I waved my arms around. Without raising them too high, because, you know, Randy’s shirt only covered just so much. And James was easily encouraged. Pre-encouraged, one might even say. Like one of those computers you buy with the software already installed.

He saw me then. Snapped off the hose. Smiled. When James smiled at me, it made me a little bit nervous. When he smiled at me, his face lit up with this look that always made me wonder why being loved is not the joy the poets claim.

James or Randy, either one. It’s just not what they set us up to expect.

He called out good morning to me.

"James,” I said, trying to be half-assed quiet to keep my father out of it. My father was not so sure about the whole James phenomenon. “Why are you washing my car?”

It’s really pathetic, what happened to that poor smile. It reminded of a dog told to play dead. James had this way of making me feel bad. Life has this way of making me feel bad.

“Don’t you want me to?” he asked. “I’m sorry.”

How do I answer a question like that?

So I just looked up at the sky, which seemed somewhat black and expectant, and I said, “I think maybe it’s going to rain.”

“If it does,” James said, “it will be all my fault. Because I washed your car. Do you want me to stop now? I’d at least have to rinse off this soap.”

I didn’t know if I wanted James to wash my car. I’d never really thought about it. It was too early to think about it when I was put on the spot to say. But one thing I did know for sure.

I said, “I definitely do not want you to wash my car and then apologize for it.”

“Right,” he said. “Sorry. I mean...you know what I mean.”

I closed the window. My father stuck his head in through my door. The hose sound kicked in again from the driveway.

“Who are you talking to?” my father asked. “Why are you making so much noise? You woke me up. Why did you wake me?”

“You have to get up now anyway,” I said, looking at the clock. “You’ll be late for work.”

He reached for my alarm clock. Knocked it over onto its back. “Aw, crap. Why didn’t you wake me?”

I said, “I did wake you, remember? That’s what you were just complaining about.”

See, it even extends to parents. What I said about love.

It rained. I can’t entirely claim it’s because James washed my car, because it rained days later. But it felt satisfying, somehow, to blame this and that on James.

I was sitting at the dining room table paying bills. Because somebody had to do it.
When I looked out the window it was raining in sheets, and I swore I saw James skate by. Along the driveway toward the garage. It was like a moment of action in bad animation. You know how when they’re really hard up for animation dollars they move a static character across a static scene? Like that.

His hair was still short from that two-year stint in the Air Force. So the fact of being soaking wet didn’t change his look much. He had a hat, but he wasn’t wearing it. Just holding it by the brim. And then that was it. He just slid out of my field of view.

A moment later he came by in the other direction. Garage to street. Without his shirt. Hat in hand. Wearing a strappy sleeveless undershirt like the kind my uncle Gerry used to wear. Only, I have to say it, it looked better on James.

He’d certainly buffed up while he was away.

I couldn’t decide if this was a fun game or not. Probably not.

On the third trip by, no noticeable change. Which made me wonder suddenly if he was still wearing his pants. Which made me jump up to see. Which made James laugh and point, like, I got you. I made you look.

He was wearing his pants. But he made me look.

What he was not wearing was skates. He was just sliding. Hydroplaning along the fresh concrete of my driveway in a quarter-inch sheet of standing water. Which didn’t seem a good enough explanation until I realized he was sliding down the trail of automatic transmission fluid my crappy old hand-me-down car deposits on its way to and from the garage.

James was always telling me to get that fixed. He’d even offered to replace my pan gasket, an offer I’d several times refused. If I had been foolish enough to let him in just then, he likely would’ve offered again.

Once he had my attention, something happened to his. He failed to cut off the skid in time. He sort of bounced off our garage door. Then he recovered his poise and began to dance. It reminded me of a cat after it loses face. That sort of “I meant to do that” attitude. He looked pretty smooth, actually. Dancing. It was this old-fashioned Gene Kelly sort of a thing. Not half bad.

Then all of a sudden there was my father. Right at my left shoulder.
He said, “What in God’s name is he doing?”

I said, “Apparently a scene from ‘Singin’ in the Rain.’”

He said, “The guy has no shame.”

I said, “How can you say that, Dad? He’s adorable. He’s just being playful.”

“You just described a golden retriever puppy. He has no shame because he doesn’t even bother to pretend he’s not in love with you when I’m around.”

“Yes, he does. He can’t see you from there.”

“Of course he can.”

"No, he can’t. Come over here.”

So he moved over to where James could see him. James slipped on a patch of transmission fluid. His feet came right out from underneath him. He landed on his hip and one elbow, and just lay there. Looking vaguely disoriented.

My father said, “Ouch.”

I said, “I told you he didn’t know you were here.”

He said, “You really ought to get that transmission looked at.”

Journal Entry
Day I’m writing this: 20 days after “The Day”
Day I’m writing about: Yesterday

Yesterday evening I hitchhiked up the coast. I’ve been hitchhiking a lot lately. I’ve been tempting fate, to see if it wants to hurt me. Like walking down a dark street in a bad neighborhood with a bulging purse and a Rolex. Like, here I am. Hurt me.
Nothing went wrong.

I got off about a mile south of the scene, even though the guy I rode up with could have driven me right to it.

You can’t miss the spot now, because I put up a roadside cross, with a wreath. Rainy season may take its toll, but it won’t be rainy season again for nearly a year. I slept on a little patch of cold dirt on the hill side of the road. Had the dream again.

Roaring at that cliff, doing about sixty, with the engine noise in my ears, and then
I shoot off over the edge, and everything goes silent. The bike falls away. Just hanging there in the sky in the dark. Even though I don’t suppose the engine would stall, really, just because the ground fell away. I figure he heard it, all the way down. Fell with it. But in the dream, all went silent in the dark, and I did not immediately fall. Like a cartoon character who has to notice first. Notice that the ground is gone before gravity becomes the law.

The fall was sudden, and I jolted awake.

I rediscovered myself by the side of the cold road, within walking distance of nothing.

I’m never sure if the person in the dream is James or me.

The moon was a crescent setting over the water, yellowish and indistinct. I wanted James to be somewhere near, but I couldn’t feel him. But, see, I was still wanting him to do for me. That’s how selfish I know I am.

A car came around the curve. Stopped, cut its lights, and two guys got out. I felt it in my stomach. I had asked for this. Too late to unask for it now. They weren’t much older than me, maybe twenty. They stood over me.

“You okay?”

“Sure.”

“Don’t see a car. You got a car?”

“Not close.”

“Need a ride?”

“No. I’m okay here.”

They looked at each other in the dark. Good Samaritans. The Universe just will not do it to me. They sat down, one on either side.

“You sure you’re okay?”

I started to cry. That’s embarrassing. I hate that. I don’t even like to cry when I’m alone. That’s a bad deal all the way around. Where was my suit if armor when I really needed it? Plus, so far as I could tell, I still couldn’t fly.

One of them put an arm around my shoulder.

I told them everything. I confessed.

They drove me to San Simeon, where I could make a phone call. Figure my way home. I had money, and my father’s credit card, which no one had the good grace to steal from me.

Just as I was waving goodbye to them, the driver leaned out the window. He said, “You know, I’ve had girls do me worse than that.”

I assume he was trying to be helpful.

But it’s like saying, “People fire guns at other people all the time. And lots of their intended targets are still alive.”

Still, if you hit someone, you’re responsible.

Maybe I’m too good an aim.

Journal Entry
Day I’m writing this: 18 days after “The Day”
Day I’m writing about: Today

Today a guy tried to pick me up in a book store. Are you ready for that? I was actually saying that out loud, in fact, later, on the way home. Are you ready for that? I shave my head, I’ve lost almost twenty pounds. I wear truckloads of loose clothing. I mean, what do I have to do?

“Buy you a cappuccino?” he asked when he’d caught my attention.

I looked at him like a kestrel might. We’re small, kestrels and me, but we can be formidable.

“Do you love life?” I asked.

He smiled. Looked confused for a moment. I suppose he thought it was part of a dating questionnaire. Like, do you enjoy sharing hot chocolate and long walks on the beach at sunset?

“I do,” he said. “I love life.”

“Then run.”

He didn’t, exactly. But he did go away.

 

 

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