"Yes!" he said. "I know. You know how they decide, overnight, that you need new curtains in your bedroom…Like plain curtains aren't really getting it done, and now you need striped curtains?"
Plain curtains? Striped curtains? What kind of society had I stumbled into? I should be getting COW extra credit for this! We walked farther, down a winding street with manicured lawns and perfect flower beds that couldn't possibly have been mere miles from the Gallagher walls. I was getting an insider's tour behind the picket fence. I was going where no Gallagher Girl (well, at least this Gallagher Girl) had ever gone before—into a normal American family.
"This is nice. It's a nice…night." And it was. The air was chilly but not cold, and only a light dusting of clouds blew across the starry sky.
"So what was it like?" he pried. What was what like? "Mongolia? Thailand? It must be like …"
"Another world," I said. And it was true—I was from another world—just one that was surprisingly near his own.
Then he did the coolest thing. We were stopped under this streetlight, and he said, "Hold it. You've got a …" And then he reached up and brushed my cheek with his finger. "Eyelash." He held it out in front of me. "Make a wish."
But right then, there was nothing else I wanted.
I don't know how long we wandered the streets of Roseville, because, for the first time in years, I lost track of time.
"But I guess you don't have crazy teachers," he said, teasing after he'd finished a story about his psycho track coach.
"Oh, you'd be surprised."
"Tell me something about you," Josh was prompting me. "I've told you all about my crazy Martha Stewart-wannabe mom and my hyper kid sister and my dad."
"Like what?" I asked, freaking out, as was probably evident by the mind-numbing silence.
"Anything. What's your favorite color? Your favorite band?" He pointed at me as he jumped off the curb and turned in the street. "What's your favorite thing to eat when you're sick?"
How great a question is that? I mean, my whole life I've been answering questions—hard ones, too—but that one seemed especially telling.
"Waffles," I said, suddenly amazed when I realized it was true.
"Me too!" Josh said. "They're so much better than pancakes, which my mom says is crazy because it's the same batter, but I tell her that it's a—"
"Texture thing," we said at the exact same time.
OH MY GOSH! He gets the pancakes versus waffles thing! He gets it!
He was smiling. I was melting.
"When's your birthday?" He shot the question at me like a dart.
"Um…" The second it takes for you to recall something your cover should know, is the second it takes for bad people to do bad things. "November nineteenth," I blurted for no apparent reason; the date just landed in my head like a stone.
"What's your favorite ice cream?"
"Mint chocolate cookie," I said, remembering that was what we'd found in his garbage.
His face lit up. "Me too!" Fancy that. "Do you have brothers and sisters?"
"Sisters," I replied instinctively. "I have sisters."
"What does your dad do? When he isn't off saving the world?"
"He's an engineer. He's wonderful."
I didn't even pause before I said it. The words were out, and I didn't want to shove them back in. Of all the lies I'd told that night, that was the only one I knew I wouldn't have to try to remember. My dad's strict, but he loves me. He takes care of me and my mom. When I get home—he'll be there.
And he did save the world—a lot.
I looked at Josh, who didn't doubt me. And I knew that right then, right there, that in a way, all of it was true. I knew that from that point on, the legend would live.
"It's not a family business, though. Right?" Josh asked.
I shook my head, knowing it was a lie.
"Good," Josh said. "Be glad you don't have someone breathing down your neck to follow in your old man's shoes." He kicked a stone. "What's that they call it—you know, in the Bible—about how we can do whatever we want?"
"Free will," I said.
"Yeah." Josh nodded. "Be glad you've got free will."
"Why? What do you have?"
We'd reached a corner of the square I'd never paid much attention to before. Josh pointed to the sign above a row of dark windows—ABRAMS AND SON PHARMACY, FAMILY OWNED SINCE 1938.
And then I knew why we do fieldwork. Of course I knew that Josh's dad was the town pharmacist. But computer files and tax records hadn't told us how Josh would react to that place. They hadn't prepared me for the look in his eye when he said, "I don't really like running track. I just… It keeps me away from here after school."
Something in the way he said it told me that it was something he hadn't told anyone else, but I was no one his friends knew. I was no one who'd let it slip to his parents. I was no one.
"I guess there's some pressure to follow in my dad's footsteps, too," I admitted.
"Really?"
I nodded, unable to say any more, because the truth was, I didn't know where those footsteps led. I didn't have that kind of clearance.
The clock in the tower over the library chimed ten, and I knew it may as well have been midnight, and I may as well have been Cinderella.