You May Already Be a Winner Read online

People were all out of their trailers now.

  Bob.

  Grant.

  Melody.

  Mrs. Sydney Gunnerson.

  Delilah.

  Wanda and Jerry.

  Baby George and his family.

  Sadie and Jane.

  Paul.

  The black mamba owner.

  The drug dealers.

  Everyone was out, some cheering, some crying, others taking pictures.

  So anyway, against the will of my body and even though I knew I might die, I climbed the wreckage and found the poor cat, huddled under the seat, meowing and meowing and for a brief second he said, “Olivia. I knew you’d come.”

  And I said, “I love you, Pebbles. I would never let you down.”

  And then I picked him up and ran him out to safety.

  And that’s when I saw something out my window.

  It wasn’t a monster truck on fire.

  Instead it was Bart or Harrison or whatever his name was sitting on the trampoline.

  He had a Mohawk.

  A Mohawk.

  And he was here.

  But I didn’t care.

  Because he ran away and he said he’d come back and then he didn’t and he lied.

  He did go to school.

  He went to my school. Dixon Middle School.

  Just like everyone else.

  He wasn’t like me and I wasn’t like him so I didn’t care.

  I was just going to sit in my room and let him sunburn his face off out there for all I cared.

  But then I looked again.

  He was jumping and trying to do a trick, which looked really bad how he landed on his head.

  I thought about it.

  What if he left?

  I wouldn’t care.

  But I might care.

  Or what if Carlene went out there and talked to him?

  And he became friends with her.

  And what if Bonnie was there?

  And Lala.

  And what if he started going to the mall with them?

  Not that that would happen. But what if it did? And what if he fell in love with Carlene or maybe even Bonnie but Carlene was more likely because Carlene was nice and had long eyelashes.

  What if he fell in love with her and they got married and they moved into Carlene’s trailer and had babies and Bart started driving monster trucks and nothing was ever the same again.

  What if that?

  I threw on some cutoffs.

  I grabbed a T-shirt.

  Put on some lip gloss and some turtle earrings and then I ran out the door before he could disappear again even though I didn’t even care.

  “Hey,” I said, trying not to huff.

  “Hey,” he said. “I might not be able to stay long.”

  Like I cared how long he stayed.

  So I turned to leave.

  “Where are you going?” he said.

  “Wherever I want,” I said.

  I started walking toward my trailer and I waited for him to say stop. Stop! Don’t go!

  At first he didn’t and I started to feel panic in my heart but then he said, “Wait.”

  So I waited.

  “I need your help,” he said

  I turned. “You need my help?” Beads of sweat were already forming on his forehead.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Sorry it’s taken me so long to get back. Bureau crap.”

  “Bureau crap?”

  “I don’t know if I mentioned it but I work for the FBI. Long story. I’ll have to tell you later,” he said.

  Ugh. But I decided to let it go.

  “Where’s the milk?”

  “I drank it.”

  “You drank it?”

  “The whole entire thing. On the way over.”

  I tried not to laugh. “You did not.”

  “I did. I was super thirsty.”

  I folded my arms very serious.

  “You got a Mohawk,” I said.

  “Yep,” he said.

  “Do you like it?” I said.

  “Do you like it?” he said.

  I felt myself get warm but I said yes anyway.

  He said, “I do too.”

  Then I said, “I saw you at school.”

  He stopped smiling. “No, you didn’t.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “I don’t go to school.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  “What school?”

  “Dixon.”

  “Dixon what?” he said.

  “Dixon what?” I said.

  “Yeah, Dixon what? I’ve never heard of it.”

  “You’ve never heard of it?”

  “Nope.”

  More lies.

  “You go to Dixon Middle School. You get free lunch because you work in the cafeteria.”

  That was a guess but it was the only thing I could figure out. I almost applied for free lunch when school first started but Mom wouldn’t sign the paper because she said we didn’t need anything for free and I said, “Yes, we do,” and she gave me a big old lecture about not taking things that weren’t ours.

  But maybe if I could work in the cafeteria for lunch, it technically wouldn’t be free? I’d have to look into it.

  “Never heard of it.” He shook his head. “I’ve heard of the Mason-Dixon Line, if that’s what you’re talking about.” He took out a pencil and wrote something on a piece of paper that I don’t know where he got.

  Then he looked over at Grant and Bob’s trailer.

  I stared at him. His face was handsome. His skin looked soft and smooth and I wondered if he had ever been on an elephant. And also he was a liar.

  But I said, “What’s the Mason-Dixon Line?”

  He looked at me. “You’re kidding, right?”

  My stomach started to rumble. I hated feeling stupid. Did he do this on purpose?

  “Yeah,” I said. “I’m kidding. Everyone knows that.”

  He said, “Oh yeah. Then what is it?”

  “I’m not telling.”

  “You don’t know.”

  “I do know but it doesn’t matter because you’re trying to distract me because I did see you at the lunchroom at Dixon Middle School.”

  “No, you didn’t.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  And he said, “The Mason-Dixon Line was a cultural boundary between the North and the South for slavery even though it earlier was a line between the British colonies during a fight. But now it is still the state lines for Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, and West Virginia.”

  He was talking fast and his face was a tomato.

  Then he said, “Have you even been to Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, or West Virginia?” He was practically yelling now, passionate is what my mom would call it.

  I swallowed. He was smart. I was not so smart. I said, “No.”

  He took a deep long breath.

  Then he said, “Neither have I.”

  Bart and I sat there quiet.

  I thought about how I had no idea who he was and how he had no idea who I was and yet I still felt like there was something holding us together.

  Someone in the KOA Park turned on the radio and music started. Country music.

  What if we started dancing?

  What if he took my hand and pulled me up and I said, “What are you doing?” And he said, “What do you think I’m doing?” and then we slow danced on the tramp. Right there. On a crappy Saturday.

  Bart looked at me. My heart fluttered.

  Then he said, “But I want to go to all those places.”

  I said, “What places?”

  And he said, “What?”

  And I said, “What?”


  And he said, “Those places. Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia.”

  I swallowed. “Me too. I want to go everywhere.”

  “You do?”

  I said, “Yes.”

  He said, “Everywhere?”

  I said, “Yeah, everywhere.”

  “Even Mongolia?”

  I nodded. “Sure.”

  “It’s cold.”

  “I don’t care,” I said, and he smiled.

  Then I said, “Is your name Harrison?”

  And he said, “That’s my code name.”

  I said, “Oh.”

  And I said, “Is Bart your real name?”

  And he said, “That’s my FBI name.”

  “Your FBI name?”

  And he said, “I told you it’s a long story,” and I said, “Ha-ha.”

  And he said, “Ha-ha” back.

  And I said, “So you really are in the FBI?”

  He said, “I can’t say.”

  And even if he was lying, which he was, I thought maybe if he was in the FBI, he could help me find my dad. Or at least help me find out if he was trash. Or if he had a girlfriend.

  But he was lying. So I said, “Shut up.”

  He said, “Okay.”

  And I said, “UGH.” Then I said, “What’s your real name?”

  And he said, “If I told you, I’d have to kill you,” which I hated.

  So I said, “Will you be in our neighborhood circus?”

  And he said, “Sure.”

  Sometimes I wonder why things have to happen when they happen.

  Like what if my mom and dad hadn’t met in high school.

  What if they’d met in China while they were both backpacking the Great Wall.

  What if they’d met on a train to Cairo, my mom wearing huge sunglasses, my dad with a mustache.

  Or what if they’d met on a plane to Moscow, where people were whispering and clinking wineglasses.

  Or better yet, what if they’d met in a museum in Paris and fell in love in front of the Mona Lisa.

  What if they didn’t meet in PE at Provo High School where Mom was sitting with her friends on the gym floor talking and Dad was playing basketball and getting slammed into them and my mom had to go to the nurse and get stitches.

  ~

  What if instead he saw her, and he knew. His blood running hot, his face red, and he knew.

  Not because of no real reason but because she was brilliant and witty and wrote articles for the National Geographic and used to live with a pride of lions.

  And what if their first kiss wasn’t in my dead grandma’s stinky basement, with the cat litter and the patches of carpet covering the concrete floor.

  What if they kissed on the Eiffel Tower or on a junk boat in Hong Kong or on the top of the Empire State Building or maybe even on the Mason-Dixon Line.

  I sometimes wonder if everything would be different if my parents kissed somewhere better.

  Somewhere real.

  ~

  Bart, or whatever his name was, said, “Let’s go on a bike ride.”

  The two of us sitting on the tramp talking about the Mason-Dixon Line and then how he could do tons of different things if we really did do a circus because he has a lot of skills like hoop dancing and plate spinning and he could swallow fire.

  “No you can’t.”

  “I can.”

  “You can’t,” I said, laughing.

  “Really,” he said, his face serious. “I’ve eaten tons of fire.”

  And I told him we probably wouldn’t really do it but if we did, we’d need him to, for sure, do something. “Like even be the announcer person,” I said.

  “The Master of Ceremony?” he said. “Easy.” And I couldn’t help it, I laughed again.

  But then he said, “Let’s go.”

  “Go where?”

  He jumped up. Got off the tramp and pulled my dad’s bike up that had been rotting in the weeds.

  I flushed. Go on a bike ride?

  “Whose is this?” he said.

  “No one’s.”

  “No one’s?”

  I wished I wasn’t having this conversation.

  He got on the bike.

  “It probably has flat tires. It hasn’t been ridden for a year,” I said.

  He put his foot on the pedal.

  “I bet it’s broken,” I said.

  “It’s probably too big for you,” I said.

  “You won’t want to ride it,” I said.

  And then he was pedaling onto the street, on my dad’s bike.

  I watched him weave along the one lane, one-way road. He rode out of sight, went all the way around the loop and then showed up again.

  “It’s a good bike,” he said. And that was true. Mom and Dad had argued about it for a whole night when he’d brought it home. My dad had “impulse problems.” I knew that much.

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Where’s yours?”

  I shrugged. I hadn’t ridden my bike for just as long as my dad’s had been lying around. Bart popped a wheelie. Sort of. Actually he tried to and then he crashed and I said, “Oh my gosh,” and he said, “I’m fine,” and he jumped up and I said, “Are you okay?” And he said, “I’m fine,” even though his knee was bleeding.

  He got back on the bike.

  I liked him.

  “Where’s yours?” he said again.

  “Behind the house,” I said.

  “Go get it,” he said.

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t feel like it.”

  He put the bike down in the middle of the road. Jogged behind the trailer and I thought my heart was going to burst. I don’t even know why.

  “It has a flat,” he yelled.

  “Oh,” I said.

  “There’s a pump here.”

  I stared at the sky. “There is?” I said.

  “Yeah.”

  Then he came riding out on my bike.

  “Come on,” he said. He set down the bike and got on Dad’s.

  “I thought you couldn’t stay long.”

  “I’m supposed to go somewhere but I don’t care,” he said.

  I felt shaky and nervous and I said, “Really?” and he said, “Come on.”

  And right at that moment, my whole body said, “Please God, don’t let it start like this.”

  I hadn’t been on my bike.

  I wasn’t going to ever go on my bike.

  Not until Dad got back.

  But Bart was riding around waiting for me. Smiling.

  And I said, “No God. Please no. Don’t let him be the one that I fall in love with.”

  Don’t let him be the one.

  I felt a tear start to form.

  I was wearing a stained T-shirt with flowers and a hole in the side.

  He had on those baggy torn-up jeans.

  We were in our stupid trailer park where no one’s lives ever worked out.

  The sky wasn’t blue. It was filled with clouds.

  Mom and Berkeley were eating McGriddles with- out me.

  And I was sweating.

  Please. Not like this.

  Because I liked him.

  And what if he liked me.

  Please God. Let me not love him.

  I didn’t want to meet and fall in love with the love of my life now. Not here. Not like this.

  But then he was biking to the jogging path.

  And right then I had a choice.

  I could stop this.

  I could sit here.

  I could let him leave.

  I could go inside.

  I could make Nestlé milk.

  I could lie in bed.


  I could call the police and say a bike was stolen.

  I could walk to McDonald’s and tell Mom I was sorry.

  I could go to the library and email Dad and enter forty-five thousand more contests.

  I could find Carlene and ask about Monster Jam.

  I could sit with Melody and eat her cookies and get a reverse perm.

  I could do so many many things.

  I had a choice and once again the teeny tiny barely-there voice in the little pocket in my stomach whispered, “Go.”

  And I whispered, “I can’t.”

  And it whispered, “Be brave.”

  And I said, “Is this brave?”

  And it said, “Be brave.”

  And that was it because I didn’t know what being brave was but that voice did, I hoped.

  “Wait,” I yelled, and I jumped off the tramp and got on my bike and then did things I never do.

  I did things like I went out of the gate and followed a boy named Bart or whoever he was on the trail and he was riding fast so I was riding fast even though usually I’m careful and I don’t want to crash and my heart was thumping and my hair was flying and people were looking and Bart was laughing and I was laughing, too.

  I was laughing.

  I did things like ride along the river and almost hit a family with bike helmets and knee pads and the dad yelled, “Watch where you’re going!” And Bart yelled, “Sorry!” And I yelled, “Sorry!” but I didn’t look back.

  I did things like follow Bart to a spot in the trees and stop and throw rocks in the water and try to hit the old canoe on the other bank and Bart missed so bad and I hit it right on. And he said, “Whoa,” and I said, “That was easy.”

  And then he looked at me one second too long like we were in a movie. Him with a Mohawk, me with a-a-a-a nothing. But it didn’t matter.

  I did things like listen to Bart when he told me that his cousin once drank the water in the river and he got cholera and had to be in a hyperbaric chamber for months and I said, “You can’t get cholera from the Provo River,” and he said, “You can and he did,” and I said, “Is he okay?” and he said, “He sells used cars, so no, he’s not okay.”

  I did things like go with him, go with him all the way to the end of the trail, just the two of us. And then watched as he kept going, off the paved trail onto the gravel toward the beach and I yelled, “What are you doing!” and he kept riding, right into the water of Utah Lake. Right into the crystal clear blue water until he was up to his knees and then up to his chest and then he kept on going until he disappeared, his whole body, everything, buried down down down into the deep and should I follow him?