Ask the Passengers

Huge, heavy sigh. “What the hell, Astrid?”

“Look. It’s at the corner of Chestnut and Fifth. Just get here.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“I know, Dad. Believe me. Just get here.”

“What’s the name of the place?”

I take a deep, jittery breath. “Atlantis.”

“Atlantis?” he says. Like he knows. Like he knows exactly what Atlantis is.

So I hang up.

28

THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT.

DEE’S MOTHER IS THE FIRST ONE TO get here. Well, the first one we know. There are at least fifteen other underage people here who we don’t know, and some have already been picked up.

She looks around and exhales in deep disappointment, signs the ticket and takes Dee out the front door without a word to her. I feel like following them out and apologizing and telling Mrs. Roberts that it was all my idea and my fault for dragging Dee out. But my feet don’t move.

Five minutes later, the door opens, and it’s Dad and Kristina’s mom at the same time. Dad looks around and gets a look on his face like he’s disgusted. Not sure why. There is nothing in here that looks too different from any bar, I don’t think.

Chad is waiting alongside Justin. Kristina says something to both of them before she goes toward her mother, who slaps her right across the face like in the old movies. The Houcks have a knack for that sort of thing. It’s like Gone with the Wind or something. Strictly the 1939 brand of slapping. It only works because the slapper loves the slapee, and the slapee knows it.

This wouldn’t work in my family.

My dad doesn’t say a word and just stuffs my ticket into his coat pocket and grabs me by the elbow and pulls me out the door.

I wiggle free when we’re outside and go to get into the passenger’s seat.

“Sit in back,” he says.

“What?”

“Sit in back. I don’t want to talk about this.”

I close the passenger’s door and I sit in the back.

About halfway home, he says, “Do you have any idea what your mother is going to say?”

I stay silent and think about how I can lie my way out of this, because tonight is not the night to make this decision. Not under these terms. Not under interrogation.

“She’s going to lose her mind.”

“There’s no way we can keep this between us?” I ask.

He’s quiet for long enough that I think he might actually agree. Then he says, “Do you know who you’re dealing with?”

I let that question echo and look out the window into the quiet night. Dad doesn’t have the heater on and I’m freezing, but I’m afraid of what he might say if I ask him to turn it on. I am his prisoner, in the backseat, trapped by child locks. I deserve to be cold and uncomfortable, I guess. I look out my window, and I see a plane high in the sky, its taillight flashing.

I ask it: Do you know who you’re dealing with?

I ask myself: Do you know who you’re dealing with?

Yes. I know who I’m dealing with. I’m dealing with the fire that sends flickering shadows. I’m dealing with the Claireplane on which I’ve been a passenger for seventeen years. I look at Dad and I know he’s a passenger, too. Even Ellis, up in first class. We’re all passengers.

I ask us: Do you know who you’re dealing with?

29

THIS IS NOT HOW I EXPECTED IT TO UNFOLD.

NOT AT FOUR IN THE MORNING. Not with my mother sitting in the kitchen waiting. Not with a fight between her and Dad first when Dad tells her the whole story about where he picked me up. And certainly not with Ellis being woken up on purpose to hear my “news.”

She says it so smarmily. “Sorry to wake you, but your sister has some important news and I think you need to hear it.”

I sit at the table and hear her say this upstairs at Ellis’s bedroom door.

Ellis clomps down the stairs behind Mom and sits in her chair in the kitchen, then flops her head down into her arms and tries to continue to sleep.

“Well?” Mom says. “We’re ready for you to tell us the big news!”

“I don’t have any big news.”

“Your father says you do,” she says.

“He didn’t even talk to me on the way home.”

“He knows where he picked you up,” she says. “Why don’t you start there?”

“I made a mistake. I went to a bar. I got caught. I’m sure it will be fun for you to watch me reap the consequences.” This answer makes Ellis look up. We make eye contact for a millisecond.

“You think this is fun for me?” Mom asks.

“No. Of course not. If this was fun, then you’d make sure to wake up the whole family and put me on some sort of mock trial at four in the morning.”

Just as Mom is about to tear into me for being a smart-ass, Ellis asks, “What the hell is this about?” She yawns. “You went to a bar? Why is that a big deal?”

“I know, right?” I say. “She takes you out drinking all the time, and you’re a year younger than me.”

“Yeah,” Ellis says before Mom yells over us both.

“But I don’t take her to homosexual bars!” she says. The way she says homosexual is… not standard FOTG issue at all.

“Who calls them that?” I ask.

“Who?”

“Who what?”

“Who’s them?”

I look at her. “I mean who calls bars for g*y people homosexual bars?”

“I think the proper nomenclature is g*y club, Mom,” Ellis says.

“Did you know about this?” Mom asks Ellis.

“She didn’t know about anything,” I say. “Only me, Kristina and Justin knew. And maybe a few of their friends.” I figure invoking Kristina might help me.

But it’s as if she didn’t hear it.

“So do you want to tell your family why you were at a g*y club tonight, Astrid? And do you want to tell us how long you’ve been lying to us about where you are on Saturday nights? Because don’t think I won’t call Dana in the morning.”

“Who’s Dana?” Ellis asks as she shuffles across the kitchen and gets herself a glass of juice from the fridge.

“Jeff’s mom,” I say.

“Well?” Mom presses.

When Ellis gets back to the table, I sit forward. “Look. The last few weekends we went to this g*y club in town. We did it because we heard we could get served there. No one cards you at the door. And like most normal high school kids who live in”—I look right at Mom when I say this—“small-town America, we are bored out of our minds sitting around this stupid little town and doing nothing. It’s our senior year. We figured we could find a way to have some fun. So yes. We went out. We had fun. We danced. I had one drink.”