Teardrop

whether to run the race or quit.

Wind rustled the sugarcane. It was nearly fauchaison, harvest time. She glanced at Ander, who was watching her with a focus that made her feel nude, and she wondered if he knew this country as well as she did, if he knew that in two weeks farmers would appear on tractors to sever cane stalks at their base, leaving them to grow for another three years into the mazes children ran through. She wondered whether Ander had run through these fields the way she and every bayou kid had. Had he spent the same hours Eureka had spent listening to the arid rustle of their golden stalks, thinking there was no lovelier sound in the world than sugarcane due for its reaping? Or was Ander just passing through?

Once her car was secured, Cory looked at Ander’s truck. “Need anything, kid?”

“No, sir, thank you.” Ander didn’t have the Cajun accent, and his manners were too formal for the country. Eureka wondered if Cory had ever been called “sir” in his life.

“Right, then.” Cory sounded offended, as if Ander in general was offensive. “Come on, Reka. You need a ride somewhere? Like to a beauty salon?” He cackled, pointing at her grown-out dye job.

“Shut up, Cory.” “Beauty” sounded like “ugly” in his mouth.

“I’m teasing.” He reached out to tug her hair, but Eureka flinched away. “That the way girls style it these days? Pretty … pretty interesting.” He hooted, then jerked his thumb toward the passenger-side door of his truck. “Okay, sister, haul it in the cab. Us coon-asses gotta stick together.”

Cory’s language was disgusting. His truck was disgusting. One glance through the open window told Eureka she did not want a ride in that. There were dirty magazines everywhere, greasy bags of cracklins on the dash. A spearmint air freshener hung from the rearview mirror, leaning on a wooden icon of Saint Theresa. Cory’s hands were black with axle grease. He needed the kind of power wash reserved for soot-stained medieval buildings.

“Eureka,” Ander said. “I can give you a ride.”

She found herself thinking of Rhoda, wondering what she’d say if she were sitting in her shoulder-padded business suit upon Eureka’s shoulder. Neither option constituted what Dad’s wife would call “a sound decision,” but at least Cory was a known phenomenon. And Eureka’s sharp reflexes could keep the creep’s hands on the wheel.

Then there was Ander.…

Why was Eureka thinking about what Rhoda, instead of Diana, would advise? She didn’t want to be anything like Rhoda. She wanted to be a lot like her mother, who never talked about safety or judgment. Diana talked about passion and dreams.

And she was gone.

And this was just a ride to school, not a life-changing decision.

Her phone was buzzing. It was Cat: Wish us luck leaving Manor in the dust. Whole team misses you.

The race was in eighteen minutes. Eureka intended to wish Cat luck in person, whether or not she ran herself. She gave Ander a quick nod—Okay—and walked over to his truck. “Take the car to Sweet Pea’s, Cory,” she called from the passenger door. “My dad and I will pick it up later.”

“Suit yourself.” Cory heaved himself into his truck, annoyed. He nodded toward Ander. “Watch out for that dude. He’s got a face I’d like to forget.”

“I’m sure you will,” Ander muttered as he opened the driver’s-side door.

The inside of his truck was immaculate. It must have been thirty years old, but the dashboard shone as if it had just been hand-polished. The radio was playing an old Bunk Johnson song. Eureka slid up on the soft leather bench and fastened her seat belt.

“I’m supposed to be back at school already,” she said as Ander started up the truck. “Would you step on it? It’s faster if you take the—”

“Side roads, I know.” Ander turned left down a shady dirt road that Eureka thought of as her shortcut. She watched as he gunned the gas, driving with familiarity on this seldom-traveled, maize-lined road.

“I go to Evangeline High. It’s on—”

“Woodvale and Hampton,” Ander said. “I know.”

She scratched her forehead, wondering suddenly if this kid went to her school, had sat behind her in English for three years in a row or something. But she knew every one of the two hundred and seventy-six people at her small Catholic high school. At least, she knew them all by sight. If someone like Ander went to Evangeline, she would more than know about him. Cat would be absolutely all over him, and so, according to the laws of best friendship, Eureka would have his birthday, his favorite weekend hangout, and his license plate number memorized.

So where did he go to school? Instead of being plastered with bumper stickers or mascot paraphernalia on the dashboard, like most public school kids’ cars, Ander’s truck looked bare. A simple square tag a few inches wide hung from the rearview mirror. It had a metallic silver background and featured a blue stick figure holding a spear pointed toward the ground. She leaned forward to examine it, noting that it bore the same image on both sides. It smelled like citronella.

“Air freshener,” Ander said as Eureka breathed in a whiff. “They give them out free at the car wash.”

She settled back in her seat. Ander didn’t even have a bag. In fact, Eureka’s overstuffed purple tote spoiled the tidiness of the truck.

“I’ve never seen a kid with such a spotless car. Don’t you have homework?” she joked. “Books?”

“I can read books,” Ander said curtly.

“Okay, you’re literate. Sorry.”

Ander frowned and turned up the music. He seemed aloof until she noticed his hand trembling as it moved the dial. He sensed her noticing it and clamped the hand back on the steering wheel, but she could tell: the accident had shaken him up, too.

“You like this kind of music?” she asked as a red-tailed hawk swept across the gray sky in front of them, looking for dinner.

“I like old things.” His voice was quiet, uncertain, as he took another fast turn down a gravel road. Eureka glanced at her watch and noted with pleasure that she might actually make it on time. Her body wanted this run; it would help calm her before facing Dad and Rhoda, before she had to break the news about the crumpled heap called Magda. It would make Coach’s month if Eureka raced today. Maybe she could go back—

Her body lurched forward as Ander slammed on the brakes. His arm shot across the cab of the truck to hold Eureka’s body back, the way Diana’s arm used to do, and it was startling: his hand on her.

The car squealed to an abrupt stop and Eureka saw why. Ander had hit the brakes to avoid running over one of the plentiful fox squirrels that threaded through Louisiana trees like sunshine. He seemed to realize his arm was still pinning her against the seat. His fingertips pressed into the skin below her shoulder.

He let his hand drop. He caught his breath.

Eureka’s four-year-old twin siblings had once spent an entire summer trying to catch one of these squirrels in the backyard. Eureka knew how fast the animals were. They dodged cars twenty times a day. She’d never seen anyone slam on the brakes to avoid hitting one.

The animal seemed surprised, too. It froze, peering into the windshield for an instant, as if to offer thanks. Then it darted up the gray trunk of an oak tree and was gone.

“Say, your brakes work after all.” Eureka couldn’t stop herself. “Glad the squirrel escaped with tail intact.”

Ander swallowed and hit the gas again. He stole long glances at her—unabashed, not like the guys at school, who were sneakier with their staring. He seemed to be searching for words.

“Eureka—I’m sorry.”

“Take this left,” she said.

He was already turning left down the narrow road. “No, really, I wish I could—”

“It’s just a car.” She cut him off. They were both on edge. She shouldn’t have teased him about the squirrel. He was trying to be more cautious. “They’ll fix it up at Sweet Pea’s. Anyway, the car’s no big deal to me.” Ander hung on her words and she realized she sounded like a private school brat, which was not her style. “Believe me, I’m grateful to have my own wheels. It’s just, you know, it’s a car, that’s all.”

“No.” Ander turned down the music as they entered town and passed Neptune’s, the horrible cafe where