I ask myself whether that’s the smell of his shampoo or just the smell of him. Either way, I like it. In fact, whatever it is, and I’m not saying I know, I find it strangely fascinating.
He carries me down the stairs, kneels, places me on the next-to-bottom step, and runs back up to grab my wheelchair.
I don’t turn around to watch him climb away, because that would be me checking out his butt. Which is not something I would ever do.
But his jeans fit. No sagging for Solo.
I insist on climbing into my chair on my own. It’s easier than it should be. We’re back in gear, and a few minutes later, we arrive at an underground garage.
Solo touches my shoulder. “We have to be careful here,” he warns.
We wait just inside a recessed doorway in a corner of the garishly lit concrete-plus-more-concrete space.
“Do you have a car?” I ask.
“I have a dozen cars,” he replies. “Oddly enough, they’re all identical.”
He points to a sort of car corral where a dozen or so electric cars are parked. Each one has the Spiker logo on the side.
Solo checks the clock on his phone. He looks up and within a few seconds a guard comes walking by. We hear the footsteps. Coming, then going, fading altogether.
“Yep,” Solo says. He pushes me out into the garage. The cars aren’t locked. The “keys” rest on the dashboard.
Solo pushes the passenger seat back as far as it will go and I hoist myself in. He folds my chair and pops it into the trunk. The car starts without a sound.
“Do you know how to drive?” I ask.
“Do you have six dollars in cash?” Solo asks, ignoring my question.
“I don’t exactly have my purse with me.”
“Check the glove compartment. See if there’s a roll of quarters.”
I dig under some maps and find two rolls.
“Good. We have to use cash at the bridge.”
I point to the automatic toll-road transponder mounted on the windshield.
“Yeah,” he says. “Pull that down and put it in the glove compartment. We don’t want to be tracked. I don’t want to have to try to hack the toll system.”
“But you have no problem hacking into Spiker?” I ask.
An annoyed look, maybe even an angry one, clouds Solo’s eyes.
“Seat belt,” he says tersely.
I click my belt and we’re off across the garage with an almost silent whir of electric motors. The tires on the painted concrete floor make more noise.
“Lower the sun visor and put your head down,” he orders. “Cameras.”
There’s an automated checkout. Solo pulls a plastic ID card from his pocket. I can see the picture is not of him. The name on the ID is Wanda Chang.
“Funny, you don’t look Chinese,” I say.
He swipes the card past the reader. The gate goes up.
And for the first time in forever, I am outside.
“They’ll never know?” I ask, looking anxiously back at the receding outer gate of the campus.
He shrugs. “I can’t guarantee that. They know I escape from time to time.”
“Escape?” Even though I’ve been feeling the same way, it seems overly dramatic.
“What else is it when the monkey gets out of his cage?”
“You’re not a monkey,” I point out. “You’re strange, but you’re human.”
“Mostly,” he says with a slim smile.
“But you
“Yeah. But where would I go, exactly? I don’t have wheels”—he takes a sharp right—“not unless I get them this way. And Spiker’s out in the middle of nowhere.”
It’s twenty minutes to the Golden Gate Bridge, which, as usual, is shrouded in fog. I call Aislin to tell her I’m on my way, but she doesn’t answer.
When we reach Aislin’s townhouse, I text her that I’m outside. She appears a moment later, running down the steps. She’s upset. Her nose is red and mascara rings her eyes. But she still has time to do a double take when she sees Solo behind the wheel.
“Sorry I couldn’t pick up when you called. I was talking to Maddox.” Aislin slides into the backseat. She sighs dramatically, but the effect is ruined by the fact that she’s really worried, not just playing at it.
“Thanks for coming.” She manages a smile for Solo. “And you brought me a toy to play with on the way. How thoughtful.”
“So what’s wrong?” I ask.
“Maddox. Of course,” she says. “He’s trapped.”
“Trapped where?”
“In the park.”
“And he’s trapped there
“Some guys. They think he owes them money. He’s in the park and they’re after him.”
“Can’t he call the police?” Solo asks.
“That would be… embarrassing.” Aislin digs through her purse and retrieves some lip gloss. She slides it on expertly, no mirror required. “They might decide to search him.”
“Ah,” Solo says. “He’s carrying…?”
“Some weed. He has to sell it to get the money he needs to pay off the dudes chasing him.”
Solo stares at me, expressionless. I smile feebly. Shrug.
He’s going to turn the car around and take us straight back to Spiker, and I don’t blame him.
Solo pulls into traffic. “I can’t believe your mom thinks Aislin’s a bad influence,” he says. “I think she’s kind of fun.”
– 16 –
There aren’t a lot of roads inside Golden Gate Park. The park is huge, bigger than Central Park in New York. It’s a long rectangle with one end up against Haight Street—hippie town—and the other end right up against the Pacific Ocean. From weed to waves, you might say.
“Where is he in the park?” Solo asks as he takes a tight turn, narrowly missing an old woman on a wobbly bike.
“He’s in a lake,” Aislin says.
“Of course he is,” I say under my breath.
“In a lake?” Solo repeats. “In the water?”
“On an island.”
I pull out my phone. “I’ll Google a map of the park.” When the map glows on screen, I groan. “There are a lot of lakes. Like twenty or more.”
Solo streaks through a yellow light. “Any with islands?” he asks.
We’ve reached the edge of the park. “Is it a big island or a small island?” I ask Aislin. “A lot of them have islands.”
She fires off a text as Solo pulls onto John. F. Kennedy Drive, the road that runs the length of the north side of the park. Traffic is light. The sun is dropping from view and shadows are lengthening beneath the trees.
“He says how big is big?” Aislin reads from her phone.
“That’s an excellent philosophical question,” I say. “Ask him how long it would take for him to walk across it.”
