Goodbye Stranger Read Free Page A

might see your parents later. You tell yourself that it’ll be like a game of hot lava. Vinny used to love that game when you were little. She’d shout, “The floor is lava!” and leap from your couch to your coffee table to the chair your dad had shipped all the way from Paris because he said it was the most comfortable thing in the world. No one jumped on the furniture at Vinny’s house.
    —
    Your old middle school is hot lava.
    Zoe’s nosy doorman is hot lava.
    The Bean Bar is hot lava.
    You cross Broadway and rush past the Dollar-Eight Diner, where the waitress still calls you French Fry because when you were little that was all you would eat.
    —
    You get to your building and decide that the elevator is hot lava, so you take the stairs.

    Breathing hard, you put your ear against the apartment door and listen for a few seconds, just in case.
    Key in the lock, turn, and push. You’re in.
    There’s no one home. You go straight to your room, shut the door, and stand looking at the bed you made two hours ago, when the apartment was full of voices and the smell of toast and news on the radio and the wet warmth that floated out from the hall bathroom where your sister had showered for too long.
    You put your feet in the middle of the rug. You lie down neatly on your bed.
    The whole world is hot lava.

TEN THOUSAND STEPS
    Madame Lawrence spoke only French in class. On the first day, Bridge raised her hand and said, “Excuse me, but we don’t understand anything you’re saying. We don’t speak French yet.” She smiled, a little embarrassed for Madame Lawrence, who’d missed something so obvious.
    “En Français, s’il vous plaît,” Madame Lawrence said gently.
    “What?” Bridge said.
    “She wants you to say it in French,” Tab told Bridge quietly over her shoulder. She sat three rows ahead.
    “How can I say it in French if I don’t speak French?” Bridge said in English. “If I knew French, I wouldn’t be taking French to begin with.”
    She was careful not to look at Tab when she said this.
    “En Français,” Madame Lawrence said, a little less gently.
    The words didn’t come in French. When she tried to speak in French, Bridge felt as if someone had sewn her mouth closed, which made her angry. And when she was angry she couldn’t learn because there were too many angry words in her head. So the French homework wasn’t so easy either.
    —

    At Emily’s third soccer game, Bridge and Tab stood together in a drizzling rain.
    “You’re still wearing the ears,” Tab said.
    “I decided to wear them until Halloween,” Bridge said.
    After the game, Bridge bought two Kit Kats, one of which she dropped on her father’s desk at the Bean Bar on her way home. He was out, but he’d know the Kit Kat was from her.
    There was a new girl behind the counter. She didn’t seem at all curious about why Bridge felt free to walk into the tiny office next to the bathrooms.
    “Hi,” Bridge said on her way out.
    “Hi,” the girl said. “I’m Adrienne.” She held out her hand, and Bridge reached out to shake.
    “You work here,” Bridge said.
    “Yes,” Adrienne agreed.
    Bridge blushed. “I meant—”
    “Are you Bridge, by any chance? You look like your dad.”
    “Thanks.” Bridge realized how that sounded, blushed again. “I mean—”
    Adrienne smiled. “No, that’s right. It was a compliment. He’s super-cute, as far as dads go. You should see my dad. What is he, anyway, an Arab?”
    “He’s Armenian. Armenian American.”
    “Armenian?” She nodded. “Cool. I don’t even know where that is.”
    “Well, he was born in California,” Bridge said. “What happened to Mark?”
    “Beats me,” Adrienne said. “I guess he quit. My lucky day.”
    —

    “Mark quit the Bean Bar,” Bridge told her brother, Jamie, when she got home.
    “Yeah, bummer.” Jamie was sitting on the edge of his bed, fiddling with something on his wrist. “I liked Mark. He always gave me a doughnut. A first-day