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  Bus 12 is a hard place to relax. It smells like eraser shavings and throw-up; the edge of the hard vinyl seat bites Aimee’s legs. Sometimes if she looks up at the ceiling she gets the feeling that it’s the inside of a metal coffin lid clamped down over all of them, burying them alive. But when she passes her two beautiful sights and acknowledges them solemnly, Aimee feels the spring at her center untwist a little.

  The bus comes around the corner onto Hamilton Street and approaches the first beautiful sight—a white farmhouse sitting flat on a wide green lawn, no visible foundation, with a low, open porch wrapping all the way around it, and on the porch thirty forest-green plastic chairs lined up one right next to the other with their backs against the house, facing out as if waiting for thirty strangers to come sit in them and stare out, not speaking to each other, at the road. The thirty empty chairs on this farmhouse porch are silly and sad and perfect and wrong—they whiz past Aimee now on the left and she inclines her head slightly-slightly, presses her forehead against the bus window, acknowledging them.

  The second beautiful sight isn’t until right before the turnoff to Riverglade Estates, easily four or five minutes from now. Aimee has time to zone out a little. She lets her head jostle against the window, bonking gently against the cool Plexiglas with every bounce of the bus over the frost heaves in the road, feeling her mind drift out and over the lines of the poem she submitted to the competition. As she works the poem over in her mind she starts to panic—whatever Cara might have thought about how great it was, she should never have submitted something so unfinished. She should never let strangers see anything she’s written before she’s gotten feedback from Bill about it.

  All at once Aimee has a vision of how this afternoon would go if it were going to be a good, normal afternoon instead of the sucky, empty afternoon it’s actually going to be: she’d get off the bus at the bottom of her cul-de-sac, walk up the little hill to the roundabout, head up the leftmost driveway to the mustard-yellow detached condo unit she calls home, open the side door, yell, Hey, it’s me! into the mud room as she dropped her backpack onto the tile floor, and she’d hear Bill’s voice answer from his study upstairs, muffled by doors and ceilings and carpets: Who’s me? And she’d yell, It’s Ed McMahon from Publishers Clearinghouse, you just won a million dollars! or she’d yell, It’s Rent-a-Center, I’ve got that new carpet steamer you ordered! or she’d yell, It’s me, Daffodil, your long-lost love child from Wood-stock! and Bill would wait a second, like he was thinking it over, and then he’d yell back, Cool, be right down! And she’d schlump into the kitchen and kick her boots off into the corner and go to the fridge and get out the bowl of lime sugar-free Jell-O that would be waiting for her there, and she’d cross to the silverware drawer and take out the tiny silver spoon that’s her favorite utensil, the one with Winnie-the-Pooh molded into the handle that her mother used to feed her with when she was a baby, and she’d plunk down in a chair at the kitchen table with her spoon and her Jell-O and Bill would come shuffling into the room looking all distracted and tousled, like he’d just been woken up from a nap—when in fact he’d probably been grading bad papers all afternoon—and he’d say, So where’s Daffodil? or he’d say, Where’s my million dollars, man? and she’d say, I don’t know, I guess she left, or she’d say, I guess they got sick of waiting and went next door to give the money to the Waynes. And his shoulders would droop and he’d let out a groan and collapse into the chair next to hers, prop one of his long, skinny, hairy legs up on the table (something he never did when her mother was home), and he’d say, Close, but no cigar. Story of my life, man. And she’d shake her head sympathetically at him and slide her bowl of glistening green coolness an inch or two in his direction and say, Jell-O? Make you feel better, and he’d say, Sheesh, Ame, don’t you know that stuff is gonna kill you? That artificial sweetener has been proven to give tumors to rats, and she’d say, Whatever, Bill, I’m not a rat. Then she’d say, Hey Bill, would you look at this thing I wrote?

  Aimee is so engrossed in her dream afternoon that she almost misses beautiful sight number two. Suddenly there it is, passing her on the left, and she jumps out of her reverie into the real world—oh, it’s so beautiful, this dilapidated gray-brown barn, maybe fifty years old, maybe a hundred, as long and narrow as a city block and silvered by decades of weather and neglect, roof caved in at the center, sides bowing out, like a lame horse that’s fallen onto one knee—or no, like a ship sinking into a sea of dirt, its bow and stern still pointing up but its deck getting slowly sucked under the waves.

  Aimee presses her forehead against the window to acknowledge the barn as it speeds past, apologizes to it silently for almost missing it. Then she thinks, Okay, I am officially losing it. I just apologized to a barn.

  Bus 12 sheds Aimee onto the grassy curb at the bottom of her cul-de-sac and grinds away, leaving a dirty puff of diesel smoke in the air behind it. Aimee looks up the little hill to the roundabout, to the detached mustard-yellow condo unit that will answer her with nothing but a gulp of silence when she opens the side door and tells it she’s home. She feels the twinge in her stomach, hears the tinselly sizzle that tells her there’s a reaction coming, still out there somewhere on the horizon but heading her way. Aimee imagines succumbing to the reaction right here, right here in the unmowed grass by the storm drain, imagines her mother finding her—a heap of barely breathing laundry—three hours from now as she drives home in the Toyota. Imagines the Toyota screeching to a halt, her mother bursting out, leaving the driver’s-side door open as she rushes to the side of the road, crying, No, sweetie, no—

  Up the hill, something sky blue emerges from behind her mustard-yellow garage. Something sky blue and bulky; it moves slowly, takes up a place in Aimee’s driveway and stands there like a giant Rubbermaid trash can, facing her.

  The prereaction twinge snaps off in Aimee’s stomach. She begins to stride up the hill toward the fat girl.

  The fat girl holds her ground as Aimee approaches, doesn’t move a muscle. Aimee gets to the top of the little hill and stops for a second, folds her arms across her chest, fixes her gaze on the fat girl’s face, half-hidden by the dingy veil of her hair. A warm September breeze moves past them both, eddying Aimee’s skirt around her ankles and lifting the fat girl’s frondy bangs—Aimee catches a glimpse of those silvery eyes, staring directly at her, not blinking—then dropping the hair back onto the fat girl’s forehead, re-veiling her. They are about fifteen yards apart, nothing but lawn and asphalt between them.

  “You followed me to my house?” Aimee asks sharply.

  The fat girl says nothing, does nothing. Waits.

  “What are you doing here?” Aimee asks, meaner this time.

  Nothing. The fat girl is a boulder.

  “You know, I don’t know if you think I can’t see you when you’re, like, following me around all the time, but I totally can, I see you watching me, and it’s really wicked creepy.” Aimee sticks her chin out—that’s right, I said “creepy”—but at the same time pulls the box of her folded arms into her chest—for what, for protection? What does she think the fat girl is gonna do, blow?

  The fat girl shifts her weight from one great leg to the other, making a kind of rippling wave move through her body. Aimee thinks this is a sign that she’s about to say something, but a few seconds pass and she’s still standing there, silent. Aimee takes a forceful step forward and it’s like she pressed a trigger somewhere:

  “Careful,” the fat girl says. Aimee halts. The voice that comes out of the fat girl is a murmur, a hum, almost like the sound of a dishwasher or dryer. For a second Aimee’s not even sure that she’s spoken.

  “What did you say?” Aimee asks warily.

  The fat girl takes a wheezy breath.

  “Be careful with Cara.” It’s like her voice isn’t even exactly coming from her mouth; it’s like it’s coming from all around her, like she’s amplified through a hidden microphone or something.

  “Cara Roy?”

&n
bsp; The fat girl nods the smallest nod, barely perceptible to the naked eye.

  “Why?” Aimee can’t help herself. “What’s wrong with Cara?”

  The fat girl shrugs, a tiny shift of her shoulders.

  “Why are you telling me this? Why are you following me around all the time? How did you find out where I live?” Aimee feels a little coil of hysteria start to rise in her gut. The buzz starts back up in her ears—the threat, the promise, of losing control.

  “I just wanted to warn you,” the fat girl says, lips barely moving. “About Cara. You think you can trust her, but you can’t.”

  As if she’s feeling bolder now, the fat girl brings a swollen hand up to brush her bangs aside, revealing her eyes, which have softened into normal, blinking gray eyes—human eyes.

  “I know how she can make you feel.”

  “Uh, you don’t know how she makes me feel,” Aimee says, but it comes out sounding insecure, more a timid question than a forceful objection. Then she regains her confidence in a sudden bright burst. “Look, I don’t know what your deal is with Cara, but me and her being friends is none of your business. And I don’t know who told you you could follow people around and like, spy on them, like like stalk them, but it’s extremely not okay and if you don’t stop I’m gonna report you. I mean to the cops, okay? I’m not kidding.”

  The fat girl doesn’t react.

  Louder, Aimee says, “I’ll call them right now if you don’t stop trespassing on my property. I’ll go inside and call them right now.”

  The fat girl’s stillness only deepens.

  Aimee feels the fat girl’s motionlessness, her immense, powerful nothingness, spreading like new gravity over her own body, falling over her brain in a thin gray mist, slowing her heartbeat, lowering her blood pressure—entrancing her entire being. It seems to Aimee, without looking down at herself, that her edges are starting to blur. It’s as if she can feel the world around her melting into and through her newly transparent hands and arms and feet. The fat girl’s stillness fogs Aimee’s consciousness like a sweet-smelling noxious gas.

  Aimee shakes her head once to clear it, then finds her voice again, strong.

  “If this is your idea of trying to make friends with someone,” Aimee says, clear and biting as a winter morning, “then you are sick. You are, you’re sick and disgusting. Leave me alone from now on, okay? Don’t even look in my direction. I don’t ever want to catch you spying on me again.”

  There’s a second’s pause while Aimee waits, eyes locked on the fat girl’s face. Then the fat girl drops her eyelids like window shades. She gives her hair a minute shake—no more than a shiver—and the hair she had moved aside slips back over her face. Sealed up again behind eyes and bangs, she turns to go—pivots in place and backs up slightly, like a car pulling out of a parking space. Then drifts off heavily down the driveway.

  Aimee stands watching her go, trembling in her knees and elbows and wrists.

  Inside, still shaking, Aimee drops her bag on the kitchen floor and dials Bill’s number. He picks up with a clatter and a muffled swear, then:

  “Poetry hotline, what’s the nature of your poetic emergency?”

  Bill’s voice is warm and sweaty; Aimee recognizes it immediately as his three-beer voice. In the background there’s a burst of laughter, the sound of a group of people loosened up and ready to roar.

  “Hello caller?” Bill brays again. “Please state the nature and location of your emergency so that our trained poetry technicians may assist you.”

  “Bill, it’s me.”

  “Oh heyyy!” Bill’s voice slides down into an oilier register. “Baby, where are you? Get over here, the party’s started.”

  It takes a second before Aimee can say, “Bill, it’s Aimee.”

  And another second goes by before Bill clears his throat and says, “Aimee. Uh, hi.”

  “Can I talk to you for a second?” Aimee shields the mouthpiece of the phone with her hand and glances furtively out the breakfast-nook window, like a victim of domestic violence in a Lifetime movie trying to orchestrate her secret escape.

  “Ame, you know I love to talk to you but this isn’t the greatest time.” The crowd noise behind Bill fades, as if he’s taken the phone into another room.

  “I know, I can tell you’re having a party, but can I just quickly tell you about—”

  “It’s not a party, it’s not actually a party,” Bill interrupts hastily. “It’s a meeting. It’s all English Department people here and we’re just, we’re working on the spring course list. And hey, Ame, I’m sorry about what I said just now. I thought you were somebody else for a second.”

  “Whatever, that’s cool.”

  “I wouldn’t say something”—Bill clears his throat again awkwardly—“inappropriate like that to you on purpose.”

  “Yeah, it’s really okay.” At this moment Aimee truly couldn’t care less whether Bill has skeezy girls coming over to his apartment or not. She’s desperate to talk to him about the fat girl.

  “Actually,” Bill goes on, “what it is, is that Marcus is here, you remember my friend Marcus? And his girlfriend is supposed to come and she’s late and I thought you were her. That’s all it is.”

  “Whatever, Bill, it’s really totally cool. Can I just ask you about something really quickly?”

  “Just . . . really quickly,” Bill says. “Then I gotta get back to this meeting.”

  “Okay, remember I told you about the fat girl?” Aimee talks fast.

  “Uh . . .”

  “Remember on the first day of school, remember I saw that fat girl getting chased down the hall and you said write about her?”

  “Yeah, okay.”

  “It doesn’t even matter if you remember, there’s this fat girl and she’s been following me around and kind of spying on me all the time and today she showed up at our house. At our house, Bill! Just now!”

  “At Riverglade?”

  “Yes! She was waiting for me when I got home! I don’t know how she found out where I live but she was waiting for me in the driveway when I got off the bus and she was acting really freaky and she tried to tell me not to be friends with this one girl and I don’t even know why she cares who I’m friends with because I don’t even know her, I’ve never hardly even talked to her, and I feel like she’s watching me all the time everywhere I go and what should I do, Bill? Should I call the police?”

  “Are you scared she’s going to hurt you? Is she dangerous, this fat girl?” Bill seems to be sobering up a little.

  “Well, I don’t know. Maybe a little. Not really.”

  “Is she like, armed?”

  “Um, no. I don’t think she’s armed.”

  “Okay, so I think, rule of thumb: unless somebody’s armed and dangerous you don’t need to call the police on them. Generally.”

  “Okay but what if she comes back? Bill, what do I do if she comes back again?”

  “Well have you tried talking to her?”

  “I told her she was trespassing and to get off my property or I’d call the cops.”

  “Okay, so you threatened her, but did you talk to her? Did you try to get to know her?”

  “Like how? How am I supposed to get to know her, what am I supposed to do, be like, ‘Excuse me, hi, I noticed you’re constantly following me around like a psycho, would you like to hang out and share your deepest feelings with me?’ Is that what you’re suggesting?”

  Aimee can practically hear Bill rolling his eyes.

  “Does that sound like something I would suggest?”

  “Well then what are you telling me I should say?”

  “It’s easy, just say—”

  A long, feminine peal of laughter ribbons through the background on Bill’s end. Then a muffled squelching sound, as if Bill has put his palm over the receiver. The murph-murph-murph of a conversation whose words Aimee can’t make out. Then Bill comes back on, clear.

  “Okay, so right, so try that.”

  “Try wh
at? Try what? You were about to tell me what to say and then someone laughed and you cut yourself off! What should I say to her, Bill? What should I say?” Aimee feels panic rising in her chest.

  “Okay, first of all, you need to chill. Can you chill for a second? And breathe with me?”

  Aimee nods in her empty kitchen.

  “I don’t hear you breathing.”

  Aimee inhales a lungful of air and exhales it noisily, extra loud so Bill can hear.

  “Okay, better. Are you slightly less hysterical now?”

  “Uh-hunh,” says Aimee tightly.

  “Because if you’re hysterical you’re not going to listen to a word I’m saying.”

  “I’m listening, Bill, I’m listening, I’m listening.”

  “What you say to her is, you ask her what she wants. You say, ‘Hey, sister, how come you’re following me around all the time?’”

  “‘Hey, sister’?” Aimee echoes, dismayed.

  “Or whatever lingo you kids prefer these days. ‘Hey, man,’ you say, ‘what gives with this behavior? What is it you want from me, and how can I give it to you so you can stop following me around all the time?’ How’s that?”

  Slowly Aimee sinks down until she’s sitting on the kitchen floor. She leans her head back against the wall beneath the phone.

  “Bill,” she says sadly, “that totally sucks. I would never in a million years say that to this girl.”

  “Well then Ame, I’m cashed. That’s my best advice. If she’s not two seconds away from hacking you up with a machete and you’re too afraid to talk to her like a human being then I guess you’re just going to have to get used to having a stalker. It’s actually kind of cool, if you think about it. She probably just senses your brilliance and wants to be near you just to soak it up.”

  “Shut up,” says Aimee glumly. “No way.”