Walk Two Moons

36 THE VISIT

The next day, Saturday, when Phoebe and I reached the bus stop, Ben was standing there. “Oh crud,” Phoebe muttered. “Are you waiting for this bus? Are you going to Chanting Falls?”

“Yup,” he said.

“To the university?”

“Nope.” Ben pushed his hair from his eyes. “There’s a hospital there. I’m going to see someone.”

“So you’re taking this bus,” Phoebe said.

“Yes, Free Bee, I am taking this bus. Do you mind?”

The three of us sat on the long bench at the back of the bus. I was in between Phoebe and Ben, and his arm pressed up against mine. Phoebe said we were visiting an old friend, at the university. Each time we rounded a curve, Ben leaned against me or I leaned against him. “Sorry,” he said. “Sorry,” I said.

At Chanting Falls, we stood on the pavement as the bus roared off. “The university is over there—” Ben pointed down the road. “See ya.” And he walked off in the other direction.

“Oh lord,” Phoebe said. “Why did Ben have to be on the same bus? It made me very nervous.”

It made me nervous too, but for different reasons. Every time I was with him now, my skin tickled and my brain buzzed and my blood romped around as if it were percolating.

The address we had for Mike Bickle was a freshman dormitory. It was a three-story brick building, with hundreds of windows. “Oh no,” Phoebe wailed. “I thought it might be a little house or something.” Students were coming in and out of the building and walking across the lawn. Some were sitting on the grass or benches studying. In the lobby was a reception desk, with a handsome young man standing behind it. “You do it,” Phoebe said. “I just can’t.”

We stood out like pickles in a pea patch. There were all these grown-up college students and here we were, two puny thirteen-year-old girls. Phoebe said, “I wish I had worn something else.” She picked lint off her sweater.

I explained to the man at the desk that I was looking for my cousin, Mike Bickle. The young man smiled a wide, white smile at me. He checked a roster and said, “You’re in the right place. Room 209. You can go on up.”

Phoebe nearly choked. “You mean we could go right up to his room?”

“Sure,” the young man said. “Through there.” He gestured.

We walked through swinging doors. Phoebe said, “Really, I’m having a heart attack, I know it. I can’t do this. Let’s get out of here.” At the end of the hall, we slipped out the exit. “What if we knocked on his door and he opened it and pulled us inside and slit our throats?”

Students were milling around on the lawn. I looked for an empty bench on which we might sit. On the far side of the lawn I saw the backs of two people, a young man and an older woman. They were holding hands. She turned to him and kissed his cheek.

“Phoebe—” On the bench was Phoebe’s mother, and she was kissing the lunatic.