Chapter Seventeen
On Saturday morning, at eight o’clock on the dot, Zach hears the sound of a car pulling into his driveway.
His mom is off today and still asleep. He frowns, looking out the front window through the porch screen, only to spot the familiar shape of Parker’s car half on the grass.
The phone rings in the kitchen, and Zach can see Parker holding up his cell phone to his ear through the windshield of his car.
“What are you doing?” Zach asks, carrying the phone with him from the kitchen to the living room. He peeks outside again.
“Get dressed,” Parker says, his voice tinny over the speaker. “We’re going somewhere.”
For a brief, fearful moment, Zach wonders if the time has come—has Parker figured out how he wants to die? But then, Parker says: “I already asked your mom if it’s okay.”
“You talked to my mom?” Zach gapes. He can see Parker snapping his fingers through the windshield and hears the clicks on the other end of the phone.
“Come on, let’s go!”
When Zach is dressed, he shoves on his shoes and jacket and stumbles out of the house.
He contemplates leaving a note for his mom just in case but decides against it.
Parker had supposedly already asked her permission for whatever today’s outing is going to be.
He locks the deadbolt behind him and picks his way across the wet pavement, which is still glistening from the sprinkle of rain the night before.
The sun is barely up. The neighborhood is quiet still, with only the sounds of the birds whistling in the nearby trees.
Zach slips into the car. It’s practically humid because Parker has the heat running so high. When Zach settles into his seat, the backs of his thighs are met with a pleasant toastiness. Parker’s apology Subaru has seat warmers.
“Hey,” Parker greets. He looks squinty-eyed and sleepy. His hair is still damp from a shower.
“What are we doing?” Zach asks, pulling his seatbelt across his lap. He stretches his feet out underneath the dash, running his palm over the smooth fabric of the heated seat.
“Okay, well…” Parker pulls out of Zach’s driveway, heading back onto the main road. “I had an idea, and it might be stupid, but I thought…” He’s not looking at Zach as he speaks. “I wanted to say thank you or whatever for taking me to the lake the other day.”
It takes Zach a moment to comprehend what Parker is saying. “The lake?” he asks.
“Yeah.” Parker takes a turn without using his signal and Zach clutches at the sides of his seat.
His palms start to heat up where they’re pressed against the fabric.
“It was cool. So, I called your mom and she said it was fine if I took you out today. But it’s, like, two hours away, so I wanted to make sure we got there early so you could get the most out of seeing your first national park. ”
“You called my mom,” he repeats. Zach is still trying to follow Parker’s garden-path explanation before the words national park ring firmly in his ears. “You’re taking me to a park?”
Parker exhales, taking the highway on-ramp as he reaches behind Zach into the backseat.
The Subaru drifts a little before Parker corrects it with a hard jerk.
He pulls his arm back into the front seat and thrusts something into Zach’s lap—a small brown leather book, with the words National Parks and a little tree embossed on the front.
When Zach opens it, his empty passport booklet is inside.
“I got you a cover for your park passport thing,” Parker says. “And it looks sad as hell without any stamps in it, so…”
“You’re taking me to a park,” Zach repeats, this time in disbelief. It feels like something has taken up residence in his throat. It’s hard to swallow around the forming lump.
Parker hunches his shoulders a little as they merge messily onto the highway. Someone behind them honks and Parker thrusts his middle finger up over his shoulder.
“We’re going to Saratoga,” Parker answers, his tone clipped, like maybe’s getting annoyed that Zach is asking so many questions. “It’s a national historic park and not, like, a national park like from your book, but they still have stamps. I called the visitor center and checked.”
Zach imagines Parker calling the Saratoga National Historic Park visitor’s center just to ask if they have stamps, and the lump in his throat grows three times its previous size.
He looks down at the passport, at its beautiful leather cover.
It’s probably the kindest thing anyone has done for him, ever, for any reason.
He feels his bottom lip quivering and clamps it between his teeth.
Parker must read something else into Zach’s silence, because he says, “We don’t have to go. I can, like, turn around, or—”
“No!” Zach gasps. He rubs his face with one hand and swallows around the lump in his throat.
“No, Parker. This is—this is super cool. I’m…
” He trails off, not knowing what to say.
This isn’t something that Isaac or Bea or Paige would have done for him.
Something about this gesture is wholly and unabashedly Parker.
“Cool,” Parker says. His shoulders relax and a small smile pulls at his mouth.
“How did you get my passport?” Zach asks, flipping through the blank pages. He hadn’t even noticed it missing from his desk.
“I stole it,” Parker admits. “Back when your mom let me and Paige stay.”
Zach squints a little. “Were you going to give it back?”
Parker shrugs. “Yeah, eventually.”
Zach wants to ask why Parker stole his passport but figures it doesn’t really matter, since he’s already given it back—and with such a beautiful, probably expensive cover. As if to change the subject, Parker presses one of the preset dials on his radio, and music fills the car.
“What do you usually listen to?” Parker asks.
“Oh,” Zach says. “I guess whatever is on the radio. Or NPR. My mom likes to listen to investigative stories.”
“You are so lame,” Parker says, laughing.
It doesn’t sound like an insult. He flips open the container in the middle console and digs through a bunch of CDs, glancing between the names of the bands and the road.
He picks one out and shoves it into the CD player.
The music switches from the top-40s radio station to a thumping, heavy bass.
“Consider this your introduction to the best music on earth,” Parker says. “Taking Back Sunday. Their first album, from 2002.”
Zach’s never heard of the band. But from where he’s sitting, the song that comes out of the Subaru’s speakers sounds like noise.
And not even particularly good noise. But Parker knows all the words, and when he sings, he laughs and throws his head back and forth.
Watching him does something strange to Zach’s chest. Not for the first time in his life he wonders if he’s on the verge of having a heart attack.
But the music, and Parker, make the two-hour drive zip by. After Taking Back Sunday, Parker introduces Zach to Hawthorne Heights and Glass Jaw, both of which are just more noise. He likes Coheed and Cambria, though, and Parker celebrates by promising to let Zach borrow the CD when they get home.
As Parker takes the highway exit toward Saratoga, Zach clutches at the passport in his lap, thumbs rubbing back and forth over the leather. It’s probably the nicest thing he owns now.
They spend the next half hour on the winding road leading from the highway to Saratoga National Historic Park.
Eventually, they make it, Parker pulling recklessly into the parking lot of the visitor’s center.
Parker leaps out of the driver’s side. Zach follows, excitement bubbling up like anxiety, but better.
The visitor’s center greets them with a timeline of the Revolutionary War, along with a fiber optic map that shows the movements of the troops on the battlefield.
Zach’s never been particularly interested in the revolution—or any war for that matter—but he spends a good five minutes in front of both displays, overwhelmed and unable to move forward until he gets a good look at all of it.
At first, he’s worried that it’s too dorky to ask Parker to take pictures.
But before he can work himself up over whether or not he should ask, Parker already has his cell phone out.
He takes pictures of both the displays, and then a few of Zach in front of them, obnoxiously directing Zach on how to stand until they both can’t help but laugh.
The cancellation station is set up in the bookstore. Parker finds the stand and pulls Zach over.
“This is a momentous occasion,” Parker insists, crowding up against him.
Zach opens his passport to the first section, the North Atlantic Region, and flips to its first page.
He presses the stamp into the inkpad, face burning as Parker stands so close that they’re practically touching shoulder-to-knee.
Parker’s long hair is soft and dry now. It brushes against Zach’s cheek a little as he leans in.
Zach checks three times that the stamp is upright—and that the date is correct—before he presses the green ink into the corner of the Official Cancellations section. When he pulls the stamp away, it reads:
Saratoga nhp
Nov 7, 2009
North atlantic region
“There,” Parker says, his face still so close that Zach can feel a puff of breath on his skin when he talks. “Now you’ve officially visited your first national park.”
They get muffins at the cafe, and Parker gets himself a coffee and Zach a water.
They sit together in the picnic area behind the visitor’s center that overlooks the former battlefield.
Now, it’s a blanket of slowly dying grass lined with trees.
The air is chill, but the sun is the perfect temperature on Zach’s skin when he turns his face upward.