Into Thin Air by Caroline Leavitt Page A

side of her face with one finger.
    â€œI see things just as clearly drunk as sober,” Lee said. The hand retracted. It moved to the wine; it poured another full glass. Lee stared at the sky through her empty wineglass.
    â€œYou want to take a walk?” Lee asked.
    Jim studied his glass of wine. “I fell in love with you the first time I saw you.” He looked at her, pinning her in his gaze. “I must have because every single moment after that I felt different.”
    â€œDon’t say that,” Lee said. She swung her legs outside and then stood in the night, arms clapped about her.
    From a distance she heard Jim’s voice. “I never loved anyone before. I never even liked anyone enough to ask them out. My father thinks I’m socially retarded.” He laughed and then stopped himself. “I don’t go out with anyone else. But you…you’re always with someone new. Why aren’t I enough?”
    Lee resettled herself into the car. “You think anybody’s ever enough for anybody?” she said, “I’ve never seen that to be the case.”
    He took a long miserable swig from his glass, “You’re enough for me,” he said.
    â€œHah. You think that now,” Lee said.
    He poured himself more wine. “I’ll always think it.”
    â€œIt’s late. I need to get home.”
    They drove in silence. The road was flat and gray as slate, and Jim began humming something low and tuneless in his throat, and even though he wasn’t looking at her at all, Lee felt him somehow surrounding her, and she shifted uncomfortably on her seat. They were almost home. It wasn’t even eleven, wasn’t even within an hour of her curfew, when a police car snaked out from around a bend. Red light, a bulb on top of the car flashing, a hand waving them over to the side. “Oh, shit,” Jim said.
    There were two policemen, both middle-aged, but only one got out, lumbering toward them, Jim sat very straight, eyes focused at a point in the distance.
    It was only a broken taillight, but it didn’t take the cop long to smell the alcohol on Jim’s breath, to lean over and sniff it on Lee, like a kind of rare perfume. “You kids just never learn, do you,” he said flatly. “Don’t they teach you anything in driver’s ed?” He made them get out of the car and blow into a balloon, the whole time shaking his head at them. He scribbled out a ticket and handed it to Jim with the utmost disgust. “Get in the squad car,” he said.
    The whole way to the station, he lectured the two of them. Drunk driving. Jim could lose his license for a fool stunt like that. He could have lost their lives—or someone else’s. You were damn lucky,” he said. “Goddamned lucky. I’m sure your parents will have something to say about this. If I were your father, you’d be lucky if I let you on a bicycle.”
    Lee felt a thrill of fear. “I’ll be grounded forever,” she said to Jim. “No, you won’t,” he said, reaching for the hand she had tucked, small and stubborn, into her pocket.
    The station was brightly lit and dead quiet. The two cops said something in low voices to the desk sergeant. “Not again,” the desk sergeant said wearily, inspecting Jim and Lee. “Sit,” he ordered. “I’m calling your folks, not you. It seems to make more of an impression that way.”
    â€œOh, God,” Jim said, washing one hand over his face. He looked a little green; his whole body seemed to be crumpling.
    â€œâ€˜Oh, God’ is right,” the desk sergeant said, and Jim promptly vomited on the floor.
    They sat on a heavy wood bench, waiting for their parents. Jim was huddled over, his face folded into a damp washcloth. Lee, only a little drunk, put one hand on his shoulder. “Don’t touch, I’ll be sick again,” he said, panicked.
    Frank had arrived