Infinite

I’ve never really liked Newark. There is something gray about it – like someone has put a giant, wet blanket over the whole town, making the air hard to breathe and the people look gloomy. New York is just an hour’s car ride away, but today I’d rather not face the Manhattan traffic – plus, it would be much harder to keep track of two kids in a city that big.

Not that Newark is very small. As soon as Jamie gets out of the car, I start worrying about her. Elliott is in his stroller, happily playing with – wait, is that my iPod?!

“No, Elliott,” I say, taking the expensive device out of his hands. His eyes widen and I can feel a crying attack coming, so I quickly hand him my switched-off cell phone (if he breaks it I can always try to persuade Mom to buy me a new one, but she won’t be as understanding about a broken iPod). “Jamie, stay here!”

“But I wanna go over there!” she pouts, pointing over at Hot Topic, which is located across the street from where I parked the car.

“We will, just… try not to get run over, okay?”

“Fine,” she says and gives and exaggerated sigh.

Half an hour later, we leave Hot Topic, me with one bag containing a shirt and the new The Sounds cd, and Jamie with a bag containing a My Chemical Romance cap and the Green Day album Dookie (since she complained so loudly when she saw me buying a cd – “You said we couldn’t buy cd's, Aubrey!”). Elliott has abandoned my cell phone, and is now happily watching a man selling balloons on a street corner, so I switch it on and put it in my pocket.

It’s still too early for lunch, but we stop to get donuts. Jamie is ecstatic – Mom and Rick apparently think donuts are dangerous.

“I love you, Aubrey,” she says and takes a big bite of her chocolate-covered donut. Feeling warm and happy (and not because of the large amount of sugar I’ve just consumed), I say:

“Love you too, kiddo.”

You know how you can say that to your family members and not really mean it?

Between Jamie and me, it’s always true.

We decide to go to a mall located just a few blocks away. It’s packed with people, seeing as it’s Sunday, and I tell Jamie to hold on to the stroller so she won’t get lost. I think Elliott is about to fall asleep, so I don’t think he’ll walk away on his own.

Just to be sure, I get a black marker from my bag and write down my phone number on Jamie’s forearm. She giggles and says that it looks like a tattoo.

We walk around for a bit, looking in the display windows while Elliott falls asleep. Just as we pass the fountain in the middle of the mall, MCR’s Blood starts playing. It takes a while for me to realize that it is my cell phone ringing – I change the signal too often to remember which one I have at the moment. I quickly take the phone from my pocket and check the display. It’s Red.

“Hey babe! Sleep well?” he says when I answer.

“Yeah, until seven thirty when I had to babysit.”

“Aww, that sucks. But you know what?!”

“No, what?” I say, trying to straighten Elliott’s head at the same time so he won’t hurt his neck.

“We’ve got another gig!!” Red yells in my ear.

“What? When? Where?!” I’ve suddenly forgotten all about Elliott’s neck, and turn all of my attention to what Red is saying instead.

“New York fucking City, baby! Apparently some guy who owns a place there saw us yesterday and wants us to play…”

“No way! Are you serious?!”

I have to sit down – this is a dream come true. We’ve been trying to get gigs in Manhattan for a while, calling different places and trying to persuade them to let us play. They’ve never wanted us. Sometimes they said they already had enough up-and-coming New Jersey bands playing, and sometimes they just said that if they hadn’t heard us, we probably weren’t good enough.

“Of course I’m fucking serious! And it’s no unknown place either! But we’ve got to get practicing ASAP, what d’you say about tomorrow?”

“Red, we always practice on Mondays. But I’m not skipping school if that’s what you’re asking.”

“I wasn’t asking. But would you at least think about it?”

I roll my eyes, despite the fact that Red can’t see me.

“Alright, alright, I know it’s important and I promise I’ll think about it.”

“I love you, Aubrey.”

“Hah! A wise man once said that if you don’t go to high school, you will definitely go to jail.”

“Nah, come on, it’s just for one week! We won’t miss out on anything that important!”

“Hmph.”

We hang up, and I smile to myself. It will be worth missing out on school if it means we will do a great show, it’s just fun to piss off Red.

“Jamie, what do you…” want for lunch? I mean to say, but as I turn around, no Jamie is in sight. “Jamie?”

It takes me three seconds to take two deep breaths and fail to keep calm. Jamie is gone, I look around the fountain, walk around the whole bottom floor of the mall, but she is nowhere to be seen.

I try to think – where did she want to go before Red called?

She’s five years old and too curious for her own good. It’s my fault – I tried to keep track of her but if I hadn’t been so occupied talking to Red, she would have stayed with me. What if she has been kidnapped? My phone number on her forearm won’t do her much good then. She’s five years old, how could I let something happen to her?

After five minutes without any trace of her, I’m on the verge of tears and thinking about calling the police. Maybe I can ask that they call out her name in the speakers, but I have no idea who to turn to. Just then, Blood goes off in my pocket again. Number unknown.