Love, Stargirl Read Online Free PDF Page A

14
    Today, for the second time, I rode into the cemetery. It was getting dark. The man Charlie wasn’t there. I coasted along the winding pathways. Moonlight and tombstones. A vision came to me. I was in the graveyard of my own past. Under each tombstone lay a memory, a dead day. Here Lies the Day in the Enchanted Desert. Here Lies the Day We Followed the Lady at the Mall and Made Up Her Life. Here Lies the Day We First Touched Little Fingers, Stargirl and Leo’s Secret Signal of Love.
    Each night I lie down in a graveyard of memories. Moonlight spins a shroud about me.
             
    March 15
    My happy wagon is down to two pebbles.
             
    March 16
    I hate you!
             
    March 17
    I miss you!
             
    March 18
    I hate you!
             
    March 19
    I love you!
             
    March 20
    I hate you!
             
    March 21
    LEO!
             
    March 22
    Now see what you did. You made me miss the start of spring. It happened yesterday, but I was so busy moping over you that I didn’t even notice. I’d probably still be in the dark if I hadn’t gotten a letter from Archie today. He asked me if I saw the sunrise on March 21. Archie and I used to go into the desert and watch the sunrise on four special dates: the VernalEquinox (March 21), the Summer Solstice (June 21), the Autumnal Equinox (September 22), and the Winter Solstice (December 21). We poured green tea into plastic cups and toasted each new season.
    Yesterday the sun was directly over the equator. Day passed night. Winter became spring. With every turn of the earth now, day is leaving night a few more minutes behind. The universe is going about its business. Why am I surprised?
             
    March 23
    All my father said last night was, “Go to bed early.” I didn’t ask why, but I knew. Sure enough, he woke me at 2 this morning, and 30 minutes later we were having grilled sticky buns and coffee at Ridgeview Diner. I knew what he was doing. He’s noticed my mood. He was trying to perk me up. He believes that the answer to anyone’s problem is to go on a milk run.
    Confused?
    Yes, my father is a milkman now. After fifteen years as an engineering supervisor at MicaTronics, he was burned out. Still, he wasn’t going to quit. But my mother made him after she asked him what he would rather do and he grinned and said, “I always wanted to be a milkman.”
    So we loaded the truck at the warehouse and headed for the Friday route. As the truck turned a corner at a Wawa store, the headlights suddenly caught a face. It was a face in a Dumpster, wide-eyed with surprise. And then we were gone.
    “See that?” said my father.
    “I did,” I said. I was still seeing the face, like the afterglow in my eyes when I turn away from the sun.
    The Friday route is in the southern part of the county. Developments. Farms. Solitary homes along curvy country roads. No streetlights. No traffic. Only the dark and our own headlights and the rattle of glass bottles in the racks behind us.
    The customers leave notes, Scotch-taped to the door or rolled and rubber-banded in the metal milk box on the front step. Some order the same thing every week, some different. Some parents let their kids write the note. Like:
             
    Dear Mr Milkman,
    Pleeze leave 1 gal skim
    1 qt choc
    2 cott cheese
    1 doz eggs
    My cat Purrfecto loves your milk!!
    Love,
    Cory
             
    I’ve gone on other Friday milk runs with my father, and there was one address I was especially looking forward to. It came early in the run: 214 White Horse Rd. The Huffelmeyers. The Huffelmeyers are an old couple. They get one quart of buttermilk, one quart of chocolate each week. But my father doesn’t leave their stuff on the front step—he takes it inside. See, the Huffelmeyers remember the old days, when things were safer and they left the front door unlocked all the time and the milkman just came in and put their stuff in the fridge.