California Diaries # 11: Dawn III: Missing Read Online Free Page A

settle down and concentrate on how to handle
    the concert. I cal ed Ducky.
    “Hey, it’s me,” I said when he answered the phone.
    “Hi, Dawn.”
    (I love when people recognize my voice and I don’t have to say who I am.
    It’s such a nice intimate feeling because it means you know somebody really
    well. I think that voice recognition over the phone is an important step in a
    friendship.)
    “How are you?” I asked.
    “Good,” replied Ducky, although he really didn’t sound too good. “Did you
    talk to your parents about the concert yet?”
    “No. I decided to talk to you first. I’m pretty sure I can convince Dad and
    Carol to let me go. I just have to handle it carefully. But there’s one other thing.”
    “Yes?” said Ducky patiently.
    “yes.” I paused. “Sunny.”
    I think that a little teeny corner of me was hoping that Ducky would
    recognize my extreme discomfort at the thought of spending an evening with
    Sunny, and he would offer to (somehow) uninvited her. I held my breath.
    “What about Sunny?” Ducky said.
    “Well, we’re still not speaking,” I began, “and…we haven’t exactly spent
    much time together lately.”
    “So you think the concert might be uncomfortable for you?”
    “Yes!”
    “Then maybe you should try to talk to Sunny before the concert.”
    “Oh.”
    “You should talk to her anyway, Dawn. I mean, you two should be friends
    again. You’ve been friends for such a long time. And if Sunny ever needed you,
    it’s right now.”
    “Ha.”
    “No, real y.”
    “Ducky, I love you. You know that. So pardon me when I say that you’re
    such a guy. That is such a guy thing to say.”
    This was fol owed by a pause so long that I though Ducky might have left
    the phone for some reason. Final y I said, “Ducky?”
    After another slight pause he said, “Yeah. I’m here.”
    “What’s the matter?”
    “Nothing.”
    I frowned, which, of course, Ducky couldn’t see.
    A few minutes later we got off the phone.
    School, Monday 2/22
    Study hal . I just passed Sunny coming out of the library. I was about to
    say hi to her, but she didn’t see me, and I didn’t feel like cal ing out to her. I’m not sure why. I know that if she had looked up and seen me I would have said hi. But
    she didn’t so I didn’t. And now I feel small and mean, which is silly because she
    doesn’t even know that I just walked by her.
    Monday afternoon 2/22
    Ducky dropped by after school today. Unannounced. (I think maybe he
    had gone to Sunny’s house first, but she wasn’t home, so he came over here.) It
    was unusually warm today, so we sat in the sun on our back steps. Carol
    wheeled Gracie out in her stroller and parked her in the shade. Ducky and I
    watched over her while she napped.
    “Dawn?” said Ducky. “Do you think Maggie minds about the tickets?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Well, you guys are all friends. You and Sunny and Amalia and Maggie.
    And me. And I gave tickets to everyone except Maggie.”
    “Well, you couldn’t get more than four tickets. Maggie knows that. And she
    didn’t want to go to the concert anyway. She doesn’t even know who Jax is.”
    “You’re kidding.”
    “Nope. She really doesn’t.”
    “But do you think she feels left out anyway?”
    “Ducky, you worry too much.”
    “I know.”
    Worrying is sort of Ducky’s function in life.
    After a moment Ducky said, “You didn’t answer my question.”
    I sighed. “Well, I haven’t spoken to Maggie about it, but I don’t think you
    hurt her feelings. I really don’t.”
    Ducky was certainly obsessing about Maggie, which gave me an idea. I
    remembered when I was obsessing about Groundhog Day. Maybe Ducky was
    actual y worrying about something else. “Are you thinking about Alex again?” I
    asked suddenly.
    Ducky looked at me out of the corners of his eyes but he didn’t turn his
    head. “I think about him every day,” he replied.
    “Ducky, what Alex did was not your fault. It had nothing to do