by Claire Cook
We were too close to the road to risk opening the door on the driver’s side, so I made B.J. crawl over me. We managed to switch bucket seats without either of us getting impaled on the gearshift or rupturing our tattoos.
“Ouch,” I said. “That would have been funny a few decades ago when I didn’t bruise so easily.”
B.J. moaned and reached for her new seat belt. I saw it as a sign of progress that she was buckling herself in this time.
I fastened the belt on the driver’s side. When I adjusted the rearview mirror, the person looking back at me took me totally by surprise. Big, scared eyes stared out from under pixie bangs, as if to say, How did a nice, formerly young girl like you end up in a ridiculous place like this?
I took a deep breath.
I cleared my throat.
I took another deep breath.
I stretched my hands out in front of me, like a concert pianist getting ready to play, then rested my hands on the steering wheel. The cracked leather covering stuck to my sweaty palms.
A loud snore made me jump. When I looked over, B.J. was sprawled across the passenger seat with her eyes closed, and her head was resting against the window as if it were a pillow. She snored again, long and loud, through her open mouth.
“Great,” I said. “There goes my copilot.”
I tried to remember which town Veronica lived in. Sandwich? Harwich? I closed my eyes and attempted to picture the return address on the last card she’d sent me, maybe a few years ago, maybe half a decade. I’d been such a poor correspondent to my old friends as my world shrank down to the size of a small family. I’d send back a Christmas card if I received one, and once that custom waned, I fell out of the loop even more.
Okay, so I’d just get us onto the Cape, then I’d wake up B.J. and we’d take it from there.
I made myself look at the traffic whizzing by. I watched cars and trucks and SUVs and flashy sports cars, surfboards strapped to the top of a jeep, a bicycle trailer bumping behind a mini van packed to the gills with kids and beach paraphernalia, a golden retriever with its head out the window, tongue hanging out and a smile on its face.
“Lions and tigers and bears, oh my,” I heard myself say. I made myself laugh, as if I’d said it to be funny, but the high pitch of my laughter sounded crazy, even to me. I’d once read that only non-crazy people think they’re crazy, because genuinely crazy people always think they’re just fine. So maybe there was still hope for me.
I decided I’d count ten cars passing, and then I’d put on my blinker.
I turned the key in the ignition and gave Mustang Sally some gas. She started right up. I moved my foot to the brake and slid the gearshift into drive.
I counted ten cars. Then I counted ten more.
My hand shook as I clicked on the blinker.
A gap appeared in the breakdown lane traffic. A white SUV flashed its lights and slowed down a little, telling me to go for it.
“Give me a minute,” I said. “I’m not quite ready.”
The SUV beeped.
“Fine,” I said. “Be like that.” I hit the gas and yanked the steering wheel to the left.
As soon as I started driving, the SUV bore down on me, getting right on my butt. I tightened my grip on the wheel and tried to push the gas pedal harder.
The SUV gave up on me and nosed into an impossibly small space in the next lane. The traffic adjusted itself to let it in. Nobody crashed. Nobody died. Nobody’s kids had to attend her funeral, the casket closed because seeing her mangled body would be too traumatic.
Yet.
I made my foot ignore my shaking thigh and stay on the accelerator. I opened my dry mouth to let more air in, and when my tongue came away from the roof of my mouth it felt like separating two strips of Velcro. I kept my eyes on the road and focused on the slow, even burn of my tattoo like a talisman, a lucky charm. It was a pain that made sense, that I could understand, one that had a direct cause and effect.
“Cross your heart and hope to die, stick a needle in your eye,” I whispered a few times in a chant that came to me from the depths of my childhood.
“But I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep,” I chanted next, over and over, from a mostly forgotten Robert Frost poem I’d had to memorize once. Sixth grade? Seventh?
I switched to “If I have only one life, let me live it as a blonde.” It had a nice rhythm to it. I said it straight. Then I gave it a big dramatic flourish. Then I added a funny little twist at the end. It was a commercial for a hair color, but which one? Clairol?
Despite my best efforts to recite it away, the baby elephant was back. It climbed up on my chest and sat down. The skin on my arms prickled and swelled, closing me in, making it impossible to get away from whatever it was that I had to get away from. Myself? Impending doom climbed in and squeezed into the passenger seat next to B.J.
B.J. let out another big snore.
I had to get off. I couldn’t get off.
A sign came into view announcing the next exit. I gripped the steering wheel tighter and willed myself to drive right past it, to stay in the breakdown lane all the way to Cape Cod, whatever it took.
Almost before I realized it was happening, the straightaway disappeared as the breakdown lane in front of me turned into an exit.
“Shit, shit, shit,” I said as, despite all my fierce resolve, the highway spit me out.
I rolled off the exit ramp and then took my first left into a parking lot.
I locked the Mustang, took the keys out of the ignition, and fell asleep to the smell of McDonald’s french fries.
CHAPTER 19
The ring of my cell phone woke me.
I rummaged blindly in my purse, rage coursing through my veins. I couldn’t believe Kurt had the nerve, the balls, to call me again. An image of my canceled credit card flashed before my eyes like a big blinking billboard.
I found my phone, pushed the button, and jumped right in. “FYI, it will take more than canceling my credit card to get me to talk to you, Mr. Dial Down the Hysterics. You’re blocked, even if I can’t get this stupid app to work. You’re still blocked because I say you’re blocked, which, FYI, means you officially can’t call me until I say you can.”
“Okay,” a strange male voice said.
“Wait.” I shook off my post-nap fog and tried to put the pieces together. “Who is this?”
I tried to remember how to pull up the Caller ID without disconnecting the person I was talking to. I took a stab at it and tapped the screen once. I reached for my reading glasses: Ted Brody.
“Shit,” I said. “I thought you were my husband. Former husband.”
“Sounds like now’s not a good time.”
“Ha. Sorry about that.” My cheeks were so red they were burning. I pushed the door open to get some more air, then pulled it shut as a mosquito tried to invade the car.
Ted Brody cleared his throat. “There aren’t any nearby cliffs around you’re about to jump off or anything, are there?”
I smiled. “Ha. Trust me, that’ll never happen. I’m too afraid of heights.” Two screaming toddlers ran across the parking lot, mothers in hot pursuit. A pickup truck backfired.
“Where are you, anyway?”
On the west side of the McDonald’s parking lot, the setting sun was throwing off a dazzling display of Technicolor stripes. It was a beautiful parking lot, symmetrically landscaped and well maintained, with an abundance of freshly painted parking spaces. The Mustang even had its own little private subdivision off in one corner, under the shade of a row of Bradford pears.
“Massachusetts,” I said. “On the way to Cape Cod.”
“Business or pleasure?”
“Is there a third option?”
Ted Brody let out a booming laugh. “Now, that’s funny.”
Beside me, B.J. made a funny little sound, almost like a kitten mewing. I opened the car door again and slid out as quietly as I could. “Actually, I’m up here for a high school class reunion.”
/>
“Brave soul.”
“Not really.” I pushed the car door gently until it clicked, then walked around to the front of the car and leaned back against the hood. Highway traffic rumbled from the other side of a windscreen of tall trees. “Have you gone to any of yours?”
“Hmm, only one, maybe my tenth. I’d just finished graduate school and wanted to show all my former buddies and the girls who had been unimpressed by my charms how well I turned out.”
“There were girls who were unimpressed by your charms?” I heard a flirty voice say.
“Hard to believe, huh?” Ted Brody roared out a laugh. “The cool art girls like you walked right past me like I didn’t exist.”
I walked around to the outside mirror on the driver’s side and bent over to check out my haircut. “I was so not a cool art girl. I couldn’t even draw.”
“What’s that got to do with anything? That sculpture of yours blows me away every time I look at it.”
“Really?”
“Really. And I’ve been collecting for years.”
“Metal sculpture?”
“Nope. You’re the first. Mostly paintings. Abstracts by up-and-coming artists, and some hill country folk art, the real deal, not those kitschy tourist pieces. It’s how I survived twenty-three years in corporate middle management with my soul intact. I didn’t even have a place to display most of them. I just stacked them up against the wall in the playroom once the kids stopped using it—my twisted version of a man cave, I guess. The goal was to collect one hundred pieces before I died, or cashed in on my retirement, whichever came first.”
“Wow,” I said. “How many kids do you have?” I scrunched my eyes closed as soon as I said it. It was the wrong question. I had a million better questions than that, fascinating questions, artsy questions, questions that wouldn’t make me sound like a total loser.
“Two grown daughters. You?”
“Two sons. All grown up. Maybe even more grown up than I am.” I laughed an odd, misshapen laugh.
There was dead silence. A siren started screaming out on the highway, like a buzzer on a game show announcing that I’d managed to kill our conversation.
“Well,” he said. “It’s pretty nuts in here and I’m starting to get the evil eye from the hostess.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry. I should have realized you were at the restaurant, especially since it’s, you know, dinnertime. Okay, well, have a nice night. Bye.”
“Wait, the reason I called—” I heard Ted Brody say just before I hit the END CALL button.
Across from me in the booth, B.J. checked the time on her cell phone. “Wow, that must have been some traffic. I thought we would have made it to the Cape ages ago. But good thinking—I’m famished.”
When she looked up, her mascara was smudged but her eyes were barely puffy. Maybe the trick to crying as you age is to stay in an upright position so the tears can drain.
B.J. looked over one shoulder at the McDonald’s employees and then pulled a can of Tab out of her purse. When she opened it under the booth, the metal ring made a click followed by a little whoosh of pressure releasing. She reached for her paper McDonald’s cup.
“I can’t believe they don’t have sweet tea here,” I said.
B.J. made a face. “Yuck. How can you possibly like sweet tea anyway? You don’t even put sugar in your coffee.”
“I don’t have to drink it to think it’s a civilized custom.” I waited until she finished pouring her Tab under the booth table, then handed her my cup. “And I really don’t think you have to be that sneaky. We paid for small sodas to get the cups.”
B.J. filled my cup under the table. “I know, but it’s more fun this way. Remember when we used to sneak nips of Kahlúa into the dances?”
I reached for a french fry. “I think we only did that once. And we chickened out and threw them away before we had to walk by the chaperones.”
B.J. reached for a fry, too. “I don’t think so. I think we did it at all the dances. Ohmigod, this is the best dinner I’ve had in decades. I think we should have only french fries for every single meal the whole time you’re here. I mean, why the hell not?”
I slid the plastic tray to the exact center of the booth. I leaned the two bright red super-size cardboard containers of french fries against each other until they were standing up. I arranged a few fries up in our little paper cups of ketchup, like flowers in tiny vases, and then I tied the straw wrappers around two straws like little scarves and placed the straws in our cups of smuggled soda.
B.J. eyed my masterpiece. “Do all metal sculptors play with their food?”
“I’m pretty sure that’s how it starts. Though I also remember getting in trouble for wrapping our cat with my Slinky when I was about six.” I reached for another fry. “So, are you okay now?”
B.J. twirled her straw around in her drink and made the ends of the paper scarf flutter. “Of course I am. Why wouldn’t I be?”
I didn’t say anything.
She shrugged and tried to smooth out her frizzy hair at the same time. “I’m probably just coming down with the flu or something.”
“Never mind,” I said. “I was just asking.”
I reached for a fry and dragged it around in the ketchup until it was fully loaded. I pictured Ted Brody hanging up his phone and shaking his head as madly-in-love couples holding hands thronged onto his romantically lit courtyard. Right now he was probably wiping his brow dramatically and thinking, Whew, whatever I wanted to talk to that crazy sculpture lady about, uh, never mind.
Kurt and Crissy might even be eating there at this very moment, for all I knew. Kurt probably wouldn’t even recognize my work when he saw it hanging on the courtyard wall.
I couldn’t believe Kurt had canceled that card. Maybe he’d simply called the credit card company and said the cards had been stolen, which would mean they’d merely cancel the old cards and send new ones. Maybe he did it just to make me call him so I’d have to listen to all the things I didn’t want to listen to. Or maybe he’d actually closed out the account. I wasn’t stupid—I’d seen enough talk shows to know I needed to check our bank account balances and insurance policies. I needed to call a lawyer or a legal advocate or a legal something. Maybe I could find one who made house calls so I wouldn’t have to drive to the office. Or maybe I could just climb under this booth and hide.
So much better for me to leave the past behind and focus on the future, even if it was a future that started with the past and built from there. Maybe that was what The Moody Blues meant by Days of Future Passed. I’d have to remember to bring that up when I finally saw Finn. Ooh, heavy, he’d probably say with a twinkle in his eyes. What color were his eyes anyway? Black-and-white yearbook pictures had serious shortcomings.
Maybe I’d just stay right here and get a job at McDonald’s. I could find an apartment within walking distance. The work was probably pretty repetitive but I bet they had decent benefits. Health insurance and maybe even dental, all the things you’re about to lose when you’re a self-employed artist whose husband has left you. I’d have to let Trevor and Troy know I was okay, but Kurt would never hear another word from me. He’d eat his heart out with worry while I ate my weight in McDonald’s french fries.
“It started back in high school,” B.J. whispered.
I shook my head to make room for her words.
B.J.’s eyes didn’t quite meet mine. “Remember when pierced ears first came into style?”
“My dentist pierced mine,” I said. “Can you believe there was a time when they actually did that? And it’s also pretty amazing to remember that there was a time you couldn’t just walk into a mall and get your ears pierced. Ha, maybe because there weren’t any malls yet. Wow, if you think about it, we were practically pioneers.”
B.J. closed her eyes. “My older sister and her friend were piercing each other’s ears up in her room, and I talked them into doing mine. So they held all these ice cubes on my earlobes and took this huge, huge, da
rning nee . . .”
She paused and made that funny dry-mouth sound.
“Needle?” I said.
“Ugh, I can’t even say the word.” B.J. reached for a fry, then put it down. “If I even see a picture of one, I freak out. I had natural childbirth just to avoid the epidural—I mean, how messed up is that? And I couldn’t even stay in the examining room when my kids got their vaccinations. If it weren’t for laughing gas, my teeth would probably be falling out of my head by now. And if you gave me a choice between lockjaw and a tetanus sh . . .”
She put her forearms on the booth and flopped her head down on them.
“That’s awful,” I said. “You poor thing. I mean, it must really get in the way of your life sometimes.”
She lifted up her head just enough so that her eyes met mine. “It dictates my life. I will do anything to avoid nee . . . well, you know. And it’s so embarrassing, I never talk about it.”
My mouth was suddenly dry. When I reached for my Tab, my hand trembled just a little. I faked a smile. “So exactly why was it that you wanted us to get tattoos then?”
B.J. pushed herself away from the booth and looked at me. “I just hate to let it control me. And I’ve always wanted a tattoo, basically my whole life, since we were kids. And I guess I thought I might be braver if you were with me.”
I faked another smile. “Hey, Beej, we did it. We got our tattoos. Which can only mean we are both wicked, wicked brave.”
CHAPTER 20
“I can’t believe we finished all those french fries,” B.J. said as we walked back out to the Mustang. “I feel like I’m going to throw up.”
“I feel fine,” I said.
“Great,” B.J. said, “then you drive.”
Across from us in the truck section of the parking lot, a scruffy-looking guy wearing a baseball cap was parked directly under the bright floodlights. He leaned out the open window of his eighteen-wheeler and licked his lips at us.
