Faster, Faster, Faster

by Jonah Black

  “They don’t know I’m me,” I said, showing her my name tag.

  “That’s okay,” she said. “They don’t know I’m me, either.”

  I laughed, but Sophie wasn’t joking.

  “So what do you think, Jonah,” she said. “Do you want to do it?”

  “What, here? Now?” I said.

  “Sure,” said Sophie, and she reached down and pulled her shirt off. “This is my ‘quiet time.’ Nobody’s going to bother us.”

  I looked at her and I thought, Isn’t this what I’ve always wanted? But it wasn’t. I didn’t want to do it with Sophie inside a mental hospital during ‘quiet time.’ I wanted to get her out of there.

  “Why don’t we go somewhere else?” I said. “I have clearance to take you out for a couple of hours. Maybe we could talk?”

  “Excellent,” she said. She pulled her shirt back on and stood up and went over to her dresser. First she pulled her hair back in an elastic, then she pulled on some hiking boots without any socks, and then she got a big down coat out of the closet. And just like that we were ready to go.

  “Why don’t we go to that motel?” Sophie suggested. “You know, the one where you came to save me? I can’t remember what it was called now.” Her face turned all vacant.

  “The Beeswax Inn?” I said.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Sophie said. “Let’s head over to the Beeswax Inn and do it there!” She gave me another big hug.

  I flinched. She was really hurting my arm.

  What are you doing? I thought to myself. But I kept on doing it. It was like I couldn’t wait to see what would happen next, even though I was the one making the decisions and calling the shots.

  We walked back out through the common room and Sophie waved to the other girls, who were still sitting where they’d been sitting before. “Hey, I’m going on a field trip,” she told them. “We’re going to a motel room!”

  The other girls just looked at her vacantly. It didn’t even look like they were all that envious. They really scared me. I wish I could have helped them all.

  (Later.)

  Okay. So we got in the car. I drove down City Line toward the Beeswax Inn. Sophie looked out the window for a while and then said, “Wow, the world just keeps on going, doesn’t it?”

  I just said, “Yeah.” I looked at her and tried to feel reassured, but I didn’t. “I’m glad you’re okay, Sophie,” I said, as if saying it would actually make her okay.

  Sophie didn’t say anything for a while, then she turned to me and there were tears on her cheeks.

  “Who said I was okay?” she said.

  We drove past this fancy hotel on City Line called The Morgan. When I was a student at Masthead, they’d still been building it. Now it was having its grand opening. There were flags flapping on flagpoles, and bunting hanging from the front awning.

  “My Daddy’s staying there,” Sophie said, as if it was no big deal.

  “Your dad?” I said. “He’s here?”

  “Yeah,” Sophie said. “He wants me to go back to Maine with him.” She laughed, as if this were funny. “What a nut!”

  I remembered that Betsy had said Sophie’s father wanted to take her home. I guess he was just waiting for Maggins to let her go. And now there I was, practically kidnapping her. The reality of what I was doing was slowly starting to sink in.

  We drove on. Sophie fiddled with the dials on the radio. The Christian fundamentalist station came on again. A preacher was talking about walking with the devil. Sophie laughed. “Can you believe this guy?” she said.

  I smiled like it was funny, too, but inside I was thinking, Yeah, I can believe this guy. He’s talking about me.

  Then, there it was—the Beeswax Inn. We pulled into the parking lot.

  I could see the place in the wall where they’d rebricked the hole I’d made with the dean’s Peugeot. Sophie was looking at it, too.

  “You did it again, didn’t you?” Sophie said, before we opened the doors.

  “What?”

  “You rescued me,” she said quietly. “If you hadn’t come, I don’t know what would have happened to me. I’d have died in there, I think. Just like that poor hummingbird.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “This isn’t really a rescue.”

  It suddenly occurred to me that I didn’t really have much of a plan for what to do with Sophie once I got her out of Maggins and we spent some time together in the Beeswax Inn. I mean, I definitely wasn’t going to bring her back to Maggins. But it wasn’t like I was planning to take her back to Florida with me, either. We were both just sitting there, in the car, with our seat belts still on.

  “Can I ask you a question?” she said.

  “Sure.”

  “Why me, Jonah?”

  I looked down at the steering wheel. If someone else had asked me, say Dr. LaRue or Posie had said, “Why Sophie?” I would have said, because I think I’m in love with her. But Sophie was asking me herself, and I wasn’t sure of the answer anymore. I sat there in the car and looked out the window at the place where I’d driven through the wall, and wondered how on earth I’d gotten there. It seemed like a dream. I mean, I’d daydreamed about Sophie so many times and thought so much about her. But now that I was actually with her I almost felt like I was with a stranger. I didn’t know what to say.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “But you must know,” Sophie said. She sounded kind of disappointed, like I’d given the wrong answer. “It’s like you’re my guardian angel. What did I ever do to deserve you?”

  “I can’t explain it,” I said to her. But then I gave it a try. “Since the first time I saw you, I sort of felt like I had to look out for you.”

  “When was that?” she asked.

  “You were painting in the art studio,” I told her. “You were doing this painting of a girl by a cliff, about to jump.”

  “Oh, yeah!” Sophie said, remembering. “That was you? Hey, I could have sworn that was Sully.”

  I clutched the steering wheel, my knuckles were white. “Sully?” I said. “You mean Sullivan the Giant? My old roommate?”

  Sophie shrugged like it was no big deal that she was talking about Sullivan like he was this cool guy we both liked. And calling him Sully. “Yeah. Sully’s always loved my painting, I don’t know why. He’s just really interested in art, you know?”

  I looked out at the gray sky. It looked like it might start snowing any minute. It seemed like another world, out there, outside the car.

  “I heard he’s back at Masthead,” I said, coolly. I turned to look at her, but I couldn’t read her face at all.

  “Yeah,” Sophie said, her voice suddenly tired. “He’s back all right.”

  I said the next sentence as slowly as I could. “So, you’re in touch with him, then?”

  Sophie took my hand. I think she was catching on. “No, no,” she said. “I don’t know anything about him. Just what I hear from people, you know?”

  She was lying to me, I was sure of it. Betsy Donnelly said Sophie and Sullivan were e-mailing each other all the time. I felt so confused. I hated to think that Sophie was lying and I wanted to believe that she wasn’t. But I trusted Betsy, and I didn’t trust Sophie at all.

  “You remember how I told you once I was going to have to save your life sometime, Jonah?” Sophie said.

  “Uh-huh.”

  She reached into her purse and put on some lip gloss. She looked at herself in the passenger side vanity mirror, and then smiled at me. She looked fantastic, but a voice in my head said, Don’t do it, Jonah. She’s not for real.

  “Come on,” Sophie said, taking my hand. “Let’s do it.” Then she leaned over and kissed me and the kiss tasted like cherries from her lip gloss. She put her hand behind my head and we stayed where we were, just kissing. I couldn’t stop.

  In some ways, it was the saddest moment of my life. I was kissing Sophie at last, but I knew she had just lied to me. I knew things weren’t right. And I knew I should take her back
to Maggins and just get on with my life. But I couldn’t stop. I’d wanted this too badly for too long.

  We got out of the car and walked arm in arm toward the motel. About halfway across the parking lot, a helicopter flew by overhead. Sophie looked up and her face convulsed with fear for just a second. Then she looked relieved.

  “That’s not one of the black ones,” she said.

  I went up to the front desk and I got us a room. The guy behind the counter looked like the kind of guy you’d see reading porno magazines in the back of a news shop. He was hugely overweight, wearing a dirty T-shirt and this gross little goatee. He entered our names into his cruddy computer, and we got a key and walked down the hallway and went into our room.

  It was the same room she’d been in last year with Sullivan. You could tell from the wall.

  (Later.)

  Man oh man. This is hard to write.

  So there we were. Sophie was sitting on the bed. I was sitting on the bed next to her. I had the condoms in my wallet.

  Some color had come back into Sophie’s cheeks. She didn’t look so crazy now. She looked beautiful. That little voice in my head kept saying, Don’t do it Jonah. She’s not for real. But I ignored it. I was determined to put all my worries aside and just dive in. I was living on the edge.

  I took my shirt and my pants off and climbed into bed next to her. Sophie had all her clothes on when she first got under the covers, but she started wriggling around, and soon her pants and her T-shirt were on the floor. I put my arms around her and we started kissing. It felt like a dream, like the dream I’d had over and over for months. Every now and then we’d stop kissing and look at each other, and she was smiling at me like she was just as happy as I was. She wasn’t going to burst into tears like she had in Orlando. And she wasn’t going to run away. She wanted me, and I wanted her, and it was going happen. I was going to do it for the first time with Sophie, who really mattered to me. She wasn’t just any old girl.

  Sophie reached down under the covers and wriggled around some more and then she turned to me and said, “Okay, I’m naked.”

  And all I could think in response was, I wonder if she’s lying.

  “You’re amazing,” I said, but then it was me who was lying. She wasn’t amazing. She was this totally mixed up, confused girl, and I was about to mix her up even more. What was I doing? How could I do it?

  “I’m so glad it’s you,” she said.

  “It’s me?” I repeated.

  “That I’m doing it with for the first time. I feel so lucky it’s you, Sul— Jonah.”

  She was going to call me Sully! Just like that time I’d called Posie “Sophie” by mistake. Sophie had just done the same thing!

  Except she hadn’t. The more I thought about it, the surer I was that I’d misheard her. I decided not to be an idiot. There I was with Sophie, and there was nothing standing between us except my underwear, which I took off. I got out a condom and put it on. Don’t do it Jonah, the voice repeated. I ignored it.

  I held Sophie in my arms and she pressed her face into mine and said, “I love you, Jonah.”

  “I love you, too, Sophie,” I said back.

  But as I said the words I knew I was lying. And I knew I wasn’t going to be able to go through with it.

  There was the sound of another helicopter. The room felt cold all of a sudden. Snowflakes ticked against the window pane. Sophie got out of the bed and stood looking out the window at the snow. She looked pale and unreal silhouetted in the light.

  Then she turns to me and she is beautiful and warm and daisies blow through the open window. “Jonah,” she says, and she is the way I have always imagined her. With soft, golden hair and a radiant smile. She is sitting in the cockpit of her airplane and the wind is blowing her hair around. Then I blinked and I could see the knobs of her spine as she shivered in the cold, still staring out the window at the bleak winter sky. Her underwear was still on. It was white, and the elastic was slightly frayed. It made her look more fragile than ever. I wanted the other Sophie to come back. The warm, golden one who flew planes and smelled like daisies. The one I was in love with.

  Except she wasn’t real.

  The real Sophie turned around, her face pinched, and said, “I wish those stupid helicopters would just leave us alone.”

  And that’s when I made my decision.

  (Still Feb. 5, even later.)

  Okay. So here’s what happened:

  “Oh, damn,” I said to Sophie and sat up in bed. I reached for my underwear and put it back on underneath the covers.

  “What?” she said.

  “There’s something I wanted you to have,” I said. “A special present. It’s in the car. I’ll be right back.”

  “You’re kidding,” Sophie said. “Come on. Let’s just do it now. I’ve waited too long.”

  “No,” I said, pulling my pants back on. “I have to get this. Hang on.”

  “Whatever it is, I don’t want it,” Sophie said, flopping back down on the bed again and crawling under the covers. “I want you, Jonah.”

  “You’ll always have me,” I said. I pulled my shirt on over my head, and put my coat on. I think she knew what I was doing. She just watched me go to the door.

  “Jonah!” she said as I opened it.

  “What?”

  “You’ll always have me, too,” she said. I nodded.

  Then I went out into the hallway down to the front desk. I looked at my watch. It was quarter to twelve. I passed by all the other rooms in the Beeswax Inn and wondered who else was staying there and what they were doing. It was the kind of place where anything could happen

  I got to the front desk, and there was the big sleazy guy again. He was reading an issue of X-Men.

  “Can I use your phone?” I asked.

  “Sorry,” he said, barely looking up. “It’s private.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s an emergency,” I said.

  “Sorry,” he said, although I could tell he wasn’t.

  “Listen, it’s very important,” I said. “I’m not kidding. This really is an emergency.”

  The guy looked up this time and pointed at me. “And I’m telling you, dude. It’s private. Use the phone in your room!”

  “I can’t use that one,” I said.

  “Why, is it broken?”

  “No,” I said. “I just can’t use it. I need to use your phone. Now.”

  “Are we gonna have a problem here, dude?” he said.

  I felt Max’s metal ball in my coat pocket, and my hand closed around it. “I don’t think there’s going to be a problem,” I said. I barely even recognized my voice, I sounded so confindent. I grabbed the man’s shirt collar with my other hand and stared him in the eyes. “You’re just going to let me use the phone,” I told him.

  “Jesus. Okay, man, okay!” he said, backing away. “Use the damn phone! Use it all you want!”

  I picked up the phone but it started making this weird beeping sound.

  “Dude, you gotta hit nine to get an outside line,” he told me, shaking his head.

  I tried again, and then got information. “Hello?” I said. “Yes. In Philadelphia please. The number for the Morgan Hotel. On City Line Avenue.”

  They gave me the number and I hit One to have the number automatically dialed. I’d never done that before; it had always seemed like a waste of money.

  They connected me to the Morgan Hotel, and I asked to be connected to the line of Mr. O’Brien, and soon Sophie’s father answered the phone.

  “Mr. O’Brien?” I said.

  “Yes?”

  “This is Jonah Black.”

  “Jonah Black,” he said, slowly. Sophie’s father had this rich Yankee accent. I’d heard his voice once before, when I’d called Sophie’s number during Thanksgiving break. Mr. O’Brien had answered the phone and I’d hung up.

  “What can I do for you, Jonah?” he said.

  “You know who I am?” I said.

  “Oh, yes,” he said, sadly. “T
he name Jonah Black is well-known in our house.”

  “Sophie isn’t in Maggins anymore. She’s in a motel called the Beeswax Inn. It’s about a mile west from the Morgan on City Line. She wants—”

  My voice broke, and my throat seemed to close right up. The guy at the hotel desk was watching me carefully, listening to the whole conversation.

  “She wants you to come get her,” I said, quickly. “She wants to come home. She wants to go back with you to Maine. Right now.”

  There was a long silence on the other end of the line.

  “All right then, Jonah,” Mr. O’Brien said, almost kindly. “Thank you for calling me.”

  “Thank you,” I said, inexplicably. And then I hung up.

  “Thank you,” I told the guy behind the desk.

  “Sure, man,” he said. I think he was glad he was getting rid of me.

  “Okay, then,” I said. “Thanks again.” And then I walked out.

  I got into the car and started it up. As I pulled out of the parking lot, I looked back at the room, half hoping that Sophie would be there at the window, waving to me as I drove away. But our room was dark.

  On the way back to Dad’s house I drove past Maggins. Sullivan the Giant was walking up the front steps, holding a bouquet of flowers. I took the metal ball out of my pocket and kissed it.

  I hope she’s okay.

  (Still Feb. 5, later.)

  Well, that’s pretty much the whole story of what happened in the Beeswax Inn. Even looking back at it now, it seems like a dream.

  I got back to Dad’s house and Honey was standing in the front yard, looking kind of anxious. “Hey, Studly,” she said quickly. “Listen. Pack up your stuff. We’re heading out in an hour, okay?”