And there, right in the middle of the kitchen, pointing a big ole .22 right at me, was Wendy Lee herself. Dang.
I put my hands up in the air but didn’t drop my bag, just let it dangle from the crook of my elbow. When Wendy Lee saw it was me, she lowered her rifle a little bit. The she reconsidered and aimed it right back at me.
“Anna Marie,” she snarled. Unlike the last time I’d seen her, she was in all her perfectly turned out glory, with her fake blond hair poofed up and her makeup painted on thick and just so. “Just what in the wide world do you think you’re doing?”
As soon as I started to bring my hands down, she cocked the rifle like she wanted me to know she meant it. Instead of scaring me, this made me downright furious. First she lands me in this sorry situation, then she plans on shooting me for stealing dairy products?
“I’m hungry,” I said. “On account of you putting me out on the street with no fair warning, for no good reason.”
“No good reason! I thought you were a no-good thief. Turns out I was right.”
“I never was a thief until right this minute. You didn’t fire a thief, Wendy Lee, you created one!” Soon as the words were out of my mouth, I knew they were true. It made me so mad that I put my hands down and marched past her into the dry goods cupboard. Just as I suspected, she didn’t shoot me. “Wendy Lee,” I called to her. “You want to tell me where you keep your extra bags? ’Cause I don’t think I can fit everything I need into the one I brought.”
I heard a little clatter, which I figured was Wendy Lee putting the rifle on the counter. “Anna Marie,” she yelled at the top of her voice. “You take your time and get everything you need. I’ll just be calling the police.”
My hand froze on the bar of dark chocolate. The police. I’d forgotten all about them. There were only two phones in the Sunshine Bakery, one upstairs behind the counter, by the cash register, and the other also upstairs, in Wendy Lee’s office. I rushed out of the dry pantry and stood right in front of the door that led to the stairway.
“Anna Marie, you get outa my way.”
“No ma’am,” I said.
She put her hands on her hips. I noticed that she was even more gussied up than usual, in a flowery skirt and a sequined top and heels that brought her up to my chin. Probably she had an after-dinner date with some fat old bible salesman. Any minute he might come walking through the door to collect her, and then I’d have two indignant Southerners to deal with. I’d seen the men Wendy Lee dated. None of them looked like they’d be shy as she was about shooting me.
So I figured the best thing to do was just give up. I said, “Just forget it, Wendy Lee. You go ahead and call them.”
I started to walk away from the door, figuring she’d take the chance to scurry right through it and run on up the stairs. But that’s not what she did. Instead she reached out and grabbed my arm, just above the cuff of my sleeve. Her plump little hand closed tight, and I froze where I stood. Wendy Lee’s grip felt firm and almost motherly. I panicked, and at the same time I kind of relished it, another person, holding me, even if it was in anger. Also I felt a powerful rush of relief, and gratitude for the layers of clothing separating my skin and hers. That moment didn’t last long. Because Wendy Lee’s thumb slid down my cuff. Just the barest brush, the startling feeling, the sparkly charms on her bracelet jangling against my arm, and her one-of-a-kind thumbprint nestled against the white sliver of skin between my glove and sleeve.
I held my breath. The thing about an affliction like mine, one that had come on so sudden, is that there’s no way of knowing if you’ve still got it. I couldn’t go around killing kittens every day of my life. And even though something deep inside me told me that I hadn’t got better, a girl couldn’t help but hope. Hope springs eternal in the human breast, just like I’d written in my paper for Miss Fitzimmons. So in the split second between the touch of skin and any kind of reaction, this wild rush of hope came over me—that it had gone away, and I could peel off all my layers, put on a sundress, and go…
But there wouldn’t be any hand-holding in my future. Even though I came to my senses and snatched my arm out of Wendy Lee’s grasp, something came over her. Her face quivered, then turned into a kind of stone, then started in quivering again like the stone was going to crack and shatter. At the same time something came over me, a rush of something entering me, my fingers and then my whole body tingling. A rush and a whoosh went all the way through my body, including my toenails and the follicles of my hair. Absorbing something I was never meant to have. Wendy Lee. Everything that happened to her over the years of her life, everything that had made her up to begin with. She fell to the floor.
I had to get out of there. Not only that, I had to get out of Jackson, Mississippi. But I also had to get Wendy Lee help. I hadn’t touched her near as long as I’d touched Cody, and she was a whole lot bigger than the kitten. I could see she was still breathing. So instead of heading up the kitchen steps to the street, I went on up to the bakery. I stood behind the counter and dialed 911. “There’s a lady in the kitchen downstairs at the Sunshine Bakery. She’s unconscious. Please send an ambulance right away.” Then I hung up, grabbed a stack of chocolate bars from the front counter, and headed out the door.
Wendy Lee was thirty-seven years old. She used coconut oil to make her pie crusts flaky. She married her high school sweetheart when she was seventeen, on account of he’d got her pregnant, but she lost the baby right after the wedding, and he struck out for his family’s ranch in Colorado and never did send her a penny. He even took their dog, a Bluetick Coonhound named Radar. I could see her husband’s face right in front of my eyes. He had freckles and red hair and a lopsided smile. I hated that face and I loved it, all at the same time.
The night air was hot as a sauna, but I felt cold right down to my bones. As I passed the store with the sweater in the window, I decided to leave Mississippi for good. Who knew where I’d go, or how I’d get there? But I couldn’t come back here, not ever.
Off in the distance I heard a siren, hopefully an ambulance headed to assist Wendy Lee. But who was coming to assist me? Not anybody on this whole ball of mud called Planet Earth. I looked down at the ground. There was the rock I’d tripped over on my way to the bakery. So far I wasn’t turning out to be a very effective criminal. But what did I have to lose? Surely the police wouldn’t be very far behind that ambulance. Well then, let them just try to bring me in. I knelt down and picked up that rock. Threw it right through the plate glass window, which must have been made years ago, because it shattered easily. Didn’t even set off an alarm. I didn’t bother wrenching the sweater off the mannequin, just stepped on through the window and gathered up an armload of the mediums stacked on the table. Then I stepped back through the broken glass and made my way back to my apartment for what I knew would be the very last time.
Back at my place I jammed the stolen sweaters into my duffel bag, along with some other clothes. Then I stood on my bed and untacked my map, folded it neatly, slipped it inside, and zipped the whole thing shut. I locked the door behind me, having left just enough behind so that maybe it would look like I planned on coming back.
Outside I had one decision left to make: which car to steal. It had to be something that the whole world wouldn’t notice as I drove by. And it ought to be an American-made car, because that’s the kind Cody had the most experience fixing. In a weird way this was just the teensiest bit exciting. All these months I’d known, courtesy of Cody’s memories, how to start a car with nothing but a screwdriver.
My heart skipped three beats as a car puttering up the road backfired. I got to the corner of North State and Magnolia and was looking wildly up and down for a likely prospect when the same car honked at me. Just great. The car looked as sorry as it sounded, with dents and rust spots and a convertible top with threads hanging down from it. And as it pulled up beside me, who should I see behind the wheel but James, wearing his long black leather jacket, plus thick black leather gloves that loo
ked like they had sheepskin lining.
“Anna Marie,” he said. “Hop in!” His voice sounded bright and cheerful, like he was inviting me to go to the movies or a dance or something. I didn’t get into the car just yet, but I poked my head in.
“How far you going?” I asked.
“How far do you want to go?”
If he’d racked his whole brain for a million years, he couldn’t have come up with a better answer. The car had a bench seat. I threw my duffel bag in first so it could be a buffer between us. Then I hunkered down in the front seat and set to searching for a decent radio station. It was going to be a long, long ride.
The car was hotter than hell. Not only did James have the windows rolled up, he had the heat cranked. “You gotta be kidding me,” I said. He glanced over like he had no clue what I was talking about.
“You think we could use the air-conditioning instead of the heat?” I said.
“Sure,” James said. He sounded so calm, that same kind of elegant, almost musical voice. “Please do whatever you like. I’m still trying to figure everything out.”
“Yeah,” I said, giving him a little leeway. “It’s an old car, for sure.” I leaned over and switched the dial from red to blue. The chances that the air conditioner in this old jalopy worked were slim. Luckily Cody knew just how to fix the air-conditioning in an old Camaro, so even if it didn’t work now, I could repair it on up the road.
“What does that do?” James asked, as I fiddled with the dial. “Clean up the oxygen?”
“The oxygen? What’re you talking about?”
“You called it an air conditioner. So is the air going to get a little cleaner? Easier to breathe?”
“You don’t know what an air conditioner is?”
He paused, like he knew he’d made a mistake. Then—hallelujah—cold air started flowing from the dashboard, and he set into shivering. I rolled my eyes and clicked it off.
“Here,” I said. “A compromise. We’ll turn off the heat, which makes the car hotter, and also turn off the air conditioner. Which makes the air colder. Not easier to breathe. Do you want to tell me why you’re the only person in the world who doesn’t know that?”
James nodded at the windshield. Up ahead there was a big highway sign, giving us the choice between 220 South or 55 North.
“Do you want to talk about my knowledge of automotive terms?” he said. “Or do you want to tell me which way we’re going?”
“North,” I said, feeling a little guilty for wanting to head to cooler climates. “Definitely north.” I waited for him to complain, say he wanted to head where it was hotter, but he didn’t. He just eased the car onto Interstate 55. I listened for sirens blaring behind us and didn’t hear anything. A sign by the road said it was 544 miles to Winona, Tennessee. I asked James, “How do you feel about driving straight through the night?”
“Works for me.”
“In that case, we don’t have to talk about a doggone thing, if you don’t want to.”
James smiled to himself, and nodded. He reached out like he planned on patting my hand, and I pulled it back. I had on tea gloves underneath the fingerless gloves of my sweater, but still. Best not to get into the habit. He winced a little, like I’d hurt his feelings again, but he kept his eyes on the road. This gave me the chance to study him for a bit. At first glance, with the long hair and all the leather, he might seem scary. Luckily I’d learned that most people can’t afford much more than a first glance. So they wouldn’t see the things I did, such as the barest little bump on his nose, like maybe it had been broken a time or two, or the way his big hands gripped the wheel, looking strong, like they could do anything at all in this world.
The light in the car changed in patterns, depending on the streetlights rushing by and the headlights from the opposite side of the highway. I didn’t take my eyes off James, and he didn’t seem to mind. It had been so long since I’d just sat next to somebody. So long since I’d been along for the ride, and not just purely on my own.
All of a sudden this thought came into my head. Less like a thought, more like a memory. A memory of riding in a car almost exactly like this one, with a bench seat and rickety convertible top. Except in my head, the man driving wasn’t James at all, but a balding, potbellied fellow. In my memory, I didn’t mind this at all. In fact I kind of liked it, and I leaned over the seat and unzipped this fellow’s pants while he was driving. “It ain’t safe,” he said, but he sounded halfhearted, so I just laughed. Then I took out what he had in there and…
Wendy Lee! To think all that time I’d thought she was God-fearing.
I blushed something fierce all the way to Canton. Luckily it was dark and James didn’t seem to notice. You’d think the two of us would’ve been talking a blue streak, what with all the questions between us that needed working out. In my head I tried to figure on what I would tell James when he asked why I wanted to leave Jackson in such a hurry. But he didn’t ask, just kept his eyes on the road, driving.
“You want me to drive awhile?” I asked, after three quiet hours had passed.
“No,” he said. “This is fun for me.”
“You mind if I go to sleep then?”
“No,” he said. He smiled that little smile he had, the one that made me think of the word “kind.” “You go ahead and get some rest.”
I wriggled out of my jacket and folded it into a fat square so I could use it as a pillow. Just as I leaned it against the window, I thought of that kind way James had. I could just imagine, once I’d fallen asleep, he’d be the sort of person who’d reach over and stroke my hair, or give my cheek a little pat.
Don’t forget I used to be a regular girl. I knew the things that passed between people like they were nothing at all. My girlfriends back in Caldecott County used to touch me all the time with their fluttery fingers. Even Aunt Carrie sometimes tiptoed into my room and kissed me on the forehead when she thought I was sleeping. That was the only time she ever seemed to like me, when I slept.
“Listen. James,” I said.
“Yes, Anna Marie?” He talked so proper I had to smile to myself.
“I’m going to say something kinda strange right now,” I warned him. He looked away from his driving for just a second and smiled encouragement at me, like I was allowed to say any old strange thing I wanted. I took a deep breath. “You can’t touch me,” I said. “Not when I’m awake and not when I’m asleep. It’s nothing personal against you. And I’m not saying you even want to touch me. But I just need you to promise me that you won’t. Touch me, that is.”
“OK,” he said.
“Promise?”
“I promise,” he said. It surprised me that he didn’t ask any questions, but then I figured he was just returning the favor about me not interrogating him. I settled my head against the window, with my jacket underneath it, and started to close my eyes. But still it rankled me a little bit, and I never had learned to keep my mouth shut.
“James?” I said.
“Yes, Anna Marie?”
“Don’t you want to know why you can’t touch me?”
“Well,” he said, “I do want to know. But I suspect it’s a little bit like me not knowing what an air conditioner is. Isn’t it?”
A little rush of fear, mixed together with excitement, rushed into my heart. “Yes,” I whispered. “I suppose it is.” I leaned my head against the window and closed my eyes. Another of Wendy Lee’s memories came over me, this one a damn sight more wholesome, of her leaning against a car window to doze in just this manner. The man driving was different, much younger, her ex-husband before he became an ex. His name was Joe Wheeler. In this memory he reached out real sweetly and stroked her hair as she fell fast asleep. “Thanks, Jo Jo,” I muttered, which couldn’t have made much sense to James, but I couldn’t see his reaction, because I dozed right off.
When I opened my eyes again, they blinked into the sunlight pouring through the windshield. James was pulling off Highway 55, to get gas I supposed. I looke
d at the exit sign: Grenada. Tennessee! So far it looked a whole lot like Mississippi. Then it struck me: I hadn’t dreamed about Cody. I hadn’t dreamed at all. I couldn’t remember the last time that had happened.
“Good morning,” James said. “I’m glad to see you got some rest.”
“Thanks,” I said, stretching out my arms. I hoped my breath didn’t smell too bad. James pulled up in front of a gas pump and I fished in my duffel bag for my toiletries. “I’m just going on into the ladies’ room,” I said. “I can drive awhile, if you want, so you can get some rest.”
“OK,” James said. On my way to the bathroom, I turned around and looked at him pumping gas. He looked like a towering and fearsome person. Nobody would ever guess how downright agreeable he could be.
The bathroom sure could have used a cleaning. As I brushed my teeth, I ought to have been thinking on Wendy Lee, worrying about her and hoping she was all right. Of course I did all those things, but I also felt this rush of gladness that I had James for company and protection, especially since he’d taken the news about not touching me so well.
When I came out of the bathroom, James was in the little mini-mart, stocking up on snacks. “You want anything?” he asked. I remembered the chocolate bars in the pocket of my jacket. Probably I’d smooshed them all to pieces last night. Still, they’d make a fine breakfast. Eventually I’d have to figure out how to pay my own way for gas and food, but since I was going to drive, I guessed it would be all right to let him buy me a cup of coffee.
That dang old Camaro didn’t have any cup holders, so I had to balance the Styrofoam cup between my knees. James and I divvied up the chocolate bars, and I let him use my jacket as a pillow since he didn’t want to take his off.
“James,” I said, settling on the one question I just couldn’t keep quiet about. “I’m going to ask you a question, and if you don’t want to answer it, that’s just fine. Just say so. OK?”
Rogue Touch Page 4
