by Sam Jones
In one corner she saw Brandon with an armful of candy bars, Corn Nuts, and Doritos in different flavors. She scanned the store for Ana and then saw her at the counter under the register on her hands and knees, her face being licked by a Chihuahua whose entire body seemed to be wagging.
Emily made a beeline for Brandon, who handed her a handful of smoked almonds and an assortment of Skittles and M&Ms in different varieties. “Are you high?” she asked him. “We just ate a kabillion calories.”
Brandon shrugged. “Excitement makes me hungry.”
“This is nothing to be excited about.”
“Sure it is! We’re about to witness a holdup with no bullets.” Brandon moved on to the Slim Jim section of the snack aisle.
Emily turned around just in time to see Ana jump up and shriek as the Chihuahua began to dribble pee all over the floor in excitement. Emily wasn’t the only one to observe this. A wiry man with a trucker’s hat and a pronounced overbite appeared from behind the counter and growled with rage. “PICKLES!” A pointy cowboy boot shot out and caught Pickles in the ribs. He yelped in pain and raced to hide behind Ana’s legs.
“Hey!” Ana yelled. Her eyes were flashing fire as she reached down and scooped up the tiny dog in her arms. Emily wanted to stop all this somehow, to push the rewind/erase button on the past hour of their day, but there wasn’t anything she could do.
“Damn dog!” The man with the buckteeth and the cowboy boots was wiping up Pickles’s piddle with paper towels. As Emily approached, she noticed his nametag read EARL and wondered what the best way would be to get them all out of the store before Chestnut and Liz barged in. While she tried to come up with a plan, Ana begin to harangue Earl about kicking a canine.
“He didn’t do anything to you,” she said.
“Pissed on my clean floor,” Earl shot back. “I hate that damn dog. Girlfriend left him when she ran off with my mechanic.”
“I’d leave your sorry ass too,” Ana said, kissing the top of Pickles’s head.
“Maybe Pickles needs to go outside to finish his business.” Emily tried to sound helpful, and Ana turned toward the door as if this was a good idea. Emily dropped the armful of snacks Brandon had given her onto the counter. “Hey, Brandon! Let’s get going!” she called toward him. He was holding three bottles of Coke in place with his chin on top of the giant pile of junk food in his arms, and he was walking her way. Emily began to wonder if she had gained a foothold on the sheer rock wall of this impossible situation, but as she turned back to help Ana out the door with Pickles, she saw two familiar ski masks burst through the entrance.
“HANDS UP, ASSHOLES! THIS IS A ROBBERY!”
Brandon was as unprepared for this as Emily was, and he jumped about six inches into the air. The entire front of the store was showered with Doritos and Slim Jims and sodas. One of the bottles hit Earl in the back of the neck as he leaped up from cleaning the floor, and he knocked his head on the underside of the counter. He fell back to his knees, unleashing a stream of curses.
“Get up!” Liz shouted at him, waiving her gun in his face.
“Open the register, numb nuts!” Chestnut started prodding Earl with the barrel of his pistol.
Emily stood in the doorway next to Ana, unsure what to do next. Brandon was staring at Liz and Chestnut, too, as if they were going to give him a step-by-step on how to successfully rob a convenience store without ammunition.
As it turns out, the only person who was sure exactly what to do next was Earl. He was still swearing and rubbing his head with one hand, but he scrambled behind the counter, reached underneath, and pulled out a gun of his own. Of course, Earl’s gun did have bullets in it, which he proved in short order by beginning to fire wildly in all directions.
Emily threw both hands into the air for the second time that day and screamed. As she did, her keys flew out of her hands and landed in the rubble of Brandon’s junk food mountain. Without pausing, she turned, pushed Ana through the doors, and raced past the convenience store gas pumps. She heard the sound of Ana behind her, but it wasn’t until she had run into the alley next door and was in sight of her car that she fully comprehended the problem at hand: Her keys were still in the Little-J, lost somewhere on the floor under a pile of Frito-Lay products.
chapter 10
“Open the door! Open the door!” Ana was jumping up and down and screaming at the top of her lungs.
“I can’t.” Emily stood there, staring at the driver’s side door, watching Ana’s head bounce up and down. She might have burst into tears except that Ana was still jumping up and down, Pickles clutched to her breasts, both her head and the dog’s popping over the roof of the car into sight for a brief moment and then disappearing completely. Every time she jumped, Pickles let out a little yelp. The effect was just comical enough to keep her from breaking down completely.
The crinkling of snack bags and pounding of feet came seconds later as Brandon sprinted toward the car, his arms filled with a couple bags of Doritos and a bottle of Coke. Before Emily could say anything about being unable to get into the car, the beep of the doors unlocking sounded, and she grinned when she saw the glint of the keys in Brandon’s hand.
Emily and Ana both pulled their doors open, and Brandon shoved Emily over into the passenger seat on top of Ana as he slid into the driver’s seat and shoved the keys into the ignition.
“What are you doing?” Emily yelled as her lap was suddenly full of convenience-store snacks, dumped there by Brandon, and a Chihuahua from Ana’s arms.
“Driving!” Brandon yelled. Just as he threw the car in gear, the back door opened and Chestnut and Liz tumbled into the backseat, whooping as Brandon peeled out into the alley and shot through a yellow light across the service road and onto the on-ramp.
“Are you trying to kill us?” Ana screeched almost as loudly as the tires had.
“Kill you?” Brandon asked. “I’m trying to save your ass. In case you didn’t notice, that asshole was shooting real bullets at us.”
“But he missed!” Liz was giggling like a hyena, and Chestnut was still whooping like a drunk frat boy.
Emily stared at them in her backseat and felt a certainty that she was cursed. How else could it be this difficult to get rid of these crackpots? It was like she was a magnet for crazy today, the one day when all she really wanted was to stick to the schedule.
Emily saw a sign that said REST STOP: 1 MILE. She pointed at it and said, “We’re stopping there.”
“No way!” Brandon said. “That dude called the police for sure.”
“Yeah!” said Chestnut, suddenly serious. “We can’t stop anywhere around here.”
Emily started punching Brandon in the shoulder.
“Ow!” he yelped, the car swerving wildly. “Stop!”
“YOU STOP!” Emily snapped. She kept punching his shoulder. Ana shrieked. Pickles barked.
“You’re going to make him run off the road!” Liz reached over the seat and tried to stop Emily from punching Brandon by grabbing her arm.
“Keep your hands off me!” shrieked Emily, turning around and slapping wildly into the air. She didn’t care where her hands fell. She wanted these nitwits out of the car and she wanted to be on her way to the party. Period. If that meant she had to throw a fit to make it happen, so be it.
The lights of the rest area were coming up on their right as Chestnut grabbed at Emily’s wrists, trying to hold them to keep from getting slapped.
“BRANDON!” Ana shrieked. “PULL OVER!”
“NO!” Liz and Chestnut yelled in unison.
Emily turned around and slid an arm around Brandon’s neck, pulling his head towards her until she could whisper in his ear. “So help me God, Brandon Kinney, if you don’t pull off at this rest stop I will open the door and jump out onto the shoulder and take Ana with me.” To be honest, the tone in her own voice scared Emily. On some level she realized she was serious—and how weird it was to be pushed to a place where she would risk her own safety to change w
hat was happening.
“Fine,” Brandon said with a deep breath. He’d heard an eerie quality in Emily’s threat that he’d never heard before, and it scared him. He put on the blinker and eased the car down the exit ramp into the rest-stop parking lot.
The parking lot was mainly deserted except for a couple of semis parked down at the end, past the blond-brick service building. Brandon pulled into a space right in front of a well-lit area with five vending machines and signs pointing in opposite directions towards the men’s and women’s bathrooms.
“Asshole!” Chestnut punched the back of the seat.
“HEY!” Ana whirled, shoving Emily into the dashboard and Pickles onto Brandon’s lap. “He just drove your getaway car!”
“Some getaway,” said Liz. “We didn’t even get any cash before that numb nuts back there started shooting.”
“And whose fault is that?” Ana asked. “Not Brandon’s.”
Liz and Chestnut both hung their heads sheepishly under Ana’s glare. Chestnut reached for the door handle. Liz grabbed his arm. “Where are you going?”
“Aw hell,” said Chestnut. “I need a smoke.”
Chestnut threw open the car door and went stomping up to a picnic table near the snack machines, where he pulled out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. Liz went scrambling after him.
“Well, that was a total bust,” said Brandon.
“You think?” Emily said. She rolled her eyes and sighed the word “Idiots” under her breath.
“Hey! Who’re you calling ‘idiots’?” Brandon said, pulling open a family-size bag of Cool Ranch Doritos.
Emily couldn’t stand it anymore. “You! Them! Everyone.” She reached over Ana and pulled the door handle open. “Jesus Christ, Ana, get out of the car. I am crushed against this console.”
“Alright, alright. Cálmate.” Ana slid out of the car, and Emily practically tumbled onto the pavement after her.
“Don’t you tell me to calm down, Ana. I just wanted us to have a good time at a party this weekend, which, might I remind you both, I am paying for gas to drive us to.”
Brandon walked around the front of the car and leaned against the hood, holding the bag of Doritos out to Emily. “Chips?”
Emily wheeled on him. “How can you eat all the time?”
Brandon shrugged and took a glug from a two-liter bottle of Coke. He let out a giant burp that smelled like rotten Cool Ranch, then made that goofy grin. Ana immediately collapsed into giggles and Emily punched Brandon in the arm.
“Ow! Hey, you have to stop that. Why can girls beat up on guys all the time, when we’re not allowed to hit back?” “Oh, I don’t know, Brandon,” Emily scoffed. “Maybe it’s because doofus guys do idiotic things like offering to take the robbers who hold up the diner to their next hit!”
“Good job, Pickles! That’s a good poo poo!” Ana was squealing as Pickles did his business, then started running across the grassy lawn.
“Where are you going?” Emily asked.
Ana stopped and pointed to a big green bin with a picture of a dog on it by the trash cans. “To get a poop bag over there.”
“Oh,” Emily said, “so it’s okay to collude with bandits and become an accomplice to armed robbery, but picking up dog poop is where you draw the line?”
“Fine,” Ana huffed. “I’ll leave the dog poop.”
“Oh, that’s not all we’re leaving,” Emily said, grabbing the keys from Brandon.
“We’re leaving?” Emily heard Chestnut’s voice, and whirled around to see him and Liz walking up to the car, smelling like an ashtray.
“No,” said Emily. “You’re not leaving. We are leaving. You are going to continue your life of crime using someone else for transportation.”
“You can’t leave us here!” Liz said, alarmed.
“Oh yes. Yes, we can.”
“But we have one more job today!” Liz was frantic.
Emily stalked up to Liz and leaned into her face. “If you get into the backseat of my car ever again, I swear to God I will call the police on you myself and wait until they show up to slap you in cuffs.”
“But what about our little boy?” Chestnut said. “They’ll take Artie away from us.”
Emily glared at him. “Well, if you can’t stop stealing from people, maybe they should take Artie away from you.” Emily walked around the front of the car, got in behind the driver’s seat, and started the engine.
Brandon offered Chestnut the bag of Doritos. “Hang on a sec,” he said. “I’ll talk to her.”
Chestnut took it and dug in with Liz while Brandon leaned down and rapped on the passenger-side window with a knuckle.
Emily rolled down the window a few inches. “Get. In. Now.” She was not screwing around.
“I’d really like to,” Brandon said like he was breaking bad news to a child. “It’s just that I can’t leave them here by themselves.”
“You have got to be kidding me.” Emily laid her head on the steering wheel. The clock told her that her plan was already almost two hours off schedule, and if everything that had just happened hadn’t convinced her, for some reason seeing the time made her understand just what an unmitigated disaster this day had become.
Ana pulled open the passenger door and jumped in with Pickles, who did a very happy wiggle dance into Emily’s lap and licked her on the nose. It was such a ridiculous thing—that a dog was dancing around her front seat and licking her face—that she gave up. She just started laughing. Ana watched her for a second, her eyes wide. Emily was sure that Ana must think that she was watching her best friend lose her mind, but then Ana was laughing too—and neither one of them could stop. Eventually, there were tears running down Emily’s face, and Ana kept panting, “Stop! Okay, stop! My stomach hurts from—” Then Pickles jumped up and licked her nose with a little bark and the two of them collapsed into hysterics again.
Finally Brandon opened the door to the backseat and slid inside. “Are we good to go?” he asked. “Can I tell them to get in?”
“Dammit, Brandon. Why do you care about these assholes more than your friends’ safety?” Emily said. She wasn’t angry now, she was just curious. It didn’t make sense to her.
Brandon shrugged. “I dunno,” he said. “I just know that when my dad left, my mom . . .” His voice trailed off for a second, and Emily saw a shadow cross his face. She saw Ana reach into the backseat and put her hand on Brandon’s knee. Feeling her touch him, he looked up into her eyes, and somehow found his voice again. “My mom, she was strapped financially. I know she did some stuff that she wasn’t proud of. I mean, she didn’t sell herself or anything, but she worked a lot of shifts at the Bikini Bar. I just understand when people feel like they don’t have any options left to take care of their kid.”
Part of her wanted to protest, but Emily kept her mouth closed. True, they didn’t even know if Artie existed, and there were obvious problems with equating Liz and Chestnut with Brandon’s mom, who had worked her ass off to keep things going for Brandon and not lose their house after his dad ran off . . . but still, she was tired of the arguments—with her friends, sure, but mainly with herself.
Emily sighed. “Where do they want to go next?”
“Well . . .” Brandon had a sheepish grin on his face. “They have one more job planned.”
“Brandon,” Emily said, “they are so bad at holdups.”
This cracked Ana up again, and this time when the laughter spread through the car, Brandon was in on it too. “Dude. I know,” he said. Finally they settled down again, and when they did, they saw Chestnut and Liz leaning against the front of the car making out. Emily started to say “Ewww!” but stopped herself, and watched the tender way Chestnut held Liz, one arm around her waist, one hand sliding up to cup her cheek.
“Aww, they’re so cute!” Ana said, squeezing Pickles, who yelped in agreement.
Something about this moment gave Emily pause. Sure, they were criminals, but maybe the things people did didn’t define who the
y actually were. She thought about Brandon’s mom slinging drinks at the Bikini Bar until she met Brandon’s stepdad and could go back to school and finish her teaching degree. True, Brandon’s mom hadn’t done anything illegal, but she’d done whatever it took to make sure Brandon had everything he needed.
“They may be cute,” Emily said, “but you guys, it’s too dangerous to keep hanging out with them.”
“Agreed,” said Brandon. “Just let them tell you about this last job?”
Looking back, Emily would understand that this was the moment she stopped trying. Everybody was always telling her to “let go” and “go with the flow.”
“Fine,” she said.
Brandon opened the door and poked his head out. “Jesus, you two. Get a room why don’t you.”
Liz giggled, and Emily actually thought she might have seen her blush. She and Chestnut came barreling into the backseat.
“So, you’re gonna take us to the last job?” Liz asked.
Emily sighed. “Where is this last stop?”
Chestnut jumped in, his eyes lit up like fireworks. “Well, see, we gotta get to this big warehouse about five miles up the highway. We’ve got to make a pickup.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Ana held up her hand. “Pick up what?”
Liz and Chestnut glanced at each other. “A shipment,” said Liz brightly. She started tapping around on her phone. “Let me pull up the address.”
“A shipment of what exactly?” asked Emily.
“Coke,” said Chestnut.
“Don’t you need a truck to pick up a bunch of soda?” asked Ana. Emily stared at her friend. How could she be this naive? Chestnut almost busted a gut, and Liz was snorting she was laughing so hard.
“Oh, sweetheart.” Liz patted Ana’s head. “Cocaine. Blow.”
“Wow,” Brandon whistled quietly. “You guys are like, big time, huh?”
Chestnut shrugged. “Not yet, but we’re hoping to be.”
“Do you guys run drugs a lot?” Ana asked. Emily couldn’t help being concerned by the curiosity in her voice. Is Ana really weighing the pros and cons of felony possession?
