Driving Mr. Dead

by Molly Harper

  Catching my reflection in the mirror, I cringed. No wonder Mr. Sutherland seemed so … well, unimpressed would be putting it kindly. My heart-shaped face held few charms beyond a pert little nose and a frame of light brown hair that frizzed in humidity and hung limp in every other sort of -idity. I had a weird, top-heavy mouth that made me look as if I’d been thoroughly kissed, which generally wasn’t the case. I’d inherited my dad’s Puckett green eyes, with little flecks of gold around the pupils and a heavy fringe of lashes. Other than that, I was painfully average, which was strange, because I managed to gum up my life in such spectacular ways.

  Given my underwhelming attractions, I supposed that at this point, I should have been grateful that Mr. Sutherland wasn’t making me wear one of those little chauffeur caps to hide my face.

  It was just as well that he seemed to think I was some sort of disheveled swamp troll. As tempting as Mr. Sutherland was, dreamy insouciance and angular GQ looks were not my thing. Until I’d met Jason, my boyfriends had borne a disturbing resemblance to Criss Angel.

  I had just started the engine when my phone buzzed from the console. Speak of the Polo-wearing, microbrew-swilling devil. It was probably another ass-dial. Jason didn’t like to bother with his screen lock on his phone, so he disabled it, which meant that he was sort of notorious for calling people whenever he sat down. Of the dozens of calls he’d made to my phone over the last few days, he was only aware of half of them.

  I wasn’t ready to talk to him or his ass cheeks. And I could only be grateful that I’d turned off the Henry Rollins ringtone before Mr. Sutherland could hear it. I reached for the “ignore” button, only to suffer that velvet vampire voice’s further abuse of my goose-bump response.

  “Miss Puckett, I faxed a document concerning my transportation requirements to your employer upon the signing of our contract. Did you not read it?”

  Sadly, I had read what amounted to a sixteen-page contract rider, which outlined everything from maximum speeds at which I was allowed to change lanes to fragrances I was allowed to wear to which foods I was allowed to eat in his presence. I thought it was a joke. Clearly, I was wrong.

  He cleared his throat pointedly and handed me an extra copy, triple-stapled, along with the credit card I was supposed to be using for our travel expenses. “If you read page ten, you’ll see that phone use or texting while driving is strictly prohibited.”

  “Oh, no, I wasn’t going to—”

  “No excuses, Miss Puckett,” he said in that clipped, vaguely accented voice.

  I gritted my teeth, my voice practically whistling through them as I said, “You know, this whole thing might feel a little less awkward if you called me Miranda.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “OK, then,” I ground out, “do you have a music preference?”

  “Page twelve, Miss Puckett.”

  I flipped through the booklet listing tolerable music selections. I sighed and tuned the radio to a classical station. “It’s going to be a long drive.”

  MORE ISSUES THAN NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

  2

  We did not manage to become bosom companions in those first few hours on the road. Mr. Sutherland sat in the backseat, silent and taciturn, alternately glaring out the window and checking our progress against an atlas. Did he give me information from the atlas while I struggled to find our way back to civilization? No, he just grimaced every time I made a turn, which was super-helpful.

  The plan for this excursion to Half-Moon Hollow, Kentucky, was that I would drive as far as I could each day and well past sunset, letting Mr. Sutherland sleep during the day in the little car cubby. We would pull over at carefully chosen roadside motels at a “reasonable stopping time” so I could eat and rest. Mr. Sutherland didn’t have a driver’s license, so he would not help out with the wheel time.

  As I said, that was the plan. But, as in most cases where I was involved, that plan went awry. Terribly, terribly awry. Thanks to our late start and my accidentally looping around Tacoma twice, we reached a motel at 2 A.M. It could not come soon enough. After nearly twenty-eight hours without sleep, I was getting a little punchy. Falling asleep at the wheel and killing myself would be a really bad way to finish up my maiden voyage.

  We had not reached the vicinity of the approved first-night motel choices. We weren’t within fifty miles of those choices. There was not a Ramada or a Holiday Inn in sight. Now, the one-story, nondescript-beyond-the-dripping-rust-stains-on-the-exterior-walls Pine Heights Motel? That we had.

  I pulled the car to a stop and jumped out without a word to Mr. Sutherland. I didn’t feel obligated, since he hadn’t spared one for me since we’d pulled out of his driveway. I walked into the office to book two rooms, studiously ignoring the fact that the rooms were only thirty-two dollars per night and that the clerk gave me keys—real, old-fashioned, metal keys on honest-to-goodness plastic tags. Also, his emphasis on the “pay-perv-view” channels as an amenity really creeped me out.

  When I emerged from the office, feeling significantly less confident in the accommodations than when I’d walked in, Mr. Sutherland was leaning against the car, glowering at any object that crossed his field of vision.

  “This motel, if you can even call it that, is unacceptable. Miss Puckett, if you will review the preapproved itinerary—”

  “I did read it, all sixteen pages,” I told him. “And unfortunately, we weren’t able to make it as far as planned—”

  “Unacceptable!”

  “Whether you accept it or not, that’s the way it is!” I shouted back.

  Mr. Sutherland squinted at me again, which was either his idea of intimidation or he had some strange facial tic when he was angry. He snatched the key from my hand. “And my credit card, if you please. I don’t believe I can trust you with purchasing decisions.”

  I slapped the card into his outstretched palm, then yanked the rear door open and dropped his overnight bag at his feet. Counting down from ten, I cleared my throat, hoping that I sounded the least bit contrite. “Look, we are on the road. Traveling is unpredictable. There will be contingencies. You are just going to have to accept that the days will not go completely according to plan.”

  Mr. Sutherland smiled nastily. “I’ll be sure to tell your supervisor you said so.” He spun in the direction of his room, without a glance back at me. “Good night, Miss Puckett.”

  I pressed the heel of my hand against my sternum, hoping to quell the tension building there as he walked away. Mr. Sutherland slipped the key into the door to 6C, pointedly ignoring my presence. I glared at his back, praying that I could keep my mouth shut and get my ass into my room before I chucked a loose cement block at his head. Calm, I told myself. Stay cool. Do not concuss the client.

  And then I remembered the disdainful little sneer he’d given me when my shoes dripped on his precious floor. And the snotty way he’d informed me that I wasn’t responsible enough to be trusted with his credit card. No, he was not going to get away with talking to me that way. I would not put up with that bullshit for three more nights.

  “You know what, you are a real piece of work.”

  He turned to give me an incredulous look.

  I cleared my throat and tried for a more respectful tone. Not because I was working for him but because, you know, he had fangs. “If you feel the need to contact Ms. Scanlon, I don’t suppose there’s anything I can do to stop you.” He smirked slightly, before I added, “But if you plan to call now, I think you should consider how you’re going to get home.”

  He didn’t offer me another glance as he slammed his room door shut.

  I opened my door and shut it behind me, whacking my head against the state room-tax notice. A familiar rise of panic burned my throat at the idea of returning home early, of seeing Jason before I was ready. But if Mr. Sutherland was going to tattle on me, there wasn’t anything I could do to stop him, so I might as well get a good night’s sleep. Sighing, I dropped my bag onto the bed and scanned the dismal lit
tle room. It was too dirty to be considered Spartan, too outdated to be considered retro. The carpet may have been a sort of burnt orange at some point, but it was now more of a knotty brownish gray. The bedspread was the same paper-thin synthetic fiber used in all cheap motels. I had no doubt that long after the nuclear winter, future civilizations would visit our planet and find scratchy motel bedspreads flapping across the earth’s wasted landscape. I made a mental note to toss that particular specimen to the floor and avoid touching it for the remainder of my stay. I was not sleeping on that thing.

  I checked my phone again, finding that Jason was down two calls to my mother, who had called a total of ten times that day. Pulling my phone out of my pocket, I calculated the time difference. It was 5:30 A.M. in Kentucky, which meant Mom would be up and on her treadmill already—just another way in which I wasn’t living up to her high standards. She picked up on the first ring.

  “Sweetheart!” she cried. “Why haven’t you called?”

  “Because you’ve been calling enough for the both of us?” I suggested dryly.

  “Well, I just wanted to know that you’d arrived safely.” She was using the unreasonable client-quelling voice that she used as one Puckett in the firm of Puckett and Puckett, Attorneys at Law. This was not a good sign.

  Mom, my father, and my brother, Glenn, practiced in the long-held family firm, their shiny law degrees from the University of Kentucky displayed together in a three-part frame. There was supposed to be a fourth frame, but I hadn’t finished the requirements for a bachelor’s degree, much less law school.

  I rubbed at my left eye, which tended to twitch when Mom used “the voice” on me. “Which was why I texted you as soon as I arrived in Tacoma.”

  “Yes,” she protested. “But I want to know how it’s going!”

  Now, most people would consider that the sweet, interested curiosity of an involved parent. But my mother had ulterior motives. Mom didn’t want me to tell her how well I was doing or what Mr. Sutherland was like. She wanted to know if I was tanking ahead of schedule, forcing me to “come to my senses” and drive my butt back to Half-Moon Hollow, where I was safe and contained.

  As much as her assumptions of disaster hurt, I supposed she had good reason. At the tender age of twenty-six, I’d launched failed careers as, among many other things, a photographer, a pastry chef, a magician’s assistant, and a florist. Mom and I suffered from an opposition of life philosophies. I tried to think of life as the search for the next great adventure. I liked waking up each morning not knowing what I would be doing by the end of the day. I liked learning new things, throwing myself into new situations, even if it meant a few bumps and scrapes along the way. But ultimately, I was a guidance counselor’s cautionary tale. Mom blamed the public-school system and insisted that the family should have sent me to St. Bridget’s Academy across town, even if it meant having to convert.

  We were about as old money as a family could get in Half-Moon Hollow. Pucketts were pillars of the community. We served on committees and councils. We funded buildings and restored memorial statues. We sponsored youth sports teams and hosted Labor Day picnics for state senators.

  Well, that’s what my family did. I served the community in more of a “judge ordered me to” sort of way. Until the previous year, I’d been the family embarrassment, the college dropout, the kid who never quite made it into the Christmas newsletter. My shameful status was temporarily revoked when—

  “Have you called Jason?” Mom asked.

  —when I agreed to marry Jason.

  I let out a long, slow breath. “No. The point of me taking this trip is that I have space and don’t have to talk to Jason, so I can figure out what I want.”

  Mom sniffed. “Well, he’s worried. I know you’re upset with him, but he’s worried about you. He asked me to pass that along.”

  “Hmph.”

  “I really think you should just come on home. I know you’re hurt, honey, and I’m not saying you don’t have good reason. But you can’t run away from your problems. I’m so worried about you, out there on your own. And how are you supposed to do … whatever it is that you’re going to do concerning Jason unless you talk it out?”

  I tugged at Jason’s tasteful diamond engagement ring, hanging from a sturdy chain around my neck. “We did talk it out, Mom. We have spent hours talking around and around this Lisa thing. We spent a whole weekend getaway at the lake talking about it. I canceled the wedding. I keep giving his ring back, but he finds some way to slip it to me again. We’re never going to break out of this weird, pointless cycle unless I have time to figure out what I want, without him hovering over me with apology flowers, apology candy, apology jelly.”

  “Apology jelly?”

  “Yeah, I didn’t get that one, either,” I muttered.

  “Well, I don’t think this temp job”—Mom said the words with as much contempt as good manners and the Botox injections that kept her from expressing the full range of human emotions permitted—“is the answer to your problems. And besides, we miss you around the office. It’s just not the same without you.”

  “I’ll bet.” I chuckled, genuinely laughing for the first time all day.

  Despite the fact that I lacked only two credits for my certification, I was a terrible paralegal. Filing systems made my head hurt. I could not handle rude clients in the delicate, pacifying manner prescribed by firm policy. And every time I used the Xerox machine, I posed a danger to myself and others.

  But since the spectacular failure of my photography studio in Chicago, I’d been training under the aging Mrs. Whitaker to take her place as the primary support staffer at Puckett and Puckett. My parents were well aware that I wasn’t an asset to their office. But they wanted to know that I was safe, that I was taken care of. And ultimately, I think that was why they liked the idea of my marrying Jason. He was safe. He would be a good provider. And he would probably keep me from setting fires with most household appliances.

  “Mom, everything’s fine here. I’m enjoying my time on the road.” I sighed. “I’m sorry to disappoint you.”

  “Oh, sweetheart, how could you say that? You know I’m only worried about you. I would think that you would want to come home, just so I would know you were safe. I just want you to be happy.”

  As long as it was her preferred brand of happiness.

  “I like this temp job, Mom. It was really nice of Iris to hook me up with this assignment. She knew I wanted to get out of town to clear my head, and she helped me out. And believe it or not, I’m actually qualified for the work. I’ve moved almost a dozen times over the last eight years. I have a lot of experience driving back and forth across the country,” I said, taking the phone away from my ear long enough to pull a White Stripes T-shirt over my head. “And the one thing that you can say proudly is that I have a pristine driving record.”

  My close encounter with the despondent chicken was on a need-to-know basis. Mom didn’t need to know.

  “Well, it seems a very silly way to make a living.” She sniffed. “Then again, if it lasts as long as the other jobs, I won’t have much to worry about.”

  And there went the eye again.

  A half hour and many “I just want what’s best for you’s” later, my self-esteem was properly checked. Mom had given me the up-to-the-minute news on my family. Jason had successfully defended one of Daddy’s best friends from tax-evasion charges. Daddy shot a seventy at the Half-Moon Hollow Country Club and Catfish Farm, a new personal best. Glenn had just broken a record for highest-ever settlement against a grocery store in Kentucky. The management at the Shop-N-Go in Murphy hadn’t properly shelved bottles of dish soap, resulting in back pain and suffering for someone not smart enough to step around a puddle of it. My sister-in-law, Courtney Herndon-Puckett, had decided to open a brick-and-mortar store for her start-up cosmetics business.

  OK, that one caught me off-guard.

  “Does the world really need an outlet for repackaged Mary Kay products?” I aske
d, slipping into well-worn jeans and orange Chucks.

  “Please don’t mention Mary Kay in front of Courtney. You know that upsets her.”

  Courtney wanted to teach me how to apply makeup that didn’t make me look like “a sad-clown hooker,” film it, and post it on YouTube to promote her business. I wasn’t really worried about Courtney’s feelings.

  I managed to wind down the conversation halfway through the semicondensed version of who from church was having surgery/a baby/surgery to help them “tighten up” by saying, “Sorry, Mom, my boss is calling on the other line,” and hanging up quickly. Was there a call from Iris? No. But it was more mature than what I used to tell her to cut calls short: “Sorry, Mom, a pigeon just spontaneously combusted on my windowsill.” That only worked when I was living in a city, anyway.

  Palming my keys, I took a deep breath as I wandered out into the cool early-autumn night. Talking to my mother always left me feeling hollowed out, as if someone had taken an overpriced melon baller from Williams-Sonoma and scraped away perfectly spherical chunks of my resolve. Picturing a giant fruit salad composed of my emotions probably meant that I needed food desperately, or I would never get enough sleep to qualify as human in the morning. The Waffle Shoppe sign blinking across the parking lot put me in the mood for French toast.

  Hold the melon.

  The Waffle Shoppe did not disappoint. It had all of the charm and atmosphere you’d expect for a place that sold all-you-can-eat pancakes for $3.95. The Formica table was peeling, and three-quarters of the menu pages were stuck together with some mercifully unidentifiable mystery substance. But the coffee was hot, and the patrons were quiet. If I’d had my camera, I would have taken quiet, quick face shots, character studies. People were way more interesting to shoot while they were concentrating on their food, but you had to be careful, because in some establishments, the management took that personally … or they suspected that you were a narc.

  I struck up a friendly conversation with Nina, my waitress, which, according to the truck-stop code, meant that my food wouldn’t be spit in intentionally before it arrived at my table. I consider that a quality dining experience.