How Sweet It is

by Sophie Gunn

  Lizzie’s body felt like a tightly wound cord. She had a sense something wasn’t right that she just couldn’t shake.

  Tay clenched the wheel in a death grip. The speed gauge held steady at twenty-five. A Jeep passed them, beeping in anger.

  She should have taken Annie’s car.

  No. She only got behind the wheel once in a while, and she hated driving in the snow, which had started to come down in earnest. Tay going slow was much safer. Plus, she had chosen Tay to drive her on purpose. She needed him here with her. “Tommy will call us if there’s any news. No rush,” she reassured Tay. Another car pulled around them. The passenger gave Tay the finger.

  A sheen of sweat had broken out on his skin.

  “It’s okay,” Lizzie said. “There’s no rush. Her friends say she’s there, so she’s there. I bet she just wanted to show her friends her passport. It is kind of cool. I’m sure Paige is fine. Sometimes, they go off and grove ski where they’re not supposed to. She’ll turn up.”

  “I’m sorry. I thought in an emergency, I’d do better,” Tay said. “We’re almost there.”

  “But this isn’t an emergency.” She leaned over and kissed his cheek. It was icy cold and wet with sweat. In fact, he was sweating so badly, he looked as if he had just gotten out of the shower.

  She tried not to be impatient with him. Everything was fine. The sun was starting to set, and the pink and orange sky ahead of them made her acutely aware of the passing time. “I’m sure Paige is having the time of her life with her friends. A few extra minutes won’t matter.”

  They passed the husks of dried-up cornstalks and fields filled with cows huddling by their barns, waiting to be let in for the night. A set of headlights tailed them for less than a minute before the driver pulled out. He rolled down his passenger’s window. “Learn to drive!” he shouted.

  “Learn not to be an asshole!” Lizzie shouted back.

  Another car tailed them for a few turns, then sped past, shooting a death glare.

  “Get a life!” Lizzie yelled after them. She sat back in her seat. “This is sort of fun. Takes my mind off things,” she reassured Tay. But she didn’t mean it. She was ready to jump out of the truck and run the rest of the way.

  They entered a small town and passed an elementary school. Tay’s chest tightened to bursting as he imagined all the small children inside. They passed a car wash, a McDonald’s, a physical therapist. Fix whatever ails you, the sign read. Wouldn’t that be nice? Tay tried to breathe calmly as they drove through the sleepy town. The streetlights had come on and it looked very peaceful. He came to a slow, gliding stop at a red light. Miraculously, there weren’t any cars behind them to beep and protest.

  The light changed, and Tay pulled slowly into the intersection. He hated intersections most of all. The snow was getting heavy, sticking to the roads in a slick slush.

  After they passed through the town, the winding country roads started getting narrower and twistier. He could only see a few feet in front of his car as the flakes thickened. Now everyone was driving as slowly as he was. He could feel his tires slide out as he took the turns, even at a crawl.

  “If it keeps on coming down like this, you’re going to be the fastest driver on the road,” Lizzie said. She called Annie’s cell for the hundredth time.

  No news.

  She called Paige’s and left another message.

  Lizzie clicked her phone shut and they rounded a corner, and Tay slammed on the brakes, sending the truck into a fishtail to the edge of the road. They skidded to an uncertain stop.

  “Oh, hell,” Lizzie said.

  Ahead was a car, upside down in a ditch, its wheels spinning in the air. Another car was stopped diagonally across the roadway, its driver standing by the open door, a boy, one of the teenagers who had passed them earlier. But now, he didn’t look quite so cocky.

  “Oh, hell,” she repeated.

  Tay couldn’t speak.

  Lizzie and Tay jumped out of the truck. Tay rushed to the upside-down car. Lizzie went carefully to the stunned driver of the other car, afraid of spooking him. “Are you okay?” she asked. Don’t let Paige be here, don’t let it be Paige in that other car. Lizzie couldn’t help thinking of her daughter, even while she tried not to. She was glad Tay was looking, because she couldn’t even turn to face the car.

  The teenager in the street couldn’t speak.

  “I’ll call 911.” Lizzie fumbled for her phone.

  Tay knelt by the upside-down car. He wrestled with the door, then went to his truck. He came back with a wrench, which he smashed through the window.

  The snow and Lizzie’s fear muffled the sound of the glass shattering. Don’t let it be Paige…

  “Hello? I need to report an accident. We need an ambulance.”

  The boy started to talk, and Lizzie only half heard him as she tried to describe where they were. “I didn’t even see the other car,” the boy said. “The snow, it was so heavy. I don’t even know what happened…”

  “It’s okay,” Lizzie said. “Just relax. Everything’s okay.”

  But she wasn’t sure it was okay. In fact, she was pretty sure nothing was okay. The car looked bad. She tried to tell herself that none of Paige’s friends drove that kind of car, but she couldn’t even tell what kind of car it was.

  Tay had backed away from the overturned car. He stood and stared and when her eyes met his, he shook his head ever so slightly and she tried to keep her face strong for the boy standing in the road.

  She mouthed, Paige?

  He shook his head no quickly and her heart started beating again, but barely. She started to say a silent prayer for the people in the car.

  Tay couldn’t take his eyes off the dead girl in the driver’s seat of the car. At first, his only thought was that it would be Paige.

  It wasn’t. It was a stranger with long black hair, her blue eyes frozen open forever. The girl wasn’t Candy, he knew that. Candy was safe at Lizzie’s house. She was a stranger. But still, all he could think of was Linda Goodnight and Candy until small black spots floated in front of his eyes. He blinked them away.

  It wasn’t his accident. It wasn’t Linda. It wasn’t Candy. It wasn’t Paige. It was just an accident on a snowy road. No one’s fault. The universe’s fault.

  He closed his eyes and the awful sound of metal on metal crashed through his brain.

  “Tay?” Lizzie asked. She had come up beside him. “You okay?”

  The sound of sirens in the distance floated over the hills. Another few cars had stopped behind the truck, and a small crowd was starting to form.

  He opened his eyes. “She’s dead,” he whispered. The boy was still nearby, standing stiffly, immobile. Tay tried to go on, but he couldn’t. He meant that the girl in the overturned car was dead, but it felt as if Linda had died all over again. Something was wrong with this. With him. He felt light-headed. He could hear sirens, could hear other people who were trying to figure out what to do when there was nothing at all to do but stare and pray.

  “Tay?” Lizzie asked again. “Are you there?”

  He took a deep breath in the warm summer air. It was so hot. He was thinking of getting home to Emily, his girlfriend. He was going to marry her. He was thinking of what he’d have for dinner. Of what a crappy day he’d had at work, with the boiler of 742 going out and having to drive all the way to the Bronx for the part he needed to fix it. What a mess. But dinner and Emily and everything that made life good was waiting for him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the flash of Linda Goodnight’s red BMW convertible hurtling toward him at full speed. Her terrified eyes locked with his. The crunch of metal echoed through his brain as their cars collided. The sweet, sickly smell of gasoline fumes filled his nose. God, it was so hot. He couldn’t breathe. What had happened? He looked around him. Glass everywhere.

  “Tay?”

  The wind was knocked out of him. Pieces of shattered windshield covered him like tiny jewels. He looked up at the streetlight. Red. It was
red. Red for stop. But he hadn’t stopped. Had been thinking about dinner, about sex, about everything but driving. Had only been thinking about himself and his pleasure. His face hurt. Was bleeding.

  “Sir, are you okay? Can you hear me? There’s been an accident, but you’re okay.”

  He could see Linda’s blue eyes, same as her daughter’s, same as the stranger’s, wide with terror. He’d see them forever. His face felt wrong, as if it was inside out. He touched his cheek, then looked at his hand, and it was covered in blood. He couldn’t speak. But someone was speaking to him. He opened his eyes.

  “It’s okay. Just step out of the truck, sir. The medics want to look at that face.”

  He stumbled to the curb. The medics and firemen surrounded the other car. They looked grim. No one would meet his eyes.

  He could barely stand. Couldn’t find his feet. Was this really happening? What was happening?

  Ambulance sirens wailed in the distance. The look on the young fireman’s face as he moved away from the crushed car made him swim in and out of consciousness. No, it couldn’t be.

  Tay vomited in the ditch by the side of the road until he gagged. Her eyes. He was the last one to see her eyes. Her scream. Her last word was a scream. No one’s last word should be a scream.

  “Just sit, sir. Let them look at that cheek. You’re okay. It’s fine. Just an accident. Try to relax, sir.”

  A hand on his cheek, wet with blood.

  “Tay?”

  He turned to the voice. It was so cold. Why was it so cold?

  He looked down at his hand. Someone was holding it. He recognized that amber ring. Lizzie.

  “Tay, are you okay? Something happened. You kind of blacked out.”

  He was on the side of the road, Lizzie kneeling beside him. The door to his truck hung open. Police and EMTs were everywhere. A car was upside down in the snow. The snow. December, not September. Galton, not Queens. The snow was falling sideways now, covering everything as if trying to erase it.

  The pain in his cheek flared.

  “How did I not see that the light was red?” he said. “Why didn’t I stop?”

  “It’s okay, Tay. I think you had a flashback. That’s all. You’re fine. You’re here, with me. You’re safe,” Lizzie said. “We only found this accident. Remember? It had nothing to do with us. We’re fine. We’re driving to get Paige and we saw the accident after it happened.”

  Paige. He sat up straight.

  Shit. He remembered now. What had happened to him? He pulled himself together. “No. We’re not fine. This isn’t fine. We have to find Paige, and instead, I’m sitting on my ass having nightmares in the snow. Let’s go.” He tried to stand, then fell back to the curb. “Shit, my body. I feel like I’m going to pass out.”

  “It’s okay. Don’t worry. Paige is fine; I’m sure of it. Anyway, no one’s getting through this road. She’s boarding on the mountain with her friends. They said she was there. They wouldn’t lie. Just breathe. Tommy’s on his way. He’ll get us answers.”

  “I let you down. We have to keep going.” Tay shook his head as if it were filled with water. He felt as if he’d just been through a war. “I don’t know what happened to me, but I’m over it.”

  “Tay, stop for a minute and look at me,” Lizzie insisted. She took him by the shoulders. “Look at that boy—” She pointed to the boy who had been in the other car. He sat on the bumper of a police car, his head in his hands. “Is his life over? Should it be over? What could you say to that boy?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing!” Lizzie’s voice rose. “Nothing? A whole year and you’ve got nothing? Selling everything you own? Leaving your life behind? Losing everything? And you have nothing to say to him? What happened to Linda Goodnight was an accident. You have to forgive yourself. Right now. Right here. Tell me that you understand that. That you need to get past this. For me. For that kid. Show me that you’re not just a loner, a wanderer. Because you know what, Tay, I don’t have time for people like that in my life. I need people who know how to say, It was an accident, I’m sorry, and then move on. I don’t have time for people living in the past. Tell that boy to forgive himself. To realize that he doesn’t control the world. Accidents happen and we forgive. We forgive ourselves and we forgive each other. That’s what we do, because we’re human. Try it, Tay: It was an accident, I’m sorry.”

  “Words don’t matter. They’re nothing. They’re empty.” He forced himself to stand. He forced himself to his truck. His head was still spinning. The EMTs were loading a stretcher into the ambulance and Tay looked away and he saw the boy on the bumper of the police car. He couldn’t look at him. He was him. Still? Always? Some things were unforgivable. But this wasn’t the boy’s fault. An accident on a snowy road in the middle of nowhere. “Let’s go. We have to find Paige.”

  “Tay, please. Stop. Look around us. No one’s going anywhere.”

  They sat for a while, watching the police direct cars to turn around one by one on the snowy road. Lizzie had no idea if there was another route to the mountain. They ought to turn back. Go home. Wait for Paige.

  Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Tommy pushed through the crowd, showing his badge to the police on the scene.

  “You guys okay?” Tommy asked. He nodded to the police from the small town. He seemed to know most of them.

  “Fine. We’re fine,” she said. “We came on it, maybe a minute after it happened.”

  “Looks bad. The roads are terrible and getting worse. My car’s got the lights and chains. They’ll let me through now that the scene is cleaned up,” Tommy said, as if apologizing to Tay. “The roads behind us are backed up for almost a mile. I had to come down the shoulder with the lights on to get here.”

  Tay nodded. “Go. Hurry.” He kissed Lizzie’s cheek. “Be careful.”

  “I’m sorry, Tay,” she said. “Really, I am.”

  She gave him a backward glance as she and Tommy hurried to his cruiser. She ducked inside and he watched them wind carefully through the accident scene, then speed off, lights and siren cutting through the freezing night.

  Tay lingered, not sure why he couldn’t make himself leave. They had already given their statements to the police. Lizzie was on her way to the mountain.

  Then he saw the boy, alone, forgotten, leaning on the hood of a police cruiser, wrapped in a police blanket, staring into space.

  Tay knew that look.

  Tay went toward him. I know how you feel, man. Something like this happened to me. Worse, because there wasn’t any snow and I wasn’t a kid. I was just an idiot—

  Tay stopped.

  He couldn’t take another step toward the boy.

  I have absolutely nothing to offer.

  Words were nothing. Empty. Just so much hot air.

  The last thing this boy needed was to see that it never got easier—to see him.

  Tay turned back to his truck, feeling a new guilt eat at him. The boy’s empty eyes were seared into his memory.

  Tay started his engine and backed out, away from the scene. The policeman directed him into the flow of cars turning around and he began his long, slow trip back to Galton.

  CHAPTER

  51

  When Tay got back to Lizzie’s house, Annie and Candy were in the kitchen. Annie was trying to feed something green to Meghan, who was refusing with gusto. Dune sat at the baby’s feet, waiting hopefully for any offering. White sat on the counter, watching the scene with half-closed eyes.

  The two women jumped up when they saw him. “Don’t get up,” he said. “No news.” He still felt woozy from the flashback, from the eyes of the boy whom he couldn’t help. If he looked in the mirror now and had gray hair and was covered in wrinkles, he wouldn’t have been the least surprised.

  Candy turned her back and went upstairs without a word. Tay felt the air rush back into the room as soon as she was gone.

  Annie said, “You okay? You look pretty spooked.”

  Tay sat down at t
he table and rubbed Dune’s neck. “Any news?”

  Annie looked pretty spooked herself. “Tommy just called. No Paige at the mountain. They talked to her friends and they admitted that she hadn’t been there at all today. Tommy did his police routine, and Geena broke down and told him they had picked her up at six-thirty and dropped her at the bus terminal. She planned to somehow get to JFK Airport, then get on a plane to Geneva, Tay. By herself! To make her own dreams come true, Geena said.”

  Tay sank into a chair. He could feel Lizzie’s panic as if she were in the room with them. He wished that he was with her. He ought to be with her.

  He had to fix this before it was too late.

  Was it already too late?

  Annie went on. Her voice was thin and strained. “A driver at the bus depot just called Tommy back. He just got back from New York City. He said that someone who looks a lot like Paige got on his 7:00 A.M. Greyhound bus for New York City.” Annie’s voice caught. “He doesn’t know for sure if it was her, but I think we need to take it seriously. At least we have a lead. That’s good, right?”

  He tried to keep his face neutral, tried to block out his growing dread. He focused on scratching Dune. “We’ll find her,” Tay said, hoping he sounded as if he meant it. A small-town kid with no money, no friends, trying to get to the massive, tangled airport from the vast maze of New York City didn’t sound good.