“Well enough you’d have made that same walk naked.”
“Then why can’t you understand I don’t want to talk about New York City?”
“The same reason you can’t understand that I need to.”
“Golden, pick someone else to talk to before you drive me crazy.”
“You don’t mean that.”
He gave a slow, deliberate nod. Recracked his knuckles. He walked across the room, kissed my cheek as violently as a cheek can be kissed. “No, I actually do. Now, I’m going to school. Have a good day.”
He hadn’t shaved. The kiss chafed. The whole thing chafed.
14. BEAUTIFUL BUT DARK
$50,921.00
Three hours later, I was in Dolly Dodge with Becky Cable on my way to Florida, feeling guilty, feeling free. Emotions never played fair. I hadn’t played fair either, and now I knew something about Chan he didn’t want me to know.
After he stormed off this morning, I lay on the floor and reached under the headboard. Feeling around for the cigar box, my fingers also found a book. I slid Chandler’s box toward me and snagged the book too. Chan had various sketchbooks; they were on his drafting table in the corner and crammed into the bookshelf by the bed. I’d never seen this particular one.
The first twenty or so pages had sketches of faces for his nativity carving. I kept flipping, wanting more, and hit a second section. The drawings here were . . . frantic. Beautiful but dark. The first, a familiar-looking man. Big, bushy, salt-and-pepper beard. Middle Eastern, maybe? The charcoal captured every handsome feature. Next, a girl. Also someone I couldn’t place. Five more who might have been students at my high school but weren’t. They were someone, the details were specific—wrinkled Yankees T-shirt, butterfly headband, hooped earrings with dangling hearts—to be fabrications. Except for the first man, they all looked to be between sixteen and twenty. I hit the next drawing and dropped the journal.
Simon Westwood.
The picture on the following page: Caroline Ascott.
Chan had started the next drawing one page over but hadn’t finished it. Rudy’s eyes watched me. I stopped there.
“Oh, Chan.”
I returned the journal and opened the cigar box, even more convinced I was right. He’d saved less cash than I anticipated. Or maybe he’d spent his reserves on my ring. Regardless, I placed into the box five hundred dollars with a little note that read, Plane Money for New York. It was everything I had that I wasn’t using. And then I left.
15. MORE SIDES THAN A RUBIK’S CUBE
$51,921.00
Dolly was a 1990 two-tone brown Dodge Ram with a camper shell that was sometimes off, sometimes on. Currently on. The animal was everything you ever wanted a station wagon to be with the height of a truck. The left windshield wiper didn’t work, and the gas cap wouldn’t screw tight. Those were her only deficiencies. Well, and Dolly peaked at sixty-five miles per hour. Not a significant problem in Braxton Springs. But things rattled on the interstate. Becky wrote Dolly’s faults in the dashboard dust: no speed, no radio, no cruise control, one working seat belt, sliding cab window won’t close, smells awful.
“Are you wishing we’d come in the Mustang?”
“No way.” She swiped through the dust. “I like the Titanic even though it sank.”
She’d been dicking around town this morning when I stopped at the ATM to take all the money out of my account. The computer screen had requested my PIN and it went about as well as usual.
1389.
Denied.
1893.
Denied.
3198.
Denied.
The car behind me honked.
9831.
Denied.
I’d screeched away from the machine into a spot so Honky McHonkerson behind me could use the ATM. The car was a Mustang. Electric blue. Becky Cable. She’d parked, straddling the lines, and ventured through the rain to my window. “Tough morning, Jennings?”
“Can’t remember my PIN.”
“Shocking. Were you needing something in particular? I can spot you the cash.”
I don’t know why I said it, but I did. “Not unless you want to spring for a trip to Florida.”
Becky’s dark hair was freshly showered and wet as an otter coming out of the creek. A strand stuck to her cheeks, and her baby-doll shirt hiked toward her belly button. Even more so when she threw her hands in the air and whooped as only Becky could. “Hell, yeah, Jennings, I’ll knick, knack, Kerouac with you any day. Let’s blow this shitbox town.”
“Hop in the cab,” I’d said.
She’d slapped the door paneling triumphantly and hustled to the passenger side. “I’ve had three espressos,” she admitted, one of them still in her hand. Her gray eyes were double their usual size. “Now tell me, who is in Florida? Your secret boyfriend? Secret girlfriend? Some lame second cousin on your mother’s side who once asked you to do seven minutes in heaven? A sexual predator pretending to be your lame second cousin on your mother’s side who you met on the internet the same way I met—”
“Becky.”
Most people would apologize in a moment like that; Becky sipped more ten-dollar coffee, her eyes growing ever wider, ever probing. “Or is it a friend from summer camp? Or maybe, I know, a soldier you sent a Christmas box to who is home from Iraq? There are a ton of army bases in Florida.”
“Becky Cable, you have more sides than a Rubik’s Cube.”
“That’s the kindest thing anyone has ever said to me. What do they have, nine or six sides? Don’t undershoot me, Jennings. Now, tell me the glorious details.”
How about the glorious details of Rudy Guthrie? V-shaped face. Hollow cheekbones. Punchy jawline. High-arching eyebrows and prettiness you had to look for, but that was definitely there. That description sounded more like a Gap model than a friend. I said, “Another survivor. That’s who’s in Florida.”
“Ooooooo.”
Becky realigned her internal Rubik’s Cube and tamed her eyes. “Were you serious? Like, do you really want to go to Florida? ’Cause I was only screwing around, and now I feel like a royal dick. Like Charles-cheated-on-Diana-level dick. I love the royals; do you love the royals?”
Chandler screamed in my head. Pick someone else to talk to.
“Your nose is bleeding again, Jennings.” Becky opened the glove box and found a napkin. I jammed the wad against the end of my nose. Stress bleeds were a fixture of my post-June life.
“Sorry,” I said of the blood. She shrugged and waited on me to say something substantial. “Becky, I do want to go to Florida. And then, New York.”
Because Becky is an extraordinary human, she had four words: “Your car or mine?”
We were already in Dolly, so that decision made itself. Becky pillaged the necessaries from her house and parked her Mustang at Gran’s, and we hit the pavement at exactly sixty-five miles an hour.
Thank God her espresso high tapered somewhere around the Tennessee state line. I felt solid about including her on this crazy mission. She was now making a playlist she had aptly titled: Becky and Go Go. After a few vetoed songs, she announced, “I’m also making an anti-playlist. We’ll fill it with songs we hate and use it as punishment for all mistakes made. First song? I say ‘Cotton-Eyed Joe.’”
“Do we really need more than that?”
“It’s a list. A list must have more than one item.”
I accidentally revved the engine above sixty-five; Dolly lurched. “I think in this case one will do.”
Our musical tastes were similar. A selection of “oldies” we’d inherited from our parents, a fine collection of P!nk, Bruno, and Ed Sheeran, and then a whole set of songs that made us feel delighted to be driving. (But we couldn’t name those artists without checking iTunes.) Sharing music was like sharing a diary. When you tell someone, “I love this song,” you’re giving a piece of your story to the person.
She said, “Stop at the Rocket, will you? I need to pee.”
My blank expressio
n told her I didn’t know the Rocket.
“Houston, we have a problem. You know? The Alabama welcome center? NASA? The US Space and Rocket Center. There’s a rocket along the interstate. They let you pee there.”
I lifted my left shoulder in a half shrug.
“Jennings, if you spout some junk about how you’ve never liked space, just dump me on the side of the road and I’ll hitch my way home.”
“Becky?”
“Before you ask, the Rocket doesn’t have astronaut ice cream in their vending machines. Major oversight, if you ask me.”
“Becky?”
“Yeah.”
“Why weren’t we closer before now?”
Becky pressed Play on “Cotton-Eyed Joe” and laughed. As I didn’t know what was suddenly hilarious, I didn’t join her.
“Do you want this straight up or on the rocks?” she asked.
“Straight up, I guess.”
When someone puts a question to you like that, whatever they say next has teeth. Becky’s seat belt was the nonworking one, and she turned completely sideways and shoved her toes in my lap. She waited until I glanced sideways before she spoke. “You have two asses.” She said this matter-of-factly.
“Excuse me.”
“Two asses, Jennings. Your camera. Your boyfriend.” She counted them off on her fingers. “You’re always up one or the other. Makes it hard to know you. Add that to your notoriety, and, well, you’re living in ‘Cotton-Eyed Joe’ Friendship Land. That is to say, everyone knows your song without having any idea what the words mean.”
Ouch. Four hundred peers reduced me to camera, boyfriend, and Bus #21. I’d always thought seeing a person was like seeing a mountain. From a distance, it’s a shape, mostly a triangle. Up close, it’s crawling with moss and trees and animals. I’d never been sure who was responsible for the distance someone observed me from, but it couldn’t all belong to me. I didn’t attack Becky, but I asked my question as firmly as she’d made her statement. “If you think I’m such a shallow well, why are you still here?”
“Oh.” She swapped back to the Becky and Go Go playlist and made a selection; the melodic notes of Simon and Garfunkel emerged. “Because I’m clearly supposed to be. Synchronicity, my darling friend.”
16. SHIP IT.
$52,291.00
Carter Stockton called after we stopped at the Rocket. I’d forgotten all about telling him I wanted to talk. We connected, and a siren blared in the background. And then beeping. “Golden, hold on a sec, will you?” Another man’s voice said, “You off shift, Stock?” and Carter answered, “Just now.”
“You there?” The background noise muted.
“I am.”
“Thank you for emailing. Sorry for the delay in calling.”
I was struck by how his phone voice matched his video voice, but didn’t match my memory of June 15. I said, “You probably don’t remember, but you were the medic who saved my life. I’ve been watching Accelerant Orange.”
“I remember every kid I put on an ambulance that day, and I especially remember you. Who could forget a name like Golden? You’re not a kid, so please don’t be offended by the title. It’s only, the longer I work on Accelerant Orange, the more personal it is.”
“I’m not offended, Carter.”
“Call me Stock. Everybody does.”
“Tell me about Sunday.”
“Sunday?” Becky mouthed excitedly. I waved her over, and she pressed her ear near mine. The beeping sounded again and Stock apologized before he continued. “You’ve seen some of the reassembly job in the videos, but what you can’t tell is how much all the families have done to make the bus art. Everyone donated something. Photos and clothes and school bags. One lady brought me a signed baseball autographed by Babe Ruth because it was her son’s favorite thing. Can you believe that? Thousands of dollars.”
“That’s unbelievable.”
“I wish I had something from you. Not that I mean you any pressure by that. Only that you’re a big part of that day. I reckon you’re the reason I’m doing this.”
I wiped my palms on my jeans and left a big sweaty smudge. The reason he was doing this. Becky’s eyes went wide again.
“What if I brought you something?” I asked.
“Sure. Ship it, and if it doesn’t arrive in time for the opening, I’ll add it immediately. Rudy diagrammed the seats when I was ordering replacements. I’ll put whatever it is in your seat.”
“I mean, what if I brought myself and Rudy Guthrie?”
Becky squealed with excitement, and I pinched her leg.
“To the opening?” Carter asked.
“Yes.”
“Gosh, I’d be honored to have you attend.”
“We don’t need tickets?” Surely not, but I had to ask.
“On the house,” Carter bellowed, and I knew he was excited about the possibility of our attending. “But . . . if you decide it’s too much, I can put you in contact with the other families. They’d jump at the chance to hear final stories about their kids. Especially the Conner family. They’ve had it rough ’cause some person on the sidewalk claimed their kid was in a vest too. You know how social media junk gets going.”
“Jim Conner wasn’t a bomber.”
“Ah, hell, I know. I only meant, it’d help to hear it from you too. They’re the ones who gave me the idea about the college fund.”
“Will the Conners be at Accelerant Orange on Sunday?”
“They will.”
Deep breath. “Tell them I’ll be there.”
Becky squealed again.
17. SOME MORE THAN OTHERS.
$53,781.01
Need to get to know someone? Drive through Alabama. There is literally nothing else to do. The miles—326 of them—passed slowly, but we were fast approaching the delicate moment when I told Becky that (1) I didn’t have an address for where we were going, and as “Florida” was a rather large place we would have to acquire that information sooner rather than later; (2) I hadn’t specifically told Rudy we were making this jaunt; and (3) my connection with him was limited to Facebook.
The last part hung her up. “Facebook? Like the social network of grandmas and cousins in Tommy Bahama shirts who love their guns?”
“That’s where I found him. And then he found me.”
“Worrisome.”
I explained my original search. How I had three pieces of information. Name. State. Approximate age. I gave verbal and written statements to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, as did Chan, but they didn’t reciprocate information. The bombing of Bus #21 was on front-page spreads from Washington to New York to London. Nineteen victims; faces and names listed in yearbook-looking spreads in print and online, and even on some billboards. One bomber: Simon Westwood. Profiles and speculative psychological reports. “What went wrong?” articles. Photos of him from high school yearbooks. His garage, where he’d first assembled the bombs. Emails indicated he sold three other vests. There was even a photo of Caroline and Simon on the deck of a boat with a two-word caption: Keuka Lake. I’d googled, but I’d come up empty.
Chan’s names and mine were never released. We were minors, and we weren’t on a passenger manifest. Our local paper agreed not to do a special interest piece. We’d been listed in community prayer requests, but someone would have to be investigating to find the print copy, as Braxton Springs Weekly wasn’t online yet.
“That was a great initial decision, but it was oddly isolating,” I said.
“So you followed the continued coverage looking for this other guy and girl?”
“Yeah. But there was nothing. As far as I could tell, they were as silent as Chan and me.”
Becky admitted she hadn’t previously paid attention to the minutiae—she rarely did—but she’d paid attention to me. I seemed fake o-kay. Chan was a hurricane. “But you had each other, so I didn’t waltz into that shizz.” There was something admirable in that. “Did the other victims—is that the right word?—kno
w each other?”
“From what I read, some did.”
“How did you and Chandler end up on that bus?”
“Rudy.”
I fell under the scrutiny of her pensive eyes and heavy mascara. “Rudy from Facebook? Rudy who we’re going to meet?”
“Yes.”
“Do you hate him now?”
I’d never even thought to be angry. In fact, I worried that Rudy might feel guilty. He’d all but dared me to ride along. I’d seen his invitation as kind and mildly flirtatious. Chan and I weren’t exactly rich, and New York had been way more expensive to negotiate than planned. Sneaking on the bus meant a free ride to Battery Park.
“No way,” I said. “He was a way to get my photo.”
“Come on! He radically changed your life.”
“Everyone we meet changes our life.”
“Dude.” She turned “Cotton-Eyed Joe” to max volume. “SOME MORE THAN OTHERS.”
We were quiet. The road was quiet. Dolly stayed loud as ever, plugging away at the miles like a goat chewing cud. Becky asked me other questions about Rudy, the college fund—now at $53,781.01—and how mad Chan would be when he found out we were gone, and then wisely moved to safer topics. She chatted about the chapel where I lived and the new Bojangles coming to town and if my mom liked her newish aide job with special ed and whether I considered the Hive a cult; all while I relived the steps that preceded me boarding Bus #21.
Becky shoved her toes at the dash, smudging the window with her little piggies. “We’re gonna get a ticket for going sooooo slow. Which I guess is fine, since there’s no point in arriving somewhere unknown faster than we have to. We could be there right now.” She pointed to a white house with black shutters alongside the interstate. “He could live there.” Another brick mansion with a rolling wooden fence to the left. “Or there.” She rolled down the window and called, “Rudy! Rudy! Where art thou?”
“You could drive.”
She lit like a sun. I pulled off, and we swapped spots. I used the opportunity to send Rudy a message.
Golden: Where in Florida do you live?
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