Becky dug her elbow into my side. “Is he writing about this?”
“Maybe.”
I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.
Rudy rolled into the living room. He wore black fingerless gloves that he hadn’t the night before. “My dad’s working the oil rig for another six days, but Ms. Jay’s handling him. Victor’s mom won’t care as long as I’m with good people. We run our own little boat around here. I’ve got all the things that make me work these days, and, you know, a toothbrush. So, I guess travel is settled on my end,” he said agreeably. “Oh, the bathroom is free for the next six minutes if you want to hop in.”
Becky and I utilized our six minutes while Victor and Rudy learned the easiest way for Rudy to enter and exit the truck. Dolly was significantly higher than the Mustang. I wasn’t there to watch, but he mastered the maneuver by the time my teeth were brushed and my hair was in a sloppy bun, the back of my T-shirt soaked from not bothering to towel it dry. Becky and I took a quick lesson on the proper way to store his wheelchair in Dolly, because it was flippin’ expensive and a donation. And that was that. I was plus a Rudy and minus a Chan.
On a final trip into the house, Victor trapped me in the kitchen. “He’s a pro at workarounds. Assume he’s unbreakable.”
I assured Victor I understood. And although he smiled and deemed me capable, he offered a warning. “If he needs help, he’ll hate it.”
“Don’t we all.”
Victor wrapped my shoulder with his three-and-a-half-fingered hand and squeezed. We stood there in a solemn agreement that this trip was a good thing without using a single word. Becky honked, and I ran out the door. Deuce sat on Victor’s hip; father and son waved Dolly away from the curb. Rudy pointed at the mailbox across the street. “In case you were wondering, they’re not the same Westwoods.”
I pinched my nose in case it started to trickle, and we were off.
27. THE TOKEN BATHROOM AT THE BOTTOM OF THE WORLD
$67,955.00
Between Rudy’s and Caroline’s houses, I remembered the girl I’d shared a few seconds of life with last June. I’d envied her—that swanky leather skirt hitting five or six inches above the knee, the swagger of a woman who knew what she wanted. We were in sensory overload—the Down Yonder jukebox too loud, the din of laughter in the bar striking like CPR compressions. Bodies knocked into our table. Into me. You couldn’t leave New York on the sidewalk. She accompanied you inside no matter which store you popped into.
I’d pointed Caroline out to Chan across the crowded Down Yonder bar. “You see that girl?” he’d said. “The one with the flames?”—meaning her hair, not her body. In nearly any group Chan could accurately guess who or what I meant with only so much as a nod. And vice versa. Which was very satiating. “That’s the one,” I had said.
I went on to tell him about the sexcapade in the token bathroom at the bottom of the world. “Which guy?” he’d asked, and I’d let him guess. Chan picked Jim Conner on his first try. When I asked how he knew, he explained, “It was either the guy staring at her ass or the one catching her eye, and I figured the ass dude hadn’t gotten any recently. Look at his hips. He’s angling to use them later.”
We’d peddled a theory about hip location indicating sexual frustration. He’d even drawn a lewd cartoon on the cocktail napkin. I didn’t think about Caroline until the next day. When Simon—the guy Chan claimed had been staring at her ass—tugged his sweatshirt to his nipples and showed us a bomb.
I considered now that Caroline had faked the swagger in the hallway. That the skirt and the sex were a costume for a life she wanted, rather than a life she had.
Simon Westwood had been her boyfriend. That’s a helluva thing, when you think about it. She’d probably loved him. She’d certainly screwed him. “No one screws my girlfriend but me,” he’d screamed at Bus #21. He’d loathed her by that point. Had he ever loved her?
“How did she survive?” I asked.
Rudy tapped his chest.
There was a story, but we arrived in her driveway. Caroline Ascott lived in an estate large enough to hold four Methodist chapels. There was even a gatehouse at the bottom of the drive that could swallow Dolly Dodge whole. The smell of sweet oranges filtered through the cab when I lowered the window.
A voice crackled through the intercom box. Rudy leaned around me to speak. “Hey, it’s Rudy. Can you buzz me through?”
The barrier bar lifted.
On our way down the driveway, Rudy gave us the family rundown. His mom had two sisters who married up. Caroline’s mom to a wine tycoon in the Finger Lakes area in upstate New York, and his aunt Linda, who owned the sprawling Spanish colonial before us. He didn’t mention his mom, but there was an understanding that she had not followed in the family betterment plan. “The New York tour was Aunt Linda’s idea. Linda convinced Caroline’s mom. Caroline’s mom called Ms. Jay and said she thought Victor, Jane, and I ought to tag along. Jane had to work, and you know why Victor bailed.”
“Anything we should know about your cousin?” Becky asked, eyes sweeping the property.
“Oh, you’ll peg her in about three seconds.”
We left Dolly unlocked and Rudy led us around the house, toward the edge of the grove. He rolled through the manicured lawn, over sprinkler heads and soggy soil, over oranges that had fallen early and rotted. The one time I moved toward his chair, he said, “Uh, uh. I’ve done this before.” He had, but the going wasn’t easy.
June-fifteenth Caroline Ascott was not the Caroline Ascott of today. Where her red hair had been long and glorious, shiny in that shampoo-commercial way, it was shaved. Off and gone. Beneath a bright purple headband, her scalp had a nasty sunburn. The ass she’d expertly swiveled at Jim was parked in an aluminum lawn chair under a Valencia orange tree. From behind, she appeared to be reading a book or listening to music or knitting, something stationary. Up close, I could see she was gazing at bark.
I probably shouldn’t have, but I raised my camera. Loneliness usually lived in the eyes. Hers was visible from behind. I was glad I didn’t look that way from the outside, even more glad there wasn’t an X-ray machine for my soul.
“Caroline,” Rudy said to his cousin’s back.
“Go away.”
“Turn around, please.”
Caroline turned around. She sipped from the tumbler and glanced at Rudy’s entourage, seemingly without recognition, and turned back to the tree. “Go away, Rudy.”
“This is Golden Jennings.”
“I’m not an idiot.”
Wow. Caroline Ascott hated me.
Rudy rolled closer and maneuvered between Caroline and the tree. “We’re going to New York today.”
“For pleasure or masochism?”
“We’re going to tell the devil to eff off in person,” he said.
“Tell him I said hi.”
“Care!”
“Ru!”
“We want you to come with us.”
“We want you to come with us,” she mocked Rudy. Then she shoved him in the chest. His chair rocked sideways on the uneven ground, teetered. He tumbled onto the grass, an inelegant pile of limbs. Rudy waved me off as he righted the chair. Every muscle flexed with the effort of returning to his seat.
That was when I decided Caroline wasn’t just lonely, she was stuck in a rut, and I was willing to help with the unsticking. “Look,” I said. “I’m not going to judge your pain. I wasn’t on the bus in those last few seconds. But I do know that”—I pointed at Rudy dusting dirt off his clothes and arms—“and this”—I indicated her general dishevelment—“means you need help.”
“Don’t pretend you know me.”
“I’m not. But I’ve spent ten months in a bubble where most of my family and friends refused to talk about what happened and—I thought you might understand.”
Caroline laughed.
“You think this is funny?”
“I think you’re entertaining,” she said.
I have a good ear for
veneer and hers cracked. I gambled that I was reaching her.
“Look, I have static in my head too. Questions. Answers. I have gaps, big Titanic-size gaps. Like I couldn’t remember what Simon was wearing over the vest until Rudy told me, even though I know his left eye was blue, his right eye was brown. That’s some bullshit, right? But I swear, part of my brain from June fifteenth is an Andy Warhol painting and part is spray-painted black. I don’t know how any of us got here, but here is where we are.”
“Here?” she said flippantly.
“Yeah, here. Him in a wheelchair, you staring at a tree, and me and my boyfriend with so much to say we can’t say anything at all. It’s like the bus blew our tongues and your decency and his legs. And maybe that’s fine with you. Maybe you like your cushy aluminum sippy-cup life in your McMansion with your ridiculously interesting fruit tree, but I’d like some new scenery. You can come with us, see the installation of Bus #21, or you can sit in the truck until we get to Ellis Island. I don’t care which, but that’s the last invite you’re getting. Take it or leave it.”
She mocked me with her tone and her Screw you to kingdom come face. “Don’t you just look like one of Carter’s precious scholarship babies! No wonder Rudy brought you here.”
“And don’t you just look like you feel sorry for yourself.”
“I lost everything.”
“Yeah, well, join the club.”
She repeated the phrase the way she’d repeated Rudy’s earlier. Her vitriol draining with every word.
“Hey,” I said. “I don’t know if anyone has told you lately, but you lived through the bombing. Don’t you want to live the rest of your life?”
That question broke her.
Caroline curled into the crook of the tree, letting the bark punish her skin. When she started to cringe from the pain, she tugged the bottom of her sundress over her bald head. Her abs clenched with grief. I looked away from the red bra and underwear, but not before seeing that she was tattooed in a few places and thin. Bone thin.
I squatted, tugging on the fringes in the knees of my jeans, saying nothing. I did not think she wanted comfort—a hand on the back or to be pulled into a hug. She was more creature than girl, made of scales and a soft underbelly. I hovered, considering what might reach her. Or what would reach me if I had a dress over my head in an orange grove.
Sometimes when you watched a person, you had an uncanny sensation that they were an alternate version of you. I did not want pity, so I didn’t offer such to Caroline. I offered community. She was going through these emotional wind sprints of guilt and anger, but she did not have to go through them alone. I thought of taking her hand but touched her arm instead. She tried to rip away; I tightened my grip.
A few steps away, the sun starbursted through the grove and fell on Rudy and Becky. They shielded their eyes from its punishment, each a saluting silhouette. Caroline and I were in the shade, and the shade was made of gray light and weak shadows. She could stay here, but I couldn’t. I wanted to get back to the light. I patted her twice on the side. The universal sign for tapping out.
She asked, almost where I couldn’t hear, “You’re going to Ellis Island?”
“Like I planned to last June.”
From beneath the ModCloth dress, Caroline whispered, “Let me pack a bag.”
28. CAPTURE IT JUST RIGHT.
$68,279.00
There was nothing legal or wise about our travel arrangements. We arrived at Dolly, realized four people didn’t fit in the cab—a fact that had previously escaped us—and decided we didn’t care. Becky dropped the tailgate and nested our sleeping bags. Dolly had only one seat belt to begin with. Riding under the camper top wasn’t much more dangerous than riding in the cab. Plus, as Becky noted, “If God wanted you guys dead, He missed His big opportunity.”
With no further discussion, Rudy and I seized the front. We planned to swap drivers in three hours. I leaned across the bench and said, “Your cousin’s a barrel of monkeys,” but I forgot the sliding glass between the cab and the back didn’t close. Caroline knocked her knuckles at us and said, “I heard that.” Then she thrust her head through the gap. “I’ve got two rules. One, I hate road trips. So, this isn’t a road trip, and anyone who calls it a road trip is getting their head shaved the first time they fall asleep. The second: no one talks about Simon.”
“Fine by me.”
Rudy and Becky agreed. No one wanted to discuss Caroline’s bomb-making, life-destroying ex-boyfriend anyway.
Rudy wedged himself closer to the door and gripped the battered handle in his fist.
“Are you comfortable enough?” I asked.
“Can you not ask me that?” he said, although not unkindly. “As a general rule, if you wouldn’t ask Becky, don’t ask me.”
I nodded, embarrassed. “Is it okay if I say I’m here if you do need anything?”
“Only on Wednesdays,” he said with a scowl that immediately broke into a wide smile, and then a laugh. “I’m just kidding, Go. Thanks for the offer. I’ll let you know.”
“You laugh a lot,” I said, because he did. More than anyone I knew. And he was laughing now, and it was beautiful.
“By-product of living,” he said. “And it keeps my abs nice and tight.”
Now I was laughing. We had this great lightheartedness between us, but I still worried I would say or do the wrong thing and we’d lose this energy. If Chan were here, I’d turn the vents toward him, set the air conditioner to high, and find an NPR entertainment interview. He’d ask me to locate a gas station before the highway, where he’d stroll from the store moments later with a Coke and some shelled peanuts. I was intimately acquainted with the rut of Chan and me in this truck. I had no idea about Rudy.
We rolled northeast with Disney at our back and New York City somewhere on tomorrow’s horizon. I’d call Stock when we had more miles under our belts and let him know I had three of four in tow, which felt like an unbelievable victory. Rudy caught me gawking at the ocean and said, “It’s even better without the clouds.” But I liked the clouds. I would like the ocean best if I could get her alone for a few hours. All my favorite ocean photos were taken at sunset or sunrise, in remote locations. Some with slow exposures, so you saw the stars stretching toward earth. Today, families and retirees cluttered the sand and horizon with colors.
“You stopping for photos?” he asked.
“This is not a road trip.”
“Golden, have you ever had your toes in the surf?”
“No.”
“Don’t make a regret,” he warned.
When the next public beach access came, I zipped Dolly toward the dunes. Caroline was napping in the back. “She won’t even know,” Rudy promised.
“Are you com—” I planned to say coming with me and caught myself too late. I worried that I’d soured the moment, but he flashed a gracious smile and said, “I’ll come along if you capture it just right.”
I crossed the seagrass and sand with the Canon around my neck. Each time I looked through the lens, I didn’t press the shutter. This particular slice of world, so very different from my towering oaks and billowing Kentucky bluegrass, was a deployment of water and wind, moving in perfect unison. Row on row of colorful umbrellas flapped like round butterflies in the wind. Hints of jumping silver fish. Twinges of salt. Driftwood and seaweed. Bits of sharp shells biting and massaging my feet. The mist waved in off the water and coated my sunglasses in a fine foggy film. Sand lapped over my toes, soft and cool.
I was in love.
Chan should be here for this.
Chan could have been here for this.
I took a picture for Rudy.
29. FOR YOUR TROUBLE
$69,450.00
Caroline and Becky stayed asleep in their camper nest, curled together like kittens in a cardboard box. We planned to wake them for lunch and didn’t. “Don’t go ’round poking bears,” Gran always says.
Rudy asked, “Is what you said to Caroline true? You and th
e fiancé aren’t on the best terms?”
“He’s not my fiancé.”
Rudy’s eyes fell on my ring. “Okay. I assume your boyfriend knows what you’re doing and isn’t wild about the idea?”
“That’s about right.”
“About? Not that you have to talk to me about him, but you can.”
“He’s not speaking to me.”
Rudy scratched a place on his cheek and stared at a billboard for Savannah. We were close, twenty miles maybe, from the edge of the city. Ten miles out he asked, “Did the trouble start before or after Bus Twenty-One?”
“Does it matter?”
“A little.”
“Why?”
“You came to the Green-Conwell on my invitation. You got on Bus Twenty-one because I asked. . . . Let’s just say every day, I think about you in that bathroom doorway and my taunting you to come along, and I’ve questioned what would have happened if I just kept my mouth shut. If I’d thought, Rudy, that’s a pretty girl instead of showing you my cell phone or stealing your beanie. Would you be here if I’d kept my mouth shut? Would I?”
“Playing that game will kill you,” I said, with the expert tone of someone who’d played.
“Do you believe in the butterfly effect?”
“That a yes in a dirty bathroom in New York knocks a pebble off the Great Wall of China?”
“That a yes in a dirty bathroom saved my life?”
I tried not to roll my eyes. “Come on, Rudy, I didn’t save your life.”
“Did I ruin yours?”
“No.”
But there was rubble.
“On Facebook you said you came to the bus for Ellis Island. But for a couple of bucks, you could have caught a subway. There were a million ways to snag that picture for your gran that didn’t involve me.”
He was right. “So?”
“So that makes me think you had an ulterior motive and it’s hard not having answers to a question like that.”
Four Three Two One Page 11
