Don't Fail Me Now

by Una LaMarche

  “We have a counselor at school,” Leah says. “Even if I did lose it in public—which I wouldn’t—I’d get sent to her office.”

  “Maybe she was at lunch,” I sigh. “It doesn’t matter. The point is, Tim is worried enough that he asks his Good Samaritan buddy Vladimir or whatever to borrow his car.”

  “His name’s Dmitri,” Tim says.

  “And security would never let us leave,” Leah adds. “You can’t hide under a set of Toy Story sheets if you’re the one driving.”

  “Just say you forged it,” I say. “This doesn’t have to be airtight. You just have to make it pathetic enough so they won’t focus on the details.”

  “It’s definitely pathetic enough,” Cass says.

  “You got something better?” I expect her to retreat back into the hood of her sweatshirt, but instead my sister speaks up.

  “Well, I just don’t think she should snap all of a sudden. I think it should be premeditated.”

  “Why?” Leah asks.

  “It’s just more serious or something. You thought it out. You knew what you were doing.” Cass leans back, the vinyl squeaking against her jeans. “It’s better than being powerless.”

  “I think they’d be even madder if they knew we planned something,” Tim says. “But man, how do you accidentally drive across the country?”

  Desperation, I want to say, but I bite my tongue. And after a few long seconds our collective exhaustion syncs up and everyone falls silent for a while, until there’s no noise but the whirring tires on the Indiana highway. And, of course, the ever-present death rattle.

  “I’m going to look for a place to stay,” I announce, trying to sound pumped for the kids’ sake.

  “Thank God,” Leah says. “I can’t be in this car anymore. I think my butt fell asleep.” Denny guffaws, and I hear the soft shifting of cotton on pleather that tells me Cass is probably throwing her some serious side-eye before tucking her face back into her sleeve.

  Instinctively, I want to side with my sister and hate on Leah for pretty much everything she says. But I can’t begrudge her wanting to sleep in a real bed. I want that so badly it literally hurts—there’s a mad ache in my joints that I know can only be soothed by sinking into a mattress and letting my body rest, even if my brain can’t. So it’s with genuine sympathy that I break the bad news to her.

  “About that,” I say. “The thing is, we have to sleep in the car.”

  “WHAT?”

  “We can’t afford hotels,” I shrug apologetically.

  “Yes we can,” she cries. “Tim, don’t you have, like, $4,000?”

  I look at Tim expectantly, holding my breath. I haven’t asked him outright about money yet because I don’t want him to feel like I did when Aunt Sam cornered me . . . but if he’s loaded, that will solve a lot of problems, and fast.

  “No,” he says, grimacing in the glow of his phone screen. “Those are savings bonds from my grandpa, Lee. They don’t mature until I’m twenty-one.”

  “So . . . we have to wear the same clothes every day for a week without showering?” Leah says in disbelief, her voice rising with every syllable. “We have to sleep in here, all five of us? Like homeless people?”

  “Dibs on the trunk!” Denny says again, and I have to bite my lip to keep from laughing.

  “It’s not like being homeless,” Tim says.

  “Yeah, we’re not going to an alley behind a Walmart, we’re going to find a campground,” I explain. “Tim, can you search for free camp sites near . . .” I squint up at the green road sign flashing past in the glare of our headlights. “Terre Haute?”

  “Wait, camping? We’re camping?” Leah says, leaning forward. “Do we at least get tents?”

  “I want a tent!” Denny says. Great, the Gospel of Leah is spreading.

  I shake my head. “Unless it’s raining, some of us can just sleep outside. We’ve got blankets.”

  “No!” Leah says. “I can’t—I mean, we have to stay in a hotel. I never would have come if I knew we weren’t going to have basic stuff like clothes and beds. That’s so ghetto.”

  “Shut. Up,” Cass snaps.

  “She does have a point,” Tim says. “It’s going to be pretty rough. Maybe we could just find a cheap motel, something really low-end.”

  “Sure,” I say. “If you want to spend the rest of the week illegally siphoning gas with your mouth, then by all means, let’s spring for a hotel room.”

  “Ohhhh-kay,” he exhales. “Exactly how much money do we have?”

  I bristle. “We don’t have money,” I say. “I have $276.” I signal right and take the exit ramp. “How much cash do you have?”

  “Maybe ten bucks,” Tim says sheepishly, quickly adding, “but I bought lunch.”

  “No one asked you to.”

  “I didn’t hear you complaining.”

  “You’re right, ’cause I was too busy trying to figure out how to cover your asses.”

  “You guys!” Leah cries from the backseat.

  “We wouldn’t have to cover anything if you hadn’t showed up at our school and begged us to come with you,” Tim says.

  “You guys,” Leah repeats.

  “Please just shut up,” Cass moans. But I can’t drop it.

  “I don’t remember begging you to come anywhere,” I say.

  “Well, I guess we both made mistakes,” Tim says.

  “I wanna go home,” Denny whimpers.

  “Guys!” Leah shouts. “Just be quiet, I know what to do.” I hear rustling and then a magnetic snap. In the rearview mirror, I see Leah proudly pull a shiny gold credit card from a pink leather wallet. “I have Jeff’s AmEx!” she cries gleefully.

  “We can’t use that,” Tim sighs. “It’s supposed to be for emergencies.”

  “This is an emergency,” she says, totally serious. And I guess, technically, dictionary definition–wise, she’s right. This is an unexpected, urgent, and possibly dangerous situation. Especially since at this juncture we’re all ready to smack each other senseless.

  “Won’t they get the bill?” I ask, hating myself a little for how much I want to cave and let her use her magical plastic get-out-of-anything-free card.

  “Yeah, but not till next month,” she says. “It’ll be too late for them to do anything about it.” She turns to Denny. “Wouldn’t you rather have cable TV and a big down comforter than sleep next to old gas cans in the trunk?”

  “They have TV?” Denny perks up at this. He’s never been to a hotel. None of us have, except for the one time we visited Mom during the years that she worked at an Embassy Suites.

  “Don’t get too excited,” I say. “Even if that card can pay for it, nobody’s gonna rent a room to five underage kids with no parents.”

  “It’s not like they’ll arrest us,” Leah groans. “We might as well try.”

  “Maybe we should,” Tim says. “I mean, we’ll never know otherwise, right?”

  “It’s the law,” I say. “That’s how we know.” Devereaux rule #3: Keep your head down. Don’t go looking for trouble that can’t find you on its own.

  “Come on,” Leah says. “Please?”

  “Yeah, please?” Denny whines.

  “Cass, could you back me up here?” I ask, but the hoodied lump just shrugs. “Okay, fine,” I say testily, looking out at a glowing Comfort Inn sign half a mile down the road. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  • • •

  The front desk is manned by a skinny red-haired guy who can’t be more than a few years older than me, with a lumpy Adam’s apple and a wide, greasy forehead that reflects the yellow-tinged fluorescent lights above his desk. He’s wearing a blue button-down and a nametag that says QUENTIN. He looks like a pretty easy mark, as far as corporate types go, but if I had any money I would still bet it all on Quentin kicking us merrily t
o the curb.

  Tim and Leah walk up first, with me, Cass, and Denny trailing by a few feet. I clutch Cass’s backpack—stuffed with ramen packets and dollar-store underpants—in a weak attempt at legitimacy, but I’m sure my face gives away my anxiety. Now that the adrenaline rush is gone, the reality of what I’ve done is sinking in. And not just running away, or missing school, or ditching Mom without bail or Yvonne without a shift manager—all of which are shameful on their own. But Tim is right: It was my idea to take them with us, and now I have two extra pieces of baggage in my car, newbies who don’t worry about the things I need to worry about all the time.

  “Hi, sir,” Tim says in his fake parent voice, looking like a slightly rumpled Boy Scout. “We’re, um, checking in.”

  “Can I see some ID?” Quentin looks directly at me, even though I’m not the one at the counter.

  “Sure.” Tim pulls out his wallet, and even though I want him to get humiliated (if for no other reason than to prove me right), I have to give him credit for having the balls to keep going.

  “Her, too,” he says, nodding at me. Clenching my jaw and holding my head up, I walk over to the desk and slide my license across the slick, fake marble. Quentin looks back and forth from the picture to me, a few more times than necessary.

  “We only rent to eighteen and up,” he says curtly. Which is funny, since Tim’s birth date didn’t seem to bother him. I smack my palm back over my ID.

  “Thank you,” I say in a fuck-you voice.

  “We have the money,” Tim says. “You can charge it up front, if you’re worried about contract enforcement.” He smiles self-consciously. “My dad’s a lawyer.”

  This nugget of information seems to relax Quentin. “It’s really liability,” he says, sounding almost apologetic. “Some people”—he glances at Cass and Denny—“don’t know how to behave.”

  “We can take care of ourselves,” I say, knowing I should keep quiet but unable to help myself. “That won’t be a problem.”

  “It’s policy,” Quentin says to Tim, deleting me from his field of vision.

  “Thanks anyway,” Tim says. Finally. I can’t beat a hasty enough retreat. But before I can make it to the door, I hear Leah pipe up.

  “Hi, Quentin,” she says. I spin around to see her leaning on the desk with both elbows. “See, the thing is, our dad is a criminal litigator with Buckman Farrell in Baltimore, and he’s working over at the courthouse all night on this crazy murder case. We had to come with him because this is his week with us, and our school is closed for a stupid teacher’s retreat, and he figured it was just easier to drop us off because he has to get back to work, and we’re super tired and otherwise we’ll just be, like, sleeping on benches at the courthouse. And my sister has diabetes,” she adds, gesturing to Cass.

  “You guys are all siblings?” Quentin asks incredulously. I want to kick him.

  “Um, yeah, interracial families exist, haven’t you seen that Cheerios commercial?” Leah says breezily, not missing a beat. “Look, I have my dad’s credit card, it’s in both of our names, and I can give you my school ID, and like my brother said, you can even precharge the card if you want. But Dad already left, so if you can’t accommodate us I’ll just call him and ask him to take us to the Ramada, where I’m sure they’ll be more understanding.” She pushes the gold AmEx across the counter like a pro. She might have adjusted to the Harper lifestyle, but there’s no mistaking it: That girl’s got Buck Devereaux in her blood.

  “That was impressive,” I tell her once we’re safely in the elevator, clutching our keycards to room 413. I still hate the idea of the hotel, and not just because of the obvious racial profiling, but I know I can’t turn down a free room for the night out of pride. Not when the alternative is five people sleeping in a single car.

  Leah smiles self-consciously down at the toes of her Mary Janes. “I wanted to help,” she says, and for the first time all day there’s not a trace of irony in her voice.

  The room, I’ll admit, looks like heaven—if heaven were upholstered exclusively in quilted yellow fabric. I even hear Cass say, “Sweet!” under her breath when we step inside. There are two beds, a loveseat, TV, a desk with a vase of stiff fake flowers, and a brightly lit bathroom full of origami towels from which I instinctively swipe all of the mini shampoo and conditioner bottles before anyone even has a chance to shower. Hotels are such a racket—you wouldn’t take someone’s used mattress off the street, so why would you pay a hundred bucks to sleep on it in a tiny room under a piece of bad abstract art?—and I have a special hatred for them ever since Mom lost her job last year, which led to the seemingly terminal unemployment that led to her starting to use again, but I keep my mouth shut so I don’t ruin it for everybody else.

  As I run water for Denny’s bath, I try to wrap my sluggish brain around the fact that twenty-four hours ago the most rebellious thing I was doing was testing my aunt’s beauty products. I hadn’t even found Leah’s Instagram, and now she’s in the next room, trying to sell Cass on watching a Pretty Little Liars marathon instead of Iron Chef.

  “Ow!” Denny cries suddenly. I’m spacing out, and I let the water get too hot.

  “Sorry, meatball.” I adjust the temperature and fight the urge to rub his hair. I probably shouldn’t even hang out while he bathes at this age, but it seems like he wants the company, plus I don’t really know what to say to any of the others right now. First-grade-level conversation is exactly what I need.

  “Can I have more bubbles?” Denny asks, and I nod, letting him squeeze the little complimentary container of lavender body wash until it wheezes and crumples in on itself. I’m relieved I can afford not to be stingy about this one simple luxury when it feels like all I’ve said this week is no.

  “Hey, are you doing okay?” I ask, drawing my knees up under my chin so I’m perched on the toilet like a gargoyle. I look away from Denny’s naked torso and catch a glimpse of myself in a magnified makeup mirror, my eyes puffy and red, my chin starting to break out in gravelly little bumps. One of my mother’s favorite self-esteem boosters—“If you can’t feel good, you might as well look good!”—runs through my head, and I hide my face in my jeans, feeling tears climb the back of my throat. I’m so tired of being so worried about everything. I’m so tired of being so angry at her that she left me to deal with the mess of her life.

  “Are you doing okay?” I look up to see Denny staring at me nervously, a beard of bubbles clinging to his chin.

  “Yeah, sorry.” I swallow hard and force a smile, because Denny already has enough caretakers in his life who can’t keep their shit together. “I’m just tired.”

  “No you’re not; you’re sad,” he says. “And mad.” He turns the faucet up so high the water thunders down into the tub, splashing droplets onto the floor. At home I’d yell at him for that, but here I decide to let it go, even though I cringe inwardly knowing that someone is going to have to come in here tomorrow and pick up the sopping wet bathmat, clean up after us for the promise of a crappy, crumpled one-dollar tip.

  “Sometimes being really tired can make me act mad, but I’m not mad at you,” I say.

  “Max says you’re mad at Mom.”

  “I didn’t realize Max was in the bath with you.”

  Denny rolls his eyes. “He’s over there,” he says, pointing to the sink like I’m blind. “Shaving.”

  “Max has a beard?” I ask, raising an eyebrow. Denny ignores me.

  “I miss Mom,” he says. “Why don’t you miss her? Why are you mad at her?”

  “I do miss her.” I miss half of her, anyway, the half that’d suddenly wake us up with kisses and scrambled eggs when for the past twenty-four hours she’d been an empty shell, like she’d had to go away for a while but left her body with us so she could move more freely. I clear my throat, shoving the tears back down. “You can miss someone and be mad at them, too,” I say.

  �
��Yeah,” Denny says, like he already knows. Maybe he’s not as naive as I like to think he is.

  “You know, she’s coming back,” I say. “When we get back from California we’ll get her out, and then everything will be . . .” I can’t bring myself to say “fine,” so I settle for “back to normal,” which is probably true and really, really depressing.

  “I wanna watch TV,” Denny says, abruptly switching his own channel. I leave so that he can towel off and put his clothes back on, and I bump into Tim, who’s hovering on the other side of the door.

  He puts a finger to his lips and nods at Cass and Leah, who are lying on their stomachs side by side on the far bed, propped up on their elbows.

  “That’s Aria,” Leah says, as a pretty actress’s face fills the screen. “In season one, she was dating her English teacher, but then his son got kidnapped by the people covering up her friend’s murder.”

  “Damn,” Cass says, watching with rapt attention.

  Tim raises his eyebrows. “Should we hold our breaths?” he whispers.

  “Knowing Cass? Probably not.”

  “Yeah, knowing Leah, same,” he says. “Still, you have to admit this is better than the car.”

  “Of course it’s better,” I say. “I just don’t think it’s smart. There’s a difference.” His face falls, and I instantly feel bad. This is an act of kindness, after all, no matter how self-serving. So I force a smile. “It’s really nice, though.” To underscore my point, a half-naked Denny shoots between us and leaps headfirst onto the nearest bed.

  “Hey,” Tim says, “why don’t you let me do some of the driving tomorrow, to give you a rest?”

  “Nah, that’s okay.”

  “Please? I really want to.” He gives me an apologetic smile, and I notice for the first time an almost imperceptible sprinkling of freckles across his nose. “Listen, you’re still the captain,” he says. “I’ll just be your deputy.”

  I smirk. “I think you mean first mate.”