American Heart

by Laura Moriarty

  A few minutes later, the black woman came out with two sodas with straws in the lids. She’d only got a few steps past us when she stopped and turned around.

  “I have one question,” she said, emphasizing the one. “Are you two out of your minds?”

  I shook my head, in case she was really asking. “No ma’am,” I said. “We’re just trying to get to St. Louis.”

  “Hmm.” She looked me up and down like she didn’t quite like what she saw. Right then I knew why I’d called her ma’am. She reminded me, so much, of a teacher I’d had back in Joplin who used to hand out lunch detentions like they were nothing, and I’d quickly found it was a good idea to be as polite to her as possible. This woman standing before us now was even wearing slacks with low heels, just like that teacher wore—I remember they used to click on the linoleum, and it was always scary. You could hear her coming.

  She took a sip from the one of the sodas and shook her head. “Well, that’s a good way to get yourself killed,” she said. “I see your sign says women only, but it’s still not smart, what you’re doing. Not in this day and age.”

  I shrugged. There wasn’t a lot I could say in response. Apparently it wasn’t that smart, but not because someone would murder us—we would just freeze to death waiting for a ride. But I wished she would go away, and take her stupid beret and her sodas with her, and not keep calling me out in front of Chloe.

  “Why do you have to get to St. Louis?” She took another sip from the straw. “What’s in St. Louis?”

  “My sister works at a pancake house there. She’s got the night shift. We’re supposed to meet her.”

  “Hmm-hmm. What pancake house? What’s it called?”

  I couldn’t remember the name of it, but I gave her the exit number, and I told her it was just to the right of the exit. She said she knew the exit I meant. Still, I saw the look she was giving me. She was one of those people who could spot a lie, even a good one. Her gaze moved to Chloe.

  “She’s Portuguese,” I said. “She doesn’t speak English.”

  She narrowed her eyes, still looking at Chloe, so I went right into the whole deal, how this was my aunt Chloe, who was really my mom’s cousin, visiting us from Portugal. I said she wanted to meet my sister before she went home to Lisbon, so my mom asked me to take her down to St. Louis, since my sister couldn’t get off work. I was ready with more details if she required them. I knew my sister’s name, and how long she’d worked at the pancake house, and I knew that she’d promised us a free meal when we arrived. If needed, I could tell her what I was going to order.

  But I didn’t have to go into all that. Judging by the look on the woman’s face, she no longer seemed suspicious, just horrified, or maybe disgusted.

  “Your mother? You’re telling me your mother told you to hitchhike to St. Louis with this poor woman who doesn’t speak any English? At night?”

  “Yes ma’am,” I said. “We don’t have a car. And the bus is expensive.”

  She looked over at Chloe again, and I could guess what she was thinking. I looked like someone who maybe couldn’t afford a bus ticket, but Chloe’s white coat was pretty nice, and so were her boots.

  The woman looked back at me. “How old are you?”

  “I’m eighteen.”

  She frowned, but didn’t say anything. And then she just turned around and walked away. She got into the driver’s side of a dark blue van parked at one of the pumps. I gave it a hateful stare, thinking about her sitting inside it, all warm and self-righteous, leaving us here with just her opinions and her rudeness.

  I was still staring at the van when she got out again, and started walking fast toward us. She didn’t have the sodas anymore, and she looked like she had something on her mind, like maybe she’d heard my thoughts. Her shoes clicked on the pavement. Right before she reached us, I took a few steps back.

  “Okay,” she said. “We can give you a ride. Now, my husband and my son are with me. If you don’t feel comfortable with that, we can’t help you. But if you want to come meet them, come on over and have a look in.”

  I had to make a decision fast. She didn’t seem like the kind of person who would take well to ingratitude, and even worse, she might think my hesitation was a race thing, which it wasn’t. The problem was I’d told Chloe we would only get a ride with a woman, and technically, that’s not what this was anymore. Then again, it seemed pretty unlikely that we were going to get robbed, raped, or murdered by an entire family, and I was freezing, so I said, “Oh, thank you so much!” and touched Chloe’s arm. I pointed at the van and the woman, nodding my head, and if Chloe was mad about me breaking the rules, she didn’t show it. She pressed her gloved hand over the strap of the messenger bag, and gave the woman a grateful smile.

  When we were about halfway to the van, the woman turned back to me. “And I just want to let you know my husband spent seven years in the service. He’s a trained soldier.”

  That gave me a jolt. I had no idea what she meant by that, and I worried she meant something having to do with Chloe. But then I realized she was saying that we shouldn’t plan to try anything funny once we got on the road. She was thinking we were thieves.

  “I’m Gayle, by the way. And just to save us all trouble, I want you to know we don’t have any cash. I’m not exaggerating. I had to dig around in the console to get enough change for those sodas. We’ve got credit cards, but they’re all about maxed out. You don’t want them.” When we got to the far side of the van, she took off her glove and showed me one of her hands. “And this is my wedding ring, okay? No stone. Just a band. It means a lot to me, but you could not get ten dollars for it.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Don’t worry, ma’am. We’re not . . .” But then I stopped, because what was the point? That’s exactly what someone who wanted to rob them would say. And anyway, Gayle wasn’t listening. She opened the van’s sliding door, and instead of a long seat, there was a boy in a big wheelchair who might have been anywhere between six and ten years old, with a plaid blanket over his legs. His head was sort of leaned back and tilted to one side in a headrest, but you could see by his eyes he was looking at us. On the other side of him was the man I guessed was the dad, the trained soldier, who looked friendly enough. He wore a Cardinals jacket, and he held a soda in one hand; in the other, he held a water bottle with a long straw that had an unusual bend in the middle, which I guessed was for his son.

  “This is my husband, Reggie, and this is our son, Aaron. They have terrible taste in music, but they’re generally good people.”

  The boy made a groaning sound that might have just been a hello. The man waved. I waved back at both of them.

  “Reggie and Aaron, this is Chloe. She’s visiting our country from Portugal, and with her is . . .”

  “Amy,” I said.

  Gayle gave me a look. I don’t know how she would know I was lying about that. But she gave me a look.

  The man smiled, leaning around his son to see Chloe better. “I never made it to Portugal,” he said. “Wanted to. I was stationed in Italy for a few years. Vicenza. But I didn’t get to travel much.”

  Chloe stayed quiet.

  “She doesn’t speak English,” I said, very aware that Chloe had heard and understood every word he just said, and was probably feeling pretty good that we’d gone with her Portuguese plan and not my Italian one. Two points for her. Fine.

  Gayle leaned into the van to fix the blanket so it covered her son’s feet. Then she straightened back up and looked at me.

  “Amy, I want you to know we don’t normally pick up strangers at truck stops.”

  I swallowed. She was looking right at me, and she’d said “Amy” like we both knew it was fake.

  “We’re doing this because we try to walk with Jesus through this life, and back there I felt very strongly, very clearly, that Jesus was telling me to help you.”

  I nodded. That was about all I could do. I wasn’t going to lie to her and be all Oh yeah, Jesus told me I could trust you
too, so it all works out! I was feeling bad enough. These people had their own problems, with their maxed-out credit cards and their boy who was watching us, taking us in, but who couldn’t walk or talk. I didn’t know how they would feel if they knew that Jesus was telling them to help an atheist and a Muslim who were breaking the law.

  “Thank you,” I said. My teeth were chattering again. I worried that maybe she was going to spend the drive trying to save our souls, or at least mine. Lucky Chloe would just get to sit there and act like she couldn’t understand.

  “Okay,” Gayle said. “I was thinking your aunt could sit in the very back. There’s a little seat next to the lift. And you could ride up in the passenger seat next to me.”

  I was about to nudge Chloe and point to the back of the van when I remembered I was supposed to get a picture of the license plate. But the words wouldn’t come out of my mouth. It’d seemed like such an easy rule when I was making it, but now, in front of actual people who were giving us a ride, I felt bad. I mean, they were trusting us. And now I was going to act like we had to worry about them. Still, I’d told Chloe we were going to take a picture of the plate, and I’d already gone back on one rule. It didn’t seem fair to keep switching rules around on her when she wasn’t allowed to talk.

  “I’m really so appreciative,” I said. “But before we get in, I need to take a picture of your license plate and send it to my dad. He made me promise.”

  Gayle tilted her head so that her pink beret, which sat on her head at an angle, looked level with the ground. Her eyebrows went up, but the rest of her face didn’t move. It seemed like she might be offended, or maybe thinking that I obviously didn’t hear Jesus the way she did and maybe didn’t deserve her help after all. But then she smiled.

  “That,” she said, “is the first sensible thing that’s come out of your mouth.” She held one arm out to the back of the van, as if she were a waiter showing me to my table. “Please. Be my guest.”

  I ended up being wrong about Gayle wanting to save my soul. The whole way to St. Louis, she barely talked. She played gospel music on the stereo, and she sang along with the chorus to one of the songs, “everything’s gonna be all right,” over and over, but that was kind of nice, actually. She had a good voice—it was deeper than her talking voice, and she could still go up high without sounding like she was straining. When her husband told her Aaron was asleep, she turned off the music, and we were all quiet the rest of the way. I put on my headphones and clicked through Tess’s music until I got to a slow, pretty song by Gallatin Sky. I was in the mood for something soft like that, now that I was warm and cozy, and looking at the red taillights in front of us.

  Tess told me once that she loved the feeling of being driven on the highway at night. She said when she was little, her parents would wrap her up in blankets in the backseat so she would sleep, and she’d open her eyes sometimes and see just a strip of white from the roadside lights reflected on their faces, the rest of the car still dark, and it didn’t matter if it was raining out, or even snowing. She felt safe, she said, like they were all together in a little egg. I’d nodded like I knew what she meant, but I didn’t. I’ve probably been in the backseat at night while my mom was driving, maybe even back when she was still with Tom. I suppose I might have had a blanket over me at some point. But I’d never felt like I was in an egg, nestled in and safe. So it was pretty weird that just now, sitting in a van that belonged to people I didn’t even know, with Chloe quiet in the far back, I kind of understood what she meant. I could hear the tires shushing over the wet road, and the hum of the engine, and Aaron snoring softly behind me. His mom was wide awake and driving steady, so all I had to do was sit back and be whisked along. I had this feeling, true or not, that for now, at least, we were one of them. Part of their egg.

  I thought of Caleb, and hoped he was safe and tucked in his bed, though I knew he probably wouldn’t be asleep. He’d be too worried about me, and about Chloe. He couldn’t know we were both safe in this van, on our way to St. Louis. I even had warm air blowing on my feet.

  We were just outside the city, coming up on the suburbs, when I looked up and saw a digital billboard maybe a quarter of a mile ahead. I’d been keeping watch for them the whole trip, hoping we wouldn’t pass any. Highway digitals usually just showed the forecast, or traffic warnings, or a picture of some smiling real estate agent going back and forth with the featured Home of the Month. But sometimes they showed photos of fugitives, and I could see that’s what this one was doing, showing a picture of a bearded man. But as we got closer, it switched to the picture of Chloe in her headscarf, her face bigger than any moon, her eyes gazing out over the highway. My whole body tensed, and I waited for Gayle to slow the car and look at me like, What the heck?, or for her to just make big eyes at her husband in the rearview. But she didn’t do any of that. She just kept on driving, humming some Jesus song to herself.

  I thought, thank you Jesus for the distraction. Ha ha.

  When we got to the pancake house, I was nervous someone from the family would need to use the bathroom, and that they’d all come in, maybe expecting to be introduced to my waitress sister. But the son was still sleeping, and after Gayle pulled the van in front of the door, she didn’t even cut off the engine.

  “It’s open?” she asked, squinting at the entrance. The parking lot was empty, and though the windows were lit, all the tables I could see were empty. But I pointed to the Open 24/7 neon sign, and she nodded and pushed a button that made the side door roll open. She must have forgotten that Chloe didn’t know any English, because she told her in a quiet voice to be careful not to trip on the brace for the wheelchair on her way up.

  I got out with my backpack, but before I shut my door, I said thank you again, looking back at the man to show I meant to thank him, too. They both nodded and smiled, but that was it. They didn’t want anything else.

  “Good luck,” I said, which was sort of weird, because it wasn’t like they were getting ready to do something. I meant good luck in general, like with their lives, and their son. I meant they’d been nice when they didn’t have to be, and I felt it.

  “Good luck to you,” the man said. He nodded at me, and then at Chloe.

  I shut the door, and the side door hummed and clicked back into place. Dry and delivered, and holding our bags, we watched the van roll away.

  6

  WE HAD OVER half an hour to wait at the pancake house before Matt P. got home from work. Chloe said she’d buy me something to eat.

  “You must be hungry,” she added, saying hungry like it was spelled hung-a-dy. But she was right—I was hung-a-dy. I hadn’t eaten anything since the cheeseburger I’d gotten with my mom and Caleb at the McDonald’s how many hours ago.

  “But I can’t buy sausage or bacon,” she whispered. “No pork. I’m sorry.”

  I frowned. “Why not?”

  “It’s haram.” She shrugged. “It’s not allowed for us.”

  “I’d be the one eating it.”

  “But I would be paying. I’m very sorry.” She did look like she felt bad. “I’m grateful you’re helping me. Anything else, I will get you.”

  I rolled my eyes, which I guess was a little rude. But seriously? Leave it to a religion to rule out something as amazing as bacon. And I didn’t like her telling me what I could and couldn’t eat. Then again, I had a friend back in Joplin whose mom was a vegetarian, and she had a rule that she didn’t want meat in her house. I went over there once for a sleepover, and the mom said she’d order us two big pizzas, which was really nice, but she made it clear we could order veggies or cheese or nothing. My friend said we couldn’t even order meat and go outside and eat it on the steps—her mom wouldn’t spend her money on it. I wasn’t the only one who thought that was a little nutty, but all I said to the mom was, “Cheese would be great, and thank you for the pizza.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll just get pancakes. Thanks.”

  Once we were inside, Chloe went back to not talkin
g, looking at one of her gloves like it was fascinating when the hostess walked up. I asked if we could get a booth by the window, which we got, as the place was pretty much empty. After we were seated, I was pleased to look over at the apartment building across the street and see the Budweiser sign still hung in a window on the bottom floor.

  I pointed the sign out to Chloe. “His is the one right next to it,” I whispered. “On the right. Our right. That’s the one. See the door light is still dark?”

  “You are not coming?” She leaned across her side of the table. She didn’t seem scared so much as just making sure. Even in the warm restaurant, she was still wearing the blue hat, the ends of her hair a little tangled above her shoulders. But she’d taken off her coat, and with just the black of the turtleneck against her skin, her face looked older, or at least tired. The hollows under her cheekbones were too deep, and her eyes were squinty behind her glasses.

  “I’ll wait for you here,” I said. I’d for sure decided on that. If Matt P. didn’t like illegals, if he was a more ethical person than I hoped, me being with her wouldn’t do her any good, and it might do me real harm.

  “You’ll be fine,” I said. I didn’t mean it like a lie. It was more like wishing her well.

  She nodded, looking hopeful. “You know him? He is your friend?”

  “He’s not my friend,” I said. I’d never said he was, and it was important that she understand this. I wasn’t going to make her think she was more safe than she was. If she didn’t want to go over there, she shouldn’t. “I can only tell you that the last time I saw him, I paid him for a fake ID, and he gave me one. He’s a legitimate businessman.”

  One of her brows went high. “But if he’s seen me on the reward sites, he knows he could make much more money if he turns me in.”

  I frowned. I hadn’t thought of that.

  “Well,” I said, “he didn’t strike me as the kind of person who pays much attention to the news.” It was the only thing I could think to say that was true but that also might make her feel better. I could have also mentioned that really, she was taking the same chance of being found out right now. There were only maybe six other people in the restaurant, including the waiter and the hostess, but any one of them might have seen her picture, and maybe recognize her from five booths away. That might have just made her more nervous, though, so I kept the point to myself.