American Heart

by Laura Moriarty

  Chloe held up her hand. “Leave her.” She breathed heavily. “She’s done nothing. I’m from Iran.” She put her hand back to her ear. “I didn’t register. I just want to leave. I want to be with my family. That is all.”

  We were all quiet again, the wipers beating. Adam shrugged.

  “Yeah,” he said, almost pleasantly. “This is way better than just giving me the loan, Big D. Way to go. You really showed me.”

  David took one arm off the wheel and made a fist, and for a second, I thought they were going to start fighting, like really fighting, while David was driving up the interstate. Chloe and I both put our hands in front of our faces, but then David put his hand back on the wheel.

  “Shut up. Seriously. Shut up. Okay? This is serious.” He turned back and glanced at Chloe. “What the hell are we going to do?”

  “Uhh. Pull over and drop them off?”

  He’d said it like it was obvious, like that was the only thing that made sense. But there was nothing on either side of the road except snow-flocked trees and grass. I held my breath and looked at Chloe. She had one hand on her ear, the other on her forehead, and she was rocking back and forth again. I knew people used to die from infections, before antibiotics.

  “We can’t leave them on the side of the road.” David’s voice was quiet enough I had to lean forward to hear. “She’s in real pain. My God. And somebody’ll find her.” He lowered his voice even more. “Even if they aren’t a nut, there’s probably a rewar—”

  He didn’t finish the word. And I guessed why he’d stopped. Ten thousand dollars. Like a gift from above. His brother wouldn’t need the poker game. Or if he wanted to go, now he could go in style.

  But Adam turned to glare at David, and now he looked like he was the one who might deliver a punch.

  “Thanks. That’s really a nice thing for you to think about me.”

  David didn’t say anything. Adam kept staring at him.

  “I’m not going to turn her in for the reward, okay? That’s disgusting. That’s disgusting that you would think I would do that. I’m insulted. Offended.” He thumped his hand against the front of his flannel shirt. “Deeply offended.”

  “Sorry,” David said, like he meant it.

  “Good. There’s a big difference between asking for a loan from your own family and selling your damn soul. You know me better than that. Or you should. I didn’t hear the same stories you did growing up? I didn’t hear the same stories?”

  “I’m sorry,” David said again.

  Adam looked out his window and shook his head. “But I also don’t want to go to prison. And I don’t think you do either. You want to wait until the next exit, fine. But then we’re saying bye to your new friends.”

  “What about her ear?”

  Adam held up both hands. “What would we do for her?” He turned around and looked at me. “Hey you, Little Miss Liar. Is there really a mom and medicine waiting for her in Minneapolis?”

  I shook my head.

  “Don’t even start with the tears, okay? They won’t do you any good with me.” He pointed at me again. “I don’t know what your deal is, or why you’re helping her, but you just put me and my brother at risk for serious legal problems, okay? Without our permission. So I’m fresh out of sympathy for you right now. Forget the waterworks.”

  I nodded. I wasn’t crying on purpose. I was seriously trying to stop. But I was thinking about the pencil jammed in Chloe’s ear, and about her husband and her little boy in Canada. I knew he was right, that it had been wrong of me to lie to them. But I didn’t want her to die in this car, and I didn’t want her to get caught.

  “You’ve got to help her.” I wiped my tears away fast. I wanted him to understand. “She didn’t do anything wrong. She just stayed too long because she liked it here. She liked being American. So she stayed, and now she’s stuck.”

  He stared at me. He looked at me like he wanted to start laughing again, in the fake way, but he couldn’t quite manage it.

  “I don’t have to do anything,” he said. “And listen, no, I don’t want the blood money. But I don’t have to do anything for either of you.”

  “Adam.” David’s voice was low. “We at least have to get her to a doctor.”

  Adam’s hands went to his head, then sprang up again like his head was too hot. “What doctor? What doctor are we going to take her to? What would we be risking? I’ll tell you what. A federal offense. Treason. And let me ask you something, David. If the shoe was on the other foot, if we were down in her neck of the woods, do you think she’d risk it all for the likes of us? For the likes of you?”

  David didn’t say anything.

  “You know what I’m saying?” Adam asked. “I mean, how come you and Stephen took the kids to France last month? Why didn’t you go to Iran? Oh. That’s right. That wouldn’t have gone so well.” He leaned around the edge of his seat to look at Chloe. “You people still executing gays over there? Apparently tolerance only goes one way.”

  “Stop it.” David held up both hands. “We’re not in Iran. We’re about an hour outside Minneapolis. And we’ve got to figure out what to do. Right now.”

  “Yeah.” Adam nodded, facing forward again. “That’s right. We’re not in Iran. It’s different here, because they’re not all coming over and bringing sharia law with them, you know? And wanting to push us out into the sea. I’m all for the containment. Believe me.” He thumped his chest again. “I’m all for it.”

  Chloe was still holding her ear. “I did not bring sharia law with me.” She said sharia in a different way than he did.

  “Uh-huh. Well. When you get back to wherever you’re going, you remember we helped you. Okay? My brother helped you.” He leaned around the edge of the seat again. “A gay Jewish man. And his brother. Okay? We’re Jews.” He kept his gaze on Chloe. “These are Jews helping you. Remember that.”

  Chloe nodded. I crossed my fingers on both hands, wiping my cheek on the shoulder of my coat. He’d said it like they were going to help her. He’d maybe changed his mind, and I guessed why. He’d been trying to yell at her, to make himself hard, but he’d made the mistake of turning around to look at her, seeing her up close.

  He turned back to the road again. He still looked mad, but I could see he was thinking, his dark eyebrows pushed low.

  David looked at him. “I seriously don’t know what to do. We can’t take her to a doctor.” He was whispering, maybe for Chloe’s sake. “And I don’t have any . . . amoxicillin or whatever lying around. Do you?”

  Adam looked at him like he’d asked about the stupidest question ever.

  David exhaled through puffed out cheeks. “Okay. Could one of us call our doctor and say we’re out of town? I could say I came down with swimmer’s ear, and I let it get infected? Then have them phone in the medicine and give it to her?”

  “That won’t work.” Adam took his soda cup out of the holder. “They’re going to want to see the ear. So unless we can remove her ear from her body, it’s not happening.” He tried to sip his soda, though it was empty now, the straw just sucking air. He shoved the cup back into the holder.

  “What about Audrey Chang?”

  I didn’t know who Audrey Chang was, but Adam gave him a look that implied that David had now truly asked the dumbest question of all time. I had to sniff again, and I tried to do it quietly. I didn’t want to interrupt them. I wanted them to keep talking, trying to work something out.

  “She’s a doctor, right?” David was still whispering. “She even works at an ER, right?”

  “It’s a walk-in clinic. And she’s way over in Stillwater.”

  “Yeah. But she could call it in. We could pick it up anywhere.”

  “Uh-huh. There’s one tiny problem, besides, you know, her risking her license, and us risking arrest. Which is that she hates me.” He lowered his voice. “I cheated on her. Remember? With her friend?”

  David shook his head. “She doesn’t hate you. She’s always liking your posts. Even
the dumb ones.”

  “No. That’s just her pretending to be over it. Believe me. She hates me. She said I was disgusting.” He pointed his thumb up toward his own chin. “She said that to my face.”

  “Okay. But would she help?” David nodded back at Chloe. “Would she be . . . sympathetic?”

  “No idea.”

  “How can you not know? She was your girlfriend.”

  “That’s not the kind of thing we discussed, okay? Believe it or not, it didn’t come up.”

  We passed a green sign saying we were sixty-five miles from Minneapolis. I sucked my lips between my teeth, reminding myself to stay quiet. Best-case scenario, they would think of a way to get Chloe medicine. Worst case, they would drop us off at the edge of the road, or maybe even at a gas station. They weren’t going to turn us in. But I could tell they were both panicked, talking even faster than they normally did. I looked over at Chloe, who was still hunched over, and shaking, too, though the car was warm. I put my hand on her shoulder and gave her a pat, as much for me as for her.

  “Do you have her number?” David whispered.

  “Audrey’s? I have her cell.”

  “Then what are you waiting for? Make the call.”

  “And say what?” Adam’s voice came out shrill. “What am I going to say? ‘Oh, hey, Audrey. ’Sup? Yeah, it’s Adam. Listen, I know things didn’t go so well between us, but you know, I’ve got swimmer’s ear that’s turned into an infection, and I don’t want to have to come in, and I think you’re going to give me special treatment.’ Are you kidding me? She’ll think I just don’t want to pay for a visit. She’ll be nothing but annoyed.” He looked up at the roof of the car. “I’d have to explain what’s really going on and hope she’s . . .” He made his hand into a blade and rotated it forward, like he didn’t want to say the same word his brother had used, but he couldn’t think of anything else.

  Sympathetic. That was what we needed Audrey Chang to be.

  14

  AUDREY CHANG DIDN’T pick up. It didn’t matter that while her phone was ringing, or while Adam said it was ringing, I had my fingers crossed again. It didn’t matter that I was staring out at the snow flying into the windshield and thinking, please, please, please, begging I don’t know who or what again.

  “Voice mail,” Adam said, hanging up. He put his phone back in the front pocket of his shirt, like that was the end of that.

  “Call back and leave a message.” David pushed his hand through his hair again. From what I could see of his face in the rearview, he looked pretty stressed out, probably because of Chloe. But maybe because the snow was really coming down now, and the road had gotten slick enough that he was tapping the brakes every now and then. Or maybe it was that traffic had gotten heavier after we’d crossed into Minnesota. Or maybe all of the above.

  “Send a text,” he said. “Tell her it’s urgent.”

  “An emergency,” I added, and Adam gave me a look like I was being irritating. I didn’t care. I’d moved to the middle of the backseat, closer to Chloe. I had my hand steady on her arm now, just above her elbow. I didn’t know if she wanted my hand there, or if I was just making her feel more caged in. She hadn’t pushed me away.

  “She’s probably at work,” Adam said. “She won’t pick up on a personal call. And sometimes her shifts are twelve hours.”

  “Can you call the clinic and ask for her?” I’d tried not to sound like he was being dumb, but that was obviously the next step. My ninth-grade English teacher back in Joplin would have said, “I don’t know. Can I?” I tried again. “Maybe you could look up the number?”

  “I guess.” He gave me a quick look over his shoulder, like he still thought I wasn’t exactly trustworthy. Little Miss Liar, he’d called me. I had my own doubts about him. This time, after he tapped the screen and put the phone to his ear, I leaned in toward him, my ears straining to hear a voice on the other end. For all I knew, he wasn’t really calling anybody. He might just be pretending to try.

  I didn’t hear anyone answer. But before Adam spoke, he took a breath like he was getting ready to sing, and his voice came out deeper than usual.

  “Hello,” he said. “I need to speak with Dr. Chang as soon as possible.”

  If he was, in fact, talking to someone, then he was being smart about it, making his voice so low and serious. He sounded like he owned the place, or like he was the hero in a movie, and a time bomb was ticking, so everybody better listen up. If I’d been the receptionist hearing that voice, I would have paid attention.

  “Please tell her it’s an emergency.” He rubbed his lips together, waiting, and then he said “Thank you,” his voice still deep, but also sincere, like he was trying to stay on the receptionist’s good side.

  But the next thing he said was his name and number, and then he said “Thank you” again in the deep voice, and that was the end of the call. After he put his phone away, he looked at his brother, and then at me, like, Oh, well.

  I narrowed my eyes. He’d been scared from the beginning. He’d wanted to put us out on the side of the road as soon as he’d known about Chloe. I guess it was nice that he didn’t want the reward money, that he wasn’t going to turn us in. I’d give him that. But I had a feeling he hadn’t called anyone either time he’d dialed, and that the deep voice he’d used had been just for us. And it wasn’t even like he was being patriotic. He just didn’t want to risk his neck.

  I hated him for that. I really did. Because he’d heard Chloe cry out. He had to understand how much she was hurting. And there he was, sitting up front and looking out at the snow like he was waiting for a call he knew he didn’t have to worry about, because it would never come. I wanted to reach up and grab hold of his handsome face, digging in with my nails. I thought of the pepper spray in my pocket. Not that. I didn’t want to hurt him that bad. I just wanted to help him think about what it meant to be in pain.

  Screw-up, I would say. You selfish screw-up.

  His phone rang.

  “Hello?” he said, his voice not as deep as before. “Audrey. Thank you. Yeah. I’ll explain. But I just want to say right now—oh my God. Thank you so much for calling back.”

  I tried to picture her in my head. She was probably Chinese, or at least half, and she’d be wearing a lab coat and maybe a name tag, with a stethoscope hanging from her neck. She might have her own office, or she might be calling from a common area, leaning on a wall next to a scale and a poster of what a body looked like under the skin. She probably had an annoyed look on her face, listening, on what was likely a busy day in the middle of flu season, as the ex-boyfriend who’d cheated on her tried to explain what the emergency was without really spelling it out.

  “Yeah,” Adam said, switching his cell to his other ear. “I get what you’re saying. But I’m pretty sure it’s bacterial . . . No. Okay . . . Right. I know I’m not a doctor. You’re absolutely right. But she said she got water in it. That’s how it started. Like swimmer’s ear . . . Okay. I understand. But the thing is, Audrey, she really can’t come in. I’m not saying it’s inconvenient or too expensive. I’m saying that she can’t.”

  He was talking all around it, saying anything he could to avoid having to say the words Muslim or illegal. Maybe he didn’t want to scare her. I stared out at the fast-falling snow, my hand resting on Chloe’s arm. She was taking deep breaths, every inhale and exhale loud enough for me to hear.

  “It’s all right,” I whispered, squeezing her arm. “Everything’s gonna be all right.” I wasn’t at all sure this was true.

  “Okay,” Adam said. “Please don’t hang up. I know you’re busy. But please just listen. She can’t go to any doctor, is what I’m saying. You see what I’m saying? Okay. How about this?” He slowed his words. “One of the reasons she can’t go to any doctor is that she doesn’t have any ID.” He paused. “That she can use. My brother picked her up just a little while ago. She’s trying to hitchhike to Canada.”

  He’d said Canada even more slowly than he’d said
everything else, giving emphasis to each syllable, and that must have been what did it. After that, he didn’t have to give any more hints. But it wasn’t a done deal at all.

  “I know,” he said, nodding at the dashboard. He picked up his empty coffee cup and set it down again. “And I wouldn’t have called you. I wouldn’t have. The thing is . . .” He turned and looked around the edge of his seat at Chloe. “She’s really in pain. I would say agony, if I’m being honest. David said we at least have to get her something for the pain, you know? And he’s right. He’s right.”

  I stared at the back of his head, at his pale little earlobe, feeling so sorry for what I’d been thinking about him before. I’d called him a liar and a coward and a screw-up. I’d done it in my head, but still.

  He switched the phone back to his other ear. “Do you want to talk to her? You want me to put her on?”

  Apparently the answer was yes, because he turned around and put the phone under Chloe’s head, where she could see it, though I wasn’t sure her eyes were open. “Say something,” he said. “Listen. I know it hurts. But I’ve got a doctor on the other end of the line. If you want her to help, you’ve got to tell her yourself. You’ve got to let her hear what I mean.”

  Chloe nodded. I took the phone and held it to her good ear.

  “Yes,” she gasped. “Yes, I am in so much pain.” It was good she had her accent now, and also that she was crying, so Audrey Chang would understand this wasn’t a joke. She must have been hard to understand, but she managed to confirm that she’d gotten water in her ear the week before, and that at first her ear had just felt numb, and then it had started to hurt, and then she’d woken up this morning with the pencil jammed in. When she didn’t seem like she could say any more, I handed the phone back to Adam.

  “Okay? Audrey? Will you help her? Please?”

  I wanted to reach up and put my arms around him. Not in a romantic way. I mean that all at once I felt this tenderness for him, this person I barely knew. And it was strong, almost what I felt for Caleb all the time. I was sorry for thinking that he was a coward and a liar, and I was sorry that he had money problems and that he didn’t have a car, and that things didn’t seem to be working out for him in general, and that he was always borrowing money. Maybe he was a screw-up, but he was being brave right now. I wanted to take off my seat belt and lean forward enough to take his hand and hold it. Sounds weird, I know. But that’s what I felt just then.