Perfect Escape

by Jennifer Brown

We both laughed. Mom and Dad had been so mad at us, but we hadn’t gotten into any trouble, because they were also both so thrilled that we were doing something normal. Together.

  “See? That was fun, too. And you didn’t die from it,” I said. “Loosen up, Stuffypants. Enjoy.”

  His face got serious. “Enjoy,” he repeated. “It seems to me that you haven’t been in the mood for much fun for a long time yourself.”

  “What? I have fun all the time,” I said, though in the back of my mind I was scrounging to think of a recent example to offer. “Shani and Lia and I have lots of fun.”

  He rolled his eyes. “If you call standing around trying to impress everyone fun, I guess,” he said.

  I opened my mouth to argue, but nothing came out. Whether he was right or wrong, I was mostly floored that he’d even paid attention. I’d thought Grayson only paid attention to Grayson. And rocks.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “What are we going to do when we hit Colorado?”

  “Keep driving,” I answered. Again, my eyes cut to the gas gauge, which was down to just under a quarter of a tank now. I was still trying to shake off his accusation that I didn’t have fun. I had yet to think of an example of something fun I’d done recently, and that was just depressing.

  “Just drive forever?”

  “No,” I answered, taking another sip of my soda. I picked up his and offered it to him again. Surprisingly, he took it. “We’re going to California.”

  He let out a bark of a laugh now. “California!” he repeated. “What the hell is in California?”

  I thought about it. I couldn’t answer him truthfully. I couldn’t tell him there were lots of things in California. My redemption, for instance. Distance, during which maybe the school, or Mom and Dad, or maybe even I would figure out what to do next about the mess I’d left behind. Or Grayson’s redemption, maybe. His cure from OCD, finally really putting to the test that cognitive behavioral therapy and exposure therapy crap all those docs had been talking about for years. The stuff that Mom wanted everyone else to do but couldn’t seem to make herself do.

  And I definitely couldn’t tell him truthfully what was really waiting for us in California: help.

  Zoe.

  So I told him the next best lie I could think of instead.

  “The Hayward Fault,” I said matter-of-factly.

  Grayson paused, his soda perched below his lips. He looked at me, stunned.

  The Hayward Fault was one of Grayson’s longest-running obsessions. His second-grade teacher talked about it in science one day—this 100-kilometer fault in the San Francisco Bay area that some people believe will cause a seven-plus magnitude earthquake any day. Most of the kids in his class blew it off as more boring junk to memorize, but it became Grayson’s world.

  He had nightmares. Would wake up sweating, screaming for Dad. Dad would run into Grayson’s room, only to hear, “The Hayward had the big one, Dad!”

  And when we’d go outside to play, Grayson always wanted to play Hayward Fault rescue. Zoe and I would pretend the ground had shaken us off the swing set and would lie buried under an overturned wagon or empty box and Grayson would flit about the yard, pretending to use superhuman strength to free us from our prisons.

  He used to tell us he wanted to see the fault for himself someday. A pilgrimage for the geologically devoted. He wanted to touch the ground, to see if he could detect any tremors from deep within the earth. He wanted to scoop up a handful of gravel and bring it home as a souvenir—more priceless than the snowflake obsidian Grandpa had brought him from New Zealand. It would be his most treasured piece of geology: pebbles from the fault that last rocked the earth in 1868 and would most certainly rock the earth again.

  But sitting on Hunka’s bench seat next to me, he didn’t say anything about the treasures of the Hayward. Instead, he silently lowered his soda into his lap and stared out the passenger-side window.

  “We’ll go to the… where was it again? The football stadium?”

  He cleared his throat. “Cal Memorial Stadium. At Berkeley.”

  I snapped my fingers and pointed at him. “Yeah. That’s the one. The fault is under it, right?”

  He nodded, numbly. “Directly. From…”

  “Goalpost to goalpost,” I said excitedly, having heard him say those very words so many times growing up. “See? I was paying attention. Cal Memorial Stadium, here we come! See, Gray? Fun! This will be fun!”

  My brother sat still, looking dazed. I was hoping for more excitement from him. Maybe it would come. Yeah, that was it. He just needed time. The excitement would come.

  “Gray,” I said softly. “This is important to me.”

  A long time passed before he moved again. I watched the highway roll by, every now and then glancing back at my brother, who seemed to be mesmerized by something he saw out his window. But I knew what he saw wasn’t out the window at all. What he saw was something out of the past. Or future. Or maybe both.

  “Okay,” he said, very quietly. He gently placed his soda back in the cup holder. “I can’t believe I’m going to go along with this, but okay.”

  CHAPTER

  THIRTEEN

  I was already sick of being in the car. We hadn’t seen anything for what seemed like forever. Just miles and miles of darkness and shadowy fields on both sides. I knew people lived out there somewhere, and I spent some time wondering what it must be like to be so isolated all the time. Was it wonderful, never having to worry about parking or sales on paper towels? Or was it horrible and restless? After so many hours in the car, with nobody to talk to but my brother, who wasn’t exactly talking, I was feeling horrible and restless.

  “We’ve gotta stop,” I said, craning my neck to look for a highway sign that might give some indication of a town somewhere ahead. “My butt’s numb. And we need gas. Bad.”

  Grayson nodded and peered out the window. The uh-uhuhuh-uh sound had crept back into his throat. I wanted to stuff something into my ears to drown the sound out. I didn’t know about him, but it was making me feel twitchy.

  For the past hour, I’d been ignoring the noise and the pressing need for gas as best I could, entertaining myself by envisioning what it would be like to see Zoe again. I imagined running up the driveway to meet her, her parents beckoning us into their house, all forgiven. I imagined Zoe and Grayson and me, shoulder to shoulder, twining our fingers together once again, walking hand in hand, as we’d done so many times throughout our childhood. Grayson was smiling in my imagined scene. He was relaxed and smiling. And I wasn’t running away from a mess at school. We were both having fun.

  Just how we used to be, before.

  Funny how a couple lousy sentences can ruin everything.

  Listen, Linda. We need you to keep Grayson away from Zoe, okay? We don’t want her dating a kid with mental problems.

  I’d never forget my mom’s reaction to Zoe’s dad when he said that. How she’d physically recoiled from him, clutching a margarita glass to her chest, her back brushing up against a little paper lantern she and Zoe’s mom had hung earlier that day for our traditional end-of-summer luau. I’d never forget the way Mom’s eyes clouded with shock, and how she’d glanced over Mr. Monett’s shoulder, peering in embarrassment at the other guests, who had just begun to arrive.

  And I’d never forget her response to Mr. Monett: How dare you say such a thing, Rob? You with your Thursday afternoon mistress and your Sunday binge drinking, acting like you’re better than my son? Get out of my yard. And keep your daughter away from my son, while you’re at it! He doesn’t need some trampy little preteen giving him any pointers.

  And I’d never forget how my mom’s drink had stained the tops of Mr. Monett’s shoes as she threw her cup with a hollow plastic thunk down on the deck. Or how Zoe had cried, curled up in the hollow of Grayson’s arm on the edge of the sandbox underneath our old swing set. How she’d bitterly cursed my mom for calling her trampy and how she swore she’d marry Grayson someday because he was her
soul mate. That she’d been in love with him since she was a toddler, and how could my mom and her dad not see that?

  And I’d never forget any of the little scenes that followed—Mr. Monett showing up on our front porch, clutching Grayson’s elbow so hard Grayson’s face was crumpled in pain; Zoe’s mom calling mine, screaming that she’d caught Grayson kissing her daughter again; Dad and Zoe’s dad almost coming to blows when Mr. Monett shoved Grayson off their porch after finding Grayson and Zoe studying rocks out of their landscaping there; Grayson moaning and pacing and rubbing the sides of his head through the night, the hardwood floor of his bedroom strewn with flyaway, frizzy tumbleweeds.

  And me, fighting for my brother. Standing by my friend. Holding her hand. Stroking her hair. Until they did that last stupid thing and Mr. Monett said it was the final straw and announced they were moving and took everything away from me. Zoe, away to California. Grayson, away inside his head. I was the one who did everything I was supposed to do, yet I lost my two best friends. It wasn’t fair. All of them were so wrapped up in their own pain, they didn’t even think I might be in pain, too. My best friend was gone, and nobody even bothered to ask if I was okay.

  But in my mind, as I drove toward Cali, I got it all back. Zoe would take me into her bedroom, and it would be pink and have butterfly decals on the walls, just like her bedroom back home. We’d eat soft pretzels on her bed, and she’d tell me about her school—about how she’d found friends but, like Shani and Lia, they weren’t the same. She’d take me to the beach, maybe. Let me borrow a halter top. Introduce me to boys. She’d spread her hands on Grayson’s chest and absorb the anxiety that had eaten him up all these years. She’d embrace him, and we’d even drive to Berkeley and look at the football stadium, and we’d marvel at the irony of how the fault we’d always worried would destroy us all had actually saved us. Brought us all back together.

  Maybe even our parents would reunite. Maybe they could forgive one another. They would see that Grayson was fixable. They would see that Zoe wasn’t trampy and that Grayson wasn’t crazy and that we were all exactly what they’d always wanted us to be—happy.

  No, not maybe.

  Definitely.

  It had to be.

  “Is that something up there?” Grayson asked, pointing out his window toward a dim light, an oasis in the middle of nothingness.

  I eased up onto the exit and followed the dusty road toward the light, which, as we drew closer, looked like a small motor lodge at the edge of an even smaller town.

  I pulled into the parking lot as Hunka sucked down almost the last bit of gas in the tank.

  CHAPTER

  FOURTEEN

  “You’re kidding, right?” Grayson asked, as I put the car into park and practically jumped out onto the cracked asphalt. I stretched greedily, my muscles feeling drained and weak after so long sitting still. “This place is… God, Kendra, they probably have bugs….”

  I held a finger out toward him, schoolmarm-style. “Uh-uh. No you don’t. This place is fine.” I stepped up onto the curb and gazed at the office, which sat at the end of a dilapidated statuary-lined path. There was a cow skull lying in the grass by the walk. This was no Holiday Inn. I tried not to think about horror movies and dead hookers and crazy diseases on sheets. This was fine. It had to be fine. For my brother’s sake, I had to pretend that I thought this motel was the finest motel ever.

  Grayson stepped up on the curb and down again. Then up again. Then down again. I turned.

  “Stop it,” I hissed. “Come on. I’m going in, with or without you.”

  He followed, hesitantly, his head jerking back toward the curb as though he wanted to step on and off it a few more times. “I won’t be able to sleep in a place like this,” he said, edging around a large bird dropping on the ground. He crouched and touched the clean ground next to the dropping, over and over again. “One, two, three, four…”

  I’d reached the door. A McGruff the Crime Dog sticker on the window was faded and peeling off. A broken wind chime lay crumpled on the concrete stoop. A chewed-looking Tupperware bowl filled with about half an inch of filthy water sat nearby, along with an open and mostly eaten can of cat food. A muddied, skin-and-bones cat peered up at me from behind a half-dying bush off to my left. It meowed and scooted back into the bushes as I reached for the door handle.

  “… sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty. I can’t do it. I can’t sleep here.”

  “Fine. Sleep in the car,” I said, trying on my best exposure therapy voice. Or at least what I imagined an exposure therapy voice to sound like. I actually had no idea what a therapy voice would sound like. I’d spent so much of the past three years trying to ignore it all.

  “We’re going home,” he said. “This isn’t a game, Kendra. I appreciate what you’re doing, but you can’t just put people like me through this kind of exposure all at once. Mom wouldn’t….”

  I turned, my hand still on the door handle. “I’m not Mom,” I said. “I’m not going to baby you. You’re fine. Either come with me or sleep in the car. I’m tired and I don’t care which you choose. I’m going in.”

  “You’re being ridiculous,” he said, rushing up behind me. I caught him casting a worried look as the cat jumped deeper into the bushes and disappeared. “This is the most ridiculous idea you’ve ever had. I’m not nine. I don’t even want to see the Hayward Fault anymore. I’m sick. I should be home.”

  I ignored him and pulled open the door. Immediately I was hit by a cloud of incense that nearly knocked me over. It reminded me of the time I went to church with Grandma on Easter Sunday. I’d come home wheezy and succumbing to a terrible cold, and Mom had refused to let Grandma take me to church with her ever again. Grandma couldn’t convince her that the incense hadn’t caused my respiratory distress.

  The top of the door knocked against a little metal bell, which clanked our arrival to the empty lobby.

  I stood awkwardly in the middle of the room, taking in the mishmash of decor, which seemed to be a cross between Native American, commercial cowboy, and Woodstock. There were dried soda can rings caked on a scrubby coffee table, yellowing magazines with curled corners on the couch, and a pervasive fluorescent feel to the atmosphere, like we were fleas under a microscope.

  On the other side of the counter, far back in an adjoining room, a white-haired man in a stained tank top sat in a recliner, his feet pointing toward a teeny television set, which blared out a reality show. He seemed to either not notice Grayson and me standing in the lobby, or not care.

  I shuffled to the counter and timidly tapped a bell next to the cash register. No sound came out. I glanced back at Grayson, but he was staring at a stain of something brown and once liquid that had been splashed and then left to dry on the wall. I could only imagine what was going through his mind. He was probably wondering if it was possible to actually die of grossed-out-ed-ness in a nasty motor lodge lobby. I grinned despite myself, because this place probably ranked as the number one worst place on earth I could take Grayson to spend the night. Not that it was funny. But, yeah… it kinda was.

  “Dare you to lick it,” I whispered.

  He looked horrified. “No!”

  “Come on. I’ll pay you ten bucks.”

  “You’re crazy, Kendra. I’m not licking the wall. Here or anywhere else.”

  “Chicken.”

  “Okay, fine. I’m a chicken. A chicken who’ll live to see tomorrow.”

  “Bawk-bawk-bawk,” I whispered, making little wings out of my arms.

  Grayson rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Unbelievable. I’m being held hostage by a three-year-old.”

  “A three-year-old who isn’t afraid to do this.” Quickly, without thinking about what I was doing, I stuck out my tongue and grazed the wall with it, leaving behind a wet streak.

  “Oh! God!” Grayson screeched as I laughed and stuck my tongue out at him.

  “Mmm… certain death,” I teased.

  “That’s just… disgu
sting,” he said, but the conviction was gone from his voice, and I almost thought I heard an amused tone behind it.

  I wiped my tongue off on the back of my hand and turned to face the check-in desk again. “Um, excuse me?” I called out. The man glanced at us, and then turned back to the TV again. Not a word. I shifted my weight. “Hello?” I said, louder this time.

  “Rena!” the man shouted, still not looking away from the TV. He scratched his belly. “Re-NA!”

  A baby cried somewhere off in the distance, there were some stumbling noises, and then a curtain next to the cash register swished to one side, and a blonde stepped out of the darkness behind it, blinking in the light, her long, shiny hair in sleep-tufts around her head. She looked about my age.

  “Chill, I was feeding Bo,” she said, closing a ragtag robe around her middle. The baby protested some more in the background. “Hey, there,” she said to me, stepping up to the counter. She yawned. “Checking in?”

  I nodded.

  The baby’s fussing crescendoed, and she cinched the robe shut with a belt. “Okay,” she said. “It’s um, forty a night for the basic, fifty-five for a double, and we have, uh, one lovers’ suite for eighty dollars. That one has a two-person Jacuzzi.”

  “We’ll take a basic,” I said, resisting the urge to add “ew” about the lovers’ suite. I pulled out my wallet and handed her my credit card. Actually, it was Mom’s credit card, but she let me carry it for the times she needed me to pick something up for her.

  The blonde took the card. Her fingernails were filed blunt and painted pink, a shiny spot in this place that so needed a scrubbing.

  “Do you have ID?” she asked, again glancing at the curtain as the baby’s cries turned to hiccups.

  I pulled out my driver’s license and handed it to her. She squinted at it, looked up, then squinted at it some more. Finally, she looked up at me, scratching her neck and leaving ragged red lines down her throat.

  “Um, you have to be eighteen,” she said.

  “Oh.” I gestured behind me at Grayson, who was now staring at a stain on the shabby carpet. For one wild moment, I had the urge to lick that, too, just to see what he’d do. “He is.”