Perfect Escape

by Jennifer Brown

  I stood up and took a deep breath. “Ready?” I said.

  “Yep!” she said. “I gotta get back before Bo wakes up. That boy does nothing but eat.”

  We started down the hill toward the motel, which was sprawled out below, talking about babies and Buddy and the beach and pretty much anything else we could think of.

  And, even more important, not talking about school and rocks and the Hayward Fault and OCD.

  CHAPTER

  EIGHTEEN

  When we got back to the motel, Rena ducked right inside the office while I rolled the tire to our room and leaned it against Hunka. I decided Grayson could help me put it back on. He would balk, of course. It would be “too dirty” or “too dangerous,” and if I were Mom, I’d give in and do it myself. Which was exactly why I was going to make him help me. It would help him get better, just like I’d told Rena this trip would do. Just like I’d been telling myself.

  But when I opened the door, Grayson wasn’t there.

  “Gray?” I called, glancing around, trying to let my eyes adjust to the dark room. I checked in the bathroom. No Grayson. I checked in the closet. No Grayson. “Grayson?” I called again, like he could be hiding under the bed or in the night table drawer with the Bible or something.

  I practically flew out of the room, my heart racing. Where on earth could he have gone? It wasn’t as if he could have driven anywhere. Maybe he called a taxi and was headed back home right at this moment. Did they have taxis in this town? Doubtful. Plus, Grayson couldn’t handle germs when he was anxious. There’s no way he’d sit in the back of a taxi for however many hours it would take to get home.

  I raced to Hunka and peered in the back window. No Grayson.

  It didn’t make sense. He had to be around here somewhere.

  Oh, God. If something happened to him, Mom and Dad would never forgive me. Forget my stupid school troubles. I’d kidnapped my brother and lost him. That was way worse than failing any stupid calc class.

  I practically sprinted down the sidewalk to the office, my sneaker accidentally connecting with the cow skull and sending it skittering in two pieces across the mud patch that was meant to be lawn. My throat felt tight and I was totally panicked.

  Just as I was about to pull open the door, Rena stepped out of it.

  “Bo’s still asl—Hey, what’s wrong?” she asked.

  “Is my brother in there?” I asked, gesturing at the office door behind her.

  “Your brother? Uh-uh. Why?”

  “Are you sure?” I asked, trying to press down the panic creeping up my throat.

  She looked startled. “Yeah. Positive,” she said. “Archie’s asleep in the recliner and Bo’s still napping. Your brother’s missing?”

  I nodded miserably. “Omigod,” I whispered. I put my hands on my hips and paced up and down the sidewalk.

  “Maybe he got hungry and went to look for something to eat,” she said, which seemed entirely possible, since it was the first thing I’d wanted to do after waking up, too.

  “Maybe,” I said. “But he doesn’t have any money. And besides, Grayson never leaves the house. Not unless it’s to go to the hospital or to the qu—” I stopped in my tracks. “Do you have any big rock beds around here?”

  Rena’s face crinkled curiously. “Rock beds?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Rock beds. Like, landscaping. Or a… I don’t know… a pile of rocks. Or a place that sells rocks or something. Just… any place where there are lots of rocks?”

  She thought it over, clearly confused, then brightened. “The gazebo,” she said. “C’mon.”

  She led me around the side of the office, past an old, defunct ice machine and a stack of mattresses riddled with holes, and through a gate, half torn off its hinges.

  “Back here,” she said.

  We walked through what once must have been a little courtyard, formed by three buildings that looked identical to the ones facing the highway, only these rooms were mostly boarded up.

  In the courtyard was a tire swing and slide, an empty and severely cracked swimming pool, and a gazebo with holes the size of doughnuts in the roof. All around the gazebo was what must have once been landscaping—a rock bed dotted with dead shrubs and crumbling statuaries.

  We circled the gazebo, and there, on the back side, squeezed between two shrubs and a creepy-looking angel statue, sat my brother.

  “There he is,” Rena said, pointing. “What’s he doing?”

  “Counting,” I said, relief flooding me. “And sorting.”

  Which was exactly what he’d been doing. There weren’t that many rocks left in the bed. Grayson had created four or five mounds of them in front of him, his lips moving feverishly.

  I sat down on the grass a few feet away from him, my legs crossed, Indian-style, and rested my forehead in my hands, trying not to cry as the stress melted off me. He glanced up at me and then went right back to work.

  “You okay?” Rena asked. Her voice was soft, and I suddenly felt bad for getting her into my family’s mess.

  “Yeah,” I said, rubbing my hands down the sides of my face without even thinking about the grease and grime that had accumulated on them from rolling the tire. “I’m not sure…” I didn’t know how to finish the sentence. What I’d wanted to say was, I’m not sure I’m doing the right thing. But I couldn’t say it aloud. Because the truth was, it’d been so long since I’d been doing the right thing, I wasn’t even sure if I knew what the right thing was anymore.

  She stood there for a long time, very still. Grayson had stopped mumbling, but I could still hear the rattle of the rocks hitting one another. Finally, I heard a scrape of fabric on the ground and looked up to see Rena lowering herself to the ground, facing Grayson.

  He ignored her. Probably didn’t even realize she was there. But unlike most people, Rena didn’t seem bothered much by Grayson being in Grayson’s own world. She didn’t get squirmy or insist on small talk or make fun of him. She just sat there, cross-legged, and watched him. She was very still and her head was cocked to one side, almost like she thought she might be able to figure him out.

  After a long while, she picked up a rock.

  “This one’s pretty,” she said. “I wonder what it’s called.”

  “That’s gypsum,” Grayson mumbled, so quietly it was almost like he hadn’t spoken at all. He didn’t look up, either, which made his words seem all the more ghostly.

  “Huh?” Rena asked, leaning forward.

  “Gypsum,” he said, louder, glancing up at her. And then when she still didn’t seem to understand, he added, “You know, the stuff they make fertilizer out of.”

  “Ew,” Rena said, and dropped the rock.

  “It’s not poop,” Grayson said, giving his eyes a condescending roll. “They also make plaster of paris out of it.”

  Rena sat still for a minute, then picked up another rock. “What’s this one?” she asked.

  Grayson pushed his glasses up on his nose and peered at the rock in her hand. He seemed to think it over, whether or not he wanted to get into this conversation. Talking about rocks was something he loved to do, but he would have to stop counting and sorting them in order to do it. It would be a tough choice for him. Counting and sorting was his comfort, and he loved it. “Well,” he said, taking the rock from her gently. “It’s a sandstone. But look here—there’s some feldspar in it. Ever heard of sunstone?”

  Rena shook her head.

  “Hmm. Well, feldspar is sunstone. And moonstone. You know, like jewelry. Sandstone is a sedimentary rock, mainly created in, you know, deserts and stuff, and usually it’s got quartz in it.”

  “Whoa. How do you know all this?”

  “He’s a genius,” I said, my head still in my hands. I could only imagine what Grayson was thinking. Rena was nice but didn’t seem to be that smart, and sometimes my brother had a low tolerance for people who weren’t as smart as he was.

  “And I found this one, too,” he said, pulling a rock out of the bottom of o
ne of his piles, not even seeming to notice when the rocks on top of it came tumbling down. He handed it to Rena.

  “That’s pretty. What is it?”

  “Mica,” he said. “See those lines in there?” He reached out and pointed at the rock. “Those are cleavage lines. If you were to hit one of those planes, the rock would break along the line. Micas have perfect cleavage, meaning they break into perfect sheets.”

  Rena giggled. “I used to have perfect cleavage before Bo was born.” But when Grayson didn’t respond, her smile faded. “Joke,” she muttered, pink creeping up into the tops of her ears. “Sorry.”

  But Grayson acted the way Grayson always acted—as if he hadn’t heard a thing. Everything in his world was centered on the rock piles in front of him. He was happy, even if for just a few minutes.

  After a while, Rena turned around to face me. He okay? she mouthed, turning her palms up in her lap. I nodded wearily. Yeah, he’s okay. As okay as he’d ever be, I guessed.

  “I’ve gotta get that tire back on,” I said to nobody in particular. I pushed myself up off the ground and wiped my palms across the seat of my jeans, flicking off dead leaves and little bits of spring grass. “Soon as I’m done, we’re leaving. We’ll get some breakfast.” I craned my neck to see around Rena, but Grayson didn’t look up. Even though I’d told myself I wasn’t going to do things Mom’s way, I just didn’t have the energy to make him help me. Better to just do it myself and leave him to what he was doing rather than fight with him.

  “I’ll help,” Rena said, hopping up. “If…” She let the sentence unravel but gave a lingering look behind her.

  I nodded. He would be fine. As long as he had rocks, he’d be just dandy.

  As soon as we turned the corner of the building, she said, “Your brother’s difficulties… is he, like, retarded or something?”

  I shook my head. I’d gotten this question a lot. Also, Is he autistic? Is he a serial killer? And the ever-popular Dude, what’s his problem? “He has OCD,” I said. “He’s fine. He didn’t used to be this bad. He’s been worse… lately. He relaxes around rocks.”

  No sooner had we turned the corner into the parking lot than Bo’s cries started to float across to us from the office.

  “Oh,” Rena said, startled. “Sorry.”

  “Not a problem,” I said. “Thanks for helping me as much as you did. And thanks for, you know… for not laughing at my brother.”

  She made a confused face. “He’s nice.”

  She had me there. Sometimes I got so wrapped up in my frustration with Grayson that I forgot he was actually a really nice guy. He hardly ever said anything mean about anyone, probably because he knew what it felt like to be on the receiving end of insults. I’d known people with brothers who were horrible. Brothers who would torment them. Brothers who would call them names, embarrass them in front of their friends. Grayson would never do any of that. I was really lucky.

  Would he be able to say the same about me?

  “Well, thanks anyway.”

  “Sure. No problem. If I don’t see you before you leave, have fun in California. It was nice meeting you.”

  I smiled, squinting up at her from my crouch beside the tire. “Yeah. Same here,” I said.

  Bo’s cries increased in volume and intensity, and as Rena started to jog toward the office, Archie’s voice blared out, “Dammit, Rena, shut this kid up! He woke me up. Where are you, you stupid bitch?”

  Rena didn’t look back. I felt a pang of regret for her. In a different life, who knows, she might have made a really great wife and mother.

  I lifted the tire onto the car, fitting the screws through the holes in the rim, and then stood, fumbling the lug nuts out of my pocket, ignoring the nagging feeling in the back of my mind that I knew she was in a really crappy situation and I was going to walk away and leave her there.

  I tightened the nuts quickly, trembling with guilt about doing nothing to help Rena, and with hunger, and with worry about what would happen if Archie suddenly came bursting outside and came after me. That’s the bad thing about running away—the only person keeping you safe is yourself.

  As if to punctuate the thought, a crash sounded from the office, followed by the baby’s cries. My fingers worked double-time.

  It was definitely time to go.

  CHAPTER

  NINETEEN

  “You hungry?” I asked, standing on the little walkway across from where Grayson now sat, a few feet away from where Rena and I had found him earlier, the piles of stones multiplied and neatly stacked around him. My shadow fell over him, long and lean, as if I were far more formidable than I was feeling.

  “Not really. Thirsty, though.”

  “We’ll get sodas when we get gas.”

  Nothing.

  “We need to go, Grayson.”

  “I’m not done.”

  I tried to wait. I really did. I stood there quietly, listening to the click of the rocks as he placed them in piles. I listened to him murmur each time he dropped one where it was supposed to go. But I was starving. And thirsty. And tired. And impatient. And I could hear Archie and Rena still fighting. I wanted to leave, and as much as I wanted to be patient for my brother, this time I couldn’t do it.

  I reached down and grabbed him under the armpit, pulling upward. For such a skinny guy, he did seem to pack a bunch of weight into that body. He barely shifted, even when I gave it all my strength. “You’ll never be done. Get. Up.” I pulled again, this time jiggling his arm up against one of the rock piles. The rocks tumbled down in a mini-avalanche.

  “Kendra!” he complained, scrabbling with his fingertips to get the rocks back in place. “You can’t just…” But he was too busy grabbing and stacking, grabbing and stacking to finish his sentence.

  I wiped my forehead on the back of my hand, feeling wobbly and sick to my stomach. Why had I thought this would be easy?

  “Come on,” I whined. “I’m so hungry I’m gonna throw up. Let’s just get on the road, get some food and gas, and…” This time it was my turn to trail off, because I didn’t know what to say next…. And get to Zoe? I couldn’t say that. Grayson would flip out.

  He didn’t get up, but his hands stopped digging through the rock bed, and I saw his eyes flick up toward me briefly.

  “Please?” I asked, crouching down so we were face-level. “I need you to do this for me, Grayson,” I said. I felt tears coming, and I knew my low blood sugar was going to start making me emotional. “I know it’s hard,” I practically whispered. “But you can do it.”

  He sighed and opened his fingers, the half dozen or so rocks he had in his palms trickling to the ground with little clicks. I closed my eyes and smiled, said a hasty prayer of thanks.

  We could hear Archie yelling in the office—calling Rena names, with little metallic bangs and crashes as punctuation. Bo’s cries got louder with every crash, and Rena’s voice ratcheted up, sounding thin and shaky over the boom of Archie’s rage. I glanced over my shoulder, as if I could see into the office from the dilapidated courtyard. I wanted to run into the office, dive behind the curtained area, and yank both Bo and Rena out of there. But I could only save so many people at once. Starting with myself.

  When I turned back to Grayson, I noticed his eyes were turned toward the office as well, his face grim. “We should go,” he said, and slowly stood up.

  Relief washed over me and I jumped up, wrapping my arms around him and leaning my cheek into his chest. He felt stiff and awkward beneath my hug, but I didn’t care. He’d listened to me. He’d broken his spell of counting.

  Even if it was only this one time, at least I had this once.

  I released him, then hooked my arm through his and led him down the walkway, back toward the parking lot. But after a few steps, I stopped.

  “Take your shirt off,” I said.

  He wrinkled his nose. “What? No. Why?”

  “Just do it,” I said, holding my hand out and bouncing it impatiently. Something broke in the office
and we both glanced that way.

  “No. I’m not giving you my shirt,” he said. He crossed his arms over his chest.

  “Why does everything have to be difficult with you?” I grumbled. “Fine. You won’t take yours off? I’ll use mine. Look away or prepare to be grossed out.” I crossed my arms at the wrists and grabbed the hem of my shirt and started lifting. Grayson looked panicked.

  “Okay, okay!” he shouted. “Stop! Here.” He whipped his shirt over his head and handed it to me, then quickly crossed one arm over his chest, his hand tucked into the armpit of his other arm. “You have really lost it, Kendra.”

  I took the shirt and jogged back to the gazebo. I laid it out on the ground and bent to one knee. Quickly, before Grayson could start freaking out about his half-naked state and how that could most certainly equal some sort of freakish skin disease that would lead to his death if he didn’t count to eleventy bazillion, I grabbed handfuls of the rocks he’d been organizing and tossed them into the middle of his shirt. Two, four, six big handfuls, and the rocks were overflowing. I stood and folded the edges of the shirt in, making a pouch for the rocks, and picked it up.

  “Come on,” I said, breezing past him, dribbling rocks onto the ground in our wake. One broke when it hit the ground, and despite myself I glanced back to see if it was one of those rocks with the perfect cleavage he’d been talking about.

  Grayson didn’t say a word. He followed me to the car, where I opened up the passenger door and let one end of the T-shirt go, raining rocks onto Hunka’s floorboard.

  “There,” I said, shaking the dirt off his shirt and holding it out to him. “You can take them with you.”

  Grayson stood immobile for a few minutes, looking at the shirt in my hand as if he didn’t recognize it. For a second I worried that his germ fixation would kick in and he’d refuse to take it from me. But he seemed to be more amused than anything, the corners of his mouth twitching toward what might have been a grin for a normal person.