by Amy Harmon
“I’ve done right by you, Bonnie. I have. I’ve taken care of you. And I’ve watched out for you. And I can feel good about that. I haven’t taken anything from you that I didn’t earn or that wasn’t fair. But I haven’t earned this, Bonnie. I haven’t earned you. And if I take you, all that stuff people are saying will be true.”
Bonnie stepped toward him, raised herself up on her toes, and pressed her lips against his, halting his words with her mouth. Finn needed her to cooperate if he was going to be able to stay away from her. But when had she ever done a damn thing he’d asked her to? Her kiss was so sweet, so honest, and so Bonnie Rae. And then she sighed against his lips as if she was exactly where she wanted to be, in spite of everything he’d said.
And Finn couldn’t help himself.
His convictions were immediately reduced to eggshells. Call it weakness. Call it lack of conviction. Call it love. But he just couldn’t help himself. His hands were on her hips, in her hair, sliding down her arms, around her waist, and then back up to cup her face, trying to be everywhere at once and not knowing where to start. Their breathing grew ragged, and together they sank to the bed, Bonnie pulling his body back onto hers as he willed himself to slow down.
“I don’t know what the hell is happening between us,” he whispered, hovering above her mouth, his voice tickling her lips. “I feel like I’m free falling, and any minute I’m going to touch down, and this is all going to be over, or worse, just a dream.” His voice was so low that he wasn’t sure if he was talking to her or talking to himself, but either way, he needed her to hear him. He kissed her again, anxiously, but then pressed his forehead into hers, pulling away as if their mouths were magnetized and it required conscious effort to suspend the kiss, needing to speak but unwilling to entirely disengage.
“I have a bad feeling about this, Bonnie. Not you and me exactly. But this, the media frenzy, the fact that everyone seems to know who I am. This is going to end badly. I can feel it, the way I felt it the night Fish robbed that store. He lost his life, but I lost mine too, just in a different way. I don’t want you to lose your life because of me, Bonnie. Mine’s not worth a whole hell of a lot, but it’s all I’ve got, and you . . . you can do anything, go anywhere, be anything. This isn’t going to end well, Bonnie.”
She shook her head adamantly, her forehead rocking from side to side against his, her eyes squeezed shut, her bottom lip between her teeth.
“Please. Please don’t say that. I believe in Bonnie and Clyde! Why does it have to end at all?”
There were tears in her voice, but she didn’t let them fall, and she raised her hands to his face and pushed him away just enough to find his eyes. She held his gaze until she seemed satisfied that there would be no more talk of endings. Then her lips found his again, briefly, before she let her hands slide from his face and down his neck until they rested against his pounding heart. Then she rose up and kissed his chest. Sweetly, softly, entreating him without words.
Finn braced himself above her and watched her hands and her lips, as they soothed and smoothed, bestowing small caresses and velvet kisses against his throat and arms, against the marks that brought him shame. And in her reverence of his skin, he felt that shame wither and curl, like paper on a flame, and float upward, disintegrating into nothing more substantial than ash, and with her breath, she blew it all away. I believe in Bonnie and Clyde.
Finn’s eyes stung and his throat grew tight as she drew him close and cradled his face in the slope of her neck, as if she knew he had let something go. The words Finn had pressed upon her with such urgency slipped away from his head like the silky camisole she wore that allowed his hands to slide from her waist to her breasts without resistance. He lifted his hand and pulled one little strap from her shoulders so he could press his lips to her skin, unimpeded. And then his hands framed her face, and he felt the whisper of her sigh as she pressed her lips into his palm.
He wanted to close his fingers over that kiss, to grip it tightly, to crush it into his skin so it couldn’t fly away. But the swell of her lips and the curve of her jaw demanded a gentler touch, a touch he felt incapable of delivering when the intensity of his response pounded in his veins. So he slid his hands into her hair, curling his fingers desperately into the short strands, and pulled her mouth back to his. And this time, instead of words, he used his kiss to impart his trepidation into soft lips that he feared would one day wish him gone.
Flashing red and blue lights filled the room through the uncovered window, circling the walls, one color chasing the next, and Finn and Bonnie froze, their breath and lips halting, even as their bodies demanded they continue. Finn shot up and off the bed, and Bonnie followed, reaching for her jeans and pulling them on without a word, shoving her feet into her boots without bothering with socks. Finn stood to one side of the window, watching the slow-moving cruiser glide past the short row of cabins. Finn was yanking off his shorts and pulling on his jeans as he watched, and he saw Bonnie pause, taking in the expanse of long, smooth, uninterrupted skin before he clipped out her name in warning.
“Bonnie. We’ve gotta go. Nobody knows what we’re driving but they’re looking for something. I ran into a cop tonight on my run. That looks like the same guy.” The cruiser had slowed to a stop by the cabin that served as the front office and the officer that had pulled alongside Finn earlier stepped out of the vehicle, looking this way and that like he was, indeed, looking for someone or something.
Bonnie didn’t take the time to pull on a shirt. Instead, she pulled her pink coat over the camisole she’d been wearing beneath her shirt and stuffed their T-shirts into his duffle bag. She grabbed her purse and swept up their toothbrushes and they were out the door within forty-five seconds of being rudely interrupted from the only thing either of them really wanted to do.
They’d parked Bear’s car right outside the door. But they were only thirty yards from the lobby entrance. And there were only three other cabins that appeared to be occupied. Freedom apparently wasn’t popular on Thursdays. Finn disengaged the locks and winced at the chirp and the flash of light that innocently welcomed them. Without looking toward the office to see if they’d been spotted, he and Bonnie slid into the car and said goodbye to Freedom with their eyes on the rear view mirror.
“What name did you give them when you registered us?” Bonnie asked. She was turned around in her seat, watching to see if they were going to be pursued. So far so good.
“Parker Barrow.”
Bonnie laughed and groaned. “And you thought that was a good idea?”
“No. I just thought it was funny. And at this point, funny is about all we’ve got,” Finn said with a rueful smile.
“We really aren’t anything like Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow.”
“I’ve decided that the media doesn’t care, Bonnie Rae. They want us to be . . . and so that’s the story they’ll tell.”
WE DROVE FOR an hour in the dark, half scared, half euphoric, not really knowing where we were going, but driving because that was the only thing we could do. Every second had taken on a relevancy that I didn’t want to miss. I was in love, I was in lust, I was afraid, I was fearless—contradictions that made perfect sense and no sense at all. Maybe it was the adrenaline of running from circumstances that seemed determined to hunt us down, but it was more likely the unfinished lovemaking back at the motel, and I was struggling not to beg Clyde to pull over and let me have my way with him in the back seat.
The tension simmered between us, a buzzing undercurrent that felt as intoxicating as a pounding bass line and a killer beat, and a song started to form in my mind, more a feeling than real words, but when I started to hum, Finn just looked at me, a smile on his lips and his eyebrows raised, and I almost moaned right out loud, closing my eyes against the desire that had to wait, just a little longer. I felt simultaneously weightless and endless, floating there beside him, as if he held me on a string.
Weightless and endless. Timeless and restless. Hopelessly breathle
ss. The words seeped into my head, my yearning composing a chorus without conscious thought. I knew what the chords would be, and took note of the arrangement in my head, creating verses and a bridge to go with it. I wished I had Finn’s guitar. I hummed as I went, composing feverishly.
“Don’t just hum. Sing,” Finn urged.
I didn’t want to sing the words out loud. I didn’t want to scare him. Finn wasn’t as far along in his feelings as I was. I was there. All in. Love. But he wasn’t. And me, singing songs about needing Infinity probably wasn’t going to make him get there any faster.
“What’s your favorite song?” I asked instead. “If I know it, I’ll sing it.”
“What’s that song you sang, standing on the slide?”
“Wayfaring Stranger?” I asked, surprised.
“Yeah. That’s my favorite song.” Finn nodded once, definitively.
“You know that song?”
“No. I’d never heard it before,” he said frankly, his eyes cutting to my face and then back to the road.
“And now it’s your favorite?”
“Now it’s my favorite.”
His sweetness moved me, and my desire for him swelled again, stronger, and I trembled, wishing I were brave enough to say what I wanted to say.
“Sing it. Please?” he asked.
And so I did. I sang until the interior of Bear’s car reverberated with my voice, and my heart was shredded from the feelings clawing to get out.
WE WERE BOTH too tired to drive for long—even with me singing to keep us both awake. Finn told me to sleep, but I didn’t want to drift off when I knew he was struggling to keep his eyes open. We agreed to stop at the next big town and pulled off in a place called Guymon. A large, white, water tower gleamed softly in the dark, the name of the town written boldly in black, telling wandering strangers like Finn and me exactly where we were.
There was a Walmart that was well lit and apparently open all night. We were both in desperate need of clothing and supplies, but we needed sleep even worse, and sleeping in a dark parking lot liberally spotted with cars seemed safer than checking into another motel at the moment. We would shop in the morning.
We parked at the far edge, tucking ourselves into a corner close to an exit, far enough away from the other cars to afford us some privacy, but close enough to make us look like just another patron who didn’t want his ride scratched or dented by a wayward shopping cart. The windows were dark, and we laid our seats back as far as they would go and tried to rest for even a couple of hours. The closest I could get to Finn was his hand in mine, and I thought wistfully of the Blazer sitting in an impound yard in St. Louis. I marveled once again that Finn was even talking to me, not to mention holding my hand in his and gently stroking the skin above my wrist as he lay beside me in the dark.
I listened to him breathe, soothed by his fingers and the steadiness of his presence. And right before I let sleep pull me under, I whispered the words I needed to say.
“I love you, Finn.” And maybe it was my tired mind or my wistful heart. Maybe it was just a dream, but I thought I heard him whisper back, “I love you too, Bonnie.”
WE’D LEFT THE blizzards behind, but it was still February, and Oklahoma wasn’t warm. We were fortunate to have our coats and for the relatively mild overnight temperatures, but we still woke up shivering several times. Finn would restart the car and get it warm before shutting it off and giving us another hour of sleep before the cold woke us up again. All in all, it wasn’t a great night’s rest, and when the sun rose and started to warm the inside of the car, we both welcomed the heat and slept more deeply than we had all night. It was mid-morning before we sidled into the Walmart, slipping into the bathroom with the appropriate stick figure on the door, and made use of the facilities. Finn still had some of his things, and I had reinforcements in my purse. I made use of them after washing my face and hands with cheap soap, brushing my teeth with gusto, and sticking my head under the tap to tame the little turkey tail in the back before applying moisturizer, mascara, and lip gloss, which was all I had in my bag.
It was a Friday morning, and Walmart was populated only by the occasional mom with very young children and the random senior citizen, which made my bathroom makeover less conspicuous. Only one woman came in while I stood in front of the mirror, and she went straight to the toilets. I made sure that when she came out I was no longer standing in front of the mirror but was huddled with my palms stretched out beneath a loud hand dryer, my face completely averted. No one expects to see a celebrity in their local Walmart bathroom. Most of us don’t really look at each other anyway. Our eyes glance off without really registering what we’re seeing. It’s human nature. It’s polite society. Ignore each other unless someone is grotesquely fat or immodestly dressed or disfigured in some way—and then we pretend not to see, but we see everything. I was none of those things, and so far human nature was working in my favor.
I found Finn waiting on a bench outside the bathroom, hair slicked back into his customary tail, his face a little shiny from scrubbing, and the stubble he’d been sporting shaved away.
“You shaved?”
“There wasn’t anyone in there, but I soaped up and went into the stall and shaved by feel. Got a little soap on my shirt, but I feel a helluva lot better.” He looked good too. I smiled at him as I told him so.
We stuffed his brush and shaving kit into my purse so we weren’t quite as conspicuous and made our way around the store, grabbing up what we needed. Finn threw a Bonnie Ray Come Undone CD into the basket, as well as my four other albums, claiming it would save me from having to sing all the way to LA. I pulled the tag off a pair of non-prescription glasses and set them on my nose, further changing my appearance, and put a matching pair in the cart so I could pay for them at the register without taking them off.
I might be the only girl ever to go to the Academy Awards made up in cosmetics purchased at Walmart, but I hit the makeup aisle, selecting a variety of the most expensive products in several shades, along with everything I would need to apply them. I threw in some hair product that wasn’t going to make my little boy hairstyle look any different than it did at that very moment, but at least I wouldn’t have to stick my head under the faucet.
I saw Finn’s eyes rest on the magazines at the checkout stand, my face plastered across several with screaming headlines and little insets of Finn’s mug shots. He looked away immediately, and I reached for him, sick all over again. He squeezed my hand, and I felt like crying in gratitude, but sent him out ahead of me, not wanting the clerk to get an eyeful of us together, so close to the tabloids.
Several hundred dollars later, I was heading to the front entrance when over the intercom a voice that sounded a little like Reba McIntire informed Walmart customers that the owner of a black Dodge Charger with the Tennessee license plate BEARTRP needed to please return to their vehicle.
My heart sank to my knees along with my hopes. Bear trap. That was Bear’s license plate. Finn had already left the store. Were the police outside waiting for us? And if so, why would they have a Walmart manager tell us to return to the car. Wouldn’t they just wait until we returned? All of these questions shot through my mind instantaneously, and I decided the only option was to exit the store and hope to hell Finn wasn’t handcuffed in the back of a police car.
He wasn’t. He was waiting by the entrance, his eyes trained on the far corner where the Charger was parked. There wasn’t a police car in sight, but there was an older model Suburban idling nearby, and a man surveying Bear’s car with a phone to his ear.
“What’s happening?” I asked.
“I think that guy ran into Bear’s car,” Finn said.
“And instead of driving away, he did the honest thing and is waiting for us to come out to exchange insurance information,” I finished.
“Yeah.” Finn sounded grim. “Let’s go. We’re not in trouble yet.”
As we approached, the man on the phone turned toward us and seemed as re
lieved as he was apologetic. He was a middle-aged, heavy-set man in a tie and slacks that were a tad too short, making him look slightly pathetic and unkempt. If the paper doll family decal on the back window of his Suburban was any indication, he had ten zillion kids and several pets, and his clothes were probably way down on the list of priorities. His Suburban only had a few scratches that may have been there before his collision, but that was obviously not making him feel any better.
“Oh, hey! Are you the owners? Man, I am so sorry. My Burban sits high, and I couldn’t see your car in my rear view. I was in a hurry, and I pulled out too far, too fast, and just nailed the back of your car.”
Bear was going to kill us. The whole panel above the bumper was caved in, one taillight was broken, and the trunk had sprung open from the impact.
“I already called the cops because I wasn’t sure if you were in the store or if you’d parked here for a car pool or something and weren’t coming back for a while. There are quite a few people who do that here in Guymon—’course you’re from Tennessee. Guess I should have thought of that. Man, I am so sorry!”
Finn pushed the damaged trunk all the way open and unloaded the basket swiftly, his eyes darting between the adjacent street and the entrances into the Walmart parking lot. He hadn’t said anything to the honest Abe who was wringing his hands and talking non-stop. Then Finn slammed the trunk several times, trying to get it to catch, even though it didn’t quite line up with the latch anymore, causing the agitated driver of the Suburban to pause mid-sentence and frown at Finn in confusion. I slid a folded hundred dollar bill into the man’s wrinkled breast pocket, gave it a pat, stepped by him, and climbed into the passenger seat. Finn slammed the trunk once more and luckily it held. He slid in beside me a second later.
