“Grace, I was very clear on the phone. I’m your friend and nothing more. If you can’t accept that, I’ll turn around here and take you back home.”
She teases him for overreacting and instantly regrets it.
He speeds up to pass a slow-moving truck and when he speaks again his voice is clipped. “I’m not going to be sorry for taking you out here, am I?”
“No.”
“When did you live out there?”
She kicks her stocking feet up onto the dashboard. The socks are red and pink with little toe separators so they’re like gloves for feet. “On and off until I was seven.”
“That’s no place for a kid.”
In front of them, the road is pockmarked with holes and a black patchwork of short-term fixes. Wood smoke hangs in the air, hazing over the hillside views. The old snow has shrunken back. The landscape is spiked with the stalks of dead vegetation.
They pass a turnout that marks the farthest stop of the Collier town bus. As a young girl she’d sat on the bench in the wood enclosure, notching the soft wood with messages. More often than not her mother would forget to fetch her from the bus stop and Grace would have to walk home. When trucks barreled alongside, the ground would shake. She stayed out of sight, off in the shadow of the trees, her legs getting all scratched up by brambles.
The truck stop is only a little farther along the road. There are no trees here, just fallow fields. Everything is windswept with dust and stained with smoke. Desperation hangs about the low-slung buildings and deep shadowing porches. Trucks line up in the gravel lot like tombstones and a row of Harley-Davidsons sit tightly packed together outside of the diner. A neon sign flashes the current prices of diesel and special offers: All You Can Eat Buffet $6.99, Full-er-up Breakfast with free refills on coffee $3.99 and Ladies Night is Pretty Much Every Night—So Come on In.
Jared pulls into the icy lot and parks well clear of the trucks. “Are you sure about this?”
Instead of answering, Grace slips on her boots and jumps out of the car.
“It’s this way,” she says, steering a course directly toward the maze of big rigs. In the gray afternoon light, her red coat stands out like a beacon.
In the narrow spaces between the trucks it smells of oil and burning brakes. There’s a long vertical slit of light at the far end and the space grows more confined as they move toward it. Jared stops short when she turns around. She tilts her head up at him, their bodies perfectly aligned.
“You don’t have to come with me,” she says.
Jared looks up at the containers that tower above them like buildings. “You’ve got no business being out here on your own.”
Grace turns away. Out in the open little eddies of wind blow dust up into the air and her hair swirls around her face. She brushes it out of her eyes with her gloved hands and points to a trio of mobile homes cowed down together in untouched snow. Rolled randomly like dice onto the small pocket of land, they are separated from the parking lot by a low metal fence.
Jared looks back at the wall of trucks. They’re all alone out here. “I never knew this place existed,” he says, raising his voice above the sound of the wind.
Grace makes her way through the deep snow, heading toward the farthest of the three trailers. At one end, the roof is caving in. The metal siding is rusted through in places, and tattered ends of curtains blow out from broken windows. There is a small set of steps leading up to the entrance. Grace pulls on the handle and the screen door falls from its hinges. She jumps back and watches it crash onto the ground. She looks at her gloved hand. A thin line of rust stains the palm.
“You okay?” asks Jared, his breath warm on her neck.
Grace says yes and pulls away.
Jared’s voice follows her, but she loses some of his words in the wind.
“Yeah,” she answers, peering through the small window cut into the front door. The dirty Plexiglas distorts the view. “It was just me and my mom.”
The door is locked. Even though she shakes it hard the handle doesn’t yield. So many memories pile on top of her that she feels she may buckle under the weight of them. The damp sweat of summer nights. Her mother’s manic laughter. The sour smell of morning. Surly-eyed men staggering from her mother’s room. Her mother’s first cigarette.
She turns to face Jared, relieved to find him there. He looks over his shoulder, back toward the trucks and the diner. The scent of fried food is heavy in the air. She sees what he sees: gray smoke rising from the chimneys stacked above the kitchen, large waste bins spilling garbage out from their tops onto the gray slush.
“Maybe they have a key back at the diner,” he says.
Instead of answering, Grace scrambles off the steps and scrapes about under the mobile home’s foundation. She finds the front door key lodged beneath a brick. She holds it out in front of her for Jared to see, but he doesn’t look pleased.
The place looks like it’s spent time in a twister. All the kitchen drawers and their contents spill across the dimly lit room. Odds and ends of cutlery, old phone books, and bits of clothing are scattered on the floor. The cabinets are open and broken crockery, smashed drinking glasses, and foodstuffs spill outward. A moldy patchwork quilt half covers a small sofa that has collapsed in the middle where someone has set fire to it. The wall behind the sofa is blackened.
Grace wades through the wreckage toward her mother’s room, and Jared shuts kitchen cabinet doors as he follows along behind. A short procession accompanied by steady percussion. The bedroom ceiling is half caved in so Grace has to stoop. A rust stain spreads across the bare mattress, mirroring the stain on the lowlying ceiling above their heads. In the windows, the strips of hard plastic blinds blow inward, rattling against the cracked glass.
With her eyes focused in on a low section of veneered wood paneling, she trips across damp bedding, her clumsy boots getting caught in the folds. Squatting low, she runs her fingertips across the walls, leaving parallel trails in the thick dust. There is a ridge where two of the panels meet. It is raised just a fraction and her hands stop moving when she finds it. She digs her fingernails beneath the veneered wood and pulls. A short length of panel pops off and dust blows outward. The cavity behind the wall is cold and damp. The draft blowing through it echoes the gusts of wind building outside. Her hands reach through a web of dusty insulation. She finds what she’s looking for low down toward the bottom. Her fingers fold around the unfamiliar shape. It’s a package about the size of a brick. She puts it aside and grabs hold of the coffee tin.
“What is it?” asks Jared.
Grace struggles to her feet. Her legs feel thick. Only a tornado could make them move. “It’s my mother’s.”
Jared gives her a sympathetic tilt of the head but he doesn’t step forward like she wants him to. He just points at the tin. “Is that what you came for?”
Grace mumbles something he doesn’t catch before forcing her legs to walk to the door. She stops inches away and waits patiently for him to let her pass. His warm breath skims off the top of her head.
He’s not done talking so he doesn’t move. “You okay?”
Grace shrugs, unsure of what to do next. It’s more difficult being here than she had thought it would be. “I need a Coke or something.”
Touching her for the first time that day, Jared takes her arm and leads her back to the front door. “I think I better take you home. I don’t like this place.”
Grace is losing her nerve. Something inside her tells her it’s now or never. “I’d rather order something at the diner.”
Jared looks at her for a few seconds and she can tell he’s thinking things over. His gaze shifts to the diner and then back to her. “You best put that tin you found in your bag.”
Grace turns away and struggles to open her bag. Tears cloud her vision and her hands shake from more than just the cold. She slips the tin inside so it’s resting next to the bottle of lighter fluid she’s brought with her.
They head across the parki
ng lot, walking side by side, but moving like two magnets, twisted so they won’t touch. She steps closer and he shifts his course so the distance between them never alters. Her bag feels heavy and she’s not sure how she’ll manage. Within the canvas tote, the tin and bottle of lighter fluid bang against her leg.
The wooden boards that lead to the front door of the diner creak underfoot. The air inside is saturated with greasy talk. It takes a moment for them to adjust to the steady thump of country music and raised voices. Booths run up and down the length of the building and a long counter stretches out in front of them. Jared coughs and eyes settle on them from underneath baseball caps. A waitress working from behind the bar tilts her head toward the booths. Grace looks at the woman, waiting for recognition that never comes.
The waitress has a voice that’s been working hard all its life. “I think you’ll find some seating down at the far end. I’ll be with you in a sec.”
Jared follows Grace along the length of the building, passing booths that house diners like prisoners in cells. They’re about halfway along when a man jumps to his feet and blocks Jared’s path, separating him from Grace. He is reed-thin and hopped up on something. He shoulder checks Jared and heads off in the direction of the exit. The other men at his table laugh and Jared takes in their dilated eyes and nervous banter.
Grace grabs his hand. “Come on.”
The men make little walking motions with their fingers and laugh some more. Behind them the waitress comes tripping along with a tray of drinks and plunks it down on their table.
“Real mature,” she says.
Jared and Grace find an empty booth at the far end of the diner. The emergency exit sign looms over them. Jared keeps looking at it, sitting forward in his seat like he’s getting ready to lunge for the handle.
Grace shrugs out of her coat and places her bag next to her on the seat. “You worry a lot.”
Jared slouches back into the cracked red cushions, trying to look relaxed, but failing. Unlike her he hasn’t bothered to take off his coat.
He pulls out his packet of smokes and taps it on the tabletop. “So what’s in the tin?”
Grace doesn’t answer. She instead looks up and smiles pleasantly.
The waitress is standing next to their table, her eyes flitting back and forth between Jared and Grace. She pulls her pen out from behind her ear and turns her eyes to Jared. “I know you. I never forget a face.”
Grace thinks yes you do but says nothing.
“I’m normally in uniform when I’m here.”
The waitress shifts her weight from one foot to the other like she has to go to the toilet. She looks back toward the bar, checking things out before her eyes settle back on him. She speaks in a whisper.
“You’re not a cop, are you?”
“Only a lowly paramedic.”
“It’s Jared, isn’t it?”
He nods and she makes some small talk, but Grace can tell she wants to ask why they’re hanging out there together. Grace waits until the waitress is out of earshot before speaking again.
“I think Tempi likes you.”
“You know her?”
“Sometimes she’d keep an eye on me when my mom was out. When it was quiet I’d sit at the counter and do my homework.”
“She doesn’t remember you?”
“That’s probably because I’m not a man.”
“She’s a bit old for me.”
“Don’t let her hear you saying that.”
Grace is halfway through her Coke when she pulls the coffee tin out of her bag and wipes it down using napkins from the dispenser. The lettering has rusted away in places but otherwise it’s the same.
Jared leans forward. “So open it.”
Grace’s eyes glaze over with a thin skin of tears. “Not sure I can.”
Jared pushes the tin closer to her using the tip of his index finger. “Come on. You dragged me all the way out here.”
Grace pushes it back toward Jared and asks him to open it for her. She leans back in her chair. “Just tell me what’s inside.”
Jared lifts the lid. There are a few pieces of cheap jewelry, some unpaid IOUs, and at least ten tightly rolled bundles of money. He picks up a small leather-bound diary and flicks through the yellowing pages. It’s full of dates and notations that make no sense. He puts everything back before replacing the lid. “Do you want to tell me what all this means?”
“When my mom left I wanted to believe that something happened to her. That she’d have never abandoned me like that. That she’d never leave me alone in a place like this.”
“Well, given how much money is in here, I’d say she fully intended on coming back.”
“Yeah. Who’d leave that behind?” Grace glances beyond Jared, her eyes on the entrance. She pulls on her coat and puts the coffee tin back in her bag. “I’ve got to use the bathroom.”
She walks back to the counter, oblivious of the half-lidded eyes tracking her progress. Instead of following the signs to the bathrooms, she heads out the front door, hopeful that Jared’s back is still turned. The temperature has dropped further and the parking lot is icing over. What little light there is is flat so there are no shadows. Skirting past the diesel pumps, she ignores the men filling up their tanks. The doors to the portable toilets continue to flap about chaotically in the wind. She hears someone retching behind the only door that’s firmly shut. She crosses the parking lot, passing within the shadow of the trucks.
The sky is darkening in the distance as the light fades and a snowstorm closes in on Collier. With her red coat wrapped around her, Grace stands in front of her former home. She lets her bag slide from her shoulder and the deep snow muffles the sound of its fall. Leaving it behind, she takes only the lighter fluid and a box of matches. This time the doorknob gives way with a twist of her wrist. Grace wades through the rubbish in the main room and takes hold of the blanket that is draped on the sofa where she once slept. Holly Hobbie is printed on one side, a patchwork quilt on the other. It stinks of damp and mildew. Holly’s white face is tinged gray like she’s shadowed with two days of beard growth.
Back in the bedroom, it’s too dark to see properly. She walks to the opening in the paneling and reaches in again. The bundle weighs less than a sack of flour and she’s just able to stuff it into the deep pockets of her coat. The bottle of lighter fluid snaps open easily but she spills some of it on her hands. The smell reminds her of family barbecues but it’s always her aunt and uncle who are there with her. Her mother is nowhere to be seen. She splashes the liquid over the bed and floor, making her way through the small mobile home, tripping on unseen things in the dim light as she goes.
With the wind coming up behind her through the open door, the matches only flare up before blowing out. She pulls the door shut and stands just inside. The next match sizzles and lights. The smell of sulfur hits her nose. She lights more and lets them fly. Some burst into flame and others go quiet. She sets the box alight and tosses it onto the sofa. Bright-colored flames leap upward in the darkness. Above the kitchen sink the ceiling catches on fire and around her the walls blister and melt.
She’d been excited when she told her mother about the girls she freed from the container on the back of the truck. We have to help them, Mommy. But her mother slapped her hard and screamed in her face. What have you done? You’ve ruined everything. What have you done?
Grace is on her knees when the door bumps into her back. She feels a hand grab her roughly on the arm as she’s twisted back, around and out.
Jared drags her down the short set of steps. The wind and smoke swirl around them in a spiraling panic. He yells at her to get up, but her legs won’t work properly. He stumbles across the yard with her in his arms.
They fall and land in a heap on top of her bag. The coffee tin digs into her ribs and her face is buried in the snow. A bout of coughing forces her to her knees. Jared pounds her back and kneels next to her. He’s telling her that I’ve got you and that you’re safe now but
she can’t speak. Her tongue feels too large for her mouth and her throat is sore. Looking over Jared’s shoulder she catches sight of the burning trailer and on top of her crying and coughing she begins to laugh high and loud.
Jared pulls her up to standing and grabs her bag. He tells her that they’ve got to go before someone sees them, and when she doesn’t move fast enough he carries her across the dark, icy lot—past the flapping restroom doors, past the city of trucks, past the icy diesel pumps, and past the long row of Harleys.
They hear voices and hide in the shadows between the parked cars. He holds her close, crushing her against his chest. He whispers for her to be quiet and loosens his grip. Grace rests the side of her head against him and feels his heart beat beneath all those layers of fabric. They wait for a group of men to board their bikes and ride away. The men brag about this and that as they smoke cigarettes and stagger around drunk. Grace spots the tall reedy one that shoulder-checked Jared. He’s kicking in the side of a car with his steel-toed boots and laughing but there’s no joy in the sound. One in their number points to the back of the lot where black smoke billows up high and disappears in the storm clouds, but they can’t be bothered to raise the alarm. They rev their engines and drive away. Through tears, Grace watches their lights streak like comet tails on the darkened highway.
Jared bends low and asks Grace if she’s okay. His face is cast in shadow, his voice quieter than it was before.
She holds on tighter.
He peels her arms away. “I need to get you home.”
She says something too soft for him to hear.
“What was that?” he says, bending low once more.
Grace doesn’t hesitate. She reaches up and kisses him on the mouth. There’s the briefest taste of tobacco and he’s gone, backing away from her with a pained expression on his face.
“No, Grace. I told you before. We can only ever be friends.”
*
Within easy reach of the headlights the flurries fall thick and bright, but they barely have time to settle on the windshield before they’re flicked away by the wipers. Beyond the blinding white flakes the view is endless black. To go out on a night like this would be like falling off a cliff. Nobody would find your body until spring. The wipers start to stick to the glass and Jared cranks up the defroster. The low hum of the fan, the rattle of the truck, and the soft melody of the song playing on the radio fill the cab but Grace finds no comfort in the words or the hum or the rattle.
Bone Dust White Page 22
