Chasing Romeo

by Sarah Ready

  “Thank you,” says Nick.

  I wave as Tim climbs into his truck and drives off in a cloud of desert dust. “Why’d you let him think we were together?” I ask.

  “Does it matter?”

  I look down at my shoes. They sink into the coarse sand. Tim’s headlights fade and we’re left in the dark. “Guess not,” I say.

  I look around at where we were dropped. This is the location of the last Matt Smith. About a quarter mile down the driveway is a silver trailer. There are maybe two dozen satellite dishes on the roof of and around the trailer. There’s one large dish that is bigger than the trailer sitting in the front yard. I didn’t realize it before we drove in, but we’re just outside Area 51. Aliens are a big deal here. I glance between the trailer and the satellite dishes pointing at the sky. Apparently Matt Smith is a believer.

  There isn’t another house, building, or trailer as far as I can see. There’s just dirt, sand, and more sand. It’s an ugly place with a strange feeling. It’s like all the nuclear testing done around here has stuck in the soil and you can feel it. Like you’re squatting underneath a hundred high-voltage electric wires. I shiver and rub my hands up and down my arms.

  The stars are out, I can hear the night bugs and the sound of a car, maybe Tim’s truck far in the distance. Otherwise, there’s only me, Nick, and Matt Smith in his trailer. The lights are on and I can see a TV screen flickering through the window.

  I turn to Nick and search his face, but I can’t read his expression. I silently urge him to tell me that this is all bull crap, that soul mates aren’t real, and that he’s taking us back to New York. But, for the first time on this trip, he doesn’t.

  “Come on, Sparky. Don’t lose your spunk now.”

  I look up at him and see that he’s trying his best to help me go forward. Even when it looks like my soul mate is an alien conspiracist.

  I let out a long sigh and my shoulders fall. “Why?” I gesture to the thirty gazillion satellites. “Wouldn’t this be a good time to remind me that soul mates aren’t real and that I should give up? Look at this place. You can tell me you were right.”

  Honestly, maybe he should.

  He shakes his head. “No. I wasn’t right. You need this.”

  We stare at each other. I look into his eyes as they reflect the stars, and he looks into mine. We stand in the sand, not speaking, and not moving, just staring. We’re an odd pair. Completely, totally insane. If I were brave, I’d tell him how I feel.

  But I’m not brave.

  Here’s the thing. Everyone thinks that someone is brave if they run into a fire or stop a robbery or save someone. Sure, that’s brave. But it doesn’t take much thought, it just takes action. There’s no time for thinking, you act on instinct—pure emotion. Just like falling in love. The first time, you just do it. You dive in head first and fall. There isn’t any thought about a crash or about you being broken.

  So, here is what it means to have courage.

  After you run into a fire, and it melts your skin and burns your lungs, and someone dies, and you see the horror and feel the pain…after that, you find out that you have to go back in again. But this time, you know the pain and you know the horror…going back in the second time, that’s courage.

  I understand now what loving someone can do to you. I’ve been in that fire and I’ve felt the pain. I’m not brave. I’m not strong enough to go there again unless I know it’s safe. Love isn’t safe. Do you see? I’m not brave enough to go there without a guarantee.

  Apparently, I’m a coward who can only be with a stranger in a trailer in the desert.

  Nick reaches out and wipes a tear from my cheek that I didn’t realize was falling.

  “It’ll work out,” he says. “Remember? Your aunt hasn’t failed anyone yet. Much less her own niece. You’ll be alright.”

  I nod and sniff back more tears. “Yeah. It’ll be alright,” I say. “Can I hold your hand ’til we get there?”

  “Always, Sparky.”

  He holds his hand out to me and I take it. Then we walk down the dirt driveway. The sand and rocks crunch and give way beneath our feet as the dark swallows us. I wish that I’d never started this trip, and that I never started looking for my soul mate.

  Except, that’s not quite right. Because then, I wouldn’t be here holding Nick’s hand. We step up to the door of the silver trailer, an Airstream. I let go of Nick’s hand and knock.

  23

  Nick

  * * *

  Matt Smith Number Six…

  * * *

  This Matt Smith is probably the smartest person I’ve ever met. I mean, this guy is off-the-charts Stephen Hawking smart. He has thick brown hair and a cowlick. Jeopardy is muted on the television and he calls out the answer to every question in the middle of our conversation. We’re sitting at his tiny dining room table drinking day-old coffee.

  He drums his fingers on the table. “Allow me to clarify,” he says. “You are searching for Matthew Smith?”

  Chloe nods.

  “Out of the 9,613 in the United States you narrowed the number down to 364, then 27, then six, of which I am one?”

  Chloe nods again.

  “Do you realize the probability of you reaching the correct Matthew Smith is point zero, zero, zero, zero, zero—”

  “Um,” says Chloe.

  “Zero, zero one.”

  “Okay?” says Chloe. It comes out like a long drawn out question. Because, from the second he started talking, neither of us quite followed what he was saying.

  Matt answered the door after Chloe’s first knock. He looked around, completely paranoid, and yanked us inside. His trailer is piled with newspaper articles, journal articles, and maps. There are six computers running, what looks like a server room, and an air-conditioning unit. There’s a small cot with a brown blanket, but I don’t think the guy sleeps much, judging by his bloodshot eyes and heavy bags.

  “Did you go to summer camp in New York?” asks Chloe.

  “Why narrow it to me?” he asks. He taps his fingers on the table, then fidgets with his coffee cup.

  “You were the right demographic,” I say.

  “What is Cleveland?” says Matt.

  “What?” I ask. But then I realize he’s talking to the TV.

  He turns back to me and leans forward. His eyes narrow. “Did they send you?”

  “Who?” I ask.

  “They.”

  Chloe shifts in her seat. “Um. See, my aunt is psychic.”

  Matt turns to her and tilts his head. His cowlick bobs. “To clarify, how does the precognition manifest?”

  “She can see soul mates,” says Chloe.

  “What is her success ratio?”

  “Um, one hundred percent,” says Chloe.

  Matt’s hand stills on his mug. “What is thirty-six?”

  “No. One hundred,” says Chloe.

  I turn to the TV. The answer is revealed as thirty-six. He’s right again.

  The show goes to commercial break and Matt turns back to the table. Chloe leans forward, her face earnest.

  “Please. You’re the last Matt Smith and my aunt promised I’d find my soul mate on this trip. I only have one more day until my time runs out. Please. I need to know.”

  Matt tilts his head and studies Chloe like she’s a complicated puzzle he needs to solve. His fingers twitch on the mug.

  “Did you know, the statistics of soul mates make them highly improbable? Your chance of discovering yours are once in every ten thousand lifetimes.” It’s like he’s reciting a universal law that’s irrefutable.

  Chloe shakes her head, a slow back and forth movement of denial. “I don’t agree.”

  “You don’t have to agree with a fact to make it true. That’s the beauty of facts. What are the Pentagon Papers?”

  I look at the TV, it’s the final round.

  Chloe puts both her hands on the table and leans toward Matt. “You don’t have to agree with the idea of soul mates for it to be t
rue, that’s the beauty of fate,” she says.

  Matt leans back in his chair and finally, really looks at the both of us. “To clarify, your soul mate is named Matt Smith?”

  “Yes,” says Chloe.

  “To clarify, he’s from New York, he grew up near Utica, and he went to summer camp with you?”

  “And he was my first kiss.”

  Matt drums his fingers on the table and gives me a speculative look. “I’m from New York,” he says. “I grew up near Utica.”

  There’s a sharp pinch in my chest.

  “I went to summer camp,” he says.

  The sharp pinch becomes a knife. This is the moment. I look at Chloe and silently try to get her to look back at me. But she won’t. She can’t take her eyes off Matt Smith.

  “And?” she asks.

  “Who is Ernest Hemingway?” asks Matt.

  “And?” I growl.

  He turns back to Chloe. “I never kissed you,” he says.

  Thank god.

  I turn to see how Chloe is taking the news. She’s stunned. I make to reach out to her, but suddenly, a long blaring alarm sounds inside the trailer. I jump at the noise. Then, the trailer plunges into darkness. A second later an eerie red light starts flashing. I grab Chloe and scramble back from the table.

  “What is that?” I ask.

  “It’s them,” Matt says. “They’re here.”

  That’s when I know…Colorado has nothing on the outskirts of Area 51.

  24

  Chloe

  * * *

  Matt runs from one computer to the next and frantically types in commands. It’s only been twenty seconds since the alarm started but he’s nearly through all six computers. Nick positioned himself so that he’s standing between me and Matt, who’s clearly gone off the deep end.

  “Them who?” I ask.

  Nick shakes his head at me with a “don’t engage the crazy” look. He motions toward the door and I nod. That’s a good idea. We should leave. Even if we have to walk through a desert for a couple miles to get back to that alien gift shop we saw.

  Oh. Ohhh. Them.

  “The aliens are here?” I ask. Because…I have to know. Because…aliens.

  Matt frantically rips papers from his walls and throws them into a metal bin. While he shoves reams of paper into the container, he looks at me like I’ve lost my mind. “Are you insane? Haven’t you read the Fermi Paradox? Aliens aren’t real.”

  Oookay. Then, who’s them? Matt pulls out some sort of metal ball. Nick swears and shoves me into the wall. There’s a loud bang, like an explosion.

  Panic fills me and I scream.

  Nick covers my entire body. I scream again. He shakes me and I turn around. There’s ringing in my ears and an acrid smoke smell in the room.

  Matt stands over a smoking metal bin, the papers are now burnt black char.

  “We’re going,” says Nick.

  He grabs me and starts for the door.

  “Don’t,” says Matt, “don’t go out that door.”

  “Try and stop us,” says Nick. But then I pull at his hand because that’s…yeah, that’s an automatic gun I hear.

  Nick hears it too, because he stops and turns to Matt.

  “What is this?” he asks.

  Matt grabs a backpack from under a computer. Then he charges toward the cot. He puts his fingerprint on a scanner on the wall and the cot flips up to reveal a trap door in the floor. He yanks it open and jumps down.

  “Come on,” Matt says.

  The sound of gunfire decides it for me. I jump into the scary hole in the ground and land on a compact dirt floor. I step forward and Nick jumps down after me. Matt uses another fingerprint scanner on the wall and the trapdoor closes. We’re in a short concrete tunnel that’s lit by dim red lights on the walls. It stretches forward. Matt starts to run. I look at Nick.

  “Let’s go,” he says.

  We both take off after Matt. He sprints like his life depends on it, so I decide to do the same. Nick has to hunch over. The tunnel is barely tall enough for me to stand in. I run over the hardpacked dirt and hit my hands against the tight concrete walls. My heart pounds and I suck in the musty uncirculated air. The tunnel stays straight, and doesn’t slant up or down. After about half a mile we stop at a dead end. I bend over and drag in a lungful of air.

  “What is this?” asks Nick.

  There’s a metal ladder bolted in the wall that leads up to another door in the ceiling. Matt scans his fingerprint again and the hatch opens. He climbs the ladder and peeks out. At that moment, a loud explosion rips through the air.

  Matt loses his hand hold and falls to the hard dirt floor. “They destroyed my Airstream,” he says.

  Nick pulls Matt to his feet. “Explosives?”

  Matt nods. “Kablooey. They’ll find this tunnel. We need to evacuate.”

  “Who is they?” I ask. Clearly, they are not aliens.

  Matt looks at me like I’m dense. “The Mafia. We’re in Nevada. Who did you think?”

  He climbs up the ladder and slowly pokes his head out. “We’re clear,” he whispers.

  “I’ll go first,” says Nick, “Don’t come up until I say it’s okay.”

  I nod and watch as his legs disappear. Almost right away he reappears and motions me up. I climb the ladder and come out into the night. The trailer is a huge ball of fire. I can see three cars parked near the blaze, and I can make out three, no four figures walking around the perimeter.

  Matt pulls up a tarp. “Give me a hand,” he says.

  Nick grabs one of the edges and they pull the tarp away to reveal a twenty foot by ten foot dugout. Parked inside is a monster truck. Matt Smith has a monster truck in a hole in the desert.

  “Get in,” he says. He’s already jumped down.

  “They’re coming,” says Nick. He points to the Town Cars. They’ve seen us and are speeding this way. I don’t know what they’ll do if they catch us. But I don’t want to wait around to find out. I’ve never heard a story where the Mafia guys let the witnesses go.

  I jump down into the dugout and Nick follows. We hop into the monster truck. Matt roars the truck to life and revs out of the dugout. It jumps into the air and lands in the sand. Matt punches the gas. I look behind us.

  “They’re gaining on us,” I say.

  I look over at Nick. His jaw is hard and he looks pissed. “I just had to get you to him, didn’t I?”

  I roll my eyes. “Didn’t you know…I’ve always wanted to ride in a monster truck.”

  We hit a small hill and the monster truck goes airborne. My stomach goes up and then slams down as we hit the ground. The three black cars are close. Their headlights shine in the back window.

  “Please don’t die, please don’t die,” I whisper.

  Ahead of us is a ravine. It’s big, and there’s a drop, I don’t know how deep. We’re headed straight for it.

  “Turn,” I say. “Ditch. Big ditch.”

  Matt guns the engine. We’re only a hundred feet from the ravine. “Turn. Please turn.”

  We’re going to plunge to our deaths with a lunatic.

  “Turn.”

  “Trust science,” says Matt.

  He hits a button on the dash and a metal ramp lifts from the sand. The headlights glint off it. Oh no. Oh no. I changed my mind. I never, ever want to ride in a monster truck again.

  Matt guns it.

  Nick grabs my hand. I brace myself as we hit the ramp. We fly into the air. We hang above the ravine. It feels like an eternity even though we’re still moving. Then, just as suddenly as we went up, we crash to the other side of the chasm. We land.

  I whoop. I scream and holler and hug Nick. I climb onto him and hug him and laugh.

  “We made it. We made it.” I hang onto him like a maniac that’ll never let go.

  Matt pushes the button on the dash. I look back. The three cars are stopped at the edge of the ravine. They aren’t going to catch us. I hug Nick harder.

  “We made it,” I sa
y again.

  Nick scowls down at me, a glint in his eyes. “It’ll be fun, she said. They’ll all be perfectly normal rich lumberjacks, she said.”

  I laugh and nuzzle into him. Finally, my heart stops racing enough for me to climb off Nick’s lap.

  “Where are we going?” I ask Matt.

  “To my safe house in Death Valley. You can stay the night.”

  “Thank you,” I say. I turn to Nick and give him a wide-eyed Noooooo stare.

  “Maybe you could drop us at an inexpensive motel instead?” Nick asks.

  So, once we’re back on a road and to a small crossroads sort of town, Matt leaves us at a roadside motel. I thank him for saving our lives and for the ride. Then, Nick and I go get a room to share.

  25

  Nick

  * * *

  One Day Left…

  * * *

  I pay fifty-nine dollars and seventy cents for a room at the Death Valley Motor Inn and Motel. The billboard on the roadside advertised cable tv, air conditioning and running water. Death Valley receives less rainfall than any other place in the U.S., and from what I can see, it looks like another planet. Mars, maybe. There are strangely sloping hills that look like piles of tan pulled taffy and miles of dry, cracked nothingness.

  We have twelve dollars and thirty cents left, no car, no phones, and we’re in a place that looks like the aftermath of the apocalypse.

  The motel was most likely built in the fifties, it’s single story, was probably once brown, but is now sun faded to tannish gray. There are twelve rooms. We’re in number eight. I unlock the door with an old metal key on a key chain that says, Death Valley, You Made It.

  The hinges squeak as I swing the door open. I step inside and flip on the lights. Chloe comes in after me and I shut and lock the door behind her. The room is a lot nicer than I anticipated. It smells like Dove soap and lemon polish. There’s a double bed with white linens tuckpointed into the corners. A cushy brown recliner is angled near the window.

  “I’ll take the recliner,” I say.