CHAPTER 58
Sarah sang along to one of Tracy’s Bruce Springsteen CDs, drumming her fingers on the steering wheel to the beat of the E Street Band. Tracy was the bigger fan; Sarah didn’t even know all the words. She just liked the way the Boss’s butt looked in jeans.
She sang the lyrics to “Born to Run,” trying to take her mind off of the thought that Tracy was leaving. Not leaving physically, but getting married, that things would change.
The drive from Olympia had been long and melancholy. Sarah was happy for Tracy, but she also knew things wouldn’t be the same now that Tracy had Ben. Tracy had always been Sarah’s best friend and, in some ways, like a second mother to her. What Sarah was going to miss most were the late nights they stayed awake talking about anything and everything, from shooting to school and boys. She used to ask Tracy if they could still live together after Tracy got married. She smiled at the recollection of climbing in bed beside Tracy, her sister’s comforting warmth helping Sarah to go to sleep. She thought of their prayer. She’d never forget their prayer. Many nights it was the only way Sarah could fall asleep.
She heard Tracy’s voice in her head.
I am not . . .
“I am not . . . ,” she said aloud.
I am not afraid . . .
“I am not afraid . . .”
I am not afraid of the dark.
“I am not afraid of the dark.”
But she was, still, even at eighteen.
Sarah would miss sharing clothes and waking up with Tracy on Christmas morning. She’d miss sliding down the banister and waiting around a corner to scare Tracy and her friends. She’d miss their home and their weeping willow, the way she used to swing from its braids and dangle over the lawn engrossed in some fantasy in which the lawn was an Amazon River filled with alligators. She’d miss it all.
She wiped a tear from her cheek. She thought she’d prepared herself for this day, but now that it had arrived, she knew she hadn’t. Nor could she have.
You’re leaving next year for the U-Dub, she told herself. At least now Tracy will have Ben.
Sarah smiled, recalling how mad Tracy had been when they had handed her the silver belt buckle. She’d looked like a bee had stung her in the ass. She didn’t have a clue why Sarah had let her win. She was too mad to even notice that Ben was wearing a new shirt and slacks. Sarah had helped him pick out both. God knew he couldn’t do it on his own. Ben had called two weeks before the tournament and told Sarah that he wanted to propose at their favorite restaurant in Seattle, but he could only get a seven thirty reservation, which meant they’d be cutting it close unless they left straight from the competition. That meant Sarah driving home alone, and they both knew Tracy would get all “big sister” on her. Sarah had needed something to make Tracy not want to drive home with her, and she didn’t have to think about it for long. Tracy hated to lose, but what she really hated was if Sarah let her win, at anything.
The rain fell in large drops, splattering the windshield, though they were still not the deluge Tracy had worried about. Like it never rained here? Please.
She belted out another line from the song, singing along with the Boss.
The truck lurched.
Sarah sat up. She checked her rearview and side mirrors, thinking she’d hit something in the road, but it was too dark to see behind her.
The truck lurched again. This time she knew she hadn’t hit anything, but the truck began to buck and sputter, losing speed. The tachometer needle fell quickly to the left, and the gas light illuminated on the dash.
“Are you freaking kidding me?”
The red bar had dropped to “E.”
Sarah flicked the plastic with her finger, but the needle didn’t move. This was not happening. “Tell me this is not happening,” she said.
It wasn’t possible. They’d filled the truck on Friday. Tracy hadn’t wanted to have to do it in the morning, worried they could be late. Sarah had bought a Diet Coke and bag of Cheetos in the convenience store for the ride.
You’re going to eat that crap for breakfast? Tracy had chastised.
The engine quit. The steering wheel became difficult to turn. Sarah muscled the car around the next curve. A slight downward slope allowed her to coast a little, but it certainly was not enough to travel the remaining distance to Cedar Grove, however far that was. As the truck slowed, she steered to the dirt shoulder, tires crunching on gravel, and slowed to a stop. She turned the key. The engine whimpered as if laughing at her. Then it just clicked. She sat back, suppressing a scream. Springsteen continued to moan and wail. She shut off the radio.
After a moment of anxiety, she said, “Okay, time to regroup.” Their father always said to be adaptable and have a plan. “Okay, what’s my plan?” First things first. “Where the hell am I?”
Sarah checked the rearview mirror. She did not see headlights behind her. She did not see anything behind her. She looked all about her surroundings. Sarah had once known the road well, but now she didn’t take it as often with the interstate, and she’d not been paying attention. She could not get her bearings. She checked her watch and tried to calculate how much time had passed since she’d left Olympia, hoping she could calculate how much farther she had to Cedar Grove, but she couldn’t be certain what time she’d actually left the parking lot. She knew that, once she exited for the county road, the Cedar Grove turnoff was twenty minutes. She estimated she’d been on the road for ten minutes. If that was the case, then her best guess was that it was another four to six miles to the turn. It wasn’t a stroll in the park, especially not in the rain, but it also wasn’t a marathon. Maybe she’d get lucky and a car would come along, though there wasn’t much traffic on the county road anymore. Most people took the interstate now.
Promise me you’ll stay on the interstate.
Why hadn’t she listened? Tracy was going to kill her.
Sarah groaned, allowing a moment in which to feel sorry for herself. Then she got back to devising a plan. She contemplated sleeping in the truck bed, but thought of the panic it would cause when Tracy called the house in the morning—and Tracy would call to tell Sarah the news—and Sarah didn’t answer the phone. Tracy would have their parents flying home from Hawaii and the FBI and everyone in Cedar Grove out looking for her.
“Well,” Sarah said, thinking it through another moment. “You’re definitely not getting anywhere sitting here. Time to start walking.”
She slipped on her jacket and grabbed Tracy’s black Stetson from the seat. The silver belt buckle lay beneath it. She slid the buckle into a pocket of her jacket, wanting to hand it back to Tracy in the morning to remind her of what a pill she’d been. They’d get a good laugh out of it, and the buckle would forever remind them of the night Tracy got engaged. Maybe Sarah could mount it on a plaque or something.
She was stalling. She was really not looking forward to a long walk in the rain.
She put on the Stetson as she stepped down from the cab, locking the door. As if to spite her, the rain increased in intensity, a rush of water that came with a roar. She walked along the edge of the pavement, hoping to find some shelter beneath the canopy of trees. Within minutes, water began to trickle down her back. “This is really going to suck, big time.”
She pressed on, singing to pass the time, the lyrics of “Born to Run” stuck in her head.
“Everybody’s out on the road tonight, but there’s nothing . . . I don’t know all the words.”
Sarah trudged on. After another few minutes, she stopped and listened, thinking that she had heard the sound of a car engine, though now she couldn’t be certain over the sound of rain beating on the canopy and trickling to the pavement. Sarah stepped farther onto the shoulder and looked back up the road, straining to hear. There. Headlights marked the pavement a second or two before the car came around the bend in the road. Sarah stepped to the shoulder, one foot on the pavement, leaning out and waving one hand overhead while using the other to cut the glare from the headlamps. The vehicle slowed and came to a stop in the road. Not a car.
A red Chevy truck.