The Weight of Feathers

Tell me who you’re with and I’ll tell you who you are.

Before she and Cluck left the roadhouse where they’d stopped, Lace bought two postcards. One showed a field of wild poppies, the other a pasture flecked with cows. Both smelled of syrup and fryer grease.

She set them on the dashboard and filled in the River Fork’s address, the truck’s speed making her pen wobble. If she and Cluck stopped before the county line, they’d have Tulare postmarks.

Cluck glanced across the front seat. “Who’re you writing to?”

“My family,” she said.

On both, she wrote “Greetings from Terra Bella, con cari?o,” and then the four curled letters of her signature.

“I thought they didn’t care where you were,” he said.

“I never said they didn’t care.” She added Tía Lora’s name and room number to the poppies, then her father’s to the cows. First names only, in case Cluck had good enough vision to read her handwriting. “I said they weren’t looking.”

The latch on the passenger side door clicked, and it swung open. The pavement rushed past like white water, and Lace choked on her own gasp. Fields flew by, speed turning them to liquid. The scent of new onions stung her throat.

“Dammit,” Cluck said, like he’d cut himself or touched the handle of a hot pan.

The wind ripped the postcards off the dashboard. They twirled like leaves and flew out toward the road. They shrank to two white flecks against the sky, and then vanished.

Lace’s body felt insubstantial, untethered. She grabbed at the door, but couldn’t reach.

Cluck pulled her toward the middle of the front seat and set her hand on the steering wheel. “Hold this.”

She gripped the wheel so they didn’t swerve. It didn’t take much to make the truck drift, but a lot of tug on the wheel to get it straight again. The truck’s weight pulled on the steering column.

“Cluck,” she said, but he was already leaning behind her, reaching for the door.

He tried to keep one foot over the brake. Cluck’s side grazed her back, her hip against his, his hair brushing her arm.

Cluck clicked the latch back into place and swung the door shut, one hand on the back of the seat to steady himself. She shifted her weight to move out of the way, and ended up half on his lap. Their bodies tangled like roots as they got back to where they’d been.

She wouldn’t have caught Cluck’s laughs if she hadn’t been so close to him. They were short, quiet, the same low pitch as the air pulling past the cab. They intertwined with Lace’s, her hands still sparking with the feeling of him giving her the wheel like she knew how to hold it.

The truck streaked off the highway and through town, and they pulled onto the Corbeaus’ rented land.

“Sorry,” Cluck said. “That happens sometimes.”

“You could’ve told me,” Lace said, the breath of a laugh still under her words. “I would’ve held onto the door.”

“No one’s ever in this thing who doesn’t already know.” He downshifted. “Besides, it’s never happened before when the truck’s not speeding.”

“You were speeding.”

He set it into park. “Really?”

“By about ten miles,” she said. “Why didn’t you just pull over?”

“It was a soft shoulder. We would’ve gone straight into a ditch.”

“Then get the door fixed.”

He leaned over her and opened the passenger side. “It’s a problem with the striker.” His fingers followed the latch’s grooves. “It’s a tough part to find.” He turned his head, and then flinched, like he hadn’t realized how close he was to her.

The idea fluttered along her rib cage that if she touched him again, she would turn to dust or fire. She lifted her hand to his face, wanting to know if it was true.