Jules drops the card. There’s almost nothing to her voice, as though the very essence of it has been wrung out when she says, “It’s not you. Emma would never be so mean to me.”
Something inside me cracks, a fissure of stinging pain radiating out from my heart. I force myself to hold my pose as Juliet throws one more glance my way. It’s only when she’s melted into the crowd, when the squeezing around my chest subsides, that I pull the curtains of my booth closed. I am done for the night, done. I crash to the ground with enough force to rock the tiny box. A gust of wind swirls the curtains when the door opens, and Sidney looks down at me, his eyebrows arched in pity and panic.
And that is when I know that I am well and truly fucked.
Chapter Eight
Benjamin
The stripped carnival grounds echo with the sounds of car doors slamming and shouted instructions. The tents and booths and rides are loaded up, and this tiny town is about to become one more memory to fade as we put it in our rearview.
I sit behind the wheel of the Gran Torino, waiting for Marcel to finish checking the fluids. A few workers dart from truck to truck, making last-minute checks before we drive off. The windows are cranked down, and a breeze carrying a hint of rain rushes through the car.
“Ben!” In the rearview mirror, my mother storms toward the car.
Marcel peeks around the extended hood, and I can just barely hear him say, “Aw, shit.”
My mother is a study in determination. She strides toward us with purpose, her long golden braid swinging in time behind her. In the last two days, she’s been on a rampage. The to-do list she gave me yesterday was a mile long, and included some things I’d taken care of not even a week ago. When I’d asked her about it, she said I hadn’t done it right the first time and needed to do it again. Which is bullshit. The day my mother lets me get away with doing a half-assed job at anything is the day she goes into the ground. As my mother draws closer to the car, she gives Marcel a quick nod before bending down to peer at me through the open window. “I want you to ride with me.”
Around us, the other trucks and cars rumble to life, exhaust fumes wafting in the open car windows.
“Marcel and I are taking the car. Same as we have the last few months.” As if to punctuate my point, Marcel chooses that moment to slam the hood down, but let it be a testament to the iron will of my mother—she doesn’t flinch.
“I would prefer it if you were to ride with me,” my mother says, slowly pronouncing each word. The only time Mom gets like this is when she is seriously pissed. Problem is I have no idea what she’s so pissed about.
The big truck loaded with the dismantled roller coaster pulls away from the grassy lot, and never have I been so grateful to get on the road. Mom watches the line of vehicles lurch forward and we both know she needs to get to her truck and get moving before people start to get impatient. She sighs.
“We will discuss this later,” Mom says, one finger stabbing the air between us. She turns on her heel with military precision, her braid swishing after her.
I slump into the driver’s seat as Marcel climbs in, then fire up the car and slide into a gap between the Connellys’ horse trailer and the big truck carrying Lars’s Ferris wheel. Neither of us says anything until we pull onto the freeway.
My grip tightens on the steering wheel, and by the time we’ve merged into traffic, my fingers are throbbing in time with my pulse. “I can’t do this anymore, man, I can’t.” I take a deep breath and ask the question I know he doesn’t want to hear. “Are you sure we can’t just leave now?”
Marcel focuses on the road in front of us like he’s the one driving. “I thought we said another couple of months?”
“You saw what I’m dealing with! Another couple of months and I’m going to go crazy.”
“My mom would flip out!”
“My mom is already flipping out!”
“I can’t go yet, Ben. I just can’t.”
I want to scream, to slam my fist on the steering wheel, but I don’t. He’s right. He’s right and it’s not fair to pressure him to leave now when we just came to the decision to stay a little bit longer. And it’s not his fault my mom is on the warpath for reasons unknown.
Doesn’t mean it isn’t a suckfest.
So I let it go, for now, and watch the fields blurring past.
…
We’re parked at a truck stop somewhere in Oklahoma, waiting for all the cars and trucks to fill up on gas. Marcel and I eye the meter as he pumps gas into the Gran Torino, watching the dollars and cents hurtle toward the amount we’d prepaid and while the gallons creep toward an amount that might fill our tank halfway. I love this car, but it burns through gas like there’s no tomorrow.
There’s a dull thunk as the fuel line shuts off and Marcel caps the tank. “You want anything from inside?” he asks, jerking his finger toward the minimart. I shake my head, and he nods and heads into the little shop, the bells hanging over the door jingling merrily as he swings the door wide.
Dirty gray water streams off the ratty squeegee attached to the pump, but it still works, so I use it to scrape the haze of dead bugs off our windshield. My thoughts flicker over the new Girl in the Box, of how painful it was to watch her stumble between the rows of trailers and how lost she must feel. The way she’d seemed so vibrantly alive when I’d seen her before, and how sadness seemed to ooze out of her every pore afterward. Her situation sucks, but it’s not enough to keep me here. I don’t even know her. Water from the bucket sloshes onto my jeans as I toss the squeegee back into it.
A streak of girl whips past in my peripheral vision. Heavier footsteps pound the concrete behind the car, and when Duncan pulls up beside me, he’s soaked, his white T-shirt stained by dirty squeegee water.
“Help a brother out,” he says, tossing a small pack of convenience store doughnuts in my direction before chasing after the girls again. I rip into the flimsy plastic wrapper on the doughnuts and take off, seconds behind him.
Duncan can’t aim for shit, but you don’t need good aim if your target’s right in front of you. I tear across the parking lot, following Whiskey’s exuberant shrieks. Once I’m close, I fling a doughnut at Whiskey and hit her square on the back. It startles a squeal out of her loud enough to turn heads, and she runs faster.
I follow, gaze locked on her back. Gasoline-scented air fills my lungs and blows back my hair. I have a handful of doughnuts at the ready when something soft hits my chest and little plumes of white billow upward. The first hit is followed by another, and then another. A cloud of black curls peeks from between two of the carnival’s trucks, and I about-face to chase after Pia.