And between now and when (if) I come up with a plan more immediately workable than buying a new face and fingerprints and passport (hatched in the cement pipe), I need water and a Hershey bar, a sun hat, and a place to hide.
And as basic as those things are, I have no idea how I’m going to get them.
Steve always says to have faith, and the universe provides. This is what you’d expect from a guy who got from Havana to Miami Beach on a raft that was basically a tabletop.
I used to believe him.
But the obvious fact is, I have to provide for myself. I can’t just sit here forever, slamming the ground with a stick whenever I hear the sound of rodents. It’s not like I’m going to spear one and eat it for lunch.
I peer out at the street through the wall of trees. Pickups going eighty miles an hour billow dust to waist-high clouds, skidding around curves.
Across the street, there’s a Five Star Gas and Mini-Mart.
I run into the street like a crazed squirrel. Trying to make it through the door of Five Star’s mini-mart without getting spotted, run over, turned in, or shot.
It seems like a whole lot of trouble for candy. But what’s the alternative?
The guy behind the counter takes one look, and the obvious question of how I got this way might as well be printed on his forehead.
I say, “No bike helmet. Stupid, huh?” That’s the best I’ve got. Flirting is out of the question in my current situation. “Could you please tell me how to get to downtown?”
Even though I don’t know what town it is yet. I only know it’s Texas from the license plates.
The cashier points and tells me only to hitch with the ladies.
I thank him by lifting four supersize Almond Joy bars out of the rack under the register while he’s distracted. Proving that old shoplifting skills never die. No matter how sorry you were at the time.
I really was sorry. I was only eight, but I took enough nail polish to open a salon before anybody noticed. And it is like riding a bike—you don’t forget how.
At least last time I took things, everybody thought some variation on the theme that I was filling the void after my mom’s aneurism. The tiny flaw in her brain that killed her. Everyone except for Steve, who said, “You didn’t do this because you’re sad, did you?”
I said, “I like nail polish.”
Steve patted my shoulder, signifying his recognition that he was stuck dealing with me forever. Or so I thought.
He said, “I’ll buy you all the nail polish you want, but don’t ever do this again.”
I didn’t.
Until now.
I have to stop thinking about how nice Steve was to me and how much I want to go home, or I’m not going to make it.
I slide the key off the counter. Drink rusty water out of the sink in the gas station’s bathroom until I start gagging on it. Then I stuff a candy bar into my mouth. Oh God, chocolate and coconut and almonds. Which could be fruit and protein if you leeched out all the sugar.
It does feel morally worse than stealing bread probably would, but try sticking a loaf of bread down your yoga pants.
I say thank you to the universe.
I apologize to the universe for caving to despair (big sin) in case any divine forces are watching.
I don’t apologize for any necessary thing I did or am about to do.
There’s no mirror, but even in the dull reflection of the stainless steel towel dispenser, you can tell my face made contact with a blunt object.
I try to scrape the dried blood off my face and out of my hair with wet paper towels, watching it darken the white washbasin in the already half-dark ladies’ room. I wash with the pink soap in the dispenser and dry off with my hoodie.
It’s not that I’ve never had blood in my hair before. I have. A cheerleading move that I might have pushed too far.
Olivia sitting in the ER, holding my hand while the doctor stapled my head shut. “What’s wrong with you?” she asked, tears streaming down her face. “Summer said it wasn’t even in the choreography. Why do you keep doing this?”
Oh God, Olivia, I don’t know. Not then, and not now.
This time it takes me longer to get the dried blood out of my hair than it took to wreck my life.
That took three minutes.
No more than five minutes, tops, and my previous state of oblivious faith and my family and my face gave way to this. A fugitive girl with a forehead caked in blood.
8
Jack
The whole way driving back to the prison, I’m getting angrier and angrier at everything about Don, and about my family, and the fact that I’m saddled with a last name everybody in Nevada recognizes. I’m saddled with the memory of my dad packing his bag with enough firepower to bring down a cartel.
I slam the steering wheel and mentally shout out rhetorical questions for Don:
Like you think I’m going to track down a cheerleader and end her between prom and graduation—are you out of your freaking mind? You tell me to jump, and I jump on someone’s neck?
Who does that?