Ms. G walked right past him, trailing smells of vanilla and coffee and French fries, and sat down at her desk with a sigh. He stood frozen behind the rack, stifling a sudden urge to cough. Holding his breath, he peered through the coats. She held his pages in her lap, her reading glasses perched on her nose. She smiled and let out a short laugh. His stomach growled so loud that she glanced up, frowning at the vents.
He didn’t know how long he stood there watching her read. She scribbled something on a page before she grabbed her purse and a stack of papers, strode past him to the door, and turned out the lights behind her.
Beto stood in the dizzying dark of her room, breathing in the mustiness of strangers’ unwashed coats. He stepped from behind the rack, his head abuzz, his limbs tingling. She’d left his story on the desk, and he snatched it up, scanning the page. Next to the line “The solar wind howled and beat against the ship’s window, a monster trying to break inside,” she’d written, “Beautiful. Just beautiful.” He pressed the paper against his rumbling belly.
The December night Beto first drove by himself was the second night of the storms. He was almost seventeen now but still hadn’t gotten his license. That night, the streets and lots pooled with water, the ditches rushing, but none of that stopped Angie and Rose, who had gotten off shift early from the Patty Melt. Angie pulled the Impala into the flooded motel parking lot, and Rose opened the passenger door and ran through the rain to the office. Before Angie even turned around to him in the back seat, he knew he wasn’t invited to come in with them.
“Take the car,” Angie said. She held out the keys. “I don’t mind.”
“I don’t have a license,” he said. “I’m failing driver’s ed. Again.”
“So what? No one’s out. You’ll be fine. You’re careful. Go get some fries or something.”
“Okay,” he said, although he couldn’t because he didn’t have any money, and he was too embarrassed to ask for any, even from his best friend. He took the keys. “What time should I come back?”
She said, “I don’t know. An hour? Take your time.”
He checked his watch. It was five thirty. He said, “So about six thirty?”
“Yeah,” she said, but she wasn’t looking at him. She was watching Room 7, where Rose stood in the lighted window. She flung open the car door and left it ajar as she splashed through puddles to the room.
Beto climbed into the driver’s seat and shut the door. The rain thudded on the metal roof. His breath fogged the windows, and he rubbed at the windscreen with the sleeve of Tomás’s coat. The sleeves were shorter now, the bones of his wrists sticking out like knotted rope. He ran through the steps in his mind. Gear in park, foot on brake, check mirrors. Turn ignition, headlights on, wipers on. Put in drive, let off brake, press accelerator.
He lurched forward, alternating gas and brakes. At the turn onto Main, he stopped, looked both ways three times, though no one was on the road, and pushed the gas pedal. And there he was, driving down Main, by himself, in the rain, the tires spraying water onto the sidewalk. It felt okay. He felt okay. He heard Tomás in his ear: Don’t try so hard. Be yourself. His shoulders relaxed an inch. He thought of Ms. G, and he whispered, “My heart is an inferno.” And it was, supernova hot, ready to burn right through his chest, and no one knew but him. He smiled.
He stayed on Main. Most of the businesses were dark, closed early because of the storm. The rain battered the hood, and the windshield wipers thumped in a steady rhythm. He drove maybe twenty miles an hour, looping between the exit to the highway and the motel. Back and forth, north and south, up and down, for about forty minutes.
He was getting the hang of it when he thought he saw something sleek and low—a cat?—dart out in front of him. He swerved right, and the Impala went up on the sidewalk before he overcorrected and shot out in the street, bouncing, the chassis scraping the pavement. He slammed on the brakes in the middle of Main, and the tires skidded. His heart hammered his chest, and he gripped the wheel, looking at the beam of the headlights on the gas station. That was when he saw a figure in the rain. Jess Winters, as he told the police multiple times later.
She stood under the awning, next to the pay phone. She was wearing a red coat with a long sweater beneath it over jeans. Her hair and clothes were wet.
That was what he told Detective Alvarez. No, he didn’t speak to her. No, he didn’t know where she was going.
“How’d you know it was her?” Detective Alvarez had asked. “It was dark, not to mention pouring rain. How’d you recognize her?”
“Her jacket at first,” he said. “Her hair. The way she stood. I don’t know, I just did.”
“You’re sure it was her?”
“Pretty sure,” he said. “Ninety-eight percent sure.”
“What were you doing out in Angie Juarez’s car?” Detective Alvarez asked.
“She let me borrow it,” he said. “I work for her father.”
“It was a bad night. What were you doing out?”
He didn’t want to get Angie in trouble or tell her secret, so he had to lie about that part. That was the one thing he’d lied about.
“Practicing driving.”
“In the storm? The streets were flooded.”
“I was hungry,” he said. “I went to get fries.”
“You don’t have your license, Beto. The stores were closed.”
“I know.” He pulled Tomás’s coat tighter around him. “Am I in trouble?”
The detective sighed. “Don’t go out driving when there’s flash-flood warnings from here to kingdom come. It’s not safe, and it’s especially not safe for you if you get pulled over. Entiendes? Use your head. What if something happened? Dios. Where was Angie?”
He’d started to say, At home, but then he realized they’d find out. “At the motel with Rose.”
“Why the motel?”
“We go there sometimes. We don’t do anything. Just hang out. We can watch cable.”
Detective Alvarez had looked at him over his reading glasses. He took off the glasses and hung them on the front of his shirt, raked his fingers through his hair. “Go home, Beto,” he said. “Don’t let me catch you driving without a license again.”
“Yes, sir,” he said.
But that was later. That night, after he saw Jess, he drove past the station and pulled into the motel lot to pick up his friends. He waited in the car, pulling Tomás’s coat tight. Stevie’s car now was parked in front of her room, the light on in the window. In a few minutes, Angie and Rose stumbled out of Room 7. They climbed in the back seat, still holding each other.
“You drive, Beto,” Angie said.
He was shaken up from his spinout, chilled and damp, and hungry as always. As he looked at their glowing faces, he was angry about something he didn’t understand yet.
He threw the car in reverse and gunned it too hard. They shot backward until he slammed on the brakes. The car jerked, throwing them forward.
“Beto!” Angie said. “Stop.”
“I am,” he said. “I did.”
“What was that?” Rose asked. “What was that noise?”
The windows were even foggier now with three of them breathing, craning their heads.
“Did we hit something?” Angie said.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I can’t see.”
Rose said, “Shit. Well, go. I don’t want Stevie to see it was us. Go, go.”