“I can’t.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” She reached for his belt. She tugged hard on the buckle, shifting his hips. She yanked the leather free from his belt loops, then wrapped the belt around his leg and tightened it above the wound. The girl was half his size but she had a grip like iron and he was in a daze just from the feel of her fingers on his thigh. He looked down at the back of her head as she worked on him, the way her hair came to a point at the nape of her neck. He could still smell the hint of strawberries on her breath.
When she was finished her hands were covered in his blood. She wiped them on her skirt, leaving streaks across the black dress. Then she leaned back in her seat and looked at him hard.
“What’s in those bags?” she asked.
Hawley felt like he was going to be sick. “Don’t,” he said.
Before he knew it, she had the duffel bag open and her hands were going through his life. She took out some of his clothes, his toothbrush and the newspaper he’d been reading. Then she found his father’s rifle and the ammunition.
“I’ve got a license for that.”
“Sure.” She reached inside the bag again and wrapped her fingers around a jar of black licorice. She unscrewed the lid and pulled out a roll of bills. Hundreds layered together and held tight with rubber bands. She opened another jar and found the same. All the while her face stayed impassive, as if she saw that kind of money every day. Then she put the cash back and sealed the jars tight and returned them to the bag. She let out a sigh as she pulled the zipper closed. She’d kept a piece of candy, and now she slipped it into her mouth like a piece of black spaghetti.
“I’ve always liked licorice.”
Hawley felt all his strength go out of him. Something must have shown on his face because she reached over and touched him underneath his jaw, searching for his pulse. She stroked his neck and then pressed down, and the new start he’d been looking for opened up before him. The girl had found it with the very tips of her fingers, a thread of life hidden all this time underneath Hawley’s skin.
He watched her lips counting softly.
She let go.
Outside there were trees and sidewalks and picket fences. Inside the engine ticked. The girl reached over Hawley’s shoulder, pulled the seatbelt across and buckled him in. She buckled herself in, too. She turned on the ignition. The truck rumbled and shook. “I’m going to take you to the hospital now. Okay?”
“Okay,” said Hawley. Her eyes were green with flecks of gold. He tried to concentrate so he wouldn’t forget.
She flipped the switch that started the lights. Flashes of color streaked down the length of the windows. She checked the mirrors and then she pulled onto the road.
“So let’s decide now,” she said.
“Decide what?” Hawley asked.
“What kind of accident this is. For the hospital. They might be looking for you, so we should cross the state line.” Her hand went to the gearshift and she shifted, then shifted again. They drove for a few blocks in silence.
“What’s your name?” Hawley asked.
“I don’t know if I should tell you that. You’re probably a criminal.”
“Well,” said Hawley, “now you’re one, too.”
“All right.” She cleared her throat. “It’s Lily.”
“Lily,” Hawley said, rolling the word in his mouth. “Lily.”
“That’s me,” Lily said. Then she turned on the siren and all of the cars pulled over, and even the red lights turned green.
Weathervanes
EVERY SUNDAY LOO WOULD PICK Marshall up in the Firebird. She enjoyed waiting, parked down the street, knowing that he was just inside the white house on the corner, combing his hair, tying his shoes, brushing his teeth. It was like the world was holding on to something enormous, something secret and amazing, all while she sipped at her paper cup of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee.
After graduation, they’d both convinced their parents they needed a year off before starting college. Marshall because he was planning on volunteering for Greenpeace, and Loo because she’d skipped a grade and was still only sixteen. Hawley was more than grateful for the delay, and was so proud when Loo walked across the stage in her cap and gown that he’d taken her picture and added it to the bathroom wall, taping it next to the photographs of her mother. With the help of Principal Gunderson, Loo had applied for an internship at the Museum of Science in Boston that would start the following January. In the meantime she was waitressing, and Marshall was collecting signatures for his mother’s petition, and the rest of the summer months stretched before them with all kinds of possibility.
The front door opened and Marshall stepped out in his shirt and tie. Behind him was his mother, wrapped in a Sawtooth apron. Loo had asked Principal Gunderson to schedule them on opposite days. This week Mary Titus was on the lunch shift and Loo had worked until midnight, hefting trays and buckets of ice. Agnes was six months along now, and needed more help. She had started wearing thrift-shop muumuus and resting her feet in the walk-in cooler, so Loo had taken on some of her tables. In exchange, Agnes showed Loo how to apply liquid eyeliner, standing side by side in the Sawtooth’s bathroom mirror, elbows braced to steady their hands. It was the same way that Loo’s father had taught her to hold a gun.
“You look beautiful,” said Agnes, flashing the stud in her lip.
The black lines made Loo’s eyes seem different, although she was not sure they were beautiful. It was more like she was meeting a stranger who had stolen her face. This stranger talked back to the chefs, joked with the customers more easily and worked harder than Loo had ever worked before, the frenzy of the weekend crowd swirling like fireflies that she danced around and slid between and guided through to the end of the night. In the morning she felt tired down to her very bones, and only coffee and the prospect of seeing Marshall kept her awake.
From the car she watched Mary Titus hand over a stack of pamphlets and say something to her son, an urgent look on her face, then kiss Marshall’s cheek and close the door. The boy hurried down the stairs, his wing tips slapping the sidewalk, his sketchbook hidden beneath the clipboard, his face breaking into a smile, bit by bit, as he got closer to the Firebird. Once he reached Loo he glanced back, to make sure his mother wasn’t watching from the house, and then the car door opened and the car door shut and they were sealed inside together.
Loo handed Marshall the coffee she had bought for him. “Got the map?”