Текст книги "My Life Next Door"

Автор книги: Huntley Fitzpatrick

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Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 19 страниц)

He’s only worked at the B&T for a week, so I make a conservative guess. “Um…five?”

“Eight! Eight!” I’m almost expecting Mr. Lennox to burst into a ball of flame. “Eight demerits. You’ve worked here two summers. How many demerits do you have?”

Tim folds his arms and looks at me. “Fraternizing” on the job is worth four demerits, but he’s never said a word—to me or, apparently, Nan—about seeing me and Jase.

“I’m not sure,” I say. None.

“None!” Mr. Lennox says. “In his brief stint on the job, this young man has”—he holds up one hand, bending down finger by finger—“taken food from the snack bar—twice—without paying. Not worn his hat—three times. Allowed someone else to sit in the lifeguard chair—”

“It was just this little kid,” Tim interjects. “He wanted to see the view. He was, like, four.”

“That chair is not a toy. You have also left your post without posting the off duty or on break sign—

twice.”

“I was right there by the pool,” Tim objects. “I was just talking to some girls. I would have stopped if someone was drowning. They weren’t that hot,” he adds this last to me, as though he owes me an explanation for this unaccountable sense of responsibility.

“You didn’t even notice me when I stood behind you clearing my throat! I cleared it three times.”

“Is not noticing the throat-clearing a separate offense from not putting up that sign? Or is it three different demerits because of the three times, because—”

Mr. Lennox’s face seems to contract and freeze. He straightens up as tall as a very short man can.

“You”—finger jabbed at Tim’s chest—“do not have the Bath and Tennis spirit.” He punctuates each word with another jab.

Tim’s lip twitches, another bad move.

“Now,” Mr. Lennox thunders, “you do not have a job.” I hear a sigh from behind me and turn to find Nan.

“A week,” she whispers. “A new record, Timmy.”

Mr. Lennox turns on his heel, calling, “Please return all items of your wardrobe that are club property to the office.”

“Aw, shit,” Tim says, reaching into the pocket of the hoodie draped over the lifeguard chair and pulling out a pack of Marlboros. “I was so hoping I’d get to keep the cute hat.”

“That’s it?” Nan’s voice rises unexpectedly in both pitch and volume. “That’s all you have to say? This is the fourth job you’ve lost since you got kicked out of school! Your third school in three years! Your fourth job in three months! How is it even possible to get fired that often?”

“Well, that movie theater gig was boring as all fuck, for one thing,” Tim offers, lighting up.

“Who cares! All you had to do was take tickets!” Nan shouts. Tim’s kept his voice low, but Mr. Lennox was loud and Nan, who hates a scene, doesn’t seem to care that she’s making one now. A group of small kids are staring, round-eyed. Mrs. Henderson has her cell phone out once again. “And you screwed that up by letting everyone you know in for free!”

“They charge crazy-ass prices for popcorn and candy—the management was hardly losing money.” Nan puts her hands in her hair, sweat-damp with either heat or frustration. “Then the senior center.

Giving joints out to senior citizens, Timmy? What was that?” Mrs. Henderson has now moved in closer, under the pretext of heading toward the snack bar.

“Hey, Nano, if my ass were in a wheelchair in a place like that, I’d only hope you’d show up with some weed. Those poor bastards needed their reality blurred. It was like a public service. They had them square dancing. They had fake American Idol contests. They had frickin’ funny hat day. It was like Torture the Elderly Fest. They—”

“You’re such a goddamn loser,” Nan, who never swears, says. “It’s not possible we’re really related.” Then a surprising thing happens. Hurt slices across Tim’s face. He shuts his eyes, pops them open again to glare at her.

“Sorry, sis. Same gene pool. I could resent you for swimming to the deep end with all the perfect genes, but since they make you so fucking miserable, I don’t. You can have ’em.”

“Okay stop it, you two,” I say, the way I used to when they clashed as kids, rolling around on the grass, pinching, scratching, punching, no holds barred. It always scared me, afraid they’d really get hurt.

Somehow the potential seems so much bigger now that words are the weapons of choice.

“Samantha,” Nan says. “Let’s get back to work. We need to do those jobs we still have.”

“Right,” Tim calls after her retreating back. “’Cause then you get to keep the great outfits! Priorities, right, Nano?” He picks up his hat, puts it on the lifeguard chair, and stubs out his cigarette in it.

Chapter Nineteen

“I’ve got a surprise.” Jase opens the door of the van for me a couple days later. I haven’t seen Tim or Nan since the incident at the B&T, and I’m secretly glad for a break from the drama.

I slide into the van, my sneakers crunching into a crumpled pile of magazines, an empty Dunkin’ Donuts coffee cup, various Poland Spring and Gatorade bottles, and lots of unidentifiable snack wrappers. Alice and her Bug are evidently still at work.

“A surprise, for me?” I ask, intrigued.

“Well, it’s for me, but you too, kind of. I mean, it’s something I want you to see.” This sounds a little unnerving. “Is it a body part?” I ask.

Jase rolls his eyes. “No. Jeez. I hope I’d be smoother than that.” I laugh. “Okay. Just checking. Show me.”

We drive to Maplewood, two towns over, more run-down than Stony Bay. Jase pulls the van into a parking lot with a huge red, white, and blue sign that says “French Bob’s Used Cars.”

“French Bob?”

“Bob unfortunately thinks that adding ‘French’ makes him sound classier.”

“Got it. So, you’d be French Jase?”

“Oui, oui. Come on. I want you to tell me what you think of her.” Her?

He takes my hand after we climb out of the car, pulling me into the back lot. There are lots and lots of extremely aged vehicles in various states of disrepair, with big white painted lettering on their windshields. I peer at them, noticing that they all say things like “A STEAL AT $3,999!” or “THEY

DON’T MAKE ’EM LIKE THIS ANYMORE” or “PURRS LIKE A TIGER CUB.” We come to a stop in front of a grayish white car with a huge hood and tiny cockpit. The windshield says “THIS SWEET BABY COULD BE YOURS FOR MERE PENNIES.”

“Mere pennies meaning, of course, fifteen hundred bucks,” Jase says. “But isn’t she beautiful?” I’m no car connoisseur, but his eyes are shining, so I say enthusiastically, “Gorgeous.” He laughs at me. “I know, not now. But she’s a ’73 Mustang. Picture her with paint instead of primer.

Picture her with new seat covers and a leather steering wheel and—”

“Fuzzy dice?” I ask dubiously. “Candy apple–red paint? Leopard-print seat covers?” Jase shakes his head. “Just who do you think I am today, Samantha? No way. British racing green, of course. And no dice. And, before you ask, no dancing hula girl figurines either.”

“In that case, I love it.”

He grins. “Good. Because I know I can get her working again, and she’s a convertible and I just wanted to make sure you…liked her because…I just wanted to be sure you did.” He pats the hood, ducking his head slightly. “I’ve been saving for this now for four years. I should put it toward college, I know, ” he says, as though expecting me to give him a lecture on fiscal responsibility. “But Alice, like, always has the Bug these days. Apparently Brad is a lousy driver. And you and I can’t have all our dates on your roof. Besides, this is such a deal.”

My attention has been caught by one thing. “You’ve been saving for a car since you were thirteen?”

“What? You think that’s weird?”

His smile’s so infectious that I’m returning it before I even begin to answer. “I don’t know. I just thought thirteen-year-olds went for the Xbox first.”

“Joel taught me to drive when I was thirteen—in the beach parking lot in the fall. I just got hooked.

That’s why I started learning how to fix things on cars…since I couldn’t legally drive ’em yet. You still think I’m nuts, huh? I can tell.”

“In a good way,” I assure him.

“I can live with that. Now come on, ma chérie, and let’s pay French Bob.” Bob agrees to have the Mustang towed to the Garretts’ house by Friday. As we climb back into the van, I ask, “Where are you going to work on her?” Already, I too am referring to this car as if it has a gender.

“I’ll just do it in the driveway. Joel takes the cycle to work these days, so that space will be clear.

Besides, there’s no room in the garage until my mom has that yard sale she’s been talking about for five years.”

I can already see my mother, hands on hips, glaring through the window at the disabled car and huffing out an impatient breath. “A rusty old wreck now! What next? Plastic flamingos?” I squeeze Jase’s knee, and he instantly covers my fingers with his own, giving me his slow, intoxicating smile. I feel a pang, as though I’m handing over a part of myself I’ve never offered before. And I suddenly remember Tracy worrying about getting in too deep with Flip. It’s only been a few weeks and somehow I seem to have gotten far from shore.

Jase’s schedule is as busy as Mom’s. The hardware store, training, some odd jobs fixing things at the bike shop, delivering lumber…One afternoon after lifeguarding, I’m hesitating on our porch, wondering about calling him, when I hear a whistle and he’s walking up our driveway.

He gives my jacket with its epaulets and stupid crested suit the once-over. I’d been so eager to get out of the B&T that I hadn’t bothered to change. “Admiral Samantha, once again.”

“I know,” I say. “Lucky you, getting to wear anything you want.” I wave my hand at his faded shorts and his untucked forest green oxford shirt.

“But you still look better than me. When does your mom get home today?”

“Late. She’s at some fund raiser at the Bay Harbor Grille.” I roll my eyes.

“Want to come to my house? You allowed to fraternize off-site?” I tell him to wait two minutes while I ditch the uniform.

When we get to the Garretts’, it is, as usual, a hive of activity. Mrs. Garrett’s breast-feeding Patsy at the kitchen table, quizzing Harry on the names of various rope knots for sailing camp. Duff’s on the computer. George, shirtless, is eating chocolate chip cookies, dreamily dipping them in milk and leafing through National Geographic Kids. Alice and Andy are in an intense discussion over by the sink.

“How do I get him to do it? It’s just killing me. I’m gonna die.” Andy scrunches her eyes shut.

“What are you dying of, dear?” Mrs. Garrett asks. “I missed it.”

“Kyle Comstock still hasn’t kissed me. It’s killing me.”

“It shouldn’t take this long,” Alice observes. “Maybe he’s gay.”

“Alice,” Jase objects. “He’s fourteen. Jesus.”

“What’s gay?” George asks, his mouth full of cookie.

“Gay is like those penguins we read about at Central Park Zoo,” explains Duff, still typing away on the computer. “Remember, sometimes the boy ones mate with other boy ones?”

“Oh. I rem’ber. What’s mate, I forget that part?” responds George, still chewing.

“Try this one,” Alice suggests. She walks up to Jase, shakes back her hair, casts her eyes down, walks her fingers up his chest, and then toys with the buttons of his shirt, swaying slightly toward him. “That one always works.”

“Not on your brother.” Jase backs up, rebuttoning.

“I guess I could try that.” Andy sounds doubtful. “But what if he sticks his tongue in my mouth right away? I’m not sure I’m ready for that.”

“Eeeew,” squeals Harry. “Barf. That’s rank.”

Feeling my face warm, I shift my eyes to Jase. He’s blushing too. But he quirks a little smile at me.

Mrs. Garrett sighs. “I think you should just take this at a slow pace, Andy.”

“Does it feel really gross, or nice?” Andy turns to me. “It’s so hard to imagine, even though I do try. All the time.”

“Samantha and I are going upstairs to, uh, feed the animals.” Jase grabs my hand.

“Is that what they call it now?” asks Alice languidly.

“Alice,” Mrs. Garrett begins as we hurry upstairs to the relative quiet of Jase’s room.

“Sorry,” he says, the tips of his ears still pink.

“No problem.” I pull the elastic out of my hair, toss it back, flutter my eyelashes and, reaching out, walk my fingers dramatically up his chest to unbutton his shirt.

“Oh my God,” Jase whispers. “It’s like I’ve just gotta…I can’t help myself…I—” He hooks his index finger into the waistband of my shorts, moving me closer. His lips descend on mine, familiar now, but more and more exciting. In the past few weeks, we’ve spent hours kissing, but only kissing, only touching each other’s faces and backs and waists. Jase, who takes his time.

Not like Charley, who was incapable of meeting my lips without reaching for more, or Michael, whose patented move was to thrust his hands up under my shirt, unclasp my bra, then groan and say, “Why do you do this to me?” Now it’s my hands that slide up under Jase’s shirt, up his chest, while I lower my head to his shoulder and breathe in deeply. All our other kisses have been slow and careful, by the lake, on the roof, potentially not so alone. Now we’re in his bedroom, and that feels both tempting and wicked. I move my hands to the hem of his shirt, tugging up, while part of me is completely shocked that I’m doing this.

Jase steps backward, looks at me, intent green eyes. Then he raises his arms so I can slip the shirt off.

I do.

I’ve seen him without a shirt. I’ve seen him in a bathing suit. But the only times I got to touch his chest it was dark. Now the afternoon sun slants into the room, which smells earthy and warm with all the plants, quiet except for our breathing.

“Samantha.”

“Mmmm,” I say, trailing my hand over his stomach, feeling the firm muscles tighten.

His hand reaches out. I close my eyes, thinking how embarrassed I’ll be if he stops me. Instead, his fingers close lightly on the hem of my shirt, sliding it up, while the other hand curves around my waist, then moves, touching my cheek, asking a silent question. I nod, and he eases the shirt entirely off.

Then he pulls me close and we’re kissing again, which feels much more intimate when so much of his skin is touching mine. I can feel the thud of his heartbeat and the rise and fall of his breathing. I bury my hands in the waves of his curls and press closer.

The door opens and in comes George. “Mommy said to bring these.” We move hastily apart to find him extending a plate of chocolate chip cookies, several of which have large bites out of them. George thrusts the plate at us guiltily. “I had to make sure they were still good.” Then, “Hey, you guys have nothing on top!”

“Um, George—” Jase runs his hands through the hair at the back of his head.

“Me neither.” George jabs a finger at his own bare chest. “We match.”

“G-man.” Jase leads him to the door, handing him three cookies. “Buddy. Go back downstairs.” He gives his brother a little shove between his skinny shoulder blades, then shuts the door firmly behind him.

“What’re the chances he won’t mention the no-shirt thing to your mom?” I ask.

“Slim.” Jase leans back against the door, closing his eyes.

“George tells all.” I hastily tug on mine, yanking my arms into the sleeves.

“Let’s just, uh…” Assured Jase is at a loss.

“Feed the animals?” I suggest.

“Right. Yeah. Uh, here.” He crosses to some low drawers under his bed. “I have it all separated by…” We sort food and dump out water bottles, refilling them, edge straw into cages. After about five minutes I say, “Put this back on now.” I thrust his shirt at him.

“Okay. Why?”

“Just do it.”

“Unbelievably distracted by my body, Samantha?”

“Yes.”

He laughs. “Good. We’re on the same page, then.” There’s a pause. Then he says, “I said that wrong.

Like it was all about how you look, and that’s not it. It’s just that you’re so different than I thought you were.”

“Than you thought I was, when?”

“When I saw you. Sitting on your roof. For years.”

“You saw me. For years?” I feel myself flush again. “You didn’t tell me that.”

“For years. Course I didn’t tell you. I knew you watched us. Couldn’t figure out why you didn’t just come over. I thought…maybe you were shy…or a snob…I didn’t know. I didn’t know you then, Sam.

Couldn’t help watching back, though.”

“Because I’m just so compelling and fascinating?” I roll my eyes.

“I used to see you, out the kitchen window, during dinner or when I was swimming in the pool at night, wonder what you were thinking. You always looked cool and poised and perfect—but that’s…” He trails off, ruffling his hair again.

“You’re less…more…I like you better now.”

“What do you mean?”

“I like you here—real and just you and coping with all this insanity—George and Andy and Harry, me, I guess—in that calm way you have. I like who you really are.” He regards me contemplatively for a long moment, then turns away, carefully fitting the water bottle into the ferret’s cage.

Underneath the flare of pleasure at his words, there’s a niggling prickle of unease. Am I calm? Am I somebody who takes things in stride? Jase is so sure he sees me.

A knock on the door. This time, it’s Duff wanting help with his sailing knots. Then Alice, who is having a CPR test tomorrow and needs a willing victim.

“No way,” Jase says. “Use Brad.”

I think it’s good we have all these interruptions. Because right now I don’t feel the least bit calm, totally unsettled by what happened as we stood there, bare skin to bare skin, with this growing feeling that what happens between us is not on my schedule, in my control. Not me choosing to move away or back off or step apart, but a desire less easily managed. Before, I’ve always felt curious, not…not compelled.

How much experience has Jase had? He’s a fantastic kisser; but then, he’s good at everything he does, so that’s no guide. The only girlfriend I know about is Shoplifting Lindy, and she certainly seems as though she had no hesitation about taking what she wanted out of life.

When Mrs. Garrett comes up to ask if I want to stay for dinner, I say no, my quiet empty house with its leftovers in Tupperware, somehow, for the first time, a refuge from the steamy silence of Jase’s room.

Chapter Twenty

“Here ya go, Grace. Senior Center Pig Roast. Daughters of St. Damien Shad Fest. Sons of Almighty Michael Feast of the Blessed Shad. You need to go to all of these.” Clay has a highlighter and the local newspaper. Mom has a third cup of morning coffee.

“Shad festivals?” she says faintly. “I’ve never done those before.”

“You never had a real opponent before, Grace. Yup, all of them. Look here, they’re opening an old boxcar as a diner in Bay Crest. You need to be there.”

Mom takes a slow sip. Her hair is as untidy as it ever gets, a platinum tangle where her bun should be as she tips her head back on the sofa.

Clay skids the highlighter over a few more articles, then looks at Mom. “You’re tuckered,” he says, “I know. But you got what it takes, Gracie, and you need to take that where it’s meant to go.” Mom straightens up as though Clay’s yanked on her strings. Now she walks over and sits next to him, examining the paper and tucking her hair behind her ears.

The way she is around Clay makes me uneasy. Was she this way with Dad? There’s balance between Tracy and Flip, I see that now, but Mom seems to be under a spell sometimes. I think of those moments in Jase’s room. If Mom feels that way around Clay, it’s not like I don’t understand. But…but the shivers I feel around Jase are nothing like the prickle of anxiety I get now, watching their blond heads duck closer together.

“Was there something you needed, sugar?” Clay asks, noticing me hovering.

I open my mouth, then shut it again. Maybe Tracy’s right and I’m just not used to Mom “having a man.” Maybe, despite everything, I’m protective of my invisible father. Maybe I’m just hormonal. I look at the clock—an hour and a half till the B&T. I picture the cool water, sunlight on its surface, that calm underwater world, broken only by my even steady strokes. I grab my gear and go.

“Sailor Supergirl! You’re on TV!” Harry hurtles himself at me as I come in the kitchen door. “It’s you!

Right in the middle of Mammal Mysteries. Come see!” In the Garretts’ living room, George, Duff, and Andy are sitting mesmerized in front of one of Mom’s political commercials. Right now, it’s a shot of her face, in front of the Capitol building. As women, as parents, we all know family comes first, she says as the camera shows still photos of me and Tracy in matching dresses with our Easter egg baskets, on the beach, sitting on the lap of the B&T Santa Claus, all with Mom in the background. I didn’t think they’d ever snapped a picture of me with Santa without me crying, but I look relatively calm in this one. The B&T Santa always smelled like beer and had a drooping, palpably fake beard. My family has always been my focus.

“Your mommy’s pretty but she doesn’t look like a mommy,” George says.

“That’s a rude thing to say,” Andy tells him as there’s another montage of pictures—Tracy accepting a gymnastics award, me winning a prize at a science fair for my model of a cell. “Oh look—you had braces too, Samantha. I didn’t think you’d have had to have those.”

“I just meant she looked fancy,” George says as Mom smiles and says, When I was elected to be your state senator, I kept my focus. My family just got a lot bigger.

Next are pictures of Mom standing with a crowd of high school students in caps and gowns, bending next to an old woman in a wheelchair waving a flag, accepting flowers from a little boy.

“Are those people really your family?” Harry asks suspiciously. “I’ve never seen any of them next door.”

Now the camera pulls back to show Mom at a dinner table, with a horde of ethnically diverse people, all smiling and nodding, evidently talking to her about their values and their lives over…a banquet of popular Connecticut foods. I spy a clambake, ingredients for New England boiled dinner, pizza from New Haven, things we’ve never had on our table.

To me my constituents are my family. I will be honored to sit at your table. I will go to the table foryou, this November, and beyond. I’m Grace Reed, and I approved this message, Mom concludes firmly.

“Are you okay, Sailor Supergirl?” George pulls on my arm. “You look sad. I didn’t mean anything bad about your mommy.”

I snap myself away from the screen to find him next to me, breathing heavily in that small-boy way, holding out the battered stuffed dog, Happy.

“If you’re sad,” he says, “Happy’s magic, so he helps.”

I take the dog, then put my arms around George. More noisy breathing. Happy’s mushed between us, smelling like peanut butter, Play-Doh, and dirt.

“Come on, guys. It’s a beautiful day and you’re indoors watching Mammal Mysteries. That’s for rainy days.” I usher the Garretts outside, but not before flicking a glance back at the TV. Despite all the posters and leaflets, the news paper photos, it’s still surreal to see Mom on television. Even stranger to see myself, and how much I look like I belong right there with her.

Chapter Twenty-one

Following Tim’s B&T firing, the Masons, still researching scared-straight boot camps, are trying to keep him busy. Tonight they’ve given him money to take me and Nan to the movies.

“Please,” Nan urges over the phone. “It’s a movie. How bad can that be? He won’t even care—or even notice—if we pick a chick flick.”

But the moment I slide into the backseat of Tim’s Jetta, I know this plan is not going to work. I should get out of the car, but I don’t. I can’t leave Nan in the lurch.

“Tim. This isn’t the way to the movies!” Nan leans forward in the passenger seat.

“So right, sis. Screw Showcase. This is the way to New Hampshire and tax-free cases of Bacardi.” The speedometer edges past seventy-five. Tim takes his eyes off the road to scroll through his iPod or punch in the lighter or fumble around in his shirt pocket for another Marlboro. I keep feeling the car drift, then lurch back into its lane as Tim yanks the wheel. I look at Nan’s profile. Without turning, she reaches back a hand, grabbing on to mine.

After about twenty minutes of speeding and weaving, Tim pulls over at a McDonald’s, slamming the brakes so hard that Nan and I pitch forward and back. Still, I’m grateful. My fingers are stiff from clutching the door handle. Tim returns to the car looking even less reliable, his pupils nearly overtaking his gray irises, his dark red hair sticking straight up in front.

“We have to get out of this,” I whisper to Nan. “You should drive.”

“I only have my learner’s permit,” Nan says. “I could get in big trouble.” Hard to imagine how much bigger trouble could get. I, of course, can’t drive at all, because Mom has put off my driver’s ed classes time after time, claiming that I’m too young and most of the drivers on the road are incompetent. It never really seemed like a battle worth fighting when I could catch rides with Tracy. Now I wish I’d forged Mom’s name on the parental consent forms. I wonder if I could just figure it out. I think of those six-year-olds you occasionally hear about in news stories who drive their stricken grandparent to the hospital. I check the front of the Jetta. It’s a stick shift. There’s no way.

“We need to think of something, fast, Nanny.”

“I know, ” she murmurs back. Leaning forward, she puts her hand on Tim’s shoulder as he tries, unsuccessfully, to maneuver the key into the ignition.

“Timmy. This doesn’t make sense. We’re going to eat up all the tax-free savings in gas just getting to New Hampshire.”

“It’s a fucking adventure, sis.” Tim finally gets the key in, presses the accelerator down to the ground, and burns rubber out of the parking lot. “Don’t you ever crave one?” The car surges faster and faster. The urgent hum of the engine vibrates through the seats. Tim’s passing other cars on the right. We’ve shot past Middletown and are closing in on Hartford. I check my watch. It’s eight fifty…My curfew is eleven. We won’t be anywhere near New Hampshire by then. Assuming we aren’t wrapped around a tree somewhere. My fingers ache from holding so tightly to the door handle. I feel a prickle of sweat across my forehead.

“Tim, you have to stop. You have to stop and let us out,” I say loudly. “We don’t want to do this with you.”

“Lighten up, Samantha.”

“You’re going to get us all killed!” Nan pleads.

“Betcha you’ll both die virgins. Kinda makes you wonder what the fuck you were saving it for, huh?”

“Timmy. Will you please stop saying that word?”

Of course, this request is all Tim needs. “What word? Ohhhh. That word!” He makes a little song out of the word, says it loud, quietly, all strung together. On and on and on with the F-bomb for the next few minutes. Then he puts it to the tune of “Colonel Bogey’s March,” on and on and on again. A bubble of hysterical laughter fights its way to my lips. Then I see that the speedometer has leaped into the 100s. And I’m more terrified than I’ve ever been in my life.

“Shit. Cops.” Tim pulls a wide unsteady turn into a truck stop. I pray that the police car will follow us, but it speeds on by, siren blaring. Nan’s face is parchment. The Jetta squeals sideways to a halt. Tim staggers out of the driver’s seat, saying, “Damn, I gotta pee,” and wanders off in the direction of a gigantic blue Dumpster.

I yank the keys out of the ignition, climb out, and hurl them into the bushes at the side of the parking lot.

“What are you doing?” Nan screams, following me, palms outstretched at her sides.

“Making sure we get out of this alive.”

She shakes her head. “Samantha, what were you thinking? Tim had his…bike lock keys on that.” I’m bending over, resting my hands on my knees, breathing deeply. I turn to look at her. Seeing the expression on my face, she starts to laugh.

“Okay. That’s crazy,” she allows. “But how are we gonna get out of this?” Just then, Tim weaves back toward us. He slides into the front seat, then drops his forehead onto the steering wheel. “I don’t feel good.” He sucks in a deep breath, wrapping his arms around his ducked head, making the horn honk. “You’re nice girls. You really are. I don’t know what the hell’s the matter with me.”

Clearly, neither Nan nor I have an answer. We close the side door of the car, and lean against it.

Traffic streaks past on our left. So many people. All oblivious. We might as well be stranded in the desert. “Now what?” Nan asks.

Mom’s given me a thousand lectures on what to do in a situation with an unreliable driver. So I call her. I call home. I call her cell. Ugh, Clay’s cell. Tracy’s—not that she could help me from the Vineyard, but…No answer anywhere. I try to remember where Mom said she was going tonight but come up blank.

Lately, it’s all a big blur of “economic roundtable” and “town hall meeting” and “staffing support information event.”

So, I call Jase. He answers on the third ring. “Samantha! Hey, I—” I interrupt to tell him what’s happening.

Nan, who’s checking on Tim, calls, “He’s passed out! I think. He’s all sweaty. Oh my God. Samantha!”

“Where exactly are you?” Jase asks. “Alice, I need help,” he shouts into the background. “Are there any highway signs? What’s the nearest exit?”

I peer around but can’t see anything. I call to Nan, asking what town we last passed, but she shakes her head and says, “I had my eyes closed.”

“Just hang on,” he tells me. “Get in, lock the doors, and hit the hazard lights. We’ll find you.” They do. Forty-five minutes later, there’s a tap on the car window and I look up to see Jase, Alice behind him. I open the door. My muscles are cramping and my legs are about to give way. Jase wraps his arms around me, warm and solid and calm. I sink into him. Nan, scrambling out after me, raises her head, sees us, stops dead. Her mouth drops open.

After a minute, he lets go and helps Alice, surprisingly silent and forbearing, shove the unconscious Tim into the backseat of the Bug. Tim lets out a loud snore, clearly down for the count.

“What did he take?” Alice asks.

“I—I don’t know,” Nan stammers.

Alice bends, fingers on his wrist, smells his breath, shakes her head. “I think he’s fine. Just passed out.

I’ll take these guys home, if she”—Alice gestures to Nan—“tells me where to go, then you swing by and pick me up, okay, J?” She flings herself into the driver’s seat, jerking it closer to the wheel to accommodate her small frame.