Rosita climbs back into the truck, drives out of town and turns down the road toward home. For the first time since my childhood, the woods look ominous. The bark on the gnarled trunks resembles scabbed skin and the thicket is shrouded before dusk. Each tree seems purposefully aligning to confuse lost travelers instead of growing by whatever natural laws plants adhere to. Harboring this idea makes me ashamed. Most country boys grow up with a penchant for totems, but I wandered the hills without a charm in my pocket to ward off spirits. Whenever remnants of my superstition manifest, I remember the night Lady Crawford anointed me with oil. Her failure provided an alternative salvation: freedom from my father’s legacy of irrationality.
Rosita doesn’t really know how to drive stick. She throws the truck back and forth between the lower gears, fighting the rutted road. The engine protests like an exhausted mare.
“You’re killing it,” I say.
“You want to drive?”
“I can.”
Rosita looks ready to pull over, but the truck is making a new noise. It shudders as something inside strains, lurches with the last gasps of combustible life before it grows cold. We coast to the side of the road and stall in the ditch. Rosita slams a fist into the steering wheel.
“Stupid, broke-ass piece of hillbilly shit,” she cries. After the outburst, she rubs her hands through her hair in a calming effort. It’s the same gesture my father used when rallying another explosion of religious fervor. Whenever The Reverend slicked that hair back with sweat, he was preparing to testify hard. Ready to smite the congregation with his bizarre perception of the truth.
“Now what?” Rosita asks.
“We wait,” I say. “Hope someone comes by to give us a ride.”
“Any way to raft across?” Rosita asks.
“You saw what happened to Russell. Wanna risk it?”
“We could walk back to town?”
“Over ten miles. Not to mention how we left Russell. I’m still not sure about the legality of that.”
“Obvious self-defense,” Rosita says.
“I’d rather camp.”
“Shit.” Rosita punches the steering wheel again. The horn blurts out in the silence. “Well, I’m at least taking a look.”
I follow her around the front of the truck and watch her pop the hood. She leans inside, studies the coiled hoses that connect to the giant robotic heart of the engine block.
“We could check the oil,” I offer. “But that’s really all I know how to do.”
Rosita slams the hood, kicks the tires and sits down in the dirt.
“Why live out here?” she says. “I’ve been asking myself that from the first. How does a man end up out here?”
“My daddy’s church,” I say. I wonder why I called him that. I never use the strangely southern term of endearment. It feels foreign on my tongue.
Rosita picks up a twig and begins to sketch a steeple in the dirt. A large cross goes atop it. I sit down beside her, take the stick and mark an X through the doodle.
“Are you going to tell me what you’re really doing here?” I ask. I snap the twig in half and give her a piece.
“Angela sent me. You were right about that.”
I grind the stick into the mire between my shoes while Rosita gathers the words. I can’t figure out why Angela would do it. There are plenty of industry writers who could do the next album. Even if it turned out subpar, why get greedy now, when her legacy is secured? What makes my work that necessary?
“She ran into a friend of mine at a party. Now, my friend knows how much influence Angela has, so she starts talking up The Body Book. Angela seemed to dig it, wanted to meet me and see some pictures. So, I spent an evening showing her slides and explaining the project. Then she asked me about funding.”
“And you took the money.” I push the stick deeper, submerging the wood beneath the mud.
“All my travels have racked up some serious credit card debt. Angela said she wanted to support it, but that she needed a favor.”
I can picture the whole scene. Angela in some bright Manhattan loft, lounging on a love seat as she sips wine from one of those stemless glasses that always let her feel less precious, closer to the unrefined roots she abandoned. Her breath would be hot with the tang of expensive grapes, mouth pouring out charm the way others tilt a bottle, touching Rosita’s knee as the compliments flow. I want her back in that dugout. I want Angela with makeup running in the rain and sneakers with holes in the sides. The two of us trapped in that eternal moment, living it forever because we lost ourselves in the disappointment of the days that followed.
“Does she have copies of the tracks?” I ask.
“Maybe. I played them for her over the phone. She could’ve been recording.”
Looking at Rosita, I can’t understand how the same woman who photographs men like me is such an accomplished thief.
“How’d you know they’d be in the safe?” I ask. “How’d you know the code?”
“The four buttons on the keypad that make up the combination are worn. There’s a lot of different variables, lots of combinations it could be, but they were also the four numbers that make up Angela’s birthday.”
I’m embarrassed she knows I’ve remained so sentimental. Still, I need to push through while Rosita’s comfortable explaining.
“What did Angela tell you about me and the music?” I ask.
“Just that you were an old friend working on some of the tracks for the new album. She said that you were way behind deadline. That she was worried and if I’d find your new work and send it along, she’d fund The Body Book for the next five years. I didn’t understand everything then, but I guess I do now.”
“Sounds like you knew enough to know it was wrong.”
Rosita hangs her head. “She said you were just helping polish the tracks and it was taking too long. I didn’t know, but I guess I suspected she was lying. At least hiding some important details.”
“But you do know now, so say it.”
“I can tell some of it is meant for her. It has the Troubadours’ style. The rest of it is something different.”
“And you sent those tracks anyway. You stole them for her.”
Rosita won’t look up from the dirt. “I justified it to myself in a lot of ways. Told myself you’d sent her tracks before, that you weren’t going to leave the woods to play them anyway, that funding The Body Book for half a decade was worth screwing over one person. Still, I know it’s not right. I think Angela might know that, too. She’s just in too deep to fix things. You’re quitting and she needs to go on making records. I think she’s scared to do that without you.”