Charlie shakes her head, wishing she were. That, at least, would explain what’s happening inside her head. But instead of drunk, she feels unmoored. Caught on a tide dragging her out to sea, even though she’s paddling as hard as she can toward shore.
“It was just a misunderstanding,” she says.
Josh responds with a curious head tilt. “A movie misunderstanding?”
“Of course.”
They step outside, and Charlie sees that it’s started snowing again. More flurries. As wispy as dust. Josh stops to catch one on his tongue, which is how Charlie knows the snow is real and not just her own personal snow globe à la Citizen Kane.
The fact that she’s not even capable of discerning the weather on her own tells Charlie she’s made the right decision. Yes, she has her suspicions about Josh, but they fade with each step taken toward the parking lot. He’s still catching snowflakes, for God’s sake, his tongue hanging out like a dog’s. That’s not something killers do. Kids do that. Nice people do that.
And Charlie’s leaning into the idea that Josh could be nice, once you see past the lies he told her. Lies that he clearly regrets. Because before they climb back into the Grand Am, Josh looks at Charlie across the snow-dappled roof of the car and says, “I’m really sorry, by the way. I shouldn’t have lied earlier. I should have been up front with you about everything, starting with when we met at the ride board. You have every right to not trust me.”
“I do trust you,” Charlie says, even though she doesn’t. Not implicitly. The simple truth is that right now she trusts herself less.
As for Josh’s lies, she chalks those up to loneliness and not malice. Charlie understands being lonely, having cut herself off from everyone but Robbie and Nana Norma. So she and Josh might as well be lonely together.
“We’re good, then?” Josh says.
“I guess,” Charlie says, which is about as honest an answer as she can muster.
“Then let’s go.”
Charlie gets into the car. Even if she does have lingering reservations, there are no other options. The one other car at the rest stop, an Oldsmobile idling on the far end of the parking lot, belongs to the woman Charlie encountered in the bathroom. She stands next to the car, smoking a cigarette, watching them leave.
As they pass, Charlie notices the concerned look on the woman’s face, appearing and receding in a plume of smoke. It makes her wonder what else the woman told Josh while she was still in the bathroom. Did she mention Charlie’s distrust? If not, does she now regret it? Should Charlie regret getting back into this car?
She tells herself no. That everything is fine. That she should follow the woman’s advice and have some coffee to clear her head. Then she’ll settle in for a long, uneventful trip home.
Josh apparently has other ideas.
“So what kind of movie was it?” he says. “Must have been a doozy if that woman thought you were on the sauce.”
Charlie can still picture Maddy standing before the mirror, putting on that lipstick as bright as blood. Even worse, she can still hear her voice.
You shouldn’t have abandoned me.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she says.
“Must have been a bad one,” Josh says.
“It was.”
Charlie wants to forget all about it. And she certainly has no intention of rehashing it with Josh.
“Be honest now,” he says. “Was it really that bad? Or do you not want to tell me because you still don’t trust me?”
“I trust people I know.”
“Then get to know me.” A genial smile creeps across Josh’s face. “Maybe we really should play Twenty Questions.”
Charlie doesn’t smile back. She’s still too unnerved by the fact that she imagined an entire game of Twenty Questions. That a movie in her mind lasted that long. That a whole chunk of time was lost.
“I’d rather not,” she says.
“Then let’s do one question each,” Josh suggests. “I ask you something, and then you ask me something.”
“You already know enough about me.”
“You haven’t told me about your parents.”
“What about them?” Charlie says.
“They died in a car accident, right?”
Charlie’s jolted by the question. To mask her unease, she takes a sip of coffee and focuses on the snow hitting the windshield. “How did you know that?”
“I didn’t,” Josh says. “I just assumed it.”
“Fine. How did you assume that?”
“Because you mentioned that you live with your grandmother, which tells me your parents are no longer alive. You also said you don’t drive, which I assumed was a choice and not because you’re physically incapable of it. Putting all that together, I came to the conclusion that you don’t drive because your parents were killed in a car accident. Turns out I was right.”
A prickle of annoyance joins Charlie’s sense of unease. That’s a lot of assumptions on his part. That they’re all true doesn’t make it feel any less intrusive.
“By that logic, I’m going to assume that since you haven’t mentioned your mother, it means she’s dead, too.”
“She might be,” Josh says. “I don’t know. She left when I was eight. I haven’t seen or heard from her since.”
Charlie doesn’t know what to say to that, so she says nothing.
“It was Halloween,” Josh says. “I remember because I dressed up as Batman that year. And it was a real costume, too. Not one of those cheap masks and plastic capes you get at the drugstore. My mother spent weeks making it for me. She was good with a sewing machine, I’ll give her that. She made a great costume. I was so excited to show it off, you know? I couldn’t wait for people to see me as Batman.”
“Why all this excitement about Batman?”
“Because he was the coolest.”
“Batman?” Charlie says, incredulous. She’s seen both the cheesy sixties TV show and the dark, dour Tim Burton movie. Neither of those Batmen struck her as particularly cool.
“To an eight-year-old, yeah,” Josh says. “Especially one who felt a little weird and awkward and whose parents wouldn’t stop fighting.”
His voice grows soft, confessional.
“When I’d see my dad start drinking and my mom get that disapproving look in her eyes, I knew it was only a matter of time before a fight broke out. So whenever that happened, I’d grab some Batman comic, crawl under the covers, and pretend I was inside that comic book, moving from panel to panel. It didn’t matter if I was scared that the Joker or the Riddler was trying to get me. It was better than being in that house with those people screaming at each other downstairs.”