The poor start got me rattled, I’ll admit. As I drive jerkily down the road in a car that still smells like pine forest, white-knuckling the wheel and gearshift, my nerves start to clash with the endorphin rush I get when I visualize Deborah’s face as I squeal this monstrosity into a parking space.
I begin to think I’ve made a grave error of judgment here.
I know for sure I have when I clatter and shake into Beaufort and the car stalls at a stoplight. I’ve forgotten to either hold down the clutch or shift into neutral while braking. Or something. I can’t remember Leon’s instructions anymore because there’s a line of twenty cars backed up behind me and the light’s green, but my vehicle is throttling me like I owe it money. I brake and put the car back into neutral, but I’m stressed and my other foot hits the gas. Everything is bad. Panic overwhelms. It’s fight or flight.
I abandon the car at the intersection, leaving the door wide open. People are honking. Someone rolls down their window and yells. I want to go back and shut the door, but adrenaline is burning up my veins and I can’t go back there; I’m never going back to that car for as long as I live, or to Morris, and all I know how to do now is run. Straight down into a ditch and up the other side into the parking lot of a shuttered Kmart, running, running, my nervous system on fire. I’m going to keep running all the way to California. I’ll change my name and start a new life.
This is the sunniest prospect I’ve had in ages.
I don’t pause to catch my breath until I’m on the other side of the Kmart, November air solidifying into ice cubes in my lungs. I’m so thankful for the big, empty building shielding me from all my problems. One of the drivers who honked at me is undoubtedly on the phone with a 911 operator. The situation will be eagerly described to an officer Who Has No Time For This Shit by ten bystanders, and everyone on the scene will deduce that I’m high on bath salts. They’ll call a tow truck while a cop chases me down with a Taser.
Frankencar’s still registered to poor, well-meaning Leon and he’s going to take the fall for me. I have to go back. I’m never going back.
My thighs are cold and chafed, so the buzzing in my pocket doesn’t catch my full attention until the fourth time it happens. It’s Nicholas, of course.
You’re VERY late. Where are you??
I’m out of your reach, Dr. Rose. I’m in no-man’s-land. Good luck trying to find me out here behind the decaying husk of a superstore.
That’s what I want to reply. But according to my phone it’s fifty-three degrees with RealFeel of forty-eight, and I’m not cut out for a life of consistent exercise. I’m so out of shape that I’m still wheezing, dreams of California dissolving into the wind. I’m going to get stabbed out here. I’m so glad I’m wearing real clothes instead of pajamas.
Save me, I reply instead. I whine it aloud, too.
From what?
You. Your mother. Frostbite.
I snap a picture of the parking lot and send it. Car broke down. I’m stranded.
His phone call cuts me off midsentence: I’ve got Dots candy in my coat pocket. I’m going to leave a trail like Hansel and
“Naomi?” He sounds afraid. “How far into town are you? What happened?”
“That car is crap!” I exclaim. “It tried to kill me.”
“I told you a million miles ago to change your oil and you said it was none of my business.” In his mind, he’s twirling through a field of I-Told-You-So’s. That’s his idea of heaven.
“Not that car. I traded it for Leon’s clunker. It’s a stick shift, Nicholas. I don’t know how to drive a fricking stick shift! Bad things happened and I left it in the middle of the road. Now I’m in a Kmart parking lot.” I kick a rock and squint up at the gray building, then a scattering of other dark buildings with empty parking lots along the same strip. I’m in a retail graveyard. “Maybe it’s a Toys R Us.”
“Jesus Christ.” I can hear cars whooshing by on his end of the line. He’s out on the sidewalk.
“Don’t let me die here. I want to be somewhere warm when I go.”
“Yeah, better ease into those warmer temperatures. It’ll get a lot hotter once you arrive at your destination.” I’m about to wail. “You need to tell me exactly where you are.”
I wring my hands. Nicholas is on the phone, which makes him feel close, so it’s okay to freak out now. He’s going to remain calm no matter what. We’ve always been balanced that way: when one of us loses it, the other can’t. Whoever didn’t call dibs on instant hysterics has no choice but to keep it together.
“The first stoplight when you get into town. I went off, uh, into a ditch. Not in the car, I mean. I left on foot.”
“Why did you leave your car?”
“I don’t know! It all happened so fast. Give me time to think of a better excuse.”
“I’ll be right there. Go back to the car.”
I don’t go back to the car, but I do tiptoe out from behind the building and stand at the side of the road. There are flashing lights—a police officer and a tow truck. Oh lord, I’m going to jail.
Someone spots me and points, and my instinct is to crouch down. There’s nothing to hide behind, so I’m crouching for no reason whatsoever. Forget jail. I’m getting a padded cell.
Out of habit, I’m scouring the road for a flash of gold Maserati, so when Nicholas steps out of a Jeep it takes me a second to recalibrate.
“Nicholas!” I hiss in a loud whisper. It’s no use. I’m drowned out by the commotion of cars whooshing by. I wave my arms like an air traffic controller. He doesn’t see me, striding straight into the heart of the chaos to take charge.
He checks over the abandoned vehicle and shakes his head to himself, seizing my purse from the passenger seat before shutting the driver’s-side door. Holy cow, I left my purse.
Men in uniforms converge on him. I hide my face behind my hands from a safe distance, not wanting to overhear what is sure to be a humiliating story of my stop-and-run. Someone nods in my direction and Nicholas whirls to face me. Even from this far, I discern the odd glint in his eyes and read his mind like it’s typed in a thought bubble over his head.
Well, well, well. How are we feeling about our choices now, Naomi?
Not good, is how I’m feeling. But at least I’m standing on the less policeman-y side of the road.
He says something to the officer, who looks at me, too. Identity confirmed. I’m leaving here in handcuffs, which will tidily accomplish my goal of getting Mrs. Rose to catapult me out of the family tree.
Nicholas calls somebody on his phone and chats for a minute before handing the phone to the officer. They chat for a minute, too; all the while, Nicholas is just looking and looking at me, and there’s nowhere to hide from him. He’s my only ally. He’s my worst enemy.
He’s walking across the road right toward me, wearing the coat I call his Sherlock Holmes coat. It was expensive and the nicest gift I’ve ever gotten him. He wears it from the very beginning of autumn until the very end of spring, with a scarf looped beneath the wide collar. The fact that he hasn’t burned it yet and danced around its ashes seems aggressively kind in my current frame of mind.