by Makenzi Fisk
I can’t remember what car I’m driving or how I got onto the highway. I can’t remember what I did a half hour ago. “I dunno.”
“Let’s get food.” A wrinkle appears in the seamless skin above her eyebrows.
“Okay.” The next thing I know I’m sitting in a car that says Ford on the brand new steering wheel. My foot is planted on the brake pedal and I notice that the engine has a nice rumble when it idles.
An orange truck stop light shines down on a couple with a young child. The man is wearing sweat pants, a baggy T-shirt and ball cap. So is the woman. They walk past to the diner. I look back at their beat-up blue truck. The one with the smashed headlight and dented bumper. My stomach rolls and my head throbs.
“Trailer park trash.”
“What?” Nina looks out the window.
“That’s what my father would call them. Trailer park trash are people who dress like that and take their kids out for dinner when they should be in bed.” My dad, my old man, my minion who is in jail because he was stupid.
“Oh.” Nina’s gaze comes back to me. “Let’s get you something to eat.” She reaches across, pushes the shifter into park and unclips my seat belt. I lurch onto the pavement and almost puke right there.
I take my knife from my pocket and thumb the blade open in one flick of my wrist. Practice makes perfect. As I walk past, I jam it into the side of trailer park trash’s front tire. Pssht! Ah, that feels better. The sheer sensation of blade piercing rubber gives me an energy boost. The tire is flat before my knife is back in my pocket and I keep walking.
Nina hasn’t noticed what I’ve done. She takes my arm and leads me to the gas bar where rows of junk food greet us. All I see are the colors of the packages. They’re so blurry that I can’t read a single one.
She picks me out a pizza sandwich and a small carton of chocolate milk. She gets a bottle of coconut water for herself. At the checkout, she takes out the wad of money I gave her and the attendant gets up from his stool behind the counter. Slow as a garden slug, he tallies up her purchase. Before he’s finished, I add a bottle of orange soda, three popsicles, and two blue bingo daubers.
Nina looks sideways at me but doesn’t say a word. She peels a twenty off her wad. Nina is very good at math. She’s probably already got everything totaled in her head.
“Nineteen sixty-five.” He stares at me as he stuffs the items into a plastic bag. I remember the bloody scrape on my face. Shit, get over it. It’s no big deal. I rise up on my toes.
Nina hands over the twenty.
“Wait.” I try on aviator sunglasses from the counter display and give him my stink eye from behind the mirror lenses. His expression doesn’t change. I add two pairs to the pile.
She peels off two more twenties and I grab a lighter and a couple of Mardi Gras bead necklaces at the last second. Nina gawks at me and I shrug. I want them.
“A pack of Marlboros too,” I demand.
The slug shakes his head. “Don’t carry that brand.”
“The blue and white pack, then.”
“You got ID?”
Fucker. He knows I don’t. “Forget it.” I toss the lighter on the counter. “I don’t need this, then.”
The Slug adds the new items to the total. I reach for a roll of duct tape with mustaches printed on it and Nina finally shakes her head. Like a child, I put it back. She pays for it all out of her share of the blackmail money.
“Let’s blow this popsicle stand.” I snort through my nose. I just got Nina to buy me three popsicles. I’m not drunk, I swear.
The cashier glances from my face to the Mustang outside the door. When he looks back, I’m ready. I’ve practiced for moments like this. I look him straight in the face, squeeze the corner of one eyelid and twitch. Nobody messes with that glare. He looks down and crams the new items into a second plastic bag. I grab it and shove the door open.
“Thank you, come again,” he recites in a monotone. He couldn’t give a shit if he ever sees us again.
Nina leads me by the hand to the rear of the truck stop. I don’t have the energy to protest that she’s touching me when she makes me sit at a picnic table. Mosquitoes swarm around the streetlight. I wolf down half the pizza sandwich and push the rest away. It suddenly looks disgusting. I lean my elbows on the table and my head droops on my neck.
Do I hear flies buzzing or is the noise inside my head? It’s like that time I had the flu and my grandfather tucked me into bed like a baby. I hated it but I couldn’t stop him from swabbing my forehead and spooning chicken soup down my craw.
“Tell me what happened to your face.” Nina pours some of her coconut water onto a napkin and swabs my head like my grandpa did. The napkin comes away red.
“Nooo…” My legs don’t cooperate and neither does my brain. I lay my head on the picnic table and saliva dribbles from the corner of my mouth. I don’t give a crap about the ooze right now.
“Were you in an accident? Do you have a concussion or something?”
“…Consuction?” That didn’t come out the way it sounded in my head. “Ungh…”
“Stay here.” Nina gallops back to the store and returns with a cup full of ice. She pours it into the plastic bag and presses it to my head.
“Owww.” Why am I letting her do this to me? I’m slipping. Losing my way. I’m going to slide right into a black hole under the table. Somehow I crawl on top and flip on my back. Flying bugs whirl around the light above me.
Is the table spinning, or am I?
I’m a shipwrecked sailor clinging to a piece of driftwood. In the middle of the heaving ocean waves I roll over and vomit. Again and again until the pizza sandwich has emptied from my gut.
Out of the corner of my eye Nina’s sandals skip away from multicolored splashes on asphalt. I feel hollow. My wet cheek dissolves into the picnic table. The blurry image of a big eighteen-wheeler rolls by, its black exhaust enveloping and cleansing me. My head clears. I twist my body to dangle my legs over the side.
“Do you feel better?” The wrinkle on her forehead wavers and then locks in a straight line. She hands me a napkin.
“That was disgusting.” I scrub my mouth, shredding the napkin, and toss it onto the lumpy puddle of vomit.
“You look better.” She sits beside me and tries to brush my hair from my face. I push her away.
“I’m fine.” There are chunks in my hair but I don’t care. I yank it behind my ears and wipe my hands on my thighs. My stomach turns inside out. Am I sick? Am I hungry after all?
I unwrap one melting Popsicle, chomp it down and then attack the other. They cool my raw throat. I drop the wrappers onto the puke pile and follow the popsicles with gulps of orange soda. I aim the empty bottle at the pile and it sticks on top to garnish the whole heap. It’s a sloppy mess for the lazy gas station man to clean.
“If you say so.” Nina’s shoulders scrunch to her neck. She’s timid like she’s been beaten. She cautiously slides beside me on the table and regards the mess. Her nose crinkles.
“Hand me that bingo dauber.” My voice is scratchy from barfing.
She flinches and hurries to hand it over. When I drew on her at the water park, she liked it. If I do it again, it’ll make everything better.
“Gimme your foot.” I strip off the plastic wrap and it makes a satisfying noise, like torn duct tape. There’s a flash of memory. One year ago. Me. Taping Gina’s mouth shut before I lit her store on fire. My heart thuds with excitement.
Nina removes her sandal, presents her foot like an offering, sole out. On impulse, I doodle on her toes. It looks like shit. A curled shred of plastic on the edge of the dauber catches my eye and I grip it with trembling fingers.
Rip.
The tearing sound makes me wish I had insisted on getting that mustache duct tape at the store. What would it feel like to tear it off Nina’s pink mouth? But I don’t want to touch her.
She stares at me like one of those white baby seals. Innocent.
Nobody is innocent. I sm
ash the end of the dauber on the picnic table and scribble until her entire foot is blue. “Congratulations, you’re a goddamn Smurf!”
She giggles, the sound burbling through her freckled nose. “Um, Smurfs are blue with white feet.”
“Whatever. Let’s go.” I hop off the table and head for the car. Stars explode behind my eyeballs and the parking lot tilts sideways. Somehow, I keep my feet under me. I am fine.
Nina scoops up her sandals and grabs the shopping bag with my last-minute items.
A cop car exits the highway and circles the lot. It stops directly behind my Mustang. Inside the gas bar, the slug gets his lazy ass up from the stool. His head swivels toward us.
CHAPTER 18
“That shithead ratted us out!” I grab Nina’s arm and yank her down behind a minivan. She clutches her plastic bag like a granny with a purse. At the truck stop’s gas bar, the slug attendant puffs his chest out when he talks to the cop. The slug gestures in the air and points to the picnic table.
With the police car’s steel crash bars not two feet from the Mustang’s bumper, that option is gone. I narrow my eyes and commit the attendant’s face to memory. When this is all over, I’ll be back.
There are always other options. I make a quick check of the other cars in the parking lot. It doesn’t look good. On our heels, we shuffle away, closer to the diner. We slip inside the glass door, right beside the restrooms.
Still licking gravy from his lips, a fat loser nudges past us on his way to take a crap. He’s perfect and I step right in front of him.
“Excuse me, kind sir.” I tilt my eyebrows and make the sad face that works so well on stupid grownups. “I wonder if you might be so kind as to give a pair of lost girls a ride.”
He stops dead in his tracks and stares down at me like my face is made of hamburger. What’s the big fucking deal with a scratch? Seriously, get over it. Maybe it’ll help if I tilt my eyebrows some more and stick out my bottom lip. I can’t read his expression, but I don’t think this is working.
Nina shoots me a strange look and surprises me by taking over. When she steps forward, he turns his eyes on her. His pupils dilate and I know what that means. I deliberately bump into him like I lost my balance. He’s an idiot if he thinks she’s a ho. She wouldn’t get naked with him for a million dollars.
The pink glow is sucked out of Nina’s cheeks. She understands what this guy wants. “Wanna party?” I know where she learned that line. It was in the movie we watched last week. Her eyelid twitches.
He licks his lips and looks her up and down. “Do I have to take your friend too?”
As if I ever would. I show my teeth and stare out the window. The cop is gone from the gas bar. Is he looking for us by the picnic table? I stand on tippy-toes but there is a red truck in the way. I nudge Nina. Hurry up.
She opens her mouth and a tiny squeak comes out. Her skin looks like death. She swallows and tries again. “Whatever you want.”
I tug at her arm. Get rid of him. We don’t need him.
Nina forces a smile but her face might crack in half. The corner of her mouth twitches and it spreads to her cheek.
“If you give me your keys, I’ll wait for you in your truck.”
I tug at her arm again, harder this time, but she spreads her feet and stands her ground.
“You think I’ll fall for that one?” He runs his tongue over his lips. “If you’re still here when I come out, I’ll give you the ride of your life.”
Nina’s shiver travels from her neck to her spine and leaves her trembling. She looks like she will pass out right there. He brushes her aside in pursuit of the toilet. As soon as he’s gone, she bends double and gags. Saliva drips from her mouth but she doesn’t barf. She’s tough.
“Come on!” I grab her sleeve and pull her out the door. “I got his keys.”
“How?”
I open my hand to show her the Ford logo. Her eyes widen when it dawns on her. I picked that loser’s pocket when I bumped into him. Besides my Mustang, there are only two Fords in the parking lot and my first guess is right. His truck is the jacked up red one with the huge tires. The kind they say men with small dicks like to drive. We both climb up into the passenger side, out of sight of the gas bar, and I jam the key in the ignition. I slink low in my seat and twist my neck in all directions. I still can’t see that cop anywhere.
I grit my teeth when I see the shifter. This is a standard transmission. Not my fave. Of course I can drive a standard. It’s just that, in a truck this size, it’s pretty damn hard to put enough pressure on the clutch and still see over the steering wheel. Especially when you’re less than six feet tall. I reach for the lever and inch the seat forward as far as it will go.
Nina is already buckled up and I dutifully pull out my safety belt. Safety first when you’re jacking cars. Will she never let up? When she hears the click, she nods. The stick is in first gear and I stomp the clutch to the floor before I turn the key. The radio blasts country music. As soon as the engine rumbles, I ease my foot off and we roll forward.
There is no sign of the cop and excitement rises in my chest. The fat loser in the bathroom looked like he would be there a while. He should have brought a Playboy magazine because he’s not getting any real girls tonight.
“Ha ha! See ya later suckers!” I check the rear-view mirror. No one can stop us now.
Nina sits stiffly in her seat, her face turned to the window. I wrench the wheel sideways when I see what she’s looking at.
The cop is running beside us. He’s lost his hat and his mouth is open. I can’t hear a damn thing he’s yelling over the wailing radio. He can’t keep up when I grind the shifter into second gear and we pick up speed. Directly ahead is the Mustang, and the cop car.
“Lily, no!” Nina yells.
Sometimes she knows me better than I know myself. I laugh and swerve to the right. The truck’s front bumper smashes through the back of the police car like it’s made of aluminum foil. The metal folds sideways into the back tire. Nina’s head snaps forward with the impact but I don’t feel a thing.
“Fuck you!” I yell at the top of my lungs. The engine sputters and I stomp my foot on the clutch but it’s too late. Shit, I’ve stalled it.
Nina curls into a ball on her seat. She holds her plastic bag in a death grip. In the side mirror, I see the cop catching up. Objects in mirror are closer than they appear. That is definitely true.
I restart the engine and slam the truck into gear. We jerk forward.
Face red as a tomato, the cop jumps onto Nina’s door, arms wide. His hands slide across the glass and onto the frame. He must be hanging by his fingertips. “Pull over!” Steam from his breath fogs Nina’s window. She’s terrified.
The cop grabs at the handle and wrenches open the door. He hangs on when it swings out on its hinges and returns. He comes back boots first and manages to get one foot inside. “Pull over now!” He grabs Nina’s arm like a big gorilla.
Nina screams. “Lily! Please stop.” Her voice is as high as a little kid’s.
The cop hauls her toward the open door. I swerve to throw him off and he loses his grip. He’s going to fall.
“Push him out!” I yell at Nina.
She looks back at me. Tears run down her cheeks. I swerve harder and she lurches face-first toward the cop. I swerve again and he grabs at her, fingers searching for anything to hang on to. Nina jerks her head back and there’s a trickle of blood on her cheek. The cop’s watch dangles from his wrist. The only thing keeping her inside is her seat belt.
“Kick him!” If I was over there, I’d kick him right between his eyes.
She shakes her head. I’m disappointed.
“Stop!” The cop retreats to the door and struggles to hang on.
There is no way he can run this fast. He must look like a trout on a stringer. I push the truck faster before we hit the highway ramp and finally the cop loses his grip. In the rear-view mirror, I watch him tumble onto the shoulder, his shirt torn open and legs t
angled. He disappears into the weeds.
That was funny. I laugh like a maniac inside my head.
The open door howls and Nina pulls it shut. Chest heaving, she twists to look behind us. She wipes her eyes with the back of her hand. There are no red and blue lights. No one is going to catch us.
Slouching in my seat to put all my weight on the gas pedal, I push the speedometer until it reads triple digits. At least five minutes pass before I say anything. “That was close.” I show my teeth when I smile. It’s a real smile if you show your teeth. I punch her shoulder.
Nina jumps and puts a hand to her cheek. It comes away with a red smear. The cop’s watch scratched her. Now I’m not the only one with a messed up face.
“Hand me the bag.” I don’t want her getting all depressed about this. It’s over. We won.
Stunned, she looks at her hands and seems surprised to find that she’s still holding the bag. Her fingers tremble when she puts it on the seat between us.
I take out a pair of sunglasses, slide them on and check myself in the mirror. They are too big, but the effect is good. “I’m a secret agent.”
Her mouth twitches. Did she try to smile? I hand her the other pair.
She gives her head a shake and turns away. “I don’t feel like it.”
“Pussy.” It worked before. It will work again.
“Stop calling me that. I don’t like it.” She leans forward to check the side mirror.
“Fine, then don’t be one.” I wait for it. Finally the silence gets to her.
She jams the glasses on and turns her face to me. “Happy?”
I reach over and help her adjust them. “You look exactly like Lara Croft from Tomb Raider.”
“Yeah, right. A red-haired, freckle-faced ugly Lara Croft.” She rips the glasses off.
I push them back on. “You’re not ugly.” That part is true. Every guy she passes turns to stare at her. She just doesn’t notice. I poke her cheek and she blushes. She’d do anything I asked her. I turn off the highway and drive her home. The truck is loud so I switch off the engine. I don’t want to wake her parents.