I cannot do this road-trip thing with them.
If I get out, if I run, I can cut through the Stevensons’ backyard. Two blocks and I can be out on the main street. There’s no way Mom would follow me on foot. She couldn’t catch me if she tried. And by the time she gets in the car and gets out of the neighborhood, I’ll be long gone. There are plenty of places to hide: fast-food places, a mini-mart.
If I call Todd, he’ll come get me. We could head for Alaska. Today. I’ve already got a bag packed. But actually, there’s not much in it. I wish I’d thought of this before. If I’m going to Alaska, I want to take more of my things. Too bad. So sad.
But I’ve got money and I’ve got Caitlin’s ATM card. There’s no way Mom or Dad thought to close her bank account yet. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind if I used the money she was saving for Bonnaroo, to go to Alaska. Well, she’d probably mind because I’m going with Todd and she hated Todd. She used to tell me he was a loser and that I could do better. That I deserved better. She probably wouldn’t say that now, after what I did to her.
I pull my cell out of my sports bra and text Todd.
Where are you?
I watch Mom and Dad through the windshield. He’s pissed. I can tell by the way he’s standing. Her, too. She’s all stiff. But no one is yelling. My family is so civilized. No one ever yells. Except Nana and only when she’s really drunk and no one will pay attention to her.
My phone dings.
At Poker’s
Poker is his older brother. Another loser. He lives with his baby mama, but he’s dating this other girl he knows from work. He washes dishes at a diner near the pawnshop all the tourists go to.
Pick me up?
He texts right back.
Thawt u wet grounded
He spells thought wrong. It’s not a typo. He’s the worst speller I’ve ever texted.
I hold my phone in my hand. I didn’t tell Todd my mother was trying to kidnap me and take me to Maine when we were texting yesterday. I don’t know why. Do I have some secret desire to ride in the car with my mom for the next week and listen to her cry? Or worse, talk to me in that quiet voice of hers that makes me feel like I’m crazier than I am?
Can you pick me up or not? I text back, hitting the keyboard hard with my thumb.
Haf hr
Now, I tell him. After I send it, I add, Alaska, here we come.
I stare at my phone, waiting for him to answer. If he won’t come for me, I guess I’ll just run. I don’t know what else to do.
My phone dings.
Cool
Not my house. Will text u in a few.
I glance up at Mom and Dad; they’re too busy fighting to think about me. I look at the door. I push the ball down deep in my jeans pocket and slide my hand across the seat to get my backpack. I look at them again and put my hand on the door.
Just as I’m about to open the door, Mom turns around and starts for the car. “Izzy!” she hollers. “Let’s go, sweetie.” She’s saying sweetie, but her voice is high-pitched.
Shit.
Chapter 21
Julia
51 days
I stop halfway to the car, turn around, and hold my hand up to him the way he does to me sometimes. The gesture has always annoyed me. It’s as if when we get into a disagreement, he suddenly wants to treat me like he’s my father. “I can’t do this right now, Ben.”
I turn back to the car and see that Haley’s slid over in the backseat. She’s leaning against the door. I keep my eye on her as I walk quickly toward her. She looks like she’s about to bolt. I point at her and our gazes lock. She looks down. Caught. Busted. The little witch was going to get out of the car.
“I’ll call you tonight, Ben,” I say, afraid to take my eyes off my captive in the backseat of my Toyota. “Izzy!” I holler again. There’s a tightness in my chest, a sense of panic. I feel like I can’t breathe. Like if I don’t get out of here now . . . I don’t know what will happen.
When I reach the driver side, I yank open my door and lean in. “Going somewhere?” I ask my daughter, sounding pretty un-motherlike.
She throws herself back on the seat, her cell phone clutched in her hand.
“I told you. I’ll call nine-one-one,” I threaten.
“You wouldn’t do it.” Haley says it so softly that I’m not absolutely sure I heard her say it. “You don’t have the balls.”
“Try me,” I say just as quietly.
She raises her phone and begins to text. I stand up and look toward the house. It’s been at least five minutes. It’s probably been ten. Where’s Izzy? I’m tempted to go into the house for her, but I’m afraid Haley will run and I doubt Ben would know to go after her.
He’s still standing in the driveway, right where I left him. He still has a chance to say he’ll come with us. Now that I’m taking Izzy with me, I think he just might do it. Izzy’s always been his favorite. Please, Ben. Come with us. Run away with us. Run away for us.
I look at him, then back at Haley when her phone dings again. “Who are you texting?” I ask her, then glance at the house again.
She doesn’t answer.
I look at Ben again. Please, I pray. Not to God. I’m not sure I even believe in God anymore. So not to Him, but to . . . the powers of the universe maybe. Please come with us. Or please, Izzy. Get your ass in the car.
Haley is texting like crazy.
“Who are you texting?” I repeat. She’s in the middle of the backseat, clutching her phone like it’s a lifeline, which for teens, I suppose it is.
Her phone dings again.
I don’t know what gets into me. I reach into the back of my car and snatch the iPhone right out of her hand.
“Give me that,” Haley screeches. When she can’t reach it, she moves toward the door.
I slam my door shut and hit the lock button as my seventeen-year-old daughter hurls herself against the car door. I hit the child lock button on my door’s console.
Haley tries to open the door several times. “Let me out! Let me out!” The door handle makes a sound every time she releases it. She’s shrieking at me like a caged animal. “Give me my phone!”
I clutch it in my hand and look down at it. A text pops up.
B their in 5
At the same moment, the handle of the front passenger door rattles. Then there’s a knock on the window. “Mom?”
I look up.
It’s Izzy. She’s standing at the passenger side door, loaded down with bags. She’s got so many, I don’t know how she made it down the driveway on her own. And she’s got one of the pillows from her bed.
Whenever we took a road trip when our girls were younger, they all used to bring their own pillows. We haven’t gone on a road trip together in years. We just got too busy once Haley hit high school.
“Mom?” Izzy’s panicking now too. Her voice is muffled, but I can hear it in her high-pitched tone.
What am I doing to my children? What am I doing in this car, about to set off across the country? We’re so damaged. All of us. This is insanity.
But I can’t stop myself now. It’s as if I’m moving forward and nothing can alter my path.
“I’m ready,” Izzy hollers, banging on the door with her knee. “Let me in.”
I start the car, but I’m hesitant to unlock the doors. Then I realize that as long as the child locks are engaged, Haley can’t get out the back door. I lower the passenger-side front window a little and duck down so that I can see Izzy’s flushed face. I’m still holding Haley’s phone. I look down at the phone in my hand. The message is from Todd. Her ex. Todd is the one who doesn’t know the difference between there and their. He’s coming for her. He was coming here to take her away from me.
I don’t know what I’m going to do with her phone, but I can’t give it back to her. She really was going to run.
I lean over again and look at Izzy through the open crack in the window. “Listen carefully. Walk to the back of the car. I’m going to unlock the doors.
When you hear it click, open the hatch, put your bags in, and close it. Close it fast.”
“What the hell, Mom?” Haley hollers. “You think I’m going to climb over the freakin’ seat?”
I ignore her. Because I think she just might. I would have, when I was her age, had I been in the position she’s in right now. I once got out of the car when my stepfather stopped at a red light. I didn’t go home for three days, staying with different friends so he wouldn’t catch up to me.
Izzy walks to the back of the car.
“Julia? What are you doing?” Ben calls.
I turn to look through the backseat to the hatch. When I see Izzy standing there, I unlock the doors.
Haley’s slumped against the back door. Her arms are crossed over her chest. Her eyes are filled with tears. She won’t look at me.
“It’s going to be all right, Haley,” I say quietly.
She doesn’t respond.
Izzy drops things into the back: two zip duffel bags, a laundry bag, a shopping bag, a canvas bag. I can’t imagine what she’s bringing. I can’t imagine how she got it all together in ten minutes. She slams the hatch and runs around to the passenger side.
“I’m ready! I’m ready!” Izzy opens the front door and throws her purple school backpack onto the floor. She’s still hugging her pillow to her chest and she’s got her favorite cup in her hand. A Tervis cup with her name on it; Caitlin gave it to her for Christmas.
As Izzy drops into the passenger seat and slams the door, a can of cat food falls out of her sweatshirt pocket and rolls onto the floor. I have no idea why she’s got cat food in her sweatshirt, but I’m glad she thought to bring the sweatshirt. She’s still wearing her school uniform.
Izzy glances into the backseat. “What’s going on with her?” she asks, pushing back in her seat and fastening her seat belt.
I glance in the rearview mirror. I still have Haley’s iPhone in my hand. “Put your seat belt on,” I tell Haley.
She doesn’t answer, but she does as I say.
I put my own seat belt on and look up at the house one last time. Ben’s still standing there and he still looks pissed, but he looks sad, too.
But I can’t be responsible for everyone’s sadness.
I shift the car into gear and make a U-turn.
As I wait to pull out onto the main street, outside of our neighborhood, Haley’s phone dings in my hand.
“Give me my phone.” Haley’s voice is low and threatening.
I look down at the screen.
Wear r u?
Todd again.
There’s a break in traffic. I go.
“At least let me text him back,” Haley snaps from the backseat.
I put down the window and hurl her cell phone out. It makes a satisfying sound as it hits the pavement and I imagine someone running over it as I put up my window.
“Radio on or off?” I ask no one in particular.
Chapter 22
Izzy
3 years, 8 months
Holy H. Mom just threw She Who Shall Not Be Named’s iPhone out the window. It’s new from Christmas. It has to be worth three or four hundred bucks.
I’m afraid to say anything. I just sit in the seat, my back pushed against the seat, staring straight ahead. I know my eyes have to be bugging out. I don’t know who the one in the backseat was texting, but I guess Mom wants to make sure she doesn’t do it again.
She’s cussing in the backseat, but I barely hear her. She’s like static on the radio to me.
I’ve been wanting a cell phone, but Mom keeps saying I’m not old enough. She says when I’m old enough to go places unsupervised, I can have one. Thirteen seems to be the magic number right now, but I don’t think she’ll make me wait that long. For now, I have an old iPod touch that I can text my friends with. I’m glad I don’t have a phone because I bet She Who Shall Not Be Named would try to get me to give it to her.
I shove my pillow down on the floor between my leg and the door. There’s so many things going on right this second that I can barely wrap my head around them. Mom just destroyed an iPhone. I’m pretty sure we’re kidnapping the witch in the backseat and Mom . . . my mother came back for me. She told me I couldn’t come with her and then she changed her mind.
I can’t believe Mom came back for me.
I can’t believe she came back. I’m so happy I want to cry, but I’m not going to cry because then Mom would be worried about me and I don’t want her to be worried about me. She’s got enough to be anxious about with the crazy one sitting behind us who isn’t shouting cuss words anymore, but I think she’s saying them under her breath. She hit the back of Mom’s seat and then she kicked it, but Mom acted like she didn’t notice so I pretended not to notice either.
I look down at the can of cat food near my left foot. I think about trying to slide it under my seat with my heel, but since Mom didn’t notice it, I decide to leave it there for now. No sense drawing attention to it. Not this close to home.
I take a deep breath. I hope I brought everything I need.
When I ran into the house, I packed as fast as I could. I already had the clothes I’d packed from yesterday that I didn’t unpack in case Mom changed her mind. I didn’t really think she’d change her mind though. If I had thought she was going to, I’d have packed more stuff last night.
I didn’t know what to grab. She said I only had five minutes and there was no way I was going to take any longer than that. But it was so hard to know what I should take. I’ve never been on a road trip across the country with my mom and my rotten sister. I don’t even know which way we’re going so I didn’t know what kind of clothes to bring. Obviously if we were heading south and then east, I’d need clothes for warmer weather. North and then east and I needed stuff for cooler weather. I think I brought some for both, but I’m so excited, I’m not sure what I’ve got in the bags.
I’m so excited to be with Mom. It would be better if She Who Shall Not Be Named wasn’t with us, but not what Liz Lemon would call a deal breaker. (Me and Caitlin and the one who sent her to her maker used to binge-watch 30 Rock whenever Mom and Dad were out and would leave the big girls in charge of me.) Even with She Who Shall Not Be Named here, I’m still excited to be in the car. And shotgun! I love riding shotgun because you can see everything so much better. I don’t get to ride in the front that much. Mom’s paranoid about the airbag, but I love it up here. Riding shotgun, I feel like I’m a part of what’s going on. I can hear and see everything; I’m not just watching, I’m part of the world. The backseat makes me feel like a loser.
I glance up in the rearview mirror. I don’t know why. I don’t care what she’s doing. It would have been okay with me if Mom had thrown her out of the car with the iPhone, but I look anyway.
She’s kind of turned sideways, her knees drawn up on the seat. She’s got her eyes closed with her cheek pressed against the leather seat. She’s got something clenched in her hand, but I can’t see what it is. And she’s got her wireless earbuds in which is proof that she belongs in a psych ward because her phone is gone. She can’t be listening to music.
I look at Mom. She reaches up into the console that holds her sunglasses in the roof and gets her Ray-Bans. As she puts them on she looks at me for just a second before she looks at the road again because she’s getting onto the Woodbury Beltway that goes around the city. We live on the west side of Vegas, near Red Canyon, in Summerlin.
I watch Mom as she turns the steering wheel on the car and I want to pinch myself or something to convince myself this is really happening. I still can’t believe I’m in the car with her. That she came back for me. I only had one hesitation when she told me to get my things and get in the car and that was about Caitlin.
As I was throwing stuff into any bag I could find in my room, I wondered if Caitlin would still be there when I got back. I knew she wasn’t enough of a reason to stay because she’s dead and all, but it did make me sad to think it was possible that we couldn’t talk anymore.<
br />
When I heard Mom call my name again from outside, I grabbed all the bags I’d filled on the bed and I ran for the door. Mr. Cat was meowing, but I didn’t even care. In the doorway I stopped and I looked back at the posters of the rain forest and Egyptian mummy on my wall. I told Caitlin good-bye and I told her I loved her. Just in case she can’t come to Maine with us.
Chapter 23
Julia
51 days
I’m shaking. I grip the steering wheel tightly and focus straight ahead as I get on the beltway that goes around the city. I’m angry and upset and strangely . . . exhilarated.
I can’t believe I just threw a four hundred dollar iPhone out the window. What was I thinking?
I know exactly what I was thinking, or at least what I was reacting to. Haley can’t talk to Todd if she doesn’t have her phone. She can’t run off with him if he has no way to contact her. So the phone went out the window.
My image of the mother lion comes to mind again.
But where was my common sense when I did it?
Do lionesses have common sense or is it all primal?
I could have just called and cancelled Haley’s phone service. I could have put my number on hers and had a new phone instead of the old one I have that won’t always connect to the Internet and sometimes drops calls.
Haley and Caitlin always got a new phone when it was released and Ben and I got the hand-me-downs. Ben and I once had a discussion about whether or not they needed the latest and greatest. I was opposed to new cell phones every year. He said he busted his ass working seven days a week so he could buy his teenage daughters the latest cell phones on the market. I lost the argument. Mostly because his money pays the bills. We have been using my money to save for college and to do fun things like go skiing or buy the new sixty-five-inch TV Ben had to have for Christmas.
I wonder what happened to Caitlin’s phone. It’s a thought that comes out of nowhere and seems so . . . alien. It’s doubly weird because she’s been dead almost two months and this is the first time it’s occurred to me to wonder where it is. How have I not thought about it before?
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