“That gator was two feet, max. It’d choke on your pinkie finger, I swear. Come back in.”
I nearly dislocate my neck shaking my head. “Uh-uh. There’s no way in hell I’m getting back in that water!”
He shades his eyes with his hand. “The hike back to the house is too far without shoes.”
“What was the plan in the first place?” I squint at the tubes that are now nothing but black specks bobbing along the alligator-infested river’s curves.
“We were gonna float down to Critter’s aunt’s place and take her boat back. My uncle borrowed the tubes from her anyway. C’mon. I promise you, you’ll be fine.” He holds his arms out invitingly.
Sure, those arms protected me from a splash war. There’s no way I’m fooling myself into believing they’ll protect me from blood loss and drowning when some gator decides to take me for a death roll.
“Even if it’s a gator so tiny it could choke on my pinkie, it’s still big enough that it could bite off my finger. I’m pretty attached to my fingers. All of them. And my toes. And, you know, also my life. I have no plans to bleed out in a Georgia river from a gator bite. Even a baby gator bite.” I lift one foot, then the other, checking the pale pinkish soles of my feet. They look especially tender, all pruney and soft from their soak in this river of terror.
He shakes his head like I’m some hysterical Victorian lady lying on her fainting couch, smelling salts clutched under her nostrils. “Hell, girl. You’re making this day much less relaxin’ than I planned, y’know that?” Though the words are barbed, his tone has zero edge. “Wait here, okay?”
“Where are you going? Doyle? Be careful!” I scream as he dives back into the river overflowing with alligators and slices through the water with clean breaststrokes.
I keep to the place where water melts into the sandy dirt, and follow the rhythmic gleam of his back in the rushing water until I can’t see him anymore. My hot, itchy feet are being preyed on by an army of ants. I beat them away, hop from foot to foot, and chew on my cuticles, while I wait for Doyle. It’s not only that I have no shoes: I have no phone, no purse, no idea where I am, and I’m freaked out.
There’s a word we say in Santo Domingo when you’re finally used to your surroundings and just soaking it all in: acotejar. Some days I feel like I’ve reached that place here in Georgia. Then things like this happen.
I took my first solo subway ride at eight. I flew overseas with Ollie to visit her grandparents in Vietnam when we were sophomores. How could I have felt so brave then, managing international travel at fifteen and the maze of subway lines at eight, but now, standing next to a soggy river in some backwoods swamp, I’m scared to death?
The bile at the back of my throat recedes when I hear the reassuring slap and pull of a rowboat’s oars. Doyle navigates my rescue vessel against the current and onto the shore with nothing but his very impressive upper-body strength.
“I’ll be weeding Mrs. Winslow’s garden till doomsday in exchange for borrowin’ this rickety thing. C’mon, girl! I gotta row against the current the whole way back, and I intend to beat the rest of ’em—point of pride.” He crooks a finger at me. “Don’t be scared. That water’s barely over your ankles.”
I wade out and throw my tube in the boat on top of his, my heart thudding sickly in the pit of my throat. “You laugh.” I moan. “You laugh, but it’s no joke. You’re all crazy, doing this for ‘fun.’”
“Crazy’s our way of life.” He helps me balance as I step into the tiniest, leakiest rowboat in existence. I sit fast and hold tight. “You good?”
I double-check for life vests. I’m unsurprised to find there are none. My nod is a quick, let’s-get-this-show-on-the-road gesture. “I’ll be better when we’re safe on dry land.”
Doyle pulls at the oars. His back and arms stretch and his muscles bunch, then release, long and smooth.
It’s a beautiful thing.
“You got a curfew?” he asks through his teeth, his brow beaded with sweat.
“One on weekends. You want me to take a turn?” I offer.
“Nope. I gotcha into this danger. I’ll getcha out.”
The sun arcs toward the rushes, and the river awakens with croaking frogs that plop heavily into the water and buzzing insects that hurtle in crazy flight patterns through the purpling twilight sky.
“It’s beautiful.” I keep my voice soft, afraid to disturb the peace.
“It sounds pretty. I got too much sweat in my eyes to know for sure.”
“Poor Doyle.” I brush back the hair that’s caught in his lashes. He startles at my touch, and his face goes hungry.
“We’ll be all alone when we get to shore.” He says it like a warning.
“We’ve been alone before.” My voice quivers as I state this obvious fact.
“This time somethin’ feels different.” He braces his foot against the bench I’m sitting on and pulls hard. We’re close to the house now.
“What’s so different?”
He leads us to the shallows, jumps out, and drags the boat up. When he takes my hand, electricity startles from his body through to my marrow.
“I’d never seen you scream in a mud pit before.” He walks me closer.
“I never thought I’d have gone to one willingly.” The friction between our bodies ignites every cell inside me.
“I’d never seen you jump off a rope into a river.” Thoughts glow and extinguish like the yellow blink of the lightning bugs swirling around us. His mouth zeros in on my jaw, like he wants to trace that same frustratingly hot trail he started blazing the night of the baseball game.
“Enjoy the memory because that was the first and last time.” My voice wobbles around those saucy words.
“I never believed I had any kinda real chance with you.” He nuzzles his lips close to my neck. “But I heard a rumor you stared at my bare ass like it was somethin’ you wanted bad.” His laugh moves my hair, and I slap the flat of my hand on his shoulder.
“You’re an idiot, you know that?” But my lips tilt into a smile, and then they’re hovering close enough that another fraction of an inch will close off everything in the world and leave Doyle and me, alone, together, feeding a need I don’t think has anything like a bottom.
FIFTEEN
Just before his lips slide over mine, a boat motor purrs close to the bank. Doyle steps back, his hand gripped so hard on the back of his neck, the bite of his fingers leaves white marks on his skin.
“Doyle! Ya crazy sonabitch! We were looking for ya all over the place! Thoughtcha drowned for real this time!” Critter stands at the prow, a can of beer clutched in each hand. “I swear, I was ’bout to call and ask them to dredge the river for y’all!”
“Naw! Nes got spooked by the gator! I borrowed Winslow’s rowboat and brought her back!”
“Winslow let you take that boat? What’s yer penance?” Critter would definitely fail a road sobriety test. He nearly staggers off the dock a dozen times trying to walk a straight line to us.
“Enough weedin’ to kill a weaker man.” Doyle claps Critter on the back and takes a beer off him. “It was worth it.”
“Hoo-yeah, boy.” Critter checks me out from the crown of my matted hair to the tip of my mud-caked toes. I ball my fists at my sides.
“Gotta get something from the truck,” Doyle announces abruptly and turns me by the shoulder. We snatch our now-dry, crumpled clothes from the riverbank as we hightail it.
“What do you need to get?” I whisper.
“My temper back under control,” Doyle mutters. I glance over my shoulder, and he says through his teeth, “Please don’t tell me if he’s starin’ at your ass like he’s never seen one before.”
I don’t. But he is.
“He seems pretty harmless.” I’m still glad to get back into my slightly mud-encrusted clothes.
“He might be jest a li’l touchy when he’s got a few in ’im, and he’s got way more than that now.” He takes my hand. “I’m not tryin�
� to play caveman, but I brought you to this den of fools, and I feel responsible for you. Promise you’ll stay by my side tonight?”
I can’t tell which one of us is more surprised when I say, “Okay.”
We head to the fire being set up in a cleared section by the old river house, and Doyle takes care to make sure I’m tucked close to his side. We smush into the circle and laugh along to stories that get progressively wilder as the pile of empty beer cans stacks sky-high. There’s a plan to noodle for catfish dinner (Doyle just grins when I ask what that even means), but I’ve gone too long without sustenance to wait.
“You hungry, Nes?” he asks guiltily when my stomach makes an audible rumble.
“Starved. How about I run into the nearest town and pick us up some food?” It’s a little laughable how worried Doyle looks at my suggestion.
“Ya don’ mind?” His words are so slurred I need to use context clues to decipher them.
“Not at all. But no more beer for you. You’re gonna feel like crap in the morning.” I’m relieved to find the can I ease out of his hand is still more than half-full. He didn’t drink much, but baking in the sun and rowing upstream along the South’s version of the Amazon must’ve lowered his tolerance. I brush his hair back from his forehead. His eyes have drifted shut, but his hand shoots up and grabs mine when I try to stand.
“Take my wallet.” He fumbles through the pockets of his crumpled jeans.
“I have money.” My mom would never let me leave the house without cash, just in case. I press his hand back when he holds out the brown leather wallet.
“I haven’t even worn a white suit or smoked a corncob pipe. What kinda Southern gentleman’ve I been? You gotta let me pay, or I’ll bring shame on my kin.” He shakes the wallet, and I’m kind of shocked at myself when I take it.
Doyle’s sleepy, beer-soggy directions aren’t exact, but my phone is almost dead, and Critter warned my GPS would just “turn me circlin’” way out here anyway.
When I don’t see the pecan orchard Doyle told me I’d pass, I make a jerky U-turn in some scrub grass on the side of the road. Just as I get going again, a set of blue and white lights flash in my rearview.
Coño.
I didn’t drive much in New York, so I’ve never been pulled over. Thank God Jasper and my father are both obsessed with police procedurals. Times like these are exactly when half watching marathons of Law and Order come in handy.
The lights flash again, and I lurch the truck to the shoulder, stomach bottomed out, hands clammy. I miss the latch on the glove box twice before I manage to spring it open and rifle through napkins and Taco Bell sauce packets and even a box of Trojans like a frenzied maniac, pawing everything onto the floor, looking for Doyle’s registration. When the glove box is empty, I duck down and sift through what debris I can reach.
The officer cocks open one door of his crusier. I bite on my lip to dam the tears and wonder if I should call Doyle. I slide my flattened hand in the lost space next to the driver’s seat, and my elbow bumps the center console trip button. My blood pressure shifts out of overdrive when I see the card lying in there. Now I’m biting my lip to stymie tears of relief.
I grip the card like a talisman. The heavy thump of the officer’s boots on the pavement raises the hair at the base of my neck.
“License and registration,” the officer intones, shining his blinding flashlight into the window.
I hold a hand up to battle the glare as I hand over the paperwork, trying to convince myself that the officer’s thick drawl is a sign of friendliness. Laid-back easygoingness. He speaks slowly because he thinks things through, doesn’t jump to conclusions, doesn’t ticket lost high school girls on swampy back roads.
For half a second I wonder if I could fake an accent, just a stretch of my vowels and a drop of end consonants to make me seem a little more…likable. I’ve noticed the raised eyebrows, pursed lips, and tightened jaws when my choppy Brooklyn accent rears its head—it’s a very suspicious-sounding accent around here.
“Ms. Pujols.” It’s on the tip of my tongue to correct him, to say Murphy-Pujols. But I’m not that stupid. “This vehicle isn’t yours, is it?”
Well, obviously not. It’s not registered to me.
I bite my tongue.
“No, sir.” If my sir carries the faintest Scarlett O’Hara inflection, it’s unintentional. Mostly.
And then I panic. Is it illegal to impersonate the spoiled fictional daughter of a Southern plantation owner? Is it okay to tweak your accent when an officer has you pulled over on a deserted stretch of road and asks you questions he already has the answers to?
He flips the registration card in his fingers, and I notice how young he is. I’m not sure how long it takes to become a police officer, but this one doesn’t seem like he’s much older than I am.
“People who drive this kinda vehicle tend to be a little more…country. I trust you aren’t driving a vehicle you don’t own because you stole it, right, Ms. Pujols?” I can’t tell if he’s teasing or mocking me.
“I’d never steal a car.” Maybe I should try to banter with him, but I’m so shaken, all I can do is try my best to convince him I’m an upstanding citizen who did not engage in grand theft auto.
“I’m sure you wouldn’t.” He smirks. “Not this big ole truck anyway. Now, a Bentley? Or a Range Rover? Those might be a temptation for a girl like you.”
Should I tell him I own a Corolla? Should I keep my mouth shut? Am I doing this wrong? I think I might be.
“I borrowed it,” I blurt.
“I happen to know who owns this truck.” He stops flipping the card and taps the edge against the door. “Thing is, the guy who owns this truck ain’t real nice about letting people…borrow it. Do you know the owner of this truck?”
The accusation is as heavy as the night is dark, as loud as the incessant whine of the insects, as fierce as the thump of my heart. My first instinct is to crush the gas pedal to the floor and fly off this road, into the farmland that rolls alongside it, jumping over muddy streams and through wire fences and away from this situation I don’t know how to handle.
Which is idiotic. The cop has my license and Doyle’s registration. My deranged plan would only work if I were actually the kind of criminal he’s insinuating I am.
“I do know Doyle.” My words jerk out. “He’s a…friend.”
The cop crosses his arms over his chest. A wide chest. Strong arms. A belt hangs off his narrow hips. I notice the dull black gleam of his gun, a baton, a taser, the silver clank of handcuffs.
Not that I think he’d need more than those arms to restrain me if he decided he needed anything.
I plan to give him zero reasons.
Stay calm, speak respectfully, don’t be confrontational, I remind myself, my sweaty hands twitching in my lap.
My breath rattles in and out, so loud I know he must hear. My body is its own lie detector test, screaming guilty over and over in traitorous gasps.
“You claim you’re a…friend?” His voice twists and breaks to mimic my hesitation.
“I go to school with Doyle. I just… We just moved here. My Mom and me.” I’m stitching together all these stupid words, hoping they’ll clear me so I can go.
“No daddy at home?” He puts a question mark on the end, but he’s not fooling me. It’s a fact in his book.
“My father lives in France.” The words rattle out.
He lets out low whistle. “France, huh?” He chuckles like he thinks I’m telling a great joke. “So your daddy’s not around because he’s doing time—’scuse me, spending time in…France? Never heard that one before.”
When I inhale, even my breath stutters. “I just moved here, and Doyle invited me out tonight. He…he let me drive his truck to get food. I swear. Doyle is my friend.”
“Doyle knows lots of people at his school, sweetheart. That doesn’t mean he’s friendly enough to lend his truck to all of ’em.” He peers into the window. “You don’t look much like
the friends Doyle usually drives around with on a Saturday night. Those friends are usually a bit more…blonde.” His eyes glint in the moonlight and words like werewolf and vampire snap through my brain, but they don’t scare me because I’m too busy being freaked out by words like cop and man.
“I am. His friend.” My words are weak and small.
“I know Doyle’s got one friend I can imagine him lettin’ borrow his vehicle… Her name’s Ansley. Maybe you go to school with her? Real sweet, long blond hair, daddy’s the mayor. If she and Doyle Rahn are the ones who are such good friends, I’m wondering why you’re the one driving this truck?”
I’m in trouble because I’m not sweet and blonde with a daddy who’s a big shot in local politics? I’m in trouble because I’m dark and he thinks I’m a liar who says her daddy’s in Paris when he’s in prison and that she borrowed a truck from a friend when she really stole it?
Is this legal? Can he ask me these things? Did he tell me why he pulled me over in the first place? I can’t remember. I can’t think. What do I do? What do I fucking do?
I clench my fists around the steering wheel, praying for someone to come by, to help. As if fate is giving my wish the finger and laughing, a car drives by, barely slowing down, its headlights illuminating the officer so that I see he doesn’t even have a five o’clock shadow. His name tag flashes. It says Hickox.
I search my brain for a reference, someone else I know who might know him, but I know no one here other than Doyle and the handful of people he’s brought into my life. It’s right then that I remember I actually have Doyle’s wallet on me. Relief fills me up, but it’s replaced just as quickly with heart-stopping panic.
If I show the officer Doyle’s wallet, won’t it look suspicious? Why would I have his wallet and his truck when he’s not here?
I know the answers to my own questions, and they’re normal, rational answers, but I get that sick feeling that always overwhelms me when someone accuses me of something—even something I didn’t do. There’s this instant rush of guilt and doubt—like maybe I did do something wrong.
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