by Jeff Zentner
Travis, who had clearly been pretending to be absorbed in his texting, shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Dill, come on. Leave me out of this. I don’t care.”
Dill glared at Travis. “Sure, dude. Take her side like thirty seconds after she was trying to embarrass you.”
“I just think you’re being rude. I—”
Lydia cut off Travis’s response. “What’s this about, Dill? Why have you chosen this exact moment to bring this up? After years of being friends.”
“Oh, we’re friends? Sorry, I only read your blog so I didn’t know you had any. I told you. Just curious.”
“Horseshit.” She was no longer whispering.
“All right you three,” Ms. White called over. “I warned y’all once. Y’all need to take your discussion outside.”
Lydia rolled her eyes, slammed her laptop shut, yanked the plug from the wall, and started shoving things in her bag. “Thanks, Dill.”
“You’re welcome.”
They left, hanging their heads, avoiding eye contact with anyone. They got to the parking lot and formed a circle behind Lydia’s car.
“You still haven’t answered my question,” Dill said. “How come you’ve never once mentioned us?”
“I answered your question with a question. What makes you think you’re entitled to be mentioned?”
“I don’t think I’m entitled to be mentioned. I just think I’m entitled to be treated like a real friend you’re not embarrassed to know.”
She popped open the hatchback and put her bag inside. She stood there with her hand on her hip and gestured for Dill to throw his in too. “Get in so I can finish tearing you a new asshole.”
“I’m parked over here. Y’all, please stop fighting,” Travis said. “It’s not worth it.”
Dill and Lydia both glared at Travis.
Travis’s voice took on an angrier tone than Dill had ever heard before. “Y’all are ruining my good day. I already have enough people to ruin my good days; I don’t need you two doing it. Just stop.”
Lydia squared off her five feet, two inches against Travis’s six feet, six inches. “Look, Travis, we’re going to work this out. Until then, please butt out, okay?”
Travis threw his hands in the air. “Okay. Whatever.” He walked away.
Dill and Lydia got in her car. They sat there for a moment, not moving. Not saying anything.
“I mean, what do you even want?” Lydia asked finally. “I know you don’t care that much about fashion. You want a bunch of pictures of yourself on there or something?”
“No.”
Lydia pulled on her hair with both hands. “Errrrgh. So what do you want?”
“I want you to understand that you wear the fact that we live in a small town and don’t have many friends like it’s some fashion accessory. You can put it on and take it off at will. But it’s my shitty reality.”
Lydia’s voice rose. “A fashion accessory? Oh boy. Here we go.” She started the car, put it in gear, and pulled out of the library parking lot.
“Yeah. I read your blog. You love casting yourself as the misunderstood misfit with no friends in some dead-end Southern town. Very romantic. But you’ve got a ticket out of here. You’re actually totally fine. But your friends—who you do have, but never mention, by the way—are stuck.”
“Okay, wow, I guess we’re just gonna shift topics. But I’ll go with it. You are not stuck. You’re making a choice to stay. I’ve tried to convince you to get out. I’ve addressed all your arguments. But you think you have to stay. Whatever. It’s your life and I can do without your lame jealousy stemming from hating your choices.”
Dill’s voice rose to meet hers. “My choices? It was not my choice to have my dad go to prison and leave my family with a mountain of debt. You love talking about choices, don’t you? Pretty easy when they’re served up on a platter.”
“First of all, don’t pretend like you know everything about my life or that my life is roses. Now look who’s casting himself in the role of ‘boy from the wrong side of the tracks who’s misunderstood by blithe rich girl.’ ”
“I don’t care that your family has more money than mine. I’m trying to make you understand that it really hurts my feelings that you not only pretend I don’t exist, you can’t wait to get away from me. It makes me feel worthless. I get that from enough people. I don’t need it from you.”
“What is your deal with viewing everything I do in the most unfair light possible? As if I’m out to intentionally hurt you in some way? As if I run my blog to hurt you? As if I’m leaving for college to hurt you?”
“That’s not what I’m doing.”
“It is.”
“It isn’t.”
“Maybe instead of dwelling on everything I don’t do for you, you should think about what I do do for you. If it weren’t for me, you’d have sat on your ass at home a whole lot of nights, playing your guitar.”
Dill made a mock worshiping motion. “Oh, thank you, savior. Thank you for saving me. Sitting on my ass and playing my guitar is better than hanging out with someone who’s embarrassed by me and looking through me to the next thing.”
They pulled up in front of Dill’s house.
“We can certainly arrange for you to do that more often,” Lydia said, a frigid edge to her voice.
Dill suddenly felt as though he’d tried to swallow a huge ice cube, and it had gotten stuck in his throat. He knew the smell of impending loss, how it felt to have parts of his life erode from under him and be swept away. Panic seized him. Like he should take a mental photograph of Lydia and everything surrounding her, in case he never saw her again.
The way she sat too close to the steering wheel, staring straight ahead, one arm on the windowsill, her head propped on that hand. The other hand—chipped blue nail polish, the color of a vintage car—resting on the wheel. The line of her neck as it met her shoulder. The piece of black tape that covered her perpetually illuminated “check engine” light starting to peel off. The five or six spent vanilla air fresheners hanging from the rearview mirror. The ornaments adorning her wrists and fingers.
Please God. Quicken my tongue. Make me mighty of speech. Please let me not be prideful in this hour. Let me say exactly the right thing I need to say to keep from losing one more part of me.
“Fine,” Dill said. Not what I had in mind, God. Guess you’ve gone to bed and left one of your lesser angels at the duty station. Then he remembered the church sign. One last chance for God to speak to him. He looked up the street. IF GOD SEEMS FAR AWAY, GUESS WHO MOVED.
Good one, God. A message about moving apart. That’s helpful right at this moment. He got out. Not a sideways glance from Lydia. Not a goodbye. He barely managed to close his door before she sped off with a squeal of her tires.
Her taillights faded into the darkness and disappeared.
Raynar Northbrook sat at his table, holding the latest missive from Lady Amelia of the Southern Lands in his eager hands. He pored over her flowery script as she recounted the happenings of her life. His heart sang every time he heard news of her.
So what are you up to today? Travis texted.
I’m going to take Pickles and visit my grandma and grandpa. You hanging out with your friends today? Amelia replied.
I don’t know. Lydia’s in New York visiting colleges. I haven’t heard from Dill. They’re being kind of weird.
Aw.
Yeah. I love my friends and I don’t want to say bad things about them, but I feel like they don’t get me sometimes.
I get you.
I know. That’s why I like you.
You’re lucky to have even two good friends at school. I don’t really have anyone.
Oh yeah, I know, I just wish
Travis’s phone rang in the middle of composing his reply to Amelia.
Speak of the devil. “Hey, Dill, what’s up?”
“Hey, Travis, do you have to work today?”
“Nope, yard’s closed on Sundays. Why?”
<
br /> “I could use your help. My mom’s car won’t start, and we need to get it fixed before Monday so she can get to her jobs. But I don’t know anything about cars and we can’t afford the mechanic. Do you think you could help me try to figure it out?”
“Oh yeah, no problem. Let me eat some quick breakfast and wet down my hair and I’ll be over.”
“Hey, Travis? I’m sorry about the other day. Being a jerk.”
Travis laughed. “Don’t worry about it, man. I’ll be right over.”
Most people wouldn’t be excited to get a call on a quiet Sunday morning, asking them to help fix a car. But Travis loved helping people do things; being with his friends; being away from his father; and pulling a diseased part out of a car, holding it in his hands, and then replacing it with a shiny new one that resurrected the car. Dill offered him the chance to do all four things. Plus, he was in the mood to talk to Dill. He felt like it was time to tell him about Amelia. Dill wasn’t as good with the jokes as Lydia, so Travis felt safer telling him.
Travis went into the kitchen, where his mom had some warm biscuits and gravy, bacon, and eggs ready. He hugged her and told her where he was going, then texted Amelia goodbye. He wolfed some food, grabbed his toolbox—he suspected Dill wouldn’t have much more than a screwdriver and a pair of needle-nose pliers—and headed over to Dill’s. As a bonus, he didn’t even see his father, who had gone bowhunting.
Travis parked his red Ford pickup behind Dill’s mom’s Chevy Cavalier. Dill had the hood open and was studying the engine.
“You looking for the on/off switch?” Travis said, grinning, as he got out of his truck.
Dill smiled, stepped aside, and ran his hand through his hair. “I really hope you can help me figure this out.”
“Let’s see what it’s doing.” Travis took the keys, got in, and tried to start it. “Lights work fine, so it’s not the battery,” he mumbled. He turned the key. Nothing. No click, no sound whatsoever. He turned the key again. Nothing.
He thought for a second, running through some scenarios in his head. If it were the alternator, the battery would be dead and the lights wouldn’t come on. If it were the fuel system, the engine would turn and chug, but not start.
He got out of the car and closed the hood. “I think you’ve got a bad starter motor.”
“You sure?” Dill asked.
Travis readjusted his baseball cap. “Nope. But it’s the best guess I’ve got.”
“Are starter motors hard to replace?”
“Nope.”
“Are they expensive?”
“Probably fifty, sixty bucks for this car.”
The look on Dill’s face said that even that was expensive, but they’d have to manage.
They got in Travis’s pickup and rumbled off to the auto parts store. Travis had another reason he was glad to be helping Dill. Something else had been weighing on him. “So, I know she’s been gone most of this week looking at colleges with her mom, but have you talked to Lydia since last Friday?”
Dill took a deep breath and exhaled through his nose. “No.”
“Not a word?”
“Not a word.”
“Don’t you think you should say something?”
“What would I say?”
Travis fiddled with the heater and craned to see any oncoming traffic before turning left. “I dunno. Sorry?”
“I’m not.”
“You should be.”
Dill snorted. “How you figure?”
“You sorta freaked out on her.”
“Yeah, so? I was having a bad day.”
“Even if I were having a bad day, I wouldn’t take it out on you or Lydia.”
“Don’t you think Lydia’s been acting different this year?” Dill asked. “Ever since she realized that she’s getting out of here? Snobbier or something?”
“No, not really. Maybe it’s your imagination.”
“I swear it’s not, dude. I swear she’s being different.”
“Man, I think you’re being hard on her. I mean, it’s good she’s getting out of here to go to a bigger city with lots of fashions, right? Be happy for her.”
Dill frowned. “Speaking of, do you ever read her blog?”
“Yeah, sometimes. Not religiously.”
“Doesn’t it bother you that for all the pictures she takes of us, and all the stuff we do together, neither of us has ever once been mentioned on there? Like she even put up pictures of the lady who owns that store in Nashville. They were friends for fifteen minutes. Doesn’t it seem like she’s embarrassed by us?”
Travis shrugged. “That lady was really pretty, though, and she wore nice clothes. You and I aren’t big fashion guys. Why would we be on there?”
“I guess. Still bugs me. Makes me feel like she thinks we’re less than her or something.”
They pulled up to the auto parts store and went in. An older man and a younger man, both wearing green vests and baseball caps, stood behind the counter, chitchatting.
“What can I get for you, bud?” the younger man asked.
“Need a starter motor for a ’92 Chevy Cavalier. Four cylinder,” Travis said.
“See what my computer tells me.” He squinted at the screen. “Says we got one in stock. Wait here a sec, let me put my hands on it.” The man wrote something on a slip of paper and headed for the back.
The older man nodded at Dill. “ ’Scuse me, young man, you don’t mind my asking, you ain’t Dillard Early’s grandson, are you?”
Apprehension flashed across Dill’s face. “Yessir, I am,” he said quietly. He seemed to be hoping the old man would be careful with what he said. Travis had never mentioned to Dill that he knew anything about the Serpent King. Dill surely preferred it that way.
“My goodness,” the man said. “I used to work with your papaw. At the old Gulf station on North Church. It’s a Conoco now.”
“Yessir,” Dill said, looking at his feet.
“He was a hell of a mechanic, by God,” the man said with a nostalgic chuckle. “Fix anything. Could sense what ailed a car. Good with his hands. And he could sing. Sang the old-timey songs while he worked. Lord, he could sing. You take after him that way, son?”
“Which way?”
“Any way you please.”
“I sing all right.”
“Bet you can fix a car up too, if you care to. Things like that run in the blood.”
“Yessir. Lots of things do.”
“You look like him.”
“People tell me that. I’ve just seen pictures. He died before I was born.”
“Yeah,” the old man said softly, nodding, looking off. Then he gazed straight at Dill. “Son? He was a good man. I want you to know that.”
Travis knew the look in the old man’s eyes. It was the same look in Lamar’s eyes when he told the story of the Serpent King. It was the look of a man who had lived long enough to understand grief’s consuming fire. The look of an old man who feared a bad death.
The younger man came out with a dirty cardboard box and set it on the counter. “All right, boys. That’ll be seventy seventy-five with tax and a fourteen-dollar core charge.”
Dill handed over some wadded bills. As they left, Travis stole a backward glance. He saw the old man move toward the younger man and point outside. The younger man was about to hear the story of the Serpent King. Travis would’ve wagered a lot of money on it.
“So it doesn’t bother you that Lydia’s leaving?” Dill asked.
“It does—I’ll miss her—but we always knew this day would come. She’s been talking about getting out of here forever. Think how bummed she’d be if she stayed.”
“You ever think about getting out of here?”
“Where would I go? This is my home.”
“College?”
“Naw. Grades suck. Anyway, I only like to read the stuff I want to read. Not what a professor wants me to read.”
“We still gonna hang out after Lydia’s gone?” Dill asked.
&nb
sp; Travis laughed. “Yeah. I mean, I can’t promise we’ll have such creative stuff to do. And you may get outvoted on me bringing my staff places. Especially since it looks like I’ll be driving us anywhere we go.”
“The staff never bugged me the way it does Lydia.”
“You mean it’s been two to one all this time in favor of the staff?”
“I didn’t say that.”
Travis saw his opportunity to confess. “So…remember how Lydia was trying to get my phone at the library?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ve been texting with this girl named Amelia Cooper, who I met on the Bloodfall forums. She lives in Alabama. Things are going pretty good.”
Dill stared at Travis for a few seconds, then grinned and punched him in the arm. “Man, look at you go. Working it with the ladies.”
Travis giggled and adjusted his cap. “Anyway, I really like her. I think we might end up being more than just friends someday. I hope so. We’re for sure gonna meet up at the Tennessee Renaissance Festival in May. Maybe even sooner. She thinks my staff is cool.”
“She thinks your staff is cool, huh?” Dill said, with an impish lilt.
It took a couple of beats, but Travis got it. He giggled again and punched Dill in the arm. “No dude, not like that. That’s not what I meant. God dang.” He grinned slyly. “Anyway, you ought to be glad to hear that friends can maybe become more.”
Dill’s mouth dropped open. “Whoa, hold up.”
Travis gave Dill an oh-come-on look.
Dill shook his head and looked away. “You’re way off, man.”
Travis gave Dill the same look. “Say it to my face.”
“No. You’re driving.”
Travis laughed and punched Dill in the arm again. “I knew it! How come you never—”
“Because.”
“Why?”
“I don’t want to wreck things. And I would.”
“Maybe not.” But actually, yeah, Dill, there’s a good chance you would.
Dill gave Travis an oh-come-on look. “I maybe already did wreck things. Besides, she’s leaving. She wouldn’t want to. I’d be too much of a complication for her plans.”