Bunny wishes she had put on her mascara. She had had all the time in the world to fix her face and instead she fell asleep. She tries to brush the hair out of her eyes but it is still full of static from the blanket. Everything tickles and both her feet are asleep. She can’t even stand up yet. It is so embarrassing.
“You been here long?” He has curly hair and his face gets twisted when he smiles. Her eyes are adjusting.
“I was on a trip with my father but I got lost,” she says.
“Uh-huh.” He looks about fifteen. He is tall and kind of skinny with a red shirt on and jeans.
“Where is Augsville,” she asks after a silence. “I mean, like, what is it near that I’ve heard of.”
“Depends what you’ve heard of. We’re a long way from gay Paree.”
“I mean which side of the river is it on.”
“That depends on the river.”
“The Hudson?”
“We’re west of the Hudson. Fifty, sixty miles.”
“The Delaware?”
“We’re east of the Delaware. Couple miles. Where are you headed?”
“I was on my way to New Hope. My dad and I are meeting people there and possibly my sister.”
“Where’s your dad?”
“We were supposed to meet there. My bike is outside.”
“What’s your name?”
“Bunny.”
“What’s your real name.”
“That is my real name. Bunny.”
“My name is Roland.” He reaches down to shake hands.
“I was just washing my sneakers.” His hand is very warm.
“Roland?” A woman’s voice. Bunny shrinks back against the wall.
“Hey. June-bug.” Roland pushes the closet door partly shut with his foot.
“You seen anybody belongs to this bike?”
“Blue bike out there?”
“Yeah. You seen anybody?” June’s voice doesn’t sound like it’s coming closer.
“Like who. I’ve seen lots of anybodys today.”
“No need to get smart, Roland. You see a girl maybe fourteen, fifteen you give me a call, will you? Brown hair, not much meat on her. Jeans. A big green knapsack stuffed with god knows what. You hear?”
“Rob a bank?”
“Runaway. I thought she’d taken off but maybe she’s still around somewhere. Nobody in here when you came in tonight?”
“Do you see anybody?” He shrugs. “Place looks empty to me.”
Bunny eyes are shut tight. She hates questions. She hates it when people are too nice.
“She had some cock-and-bull story about her daddy meeting her later. But she keeps worrying my mind. If you see her, give me a call. She might need a place to stay.”
“Sure thing.”
“Just call down to the store. Roland? You still got that dog, for cripes’ sakes?”
“Dog’s got me, what can I tell you.”
“Put it to sleep, Roland. Take my advice. No life for a dog.” Bunny hears the door bang shut.
He opens the closet door. “You running away?”
“Of course not,” says Bunny. She is trying to stand up but her feet are to the ticklish part where it feels like they’re made out of electric hairbrushes.
“Listen, Bunny,” says Roland. “They shut this place in half an hour. You want a place to sleep tonight? Bunny?” Roland’s hand is on her arm. She wonders if he can tell what she is thinking. She is thinking, could she stab him with her tiny scissor if she had to? She hates what her mind thinks. She needs to sit still and hold her head in her hands. Otherwise she might go crazy in some different new way. Her thoughts are tiny airplanes crashing into each other in the big space inside her head. Whirr whirr crash plop. Now they are lying on little cots with the covers up to their chins. They are in the thought hospital. Some of them move their feet under the sheets but they are pale as ghosts or the white part of bacon.
“Bunny?” He keeps interrupting her. “I know a place you can crash for the night.”
Crash. Bunny almost giggles.
“Are you okay?”
No answer from Bunny. She needs to hold her head still in her hands.
“Hey! What’s the matter?” Roland is leaning down so close she can feel his breath. “Is something wrong? You feel sick?”
She shakes her head. “I’ll be okay.” Her voice sounds husky and she still has her face hidden in her hands. “Sometimes I get a little weirded out.”
“Hey. Don’t we all. Listen. They’re closing the Laundromat soon.”
“My feet are asleep,” she says. “I can’t walk right.”
Bunny gets to her feet with Roland’s help and they slip out the back.
5
“WHERE’S YOUR FOLKS?” asks Bunny. They are standing in a tiny kitchen. The sink is filled with dishes and a pot on the stove is crusty with old chili. “Do you live here all by yourself?”
“My dad totaled himself,” says Roland casually, making the motion of tipping a bottle to his lips and drinking.
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
“That’s okay. Don’t worry about it. Happened years ago.”
“Where’s your mom?”
“And my mom is away. I always clean up just before she gets back and I don’t sleep in the house until she comes home. I sleep in the car.”
“What kind of car?”
“It’s a seventy-five Chevy station wagon. It’s out back. It’s an antique.”
A station wagon. Bunny was just thinking about station wagons the other day. Maybe this is a sign that she is on the right track.
Roland is still talking. “My dog lives in the car. My mom isn’t a dog person really.”
“Is she coming back tonight?” Bunny picks up the lid of a brown teapot and puts it back. The tea inside has a green bubble floating on it.
“She had a little breakdown. She’s pretty highly strung. But I’m old enough to take care of myself.” Roland frowns. He is opening and closing cupboard doors.
“Did she ever feel tiny? Like a dot?”
Roland tosses her a bag of potato chips. His eyes are really brown. “I don’t know. When she gets that way she doesn’t talk. You hungry?” Roland now opens the fridge. “When she comes home she only eats graham crackers and milk,” he says. “So we can’t eat those. Hey. I know. How about sour-cream-and-onion-soup dip? I’ve got a lot of that. Yeah. Here it is.” He brings out a container.
“I love onion dip,” says Bunny.
“Then we’ll just grab those chips and head out to the car. You want to grab a couple of Cokes from the fridge?” He turns out the lights. “You done in here?”
It is getting dark. Cricket sounds are everywhere. There are the lights from another house through the trees. They descend the three sagging porch steps and go out to the garage in the back. There is the station wagon. It is dark green with fake wood. Roland opens the front door and Bunny looks inside. There is a small dog on the seat.
“What’s his name?”
Roland goes around to the other side and slips into the driver’s seat. “Buster.”
Roland’s right hand is resting gently on the dog’s head. Bunny can see now that it’s only with great effort that the dog is sitting up. He keeps trembling and sliding back to lying down. One hind leg shakes and shakes. “Poor thing,” she says.
“He’s okay. He’s just under the weather, that’s all.”
“His nose is awfully dry,” says Bunny, reaching out a hand. “Isn’t that a sign that he’s sick?” But Roland doesn’t seem to have heard her. “Maybe he should drink a little water.”
“He won’t drink. I don’t think he’s thirsty. I don’t like to bother him too much, you know? He just likes to lay his head on my lap like this and rest. Good dog.” Roland smooths the hair on his head, and runs his hand gently down the dog’s flank. The dog shivers with pleasure. He sits down on the seat next to Buster, moving the animal very carefully onto his lap.
“I think maybe he should
go to the vet.”
“I already did that.” Roland looks down at Buster. “Hey Buster, who’s my boy, huh, who’s my best dog, Buster. See that?” Bunny sees the dog’s tail wag slightly. “Climb in the back. You can stretch out and there’s a pillow too.” Bunny settles herself, putting her knapsack on the floor of the car. Roland is fussing with something in Buster’s ear. “Shit,” he says softly. “Is that a goddamn tick? How’d you get a tick, Buster?” His voice is so gentle.
“You should use tweezers. You could get sick from ticks. I had one in my ear once. My sister took it out with tweezers.” Bunnny opens the sack of potato chips.
“Your sister isn’t here and neither are her tweezers. Hold still, boy.” Roland’s hands are nice and calm. Bunny watches him carefully feeling around the dog’s ear.
“Oh. She ran away one time and she hasn’t come back yet. She can’t write because then my mother would know where she is. She could have her traced by the postmark.” Bunny talks with her mouth full.
Roland doesn’t say anything. He takes a flashlight out of the glove compartment. It has gotten dark. “No kidding,” he finally says.
“She wants me to know where she is but she doesn’t dare write. I only got one postcard. She and my mother got in these tremendous fights and she got sick of it. She needs to live her own life.” Another three potato chips disappear into Bunny’s mouth. She is so hungry and these are so salty and good.
Roland is shining the light in the animal’s ear. “It’s nothing. Good dog.” He looks back at her. “When did she leave?”
“Oh, a couple of months ago I think. A year. Maybe a little longer.” Bunny leans against the pillow. The seat is very soft.
Roland puts the flashlight back in the glove compartment. “That’s plenty of time to get her shit together.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Maybe something happened to her.”
“No. She sends me messages.”
“Messages? You mean she calls you up?”
“Oh no, nothing like that. My mother could trace the call. She leaves me clues. I found a button, for instance. And a scarf.”
“Like a scavenger hunt?” Something in his voice sounds like a joke and Bunny doesn’t feel like talking anymore.
“It isn’t funny.”
“What did the postcard say.”
“You wouldn’t understand. It was in code.”
“Try me.”
Bunny shakes her head. “It’s private.”
“Why are you suddenly looking for her now?”
“I don’t know,” says Bunny. “I guess I didn’t know I could before.”
“What did you say your sister’s name was?”
But suddenly Bunny doesn’t want to tell.
“Honey,” she says. “Honey-Lou Simmons.”
“Never heard of her,” says Roland. “Pass me some chips.” He passes the container of dip over the backseat. Bunny makes a little pile of potato chips in her lap and takes the dip. They eat for a while, passing the dip back and forth over the seat. She snaps open a Coke and hands the other to Roland.
“Thank you very much,” she says shyly. “This is so good.”
“Buster usually likes this too but he isn’t hungry tonight. Are you, Buster.”
They are both quiet. The dog sighs.
“Do you know how to get there? To New Hope?” Bunny asks after a silence.
“You get on the River Road and you pedal like crazy.”
“Where is the River Road?”
“Not so far,” says Roland. “Maybe I’ll show you myself tomorrow. Right now it’s time for some shut-eye. Scared of the dark?”
“Not too much.”
“Personally, I like the dark.”
“I don’t mind it either.”
“Hey. Horse walks into a bar.”
“What?”
“Horse walks into a bar. Bartender asks, ‘Why the long face?’” Roland starts to laugh. “That cracks me up every time. ‘Why the long face?’”
“I don’t get it.”
“Nothing to get. That’s the beauty of it. A horse has a long face. He can’t help it.”
“Oh.”
“Never mind. If you get cold there’s a blanket back there.”
Bunny curls up under the big gray blanket. Cricket sounds are everywhere.
“I’m sorry about your dad,” whispers Bunny, but Roland doesn’t answer.
Once Merle had kissed Bunny right on the lips. Bunny was missing her dad really bad, even though she hadn’t seen him since she was, like, four, she could still remember him and sometimes it made her so sad and nobody knew where he was either, and Bunny pictured him all alone and begging with a cup somewhere and nobody even looking at him and rain coming down and she began to cry and Merle said, “What’s the trouble, bubble?” and Bunny said, “I miss my daddy” and Merle had gotten such a funny look and she had held Bunny’s chin in her hand and tipped her face up and bent down and kissed her directly right on her mouth. Bunny had thought Merle’s lips tasted like the softest thing she’d ever felt, nothing in the world was as soft as Merle’s lips, no wonder boys went crazy for her, and she hadn’t known what to do or say after. She had stopped crying and wiped her face and then they had gone downtown for pizza.
6
WHEN BUNNY WAKES up and looks at her watch it is seven-thirty. It is so quiet except for the woods sounds that she thinks at first Roland must still be asleep, lying down in the front. She peeks over the front and he is gone—only the dog is there, lying still. She watches very carefully until she can discern the faint rise and fall of breath by his rib cage. “Poor doggie,” she whispers. There is a note on the dashboard. “Back soon. Gone to get supplies.” She rubs her eyes and opens the car door, closing it behind her softly so as not to scare the dog. She takes her knapsack and goes into the house to use the bathroom. There is tooth powder, not toothpaste, on the sink and the bottom of the can has left a couple of rusty ovals. On a shelf above the sink is a bottle of Cornhusker’s Lotion and Bunny tries to take the top off to sniff but it is rusted shut. She looks in the mirror and smiles. Her teeth aren’t yellow yet. She combs her hair with her fingers. She washes her face and dries it with her T-shirt as there aren’t any towels in the bathroom except one that she thinks might have once been used for the dog. There isn’t even any toilet paper in the bathroom but instead a box of torn-up magazines and newspapers.
As she is brushing her teeth such a terrible thought comes into her head. What if Merle has been living all this time in New Hope? What if she is living there happily and didn’t want to send for Bunny? What if she never even thinks about Bunny at all and doesn’t care if she ever sees Bunny again? This is such a terrible thought that Bunny has to sit down on the edge of the tub and empty her knapsack. There at the bottom, under the scarf and the tarp and her embroidered jacket is the little thin package containing the postcard. She takes it out, unwrapping its many layers.
Dear Bunzie,
It’s beautiful. Wish you were here.
XO Merle.
Bunny’s fingers touch the writing and she presses her face against it. Then she turns it over. The front of the card is a green bridge over a blue river and a ballpoint X in the sky with an arrow pointing down to the middle of the bridge. “X marks the spot,” it says in Merle’s tiniest handwriting, “where I’m writing this.” The postmark was New Hope. Bunny holds the card against her ear as if it might whisper something to her.
“Breakfast,” says Roland, knocking on the bathroom door, startling Bunny. Hastily she puts the card back in her knapsack. “I hope you take cream and sugar because I put it in both,” he calls through the door.
“Oh, thank you,” says Bunny, “but I don’t eat breakfast.”
“You need something in your stomach if you’re going to New Hope. It’s a nice day today, perfect day for a bike ride.”
When Bunny comes into the kitchen he points proudly out the window. There in the backyard are two bikes, one green, o
ne red. The green one has a big basket on the handlebars. Neither of them is Old Paint, but she doesn’t want to say anything. They left too fast last night to bring her own bike.
“Whose are those? “ she asks.
“Mine.” He nods. “I’m going to take you. Buster’s coming too, in the basket. He’s a water dog, lots of spaniel in him, and I think the river will do him good.”
“I didn’t think he looked too good this morning,” says Bunny. “There’s some foam coming out of his mouth.”
“I think I know my own dog,” says Roland and his tone is so sharp. She takes a big swallow of coffee.
“Here. Eat something.” He holds the bag of doughnuts out. Maybe he noticed that she got her feelings hurt. “Go on. They’ve got little jimmies on them. Coconut too. Don’t tell me you can resist a chocolate coconut doughnut.”
Bunny shakes her head.
“So are you ready to go?” he asks. “Destination New Hope?”
Bunny shrugs.
“Well, what are we waiting for?” He picks up the blanket and carries it out to the bike, where he folds it into the basket. Then he brings the dog out of the car and places him gently on top, handling him as if he were made of liquid. Bunny watches from the back steps as if this were her house and Roland were leaving. She is eating a doughnut now. “So saddle up, Bunny,” says Roland, beckoning and smiling. “We can be there in half an hour. We’ll buy some sandwiches and have a picnic. Come on. You’ll love it.” He throws one leg over the seat. Bunny hesitates. It’s like she is made of Jell-O, or holes or something. She can’t seem to get any energy all of a sudden. She didn’t know it was so close. Half an hour.
“Wait.”
“What for? You’re not ready?”
“I forgot my knapsack.” And she goes into the kitchen and comes out with it over her shoulders. But still she hesitates.
“Let’s go,” Roland drums his fingers on the handlebars.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know what?”
“Maybe today isn’t the right day,” she says.
“What’s wrong with today? It might rain again tomorrow. Today is perfect. Look at that sky,” he says, pointing into the air.
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