by Nevada Barr
Aluminum lawn chairs, the plastic mesh seats and backs rotted off—she remembers seeing two of them pushed in between the studs. “Maybe something,” she says encouragingly. “Keep your face near the floor. That’s supposed to help.”
“That’s for smoke,” Mel returns. “Maybe exhaust is heavier than regular air.”
Maybe it is. Rose doesn’t know. She’s running her hands along the rough wood, knuckles cracking into studs, then over, and along the next stretch. Skin tugs as splinters embed, but she feels no pain. There is too much to feel for pain to penetrate. Spiders beware, she thinks, or it’s on to a better life. “Got it!” she calls as her fingers run into a cold smooth tube. Rose grabs what she can and yanks. The chair comes free of whatever it was attached to with such ease, she stumbles back and hits the fender of the truck.
“What happened?” Mel calls.
“I’m good,” Rose says. “Stumbled is all.” Her head is beginning to ache, but then she was pistol-whipped. That might cause it. “You?”
“Not breathing over here,” Mel says. “Am I supposed to be feeling dizzy or something?”
“Do you?”
“Hard to tell on the floor in the dark. Where does dizzy go when you can’t fall?”
Scooting sideways, belly to the truck, back to the wall, Rose feels her way back up to the window in the passenger door. There isn’t room to swing the aluminum chair frame. Holding it awkwardly in both hands, she shoves it hard against the truck. The first blow strikes the metal of the door. “Sorry, Harley,” she says. The second blow strikes the window. It has as little effect on the thick glass as it did on the truck’s body. Maybe less. She’s probably at least scraped the paint on the door.
“Gigi! The pistol.” She hears Mel’s voice, weak and breathy.
The pistol. Rose worms her way down the body of the truck. Her head is splitting in two. Her body feels heavy and cumbersome. Her mind spins. If it weren’t for the unforgiving dark, she knows, the world would be spinning as well. When her hands hit the tailgate, she drops to her knees and begins sweeping the floor with her hands. She hits the pistol, and it skitters away. Another sweep, and she has it. Not daring to try to rise, Rose crawls back around the truck on hands and knees, shoulder brushing the metal, then the rubber of the tire. Finally she’s reached the door.
Bless running boards, she thinks as she levers herself up, one hand occupied with the pistol, and scrabbles onto the hood of the truck. It feels as if she is sliding across, sliding down, sliding up. Breath is hard as granite pebbles in her lungs. Grasping the pistol by the barrel, she hammers on the windshield. The gun butt bounces off. Getting to her knees, she raises the pistol over her head and brings it down with all the weight of her body behind it. A crack. This is not safety glass; this will break into a field of knife-edged shards. She strikes again. The butt goes through. Rose bashes and swipes, trying to clear as much of the glass away as she can.
No time. No light. Rose knows she will soon pass out. Then they both will die. Tossing the gun into the truck, she follows it with her body. Clothing snags; skin snags; a leg is captured, then released with a searing pain. She is in. Wriggling to the door, she opens it. “Can you get in?” she asks, not seeing Mel, not seeing anything, not even sure she’s opened the door on Mel’s side.
“I think so.” This is followed with a cough.
Then Rose feels a hand. She grabs it and pulls. Mel comes with it, her limbs and head tangling with Rose’s until they are lying atop one another like wrestlers. Rose wants to stop there, lie there, die there, but she can’t. She pushes Mel off of her and runs her fingers over the steering column. There is no key in the ignition, or it’s been snapped off. She waves her hand, hoping to hit the gearshift. Her hands pass through empty air. Sliding down between the seat and the gas pedal, she feels along the floor of the truck’s cab. A lump, a cone of rubber, the gasket around the gearshift staff. The shift rod has been broken off, leaving nothing but a stump and a bit of rubber.
Frantically, Rose claws at it.
“What are you doing?” Mel gasps.
“Stella broke off the gearshift,” Rose says. Her eyes are burning; her head feels as if it is going to explode. The smell of exhaust clogs her nose and throat, devours the gray matter in her skull.
She feels Mel’s hands join hers around the cone. With strength born of necessity, they rip away the rubber. Rose’s hand clamps around the few inches of metal rod remaining. Necessity’s strength has been used up. “Help me,” she whispers. Mel’s fist closes around Rose’s.
“What now?”
Rose presses the clutch pedal down with her knee. “Toward you.” They force the small rod an inch toward Mel. “Up an inch.” It moves up. “Now toward me.”
When it’s done, Rose lifts her knee from the clutch and, with both hands, jams the gas pedal to the floor. There is a lurch and a crash, then the scream of tires spinning on concrete. Rose’s head hits the console. In the black of the dark, she does not know if she is conscious or unconscious. For a moment she cannot remember where she is, why she is.
A scream brings her back to herself—wherever that is. Her hands are not on the gas, but the truck is still running. It hasn’t coughed and died.
“Gigi! Are you still here?” It’s Mel.
“Here,” Rose gasps.
“Help me. The gas pedal.”
“Right.” Rose finds the hands at the ends of her arms and forces them to sweep the floor of the old truck. “Ah!” Her hand closes around one of Mel’s.
“Hold down,” Mel says. Rose finds the gas pedal. Together, their hands squash it into the floor. The shriek of tires fills the world with a howl of power too long kept silent. The truck shudders around them as if it will explode, blowing them and the garage to rubble and bone.
“It’s not working!” Mel wails.
“Keep on!” Rose shouts. Four hands hold the gas pedal to the floorboard of the ancient truck. Harley’s beloved old cherry-red darling merges in Rose’s heart with the strength of his arms and force of his smile.
Suddenly there is a crack and crunch of rotting wood. A splinter of daylight pierces through, a dusty sword that cuts into the grave. Rose can see Mel’s face. Tears run down her granddaughter’s cheeks in contrast to the determined set of her soft mouth.
The truck hurtles backward with a grinding roar. Light shatters with a volcanic eruption of wood and the cry of metal torn loose. Shards of wood and dust fly by the edges of Rose’s vision as if they are on a land-bound ship that is somehow sinking in a storm of beams and splinters. Seemingly bent on vengeance, Harley’s truck tears through the wood of the garage door.
Then there is all the light and air Rose could dream of.
“We are out!” Mel yells.
This new world ends abruptly as the truck smashes into an immovable obstacle. Rose’s head smacks into something solid and she is slammed into the absolute darkness of oblivion.
Silence calls her back. After the cacophony of destruction, silence is a healing force. Shuddering racks Rose’s entire being. She is afraid to open her eyes. “Mel?” she whispers.
Nothing. She has killed her granddaughter. “Mel? Please…”
“Here,” Mel answers as if her name has been called in homeroom.
“Breathe,” Rose says. “Just keep on breathing.”
Fresh air is clearing her mind with reassuring rapidity. She can see Mel, crumpled in the footwell opposite her. “Are you okay?” Rose croaks.
“I think so. Are you?”
“I think so.”
Another horrific jar of metal on metal. Both Rose’s and Mel’s heads snap on their necks, Rose hitting the seat this time. The driver’s door is yanked open.
“You are like a nasty old cat!” screams Stella.
Rose’s feet are grabbed, and she is dragged half out of the truck.
“Coming back and coming back,” Stella mutters. Rose’s hips hit the running board. Her torso slides over the bench seat. The pistol is still w
here she’s thrown it. Her hands close around the butt.
Her elbows hit the doorsill. Then her chin, and she is on the ground, Stella still dragging her by the ankles. Stella’s Jeep, engine running, driver’s door open, has rammed its bumper into the side of the truck bed, slewing the vehicle around perpendicular to the driveway.
“Mel, get to the Jeep. Go!” Rose cries. She hears the other truck door open. Stella lets go of her ankles. Rose’s toes hit the concrete hard.
“God damn it!” Stella yells.
Rose rolls to her back, the pistol in both hands now. “Don’t you move!” she yells at Stella as the woman turns to stop Mel’s escape.
“I ejected the clip,” Stella sneers, and starts to move.
“You left one in the chamber,” Rose says, not knowing if it’s true.
The flicker of alarm on Stella’s face lets Rose know Stella doesn’t know either. Do you feel lucky? Clint Eastwood asks in Rose’s mind. Hysterical giggles bubble past her lips. It is the maniacal cackle as much as the threat of a bullet that stops Stella.
Mel yelps. A body hits the ground.
“You okay?” Rose calls.
“Can’t do it. Can’t walk,” Mel sobs.
In the second that Rose’s mind is on her granddaughter, Stella kicks the truck door. Automatically, Rose’s finger tightens on the trigger. The gun clicks emptily. The bottom edge of the pickup door hits Rose’s shoulder. Not hard, but in her condition it doesn’t take much to knock her over. Toppling to her side, she rolls underneath the truck.
“Mel! Can you get under the truck?” She hears a body sidewinding over the mix of concrete and dirt into which the old driveway has disintegrated.
“God damn it!” Stella says again. Feet appear, then knees, then hands, then Stella’s face, her red hair swinging below her ears. “Come out from under there!” she says as if Rose is a bad dog.
“Go away. You’ve lost. The neighbors will be coming home from work soon. This place becomes like Grand Central Station. Get away while you can. Mel? You under? You okay?”
“Under. Okay,” comes a patchy response.
“You are going to ruin everything!” Stella gets down to her elbows and reaches beneath the truck, grabbing at Rose. Using the pistol like a hammer, Rose pounds the intruding fingers. “Damn you!” Stella changes hands, grabbing with the other. Rose bats at it, sending Stella’s knuckles cracking into the undercarriage of the truck.
Hands flat on the ground, Stella pushes back. Rose hits every part of hands and arms she can manage with her limited range. “I’m going to kill you,” Stella says viciously.
You and whose army? Rose thinks. It makes Rose laugh. She’s always had a soft spot for the theater of the absurd.
Hands, knees, and feet move out of Rose’s range of vision. Laying her cheek on the ground, she listens. Not a sound. Down near Rose’s feet, toward the front of the truck, she hears Mel move.
“Listen,” she says to Mel. More silence.
“Is she gone?” Mel asks. Then she yelps.
“I’ve got you, you little shit!” Stella gloats.
Crabbing around, Rose sees Mel, face contorted with pain, being dragged out from under the truck by her injured foot. Commando-style, Rose propels herself with elbows and knees, trying to catch the girl’s outstretched hands.
“You come out from under there now!” Stella says.
Rose lies still, not sure what to do.
Mel screams. “Don’t come out, Gigi,” she cries, and screams again.
“Out,” Stella says, “or I shove a goddam stick in this bullet hole and move it around.”
“I’m coming!” Rose yells. “Here I am. I’m coming.”
“No!” Mel yells. Rose ignores her. Scrabbling through loose dirt and rock, Rose slithers from under Harley’s old Ford. “I’m out,” she pants. Mel’s hands and chest are on the ground, at eye level with Rose. Her right foot is held up in the air in Stella’s two hands.
“Drop the gun,” Stella orders.
“It’s got no bullets,” Rose says.
Stella wrenches Mel’s foot to the left. Blood begins dripping from the rim of the shoe, a beautiful shade of red in the last of the day’s sunlight. Rose drops the gun. “Put her foot down. She’s bleeding!” Rose begs. “I’m here. You’ve got me. I’ve got the money. I’ll write you a check; ten million bucks to let Mel go. Swear to God, I’ll never tell a soul.”
“You don’t believe in God,” Stella sneers.
She’s got Rose there.
“I can sign things,” Rose pleads.
“Turn around. Face the truck,” Stella says, her grip tightening on Mel’s foot. White-faced and sweating, Mel puts both hands over her mouth to keep the sounds of pain from escaping.
Rose staggers to her feet. Her front is a mess of blood and torn cloth. She turns and faces the truck.
“Put your hands on the fender. Assume the position,” Stella says.
Like anyone who has watched cop shows, Rose knows what the position is. She puts her hands on the polished red fender of Harley’s truck, spreads her feet a little wider than her shoulders, and waits for Stella to kick them wider, because that’s what she’s seen on TV.
“Gigi, turn around!” Mel squeaks.
Before Rose can respond, Mel cries out and Stella says, “Don’t even think about it.”
Rose’s eyes fix on the rich cherry-colored paint. Had she the ears of any proper animal, they would be turned to catch any noise from behind. What she hears is a crunch, a grunt, a gasp. Then Mel yelling, “Turn around! Turn around!”
Whirling, Rose sees Stella, close behind her, a concrete garden gnome held high above her head, ready to bring it crashing down on Rose’s skull.
There is no time to do anything but throw one thin arm up to protect her face.
Eyes squeezed shut, Rose hears rather than feels the awful crunch as an inanimate object strikes hard against flesh and bone. An exhalation of breath and a soft thump as a body hits the dirt.
Rose waits to wake up dead.
Finally, she opens her eyes. Harley’s ex-wife, Nancy, is standing where Stella had been, her eyeglasses flashing fire from the setting sun, her neat hair in place, her clothing pressed and tailored. Stella is lying prone, the garden gnome circled in one arm, the other outflung, her face to the ground.
“What did you hit her with?” Rose asks stupidly.
“A fifteen-pound box of kitty litter,” Nancy retorts. Rose sees the box, leaking litter, to one side of Stella. She wonders if Stella is dead, but finds she doesn’t care as long as the woman stays down.
Rose pushes away from the truck. “Mel…”
Nancy has moved and is talking with Melanie. “I’ve called 911,” she says. “They will be here shortly. I asked for an ambulance as well as police.” On cue, sirens sound a few blocks distant.
The setting sun is painting the world umbers, golds, and oranges, the colors of the autumn leaves. Blood runs down Rose’s forearm, more down the outside of her right leg. Wounds she must have gotten when she shinnied through the broken windshield. One of Mel’s shoes is dyed dark red. The knees of her skinny jeans are no longer artfully shredded but torn open, the skin beneath scraped away.
“Oh, Grandma!” Mel cries, sounding like a very young girl. “It’s so lucky you came.”
There is a moment of silence as Rose sinks down onto the running board, no longer able to stand.
“It wasn’t luck, was it?” Mel says shrewdly. “You were tracking my phone!” The affront in Mel’s voice makes Rose smile. Mel will be all right.
Nancy snorts, an action not in keeping with her appearance. “Flynn off half the time, Rose going off the deep end, Daniel being Daniel, I couldn’t think what else I could do.”
Lights and siren running, the first police car arrives. Moments later a second, and an ambulance, fill the long driveway with noise, red and blue streaks of color, and men and women in uniform bustling efficiently.
Rose drops her guard. Bonelessly
, she slips from the running board to the ground.
CHAPTER 31
Rose wakes to the murmur of voices. She opens her eyes. A hospital room; a virulent sense of déjà vu sweeps over her. Has it all been a dream? Is she still in Longwood?
“Gigi?” Mel says her name.
Rose turns her head. In a single bed next to hers is her granddaughter. One leg is elevated, the foot in a cast. Mel is propped on pillows holding court. Around the foot of her bed stand her dad, Nancy, Daniel, Royal, his grandmother, and two people Rose assumes are medical professionals.
“Is this a dream?” Rose asks in a whisper.
“You always tell me life is a dream,” Mel teases.
“Yeah. It is. But is this a life dream or a dream dream?” Rose asks.
To the medical personnel, Mel says, “Gigi’s okay. She’s just being Buddhist.” To Rose she says, “This is real. You conked out, and they brought us here. You’ve been asleep for all night and this morning.”
One of the medical people says, “Mrs. Dennis, you’ve been diagnosed—”
Rose cuts her off. “Let Mel tell it. You might be imaginary. Or worse.”
Mel makes a face. “You’ve been diagnosed as suffering from malnutrition, severe exhaustion, dehydration, and muscle strain. They had to put thirteen stitches in your leg, and seven in your forearm where you cut yourself on the windshield of Granddad’s truck. You had a concussion … Is that had or has?” Mel asks the doctor.
“Let’s say ‘has’ to be on the safe side,” the woman answers. “Head injuries in the elderly—”
“Got it.” Rose cuts her off again. “Concussion.” The diagnosis of “elderly” is damning enough; she doesn’t want to know if she’s also been diagnosed with dementia. That’s a worm can she’s not ready to open. “I’m good,” she says firmly. “Are you okay, Mel?”