He looks at Anna. “And then there’s you.”
“What about me?”
“According to Clara, you’ll be sent to a hospital for observation. To a psychiatric ward. Standard procedure for teens who attempt suicide.”
“But I didn’t . . . !”
“Annie,” he says. “There isn’t a person on the planet who will believe that wasn’t your intent. Not with all those witnesses.”
“Okay, okay,” Anna says. “What then?”
“You’ll be shipped off to Columbus,” he says. “Your aunt and uncle have already been notified, and will be here tomorrow. Clara’s on her way. She says not to go home just yet, there’s a police car parked outside my house, waiting. She wants to help us get our story straight before talking to them.”
Anna sees that Jim Fulson’s hands are trembling. For some reason that enrages her. Her exuberant high has vanished.
The waitress comes, takes the bills, gives Jim Fulson change.
“Clara will be here soon,” he says. His voice is expressionless.
“Let’s not go back,” Anna says.
“What?”
“Let’s leave,” she says. “Why stick around? I don’t want to be observed, or go to Columbus. You don’t want to get in trouble. Why don’t we just hit the road?” She is tentative at first, tasting the idea.
“Three reasons to start with,” he says. “Money, money, and money. I haven’t got any.”
“I’ve got five thousand dollars. And Lars has plenty. We’ve been planning to leave anyway,” says Anna. The more she talks, the better this sounds to her. “We were waiting until my birthday, that’s all.”
This gets his attention.
“How does Lars have access to money?” he asks.
“He controls his parents’ bank account. They have more than a hundred thousand dollars in it. They don’t even know how much they have. They won’t miss it. They would even give it to us if we asked.”
“So this is what Lars and you have been up to,” he says. “Unfortunately, that’s stealing. More trouble to get in. More fucking up.”
“It’s a necessity,” Anna says. “This is bigger than we are. It’s been predestined. Lars, me, you . . . We have a mission to fulfill.”
“Go ahead, I’m listening,” says Jim Fulson.
“Listening to what?” asks a woman’s voice. It’s Ms. Thadeous. She is wearing sweats and a T-shirt and sneakers. Her face without makeup. She’s also breathing heavily, as though she’s been running. She pulls another chair to the table, and nods at the waitress to come over, orders a glass of white wine.
“So,” she says. “Let’s talk about this mess you two have gotten into.”
“I was just explaining something,” says Anna.
“Well, continue,” says Ms. Thadeous. “Don’t mind me.”
“Lars’s minister talks about this a lot,” Anna says. “About the dispersal of the godly into the wilderness immediately before the Tribulation.”
“Cut the Tribulation crap,” Jim Fulson says. “I don’t have a lot of patience right now. Stick to the practicalities.”
“We borrow some money from Lars. We head out, go to some remote area in, say, Oregon,” Anna says. “You help me get settled, help me buy a car, get a temporary place to live. Then leave. You’d be under no obligation. You could kick around a bit until everything has died down.”
Anna thrills at the thought of Jim Fulson and herself, driving northward, up over the Golden Gate Bridge, up through Santa Rosa, Sonoma, Mendocino, across the border and beyond to the Lost Coast. Jim Fulson letting her take the wheel at night on the long stretches of empty road. And then, after lying low for five months, officially an adult, she’ll head for Nebraska.
Jim Fulson interrupts her thoughts. “And what about Clara?” he asks.
“Yes, don’t mind me,” says Ms. Thadeous.
“I’m sorry,” Anna says, and means it. A long silence.
“Let’s get you back to my place,” says Ms. Thadeous. “We can decide what to do from there.” She pauses a moment, then, “I should just let you two take responsibility. Let the chips fall.”
“Clara,” begins Jim Fulson.
“Don’t interrupt!” she says, loudly. “I don’t have a lot of faith in the judgment of either of you. Anna isn’t stable enough to live on her own at this point. And you, Jim, the police don’t easily forget an incident like this. Kidnapping and child endangerment are not parking tickets, for God’s sake! You’d be facing a felony charge when you came back. So what are you going to do, wandering far from home with no money? A ridiculous thought. Utterly!”
Anna and Jim Fulson are quiet throughout her tirade.
“Anna has been traumatized enough. Placing her in lockdown mode for a suicide attempt . . .”
“But I wasn’t . . .” interrupts Anna.
“Shut up, Anna. I was going to say, putting you in lockdown wouldn’t be the best thing in your current state. And Jim, you’re not in the most stable place yourself.”
More silence.
“For that matter, I don’t understand my own behavior of late,” says Ms. Thadeous. She turns then and puts her hand on Jim Fulson’s knee. “This won’t be easy.”
Anna gets it first. “You mean,” says Anna, “that you’re coming, too?”
37
MS. THADEOUS IS CALM. NOT the detached, bored way she acts in class, but humming with suppressed energy. She has typed up a to-do list. “The three C’s,” she says. “Car, clothes, cash.” They’re in her house, packing essentials.
“But what happens if we can’t reach Lars?” Anna asks. She had tried to call the Goldschmidts on the drive to Ms. Thadeous’s house. A strange male voice had answered, and Anna had hung up without saying anything. Afterward, Jim Fulson took her phone away, turned it off, and threw it onto the highway. “They can trace you using these things,” he says.
“Why would we involve Lars?” asks Ms. Thadeous. “Isn’t spiriting away one minor enough?”
Anna looks at Jim Fulson, who shrugs. “He’s got the money,” Anna says. “A lot of it. He’ll help us out.”
“I have enough,” says Ms. Thadeous.
“Clara,” says Jim Fulson.
“Not another word,” she says.
“Won’t the police be looking for Jim’s truck?” Anna asks.
“Yes, but they won’t be looking for my car,” says Ms. Thadeous.
“How can you do this?” Anna asks. “Just leave? The two of us don’t have anything holding us here, but you have a job, a house, and responsibilities. You can’t just walk away!”
Ms. Thadeous’s face is aglow. “Just watch me,” she says. She is bursting with savage energy. How many years had this been bottled up? “I think I’ve been waiting for this moment,” she says. “Here I am. Falling in love with indigent rec-room dwellers. Being lectured by demented seventeen-year-olds. You bet I’m coming.”
Anna looks at Jim Fulson. “But where are we going? She wasn’t part of my plan.”
“Somewhere safe,” says Ms. Thadeous. “Utah,” she says. “I know a place in Utah.”
She rumples Jim Fulson’s hair as if he’s a small boy.
That night, after Jim Fulson and Ms. Thadeous close the bedroom door behind them, Anna takes the keys hanging on a hook in the kitchen and steals out to Ms. Thadeous’s car. The engine erupts on the quiet street, the tires squeal as Anna pulls away from the curb too fast, and she is sweating by the time she’s gone two blocks. She seems to have gotten away with it. No commotion, no one is following her. No traffic. The roads are so empty she’s tempted to ignore the red lights, but instead waits at vacant intersections, nervously checking her mirrors. One cop car passes, but doesn’t give Anna a glance.
Anna parks in the street behind Lars’s house and climbs over the yard fence. She quietly let
s herself in through the unlocked back door. Although the house is dark and silent, Lars is wide awake. He’s lying on his bed fully dressed.
“Lars,” begins Anna. “I need some money.” Lars puts a finger to his lips, points to his bulging backpack, and a couple of paper bags from Safeway. Anna looks inside. They’re full of her clothes.
“I had a feeling,” Lars says. “Is there anything else we need?”
“There’s no we,” Anna hisses. Having Lars along would ruin her plans.
Lars shakes his head. She knows that look. “I come along, or no money,” he says. Anna could scream. She should have known Lars would be one step ahead of her.
She picks up the bags of her clothes and begins walking out of the room. Lars scrambles to keep pace.
“Where are we going?” he asks.
“East,” Anna says.
“Where east?”
“To Utah. Ms. Thadeous knows a place. Do you have the checkbook and the bank card?”
Lars nods. Then he takes Anna’s arm. “Look at this,” he says. He guides Anna to his bedroom window, lifts the bed sheet tacked there, and points. In front of Jim Fulson’s house is a squad car, two shadowy figures in the front seat.
“He’s in a lot of trouble.”
“It’s not his fault,” Anna says.
“What exactly happened?” Lars asks. “The police say you threw yourself into the ocean, tried to drown yourself. I was concerned.” Despite his words, his voice reveals no emotion.
Something perverse prompts Anna to ask, “Why?”
“Annie, we’ve talked about this. It isn’t death per se that is the problem,” he says.
“So you wouldn’t have minded hearing that I was dead.”
“Don’t take it the wrong way,” he says. “It was your soul I was concerned about. You were doing so well. Then there was that . . . setback.”
“Setback,” Anna says. “I guess that’s one way to describe it.”
Lars starts for the back door, takes a few steps. “Tell me,” he says. “How is your faith?”
“Stronger than ever,” Anna says. She follows him slowly. “Reaffirmed, in fact.”
Lars looks at her. “So you have turned to Him again?” he asks. His smugness is infuriating.
Anna gives the briefest of nods.
“I’m glad to hear that,” Lars says. “For if you sin deliberately after receiving the Truth, a fury of fire will consume you.”
“Right,” Anna says, and then stops before she says something she regrets. She thinks of the money they need, the money Lars controls.
“What’s the plan, then?” Lars asks.
Anna goes out into the yard and beckons him to hurry. “Ms. Thadeous wants to get on the road by 5 am, to get over the bridges before rush hour.” She leads Lars toward the fence, throws the bags containing her clothes to the other side, and starts to climb over it.
“I think this actually helps our plan,” Lars says, throwing his backpack over. “It’s God’s work that matters, after all, and this is clearly preordained. We’ll go east with Jim and Clara, but will wait our chance. When we can, we get away. We head to Nebraska. It’s sooner than we expected. But clearly meant to be.”
“I haven’t thought that far ahead,” says Anna, although she has. The last thing she wants is Lars trailing her to Fred Wilson’s ranch.
“He’ll recompense you for your suffering, you know,” Lars says when he is finally on the other side of the fence.
“This is not about getting extra credit on a test,” Anna says, openly losing her temper. She unlocks the car door and gestures for him to get in.
Lars’s face closes up. “I’ve been praying for you,” he says.
Anna almost tells him not to waste his time, but is afraid to trust her voice, so she changes the subject. “Clothes. Money. Are we ready?”
“The Lord has a plan for everything,” says Lars. In the dim light he looks impossibly young. Anna softens. She walks around to the driver’s side of the car and gets in.
“What will your parents think?” she asks, turning to Lars.
He hears her change of tone, and pulls a crumpled piece of paper out of his pocket and hands it to her.
“I wrote a note—see, here’s the rough draft,” he says.
Dear Mom and Dad,
I’m taking Reverend Michael’s suggestion and joining our church’s ministry in Las Cruces. As you know, he put me in touch with his brethren there already. One of them has agreed to find me a place to stay. You may be contacted by school authorities, but it is your legal right to give me permission to leave school at sixteen. You will simply have to sign a form. This has nothing to do with Anna. I will send you my contact information once I reach New Mexico.
Your loving son,
Lars Goldschmidt
“That’s a good idea,” Anna says. “Really good.”
Anna would have thought him inured to compliments, but these small words of praise cause him to blush.
“Let’s get out of here before the police catch on,” Anna says. She starts the car and drives back to Ms. Thadeous’s house as slowly as she had on the way over.
When they arrive, all the lights in the house are blazing in the otherwise dark street. A dog from the next house over starts barking the moment Anna pulls the car into the driveway.
“I’m not going to say a word,” says Ms. Thadeous as they enter the house. In fact, she doesn’t. Her packing is finished—Anna sees some sleeping bags and a suitcase. The refrigerator door is open and Ms. Thadeous is throwing everything into a large black plastic garbage bag. Jim Fulson comes in from the garage where he has parked his truck. He doesn’t look at Anna or Lars.
“We brought money,” Lars says.
Without responding, Jim Fulson picks up Ms. Thadeous’s suitcase and takes it out to her car. Lars and Anna follow, helping Ms. Thadeous carry the bags of food to the curbside garbage can.
Ms. Thadeous then locks the front door, takes a moment to contemplate the sagging structure. “It was just a rental, but I liked it,” she says, and then, to Jim Fulson only she says, “the end of an era.”
When everyone is settled in the car, Jim Fulson says, “Well, Lars, I see you’ve thrown your lot in with us, too.”
“Yes,” says Lars. “It seemed to be the right thing to do. Given that this little ship is rudderless.”
“I beg your pardon?” Jim Fulson looks tired, but alert. His eyes never leave Ms. Thadeous.
“Spiritually, I mean,” says Lars. “We are meant to sojourn into the wilderness. You had the right instinct. But you require a leader.”
It takes Jim Fulson a moment to realize what Lars has said.
“You pompous little ass,” he says.
Lars looks surprised. “What did I say?”
“Jim,” says Ms. Thadeous, “remember who you’re speaking to.”
“What did I say?” repeats Lars. He looks genuinely anxious.
Jim Fulson rubs his eyes and sighs. “Nothing you haven’t said about a million times previously,” he says. “I’m sorry I snapped. We’re all under quite a bit of stress.”
Ms. Thadeous turns to Jim Fulson. “We should go,” she says.
Dawn is close. It’s already lighter in the eastern sky, and the morning paper has been delivered. The hum of traffic from nearby 101 has grown noticeably louder since Lars and Anna pulled up just twenty minutes earlier.
“It’s going to be a little tight,” says Jim Fulson, and turns around to face Anna. “How are you feeling, Little Man?”
Anna finds herself smiling. Despite her weariness, she is warmed.
“No more need to go into the light?” he asks. Anna realizes with pleasure that he is teasing her. Ms. Thadeous has turned around and is also looking at her. Anna can’t read her face.
“Yes,” Anna says,
“quite done with that for now.” A little white lie.
“Well then,” says Jim Fulson, “I guess we’re ready to get this circus on the road.” Ms. Thadeous puts the car into gear, and they’re off to parts unknown.
PART IV
Buying Time
38
THEY SHOULD BE ANXIOUS. THEY should be scared. They should be uncertain. Lars and Anna, uneasy conspirators. Ms. Thadeous, ex-teacher, ex-respectable citizen. Jim Fulson, rec-room escapee, suicide survivor, possible jailbird. But Anna feels only muted excitement. Still dark and too early to be slowed by rush-hour traffic, they sweep swiftly north on 101, past the airport, past the dim humps of South San Francisco and Brisbane, and onto the lower deck of the Bay Bridge. During the 1989 earthquake, when a 50-foot span simply dropped out of the upper deck of the bridge. Someone heading east had the extraordinary presence of mind to pull out a camera and videotape the car ahead accelerating toward the gap, caught the heroic attempt to soar over the breach, the epic fail and fatal plunge into the frigid water below. Or was it a resigned determination to go out with bravado that motivated that doomed driver? Anna guesses no, not bravado. No one wants to die on the Bay Bridge. No one jumps off its dull gray metal rails. Instead they travel six miles north to the Golden Gate, which provides not just an end, but a glorious means to a glorious end. Who would choose this dour construction when that magnificent red steel frame could be their platform for jettisoning this earth? From her quiz shows Anna knows certain statistics. Seventy percent of Golden Gate suicides jump facing the open sea, their backs to the city and their fellow humans. Maybe, Anna thought more than once while driving across the bridge with her parents, in her previous life, before Lars, before the accident. Maybe.
Traffic catches up to them when they reach the tangle of highways that separate Oakland and Piedmont from Emeryville, and they move excruciatingly slowly past Berkeley, past the industrial stink of the refineries and tank farms at Richmond. They get their first tedious view of the Central Valley at 8 am. So far, so good.
Coming of Age at the End of Days Page 16