by Deb Caletti
She sits in the swivelly chair at the table by the window and stares at the rain, which is now pummeling down like God is pissed. Well, He has a lot to be furious about, if He’s really up there. She hopes He is up there, but honestly, it’s very hard to tell. She has serious doubts, as you might understand.
The rain rolls down the window like tears. This sounds like bad poetry, so she’s probably just overly hungry and very tired and questioning her good sense. She checks in with herself. Nope. She still wants to do what she said she wanted to do. Things are a little shaky, okay, fine, but her will is strong. She can hear the steady thump of it as she gazes out, waiting for the familiar headlights of her mother’s Honda Civic to turn in to the Best Western lot.
Gina probably got lost. She is probably cursing the GPS woman as Malcolm claps his hands over his ears in the passenger seat. Gina treats GPS like it’s an incompetent chauffeur. She bullies and yells as the GPS woman keeps trying and trying with her endless, robotic patience. It’s like watching an abusive relationship. Recently, Malcolm decided that Gina has to pay twenty-five cents every time she swears. He has a jar on the kitchen table. He’s probably got sixty bucks in there already.
Waiting is tricky, because any sort of empty time in her head fills with you-know-what and with you-know-who. She will not say his name. He shouldn’t get to have a name. She calls him The Taker. She calls him this because it is the essential truth, that he is the most evil sort of thief, and she calls him this because the words are tall and slender like The Taker himself, and because the name is shorter than Motherfucking Asshole, which is what Gina calls him. The problem is—well, there are lots of problems, but this one problem is—he is not just evil incarnate, not just the most vile and vicious monster, but a human who breathed and talked and ate lunch and took notes and held her hand, even. This makes her shudder, but it is also true. Some truths you just hate. You wish they weren’t true. You wish you could annihilate them with your hate, but you can’t. The only thing you can do is hate them, and that doesn’t seem like much.
You wish you could annihilate some memories, too, but you can’t do that, either. You try. But they pop in. They pop in and pop in, like Malcolm used to do when she was studying for some really intense final in her room. He’d do it just to annoy her, and she’d want to kill him. Memories: same.
It’s happening now. She turns on the TV for distraction. It is a cooking show. A woman is making béchamel for lasagna, but not the way Grandpa does it. If he saw this, he’d have some heated words for the lady on the TV. The pans and the measuring and the woman’s high-energy voice aren’t doing enough to help Annabelle. The Taker walks right into her head, the way she saw him the first time. He’s wearing a plaid shirt and jeans. He swings his backpack off.
She doesn’t know him. He’s new. She’s in the one and only elective class she has all year, because she’s an overachiever. She doesn’t know what she wants to study later, but something science-related. She loves science, all of it—biology and physiology, planet earth, the universe, creatures both animal and human. She loves the magical design of it all, the unfathomable architecture of the cosmos right down to the intricate masterpiece of the eye. Science is where you might uncover facts that explain mysteries. She loves mysteries, too, but she loves explanations for mysteries even more. To her, explanations don’t ruin mysteries; they only make them more magnificent.
Something science means it’s AP everything, plus orchestra (cello), cross-country (of course), friends (she’s popular), books read just for fun (too many to name). There’s also her job at Essential Baking Company, and volunteer hours at Sunnyside Eldercare. See? She’s nice, and to old people, too. Sweet, watery-eyed ladies with tissue-paper skin. Cranky old men with hangy basset-hound ears and suspenders. They love her. She’s a sweetheart, they say. She is.
She was. Like a monster, she has destroyed people. She doesn’t feel like a sweetheart anymore. She doesn’t know yet if that’s a tragedy or a very good thing. Or both. What a loss, that her naive kindness is gone. Kindness like that is the daffodils of the world, the dewdrops, the grass stains on the knees of jeans, yet she is sick to death of being a sweetheart. Also, that kind of naive kindness is akin to standing on a busy freeway and gazing at the beauty of the sun.
The elective is Mixed Media Art. The oldest, most tiresome game is: What If. It starts here. What if she chose Drama? What if she chose Video Game Design? What if Mixed Media Art had been full? Why did she have to be so neurotic and perfectionistic that she was online the minute registration opened for students with last names beginning with A through C ? An hour later, and that class would have been filled. Mrs. Diablo was everyone’s favorite teacher.
The Taker walks in. He has shaggy hair and he’s tall. Tall enough that everyone looks. Plus, everyone’s curious, because most of them have gone to school together since Eckstein Middle School. The backpack comes off and then the new guy slides into the seat in front of Annabelle. But first, he gives her a shy smile. He slides into the seat in front of her, but first, he gives her a shy smile. He slides into the seat in front of her, but first, he gives her a shy smile. He slides into the seat in front of her, but first, he gives her a shy smile for the millionth time.
Stop!
This is actually a technique that Dr. Mann taught her. She’s supposed to say it out loud, and so she does.
“Stop.”
Her own voice is very small in that room of the Best Western. The crowd watching the cooking show applauds. In this strange room, which smells faintly of traveling salesmen, the clapping sounds like encouragement, even though it’s only praise for the lasagna that has come out of the oven.
She is almost grateful when Gina arrives and pounds on the door.
“Annabelle! Open up. It’s me.”
The lock is one of those old-fashioned sorts where you slide the chain sideways, so she does this. It makes her feel like she’s in a detective-thriller film, which she sort of is. Gina busts in. Her disheveled, black-turning-gray-at-the-roots hair shimmers with raindrops. She’s wearing her sweatpants and a million-years-old green sweater. She tosses her purse on the closest bed. Stuff spills out. Her keys, her Maybelline mascara, a tampon.
“Thank God you’re all right,” she says.
Malcolm follows behind her. He looks at Annabelle and rolls his eyes. It must have been some drive over. It is late. Malcolm is in his striped pajamas and dress shoes. Annabelle sees the narrative: the hurry, hurry, hurry, the quick grab of whatever is nearest. Malcolm sits at the edge of the bed and unties his shoes. He leans back against the headboard and sighs. In his black socks, striped pajamas, and without his usual glasses, he looks like a weary businessman, fed up with the account managers in the tristate region.
“Get your things,” Gina says. “I’m just sorry you wasted the money paying for this room.” Said as if the room is somewhat beneath her, which it isn’t. It’s pretty nice, actually. There’s Wi-Fi and a coffeemaker. Free breakfast from six a.m. until ten in the hospitality center downstairs.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“Annabelle.”
“I’m not.”
“You can’t be serious about this! Do you know what you’re even saying? Do you know how far DC is from here?”
“Two thousand seven hundred and nineteen miles by foot,” Malcolm says from the bed. He’s changed the channel on the television, from the cooking show to Nova, which she and Malcolm both love. Nova explains the ways impossible things work. Nova has answers. On the screen, a satellite orbits our earth.
“My phone’s about to die,” Annabelle says. “Did you bring my stuff?”
“Of course I didn’t bring your stuff. If you think I’m going to allow this, you’re nuts. Aside from the practicalities here, aside from the fact that it’s basically, um, impossible, you are graduating in two and a half months. Your birthday is in five days. I had a whole surprise bowling and picn—”
“Exactly.”
“What do you mean, ‘exactly’?”
She didn’t want to have to play hardball, but here goes. “In five days, I’ll be eighteen. There’s no more allowing. I’ll officially be an adult.”
Gina’s exhale is a freight train barreling through a tunnel. Her face turns red. She throws her hands up, paces to the bathroom and back.
Malcolm is putting his dress shoes back on. Tying the thin grown-man laces. He hates conflict. She’s surprised the shoes even fit. He only wore them twice that she can remember. Once to the wedding of Patrick O’Brien to Angie Morelli, her mother’s oldest friend. Angie helped get Gina the paralegal job at O’Brien and Bello’s Attorneys-at-Law. Malcolm also wore the shoes—
Stop!
“Excuse me,” Malcolm says.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Gina says.
“I forgot something in the car.”
“It’s dark out there. It’s eleven thirty! We’re in Renton.”
He’s got Gina’s keys in his hand. Annabelle once let him drive the car in the empty high school parking lot. She hopes he doesn’t try to make a run for it, too. “I’ll be right back. You can watch me from here,” he tells Gina.
“Be careful,” she says.
Gina doesn’t even keep an eye on Malcolm out the window, though. She has more than she can handle right here. The two of them, Annabelle and her mom, face off. “I know you don’t understand. . . .” Annabelle tries.
“It’s not that I don’t understand. Of course I understand. It’s just . . . We don’t know anything about this! Do you even know what you’re saying? There are mountains. Trucks. Miles and miles! Rain, summer heat coming. What’re you going to do, sleep on the road? Oh my God. I can’t even think about it. You, a young woman alone? You can’t do that! And you’re not ready for that kind of distance! You’re talking, what, a half marathon every single day? Do you have any idea what that would do to your body? And if you ran slower, well, you can’t be gone that long, in case you forgot.”
“Like I could forget? And a guy in Oregon just did it in four months. Coach Kwan told us about it. We followed his blog. I know more about it than you think. And I am ready. Ready enough. After the marathons, halfs are easy!” This is a lie. They aren’t easy. But they may be doable. “I ran eleven miles here, and I feel great. I’ve done the math. If I push a little, go sixteen a day—”
“What about money? What about graduation? What about Seth Greggory? You can’t just take off. September twenty-second, Annabelle.”
“I know. Do you think I don’t know? The date is burned into my brain.”
“Avoidance! PTSD symptom! This is just a momentary panic like Dr.—”
“I have more than enough credits to graduate already. I have more than enough money.”
“College money!”
“How do we know if I’m even going to use it? Dr. Mann also says I put too much pressure on myself. Maybe I—”
“And this isn’t pressure? This isn’t changing one kind of pressure for another kind of pressure? Frying pan into the fire. Frying pan into the blazing forest fire!”
She may have a point.
“And what do you hope to even get out of this, huh? What happens when you get there? You just knock on some senator’s door?”
“I haven’t figured that part out yet.” Annabelle pictures Dr. Mann, sitting in her office with the painting of the red and yellow mountains behind her. She has soft auburn hair cut short, a calm voice, and patient eyes that crinkle when she laughs. She wears looped scarves and the room smells like vanilla. There’s a box of Kleenex and a little clock next to the couch where Annabelle sits, but Dr. Mann sits back in her chair as if she has all the time in the world. She listens. She says things like, You don’t have to have all the answers at once. You can get more information. You can figure it out day by day.
Gina walks to the window, stares out. She folds her arms. “What is that even going to do? Huh? Really. Say you walk into the senator’s office. Say you actually talk to a giant room of politicians. How does that change anything?” When Gina turns around, her eyes are teary. God damn it. God damn it! Annabelle can see once again what this has done to her mother, too. She’s aged in the last year. She looks tired. Her sweater droops because she’s lost weight.
“It’s something. Something is better than nothing,” Annabelle says. Or tries to say. Her voice cracks and wobbles.
Gina shakes her head. “Oh, honey.”
“Mom,” Annabelle pleads.
Malcolm is back. He has a fat backpack, which he sets on the bed and unzips. Inside, there are two sets of her lightest nylon track clothes, her Camel hydration pack, her handheld water bottle, and her thin rain jacket. Underwear. Socks. Her small medical kit. Her phone charger. Toothpaste, toothbrush. The knee-length Batman T-shirt she sleeps in. A Ziploc bag with a fat bunch of money in it and a credit card. He applied for that card to start building credit, as Money magazine had advised. Annabelle gave him that subscription when it was on his Christmas list last year.
“Here,” he says. He hands her a brown bag. Inside, there are two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches packed tight in plastic wrap, an apple, slices of cheese, a few cookies, and a mostly full bottle of Gatorade. “You must be hungry.”
Annabelle can’t speak now. Her throat has tightened. She might cry.
“Also this,” Malcolm says. Several pages of paper, stapled together. “A route. Google Maps. Cross-referenced with the one Jason Dell from Oregon did. I got it from your cross-country binder.”
“Oh, butthead,” Annabelle says very softly. It’s an expression of love. It’s her all-purpose name for him, yelled in fury, tickled in affection.
“No,” Gina says. “No, no, no, no.”
“Wait. These.” Malcolm reaches into the backpack again. He sets her new pair of running shoes on top of the other stuff.
Annabelle can barely get the words out. “Thank you.”
“We’ll figure it out day by day.” There’d been several family sessions with Dr. Mann, too. Malcolm sat quietly, picking at his fingernails, but he’d been listening.
Gina starts to cry. A noisy cry. Malcolm claps his hands dramatically over his ears. Annabelle claps her hands dramatically over hers.
“God damn it, you two! Stop making fun of me.”
“Stop making fun of me,” Malcolm makes fun in a Gina voice.
“We’ll stay here with you, Annabelle, until we get past what you’re feeling right now. We aren’t going anywhere,” Gina says as she retrieves a wad of TP from the bathroom and blows her nose.
“Mom, no,” Malcolm says. “I’ve got to go to bed. I’ve got a math test tomorrow.” And then to Annabelle, “Give me everything from your bag that you don’t need. Tomorrow, run to the red circle on the map, and we’ll reconvene.” He’s gone from weary businessman to CIA operative.
“Okay, bud,” Annabelle says. “Thanks.”
Gina is shoving the stuff back in her purse. “I hate it when you guys gang up. I hate it. We are doing this tonight only.”
Malcolm’s and Annabelle’s eyes meet and have a conversation. In that split second, stuff is decided, a vow is made. Well, vows are often made without having enough good information.
Annabelle stands at the window and watches the arc of headlights as her mom and her brother leave the Best Western parking lot. She is less anxious than she’d have imagined, here alone in this room. Her anxiety is a quiet hum and not the heavy-metal band you’d expect, given her current plan, and given the future that awaits her. She sits at the edge of the bed, eats her sandwiches, and watches Nova. Planets spin and stars explode.
This is how it begins.
3
Under the big aluminum domes—a bounty. There are fluffy mounds of scrambled eggs, shiny sausage links, a bacon extravaganza. Annabelle wraps up a few bagels and muffins in napkins and puts them in her backpack. She learned this trick from Grandpa Ed, who always makes her put the extra rolls in her purse when they go out to eat.
There is an array of sliced fruit laid out like a sunrise. Orange slices go in her pack, too. There are little boxes of cereal and jars of granola.
The abundance makes her feel hopeful, and so does her charged phone, and the pink-yellow light of morning. She thinks: It’s going to be a beautiful day. Annabelle has not had that thought for almost a year now. She realizes that there have been other days when the pink-yellow light of morning made everything look hopeful, but not to her. She despised those days for their wrongness. Now, even a parking lot and out-of-state license plates and strip malls in the distance wink with hope. She feels the slightest opening inside of herself. She allows a little light in. This sounds like a religious card, but she doesn’t care.
Annabelle stretches. Legs up, legs out. Bend down; reach. She’s not as sore as she thought she’d be after yesterday. She feels great, actually. It’s like she already left something behind. Not it all, of course, she knows better than that. That is something that will never happen, her whole life long. Just something. One tiny piece, which is a large enough event to occur, given her circumstances.
She takes a big gulp of misty March loveliness. The air is deliciously damp. Annabelle spots the arrowheads of bulbs poking up in the landscaping. A Renton squirrel scurries up the gate of the motel swimming pool, closed for the season. Spring, renewal, life! Sure, this—this expansiveness—has something to do with the recent joy of consuming bacon (she shouldn’t have had that much salt), but it’s also from the road ahead. The road ahead. Is this where the magic is? That she is, for once, not looking behind?
She is still in front of the Best Western, where it is very easy to be optimistic.
In fact, after this moment, she won’t be this optimistic for a long, long time.
• • •
The slap-sound of her feet on pavement is familiar. Even way back when That Bastard Father Anthony lived with them, when she was just a kid, Annabelle would run circles in their backyard as he timed her with the stopwatch he kept in his gym bag. In elementary school, she raced around at recess, and it was all about speed, how fast she could go, the feel of her ponytail flying out behind her. Later, in junior high, after her father left and her name went from Annabelle Agnelli-Manutto to just Annabelle Agnelli, there were a lot of things to run from. Money problems; Malcolm in that bad spell where he peed his bed; Dad driving to the house to pick them up, and then driving away again after he and Gina argued. Dad spending less and less time with them, and how this hurt but was also somehow easier.