by Deb Caletti
“Mom! I’m so happy to see you guys. What a long drive, just for this! What do you mean, staying?”
“Do you think we’d miss your birthday? We’re staying the night! We got a couple of rooms at the Sleepy Inn. We thought you’d like a real bed for once. A splurge.”
“I don’t want no real bed. I’ve got a real bed,” Grandpa Ed says. “Money doesn’t grow on trees.”
“You told me already,” Gina says. “I didn’t get you a room, okay? I heard you loud and clear. You’re cheap, Pop.”
“I’m not cheap, I’m thrifty.” He’s a little cheap. He hoards fast-food ketchup packets and steals the small containers of jam from restaurant tables.
“Look at all this great food!” Angie Morelli O’Brien shoves a couple of menus in front of Gina and Grandpa Ed to shut them up.
“How about some beers?” Patrick O’Brien says.
“Beers? What family did you marry into, O’Brien? Vino, vino!” Grandpa Ed is all dressed up again. He smells like the Acqua di Parma factory exploded.
“Mom and Carl are paying for their own room, but the GoFundMe is doing ours,” Malcolm tells Annabelle.
“Wow, that’s awesome, Malc.”
There is steak, and there are baked potatoes tucked into foil sleeping bags. There is corn glistening with butter, and salads made from iceberg lettuce and tomatoes. There are presents: new shoes and a stack of moisture-wicking shirts from Aunt Angie and Uncle Pat, a new hydration belt from Mom, sunglasses and SPF 45 from Carl Walter, a pile of socks from Grandpa Ed, and a box of PowerBars, Clif Shot Bloks, and Cytomax Energy Drops from Malcolm. Three sticks of Body Glide from Zach and Olivia.
“Wait,” Mom says.
There’s one more gift. Annabelle opens the lid of the small box. It’s her own medal of Saint Christopher—protector of travelers, guardian against storms, holy death, and toothaches. Saint Christopher is in his flowing robes and carries a child on his back. St. Christopher Protect Us, it says, and it’s beautiful, really. “Oh, Mom. Thank you. Thank you, everyone.”
It’s everything she could need for now. Her family is here, and today she kicked the butt of the Iron Horse Trail. And, in spite of the dread for this day, she feels lucky. So lucky. Annabelle knows you should never forget that part.
• • •
After she blows out the candle in the large sundae, Grandpa Ed starts waving his arms.
“Over here!”
Maybe Grandpa Ed has arranged another birthday surprise. Annabelle tries to see who he’s waving to, but it’s hard from where she’s sitting. The servers are taking dessert orders, and Uncle Pat is walking around, insisting that everyone get what they want, since he’s picking up the tab.
An older woman with a long gray braid and a flowing gypsy dress is coming their way, and behind her is a guy about Annabelle’s age. He’s every Portland-Seattle hippie cliché: his brown hair is a mess of curls, and he wears a Value Village–ish striped jacket, a looped scarf, and a cross-body bag.
It’s a birthday surprise, all right.
She’s going to kill Grandpa Ed. She doesn’t care how good he’s been to her since the day she was born. Sure, she brought him to kindergarten for show-and-tell. Sure, he wore a paper hat with a painful elastic strap under his chin for every kiddie birthday party they ever had, and sent them cards with five bucks inside on every Valentine’s Day no matter where he was in the country. But she’s going to beat him with his own bag of Caputo flour.
Grandpa Ed is suddenly the life of the party. His cheeks are flushed, though maybe it’s the wine. “Dawn Celeste, everyone!” he says, like she’s a Vegas lounge singer entering the stage. They should maybe all applaud. She hands Annabelle a pan of cinnamon rolls covered with plastic wrap. Another pan of cinnamon rolls! God, how many does a person need, even if they’re delicious? Really, really delicious! As delicious as the ones at Essential Baking Company, where she used to work. Annabelle feels sorry for the guy, the grandson, following behind Dawn Celeste in her Age of Aquarius dress. He must feel so awkward and humiliated.
But he doesn’t seem awkward and humiliated. He’s as mellow as a country road, and, shit, what is he doing? He’s handing her something and smiling. A present?
“Hey.”
“Hey,” she says.
“I’m Luke Messenger.”
“Annabelle.”
“I know. I heard about what you’re doing. It’s awesome. This is for you.”
It’s a cassette tape, the kind you don’t even see anymore, tied with a shoelace to a small cassette player. The player can hook to your waistband. There are earbuds. The wire is crinkly, like they’ve been used for years.
Luke grins. Shit, shit, shit! It’s one of those grins that causes your heart to bump around, a grin that says you both share a secret.
Malcolm wiggles his eyebrows up and down. She’s going to kill him, too. He’s going to get it tonight, smothered with his own pillow from the Sleepy Inn.
Grandpa relays the story of how they met at the campground. Dawn Celeste tells everyone that she’s a retired social worker and perpetual wanderer, and Luke is a college student on hiatus. They took off from Portland a few weeks ago, and are going to go wherever their mood takes them. Grandpa says stuff that makes Dawn Celeste laugh. She seems to be laughing a lot. Her toenails in those sandals are painted the color of a tangerine. It’s too cold for sandals. Gina smiles the tight smile of an Italian countess in a Renaissance painting. Luke Messenger just sits back in one of the red padded chairs of Big Chuck’s with his hands folded across his chest, calm as the setting sun.
After a while, Aunt Angie and Uncle Pat have to go, and the party breaks up. There are thank-yous and hugs and Happy birthday, sweeties and Be careful out theres and good-byes.
“Hey, thanks again,” Annabelle says to Luke Messenger. She can at least be polite.
“No problem. Hope you like it.”
“Where are you and your grandma going next?”
“Idaho.”
“Oh, great! Have a great time.”
Great, great. Just great! Idaho! Their Idaho. She is going to kill, kill, kill Grandpa Ed.
• • •
It turns out, she doesn’t have to. After everyone leaves, Gina yanks Grandpa Ed’s sleeve. “Pop, I need a word with you.”
They are over by the defunct cigarette machine. Gina gestures like a street-corner mattress sale guy, and Grandpa Ed looks pissed. There are words like family celebration and stranger and Annabelle and You know how she feels and Ease up, Gina, Christ. Also Idaho and liar and You can’t stop her, Gina, Jesus.
Malcolm slurps the last of his Coke, now mostly melted ice. Carl Walter sits at the table with them. He’s dropping liquid onto the curled straw wrappers to make the snakes squirm.
“Long day,” he says.
“Thanks for coming all the way out here,” Annabelle says.
“Hey, my pleasure.” He seems to mean it.
• • •
In their room at the Sleepy Inn, Malcolm is bugging the hell out of Annabelle, who is sprawled on the bed in her monkey pajamas. She loves these pj’s best, because the monkeys float in blue flannel space. They are monkey astronauts, adrift in the endless universe, and the best thing about them is their faces. They look nervous. Their mouths are set in straight, worried lines, which is how you feel when you are out too far, away from your planet, doing something that feels way too big. It has been an exhausting day, and she needs to get her rest for tomorrow, but Malcolm keeps asking her questions from the other bed and filming her on his phone. Now he’s got it right in her face.
“What is the hardest part of running sixteen miles a day?”
“Back off, Tarantino.”
“I’d rather be Wes Anderson. Answer the question.”
“The hardest part of running sixteen miles a day is dealing with your annoying brother after running sixteen miles a day.”
“Be serious, Annabelle.”
She makes a face.
; “What do you hope to accomplish with your mission?”
“I hope to discover a new planet with evidence of life. Go to bed.”
“Annabelle. Come on.”
“What? I’m exhausted. Go brush your teeth.”
“After everything that’s, um, happened, why are you running from Seattle to Washington, DC, Annabelle Agnelli?”
“I have to do something.”
He clicks off the video recorder. “I’m going to bed.”
She hears him in there, the bathroom of the Sleepy Inn, shoosh-shooshing his teeth with his brush. He is a serious and devoted tooth-brusher. He takes on all the parental tasks for himself that Gina’s a little sloppy about. He even flosses. On school nights, he’s in bed by nine thirty exactly, and allows himself a half hour to read, lights out by ten. He eats his broccoli without complaint. He writes Multivitamin on the shopping list that’s attached with a magnet to their fridge.
When they turn out the lights on this night, though, Annabelle can feel her brother lying awake, and he must feel her lying awake, too, because now there’s his voice in the dark room. Dark, anyway, save for the red smoke-detector button and the occasional swoop of headlights from the road outside.
“Happy birthday, Annabelle,” he says.
“Thanks, butthead.”
“Sorry Mom and Grandpa fought.”
“No worries.”
“Sorry Grandpa brought that guy.”
“It’s okay. He didn’t mean anything by it.”
“Sorry about . . .” It’s quiet. Outside their room and down the hall, there is the rumble of the ice machine. “Everything.”
“Me too.” She doesn’t bother to tell him that he should not be sorry, that he is not responsible for any of those things. She doesn’t bother because they are both chronic apologizers, and chronic apologizers know that sorry is also just sorrow for the general state of the world. Annabelle and Malcolm lie there for a long while. She is so exhausted, but far from sleep. “Hey, butthead?”
“Yeah?”
“How have things been at school? Has that kid Derek been giving you any more trouble?”
“Not Derek, but this other guy, Sean.”
“I’m so sorry, Malc.”
“He’s just stupid.”
“He doesn’t try to hurt you or anything, though, like Derek?”
“Nah. He’s just a moron. Some people are always going to be stupid and mean.”
This is true, so true, but this is still her last thought of her eighteenth birthday: She has wrecked so much for so many people.
11
1. The small, withered heart of Marie Antoinette’s ten-year-old son is kept in a crystal urn in a French church.
2. The Polish composer Chopin’s heart was smuggled in a booze jar out of Paris and to a Warsaw church, where it was then stolen by Nazis before being returned.
3. Twenty-two embalmed hearts of popes are on display at a church near the Trevi Fountain in Rome.
4. The mummified heart of Saint O’Toole was kept in a cage on display in Christ Church Cathedral, until someone stole it.
5. There is a strange fascination with disembodied hearts.
For a day and a half, Annabelle runs on a brutally hot road, WA 970, through Cle Elum. She is smothered in slick, sticky Body Glide. Every truck that whips past gives her a near-death experience. This is how opossums must feel, the ones that make it across the road. Sweaty relief, plus the cold fear that makes the hair stand up along your arms.
Next, there is endless flat farmland, stretching like a yellow sea. And then, for two days, she is on a forest service road. Loretta keeps her entertained with names: Cougar Gulch (eek), Roaring Ranch (nice), Beehive Road (adorable), Swauk Creek (where gold was discovered in 1873, she read that morning).
Finally, today, farmhouses begin to appear, and then come the gas stations and feed stores that mean a city is about to materialize. Her day’s run is almost done, and all she wants is food, water, rest, and a break from the day’s monotony. She spots the always welcome sight of the RV, parked in the driveway of the Squilchuck Mobile Home Park.
“They’re letting us stay for free,” Grandpa Ed says.
Where to park overnight is one of their largest concerns, they quickly discovered. You can’t just plop an RV down anywhere and stay. Even if they overlooked private property and sheriffs writing citations, most of the highways feature narrow shoulders, in a landscape that gets so pitch-black at night, any car rushing past would likely kill them all. So now, Malcolm, logistics coordinator, and Zach, financial manager, organize their sleeping location every day, texting her each evening with the details. From the open doorway of the RV, Grandpa Ed hands Annabelle a bottle of water.
The cap is already off. They’ve got this routine down. She takes big, grateful gulps. Grandpa Ed sits on the step. He picks up a little piece of wood and a knife.
“Are you whittling?”
“What, where’s the problem? Gotta have a hobby while I wait.”
“I thought only hillbilly grandpas did that, not Italian ones. What is it going to be? It looks like a large raccoon dropping.” Annabelle should know. She’s already seen bunches of those.
He ignores her. “Did you text the girl from the school paper?”
“I’m not feeling well.”
“You’re feeling fine.”
“My stomach aches. I’m going to call Olivia and cancel.”
“Che cavolo!” Translation: What cabbage!
Annabelle calls Olivia, but she doesn’t answer. A moment later, Annabelle’s phone buzzes, and it’s a text from her. You’re not canceling. I just called and told Ashley Naches that you’re an hour away.
I’m sick, she types.
A text from Zach bleeps onto her screen. You’re fine. Remember debate, sophomore year? The silver, baby.
Ugh! Okay, all right! In the tenth grade, before their debate competition, Annabelle told Mrs. Lehwalder she had a stomachache and had to go home. Mrs. Lehwalder gave her a pep talk and a Pepto-Bismol, and Annabelle ended up winning a medal.
“Hurry it up,” Grandpa Ed says. “You’re supposed to meet somebody, you meet somebody.”
• • •
The stomachache is real when she walks through the hallways of Wenatchee High. The problem is, every high school looks pretty much like every other high school. At least, she’s hit with the fluorescent-light-ness of the place, the locker-lined hallways, the smell of sweat and lunch-bag apples and cafeteria cooking. She can sense all the other stuff you find at any high school, too—the bravado and insecurity and self-consciousness and pretending. Big posters are taped to the walls. They have images of basketballs and say GO PANTHERS! She made signs like this at her own school. Her and Sierra and Josie Green and other girls. Mostly girls, which makes her think that boys should make the posters for the next few hundred years until the poster score is even.
She sees The Taker by the—
Stop!
On the stairwell, there is The Taker—
Stop!
In spite of the physical pain of the last few weeks, Annabelle realizes what a relief it’s been to be in forests and farmland and even on highways. She understands why Dr. Mann kept suggesting yoga and meditation. These are all ways to be away, to set aside the images that scream and pummel. Everything here is a reminder. She has no idea how she ever managed to be in school. Well, truth is, she wasn’t managing, was she? She wouldn’t be here if she had been.
Stop! Now, it’s the open doorway to that classroom, where she can see The Taker in front of her in Mixed Media.
Stop! Another open doorway to another class with The Taker, winter quarter of AP English Comp.
Stop! The trophy case, because next she’s smacked with the memory of walking with Will through his school. He shows her his name on the plaque from their state championship lacrosse win. Immortal, he says. Until you graduate and junior varsity becomes varsity, and they win, and you’re outta here.
Stop! The
library, where she is meeting Ashley Naches.
And this library looks basically like the one at her school, too. There’s a long desk up front, and shelves of books. There are tables with computers, and READ posters on the walls. There is one kid, hiding from life. There is a table with four chairs. She can see herself sitting beside The Taker with Destiny and Lauren K (who was always Lauren K to distinguish her from Lauren Shastes, who was always just Lauren). They’re at the library during English Comp, and he takes her fingers under the table, and she lets him.
She lets him, do you see? This was after the card in the parking lot, after the birthday gift, but her mind jumps and shoves images in front of her.
She still feels his fingers. They are warm as they grip hers. She doesn’t mind. She lets him, and she likes it.
• • •
Annabelle is nervous. She taps her thumb to her fingers under the library table where Ashley Naches can’t see. Annabelle feels around for the weight of the Saint Christopher medal in her hoodie pocket.
Ashley sets her phone between them to record their conversation, and she has a spiral notebook to take notes in, too. Ashley Naches has the thoroughness of a CNN reporter interviewing a head of state.
“So how do you feel about your decision to do this now that you’re halfway across Washington? Your publicist, Olivia Ogden, said you’ve gone almost—” She checks her notes. “A hundred and fifty miles.” Her publicist! Annabelle wants to laugh. Then again, she thinks of Olivia in middle-school orchestra, always first chair. Olivia has colored tabs dividing every class notebook in some personal system of priorities, and she plays Minecraft like a demon.
“One forty-two. I feel . . . I don’t know. Crazy. Insane. No, wait. Don’t write that.”
“Okay.”
“Please don’t write that.”
“I won’t.”
The librarian stands near the computer table, watching them. She made the kid who was hiding in the back corner leave, like Annabelle had an explosive device strapped to her chest. Annabelle’s hands start to sweat. She can only guess what it’s like to have her here.
She tries again. “It feels like the hardest thing I’ve ever done.” But of course this is wrong too. Running 2,700 miles is nothing compared to what she’s been through and what’s ahead. “Um, wait. Don’t write that.”