by Julia Kent
An ominous sound crackled the sky behind us.
This part of Arizona doesn’t get too much rain, and we were about to be treated to an unusual weather event that promised to make the roads quite slippery and hazardous. Not that it mattered, with the car in this condition.
“You have got to be kidding me!” she screamed, scrambling to get out of the car. Maggie took off at a dead run through the wide, baked ground by the side of the road, weaving to avoid small cactuses and bushes, just running. Her feet kicked up dirt as she ran, leaving a handy trail I could use to find her when she was done.
I wasn’t about to follow her. You don’t follow a hysterical woman. You wait until they’ve calmed down and then you help pick up the pieces.
At least, that’s what Dad once told me in a drunken, sad moment.
As I watched her run, then slow down, then drop, I realized something.
She had risked her life to get me to L.A.
It was time for me to risk my heart for her.
Maggie
I run. That’s what I do when I can’t figure out what else to do. I’d tried so hard to let Tyler sleep, because the whole point of this insane road trip was to get him to L.A. so the band could perform, right? That meant the poor guy should be reasonably rested and have a chance to practice. He couldn’t really do that without a bass, but I could, at least, let him sleep.
But all those hours alone with my own thoughts had put me into a highway trance, and as dawn broke and my coffee supply bottomed out, I was dead tired. Driving while exhausted is hard enough.
Driving while emotionally reeling is a completely different matter.
And then that fucking armadillo had appeared out of nowhere.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Armadillo,” I said aloud, as if that would matter. I kept running, not wanting Tyler to see me. To talk to me. To try to rescue me. All the talking had percolated while he slept, making me realize that deep inside, some part of me had picked Tyler to ask for sex two months ago because my intuition told me he was so much more than he seemed to be.
And I was right.
A cramp seized my calf and I stopped, dropping to the ground, rocks digging into the heels of my hands.
I have no idea how long I sat there, studying the silty dirt, until I heard the telltale crunch of shoes on the ground, walking slowly toward me. The sky was an ominous greyish-brown right over us, as if a cloud had decided to mindfuck me.
“Hey.”
“Hey yourself.”
“Turns out the armadillo is alive.”
“What?”
“Yeah, it sort of got up and walked away like nothing happened. I guess it was stunned or something.”
I just blinked, my mind like a spinning top. “That’s what you want to say to me? Of all the things you could come over here and say, you want me to know the fucking armadillo is okay?”
“You seemed to care.”
“I—I—God, you’re such a—a—I don’t have enough words to describe you!”
He made a very masculine hmph sound and sat down next to me.
And then it began to rain.
Chapter Ten
Tyler
“This is officially the worst day of my life,” I declared, drops falling on me like they punctuated my words.
“Second worst for me.” She sniffed, then wiped her eyes with the heels of her hands.
I whiplashed my head around and stared at her. Jesus, I was an asshole. What a horrible thing to say in front of her.
And then I thought about it for a second and sighed.
“Yeah. Me too.”
“You’ve experienced something worse than this string of events?”
I just blinked. Once.
She gave me a look like she was annoyed. “You don’t understand what it’s like. To lose control like that....”
“You’re not the only person here who’s ever been...you know.”
“You know...what?”
“Violated.”
My words hung in the air like the echo of a gong, like the memory of sound. I couldn’t say the word rape because that felt too big. What happened to me when I was thirteen was—
No. Not getting into it now.
Her lips parted and I saw the tops of her teeth, white and straight and right there, resting against her lips like nothing had changed.
She just stared at me, breathing hard, her chest rising and falling like nothing had changed.
Everything had changed.
I made a sound through my nose, a short huff that was supposed to cover my screaming soul. “Yeah. Right. This is the part where you give me that crumpled face look. The one where you tell me I’m a really nice guy, but—”
And then her body was hot and full against me in a flash, warm, wet lips exploring mine, her hands hungry and in my hair. She cut off my words.
They were the wrong words, anyhow.
I pulled back from the long, slow, searching kiss, my mouth bruised and sweetened by hers. “I need to know something, Maggie.” The rain made her look so achingly sweet.
“What?” She was panting, too.
“Why you didn’t kiss me until now?”
I could hear her breath coming in fits and starts, could feel her pain and struggle in the rhythm of it. I couldn’t take back my question. Didn’t want to. What she said next determined the direction of my soul.
“Because,” she finally confessed, “I’m imperfect.” Her forehead pressed against mine and her fingers stroked the back of my neck, like she’d done it a thousand times before.
And like she knew she’d do it a million times more.
The roar of a truck engine made a strange putt-putt sound as it slowed down, forcing us to turn and look. A dude in a bigass, rusty tow truck that coughed and gasped as its engine tried to keep going came to a halt on the road next to us.
“You folks need a tow?” the driver called out.
Maybe something was going right today.
Make that two somethings.
I squeezed Maggie’s hand and left her to help the tow truck guy, a man named Andy who looked to be a few years older than me and about as different as was possible. He was at least six-six and so skinny he looked like a praying mantis. Super-dark hair and dark eyes, with a long, shaggy cut and a beard. One so thick it had things stuck in it, like stray kittens and Jimmy Hoffa.
We got the car hooked up and the three of us climbed into the tow truck, all soaking wet.
“Where to?”
“What is there?”
He paused. Andy actually chewed on his cheek, then said, “Well, we got one car repair place and one kinda campground. So your choices are pretty small.”
“A choice of one is always better than a choice of zero,” Maggie said, shivering next to me, her wet body crowding mine. I sat between them on the cracked vinyl seat in a cab so big six people could have fit comfortably.
“That’s deep,” Andy muttered, bouncing in his seat as the tow truck rambled and rolled down the road.
“Let’s get the car to the shop,” I said as Maggie leaned her head against my shoulder, her cheek pressing against my damp shirt. “And see if they can fix it.”
“Oh, Bert can fix it,” Andy said with a grunt. “Don’t know if he has the parts. Pretty sure he might not.”
Maggie let out a sound like Hell’s mouth opening. “Oh, no!”
“Bert got a phone?” I asked.
“Who doesn’t?”
I just nodded.
By the time we pulled the broken car a few miles down the dull, straight highway, surrounded by pale beige and brush, Maggie was snoring. It was a light sound. I breathed a sigh of relief. Good. She needed the rest.
And I needed the lack of words.
Andy pulled up to a building that perfectly matched the tow truck. Metal covered with rust spots like zits on a teenage boy’s face. The roof sagged and there was a broken gas pump, but a functioning car was parked next to the building. I carefully slid out from under
Maggie and followed Andy out the driver’s side door.
The rain continued, alternating between a light haze and a sudden pounding.
Bert looked like someone took a regular human being and shrank him down to four feet, then added Einstein’s hair. He was quieter than me, which made me think he was mute until he said:
“Those parts can’t get here until tomorrow. Best I can get you on the road is by ten a.m. or so.”
Shit. The concert was tomorrow. “How far’s Los Angeles?” I asked.
Bert looked at Andy and the two squinted in unison, as if that would help them answer my question. “I don’t know,” Andy said. “Seven hours?”
Fuck. The concert started at eight p.m.
“Thanks,” I said, feeling totally deflated. “Let’s go ahead and fix it. How much?”
Bert sized me up, his thick eyebrows like white caterpillars. “Parts’ll be $117. Labor another hundred or so.”
I patted my back pocket. I had enough. No way was I sticking Maggie with this.
“Do it,” I said, nodding to Bert, who picked up the phone and ordered the parts in less than seven words.
“You need a place to spend the night,” Andy pointed out.
“Yep.”
“There’s that campground.”
“Sounds good.” I waited until Bert was off the phone, though, then asked, “Think I can make a call?”
“You got a long distance calling card?”
“A what?”
“You kids and your fancy cell phones,” Bert muttered. “You get five minutes, but I’ll tack it on the bill.” It was like I stepped into 1997 or something.
I grabbed the receiver and pulled out Maggie’s phone, which I’d taken with me. Found Darla’s number. Called.
“OH MY FUCKING GOD WHERE ARE YOU FROWN?” she screamed, so loud it made Bert jump an inch in the air.
“That your mama?” Andy asked, amused. I ignored him.
“We’re in—what town is this?” I asked Bert.
“Don’t really have a name. About an hour east of Kingman.”
“We’re near Kingman.”
“HOW IN THE EVERLOVIN’ FUCK AM I SUPPOSED TO KNOW WHERE THAT IS?” she screamed.
“Your mama got a bad mouth on her,” Andy said seriously.
“Look, we can’t get on the road until tomorrow morning. We got in a car accident. We’re about six or seven hours away,” I explained to her.
Her voice came back loud but not screaming. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Maggie hit an armadillo and crashed into a guard rail. We’re in the middle of the desert but there’s a repair shop and a campground nearby.”
“Tyler.” Darla sounded like she was about to cry. “You have to be there by seven tomorrow. Have to. Please. If—”
“I’ll be there.”
“You better.”
Click.
Maggie
Andy was nice enough to give us a ride to the campground he mentioned. It was the only place in town that was anything close to a hotel, he said. I had visions of something out of Cabin in the Woods in my head, minus the campy metahumor.
What we got was much more pleasant. The sign for the campground was made of log cabin wood and burned letters painted white, but all I could read was “—tehall Campground.” We drove slowly down a pothole-marked dirt road, the ground brush just filling in, and I spotted trails in the slowly-turning dusk.
“We’ll get the part in the morning and you should be on the road by ten.”
Tyler just grunted.
“Thanks,” I said with a smile. Andy wore his baseball cap backwards and had something in his mouth between his lip and teeth. It made him talk funny.
“No problem. Bert’s the master when it comes to fixing sensors. If he can’t fix it, no one can.”
“But he can fix it, right?” Tyler asked.
“Yep. Sure can.”
We rode the rest of the way in silence, the truck turning a sharp left and suddenly coming to a large clearing. The center was a huge, open field of dust, two guys on rickety golf carts finishing up in one area near a playground with wood pavilions bookending it. Children played on the swings and a wooden play structure, while teens rode bikes in lazy loops around the perimeter.
The smell of campfires was strong. As if he read my mind, Andy said, “First time in a long time it’s okay to burn, ’cause of the rain today. Lots of kids will be excited.”
For years, my mom and dad had said they’d take me and Lena camping, but they’d always been too busy. Dad worked in corporate law, and Mom was the Director of Technology for a start-up. By the time I was in high school she worked hundred hour weeks and camping was the last thing they’d make time for.
Besides: no internet. At least, not back when I was still living at home and that kind of vacation would have mattered.
This was no man’s land. As we pulled around some campers we reached a point where three cabins stood in a row, all three with adobe roofs and stucco siding. One had a sign that said, “Office.”
“Rosita can get you folks squared away,” Andy said as he looked at his hands. “I got another tow to do.” He flashed me a gap-toothed smile. “You’re not the only one hittin’ armadillos.”
Tyler and I climbed out, my backpack in his hands, Tyler holding Lena’s guitar. As the junky tow truck disappeared I felt tears fill my eyes.
This really felt like the start of a bad B movie.
We didn’t have a choice, though.
Tyler took the lead and marched into the office, where a fat, short woman with a friendly smile was working at an old-fashioned adding machine.
“Welcome, folks. You the armadillo murderer?”
And my tears worsened.
Tyler laughed, the sound a shock. “Guess we are,” he said.
She gave a short nod. “Bert explained your problem in ten words or less, but I could use a little more detail.” She looked up and I realized one eye was brown while the other was an odd milky color. Her face was alive, with glowing skin the color of burnished copper. Streaks of grey dotted her long, black braid.
If she needed detail, then I’d be the one to talk. “I hit an armadillo and my car can’t be repaired until tomorrow, so we need a place for the night.”
“And you have nothing?”
Tyler held up the backpack. “Just this.”
“I’ve got some sleeping bags people leave behind by accident. We’ll get you in one of the cabins. Won’t be fancy, but it has a warm shower and a roof.”
“Sounds like heaven,” I said. Tyler’s face stayed neutral.
She walked us next door to a cabin not much bigger than the shed where my dad kept his riding lawn mower in the backyard. It had a tiny bathroom with a shower that barely fit one person, a microwave and a fridge, no sink, and two army cot-like beds.
A basket full of fruit and protein bars looked like nirvana.
“Perfect. How much?” Tyler asked.
“Forty,” Rosita said. Tyler reached into his back pocket, pulled out a wad of cash, and peeled off two twenties. She pocketed them.
“Thank you,” I said.
“Come over to the rec hall and get the sleeping bags from me after you’re unpacked,” she called out as she left.
“You mean in three seconds,” Tyler muttered, dumping my backpack on one of the beds.
We hadn’t said a word since the kiss. He’d left me sleeping in the cab of Andy’s tow truck, and I’d awoken to find him and Andy climbing back in, Tyler putting my head right back where it had been. Exhaustion had made me doze off, but now I was wide awake.
He’d been raped.
So many questions filled my mind, but I couldn’t ask. He walked toward the door and turned to me, hand reaching out.
I took it, and we walked over to the rec hall, hand in hand. It felt like the dry air had sucked all the moisture out of me, making my throat ache. My skin felt like tissue paper, my feet like bricks, and while the sun was high in the sky it seem
ed so close, like a peeping Tom.
Tyler opened the door with one strong hand, his fingers outstretched like a spider’s legs, the pads of his fingers pushing the screen door open. We walked into a large, open room, like something from my weeks at Girl Scout summer camp when I was in elementary school.
“Nice,” he said, taking in the space. No fireplace like the camps back home in Missouri. Just a long, big room with a few old couches, a bookcase covered with crooked board games, stacked like someone was in a rush, and a few folding tables in a drunken line.
And the oldest baby grand piano I’ve ever seen.
I let go of Tyler’s hand and walked toward it, my body twitching to do something. The problem with long car trips is that you’re just trying to get from Point A to Point B so fast that you don’t accomplish much other than buying gas, eating, going to the bathroom, and driving.
And almost killing armadillos.
Plus, there’s that whole kissing a guy thing.
My fingers rested on the keys and began playing Chopin before I could even think. I melted into the melody, then cruised right past it.
“You play.” He wasn’t asking. His voice held a tone of awe I could listen to forever.
I just smiled in response, then went into “Say Something,” the opening chords haunting and instantly recognizable. My fingers felt like liquid across the keys, my body swaying in time.
Tyler just stared, his eyes encouraging me, his face so still it was like time stopped.
Chapter Eleven
Tyler
Too many events. Too many words. Too much rushing and the sense of desperation as time ticked by so slowly, yet tomorrow loomed. I’d barely practiced. I’d have to borrow a bass when we got there. Lena’s guitar thumped against my back in the case, forgotten. I’d take it off when we got back to the cabin, but we had most of the afternoon to kill. My stomach reminded me we hadn’t eaten much, either.
By the time we walked into the rec hall holding hands, I was a mess.
I’d never told anyone what I’d just told Maggie.