It was that simple. Well, actually it wasn’t simple, because the conversation went something like this:
“Really, you’ll do it for Ángel?”
“And for you, Viv. I want to do it for you, too.” He was standing in the linen closet, pulling washcloths from a pile. He turned to look right at me. “I’m trying to give you what you need. You know that, right?”
That statement took my breath away. It made me feel so weak, so dizzy, that I had to sit down, right on the floor of the linen closet.
“If you need me to stay away from you, I’ll stay away. If you need me to help you steal a scrawny pain-in-the-ass kid from the hospital, I’ll do that, too.” He shrugged. “It’ll be fun.” Then he reached out his hand to help me up.
I didn’t take his hand. I couldn’t.
* * *
At one A.M. sharp, Bertrand gives us the signal. I take off down the back stairs, carrying an oxygen tank. I head straight to my car—the Cadillac, since I had to get the Tesla detailed, now that I’m trying to sell it. That thing is staying parked in the carport until it sells. I do not have forty more bucks to waste on cleaning it again.
Okay, I’m delusional. I didn’t have it the first time.
I put the oxygen in the trunk and jump into the driver’s seat of the convertible, not even opening the door. I crank the engine and pull a McDonald’s bag from the floor of the passenger side. I balance the cup holder filled with Cokes on the front seat and toss the food bag onto the backseat.
I start the car and pull up to the cafeteria service entrance, just in time to see the big service door roll open.
TJ wheels Ángel onto the service ramp, one-handed, since he’s balancing an IV stand with the other.
When the fresh night air hits Ángel, he pulls in a deep breath and starts to laugh.
TJ hits him hard. “Shut up, homie,” he says. “We gotta stay quiet until we get out of here.” He hits the parking brake on the wheelchair and turns to pull the service door down. I back up so that he can lift Ángel out of the wheelchair and into the passenger seat. He reclines the seat a little, then he folds the wheelchair and slides it into the backseat. He wedges Ángel’s IV stand between the seats.
He does it all with such ease. Everything TJ does with his body, he makes look easy.
I need to stop watching him move.
The sound system in this car isn’t bad, but our only options are the radio (which sucks in Central Florida) or cassette tapes. I can’t seem to find any cassette tapes. It’s fine, though. I use my portable speaker and play music off my phone.
“I guess I’m ridin’ bitch seat,” TJ says, wedging himself between the wheelchair and the IV pole, into the middle of the enormous backseat.
I honestly believe that someone could live in this thing, if necessary. The backseat is basically the size of a twin bed.
Maybe I’ll be living here soon. And Mom, too. Who knows?
TJ opens the McDonald’s bag and distributes extra-large fries. I pass out the supersized Cokes, and TJ gives me his phone.
“New playlist,” he says. I connect his phone to the speaker, hit a playlist called “Reggaeton XX,” and we hit the road.
Soon we’re cruising down an empty highway, and Ángel’s smiling so wide that I think his face is about to split in two. We’re listening to “Reggaeton XX” at full volume. It doesn’t take me long to figure out why TJ labeled it “XX.” It’s got all the explicit songs we rejected for the hospital mix.
Oh sweet Jesus. Once again, I’m feeling grateful that TJ doesn’t know Spanish. I’m also trying very hard not to think about my feminism and popular culture class last semester. I’m absolutely certain that if Professor Austin-Jacoby knew I was listening to this particular song without launching into immediate protest, she would retroactively issue me a failing grade. As it is, I barely managed to pull off a C+.
When we get to the beach, TJ leans forward between the seats. “Go to Eighth,” he says. “There’s a beach access.”
“We’re actually driving onto the beach?” I ask.
I did not know this was part of the plan.
“Yeah, Viv!” TJ calls out over the music. “Wheelchairs don’t do so well on the sand.”
I stop when we get to the beach access kiosk. The gate is closed.
“Aww, damn!” Ángel exclaims, his arms flailing above his head.
Of course, there’s no one working at the kiosk, since it’s the wee hours of the morning on Friday. It’s probably against the law to drive onto the beach this late, but I suppose we’re already breaking a few laws by sneaking Ángel out of the hospital, so what’s one more?
“No worries,” TJ says. He hops out, pulls an already open padlock from a loop of chain, and lifts the chain from a post. He pushes the gate open. “One of my surfing buddies works this kiosk. He left it open for us.”
TJ walks back to the car and puts his hand on the side, ready to jump back in.
“I think maybe you should take over,” I tell him. “I don’t think I can drive in sand.”
I feel them both looking at me.
“Your girl wants the bitch seat!” Ángel calls out, reaching over to slap me on the back.
They both laugh like crazy while I’m climbing into the back. I’m not laughing. I’m thinking instead that I definitely just earned myself an F from Professor Austin-Jacoby.
But TJ was right. This is fun.
He pulls the car slowly onto the beach. It’s a nice night, not perfect—the tide is half in; the sky is sort of cloudy, so that the light of the stars seems muted; and the moon is just a sliver, high in the sky. The air is warm and humid, heavy against the bare skin on my arms and legs. A light breeze from the east carries the scent of the ocean.
TJ drives fifty feet and cuts the engine.
“Stop the music,” Ángel says. “I want to hear the…”
“Waves,” I say.
“Yeah, the waves,” he tells me, looking across the ocean.
TJ gets out of the car and goes around to the passenger side. He opens Ángel’s door and lifts him from the car.
It strikes me, for the first time, that we must look incredibly strange. TJ’s still in his scrubs, and Ángel’s wearing a hospital gown. I’m so used to seeing them in these clothes, I didn’t even think—until we were all about to spread ourselves out at the edge of the ocean—about what they were wearing. It doesn’t matter. We’re the only people out on this stretch of beach at two in the morning.
TJ hoists Ángel onto his shoulder and adjusts his gown so that it’s covering his backside. Then, cradling Ángel in his arms, he gently eases to his knees.
“Sit behind him,” TJ says. “Let him rest against your legs.”
I follow TJ’s directions, and he shifts Ángel in his arms so that Ángel’s back is against my shins, and his legs are stretched out toward the water. Then he fiddles with Ángel’s oxygen tube and makes sure his IV isn’t pulling at the skin on his arm.
Certain that everything is okay, he plops down beside me, resting his elbows on the sand.
Ángel is staring out at the horizon, silent, transfixed.
Since the wind is light and the ocean is calm, waves roll in at perfect intervals. Again and again, their foamy white peaks catch the light of the moon and bring it to our feet.
I turn to look at TJ and mouth, Thanks.
He nods, pressing his lips together in a tight line and looking right into my eyes.
Bertrand was right. He was so incredibly, unbearably right. I never could have pulled this off without TJ. I needed him.
I need him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
TJ
“WHY AREN’T THERE ANY BIRDS?”
Vivi is lying on her back in the sand, looking up at the sky. Her legs are still bent at an angle, and Ángel’s still resting against her. I don’t know how long we’ve been here. I don’t really wanna know. This is all going to have to end soon. I know that much. Ángel has an appointment with the US gover
nment at eight A.M., and it’s the kind of appointment you’d be an idiot to miss.
“I mean,” Vivi says, placing her arm under her head, “this is the beach, for God’s sake. Where are all the migratory waterfowl? The pelicans? Where are the terns and the plovers?” She turns her head to look down the beach, away from me. “Not even a sandpiper. Not a single seagull. Seagulls are everywhere.”
“Hey, Vivi,” Ángel says. He’s not looking at her. He can’t seem to look anywhere but at the horizon. “What is it with you and the birds?”
“What do you mean?” Vivi asks, defensive. She props up on her elbow. “So I like birds. Is that a problem?”
“No.” Ángel shrugs. “Birds are cool. But you love them. It’s like you’re—”
“Obsessed,” I finish his thought. “Admit it, Viv. You have an unhealthy bird obsession.”
“Shut up,” she says.
“When did this start?” Ángel asks. “This, um, bird—”
“Obsession,” I say.
“Don’t make fun of me,” Vivi says, and then she bites the edge of her lip.
Damn, she’s cute. She’s got this little flowery sundress tucked between her thighs, and her bare arms are stretched over her head. The only thing covering her shoulders is those skinny straps.
I jump up. “We need to adjust your position,” I tell Ángel. “Grab my arms.”
Ángel takes ahold of my arms—he’s probably done it a hundred times before—and I pull him forward until he’s sitting straight up.
“Where?” I ask.
“Back,” he says.
We’ve done this so often that we barely even need to talk for me to understand him. I ease him away from Vivi and lie him flat on his back, parallel to the ocean. Vivi stretches her legs out into the sand and turns onto her side, letting her arm rest along her hip.
“So, the birds,” Ángel says. “What’s so great about them?”
“It’s stupid,” Vivi says. “You’ll think I’m crazy.”
I roll up my scrubs and stand with my feet in the water.
“We know you’re crazy, Vivi. This was all your idea, remember?” I use my foot to splash a little water toward her.
A few droplets land on her shoulder, and she leans forward to wipe them with her hand.
“Tell us,” Ángel says.
“It’s my dad,” she says. “I know this is completely nuts, but I think he sometimes comes to me in the form of different birds.” She rolls onto her stomach and rests her chin in her hands. “It started right after he died. At his memorial service, there was this robin in the tree, and it wouldn’t stop singing.” She starts to trace shapes in the sand. “Since he died, it’s like—it’s like every time I’m confused or hurting or I have some problem I need to figure out—every time, a bird shows up. I research the bird, and something about it always helps me make sense of things. You know?”
Ángel rolls onto his side and grasps his stomach—because he’s laughing like a maniac. It’s a completely inappropriate response, I know, but I can’t help joining him. It’s infectious, that laugh.
“You think that your dad is in the birds?” Ángel asks through bursts of laughter. “The birds tell you what to do?”
“Shut up, Ángel,” Vivi says, picking up a handful of sand and throwing it at his feet. “I told you it was—”
“It’s not crazy,” I say. “But it’s not very Vivi. I think maybe that’s what he’s trying to say.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re just so practical, so organized, so—I don’t know—you don’t seem like a person who would think that people’s souls are floating around in birds.”
“Well,” she says, sitting up and tucking her legs underneath her, “maybe I’m not who you thought I was.”
“Oh, you’re right about that,” I say. “I also never thought you’d come up with an elaborate plan to bust this kid out of the hospital and break the law, but here we are.”
I don’t say what I want to say, which is that eight months ago, when I was holding a dishrag to her bloodied nose, I never, ever would have thought she could be the one I can’t get out of my head, the one I’d do damn near anything for.
But here we are.
“Here we are,” Ángel says. “But where are the birds?” He starts laughing again, so much that I’m starting to worry about his heart.
“Shut up!” Vivi says, kicking him. Her voice isn’t angry, though. I don’t think she’s capable of getting mad at Ángel. “I haven’t seen any birds since before we went to Orlando—honestly, none.”
“That’s impossible,” I say.
“I know,” she says. “What I mean is that—sure—there have been a few birds around, flying high in the sky or perched at the top of some tree. But they’re not coming near—they’re all so far away, I can barely even identify them. And they’re not…” She hesitates, looking out to the horizon. “They’re not paying any attention to me.”
“The birds usually pay attention to you?” I ask, trying not to look at her like she’s batshit crazy.
“You’ve seen it, TJ! Remember that barred owl when we were kayaking?”
I nod. The girl’s got a point. That owl was acting very strange.
“That stuff happens all the time! Or it did happen. And I don’t know how to explain it to you. But it helped. The birds were helping me, and now they’re gone. I’m totally confused about every single thing in my life, I have a hundred huge decisions to make, and all the birds have flown away. I’m not making this up!”
Ángel grabs her foot and squeezes it gently. “Don’t worry, Vivi. The birds will be back.”
I grab my phone from the pocket of my scrubs and check the time. “Speaking of being back, we’ve gotta…”
“No! Already?” Vivi says.
I nod and reach down. Miraculously, she puts her hand in mine and lets me pull her up.
* * *
Twenty minutes later I’m sweating like a sinner in church, every inch of my body is covered in sand, and I’m starting to stress, for real.
The car is stuck—really stuck. I have tried to push it out many times, with Vivi flooring the gas. It just keeps digging in deeper.
This Cadillac does not want to go anywhere. I get that. We don’t want to leave either. But the problem is, we have to be back to the hospital before the end of Bertrand’s shift. The hospital is an hour away, and we absolutely have to have Ángel back in that bed before immigration comes to pick him up later this morning, or else all hell will break loose.
I can’t even think about that.
The clock is ticking loud and fast.
“Ángel!” I call out, wiping my forehead. “Have you ever driven a car?”
He smiles big. “Nah, but a tractor, yes. Very many times. And a mower. I drive a mower. And one time a golf cart.”
“Close enough,” I say. “Viv, you need to help me push.”
She gets out of the car and comes around to help me. We move Ángel, his IV, and his oxygen into the driver’s seat.
This is such a bad idea.
He sits up in the seat and grasps the steering wheel. I adjust the seat all the way forward and tell him, “On the count of three, floor the gas. All the way to the ground.”
He nods.
Vivi and I both go around to the back of the car. We lean into the bumper.
“Ready?” I ask.
“Yeah,” she says.
“Close your eyes,” I say. “The sand is gonna fly everywhere.”
She squeezes her eyes shut.
“One! Two! Three!”
Ángel floors the accelerator and we both push with all our might.
We are straining and pushing and sand is pelting our faces, our arms and legs.
Nothing.
“Stop!” I call out.
Vivi and I both hunch over and suck in deep breaths.
“Okay,” I say. “Again.”
Ángel presses the gas and Vivi and I lean in hard. The sand flies
up, and then I feel the easing of pressure on my arms. “Push!” I call out to Vivi. “Harder!”
The Cadillac launches forward.
“Woo-hoo!” Ángel calls out, still flooring the gas, heading straight for the gate.
“Oh, thank God.” Vivi sighs. I reach out for a high five, smiling at her red cheeks, at her arms and legs covered in sand. “He’s not stopping,” she says, looking past me. “TJ! He’s not stopping!”
I drag my gaze away from her face to see Ángel slow down, just enough to turn around and wave.
“Bye, suckers!” he calls out, still waving big as the car pulls onto Eighth Street. “See ya’ on the flip side!”
“Oh shiiiit!” I hear myself scream.
“He wouldn’t!” she calls out.
We both stand, frozen, watching the taillights fade. And then we simultaneously break into a full-on sprint.
The car takes a corner fast. We’re running with all our might toward the turn, and Vivi finds enough breath to scream, “Ángel, don’t you dare! You little prick! I’m going to kill you!”
I’m turning the corner, my legs moving as fast as they can, and I’m thinking: Is he really gonna take off? Is he planning to run from the law? Is this kid that smart—could he be punking us? Could he have planned this entire thing?
All these thoughts are moving fast through my head, and then I see it. The Cadillac pulled carefully beside the curb, idling.
I stop running and let my hands and chest fall toward the ground. I’m sucking in breaths, but Vivi is running right past me. “You are such a little douchebag!” she calls out. “You little prick! If you weren’t already dying, I’d kill you myself!” She’s hitting him over and over, but soft, not hard.
That makes Ángel laugh like a maniac. I’m laughing too, watching him laugh like crazy and fight off her slaps. At least, I’m laughing between the breaths of air I’m still trying to suck back into my lungs.
All the way back to the hospital, we keep laughing. The wind blows warm and damp around us, and we’ve got the reggaeton turned up to full blast. Ángel can’t stop describing how crazy our faces looked when he pulled away, and Viv and I keep telling him what an asshole move that was.
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