by Bryan Bliss
They fell asleep well before the movie ended, but Luke let them lie on the couch until the credits rolled. He picked up Jack-Jack and took him to the bedroom. It smelled like sweat and cigarettes. He put his brother on the mattress in the corner and turned on the fan. As he was leaving, Annie appeared in the doorway, holding Petey.
“Where should I put him?” she whispered.
Luke looked around the room, as if he didn’t know where to put Petey. But it wasn’t that. He was looking at the ashtray. The piles of clothes. The half-broken mini blind that would surely invalidate their deposit if they ever moved out. He didn’t want Annie to see this, even if it wasn’t his fault. He didn’t want her to see how they only had one bedroom, how the boys had to share a twin mattress in the corner.
Annie saw Jack-Jack and pushed past Luke. When she had both boys covered, she walked back to Luke, smiling. She must have seen the embarrassment on his face, because she came close and whispered in his ear.
“I don’t care. I’ll never care.”
Luke couldn’t pull up from the nosedive he was on, so she forced him to look away from the bedroom, only into her eyes, until he finally got the message. He moved slowly toward her, not closing his eyes until their lips touched. He didn’t know where the electricity came from, how it was powered. But once again his body was completely on.
“We should go to the living room,” she whispered, so close to his face that when he nodded, he almost hit her. They both laughed. Both looked to the mattress. Neither of the boys had moved.
They sat on the couch, trying to stay connected. Touching in simple, almost accidental ways. Luke wanted to kiss her again, but whatever bravery he’d mustered had been left behind in the shadows of his mom’s room.
Annie was quiet for a few seconds. When she spoke, the bravado was gone. “So, do you want to, you know . . . go get those things?”
“What?”
She rolled her eyes. “The condoms. You know.”
Luke wanted to sprint to the bedroom, because he did know. He knew. He tried to play it cool, though. Sat there and nodded like it wasn’t a big deal. Just another Friday night.
“If you want to,” he said.
“I think I do.”
So Luke stood up, trying to cross his legs as he did—hoping that situation would calm down a bit before he got back to the couch. He power walked through the kitchen and tiptoed into the room, trying not to be weirded out that his mom not only had condoms, but actually thought it was helpful to tell Annie where to find them. Not that he was complaining. Because if he was being completely honest, he wasn’t sure this would be happening if his mom hadn’t told Annie.
They were hidden under an empty pack of cigarettes, a long string of squares that looked more like candy than he thought they should. How many did they need? He took them all.
Annie was still sitting on the couch. She had the remote in her hand and was rewinding the movie. Luke shoved the condoms in his pocket before he went back into the living room, momentarily worried she’d been joking. But when he sat down next to her, she moved closer. Put a hand on his thigh and rubbed it, slowly. He was almost too scared to move, to do anything. But he forced himself to reach over and kiss her, missing her lips and only getting a mouthful of hair.
She laughed and turned toward him. “So . . .”
He pulled the condoms out of his pocket. “I have no idea what to do with these.”
“You’re not giving me much confidence,” Annie teased.
“It’s just—I’ve never, you know . . .” Luke didn’t want to finish the sentence. It wasn’t like he didn’t know what to do—Toby alone had given him enough information to last a lifetime. He just wasn’t sure if he was supposed to tell Annie about his lack of experience. He wasn’t sure if that would make it better or worse.
“It’s fine,” Annie said, turning off the light.
And in the darkness—the movie, paused, making it seem like this moment could last forever—they kissed, undressing each other with fumbling hands. Laughing the whole time.
20
TOBY covered himself with his T-shirt as they lay in the back of Lily’s truck, staring at the sky and talking about anything other than what had just happened. Not that Toby didn’t want to relive every single moment of it. But Lily was talking about Seattle, a place Toby could barely picture, let alone care about the weather.
“It doesn’t really rain there. Not like it does here,” she said. “I mean, it rains all the time. But it’s light. A constant drizzle. Like this.”
She ran her fingers lightly up Toby’s arm, making him shiver.
“It sounds cool.”
“And everything is always green. You’ve never seen green like that.”
Toby didn’t know what else to say. He’d never been a “Southern by the grace of God” type, but he also couldn’t imagine anything outside of North Carolina. Even when he and Luke talked about going to Iowa, he always came up against a brick wall. A road that only went so far in his imagination.
Lily turned on her side, still naked. Toby tried not to look at her, a weird politeness considering their new familiarity. He looked into her eyes instead, to the point that it might’ve been creepy.
“We should go,” Toby said. “This summer.”
She laughed, thinking Toby was joking. It hurt his feelings at first, and then she said, “I thought you were moving to Iowa. With your friend.”
Lily sat up and shimmied into her shirt. Then she pulled on her pants. Toby was suddenly bashful of his nakedness. When they’d started, it had been wild. She’d shucked him like a piece of corn, throwing his clothes in all directions. He was naked and she was on top of him before he even had a chance to process what was happening. Or to be more accurate, what had happened. It was over not long after that, both of them in the back of truck and her breathing so hard it sounded like she might be crying. Him, too scared to move.
“It’s not like we have a plan,” Toby said, reaching for his shirt. He held it in front of him as Lily jumped down from the bed.
“You don’t need a plan to go somewhere.” She threw his pants to him. “Trust me, I know from experience. You just decide and go.”
Toby had been avoiding bigger questions about his and Luke’s “plan” for months, mostly because Luke told him not to worry. They’d figure it out. Still, they lurked. For years, the questions hadn’t mattered because leaving was so far away. But the closer they got to graduation, the more Toby wondered how he fit in.
“Well, what if I just decided I wanted to go to Seattle?” Toby said.
Lily kind of smiled as she pulled on her boots, but she didn’t respond immediately. When she was completely dressed, she leaned against the bed of the truck and stared at Toby.
“Listen, I have a life in Seattle. Do you realize how hard it is to just move somewhere?”
“But you just said . . .” Toby stopped himself. “When are you going back?”
“As soon as I can buy a ticket,” she said. “Train. Bus. I don’t even care.”
“Why not drive?” Toby asked. The truck was a beater, but it could surely make the trip. He had a sudden vision of them driving down sun-soaked highways. Ending each day in the bed of the pickup, sleeping under the stars.
Lily patted the truck one time and shook her head. “Some things need to stay here.”
Toby scooted to the end of the truck, and Lily handed him his boots. “Okay, so how much does a train or bus ticket cost?”
“A lot,” Lily said, running her hands through her hair. She smiled quickly, like she’d just said something impolite. Toby had seen this before.
He’d been blown off plenty of times before, most notably by a girl named Becky who’d given him her phone number at the mall. At first they talked every night. Jimmy would sometimes come in and make him get off, but fifteen, thirty minutes later, they were back on. Talking until his mouth was dry. And then one day she started making excuses. Suddenly she wasn’t racing her mom to th
e phone. When he finally did get her, he could hear her friends laughing somewhere in the background as she explained that she was really busy. That she didn’t have time for a boyfriend.
“Hey . . . is everything okay?” Toby felt stupid asking, considering they had been grinding into each other just moments before. Lily’s eyes went wide, like something from a cartoon.
“What? Why?” She laughed and gave him a hug, which felt just as fraudulent. “Are you getting weird on me, buddy?”
Buddy. Toby tried to ignore all of this, to let himself be cool with whatever might happen. He didn’t want to assign too much meaning to the sex, and neither, it seemed, did Lily.
He could do this.
“No, sorry. I’m just trying to wrap my head around what happened,” he said. “You might be surprised, but I don’t get a lot of requests for sex in the back of pickup trucks. Or anywhere, really.”
“And I didn’t really request it, did I?” Lily said, biting her lip. She came over and sat next to Toby on the tailgate. “Listen, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. I like hanging out with you. And that was fun. I’d like to do it again, maybe. But when it comes to Seattle, I’m . . .”
She blew air between her lips.
“I have to make sure I don’t get stuck here. And I’m really, really close to making it happen. You know?”
Toby didn’t know why these were separate things, but he nodded and, for maybe the first time in his life, didn’t say every word that was coming shooting into his brain. She patted him on the thigh.
“Want to see something else even cooler?”
“Cooler than all this?” Toby deadpanned, trying to rally himself. “I really hope it’s an abandoned hosiery mill. Oh! Or maybe a raccoon-infested bus station!”
Lily’s eyes narrowed. “You’re making me rethink my decision to get you naked.”
Toby jumped off the tailgate and stood at attention. He zipped his lips and saluted, which made Lily laugh.
“Okay, okay. Calm down.”
She led Toby to the side of the building and stopped in front of two restroom doors—both padlocked.
“Even if you told me to take my wildest guess, I never would’ve picked bathroom,” Toby said, laughing. Lily rolled her eyes, but Toby didn’t stop. “Let me guess. This is where you hide the World’s Largest Bag of Grits. Or maybe—”
She reached out and put a finger on his lips. When he stopped talking, she produced a single key and unlocked the bathroom. Before she opened the door, she turned to Toby.
“When I came back, I thought I was going to be able to sell my dad’s house and leave immediately,” she said. “But I guess he left the house to the church, which . . . whatever. They’re letting me stay there until I figure things out.”
Lily wrapped both her arms around her body like she was trying to keep herself from flying away. She looked up to the sky, and her face went from distant to angry in a flash. Just as quickly, it all drained out of her.
“Anyway, now things are figured out.”
She pushed the door open, and the bathroom was crammed with hundreds of boxes. There was an opening big enough for the door and one person, but the rest of the room was nothing but cardboard. Toby stepped inside and pried one of the boxes open. It was full of cigarette cartons.
“Where did you get these?”
“They’re not mine. Not really. I’m just holding them for a day or so.”
Toby looked around at the boxes, stacked deep into the surprisingly large bathroom. He did some quick math. “There’s a couple hundred thousand dollars of cigarettes in here.”
“Maybe more,” Lily said.
Toby closed the box and paused, trying to figure out what to say. “You realize you can go to prison for this.”
“Hopefully not.”
He turned around and stared at Lily. She looked like she wanted to say more but was forcing herself to stay quiet. When he walked back outside, she immediately padlocked the door and—looking around the empty lot—started walking back to her truck. Toby followed, watching every movement Lily made.
Toby didn’t say much as they drove back to the school to pick up his car. He was trying to put together the pieces. The way Lily had casually shown him the cigarettes, as if trafficking stolen cigarettes—and they had to be stolen; he couldn’t see it any other way—was as normal as a trip to the store. If anyone had taken those cigarettes across state lines at any point, it was a felony. They’d do real time. Toby wasn’t sure if him seeing them could be trouble, but he wasn’t going to take any chances. As far as he was concerned, he would never acknowledge that bathroom ever again. Still, something troubled Toby.
He looked over at Lily. The headlights from passing cars highlighted her face every few seconds.
“What are you going to do with those?”
Lily seemed to be far away. She shook her head, as if she was trying to wake herself up.
“Sell them.”
“Where did you get them?”
“I didn’t. Somebody asked me if I wanted in and . . . well, I don’t have a hot-shit wrestler for a friend. So this is my escape plan.”
Toby didn’t return her smile. He looked out his window, thinking. They were pulling into the school parking lot when Toby turned to her.
“How much does a train ticket to Seattle cost?”
Lily thought about it for a second. “Five hundred, maybe a thousand dollars?”
Relief shot through Toby. She didn’t have to do this. She didn’t have to worry about cigarettes or anything illegal. They could make this work.
“You could get a job—hell, I could get a job. I’d be happy to help you. It wouldn’t take a month, maybe two to make that much money.”
Lily stared out the window as she answered. “Do you know how expensive Seattle is?”
Toby wanted her to look him in the eye. He wanted her to accept his help, which he would give blindly. Completely. But more importantly, he wanted her to see that she didn’t even have to go to Seattle. What was in Seattle? They could go to Charlotte or Greensboro together. Or maybe even back up to Asheville. Camping in the woods and living off vending machines. It sounded like heaven to Toby.
“You don’t have to go to Seattle,” he said.
Lily sighed and then turned to look at him, smiling. “I know you want to get out of here. I do too. And this is the way I’m going to do that. Okay?”
For a second, Lily closed her eyes. When she opened them and stared at Toby, he realized she’d been working up the resolve to say something he wouldn’t like.
“Listen, I think I made a mistake. . . .”
Toby dropped his head. He had no idea what was happening, or why she was suddenly pushing him away. He laughed to himself.
“Usually girls tell me that before I get the chance to have sex with them,” Toby said.
Lily’s face softened, and she took Toby’s hands. “It’s not that. I just . . . You have to understand that I can’t stay here. I can’t get stuck. And I’m afraid if we do this too much, that’s exactly what’s going to happen.”
“But . . .”
Lily smiled, and it made him forget all his objections.
“Give me the weekend, let me figure this stuff out. And then we can talk. Okay?”
Toby didn’t get a chance to answer. Lily leaned over and kissed him like he was going to war. Afterward, she wiped her lips as Toby got out of the truck with barely a word. He stood there for a moment, waiting for her to say something—anything.
“I like you,” she said.
“Thank you.”
She chuckled once, and for a moment, Toby thought she might get out of the truck. But she gave him one last smile before slowly pulling out of the empty parking lot. Toby didn’t move, watching until her taillights disappeared.
Bo and Jimmy were sitting at the kitchenette table, a case of beer open between them. They were laughing, tipping cans back. As soon as Toby walked into the trailer, Jimmy folded up a notebook they’d b
een writing in and nodded at Bo.
“Look at this kid,” he said.
“I’m looking,” Bo said.
Toby tried to read the look on Jimmy’s face. The smirk, which really didn’t tell him anything. His tone was light, the words playful. Toby reached for a beer—because, fuck it—opened it, and took a long drink. It still made him gag.
“Shiiiitt,” Bo said, hitting the table as he laughed. “This kid is just like you, Jimmy. I swear to God. Doesn’t give a fuck.”
Normally, Toby would bristle at being compared to Jimmy. But right now, he just wanted to go back to Lily’s house and sweep her away. To make her believe they could both be happy, could forget everything about this bastard town.
Jimmy stood up and took a few steps toward Toby. He put his hand on his chin, like he was investigating a crime.
“This is a dude who just got his dick wet,” Jimmy said, finally laughing.
Toby brought the beer to his lips, trying to deflect the question. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Boy, don’t even try to lie to me. Look at his neck, Bo.”
Bo leaned over and laughed—was it a bite? Some errant lipstick? Toby didn’t know.
“I hope you wore a rubber,” Jimmy said, opening another beer.
Toby laughed nervously and tried to walk away. If he could end it here, there wouldn’t be any problem. Just get back in the El Camino and drive away. His dad stopped him.
“C’mon, I want to hear about this.”
His hand was hard against Toby’s abdomen, and Toby wasn’t sure if he could push through it. When he relaxed, Jimmy lowered his arm.
“There’s nothing to say,” Toby said.
Jimmy laughed, looked over at Bo, who didn’t say anything as he smiled and swallowed beer at the same time. “So who was it? Hazel?”
Hazel was easily fifty, if not older, and a more regular part of the Deuce than the cheap beer and watered-down metal bands that toured through. Toby shook his head, horrified. Bo about died right there.