by Anthology
“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.
“Bert got a phone?”
“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.
“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 heaven.
&nbs
p; “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 toward 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 seemed 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. To 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.
I felt like a thousand bobbleheads were all bouncing inside of me. For eternity.
I told her.
I told her and she kissed me.
What fresh hell was this? Or was it heaven?
And now this chick—my chick?—was playing piano like she’d been doing it for three lifetimes. As the chords to “Say Something” filled the room I listened. Really listened. Was she telling me something, or just picking a popular song?
She cut it short, though, as I pulled Lena’s guitar off my back and started strumming with her.
“I don’t know the words,” Maggie said with a smile, her face filled with all the questions my inner bobbleheads nodded to.
“You know the words to this?” I played the opening notes to “I Wasted My Only Answered Prayer”.
She replied by playing the matching chords. Perfectly. With a jaunty, intense tone that made the song fresh and vibrant. Holy shit.
And then, by God, we played. Neither of us had a rock-star’s voice like Trevor or Liam, but we had a throaty grace between the two of us, her alto matching my gravelly voice. We complemented each other with a melodic blend that I felt, rather than heard, as my fingers took us through the song.
Oh, I wasted
my only answered prayer
on a woman
who didn’t believe in God....
Chills. Tiny warm spiders ran through my veins like they’d replaced my blood.
Maggie didn’t look at me as we sang. Not once. Her eyes were closed and her shoulders rose and fell as her hands played magic on my spine.
At one she walked away
At two she said no
At three she said please
At four she said more
Our voices combined, like two wisps of smoke reaching high, and soon the sound that came out of us was like twin strands of DNA, reaching toward God.
The song ended and I couldn’t breathe.
Just couldn’t. If I moved, I worried this would end. My eyes felt like pieces of the sun. All I could see was Maggie, sitting on the bench at the piano, looking right back at me with eyes that looked like stars.
Holy shit!
Before I could think, I played the opening chord to “Random Acts of Crazy".
And I began:
Your Mama told you to watch out for me
Your God told you to walk away
Your Daddy said nothing, for he was gone
And you weren’t sure what to say
The night you found me, wandering and lost
Naked by the side of the road
My guitar shattered, my body bereft
You fought everything you were told
Maggie joined with unselfconscious joy, her body playing and finding its way without sheet music. I could have played these parts in my sleep, though the bass part wasn’t the same as guitar. Somehow the music was just in me.
In her.
When a naked soul finds you
You don’t have a choice
You have to stop and pause
You can turn away and never look back
But it will yank you back, because
Random acts of crazy draw you in
Random acts of kindness draw you in
Random acts of love draw you in
We finished, her fingers playing a little ditty at the end that sounded like bells floating on the hush of a misty morning dew. The silence echoed like a question.
Like a prayer.
A burst of applause from one person filled the air like a lightning strike. It cracked, splitting the air in two.
“That was amazing!” Rosita called out, her voice almost a scream.
Maggie turned a deep shade of red that made me want her so much. So bad. The push of blood to her cheeks drove me crazy. My body itched, my fingers skittering along the strings. A pulse of blood in my body, like a giant bomb inside me, made me need to move. To kiss. To touch.
“Are you professional musicians?” Rosita asked, calling out over her own clapping.
Maggie thumbed toward me. “He is,” she said, dipping her head. She looked at me through her eyelashes and I nearly grabbed her and kissed her right then and there. Instead, though, I just stared.
“You both should be!” Rosita shivered. “Your voices! You sound like you’re in love!” A bell rang in the distance. “Damn! Gotta go. One of the other campers.” She scurried out, her wide backside banging into the loose screen door and making it clap one final smack as she departed.
You sound like you’re in love.
Maggie
My hands hummed. They didn’t tremble. No shivering. Not a tremor or a shake. They hummed like the energy from a thousand high tension wires were buzzing through and I was a conduit.
That same energy flowed between me and Tyler as our eyes met.
“How did you—?” He
crossed the room with steps that ate the floor, Lena’s guitar in his hands, the empty case still on his back. Those songs. Those two songs. I got so lost in them, like finding out every part of me was a little bit of every part of everything. Of the sky, the air, the piano...and of Tyler.
“I’ve just played around at home with Random Acts’ songs. Nothing fancy, I just love the songs and I’ve never—”
The kiss hit me before he even touched me. His lips said everything we didn’t say in the song or in the car. His hands spoke thousands of words with their slow claiming of me, his embrace a place to relax and stand tall, a place for contradictions and discovery.
And then, without a single word, he reached for my humming hand and walked me with great deliberation back to the little cabin. I snagged two sleeping bags in the corner as we left.
We weren’t even in the little cabin fully before he set down Lena’s guitar, whipped off the case, and was kissing me again, the rasp of his stubble just jarring enough to make me feel everything without experiencing it fully. As the kiss deepened, though, it altered, changing me with it. Fingers in my hand, a flat palm against my back, the wet heat of our clothes and skin pressing against each other, the wild taste of Tyler in my mouth.
I broke away and breathed hard, Tyler’s mouth open, his eyes dark and inviting.
“Let’s get you out of these wet clothes,” he said.
“I know,” I said with a small, breathy laugh. “I’m going to catch a cold.”
“No, Maggie. I mean,” he said, pulling me closer to him, warm heat pouring from his body to mine, “—let’s get you out of these clothes.”
The last time I had a man break through the physical wall between two bodies and enter into me was a night filled with pain, horror, brutality and the weeping knowledge that all three of my attackers enjoyed every second of what they did to helpless me.
Before the gang rape I had dated a few guys. More than a few, actually. I had slept with two. And after, it took a while—but I kissed a couple.