by April Henry
Griffin braced himself for the outburst he knew would come. The car was not just hot, it was on fire. And the girl was more a problem than ever.
But Roy just looked thoughtful. He turned, spit a stream of tobacco juice, and wiped the back of his mouth with his hand.
“President of Nike, huh?” Roy looked toward the house. “We need to think about this a little more. This might change things.”
STEALING A GIRL
The glass bounced off the edge of the dresser. It quivered in Cheyenne’s fingers but didn’t break. With her hands tied, it was hard to put much strength behind what was basically just a flick of her wrist. And a little part of her was afraid of cutting herself.
Cheyenne steeled herself and swung harder.
With a ringing sound, the glass bounced off again, unscathed.
She reminded herself that she had more to fear than getting cut. What these men might do to her was much, much worse. When next Cheyenne swung the glass, she pivoted with her hips and twisted her wrist as hard as she could.
Time seemed to slow down. She felt the impact and then the cracks radiating out as the glass split and broke. Cheyenne was left holding one large piece while several others pinged off the floor. Gingerly, she strained with the fingers of her free hand to explore the piece she still held. It was about two inches long and an inch wide. The edges were curved and very sharp. Even touching them lightly, she was afraid. It was like running her fingertip along a knife’s edge, full of dangerous promise. Her heart was beating in her ears.
What should she do first? The cord that tied her to the bed would be easier to cut, but she would still have her hands bound behind her. Cheyenne decided to concentrate on cutting the shoestring around her wrists.
She gritted her teeth and twisted her hand until the edge of the glass rested on the shoelace. The position was almost impossible to maintain. The tension ran all the way up to her shoulder blades. Then she realized she needed to turn her hand even farther, or she would risk slicing her left wrist as well as the shoestring. She gritted her teeth, twisted her wrist, and began to saw.
In her mind’s eye, the shoestring was white. She had never asked anyone what color her shoestrings were, but white was the only color that made sense. Cheyenne knew that her shoes were light blue and that – before the accident at least – shoelaces had pretty much come in white, brown, or black. So it was probably white, and that was how she pictured it. Cheyenne still “saw” things, even things she had never laid eyes on before the accident. And it was more than just the little blurry slice of vision she had left. She didn’t know what it was like for those who had been born blind, but for her, imagining that she could still see, as if she had simply closed her eyes and could open them to view the world at any time, helped her to create mental maps of rooms and buildings and even neighborhoods. And the maps made it easier for her to move around, whether it was in her room at home (where she really had seen most things before she lost her sight), or at her school or through downtown Portland (both places where her mental maps had to be built from a combination of imagination and memory).
So in Cheyenne’s mind, the shoelace was white, the bedpost she was tied to was painted brown, and the soft quilt on the bed was made up of alternating squares of white and pale yellow. And even if she twisted her head and concentrated, her sliver of vision might not be clear enough to confirm any of this.
The doctors said it was good practice to hold on to her visual memory and to exercise her skills as long as she could. Because she had been born sighted, Cheyenne still related to the world the way a sighted person would. When she dreamed, she still saw colors and faces, furniture and flowers, and was shocked when she woke up and realized she couldn’t see any of those things. And deep inside herself, Cheyenne cherished the hope that someday she would see again. Every few months, her dad would read her some story in the paper about experiments with computers or implants. Danielle didn’t like that he read these stories to Cheyenne. She talked about raising false hope. But Cheyenne had long ago decided that she would rather have false hope than no hope at all.
Sure, Cheyenne had learned how to “travel” with a cane – which was what the professional blind people called it. She had learned to use a computer that spoke to her. She had learned how to organize her clothes so they weren’t inside out or clashing. She could cook, eat, put on makeup, do her nails, fix her hair. But it still couldn’t take away the times when she said something about a person she thought wasn’t in the room – only they were. Or the cashiers who saw Cheyenne put the clothes on the counter and open her wallet and still said to her friends Kenzie or Sadie, “Will she be paying by check or credit card?” As if she wasn’t capable of speech.
The room was cold, but Cheyenne’s hands were sweating, making it hard to keep a good hold on the broken piece of glass. The tendons in her wrist ached. She ignored everything but the thought that soon she would have her hands free.
A noise made her freeze. It sounded like a door swinging open at the far end of the house. Cheyenne recognized Griffin’s voice, and that of his dad. She had a few seconds, maybe less. With the side of her free foot, she tried to sweep the other shards of glass under the dresser. Straining her wrist until it felt like it might snap, she managed to slip the broken piece of glass into her coat pocket. By the time she heard the doorknob turn, Cheyenne was again sitting on the bed, sweat running cold down her back. In her mind’s eye, she imagined several pieces of glass still lying in the middle of the floor. Winking in the light. Giving her away. Taking a deep, shuddering breath, she told herself there was nothing she could do about it now.
The door swung open. Their first words were a surprise.
“Why didn’t you tell me who you were?” demanded Griffin.
Cheyenne felt confused. Now that she was no longer concentrating so fiercely on cutting away her bonds, exhaustion and sickness crashed over her like a wave. “I did tell you. I’m Cheyenne Wilder.”
Roy said, “But you’re the daughter of Nike’s president.”
“How do you know that?” She spent most of her time trying to play it down. Even at the private school that she attended, where everyone’s parents were doctors or lawyers, people acted like what her dad did was a big deal. All it meant was that he traveled a lot and that the whole family dressed in Nike – and Harley, Converse, and Cole Haan – clothes from head to toe. And sometimes she met famous athletes.
“There was a story about you on the radio,” Griffin said. “Your dad said you were so sick that you could die. I just thought you had a cold or something.”
Her dad! Cheyenne’s chest ached so bad. She didn’t know if it was from the pneumonia or because she needed to cry. She wished she could hear her dad’s voice. To hear one good thing on this awful day.
Roy stepped closer. He smelled gross. She sniffed again. Peppermint chewing tobacco, like one of the kids on the football team chewed, the sharp smell of mint not masking the earthy, stomach-turning smell of tobacco. “So how sick are you?”
Cheyenne was strangely torn. She wanted to act like everything was okay, to not show any weakness. But then she remembered what she had thought earlier when she was alone with Griffin. It was probably better to let them know that she was sick. Because maybe they would watch her less closely, leave her alone more. They would think she was too weak to pose any danger.
“I’ve got pneumonia. That’s why we were at the pharmacy – to get my antibiotic prescription filled.”
“And your mom left you in the car,” Griffin said.
Cheyenne shook her head. Suddenly, the distinction seemed important. “Danielle’s my stepmom. My real mom’s dead. Danielle left the keys in the car in case I got cold.” She remembered how she had begged Danielle to leave the keys and pushed the thought away.
“Well, now we need her number and everyone else’s,” Roy demanded. “Mobile numbers for your dad and stepmom, home number, work numbers. And we also need to know how much you think your daddy might
part with.” He paused to let that sink in. “Here’s a tip. It had better be a lot.”
Cheyenne had thought that Griffin had only been stealing a car. But now it looked like he had been stealing a girl, too.
THE ETIQUETTE OF KIDNAPPING
Cheyenne looked frightened. “Most of my phone numbers are programmed into my mobile.” Her voice was ragged. “It’s voice activated. I just say who I want to call, and it dials it for me.”
“So it’s in the car?” Roy turned toward the door.
“I threw it out the window.” Griffin hoped Roy wasn’t going to get mad. It wasn’t always easy to know what would set his dad off. “It started ringing, and I was worried they could trace it. So I threw it in some bushes in a vacant lot near the shopping center.”
“Good point,” Roy said, nodding. Then he turned to Cheyenne. “Just tell me all the numbers you remember.”
“My home number is five oh three—”
“Hold on, hold on,” Roy said. Griffin saw that his dad didn’t have a piece of paper or anything to write with. Roy went out and began scrabbling in the junk drawer in the kitchen, leaving Griffin alone with Cheyenne.
She didn’t look good, in Griffin’s opinion. Her cheeks were red, but the rest of her face was blue-white, like skim milk. And then she started coughing again. Thick, wet coughs that sounded like something was tearing in her chest. The cords stood out in her neck. Griffin turned to get her some more water, but the glass wasn’t on the dresser where he thought he had left it. He went into the kitchen to get another one, leaving the room just as Roy came in with a pencil stub and a piece of torn paper.
The kitchen looked the way it always did, but imagining what Cheyenne would think if she could see it made Griffin look at it differently. Dirty dishes were piled in the sink. On the stove, every burner held a pan with the remains of some kind of food stuck to the bottom. The counter was crowded with empty cans, open cereal boxes, tipped-over beer bottles, and overflowing ashtrays. The only time anything got washed was if Griffin grew too disgusted to let it go on any longer. The problem with him being the one who occasionally cleaned up was that Roy expected it.
There weren’t any clean glasses in the cupboard, so Griffin picked up one that didn’t look too dirty and rinsed it out before filling it with cold water. When he carried it back, Cheyenne was managing to choke out numbers that his dad was writing down. He waited for them to finish. After he had written the last number down, Roy walked out of the room and motioned for Griffin to follow.
In the hall, Roy said in a low voice, “You’ll need to stay here and watch her. I’m going to go make a deal for a mobile that can’t be traced. And then I’ll make some calls.”
“Can’t I go with you?”
“Somebody needs to stay with her.” Roy jerked his chin in Cheyenne’s direction. She seemed to be staring at them. Griffin wondered how much she could hear. Weren’t your other senses supposed to get better when you were blind?
Roy walked back down the hall, and Griffin returned to his room. “I brought you more water.”
She didn’t answer him for a second. He heard the front door close and realized she had been waiting until they were alone.
“You’re going to have to untie my hands so I can drink it myself.” It was eerie how her dark eyes seemed to be staring at him. “Last time I almost drowned.”
He wondered if it was a trick. But her ankle was tied to the bed. And she wouldn’t be able to move more than a few feet in an unfamiliar house before he could tackle her. Then he remembered how she had fought him in the car.
“All right. But remember, I still have a gun. If you try anything, I’ll shoot you.” The words were such a cliché that he worried he would laugh when he said them out loud. But instead, he sounded tough. He sounded real. He sounded scary.
He kind of liked it.
Griffin got out his penknife – his fingers brushing the knob of the cigarette lighter – and cut the shoelace around Cheyenne’s wrists. She must have been twisting her hands, because it felt frayed. She spent a few moments rubbing her wrists. At first he thought she was exaggerating but then he saw the red lines braceleting them.
Griffin put the glass in her hands. She drank without stopping and held it back out. “Can I have some more, please?”
He thought about saying no, then changed his mind. Instead, when he went out to the kitchen, he left the water running in the sink. Then he darted back on tiptoe to watch her. He had thought he would probably find her trying to untie her ankle, but instead she was still rubbing her wrists. Her expression looked beaten down, and unexpectedly he found himself disappointed. Griffin went back into the kitchen and finished refilling the glass.
While she was drinking it, his stomach growled loud enough that she turned her head in his direction. He looked at the clock by the bed. It was nearly one o’clock. “I’m going to make some lunch. Are you hungry?” The oddness of the question struck him. What was the etiquette for how to treat someone you had kidnapped?
Cheyenne shrugged. “I guess.”
Back in the kitchen, he looked through the fridge. There was a package of hot dogs that hadn’t been opened. No rolls in the cupboard, but they had bread.
Every few minutes he tiptoed back to look at Cheyenne, but each time she hadn’t moved.
HOPE AND FEAR
Cheyenne put the can of Coke between her knees so she would know where it was. It was better than having to find it by running her hand over the table until she bumped it with the back of her fingers. After Griffin had untied her ankle, he had led her here, to what she assumed was the dining room, and then retied her ankle to a rung of the chair she now sat in. Given enough time, Cheyenne was sure she could untie herself. But when would she be given enough time?
Before they had been able to sit down at the table, Griffin had had to shove a lot of stuff aside, confirming what Cheyenne had already begun to believe about the house. People might live here, but this was a house, not a home. Nobody cared about it. Except for the room where Griffin had first taken her, everything seemed messy. Whenever he led her around, he had to jerk her to one side or the other, or he kicked things out of the way, swearing under his breath.
In her right hand, she held a hot dog wrapped in a piece of bread. The hot dog had been boiled until the skin split. The bread hadn’t even been toasted. It didn’t matter much because she wasn’t hungry. And it was easier to eat than something that required a knife and fork. No scraping her utensils across her plate, trying to figure out where the food was. She never liked eating with anyone besides Dad and Danielle. What if she splashed sauce on her top or she was grinning away with something green wrapped around a tooth?
“When you eat, how do you know where the food is?” Griffin asked.
“My dad likes to tell me like he’s a fighter pilot. You know” – she deepened her voice – “the peas are at eleven o’clock, the meat loaf is at two, and you’ve got mashed potatoes coming in at seven o’clock.”
Griffin laughed. For a second, Cheyenne forgot she wasn’t talking to a friend, like Sadie or Kenzie. But only for a second.
She spoke around another bite of hot dog. “He used to cut up my food for me, because he was afraid I would choke. It was really embarrassing, especially if we were in public.” Secretly, Cheyenne always hoped people still took her for a sighted person. In restaurants or movie theaters, she would try to tuck her cane out of sight. Everyone told Cheyenne that she didn’t look blind, that she looked “normal.” If she hid her cane, then people talked to her, not to whoever was with her. Everything changed if they figured out she was blind. She was tired of waiters who took everyone else’s order and then said, “And what will she be having?”
Griffin said, “Even if someone tells you where everything is, it must be hard to find it on your plate.”
“That’s why I bring my lunch to school. Then I can just unwrap and eat one thing at a time. And since I made it, I know exactly what it is.”
Anot
her reason Cheyenne brought her own lunch was that she didn’t want anyone to have to carry her tray for her. People had to help her enough already, without her asking for more. She didn’t like to accept more than she could give back. She kept a mental tally of people who did favors for her, and she tried to keep the balance sheet even. If she helped Kenzie with an essay for English, then it was okay for Cheyenne to accept Kenzie’s offer of a ride home.
“You know what?” Griffin asked. “The whole time you’ve been talking, I’ve been trying to eat with my eyes closed. It’s harder than you would think.”
Cheyenne resisted saying something sarcastic. Sometimes people did this, closed their eyes for a few seconds and imagined it gave them insights into what it was like to be her. Only, at the end, they could still open their eyes and see.
Instead she said, “You know what I miss? Like if you have a baked potato and it has some cheese on top but it all ended up melted on one spot? When I could see, I could move the cheese around so I got some in every bite. Or if there was something I didn’t like in a casserole, like green peppers, I could pick them out. Now I usually just eat whatever ends up on my fork, even if I don’t like it very much.”
Every word Cheyenne was saying was true, but it was also a mask, a lie to lull Griffin into relaxing around her. She had heard Roy’s car start up and drive off. Since then, there had been quiet. No vehicle engines, no whining saws. Even the dog was no longer barking.