Four Three Two One

by Courtney Stevens

  At the mention of Rudy’s name, I said, “Mom, what’s all this?”

  “Rudy said y’all need protein.”

  “He did?” And better yet, You’re fixing it for him? That sounded strangely supportive.

  “Smarter than strawberry pie,” he said.

  “Rudy, pie always trumps sandwiches.” Becky stole a biscuit from the platter on the counter. “And biscuits trump everything.”

  “I’m not arguing with that,” Rudy said.

  Mom disappeared into the pantry. She dug around like a herd of mice and addressed me with a tone I couldn’t easily place. “What are your plans, sweetie? Because we have plans of our own.”

  Oh no, they were about to eighty-six us or state their decision to come along. I assumed the latter. “Mom. I told you last night we’re doing this. I wasn’t asking.”

  “Yes, honey, you were very emphatic.” Mom leaned out the pantry door and smiled cunningly at Dad.

  I checked my watch again: 8:10. My father left our house every morning at 6:20, unless he was milking, and then, five o’clock sharp. “Why is Dad not in a field?”

  “He has better plans.”

  He never had plans better than his cows. I side-eyed Mom and then Dad, scrutinizing their every action and finding no obvious conclusions. “Are you going to tell me what?”

  Mom reached for three bags of chips and placed them in Rudy’s outstretched grocery bag. Without turning around, she said, “Honey, head over there and sit by your father.” I did as she asked and Dad folded the newspaper. In a familiar motion, he steepled his fingers over the sports section. “How exactly are you four getting to New York?”

  “Becky’s Mustang.”

  He stroked the corners of his mouth and swiveled a juice glass on its rim. “Unacceptable.”

  “Dad! We’re doing this.”

  “I know.” His smile broke wide and true. “You’re taking my truck.” I spit my milk on St. Louis Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina. Dad swiped the liquid off the sports page, smudging the ink. His eyes were large and very pleased. “And . . . I talked to some friends in West Virginia.”

  “The West Virginia friends?” A couple of years ago, we had five to ten conservative military families bunk at the Hive for a few months while they finalized the purchase of an old summer camp. No one said the word prepper but that’s what they were.

  Dad winked. “One and the same. They’re putting you up for the night.”

  Mom shook her head at this plan, not upset, but somewhat awestruck at Dad’s idea of suitable lodging. She turned to Rudy. “They’re batshit crazy about nuclear war and the zombie apocalypse, but you’ll be safer there than most places.” And then she added another bag of cookies to our grocery sack.

  I was fine with the preppers. I was shocked by my father.

  “While you’re considering my greatness,” he said, “here’s two hundred dollars. Gas and food only, you turkey.”

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  He tapped the dimple on his cheek. “Put one right here, kid, and we’ll call it even.”

  I threw my arms around his neck, letting the scruff of his whiskers tickle my cheek. I dug my nose into his Old Spice skin. When I leaned away, I said, “I thought you didn’t want me anywhere near New York ever again?”

  He huffed. “I didn’t want you to have sex until you were forty either. Can’t always get what we want.”

  “Pete!” Mom said.

  “What! It’s true.” He kissed my forehead. “I’m . . . well, I’m . . .” He was either sorry or proud or both, but I put my finger over his lips and said, “Thank you.” A dismissive pshaw followed and he opened his newspaper as if he might read while we drove away. I gave him that moment to collect himself, and exchanged proper jaw drops and fist pumps with Rudy, Caroline, and Becky.

  After breakfast, they walked us outside, Dad lifting the cooler into the back and Mom handing over all the snacks. My parents stood under the old chapel awning, arms around each other. They were proud of me for trying this, and I was proud of them for letting me.

  If that surprise wasn’t enough, Chan appeared from the opposite side of the truck, bag in his hand. “Got room in this rig for one more?”

  49. REFRAIN FROM SUCKING.

  $92,999.00

  The Ford F-150 was a palace compared to Dolly, but there would be no place to hide in the cab. Guilt spidered along my spine. Rudy. The grain bin. Chan. My brain knotted at his change of heart—which was undeniably a good thing, and an awkward thing. If we weren’t us, what were we? This was brand-new territory. Did we talk? Sit together? Were we angry or hurt or numb? He appeared passive enough, like he knew he didn’t get to dictate the mood. There were Rudy’s feelings to consider too. I’d been honest with him at every juncture, but if I meant more to him than a kiss in a grain bin, Chan’s presence complicated things. Then again, what about this trip wasn’t complicated? We were getting on a bus that blew ten months ago.

  Becky, who had donned Caroline’s purple headband, nearly backed out. She argued the cab would be less comfortable with five people. I didn’t care. “You’re good for Caroline. You’re good for me. We’re Vadering,” I said emphatically. and requested backup. “Caroline, what are we doing today?”

  “Vadering.” And then to Becky she added, “Please come. For me.”

  That was that.

  “Y’all are nutty,” Chan said. He was trying.

  In a beat, Rudy flicked Chan’s arm. “Oh, just you wait, man. Vadering is only level one on their crazy scale.”

  “What’s level ten?” Chan asked.

  “Shoney’s,” I said.

  “Digger the mechanic from Hickville?” Becky said.

  Caroline lowered her sunglasses and cut her eyes over the wide black frames. “Alligators.”

  “See what I mean, bro?”

  We girls exchanged furtive glances at this friendly exchange between the guys.

  Chan was laughing, and he shot me a Tell me that story later look. Perfectly normal. Status quo. If I didn’t know better, I’d think we were in for a smooth trip. For now, I grinned happily at our silent conversation. Don’t touch his arm, I told myself for the first of many times. We waved goodbye to my family, and Becky explained to Chan that if he wanted to remain in the driver’s seat he must do three things: refrain from sucking (sucking occurred at speeds lower than eighty), never call this a road trip, and above all else, refer to our quest as Vadering. Chan huffed on the lens of his glasses, cleaned away the clouds, and looked ever serious about these tasks. I punched the radio button for NPR, which made Chan smile. He turned the vents in his direction so the air-conditioning wouldn’t blow on me. Maybe we could do this.

  We hit the interstate in fifteen minutes, and he hit ninety by the first mile marker.

  “I’ve always liked you, Clayton,” said Becky.

  She liked him less when he got a warning from a state trooper near Bowling Green and reset the cruise to seventy-seven.

  Somewhere between Louisville and Cincinnati, Rudy’s phone rang. Caroline asked, “Is that Ms. Jay?” as Rudy leaned forward and showed me the New York area code. He jammed a finger in his ear and pivoted toward the window. Caroline, still under the assumption the caller was Ms. Jay, said to Becky, “Ms. Jay looks out for him and Victor. His mom is in and out of psych wards and his dad works on an oil rig. Seventeen days out. Ten days in. The state decided Vic and Ru could get in a lot of trouble during those days without supervision, especially after the bombing and Vic’s gator injuries.”

  “Your aunt wouldn’t take them?” Becky asked.

  “She’s had her hands full with me. But Ms. Jay stepped up and gave them a bit of structure. They love her like mad. Jane does too, but she’s older.”

  I turned toward the back seat and whispered, “I don’t think Ms. Jay’s the one who called.” We all listened closer.

  “Okay. . . . No, Kentucky. Yes, the four of us. Right. Change of heart. . . . Sunday morning sometime. . . . Oh,
I see.” The color drained from Rudy’s face. “No, of course, that makes sense. . . . It’s good news. Great for Accelerant Orange. Well, sort of. I need to talk with Go and the gang. . . . Yep. Yep. We’ll think about it, and I’ll call you back.”

  We awaited the news. Rudy turned to me, eyes worried. “Here’s the deal . . .”

  Anticipating what he might say was impossible. Even if we’d known each other for years, that expression—half fear, half adrenaline—would have stumped me.

  “Simon’s parents are coming to the city. Not for the opening. They think that’s too much for everyone, but . . . well . . .” A pause. Rudy swiveled toward me. “They would like to talk with you while they’re there.”

  50. THINK OF THE HUMAN-INTEREST STORY.

  $95,030.00

  Becky asked the question first. “Why?”

  Uh, yeah. I added another. “Also, why didn’t Stock call me?”

  “You know how Stock is. He didn’t want to pressure you.” Rudy mimicked Carter’s Southern accent. “Hell, Rudy, if I put it to Go, it’ll feel like an expectation. If you put it to her, she has a choice.”

  Caroline chewed the skin around her fingernails. She picked up her phone and began to text. Whoever she was texting didn’t seem to have anything good to say.

  “Stock didn’t explain. He only said it was a good thing. The Westwoods have been grieving too, and something Go did helped them.”

  I checked in with Caroline, reassured her this was a fluke. Said, “I do not know the Westwoods.” She didn’t appear to care whether I did or didn’t.

  Where I was full of questions, Chandler was full of scorn, a cold demeanor rolling off him like breaking waves. He had his foot against the gas again, his hat as low as it would go. “How long have you known this guy, Carter? ’Cause it sounds like he’s setting you up.”

  I explained eight months of Accelerant Orange videos, reaching out to Stock about the opening, how I trusted him. This information rested like a betrayal-shaped tumor in Chan’s throat. Visible to me. Visible to everyone in the Ford. “Gran and I watched episodes together. He is not setting me up.”

  He started to say, You could have watched them with me, but I glared and he jammed his fist to his lips. We could watch movies but not Accelerant Orange. Not when he’d cut me off for using the words skyscraper or taxi. We’d gone another thirty miles when Chan reached a conclusion he chose to share. “You’re out of your brain if you’re thinking about going through with that meeting. I don’t want you anywhere near them.”

  “I agree with him,” Becky said. The words had spine and grit and love.

  I said, “I’m not wild about it either, but if Stock says it’s good—”

  “You trust him over me? A stranger over your—”

  “My what, Chan?”

  “Someone who loves you.”

  “Carter Stockton loves us. If you’d watched the videos—”

  “If you’d told me about them—”

  “I left you five hundred dollars for a plane ticket—”

  “I’m driving the truck, Go. I’m trying, okay?”

  Becky butted in. “Children. I’ll have you pull this vehicle over if you can’t behave yourselves.”

  Chan took that literally, darted into the emergency lane and braked. Hard. Everyone except Rudy and me swapped positions. That put Becky behind the wheel and left Caroline and Chan sulking in the back seat next to Rudy. Chan rolled down his window and leaned toward the buffeting air.

  Resetting the seating arrangement hadn’t reset the conversation. Chan wasn’t quite finished. He posed a question to Rudy. “I guess you agree with her?”

  No hesitation. “Yep.”

  “Of course you do.”

  I heard Chan’s anger. Understood its origin. He felt boxed in by this invite, deceived by me, and furious at Rudy for taking my side. Deception played by its own rules. I didn’t feel I’d deceived Chan about Accelerant Orange when he’d clearly asked to be excluded. Rudy was a different story. I’d never told Chan what happened in the bathroom at Down Yonder, rationalizing that there was nothing to tell. But here, in a cab with Chan and Rudy, I couldn’t avoid the truth: Rudy had always been my secret.

  I tried to ease Chan’s hurt. “Look, Chan, you don’t have to have anything to do with the Westwoods. Attending Accelerant Orange is enough. More than enough. I’m proud of you.”

  Chan melded his body to the window. I met Rudy’s eyes in the side mirror. He leaned forward, rested his forehead against my headrest, blocked Chan’s view of my body, and stretched his hand between the seat and the door. I brushed the tips of Rudy’s fingers. There was an abridged narrative in that brief exchange. It read: Thank you for always caring.

  Maybe Chan saw. Maybe he didn’t. But he said, “I’m not going to the installation.”

  To which Caroline said, “Same.”

  From there, Chan and Caroline poured concrete around their decision. The fresh pavement set all through West Virginia until everything in the cab was hardened and fixed. Rudy argued they could stand in the back or visit Accelerant Orange after hours. Carter would work with us. No one had to know they were there. The Westwoods’ desire to speak with me had nothing to do with the task at hand. Chan and Caroline simply said no to every suggestion Rudy made.

  I thought of Carter Stockton. Of how the pieces of this puzzle came together and fell apart. Over the last ten months I’d watched the medic reassemble Charter Bus #21, as if working with a child’s modeling kit. He’d spent hours on the burned hull, removing the ash and brushing away splintered glass. He’d welded and buffed the scarred metal into something smooth, and while I was watching, he’d attempted something similar with my pain. Maybe he’d done the same for the Westwoods. I could not imagine being them. How hated they must feel. Maybe they’d raised a bomber and this was also their fault, but I wouldn’t know if I didn’t listen.

  A drop of blood fell from my nose to my jeans.

  I jammed my sleeve against my nose. “I want to hear them out.”

  “Of course you do,” Chan said.

  “Good luck with that,” Caroline commented.

  Rudy said, “Care, the event will be big enough you won’t have to see them. If that’s even where they meet us.”

  “Maybe so, but trust me, no one wants the girlfriend of a bomber at the party.” Caroline slid her hand right to left like a headline as she turned on Rudy. “Victim in wheelchair can’t climb steps to art installation. Do you want be that guy, Cuz? Because, Mr. Journalist, you know that’s who you’ll be to the media. Think of the human-interest story. It almost writes itself.”

  “Screw you, Cuz,” Rudy said. “I’ve climbed a million steps since the bombing.”

  Caroline shrugged as if Rudy could not hurt her and she regretted nothing, but then her tears began to fall. Becky patted the console between us and Caroline climbed from the back to the front, buckling herself in next to Becky. Caroline’s head rested on Becky’s shoulder. We heard her sniffling until she finally fell asleep.

  “See,” Chan said. “Cities break people.”

  I said, “I’m not sure you can blame the city this time.”

  Chan moved the war to one of far-off stares and clenched fists. Quietly, he rapped his knuckles against the window in time to the music. We exited at Morgantown, West Virginia, at 6:00 p.m. without exchanging so much as a sigh.

  Becky bypassed all the restaurants and swung into a gravel lot on two wheels and announced, “We’re going in or else we’re driving home right now.” She parked among a sea of cars. Spring breakers, from the looks of the overloaded minivans and SUVs. The vehicles to our right and left had scribbled glass chalk phrases about baseball and softball.

  “Where are we?” Rudy asked, because he’d been napping when we exited and missed all the banners staked along the highway.

  Becky opened the driver’s door and said, “Welcome to the West Virginia Spring Break Fair. Best funnel cakes in the state.”

  Caroline pluck
ed her purse from the floorboard behind the passenger seat, counted several hundred dollars from a Louis Vuitton knockoff wallet, or maybe it was the real thing, and located the red beanie she’d stolen from my bedpost. “I’ll pay,” Caroline told Becky, and jammed the cap to her ears. She’d already flipped the switch that was her face.

  In the astonishing silence that followed, carnival music whirled and spun and amplified. Bloodcurdling screams. Heavy machines on rattling tracks. Air lapping itself as the Flying Carousel and Spider and Gravitron slung participants in stomach-lurching circles. The fair was a drum kit; I hardly believed I hadn’t heard its clanging cymbals and snare from the exit ramp, much less while Caroline collected her cash and Becky painted her lips.

  “Fun is nonnegotiable,” Becky said. “We’re riding rides until one of you assholes blows chunks. And if anyone uses the word bus or bomber in the next two hours, I’m selling you to a carnie.”

  CAROLINE

  I text my mother: What is going on with the Westwoods?

  My mother texts back: We don’t know.

  Me: What do you mean you don’t know?

  Mother: We dissolved.

  Me: Dissolved what?

  Mother: The business.

  Me: You dissolved THE WINERY and didn’t tell me?

  Mother: Linda thought it would be best to wait.

  Me: What the hell is going on, Mom?

  Mother: You knew this would happen.

  I hadn’t known any of this would happen.

  I hadn’t known . . .

  Maybe I had.

  Me: Are we moving?

  Mother: Yes.

  Me: Should I come back now?

  Mother: I don’t think that would be best for us.

  I threw my phone on the floorboard. If Mom said anything else, she could wait a very long time for my response. They’d sold my history and my future without so much as a phone call. I was no closer to answers about the Westwoods, but I was solid on my answer for Caroline Ascott.

  I was finished.