I could just do it without asking. Just go, right now. There’d be nothing my folks could do about it. They’d freak out, sure, but that wouldn’t be my problem if I wasn’t here.
They wouldn’t even be able to call to yell at me, since I no longer had a phone. I’d made the mistake of lending it to Koli at a party a couple of weeks ago, and somehow—I wasn’t clear on the details—it had taken a fatal dive into a toilet.
I took a deep breath. “Sure,” I said. “I’ll go ask.”
I headed toward the restaurant, but as soon as I was out of Ronnie’s sight, I ducked into a restroom and waited for a few minutes. Then I headed back to Ronnie, a smile on my face, and gave her a thumbs-up. “Go figure,” I said. “They said yes. I think they must be tired of arguing with me.” I couldn’t quite meet her eyes, and I hoped she wouldn’t notice. “Um, yeah. So I’ll just grab my things.”
Ronnie smiled widely, her cheeks dimpling under her oversized sunglasses. Her teeth looked startlingly white in her suntanned face. “Awesome, Theo.”
God, I loved the way she said my name. I slipped into the hotel room, grabbed a pen and paper from the desk and started to scrawl a note for my parents. I wanted to tell them I was tired of being compared to Darrell, tired of being nagged about school, tired of them not trusting me, but I didn’t know where to begin. Finally, I just wrote, Mom, Dad. Don’t worry, I’m fine. Decided to travel with Ronnie for a few days. Have a good visit with D. I’ll be in touch.
I quickly packed, slung my duffel bag over one shoulder and headed to the parking lot. Ronnie was standing beside her car, a wide-brimmed hat shading her face and a disposable cup in each hand. “Free coffee from the lobby. From the taste, I don’t think it’s actually meant for human consumption.”
“Uh, thanks?” I took one from her, though coffee was the last thing I needed. There was so much adrenaline rushing through me, I felt shaky and almost sick.
Ronnie laughed. “Think of it as fuel.” She took off the hat, tossed it into the backseat and shook her hair loose. “Let’s do it, Theo. Let’s hit the road.”
Chapter Four
Zach was buckled into his car seat, still fast asleep. With the heavy-duty straps over his shoulders and across his chest, he looked like a little astronaut about to blast off.
“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” I said.
Ronnie grinned at me. “It’ll be nice to have company. Zach’s great, but let’s face it, he has a pretty limited range of conversation topics.”
“I bet he doesn’t do his share of the driving either.”
“Ha. He’d love to. He adores anything with wheels.”
I buckled my seat belt and glanced over my shoulder at him. “Is he always such a good sleeper?”
She hesitated before answering. “I guess so—I mean, yeah. He is.”
“What’s wrong?” I studied the frown lines that had appeared between her eyebrows.
“Nothing.” Ronnie started the engine. “Let’s go.”
Last chance to change your mind. I closed my eyes for a moment, imagining the shock on my parents’ faces when they got back to the hotel room and realized I’d taken off. Dad would be furious with me. Mom, too, but she’d take it out on Dad, blaming him. If you hadn’t insisted on sniffing his breath at dinner, this would never have happened. You never know when to back off, do you?
Nope, I didn’t need to listen to any more of their arguments. “Right,” I said. “Hollywood, here we come.”
Zach slept for the first twenty minutes and then woke up crying. We were just outside Redding, heading south on I-5, but Ronnie pulled over and tried to comfort him. She offered snacks, books, toys, but Zach just kept screaming at the top of his lungs. At least, I sure hoped it was his top—any louder, and he’d do permanent damage to my hearing. Ronnie unbuckled him and tried to pick him up, but he just kicked his legs, arched his back and tried to push her away. She looked like she was about to start crying herself.
“Maybe we should just keep driving,” I said at last. “Buckle him back in and keep going, you know? I mean, if he’s just going to scream anyway.”
Ronnie gave me a look, like I was a terrible person for suggesting it, but she stuck him back in his car seat. You can only park at the side of the high-way listening to a toddler screaming for so long.
“How about I drive?” I suggested. “You can sit with him.”
She nodded. “Jump to lightspeed,” she said. “Though my car starts to rattle if you go over sixty, so maybe not.”
I dropped my voice an octave and did a Han Solo swagger, smacking the car roof with the palm of my hand. “She may not look like much, but she’s got it where it counts, kid.”
Ronnie shook her head as she slipped into the backseat beside Zach. “Un-freaking-believable.”
I drove and Zach cried. He yelled and sobbed until his whole face was covered with bright red blotches.
“Um, Theo? Yesterday in the car, singing really helped,” Ronnie said.
“Singing? Me? I can’t sing.” I glanced at her face in the rearview mirror and caught her wiping tears from her cheeks. I groaned. “Okay, okay,” I said. “We’ll sing.”
After a few verses, Zach settled down, but each time we tried to stop singing, he went right back to screaming. When we passed the exit for Clear Lake—the turnoff that I should’ve been taking with my parents, to go to Darrell’s place in Santa Rosa—my stomach started doing flips. God, my parents were going to freak out. What had I been thinking?
Ronnie and I sang Raffi songs nonstop all the way to Sacramento—over two straight hours. “Baby Beluga in the deep blue sea...” My eyes met Ronnie’s in the rearview mirror and she gave me a weak smile. She’d stopped crying, at least. I kept singing. “Swim so wild and you swim so free...”
This was so not what I had imagined when I pictured the two of us driving off into the sunset together.
Just past Sacramento, I heard sirens close behind us. I glanced in the rearview mirror. Cops. I was over the limit but only just. “Seriously?” I muttered.
“Oh my god.” Ronnie’s voice was strained. “Oh my god, Theo. Were you speeding? Damn it, what were you thinking? Do you have any idea—”
“I’m only, like, five miles over,” I protested. “If that. I mean, cars are flying past me in the other lane.” I slowed down and started to pull over.
“I can’t believe this,” she said, her voice rising. “I shouldn’t have let you drive.”
“What’s the big deal?” I drove onto the shoulder, braking. “If we get a ticket, I’ll pay it, okay? So chill.”
“I don’t care about a goddamn ticket,” she said. Zach started to cry again. “Shut up, Zach!” Ronnie turned to him and grabbed his shoulders. “Goddamn it! Zach, please. Just stop crying.”
I got an icy feeling in the pit of my stomach. I stopped the car and turned to look over my shoulder at her. “Please tell me the car isn’t stolen.”
“Theo! Of course it’s not stolen.”
“What is it then? Why are you freaking out?” Behind me, I could see the cop getting out of his car and walking toward us. My chest tightened. “Ronnie? Is there something I should know?”
Zach started crying louder than ever. “Just don’t use my name,” Ronnie said. She unbuckled Zach and pulled him out of his car seat and onto her lap.
I had started to roll down my window, and the cop was only a few feet away. “What? Are you serious?”
“Or Zach’s,” she said under her breath.
The car was stolen. I just knew it. My hands were slick with sweat. I wiped them on my jeans and turned to watch the cop walk the last few feet to our car.
Ronnie was cooing to Zach now. “Come here, baby. I’m sorry I yelled at you. You want a snack, honey? Raisins? Goldfish crackers?” She rummaged in the bag on the seat beside her.
I felt sick. Sure, Ronnie had been my babysitter—but that was six years ago, when she was an eleventh-grader. I knew nothing about this girl sitting behind me. S
he could be anyone. A car thief. Or worse, a drug dealer. What if the trunk was full of coke or something?
God knows my parents weren’t going to believe that I had nothing to do with it.
“Good evening,” the cop said, leaning down to the open window.
“Um, hi. Sorry. Was I speeding? I thought I was pretty much going the speed limit.” My heart was racing, and I had to fight to keep my voice level. Please, God, I know I haven’t been to church in a few years, but if you could just do me this one favor and not let him look in the trunk...
The cop was middle-aged, darkeyed and brown-skinned, with a heavy moustache. I figured he was leaning in to check my breath, like my father always did. “You had anything to drink tonight?” he asked.
“No.” I gestured at the paper cups in the drinks tray. “Just coffee.”
“Oregon license plates, huh? Where are you heading?”
“I’m from Portland. Going to Los Angeles. Um, I have family down there,” I said. It wasn’t true, but it seemed like a good thing to say. Like, a responsible kind of reason to be driving through California at night. Please don’t look in the trunk. Don’t search the car. “Um, was I over the speed limit?”
He straightened up with a grunt, hands on his lower back. “You weren’t speeding. You’ve got a taillight out though.”
“Oh. I didn’t realize...”
“No one ever does. No one thinks to check their taillights.” He shook his head. “Better get that fixed, all right?”
“Yeah, for sure. Thanks for letting me know.” Zach wasn’t crying anymore, and I didn’t want to draw attention to him and Ronnie in the backseat, so I kept my eyes on the cop. “I’ll get that dealt with right away.”
“All right then. You have a safe trip.”
“Thanks.” My hand was shaking as I rolled my window closed. A cold trickle of sweat ran down my back. I turned around in my seat. “What was all that about?”
She lifted Zach back into his car seat. “What? I just didn’t want to get a ticket, that’s all.” She tucked Zach’s arms back into his straps and fastened the buckle across his chest. Her face was flushed, and she didn’t meet my gaze.
“And that business about not using your name?” I started up the engine and rejoined the flow of traffic on the freeway.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I just don’t like cops, okay?”
“Yeah, but—”
“Forget it, Theo. It’s nothing.” She sounded annoyed. “Can we just not talk right now? I want Zach to go to sleep.”
I shook my head but said nothing. I turned on the radio, some bland music that I hoped would get me out of singing more Raffi. Angling the rearview mirror, I could see Ronnie stroking Zach’s cheek. It looked like he was actually going to doze off. Ronnie’s face was tilted toward him, her eyes downcast, her long dark hair falling loose around her shoulders.
She was beautiful, sure. But there was something seriously wrong with this whole picture. I needed to find out exactly what kind of mess I had got myself into.
Chapter Five
I kept driving, careful to stay just under the limit this time, and listened to Ronnie softly coaxing her son to sleep. Finally, there was silence from the backseat. I glanced over my shoulder and saw that Zach was out cold, cheeks flushed and head flopped sideways.
“I shouldn’t have had that coffee. I totally have to pee,” Ronnie said. “Can we stop somewhere?”
“Yeah.” I looked at the gas gauge— half a tank. “Might as well fill up too.”
I took the next exit and pulled into a Chevron station half a mile down the road. “Go ahead and use the restroom,” I told Ronnie. “I’ll get the gas.”
“Thanks,” she said. “You’re a sweetheart.”
“No problem,” I said. My cheeks were hot, and I felt like scum. She could call me sweetheart all she liked, but I had every intention of searching the car while she was gone. I watched her walk away, then quickly flipped through the plastic folder of papers in the glove box. Everything appeared to be in order. The car was registered to Veronica Gleeson, and her insurance was up-to-date. Not much else in the glove box—a pack of Kleenex, the vehicle owner’s manual, a container of green spearmint Tic Tacs.
I popped open the trunk, fully expecting to see something illegal, like Ziploc baggies of white powder, bricks of hash, a stack of marijuana the size of a hay bale. Instead, there was Zach’s folded-up stroller, a pile of baby blankets, a box of Huggies, a plastic bag of damp towels and swimsuits, and Ronnie’s backpack. Pushing down my feelings of guilt, I unzipped her backpack and flipped the top open. T-shirts, shorts, a soft green cardigan, satiny bras in black and navy and pale pink, red lacy underwear...I closed the bag and zipped it shut again. What the hell was I doing?
I shut the trunk quickly. I had forgotten about the sleeping toddler but was immediately reminded by a loud wail from the backseat.
Crap.
I opened Zach’s door. “Hush, hush. Your mom will be right back.”
It didn’t seem to reassure him much. He stared at me, blue eyes bleary from sleep, and let out another wail.
“Look, I’m going to put gas in the car,” I said. “See? I’m putting my debit card in the machine...”
Ronnie appeared at my side. “He woke up, huh?”
“Yeah.”
She sighed. “Zachy, you want to go potty?”
He shook his head.
“It’s stopping the car,” she said. “It always wakes him.”
“Mmm.” That and me slamming the trunk shut right behind him.
She gestured at the car. “I’m going to try to get him back to sleep. If you need the restroom, you’d better use it now. If we keep driving, hopefully he’ll sleep right through to LA.”
I went to take a leak. I was starving too. Maybe storming out of the hotel restaurant before eating hadn’t been so smart. I bought some pretzels and cashews and a couple of candy bars in the gas-station shop. By the time I got back to the car, Zach’s eyes were half-closed again, and Ronnie was singing softly in the backseat beside him.
“Can you drive again?” she whispered.
I nodded. “As long as I don’t have to sing any more Raffi.” Though I guessed it would serve me right for waking Zach up—and give a whole new meaning to my parents’ favorite phrase, time to face the music. I tossed the junk food onto the passenger seat, and headed back onto the highway. LA, here we come, I thought. No drugs in the trunk, and we’ll be in Hollywood in the morning. I wondered if my parents had found my note yet, or if they were just sitting in the hotel room, watching TV and grumbling about my bad behavior.
I hated the way they didn’t trust me, the way they always seemed to assume the worst.
Then again, hadn’t I just assumed the worst myself? I hadn’t trusted Ronnie. I hadn’t even considered that maybe there was some perfectly reasonable explanation for her behavior. Instead, I’d searched her car while she was in the washroom. How was that any better than Mom snooping around my room or Dad looking at my online search history?
God, I was such an asshole. In the rearview mirror I saw that Ronnie’s eyes were closed, one wing of silky dark hair partly covering her face. I turned on the radio and scanned through the stations, trying to find something other than country music and eighties rock, but I couldn’t shake my sense of foreboding. I needed a straight answer.
“Ronnie,” I said softly. There was no answer, but I didn’t believe she was really sleeping. I turned the radio off. “Ronnie. I want to know what’s going on. That thing with the cop.” I looked again at her reflection in the rearview mirror.
She slowly opened her eyes, yawned, blinked sleepily. “Mmm. I must have drifted off.”
I gestured to the seat beside me. “How about sitting up here with me? Zach’s asleep, and I feel like a cabdriver with you back there.”
Ronnie unbuckled her seat belt and climbed forward between the two front seats, her hair so close to my face, I could smell her shampoo.
&n
bsp; “Um, I was going to pull over,” I told her.
“Don’t stop driving—Zach will wake up.” She fastened her seat belt.
“That’s better,” I said. “Hi.”
“Hi.”
There was a long silence, and I deliberately didn’t fill it. Let her feel uncomfortable, I thought. Maybe if she got uncomfortable enough, she’d tell me what was going on.
She cleared her throat. “I guess I acted kind of weird back there. With the cop.”
It never failed. Most people just can’t handle silence. “Yeah,” I said.
Ronnie licked her lips nervously. “This is kind of hard to talk about.”
I waited.
She sighed. “Okay. Zach’s father... his name is Max. We’re not together anymore.”
“You’re single?” I asked, trying to sound casual. “Uh, that must be hard. With a kid and all.”
“Yeah, I’m single.” She grinned at me in a way that made it clear she wasn’t fooled by my tone. “Too bad I’m your babysitter, huh?”
“Not anymore,” I said. My face flooded with heat, and I stared at the road ahead. “Anyway, what’s all that got to do with the freak-out over the cop?”
“Max is the kind of guy who likes to be in control. He thinks everything should be a certain way, you know? When we broke up, he pulled some crazy stuff.” Ronnie put her hand on my leg. “Theo?”
I looked across at her, my heart racing. Her hand on my leg felt electric. I swallowed hard, trying to sound normal. “Yeah?”
“I’m scared of him.” Her eyes met mine, and I could see the fear in her face. “I don’t want him to find me.”
“You’re...are you running away from him?”
“I guess so. Sort of.”
“Was he abusive? Did he hit you?” I couldn’t imagine anyone hitting her, but I knew it happened all the time. It’s crazy how so many men are assholes. I felt a wave of protectiveness so strong, it caught me off guard. I clenched my fists on the wheel. If he was hurting her...
“I don’t really want to get into it,” she said, and her voice broke a little.
“Yeah. I mean, of course. I understand,” I said.
Damage Page 2