Then she wrenches her arm free and tears away from them, up the hall, running as fast as her pathetic legs will carry her. She explodes through the double doors, races down the stairs, and doesn’t stop until she’s off the campus, in an alley that runs between houses. She has to stop to catch her breath. Her side burns, her heart hammers. She pukes as she stands there. And in her head, the future shows itself to her, that her parents will find her, whisk her back to Tybee, and make her give up her baby.
She keeps moving, making her way in the general direction of the train station. Even though the sun is out, the air is so cold that when she breathes, it hurts. Sirens shriek in the distance.
Maybe they aren’t meant for her, but she can’t risk it. She rushes into a convenience store and makes a beeline for the back, where the rows of refrigerators are. She grabs two bottles of water, a bag of chips, and a sub. The sirens are closer now, she dares a glance back at the windows.
Two cop cars race past, headed in the direction of the train station.
She waits a few minutes and wanders up an aisle where there are sunglasses and winter hats. She tries on several of both, makes her selection, and finally goes up to the counter. She no longer hears the sirens. She finds out the restroom is around back and she doesn’t need a key.
Once she inside, she turns on the light, locks the door, leans against it. She realizes she’s half a mile from school, if that, and by now her mother has feigned hysteria and her father has given her description to the cops—what she’s wearing, her age, how tall she is, her weight, the color of her hair. He is her mother’s voice at times like this. So she quickly changes clothes, trades her coat for a heavy ski parka, tucks her hair under the hat, slips on the sunglasses. She studies herself in the mirror.
She hardly recognizes herself.
She’s on the move again, but not running, not doing anything to arouse suspicion. Three blocks later, she hangs a right, then another left, working her way through neighborhoods to the train station. Two cap cars are parked at the curb, lights spinning, sirens off. She keeps her head down, jams her hands in the pockets of her parka, forces herself to walk normally. Where will she hide until the train leaves?
Lia gets inside the building without anyone stopping her. She heads straight to the window and buys a ticket to NYC via Albany. A train is leaving in twenty minutes. It will put her into Albany way too early, but she doesn’t care. Albany is a little over ninety miles from here, from her parents, her grandparents, this school, this life that was forced upon her
She’s snuggled down in a window seat, her face hidden behind a book. By tipping the book slightly forward, she can look out the window. People boarding, conductors conducting, kids with parents, boyfriends with girlfriends, husbands with wives, brothers with sisters, fiends with friends. Then she sees two cops talking to the conductor, showing him a photo. He shakes his head.
One of the cops points at the train.
Her train.
She looks frantically around for a bathroom, for a place to hide. But there’s no time to get to the restroom. She puts her backpack on the seat beside her, drapes her jacket over it, pulls her hat down over her eyes, turns her face away from the aisle, lets the book rest against her chest. A young woman sleeping. She could be anyone.
She senses their approach, hears their footsteps, their voices. These sounds are strangely loud, magnified, as though her fear has heightened her hearing. Her heart seems to come loose in her chest and bangs against her rib cage. She resists the urge to lift her hat a little and peek out.
Minutes tick by. The conductor shouts, the train lurches forward. She finally peeks out from under her hat and sees the cops outside.
Relief pours through her and she begins to tremble, then shake.
She spots him instantly, standing in front of the train schedules. He looks wonderful, good enough to eat. Lia just stops and stares at him, taking in all the details, her mind snapping photographs of him, of these first few moments. He has a beard now and it makes him look older He wears a leather jacket that fits him well. His jeans look old and beat up.
He must feel that someone is staring at him because he suddenly looks in Lia’s direction. And looks again, frowning slightly. He’s thinking that she looks familiar, but her disguise fools even Dean. She whips off her baseball cap and her hair falls free and his face lights up like a full moon. They don ‘t just rush toward each other; they are pulled by a force so powerful it’s like an immutable law of nature. And when they’re inches apart, he reaches out and removes her sunglasses and she wants to leap into his eyes, drown in them. Then they’re holding each other and laughing and spinning around, forgetting where they are.
4
On March 17, Dean’s eighteenth birthday, Ian West marries him and Lia on the back porch of the Colby place, at the edge of Spirit Lake. It’s the happiest day of Dean’s life.
Several dozen people attend, residents of Cassadaga, and not a single member of either the Curry or the Phoenix family knows about it. Because Lia is an underage bride, Ian has somehow managed to get her a birth certificate that says she is eighteen, that her maiden name is Davis, so their marriage is legal and their child won’t be born out of wedlock. It didn’t matter either way to Lia, but this point is important to Dean. It means their child will have a claim on the Curry family fortune.
The one major glitch in all of this, of course, is that Lia’s parents are looking for her, she has joined the FBI’s ranks of missing children. If she’s found, that birth certificate won’t make a bit of difference. But Dean tries not to think about any of this—not now, not today.
After the ceremony there’s a party at the Colby place. He and Lia moved into the house two weeks ago and are paying the association a modest rent. He will probably stay at his apartment during the week, while classes are in session, but will be here every weekend. They have planned to take a honeymoon this summer, before the baby is born and after classes have ended. He would like to take her to some romantic, exotic spot, but by then she’ll be nearly eight months pregnant and the airlines won’t allow her to fly. So they might drive somewhere—the Poconos, the Smokies.
He may have to talk her into this. Even though Lia has changed her appearance—short, dark hair now, and contacts that tint her eyes a soft brown—she’s terrified that she’ll be recognized and that her parents and the police will descend like a pack of wolves.
Now the Colby house rocks with music and more people, and Dean and Lia sneak away and make love in the shower It may not be his sister’s idea of a perfect life, but it sure comes close to his ideal.
The next morning; she’s still in bed when he rises and dresses. He hasn’t told her that his parents, brother, and sister are driving up to DeLand today to pay him a visit at his apartment. If he doesn’t meet them there, if they get the idea he is living elsewhere, Allie will become the proverbial bloodhound and will track down the truth. She would turn Lia in, Lia would go back to the nightmare of Tybee, their baby would be given up for adoption, and Ian would be arrested for forging a birth certificate or harboring a fugitive. He can’t risk it.
If he had told her the truth last night or even earlier in the week, they would have argued. And he just isn’t up to arguing. Not about this, not about his fucked-up family, not about any of it. This is easier. Do it, be done with it, and he wouldn’t have to see any of them for another six months.
Except Keith. He wants Lia and Keith to meet.
And so he steals out of the Colby house and walks into his apartment in DeLand forty minutes later. He cleans the place in a frenzy, rushes out to the grocery store for food, and by the time they pull in an hour later, he is ready for them.
They pour into his apartment with their boisterous greetings, their judgmental bullshit. His mother immediately moves through the rooms, running her hands over this piece of furniture and that, doing the dust test. His old man pages through his textbooks, and Keith just rolls his eyes and wants to know if Dean has anyt
hing to drink—beer wine, vodka, it doesn’t matter. Then there’s Allie, zipped into her cold beauty, hugging him hello, big sis to little brother, and she says, “So where’s your girlfriend, Dean?”
Silence.
“What girlfriend?” his mother asks.
“Dean has a girlfriend?” his father echoes.
“Sweet Christ,” Keith murmurs, and heads into Dean’s kitchen for booze.
Around noon, Allie brings in a veritable feast—a vegetarian soufflé, lasagna, breads made from whole wheat and pumpkin seeds, and yes, it’s all delicious, Dean thinks, but every single detail has been orchestrated, planned out. The real mystery, he thinks, is why she bothers with any of them.
Over lunch Dean mother knocks back one glass of wine after another, booze on top of the pills she probably has taken. Keith opens another bottle and becomes morose and silent while their mother sobs about Ray. Dean’s fatherpontficates about the real causes of cancer, and Allie begins to grill Dean about his girlfriend. Why isn’t she here? Doesn’t she want to meet the family?
“Who said he has a girlfriend?” Keith asks. “And what fucking difference does it make to you, Al?”
“Keith, don’t s’fuck “their mother says, slurring her words, admonishing him as though he’s ten years old.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, “Keith mutters.
“I’m just curious, “Allie says. “I mean, we know you have girlfriends, Keith, we’ve met a few of them.”
“And we know you have a husband, Al, whom we never see,” Keith shoots back.
“He’s working. “She gets testy. “He had other commitments.”
Dean gets up and walks out of the room, leaving them to their bickering their dysfunctional behaviors, their bullshit. He goes down the back stairs and hurries up the sidewalk, grateful to be away from them.
“Hey, man, wait up, ‘Keith calls, and runs to catch up. “I’m going to move, then they won’t know where I am,” Dean says.
“Exactly why I’m going to Panama.”
“What’s her problem, anyway?”
“Her marriage is unraveling. So she turns back to the Family. It really bugs the shit out of her that you and I are blocking her out.”
“Good, let her drive Mom and Dad nuts.”
They walk in silence for a few minutes. “It’s the same girl, isn’t it?”Keith asks suddenly. “The one you told me about last summer”
Dean nods.
“Good for you, man. You may be the only one of us who can sustain a relationship.”
“We got married.”
“What?”Keith stops. “When?”
“Yesterday.”
“Holy shit, “he answers breathily.
“She’s underage.”
“Christ, then don’t ever let them know.”
“Only you know.”
Keith holds up his hands. “Don’t tell me anything else. It’s not my business. But Christ, Dean, I’m glad for you. “And then he throws his arms around Dean, hugging him close, and Dean is nearly overcome with emotion.
Dusk. They‘re finally leaving his parents in one car, Keith in his car, Allie in hers. As his sister brushes her mouth against his cheek, she whispers, “You have a lot of secrets, Dean.”
“You bet. “And that’s how it will remain, he thinks.
5
Lia and Heather, Ian’s wife, are in Winter Park, window-shopping, looking for things for the baby. A girl. It will be a girl. Lia had an ultrasound last week and saw her daughter on the screen, a little thing floating in amniotic fluid like some sort of human fish. She has a large head, two legs, two arms, a thumb touching her chin. Lia could see her profile, her beautiful knees.
She has already bought a crib, a stroller blankets, colorful mobiles, a diaper changer, all the essentials. Nana Honey’s money has been well spent. Now she’s on the prowl for wallpaper for the nursery, bootees, clothes, certain kinds of music. This is when it would be nice to have a mother with her. A real mother, a normal mother. Heather is like a surrogate mother, younger than her flesh-and blood mother but with the kind of soft caring and compassion that Lia needs right now.
“Does it hurt?” Lia asks suddenly.
“Does what hurt?”
“Giving birth.”
Heather looks away from the store window and her celery green eyes come to rest on Lia’s face. Her frizzy copper hair shines in the sunlight. “Yes, it hurts. But it’s the sort of pain your body understands, Lia. Your body knows how to deal with it. During the most intense of my contractions when I was having Adam, I went elsewhere. I knew I was in pain, but it was as if I was in some other world.
“At some point the breathing they teach in Lamaze is beside the point. All you want is to get the baby out, to reclaim your own body. So you push and you shove and you become totally primitive in your need to expel what’s inside. And the first time you look at this little miracle, your heart fills with a rush of love and.. . it’s indescribable.”
Lia hugs her quickly, grateful for her honesty.
“Dean will be there. You’ll be fine. Trust me on this, honey.”
They walk a little farther up the street and there, plastered to one of the windows, is Lia ‘s photo. A photo taken the summer she was fourteen, when her hair was still long and blond. Beneath it are numbers to call, her vital statistics, her name, where and when she was last seen. A reward of $20,000 is being offered for information leading to her whereabouts.
Lia’s knees melt like butter. She grasps Heather’s arm to keep from falling. The world goes dark and opaque at the edges of her vision. Somehow, Heather gets her moving up the street to where she has parked her car.
That night Lia logs onto GEnie, part of this new phenomenon called going online. It’s a clumsy way to communicate through message boards, green letters against a black screen, something that universities have used for a long time. It’s now becoming available to people outside the academic world. Ian claims that in this decade, it will transform the way life is lived on the planet and has told her to be prepared to invest in something called Yahoo. Right now, she doesn’t give a shit about Yahoo or making money. At the moment she is searching for information about herself
It takes a while, but she finally comes across a message board about missing children and there is her name, with all the information the photo had, and a plea from her father: Lia, if you’re reading this, please forgive me. I was wrong. I love you. Please come home.
Lia presses her fists into her eyes, breaks down, and cries.
6
May. She’s as big as a whale and waddles when she walks. Now and then, she feels the baby, her daughter, moving around inside her, as f she’s restless to get on with it, the business of being born, the business of living. Tonight, in fact, the baby moves as she and Dean are waiting to pay their bill in a restaurant in Orlando.
“Dean, she moved, “Lia whispers.
And Dean, who seems oblivious to their surroundings, leans toward her big fat belly, cups his hands at the sound of his mouth, and says, “Hey, it’s your dad, Natasha. We’ve got your room ready.”
“Natasha?” Lia looks at him. “Where’d that name come from?”
“I don’t know. Do you like it?”
“I love it. It’s so. . . Russian or something”
Dean laughs and pays the bill; holding hands, they walk out into the spring night and discover that his car isn’t where they left it. As they walk through the entire parking lot, an elemental fear seizes her She knows about the predictions. She knows what the psychic Jean said to Dean.
“It’s gone, “she says. “We need to report it stolen.”
Dean looks at her as though she has lost her mind. “Oh, sure, right. Just what we need. Cops. They’ll take one look at you, Lia, and connect you to those photos. Forget the cops.”
“You don’t have to mention me. Call it in tomorrow. Say that you were with Ian. Produce the receipt.”
“And the cops will come here and question the employees
and find out I was here with a woman. No. Forget it.”
“But Jean said—”
“I don ‘t give a goddamn what Jean or any other psychic says, okay? I don’t live my life according to predictions. I’m not reporting it.”
“Fuck you,”she shouts, and waddles away from him as fast as she can.
“Lia, “he calls, and hurries after her.
He catches up to her, grabs her arm, she whips around. “You’re deliberately doing what they said not to do.”
“You don’t understand. My family is rich and powerful and my sister will use that power and that money to squash you if she discovers you exist. You don’t know how she is, Lia. You’ll end up back on Tybee, our daughter will be put up for adoption, and that will be the end of you and me and Natasha. The end. No, I won’t do it.”
A kind of strange and eerie calmness comes over her “I’m the problem, I’ll remove myself.”
“Yeah? And where the fuck will you go?”
“Someplace where I can’t harm you, Dean.”
But there’s no place for her to go and they both know that. Her face collapses, she feels it happening, and then he puts his arms around her and says, “Let’s go home.”
7
Dean rents a car and drives to Miami. There he and Keith buy a new used car. He lies and says he sold his Trans Am and Keith believes him—why shouldn’t he? On the registration he uses his father’s address.
It will be okay, he tells himself, and keeps assuring himself of this as he registers for summer classes, as he drives to and from Cassadaga every weekend, as his wife’s belly continues to swell.
And one night in early July, his father calls him in a panic. An FBI agent has just left the house, he says. “You’re being indicted for vehicular homicide. What the hell’s going on, Dean?”
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