Girls on the Verge

by Sharon Biggs Waller

  “Should we go over there?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Bea gets in the car, but I wait. Annabelle’s coming back now. Her eyes are puffy and her face streaked with tears. She gets into the car and slams the door. I get in and hand her the keys. She takes them without speaking.

  I put my hand on her arm, but she shakes me off and starts the car. “What’s wrong?” I ask her. She ignores me again and pulls out of the truck stop.

  She snaps on the radio, fiddling with the dial to find something she likes. Songs judder past, running into one another, as she rolls the dial over and over. Back and forth, back and forth. Finally she settles on a country station, something she hates.

  “Do you want to talk? I mean, I’m here for you if you want to talk about that phone—”

  “No,” she says. “Please, Camille. I don’t.” Her breath hitches. “I don’t.”

  “I’m here if you want to talk.”

  “I know,” she says. She blinks back tears. “I know.”

  * * *

  The windows are down, and the smell of cow manure streaming into the car is so strong, my eyes start to water. I roll my window up, but Annabelle punches the button on her side, and the window rolls down again. I lay my finger on the metal tab of the window control. Annabelle gives me the side-eye, and I take my finger away.

  Annabelle turns the dial on the radio. It’s the Talking Heads song “Road to Nowhere.” The group sings about how they’re not little children and that they know what they want. I think about my life and how I got here, and a giant anvil of sadness falls on me. I’m on the road to nowhere.

  Bea slumps down and puts her feet on the back of the seat.

  “Can you take your feet down?” Annabelle says.

  Bea yanks her feet down. “What is with you?” She starts to cry.

  “Why are you crying?” Annabelle asks.

  “What if Camille is killing a baby?” she blurts out.

  Annabelle jerks the steering wheel and stamps on the brake, and the car comes to a screeching halt on the shoulder. “Jesus, Annabelle!” I shout. Nausea floods over me. I unbuckle my seat belt, open the door, and puke all over a tiny cactus. My eyes water with the effort. Poor cactus. The thought of the cactus dying because of me makes me start to cry. I puke and cry. Cry and puke. I hear the driver’s side door open, and Annabelle is there. She pats my back.

  I hear the crunch of gravel, and Bea kneels down beside me. “I’m sorry, Camille. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “What did you think that little comment would do?” Annabelle yells. She kicks some gravel. “Make her happy?”

  “I didn’t mean it! It just slipped out.” Bea stands up.

  “Pretty princess didn’t mean this, didn’t mean that. Words hurt, Bea, especially when someone is going through a hard time. Get out of your bubble, why don’t you?”

  “You’re not Camille’s friend, I am! I think I know what’s best for her. You’re so arrogant, Annabelle.” Bea flings out her arms. “Miss Perfect Actress, Mr. Knight’s pet, England’s answer to Shakespeare!”

  Annabelle sticks up her middle finger and stomps off. She stops by a sign advertising thirty-six-ounce steaks at Billy Bob’s. Billy Bob is dressed in a red check shirt with a bandanna stuffed in the neck of his shirt. He holds a knife in one hand and a fork in the other, grinning down at a huge lump of beef.

  The sight of that steak makes me gag, and my stomach rolls again. I start to tell them to stop it when Annabelle turns around and comes back. “So you want to know something, Bea. Well, here’s one: I’m no Miss Perfect Actress. That phone call before? That was RADA telling me not to come back. I’ll never be an actor, I’m not cut out for it, and I knew it. I’m quitting acting. How about that?”

  I stare at Annabelle. “You can’t be serious.”

  She makes a sweeping gesture. “Like I made that up.”

  “Why would they do that?” Bea asks. “You’re really good. Your name is painted on Mr. Knight’s Masters of Their Fates wall. Why would RADA kick you out? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “The other students are better, okay? It’s one thing to be the best at the Globe and another to be the best in England. God, not even the best, just good enough would have been fine. I sounded like an idiot next to them. I don’t know what I’m doing; my grades suck. The director of RADA hauled me into her office and asked why I was there. She told me to go home for the summer and think about it. Everyone else headed off to the summer program or up to Stratford-upon-Avon to a special Shakespeare study course. And I came home to Johnson Creek, Texas, to work in the janky pharmacy off the highway.”

  “Don’t listen to her, Annabelle,” I say. “You’re amazing!”

  “Who should I listen to?” She scrubs her eyes. “I don’t know what else to do. What else to be.”

  She looks out across the desert. “I knew I couldn’t handle it there. Everything about it scared me. The Underground terrified me, and I spent most of my travel money on cabs. It’s just…” Annabelle shakes her head. “I’m sick of this shit.” She picks up a rock and flings it at the sign. It soars through the air and hits Billy Bob right on the head. “Fuck you, Billy Bob!”

  I throw my bottle on the ground; it bursts open and water gushes out. I pick up a rock. “I’m so tired of people judging,” I say. “How is it selfish to want a life? How is it selfish to not want to be a mother at seventeen?” I throw the rock. “Fuck you, Billy Bob!”

  Bea picks up a rock next to me. “I’m tired of being perfect, of worrying about how my parents see me, how my church sees me. Fuck you, Billy Bob!” She hurls the rock at the sign.

  Annabelle picks up another rock. “Fuck you, dudes who ran us off the road!”

  “Fuck you, crisis center!” I shout.

  “Eat shit, asshole judge!” Annabelle yells as she whips another rock.

  We look at Bea to see what she has next. “I, uh, can’t think of anyone else I’m mad at,” she says. But she picks up a rock and hucks it at the billboard.

  We fling rock after rock until Billy Bob’s face is streaked in pink dust. Until our arms are tired and our hands are filthy, until we are breathless, until we run out of rocks to throw.

  “Jeez Louise,” Bea says. Her face is smudged with dirt, and her sundress is streaked with red dust.

  Annabelle straightens up and looks toward the road. Her smile fades.

  Coming toward us are two police officers.

  “Oh no,” Bea says.

  “You girls okay?” one of the troopers asks. “You seem to be letting off some steam with that sign there.”

  We exchange glances, and Bea speaks up before Annabelle or I can. “Our friend got carsick.” She waves toward the cactus I’ve puked on. One of the cops’ gazes follows her hand, and he takes a step back.

  “Throwing rocks at a billboard helps with that?”

  “I’m sorry, Officer. We had a bad day, and we kind of lost it.”

  He sighs and looks at the sign. “Well, I’ve seen old Billy Bob look worse on a Saturday night. That dirt will come off next rain.”

  The older trooper jumps in, his voice gruff. “All the same, I need your licenses, ladies, and the car registration.”

  We give them our licenses, and the older trooper watches as Annabelle opens her glove box. An avalanche of CDs and fast food napkins pour out. She picks out her registration and hands it to him.

  He takes them and returns to the car, leaving the younger trooper to keep an eye on us.

  “Going far?” he asks, making the smallest of small talk.

  “New Mexico,” Annabelle says.

  “For Fourth of July,” Bea blurts out.

  “My aunt Pam lives there,” I say, even though my aunt Pam moved to Indiana years ago. “We’re staying with her.”

  Minutes later, the older trooper comes walking back, fast. “Which one of you is Annabelle Ponsonby?”

  Annabelle holds up her hand.

  “Hands on the car, miss,” h
e says.

  “What? Why?” she asks.

  “Hands on the car,” he says. “Don’t make me ask you again.”

  “Wait!” I say. “What’s happening?”

  Annabelle sets her palms on the car’s hood, and the officer pulls his handcuffs out of his belt. “You have the right to remain silent,” he says, pulling one arm back and then the other, clicking the handcuffs. “There’s a bench warrant out for your arrest.”

  “For what?” Annabelle asks.

  “Theft.”

  “I’ve never stolen anything!” she says, her voice high and wobbly.

  “The dispatch says differently. Apparently you shoplifted something from a pharmacy? Any of that ring a bell?” The way he says it is less like a question than a statement. He starts moving toward his car, dragging her a little when she tries to dig her heels in. The pink Panhandle dirt rises in little puffs as she shuffles her feet.

  The cop behind them snaps his fingers. “Let’s go, let’s go,” he says. “You don’t want to add resisting arrest to the list, now do you?”

  “Hey, wait,” I say. “Where are you taking her?”

  “This has to be a mistake,” Bea pipes up. “Can you look again? Maybe there’s another Annabelle Ponsonby. Honestly, Officer, she’s a good person.”

  But I know there is no mistake. The pregnancy test. She stole it. That’s why Annabelle didn’t want money for it. I can picture her now, unlocking the box with her employee key, taking out the pregnancy test, and stomping out of the store and into the night.

  She did that for me. She shoplifted so that I could have the test.

  She’s going to jail because of me.

  “County jail in Louiston,” the younger trooper says.

  They put Annabelle in the back seat; the cops climb in, the car pulls onto the highway and drives past me. I can’t see Annabelle through the tinted windows.

  Bea and I stand there. Left behind in the Panhandle without Annabelle and with a car we can’t drive.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  We run to Buzzi, and I jump in the driver’s side. Bea climbs into the passenger side. Keys, keys … I see them dangling from the ignition.

  “How did Annabelle do this?” I ask. “Did you watch her?”

  “Um, she put her foot on that pedal to the left and then moved the stick?” Bea says. “I think?”

  “Moved the stick how?”

  Bea shrugs. “I don’t know.”

  I turn the ignition, but the car jerks and stalls. “I can’t even turn this thing on!”

  “Maybe you push on that pedal first?” Bea points to the floor. “Hang on. I’m asking Google.” Bea taps in How to drive a manual car. “Okay, I’m going to read this out to you, you ready? That pedal on the end is called the clutch.”

  “The clutch. Got it.”

  “You step on that when you shift. Push it all the way to the floor, and at the same time, hit the accelerator. You listen to the engine. When you hear it revving, shift into a higher gear.”

  I start the car. But I can’t get the hang of using the clutch and the accelerator at the same time. I stall the car three times in a row.

  “Shit, shit! I can’t do this.” I bang the steering wheel with my palms.

  “Hey! If you can stand on a stage in front of a ton of people, you can drive a stick! People do this all the time.”

  My shoulders relax a little. “You’re right.”

  “Listen to me and do exactly what I tell you.” Bea turns around and scans the road. “The road is clear. Let’s try merging on. When you let the clutch out, hit the accelerator, pick up speed on the side of the road, and then merge on. I’ll tell you when to shift, okay?”

  I step on the clutch, put the car into first, let the clutch out, and stamp on the accelerator. The car bucks forward and I’m moving.

  “Shift!” Bea yells. “Clutch in and hit second!”

  I do it, the car jolts forward, and the engine revs. I shift into third and then fourth.

  I head out onto the highway, engine whining.

  “Fifth!”

  I fiddle with the stick. “Where is fifth?”

  “Move your hand.” She looks at the stick shift. “Um. Up and over to the right.”

  I shove the stick to the right and the engine calms down.

  “Woo!” Bea says. “You’re doing it!”

  I grin, but I don’t respond because I’m terrified. Bea and I both sit perched forward. I’m clutching the steering wheel so hard, my hands ache. I stare out at the road through the bug-splattered windshield.

  * * *

  Bea guides me to Louiston Police Department. There are three stoplights before the station. I stall the car at two of the stoplights. The driver of a red jacked-up truck leans on the horn in one long honk until I get the car going again. He passes me and mouths asshole and glares. If my hands hadn’t been occupied by trying to shift and steer at the same time, I might have flipped him off, two handed, Beatrice Delgado style.

  I find the police department and park in front.

  “Wait,” I say. I rummage around inside Annabelle’s pack, find her Wendy shirt, and pull it on over my tank top. We need a little of Wendy Davis’s courage right now.

  A cluster of people sit in chairs in the middle of the room, but Annabelle isn’t among them. There isn’t a big desk with a policeman sitting behind it, like you see in the movies. I don’t know where to go, so I ask a man staring at his phone if he knows who I can ask. Without taking his eyes off his phone, he points to the back of the room. Bea and I go over and step up to a glass window. A bored-looking police officer sits behind it. I give him Annabelle’s name. The police officer taps it into his computer.

  “Annabelle Ponsonby?” His voice is made tinny by the microphone.

  “That’s her,” Bea says. “She didn’t do anything—”

  He gets up, his gun belt creaking, and leaves his desk without saying anything. We stand at the window waiting and waiting. I’m about to tell Bea let’s go sit in the chairs when he comes back.

  “None of the judges are in today since it’s a holiday, but the jail is overcrowded with early Fourth of July drunks, so we got a judge to hold a video court.” He looks at the clock. “In about three hours.”

  “Three hours?”

  “That’s what I said.” He points to the chairs. “You can wait over there or come back. Up to you.” He turns back to his computer.

  “Can I talk to her?”

  “Only if she calls you.”

  “What if the judge says she’s guilty?”

  The police officer sighs. “Texas law, less than a fifty-dollar theft is a class C misdemeanor, three-hunerd-dollar fine. Up to four hunerd and ninety-nine dollars is a class B misdemeanor. That comes with a side of four months in jail and a two-thousand-dollar fine.”

  “It didn’t cost much,” I say. “Probably only ten dollars.”

  “Doesn’t matter what it is,” he says slowly and loudly, as though I were a little kid without the ability to comprehend simple sentences. “It can be two cents, for all the law cares. Shoplifting is shoplifting. Got it?”

  “What if she can’t pay the fine?” Bea puts in.

  “Then she sits in jail until she can.”

  “But that’s not right—”

  The police officer scowls. “Look, ladies. Do I look like a politician? They make the laws. Not me. Take it up with your congressmen. Your friend broke the law, and she has to pay the consequences. Now take a seat or leave.”

  We return to the chairs and sit in the two remaining empty seats. Mine is broken, and it wobbles when I sit down. A woman sitting next to me is crying, mouth open and tears streaming down her cheeks. She’s not even trying to hide it.

  A woman wearing ripped-up jeans and dollar store flip-flops sits across from me, her arms folded. Her T-shirt says COME CLASSY, LEAVE TRASHY. She leans forward and stares at me. “Got any money?” she asks. “I wanna Coke.”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t,” I say.


  Bea clutches her purse to her chest.

  “You look like you got at least a dollar.” Her eyes narrow. “You lyin’.”

  If a dollar is all it takes to get her to leave me alone, I’ll give it to her. I grab my purse and take out a dollar. She snatches it out of my hand and heads over to the soda machine.

  “She wants a Coke, all right,” a man in a red baseball cap says, looking up from his magazine. “Cocaine. Or maybe crack. You shouldn’t’ve given her money. Now she’ll pester the life out of you for more. Whenever people ask me for money, I tell them go work at McDonald’s. As long as they can say ‘you want fries with that?’ they can work, same as I do. I work hard for my money—”

  I glance at Bea. We stand up and leave the station and go sit in Buzzi.

  A few minutes later my phone rings.

  “This is a call from an inmate at Louiston Detention Center,” an automated voice says when I answer the call. “Press one to accept the charges. This call will be recorded.”

  I press one and put the phone on speaker.

  “Camille?” It’s Annabelle. She sounds panicked, her voice high and thin.

  “Annabelle?”

  “That asshole pharmacist put a warrant out for my arrest. I have to see a judge! Where are you? Are you still by the side of the road?”

  “We’re here. I talked to the police officer and he said the least it will be is three hundred dollars.”

  Annabelle is silent for a moment. “I don’t have three hundred dollars. I have maybe fifty on me and not much in my bank account.”

  “I have money,” I say.

  “No way! You need that, Camille. If you figured out how to drive my car, go to New Mexico without me. I’ll figure something else out.” Her voice catches.

  “I’m not leaving you here,” I say.

  The automatic voice cuts in. “One minute remaining.”

  “Shit,” Annabelle says.

  “Are you all right in there?”

  “Yeah. There’s a bunch of us. We’re all sitting on a bench in a room that’s hot, and there aren’t any windows. God, Camille, what if they put me in jail?”

  “They won’t—”