Perfect Escape

by Jennifer Brown

  “Why don’t you go in there and wash it off?” I repeated, pointing toward the restroom.

  “Because that would be like adding insult to injury,” he said. “I can’t go in and touch the faucets in a place like that. And touch my shoe with all this shit and probably maggots on it.”

  I snickered. Couldn’t help it. Maggots? “There are no maggots on your shoe,” I said. “You can see that much by looking at it.”

  “You can’t see their microscopic little eggs.”

  “Okay, if you can’t see it, it’s like it’s not there. Like in the river. So just go wash it off.”

  “No. I’m not going in there.”

  “Take your wipes with you.”

  “No, Kendra, I’m not going in. People have sex in those places. There are probably all kinds of bodily fluids that you can’t see with the human eye on every surface.”

  I was starting to get annoyed. If it wasn’t poop, it was maggots. If it wasn’t maggots, it was sex fluids. If it wasn’t bodily fluids, it would probably be aliens from outer space or poisonous gas clouds or deadly face-eating influenzas. “You’re being stupid now.”

  He glared at me. “Well, if anyone knows stupid…” he said, gesturing at me.

  I slid off the hood of the car and stood with my hands on my hips. “Go. Wash. It. Off. I’m not kidding.”

  “No,” he said. “I’m not kidding, either.”

  “Well, I hope you like it here, then. Because you’re not getting into my car with that smell. I’ll puke.”

  “Too bad for you.”

  He walked over and leaned against the side of Hunka, pulling up his foot to peer at the bottom of it. I sprang forward and snatched the shoe off his foot in one swift pull. He barely had time to register what I’d done before I darted across the lawn to the big brown trash bin at the end of the sidewalk and tossed the shoe inside.

  “Hey!” he yelled.

  “Looks like it’s too bad for you,” I yelled back, brushing my hands off. “I’m going to go inside and wash up. Fluids or no fluids!” I turned on my heel and marched into the restroom, leaving him leaning against the car with one foot held up off the ground like an injured animal.

  I knew I was letting this go further than I should have. And I knew I probably should have thought it through before I threw Grayson’s shoe away. But I was already on edge from the stress of Bo crying, and still stung from Rena snapping at me, and sometimes Grayson was too easy a target. Plus, he’d come so far. My plan was working. I wasn’t going to just sit back and watch him go back to the way he was before.

  By the time I came out of the restroom, Rena was pacing a finally quiet Bo around the perimeter again, and Grayson was sitting inside Hunka, his head down in a pout.

  I got in next to him, just as Rena rounded the last corner and headed toward us. Bo was asleep on her shoulder. Grayson was still wearing one shoe, his other foot bare and resting on top of the rocks on the floorboard.

  “That’s a good look for you,” I said, snapping my seat belt in place. “You should keep it.”

  “Get my shoe,” he said through clenched teeth. His fingers were crooked out in front of him, not in his usual counting pose but like he wanted nothing more than to wrap them around my neck.

  “Go wash it off.”

  “No.”

  “Then no. If you want it, you’re going to have to dig through the trash can to get it yourself. Consider it the best exposure therapy you’ve ever gotten. Dr. St. James would be proud.”

  He banged his temple against the window twice, his voice ratcheting up. “You can’t go rummaging through public trash cans, you moron,” he said. “There could be used hypodermic needles in there. You could end up with AIDS.”

  “AIDS, Grayson? Really?” I said, tipping my head to one side. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Lord knows, I’d heard crazier obsessions from him, but this one was definitely up there.

  He shook his head, looking out the window at the approaching Rena. “You’re such an idiot,” he said, then boomed, “Get the shoe!”

  “No!” I screamed back, and when Rena looked over at us sharply, I lowered my voice. “And shut up. If you wake up Bo, I’ll throw your glasses away, too.”

  “Bitch.”

  “Nutbag.”

  “God, stop it, you guys. You’re acting like little kids,” Rena grumbled.

  That was the other notable thing about Nevada, I guess. It was the point where the stress started to get to all of us. Rena cried and wished for her mom and called us children. Grayson freaked out over imagined hypodermic needles. And I called my brother a nutbag, even though I felt like crap immediately after doing it.

  Rena opened Bo’s door and eased him into his seat, rocking it gently when he first startled and then stirred as if he was going to wake and pitch another fit. When she was sure he was asleep, she came around to the other side and collapsed in the seat beside him.

  “Let’s get to California,” she breathed, tipping her head back and closing her eyes.

  “You read my mind,” I said, and pulled out onto the highway.

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY-TWO

  We didn’t make it to California that night, but we got so close I could feel the excitement pinch my flesh up into goose bumps.

  “Guys, I’m sorry,” I said in a yawn. “But I’m getting tired. I’ve gotta stop.”

  “I’m hungry,” Rena said by way of agreement.

  “Reno,” Grayson said, holding up the atlas to see it in the headlight beam of the car behind us. He glanced backward and grinned. “Your brother?”

  She blinked at him. “I don’t have a brother.”

  “No, I meant… you know… Rena… Reno. Never mind. It was a bad joke.”

  But Rena laughed, breathily. “Yeah,” she said through her giggles. “It really was.”

  “He gets it from my dad,” I said, and Grayson snorted, nodding. “My dad’s the worst joke teller ever. You know his favorite? What should you do if you see a sleeping goat? Call the police! You’ve just witnessed a kidnapping.”

  “Har-har-har!” Grayson mimicked Dad’s laugh. “Now, don’t you kids go telling that one to all your friends and taking the credit,” he said in a voice that sounded remarkably like our dad’s.

  “Like we ever would,” I said.

  We spent the next few minutes telling all the dumbest jokes we could think of, and I couldn’t help feeling a squeeze in my heart for my dad. I missed him. I wished he were with us. He would’ve swum in the river. He would’ve laughed when I threw Grayson’s shoe in the trash, and he would’ve known what to do about Bo.

  Instead, he was at home, consoling Mom and probably cursing the day I was born for what an ungrateful daughter I turned out to be.

  But it was good to hear Rena laugh again, even if the jokes made me a little bit sad. When Rena laughed, it lit up the whole car. Grayson smiled when she laughed, and his hands looked relaxed, and he held back his uh-uh-uhs.

  I resolved that I would send Dad a text as soon as we stopped. Reassure him that we were both still okay and that everything would be resolved soon.

  “Seriously, guys, we gotta look for someplace to stop,” I said, rubbing my lower back with one hand. There were a lot of loose springs in Hunka, and after all this driving, my back was starting to feel like I’d slept on a grapefruit all night.

  “That’s right. Keep your eyes peeled, banana,” Rena muttered, and she and Grayson cracked up again.

  “That was horrible,” Grayson said.

  “I know,” Rena answered.

  “I’m impressed.”

  “Thank you. Thank you very much.”

  Grayson chuckled. “Elvis? Is that you? Alive and in Nevada? No way! Who woulda guessed?”

  More stupid laughter, and I rubbed my back harder. “Great. Well, I guess I’ll find a place myself. You two keep up your little comedy tour. That’s okay.” I tried to act put out by it, but I couldn’t help grinning. There was something about the quir
ky way my brother was telling stupid jokes that reminded me of why I loved him so much.

  I finally saw the perfect place—another in a long series of beat-up and nasty motels—and pulled into the parking lot.

  “I’ll go see if I can get us a room,” I said. “You can stay out here with Bo. C’mon, Gray, come with me.”

  My brother sighed, all the fun and games draining out of his face instantaneously, but he didn’t argue. He grabbed two rocks out of the pile on the floorboard, stuffed them into his pocket, and got out.

  “Picked another winner,” he muttered, taking in the dead bugs stuck to the outsides of the room doors and the taped bullet hole in one window. The flip-flops I’d bought him at the last gas station to replace his missing shoe whacked against the ground.

  “I know. I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m going to owe you big-time when this is over, huh. Like a presidential suite in a Hyatt somewhere?”

  He shook his head. “Anyplace where strangers take their socks off and walk around with their dead skin cells leaking into the carpet is gross. No matter how posh. Athlete’s foot knows no socioeconomic bounds.”

  We turned the corner to the office. “So, basically, I’ll never make it up to you.”

  He let out a deep breath, stopped for a second to peer at the office door, then said, “Kendra, you don’t have to. It’s not like that.”

  “What’s it like, then?”

  He pulled one of the rocks out of his pocket and studied it, rubbed it with his thumb a few times, then closed his fist tightly around it. “I know what you’re trying to do,” he said.

  For a second I thought that meant he knew about the money. Or maybe he’d figured out about my plan to find Zoe. My skin grew cold. The last thing I needed was him ruining my plan after we’d gotten so far. “What?” I croaked. “What am I trying to do?”

  He dipped his head. “Make me normal,” he said to his feet. “But it’s not about me.”

  “Of course it’s about you. And I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but you’ve gotten better.”

  He made an impatient face. “No. That’s not why you’re doing this. You want to make me better so I’m not always causing problems for you.”

  “That’s not true,” I croaked.

  But it was true, in a sense. I’d wanted to run away to get away from my own problems, but I also wanted to get his to go away, too. I wanted to cure him. But was I really doing it for him? No. And I think I’d known it all along. Probably before we even left Missouri. I wanted to cure him for me. How could I deny that I wanted to change him into someone “normal,” someone who fit my life better?

  It was true, and I felt like the biggest ass in the world for it. The worst sister ever.

  What a spoiled brat. I couldn’t just love him for who he was. I couldn’t just be happy that I had a brother who loved me in a family that loved one another. I had to focus on the fact that he was somehow… I don’t know… less than me. That he was broken and that I, perfect little Kendra with all the answers, could fix him. What a crock of crap.

  Not to mention what an egotistical jerk I was. Thinking I could fix him. That I could do something as messed up as I did, and instead of facing it, I could step in and shine up my brother, and everyone would think I was a hero. That’s what I wanted, wasn’t it? To be a hero? To be a hero so big Grayson’s recovery wouldn’t be about him at all? God, how could I be so self-centered?

  When it came down to it, I was running away, plain and simple, and I had only talked myself into believing that I was doing something great for Grayson at the same time. But no. I was using him as a crutch. As an excuse. Just like always. Excuse at school, excuse at home, excuse for why I didn’t face things I didn’t want to face or do things I didn’t want to do. As long as Grayson was in charge of my life, I didn’t have to be. How very convenient.

  I ran my palm over my forehead, blinking back tears. Grayson was rubbing the rock with his thumb again, not meeting my eyes. Around us, the sounds of night went on like normal—bugs ticking against the flickering globe lamp outside the office door, car doors slamming in the parking lot, wind sighing through bushes.

  “God, what am I doing?” I muttered.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “I wouldn’t want to live with a freak like m—”

  “No,” I said, interrupting him. “Stop. Grayson, just stop. It’s not about… God, I can’t believe… First of all, you’re not a freak, okay? You’re not.” But I didn’t know how to go on from there. I blinked, and two tears streamed down my face, the breeze pushing across them and leaving two cold streaks behind. I had to tell him. I had to tell him everything. That’s all there was to it. “It’s not about you. It’s about me. I didn’t just cheat,” I said.

  But I couldn’t get any more out, because Rena was coming at us from the parking lot, running at full tilt.

  “Help,” she coughed out when she reached us. She grabbed Grayson’s arm, jarring him so that the rock fell out of his hand and bounced on the sidewalk at his feet. She had a terrified, wide-eyed panic set in her face, and her skin was red and bulgy. I heard my brother gasp.

  “What’s going on?” I pulled at her hand, which had so surprised Grayson he got that full freak-out hollow to his chest that I’d seen so many times before. But Rena wouldn’t let go of Grayson, wouldn’t tear her frightened eyes away from him. “Rena,” I said, and pulled again, wrenching her free.

  “It’s Bo,” she said, her voice coming out in a panicked rasp. “I can’t get him to wake up!”

  “What?” I asked, but I had already let go of her arm and was sprinting down the sidewalk back toward Hunka. I ripped open the door to the backseat and, sure enough, there was Bo, eyes closed. I reached down and shook his belly. Nothing. I jiggled him harder. Nothing again.

  “Hey,” I shouted, unsnapping his harness and pulling him out. It was the first time I’d held him, really, and I was shocked by how heavy he was. How alive he felt—nothing like the little dolls Zoe and I had played with under her picnic table. “Alive,” I whispered, when the thought entered my mind. He wasn’t pale, and he was definitely breathing. But he was hot as fire, except for his hands, which were cold, and when I held him up in front of my face and jiggled him, his eyes fluttered open and then shut again. His head lolled.

  Rena was pulling at his hands and feet, her breath rushing into the side of my neck in harsh, hot gasps. Grayson had come up behind us but was still standing on the sidewalk, his arms crossed over his chest. He was moaning and making that uh-uh-uh sound and shifting his weight.

  “He’s okay,” I breathed. “He’s okay.”

  Rena grabbed Bo away from me and cradled him. “He’s not okay. He won’t wake up. That’s not okay.”

  “Okay,” I said, because I seemed to be stuck on this one word, my mind whirling and my chest feeling tight. Okay was all that would come to my mind. Everything’s okay. Everything’s going to be okay. In my periphery I could see Grayson, squatting now and wrapped around himself in a little ball, and could hear Rena yelling Bo’s name, telling him to wake up, and all I could think about was that I didn’t know what to do. That I was scared and that, for the first time in three days, I wanted my mom.

  She always knew what to do. She always had a calm head. She’d been through so many crises with us over the years and had never looked rattled—not when I broke my arm doing a cartwheel on Zoe’s trampoline. Not when Grayson needed stitches after running his bike into the back of a parked car. Not when she came home from work and found him, naked and freezing, in the hallway shower, having been there for somewhere around nine hours. She always dropped into some calm zone, said “Let’s get to the hospital,” and saved her breakdown for later when she was alone and everyone was somehow, miraculously, still alive.

  “Let’s go,” I said, pushing Rena’s back toward the car. “Grayson, get the atlas and find a hospital. Bo needs a hospital.”

  Rena raced around toward the other side of the car and slid into the backseat, still c
lutching Bo, but Grayson stayed where he was. He moaned a low moan.

  “No,” I said, pulling on his shirt, trying to get him to stand. “You can’t do this right now.” But he refused to move. “Grayson! Dammit!” I yelled, tugging some more. By now, there was a family standing outside their room watching us, whispering to one another. I looked around wildly for something that would help me get my brother to move. I could hear Rena shouting “Hurry up!” in the car.

  Then I saw it. The rock. The one that Grayson had been holding when Rena grabbed onto him. It had bounced onto the sidewalk and rolled a few inches, but it was still there.

  I rushed to the rock and picked it up, then rushed back to my brother and tucked it into the crease where his arms held tight against his chest. “There,” I said. “You have two now. Okay? You’re even. That means everything is going to be okay. Let’s go.” I pulled on him again, and still nothing. “Please, Grayson, I’m begging you.” I squatted next to him and rested my forehead against his shoulder. “Just please be normal this one time,” I whimpered, knowing that I had just negated what I’d said to him earlier about this trip not being a way for me to make him normal. The thought brought the tears that had been so absent in all the chaos, and I squeezed my eyes shut, letting them soak into my brother’s shirt.

  After a few seconds, which seemed like hours, I felt his shoulder move. He had shifted the rock into his hand and was staring at it. I pulled back and looked directly into his eyes. “Let’s go to the hospital,” I said.

  Slowly, we both got up, and somehow I managed to fold my brother into the car and shut the door behind him. I wiped my eyes on my forearms and walked on noodly legs to the other side, then slid in.

  Grayson had the atlas open in his lap. Uh-uh. “Take a right,” he said. “It’s not far, actually. You’ll probably see—uh-uh—signs as soon as you—uh—turn.” And then he shut the atlas and turned toward his window, his throat working uh-uh-uhs and his fists furiously clenching two rocks apiece.

  CHAPTER