The Highway Kind

by Patrick Millikin

  Turkey Club was back too. Staring at a menu, a faint frown on his face. She said, “We have a great turkey club.”

  He looked up at her and smiled. She could see that he was pleased that she’d remembered him, which was what she’d intended. “I know. I’ve had it for four meals in a row, except breakfast. What else is good?”

  She shrugged. “Chicken Caesar salad?”

  He groaned. “Do you know how many chicken Caesar salads I’ve eaten over the years? Caesar salads, turkey clubs, western omelets. It all tastes the same.”

  “It all comes off the same truck,” Caro said.

  “Sometimes, I think one more day on the road is going to break me.” He rubbed his face. “I am going to literally turn into a preservative. A living, breathing molecule of BHT.”

  “There’s a pesto-tortellini thing,” she said. “Occasionally they put actual prosciutto in it.”

  He closed the menu. “Sold. One pesto-tortellini thing with occasional actual prosciutto in it, please.”

  She put in the order and brought him a basket of bread. “More chemistry?” he said, and at first she thought he was talking about the bread but then he nodded at her books.

  “Algebra.” She wondered if that was a mistake, if chemistry majors in college didn’t have to take algebra. She tried to remember if she’d actually told him she was a chemistry major. Then she decided that it was all too much work on her last day. “I lied to you before. I’m still in high school,” she said, feeling faintly reckless. The truth. What a novelty.

  His eyes widened. “I would not have thought that.”

  “It’s the makeup. I am a senior, though.”

  “Big plans for after?”

  She thought about saying Taking care of my schizophrenic mother—but there was such a thing as too much truth. “Probably what you said. Community college, then transfer.”

  “It’s still a good plan.”

  “Sure, if I can afford it.”

  “Is this a good job? It seems like it should be. But I never see anybody here.”

  “They’re closing the restaurant,” she said. “This is my last shift.”

  “Oh,” he said, and then, “Oh.”

  She heard the bell ring from the kitchen. “One pesto thing with occasional prosciutto,” she said when she came back, setting the plate down in front of him. “Sorry, though. You didn’t get the prosciutto.”

  “That’s a shame,” he said.

  “They must have run out.”

  “No,” he said, picking up his fork. “About your job.”

  “It’s okay. I have another one.”

  “She said grimly.”

  That made her smile. “Well, I didn’t say it was a great job.”

  “I’m surprised your parents let you have two jobs while you’re in school,” he said. “You must get spectacular grades.”

  A thousand things were on the tip of Caro’s tongue but what came out was “I’m saving up to buy a car.”

  “Still, two jobs? Is borrowing your mom’s car really so bad?”

  “Walking is,” she said.

  He blinked. “Walking. In this weather.”

  Because the wind was biting and harsh even though it wasn’t yet November. Caro shrugged.

  “None of your friends can give you a ride?”

  She shrugged again. “I get off so late.”

  “And your parents are okay with all of this.”

  “Don’t make me keep shrugging,” she said.

  He looked at her for a long moment and then nodded. “Okay,” he said. “Life is complicated. Sure.”

  He ate his pesto thing, said good night, and left the restaurant—presumably to go upstairs. He left her a big tip, but not big enough to make a difference. She fantasized briefly about being that lucky one-in-a-million waitress who got the lucky one-in-a-million tip: five hundred dollars, a thousand. Ten bucks was nice, though. She wouldn’t argue with ten bucks.

  Finally, her shift was over. She walked out into the lobby, past the potted trees that nobody was supposed to notice were made of plastic. There was a twenty-four-hour coffee station set up near a small sitting area with a couch and a coffee table, but it was right in front of the door, so she couldn’t imagine why people would choose to sit there when they had an entire hotel room all to themselves upstairs. Someone was sitting there now, though. It was Turkey Club. He stood up when he saw her.

  “I thought you might like a ride,” he said.

  She felt her back go stiff and her guard go up. “No, thank you.”

  “It’s thirty-eight degrees outside.”

  “I like the cold.”

  He sighed and rubbed his eyes. “Yeah. You’re probably right. You shouldn’t take rides from somebody you barely know. If I had a daughter, I wouldn’t want her to do it either. I just thought—it’s so cold and so late. I thought I’d offer, is all.”

  “And I appreciate it,” she said briskly, “but no.” She was waiting for him to turn around and go away so she’d know he wasn’t going to follow her out to the parking lot. He wasn’t turning around or going away. He was standing by the couch, chewing his lip.

  “Okay,” he said suddenly. “Here.” He walked over to the front desk. The woman working behind it was there almost every night when Caro left, but they’d never spoken, and Caro didn’t know the woman’s name. The man took out his wallet. “Here’s my driver’s license,” he said to the woman working the desk, laying the piece of plastic down on the high counter between them. “And here’s my business card. See? That’s me. Chris Mitchell. Matches my name on the room, right?”

  “I guess so,” the woman said. She was much older than Caro. Her eyes flicked back and forth between Caro and the man, suspiciously.

  “And you already have my license number and my credit card and everything, don’t you?”

  “Yeah.”

  He looked at Caro. “So if something happens to you while you’re with me, they’ll know exactly who I am. Hell,” he added, turning to the clerk again, “if I’m not back in an hour, call the cops straight off, okay? Just to be on the safe side.”

  Caro bit back a smile. He saw. She saw him seeing.

  “Let me give you a ride,” he said. “That’s it. I promise.”

  She thought about it for another second. “Fine,” she said.

  The woman behind the desk shook her head.

  It really was cold outside and Caro was shivering by the time he turned the engine on. His car was new, like his phone and his haircut. It smelled faintly of coconut and was very clean. There were a few coffee cups on the floor mats and a stack of CDs tucked into the console, but no fast-food wrappers, no dirty shirts balled up in the backseat. “The thing is,” he said, turning the heat up, “I wouldn’t want my daughter walking around this late at night in this weather either. Where do you live?”

  “Why did you say an hour?” she said.

  “Because I don’t know where you live,” he said patiently. “I mean, I’m assuming that if you walk, it’s relatively close. But I don’t know that. I’d like to help you out and all, but I don’t actually want to get picked up by the police on suspicion of kidnapping.”

  “Not to mention the fact that I’m a minor,” she said.

  He grimaced. “Even more reason for me to get you home safe. Where’s home?”

  “You know where Main Street is?” He nodded. “Drive down Main Street and then take a left at the junior high.”

  The car was beginning to warm up. As he pulled out of the hotel parking lot, she saw the streets were almost deserted. To get to Main Street he had to drive by the car, her car—no, not her car, never her car. It was there and gone in a flash of white, which seemed appropriate.

  “That’s the car I was saving for,” she said. “We just drove past it.”

  “How much do you need?”

  “A thousand dollars.”

  “That’s not too bad.”

  “Might as well be a million.”

  �
��How much do you have?”

  “Right now? This minute?” She thought for a moment, subtracted the electricity bill, subtracted groceries. “A hundred and fifty.”

  “That’s not much for a girl who works two jobs and lives at home.”

  “Yeah, well,” she said. “I chip in.”

  “Ah,” he said. “Would you like me not to ask any more questions about that?”

  “Good instinct.” She flipped through his CDs. “So what’s your deal? Where do you live?”

  “Outside Cleveland.”

  “Vague.”

  “I have a nice split-level house and a wife named Lisa.”

  “Kids?”

  “Not unless you count Kermit.”

  “The frog?”

  “The Havanese.”

  “What’s a Havanese?”

  “It’s the national dog of Cuba.”

  “Little? Big?”

  “Little. Fluffy.”

  “Yappy?”

  “Ours isn’t.”

  “You don’t seem like a little-fluffy-dog guy.”

  “What kind of dog guy do I seem like?”

  Caro didn’t know much about dogs. “The dog-food-commercial kind. The ones that catch Frisbees.”

  “Well, Kermit is great, but—yeah, that’s more my type,” he said. “Lisa has allergies, though.”

  “How does she feel about you traveling so much?”

  He shrugged. “She doesn’t love it. But she likes the money. It’s the way our life is, that’s all. So, does my answering all these questions mean I’m allowed to ask you some?”

  “I’m just trying to get to know the stranger who’s driving me home,” she said. “There’s the junior high, up ahead.”

  He turned. “I’ll tell you what,” he said. “You’ve piqued my curiosity. I’ll ask. You don’t have to answer. You live with your parents?”

  “My mom.”

  “What about your dad?”

  “Have you ever heard the term sperm donor used in this context?”

  “Got it. Your mom doesn’t work?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Two jobs, plus high school,” he said. “Don’t you get tired?”

  “I’m always tired,” she said. “Turn right up here.”

  They drove in silence for a minute or two. Then he said, “I’m guessing your mother has some problems. I don’t know what kind. I suppose I don’t need to know.”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Mind if I get gas?” he said, and he flicked on his turn signal.

  He pulled them into a SuperSpeedy, lit almost to daylight and busy even at this time of night. She sat in the warm cocoon of heated air while he filled the tank of his car. Then he leaned in. “I want a doughnut. You want anything?”

  “A doughnut sounds good.”

  He nodded and went inside. She watched as he stopped at the cash machine and then sank back into the plush of the car’s interior and pretended this was her life, that she was an adult and she was heading far away from the shabby little duplex instead of to it; this was her car. The man inside was her husband. He had a good job and she had a purse full of credit cards in good standing. When she looked out the window she saw a couple just like the one in her imagination, obviously coming back from a night out somewhere nicer than the hotel restaurant.

  “Hello,” she said to them through the closed window. “My name is Lisa Mitchell. This is my husband, Chris, and our dog Kermit. He’s a Havanese. It’s the national dog of Cuba.”

  The door to the convenience store opened and Chris came out carrying a box, so she shut up before he could see her talking to herself.

  Back in the car, he took one doughnut out of the box and handed the rest to her. “All yours.”

  “I don’t need charity doughnuts,” she said.

  “Charity doughnuts, my ass. They only sold them by the dozen.” That was a lie but she let him get away with it. The doughnuts smelled amazing and Margot would eat them, because all she had to do was open the box.

  “Thanks,” she said.

  “You’re welcome.”

  He started the car, and she expected him to put the car in gear and pull out, but instead he just sat and stared back into the SuperSpeedy. His brow was furrowed and his jaw was working slightly, as if he were poking at a sore tooth with his tongue.

  “I’m not eighteen yet,” she said.

  “You mentioned that.”

  “I know,” she said, “but that’s why I don’t answer questions. Until I’m eighteen, I have to be careful. Anyway, I’m just telling you because I can see you feel sorry for me—things will get better.” She spoke with a conviction she didn’t entirely feel. Except she had to feel it, because otherwise her feet wouldn’t move, her lungs wouldn’t expand. “I mean, the ride and the doughnuts—I really do appreciate them. But you don’t need to feel sorry for me, is all I’m saying.”

  “What are you going to do when you turn eighteen?” he said. “Is that what the car is for?”

  “Is what what the car is for?”

  “Well,” he said, “if you’re eighteen, and you have a car, you can pretty much go anywhere you want. Do anything you want. You don’t have to live at home. You don’t have to live in Pitlorsville. You could drive to LA, break into show business. Or you could drive to Houston and break into the oil business. We get born into these situations, and you do the best you can with it, but sometimes the best you can do is get the fuck out, you know?”

  She thought of the car, gleaming white by the side of the road—the road that stretched on, all the intersections and exits that led from here to places like LA and Houston and Seattle and Des Moines and who the hell even knew where.

  “My mom needs me,” she said.

  “Yeah, well,” he said. “Everybody needs something. We don’t all get it. You need a car, right?”

  He was smiling but the things he said hurt. “What about you?” she said. “What do you need?”

  In the semi-light from the SuperSpeedy, she saw him roll his eyes, as if the things he needed were legion, and there was no point in talking about it. “What do I need,” he said, almost to himself.

  Then he didn’t say anything else, and for a moment they sat in silence in the parking lot, the engine the only sound. The silence lasted so long that Caro began to feel nervous. “Are we going to go?” she said.

  “Yeah, but—” He turned to look at her. “Maybe we could help each other.”

  Her guard snapped back up. He must have seen it on her face because right away he said, “No, no. Not that. Don’t worry. I could use some help with an errand, is all.”

  “An errand,” she said.

  “Really quick. I just need you to run something inside to a friend of mine, at his office.”

  “What?”

  “A package. Not a bomb or anything, I promise.”

  But not something legal, or he’d do it himself. “You said you work in pharma,” she said. “You mean pharmaceuticals? Like drugs?”

  “Legitimate medicine. Headquarters in Jersey and everything. I rep all sorts of things: Antibiotics, boner pills. Statins for high cholesterol.”

  “Is that what’s in the package you want me to run inside to your friend?” she said, a bit dryly. “Antibiotics and boner pills?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “So painkillers.”

  He looked at her steadily and said, “There’s all kinds of pain in the world. Not all of it shows up on an ER scan.”

  Caro didn’t say anything. She was thinking. Once she’d worked at a box office in a movie theater, a corporate chain; the usher had palmed the tickets, and she’d resold them, and they’d split the profits. They made minimum wage there, with no overtime no matter how much they worked. Nobody knew the difference and nobody got hurt. But the couple who lived upstairs in the duplex were on pills, when they could get them, and they were a mess. The cops came all the time and it was a pain; sometimes they wanted statements and Caro had to lie, and t
hen she had to make sure Margot could act sane for a few minutes. Drugs were not movie tickets. She wasn’t sure she wanted to get involved in anything having to do with drugs.

  “My friend’s office has security cameras,” he said. “I’ve already been there once today so it would look weird if I came again after hours. I’ll pay you.” He gave her a tense smile. “But you kind of have to decide quick. We’re running out of time.”

  “How much?” she said.

  “How about five hundred?” he said. “That’d get you a long way to your car.”

  She shook her head and suddenly realized that she’d made a decision. “For taking something into a building? No. You give me that much money, I can’t play stupid when the cops come.” The closer a lie was to the truth, the easier it was to pull off. “One hundred.”

  “Are you sure?” he said. “The cops won’t come. I can give you more.”

  “Ticktock,” Caro said, and he laughed, and said, “Okay, fine.”

  His friend, whoever he was, had an office in a nearby medical complex. The doors were all unlocked, and she could hear a vacuum cleaner in another room. The paper bag felt completely normal in her hands. It could have had a peanut butter sandwich in it, except it was heavy, and it rattled faintly. She opened the door to the office Chris had directed her to go to; it looked like the average doctor’s office, with a high counter and computers and chairs to wait in. Down a hallway she found the backmost office, which was too full of a gleaming wood desk. The walls were plastered with framed diplomas. She dropped the bag onto the chair behind the desk, tried not to look at any of the diplomas so she wouldn’t know the doctor’s name, and left.

  “Go okay?” Chris said out in the car.

  “You need to take me home,” she said. “What’s her name at the front desk is going to call the police.”

  After everything, after all of it, she was still home fifteen minutes earlier than she would have been if she’d walked. When he pulled up to the curb in front of the duplex, he said, “Well, thanks. Don’t forget your doughnuts.”

  She smiled and picked up the box. “There’s only two of us. They’ll be stale before we finish them.”

  “Stale doughnuts are still pretty good,” he said. She agreed they were, said good-bye, and got out of the car.