He poses his arms to look like a karate chop. “I’ll call you when I get to Robbie’s. Let me give you my number though in case you need anything.”
He rattles off the numbers and I program them in. “And that’s Marco…Exceptional?”
He laughs. “Stone.”
“That’s not a last name, it’s a noun,” I say, smiling as I type. “Want my number, Mr. Noun?”
“I already got it, Ms. Adjective. I called my phone with yours to get it in my call display.”
Aw. “You did?”
“I had to. In case you pulled another Houdini on me.”
I kiss him hard on the lips before it’s his turn to disappear.
After an hour of driving, we realize we are about to run out of gas. Jesse follows a rest-stop sign off the highway into what looks like the middle of nowhere. Seriously, there are no houses anywhere. There are no streetlights either. There is only swampland. I’m amazed when she pulls up to an ancient Exxon with one sixty-watt bulb blinking above the sign. I swipe my credit card and Jesse pumps while Vicks cleans the windshield. I find the washroom. The smelly, lockless washroom. I somehow manage to squat, pinch my nose, and hold the door closed simultaneously.
When I get back, Jesse’s in the driver’s seat, Vicks takes shotgun, and I climb in the rear. We are a well-oiled machine. I reach for my iPod, scroll through “songs” until I find the one I’m looking for, then punch the “select” button. “Spirit in the Sky” rocks the Opel.
Jesse catches my eye in the rearview mirror and grins, knowing I picked it for her. I grin back.
“I hope you know how to get back to the I-95,” I say as we speed down the dark road. “Because I sure don’t.”
“You’re gonna have to stop calling it that,” Jesse tells me. “No the. Just I-95. Better yet, just ninety-five.”
I laugh. “I can’t help it! Maybe it’s a Canadian thing?”
“A Canadian thing, eh?”
I kick my shoes off, adjust my pillow, and let my mind wander back to Marco. Adorable Marco. Sweetheart Marco. Sexy Marco.
“I think you’re going the wrong way,” Vicks says.
“Don’t worry,” Jesse says. “I know where I’m going.”
Vicks looks out the window. “I think you should turn around.”
“I think you should chill.” She glances at Vicks. “Now who’s being the tightbottom?”
“Tightbottom? Did you just call me a tightbottom?”
I don’t really care about directions and tight bottoms. Well, except maybe Marco’s tight bottom, tee hee. Who cares which way we’re going when Marco likes me?
Vicks leans way over in the front seat. When she sits back up, she’s got the map. She unfolds it and says, “Dude, I seriously think we’re going west instead of south. We should have seen a sign to get back on the highway by now.”
“Let’s give it a few more minutes.”
I flip open my phone to see if he’s called and I missed it.
“I think you should turn around,” Vicks says.
Jesse cranes back her head. “Mel, what’s your vote?”
He hasn’t called. Not that I expected him to call so soon. But he’ll call tonight. I think. I wonder when I’ll see him again? This weekend? Is that too soon? I don’t want to seem like I have nothing else to do. Maybe he’ll drive up to see me next weekend?
“Mel?” Vicks says.
I snap to attention. “Yes, Tight Bottom?”
“Ha-ha,” Vicks says. “Don’t you think we’re lost?”
“Um…no?”
Jesse laughs. “Put that in your pipe and smoke it, baby!”
“Like she knows anything,” Vicks says. “She’s too busy daydreaming.”
“Mel and Marco sitting in a tree,” Jesse sings. “K-IS-S-I-N-G. First comes love, then comes marriage—”
“Someone pass me the iPod,” Vicks grumbles. I hand it to her and she cuts off “Spirit in the Sky,” replacing it with “Bad Day.”
“Aw, man!” Jesse says. “You are such a grouch.” She sighs in a very aggrieved fashion. “Anyway, Marco and Mel are adorable together.”
Yes! Yes, we are. Marco and Mel. Like M&Ms. “Really?”
“Oh, definitely,” Jesse says. “So what happens now? Are you guys going out?” She does a one-handed air quote on the words going out while continuing to hold the steering wheel.
“Don’t do air quotes,” Vicks says to her. “They’re cheesy.”
“The word cheesy is cheesy,” Jesse retorts. This time she takes both hands fully off the wheel for her air quotes, before putting them back. “So, Mel, are you guys going to be together?”
“I guess,” I say. “I mean, we didn’t discuss it, but yeah.” I think.
Vicks twists to look at me. “You’re going to have a long-distance relationship?”
“I guess so.”
“Why would you want to go through all that with someone you just met?”
Jesse slaps her hands on the wheel. “Vicks!”
“Yeah?”
“What kind of a thing is that to say? She’s in the love bubble! Why would you try to burst her love bubble?”
“I’m not trying to burst her anything,” she spits out, facing the road again and waving her arms above her head. “She just has to be realistic about it, that’s all. What happens when he doesn’t call one Tuesday night? Is he at the library? Is he having sex with someone else? That’s what’s going to go through her mind. Her first instinct will be to call him. When he doesn’t answer, she’ll want to call him again. And again. And then she’ll become stalker calling girl. Is that what she wants?” She turns to me. “Is that what you want?”
I sink in my seat. “Um…”
“Your issues are not Mel’s issues,” Jesse says.
“You have to be tough to get through it,” Vicks says. “And Mel, you’re a sweetheart and all, but you are not tough. You’re going to get chewed up and spit out like a piece of gum.”
She’s right. My heart starts to beat a bit faster, and I finger the phone. I am not tough. I am not tough enough. I have already checked my phone three times since I got into the car to see if he’s called. That’s how I’ll spend my days—checking and rechecking my phone. I’ll sleep with the phone. Go to the washroom with the phone. If Vicks couldn’t handle dating long distance—tough, über-confident Vicks—what chance will I have?
“Mel, ignore her,” Jesse says. “You guys will do great. Bet he comes down to visit you this weekend.”
“Maybe,” I say, but the panic in my mouth tastes like vinegar. He could change his mind. He could meet someone else he likes more than he likes me.
Jesse whistles. “Wait till he sees your house.”
See my house? I try to keep my feet planted on the floor of the car. Yes, I suppose he’ll have to see my house eventually. Meet my family. Great. “Wait till he sees my sister. He’ll probably take one look at her and fall in love or something,” I half joke.
Jesse shakes her head. “Why would you say that?”
“See?” Vicks asks. “I told you. She’s too insecure.”
“I was kidding,” I say.
“I don’t think so,” Jesse says.
True. I guess I wasn’t. But I don’t say anything. I flip open my phone to see if he sent me a text.
“Mel, you are way prettier than your sister,” Jesse says.
“Whatever.”
“You are. Especially if you wear a little lip gloss like I showed you.”
“Look,” I say, my heart now racing. “If it doesn’t work out with Marco, it doesn’t work out. It doesn’t matter.” I feel myself closing up, closing in. I pull my legs into my chest. I close my phone.
“Don’t say that!” Jesse says. “If you don’t give it a chance, it’ll never work out. You have to have a positive attitude.” Her voice is suddenly squeaky high. “You have to. You have to.”
Vicks is shaking her head. “You can’t just drive forward blind, Jesse. Be realistic. Relations
hips end. People go away. Even when you don’t want them to. And there’s nothing you or anyone can do to stop it.”
Jesse tightens her fingers on the steering wheel. “That’s not true. That’s just not true.”
“Well, yeah, it is,” Vicks goes on. Doesn’t she realize she’s pushing Jesse’s buttons? “Sometimes the end of the road is the end of the road, and a positive attitude isn’t going to fix it. Nothing can. You can’t. I can’t. Even ‘God’”—now she makes air quotes—“can’t. Now, please turn around. We’re lost.”
Jesse jerks the steering wheel to the right, and I almost scream as the car swerves to the shoulder of the road. But I don’t. Instead, we’re all silent as she steps on the brake, grinding the car to a halt. I’m expecting her to make a U-turn, but instead, she throws the gear into park.
“What the hell?” Vicks asks.
Jesse unsnaps her seat belt, opens the door, and takes off into the dark.
I guess the truce is over.
27
JESSE
“OH MY GOD,” I hear Vicks say. “You have got to be kidding me.” Her voice carries through the open window to where I’m standing, which is ten feet from the car in a desolate patch of nothing. To my left is the road, unlit and utterly deserted, and to the right is a short dip in the dirt and then a swamp, which is swampy and full of swamp creatures. If Vicks was standing beside it, I’d push her in, I swear I would. I am done with that girl. I’m done trying and I’m done curbing my tongue and I am just plain done!
“Don’t you use the Lord’s name in vain!” I yell into the nothingness. I swat at a mosquito that has landed on my leg.
“God God God!” Vicks yells back.
“Saying His name means you believe in Him!” I retort. And maybe that doesn’t make sense, but it’s what MeeMaw taught me to say when someone uses “God” or “Jesus” as a curse.
I thought me and Vicks were good. I thought we’d worked things out. But me and Vicks aren’t good, and this is the end of the road.
“Go talk to her,” Mel says. “She’s upset.”
“Gee, you think?” Vicks says. Her tone says she’s let go of her friendly feelings toward me just as quick. “She’s been upset the whole freakin’ trip. She’s been a pain in the ass the whole freakin’ trip.” She raises her voice. “She’s been a pain in God’s ass! And Mary’s ass! And Jesus’s sweet white ass!”
Ohhh, she makes me mad. I stalk farther into the night and wish I could just—poof! Disappear. And end up in Canada, and eat that cheese curd gravy thing that Mel talked about, and Mama would be there too, and everything would be fine. Better than fine. Clean and pure and new, like a child rising from the baptismal trough, water raining down her pretty white dress.
A sound chokes from my throat. I don’t mean for it to, but it does what it wants.
“Go,” I hear Mel say to Vicks.
“No way,” Vicks replies. “You taught her the whole stomp-out-of-the-car-and-throw-a-hissy routine. You go.”
“Hissy? I didn’t throw a hissy!”
“Excuse me?” Vicks makes her tone thin and reedy. “Let me out this instant. Stop the car or I’ll…I’ll…throw a mango at you! I will!!”
She is so ugly. She is so ugly to everyone. No wonder Brady let her go.
“No wonder Brady let you go,” I say out loud.
Mel sucks in her breath. I hear the sound from two yards away. I also hear another sound, coming from the swamp. A splash, followed by a quack.
“Did you hear that?” Mel says.
“What do you think?” Vicks says, pissed.
“No, I meant—”
“Fuck it,” Vicks says.
The car door opens and then slams. I don’t turn around. From the swamp comes another quack, only it’s more of a squawk. It’s abruptly cut off, and not as if the squawker had any say about it.
There’s something out there. I know it at the base of my spine.
“You’re a pain in the ass,” Vicks says when she reaches me. “My ass. But okay, I’m here. You want to tell me what I did this time?”
I burst into tears.
“Jesse…,” Vicks says, suddenly uncertain.
The noises I’m making are ugly. They rip out of me. They howl.
“Oh, Jesse, Jesse…” Vicks flails her arms. She doesn’t know what to do, and it scares her and me, both. “Jesse?”
“My mom won first prize in a wet T-shirt contest.” My body heaves. “She squeezed into her tightest T-shirt and stuck her chest out and let some stupid, drunk rednecks spray her with a hose!”
“What are you talking about?”
There’s a swamp sound again—something snapping—and Mel calls, “You guys? I’m hearing creepy noises, and I wish you would come back to the car. I really do!”
“I called her a whore,” I say. “What kind of daughter am I? What kind of daughter is so ugly? And what if God…what if He…”
“This is what you’ve been so freaked out about?” Vicks asks. “A wet T-shirt contest?”
“What if it’s me He’s punishing, and not her?”
Vicks pulls me into a hug. It’s that same big bear hug from Epcot, and she doesn’t get it, she still doesn’t get it, but I let her rock me back and forth.
“Jesse, you are a piece of work,” she says. “Punishing you how? By making me be such a bitch?”
“By giving her cancer,” I say, my voice breaking. But dang, it’s good to say it out loud. Good and terrible and glorious and wrong. I feel Vicks stiffen, and I press hard against her.
“Your mom has cancer?” she says.
I nod into her shoulder.
“Your mom has cancer?”
I nod again.
“Uh-huh,” she says, almost like she’s pissed. “And all this time, while we’ve been worrying about boys and hot tubs and tattletale pirate waiters…?”
I sniff in a glob of mucus.
“Oh, sweetie,” she says, and I realize that if she is pissed, it isn’t at me. “No wonder you’ve been such a tightbottom.”
I laugh, and then I sob, and then all kinds of slop is released from inside me, bubbling up and out, ’cause sure enough, this is what I needed: to tell my best friend, Vicks, that my mama’s real sick. It’s crazy how much of a relief it is, even though Mama’s cancer is still there.
I’m vaguely aware that Mel has joined us, that above my head, Vicks is explaining the situation. Mother. Cancer.
Mel is asking, “Is it stage one? Stage two? Because there’s so much that can be done. Has she started chemo?” The sound of her voice is teeny-tiny.
“Shhh,” Vicks says, stroking my hair. Her voice is a river. I’m a baby in her arms. “Shhh.”
The air is punctured by another squawky peep. It’s coming from the swamp, only it’s closer now. Much closer.
“Oh, crap,” Mel says in a peed-her-pants kind of way.
Vicks goes rigid. I can feel the alarm in her body, the way her muscles change. “Jesse, don’t look.”
I twist from her grasp and turn around. There’s a bird—no, a duck, a baby duck—fluttering up the bank, and behind it, not ten yards away, is an alligator. An enormous alligator that’s alive and not stuffed and surely ten feet long, shuffling toward us in the light of the Opel’s headlights.
“Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap,” Mel says.
“Walk,” Vicks commands. “Don’t run. Just get to the car.”
The baby duck flaps its tiny baby wing-nubs—I crane to see, even as Vicks pushes me forward—and I think, Where is its mother? Where is its mother?
“Move, Jesse,” Vicks says.
“We have to save it!”
“Are you insane?” Her sweat stinks of fear.
The gator reaches the top of the bank, and the duckling squawks and patters in a frantic zigzag. Mel is almost to the car; she runs the last few feet and yanks open the door. The gator swivels its massive head.
“Holy fuck,” Vicks whispers.
“Hurry!” Mel whimpers.
Vicks jerks my arm, but I wrench free and fast-walk toward the duck. The gator lashes its tail. His pupils are slits.
“Jesse!” Mel shrieks.
Gators can run thirty miles an hour. I am a Florida girl, and I know this. So when the gator lifts its body onto its stumpy legs and starts trotting, I know I better grab this duck now, or say good-bye to it and the world.
I don’t want to watch the duck die.
I sure don’t want Vicks and Mel to watch me die.
These thoughts flash in my head, and my heart is galloping so fast I can hardly see straight. Then I’m lunging forward, tripping and going down hard, but my fingers find feathers, and I do not let go. Rot fills my nostrils, and I make the mistake of looking behind me. Snout. Teeth. Bumps the size of peas lining the flesh of its mouth.
“Jesse, get up!” Mel screams.
My legs scrabble. My elbow drives into a rock. The duckling struggles against me, but I’m not letting it go, Oh no, I’m not letting you go.
A hand grips my arm. “You are an idiot,” Vicks pants as she hauls me to my feet.
The gator hisses, and Vicks is thrusting me forward, making me run. We reach the car, and Vicks shoves me into the backseat on top of Mel. Then Vicks is on me, our limbs tangling as she yanks shut the door.
“Go!” Mel yells from the bottom of the heap.
The gator slams against the Opel.
“It’s metal, you moron!” Vicks shouts. “Give it up!”
Cradling the duck to my chest, I scramble into the front seat. I twist the key, and the Opel jolts forward and dies. I try again, only this time I crank it too hard and the motor revs crazy-loud before sputtering out again. Crap, crap, crap.
The gator goes for the Opel a second time, launching its body up through the actual air, and I don’t have to speak gator to know what’s running through its cold reptile brain: Give me back my snack, and in return I’ll rip out your guts. Its snout whams Mel’s window, and there’s a fearsome clicking of teeth on glass. Mel screams. The gator batters the durn door—the whole car’s rocking—and Mel won’t shut up.
Please-oh-please, I pray. I turn the key a third time. The engine catches, and I hear Vicks squeeze out, “Thank you, God.” Vicks says this! Vicks! Mel just whimpers. Gravel pops under the tires as we gain purchase, and the duck flutters its wings for balance.
How to Be Bad Page 18