Walk Me Home

by Hyde, Catherine Ryan

  She chews that over for a minute. Then she says, “Maybe. Yeah.”

  They drive in silence for a few minutes. Now and then Carly sees yellow warning signs that show the outline of a truck tipping over on a tight curve. It reminds her of the overturned logging truck.

  Just as she thinks that, she sees a loaded-up logging truck sweep by in the opposite direction. Northbound. The trailer is just two steel brackets on wheels, to hold the giant trunks of trees. Maybe eight trunks on this load. Carly wonders how many they can cut before all this beauty is gone forever.

  “You ever going to forgive me for that?” she asks, surprising both of them.

  Alvin doesn’t answer right away.

  Finally he says, “Not just like that. Not like throwing a switch. Words don’t cost much. But if you keep standing behind some of the things you’ve said so far this trip, I expect we can get from here to there.”

  Going through Sacramento, Carly wakes up again.

  “How much longer can you drive?” she asks him.

  “I’ll have to stop over at least one night.”

  “I can drive.”

  “Nice try.”

  “What am I going to do now, Alvin?”

  Alvin sighs.

  “You got a couple options, it seems to me.”

  “Like what?”

  “You could be an emancipated minor. Sixteen’s old enough for that. You’d have to prove you can put a roof over your own head and feed your own self. Thing is, you got nobody to argue against it. So I’m not sure anybody’s trying to get in your way on that anyhow. What you’re not old enough to do is be a legal guardian for your sister. But in a year and a half you can. And she’s doing fine where she is now.”

  “Think Delores would let me stay?”

  “You’d have to ask Delores about that.”

  “She’ll say no. She hates me.”

  “No. She doesn’t. Not at all.”

  “She acts like she does.”

  “You act like you hate her, too. Do you?”

  “I sort of thought I did at first. But no. I don’t hate her.”

  “Trouble with you and Delores is you’re too much alike.”

  “Is that a joke? We’re nothing alike.”

  “You’re so alike it’s funny. That’s why you two get along worse than a cat and a dog. Both so headstrong. Two stubborn women, both trying to out-stubborn each other. Now don’t you ever tell anybody I said that because she’s an elder and I’m supposed to look on her with nothing but respect. And I respect her plenty, but I still got eyes. And it doesn’t help you acting like you know everything. Oh, but that’s right. You don’t know anything about anything anymore. Maybe that’ll make things a little better between the two of you. They sure as hell couldn’t get much worse.”

  Carly chews on the inside of her lip a little. She pulls the feather necklace out from under her shirt. Examines it again for damage. It looks a little worse for wear. Maybe less so than Carly. But they both survived.

  She looks up to see Alvin watching her.

  “Where’d you get that?”

  “Jen gave it to me.”

  “And where’d Jen get it? No, never mind. Stupid question. When we get back on Wakapi land, don’t let anybody see you with that. A traditional Wakapi would take that away from you.”

  “Why? It was a present. What’s wrong with that?”

  “It’s Wakapi medicine. It’s not for just anybody. No offense. There’s a system in place for bringing somebody into the circle, and then they can be privy to the old wisdom. But that Delores…Well, she’s one of a kind. You know her Wakapi name means something along the lines of ‘Stubborn’? Well. It’s kind of hard to translate. Best I can tell you is it means, ‘She who relies on her own counsel.’ The unwritten second half of that thought being ‘and pretty much ignores everybody else’s.’ Now you see why I say you two are birds of a feather?”

  When she wakes up again, it’s nearly dark. They’re not moving. They’re parked at a highway rest area, and Alvin is standing outside the car, stretching his back.

  The outside of Carly’s right hand aches. Where she hit that beer bottle. It’s strange to have the pain break through suddenly like that. She knows it didn’t just start. It’s been aching all day. But she just now took that in. It’s strange not to feel what you feel.

  Or maybe it’s that other parts of her have been hurting worse.

  She turns on the overhead light and looks at it closely. It’s deeply bruised and swollen enough to worry her.

  She looks up to see Alvin dropping into the driver’s seat again.

  “That hand doesn’t look so good,” he says.

  She holds it out to him so he can take a closer look.

  “Might be some little fractures in there. Couldn’t say. When we get home, we might need to get that looked at.”

  There he goes again with the word home. But Carly needs a home so badly she chooses not to question it.

  “You tired?” she asks him.

  “Very. Trying to decide whether to look for a motel or just put this seat back and take a nap. Think I’ll do that second one for right now. See how far that takes me. And maybe…just maybe…when daylight rolls around, you can spell me for a bit. You got a license?”

  “No, but I’ve got a learner’s permit.”

  “California?”

  “Yeah. California.”

  “Well, we’ll do it early, then. Before we get over the state line.”

  He levers his seat back with a sigh. Sets his hat over his face.

  Carly holds and rubs her right hand a minute longer.

  Then she asks, “Why did he pick her?”

  “Teddy?” From behind the hat.

  “Yeah, Teddy.”

  “Why did Teddy pick Jen?”

  “Yeah.”

  “As opposed to…”

  “Me.”

  She doesn’t even bother with the shame. She’s too tired. It feels like too much trouble.

  He tips the hat up with one hand.

  “I know you must mean that in a general sense. Like maybe referring to whatever liking-her-better sort of thing you think must’ve been behind his picking her and not you. Because I know you didn’t mean you wanted him to try some stunt like that on you.”

  “Right. No. I didn’t mean that. Thanks for knowing I didn’t mean that.”

  “Kind of stings anyway, though, huh?”

  “Kind of. Is that the sickest thing in the world?”

  “More or less human, I suppose.”

  Then he lets the hat down again.

  Carly watches him. Though there’s nothing really to watch. He’s just lying there with his hat over his face. Apparently he’s not going to answer the question. But that shouldn’t surprise her, she thinks. Probably it’s an unanswerable question.

  Then he tips the hat up again and says, “Teddy is a child molester.”

  “That’s not answering my question, Alvin.”

  “Yes, it is. You just don’t get what I’m saying yet. Teddy is a child molester. And Jen is a child.”

  Carly says nothing. Because nothing more needs to be said.

  CALIFORNIA

  May 22

  “That was a nice little town,” Alvin says. “Pretty.”

  The waitress is setting breakfast in front of them. Carly’s bacon and scrambled eggs. Alvin’s omelet with vegetables inside and salsa on top. He picks up the bottle of Tabasco, unscrews the lid, and shakes about twelve drops of sauce onto the salsa.

  “Who puts Tabasco sauce on salsa?”

  “People who like their salsa hot.”

  “What town was nice?”

  “What town? That’s a weird question.”

  “Well, we’ve been through so many.”

  “I don’t mean the ones we went through. I mean the one we went to.”

  “Oh. Trinidad.”

  “Yeah. Trinidad. It was nice up there. Didn’t you think?”

  Carly takes a bit
e of scrambled egg. It tastes fine. There’s nothing wrong with it. It just tastes like scrambled egg. But she wants it to taste like more. So she opens the ketchup bottle and tips it over her plate. Waits. Nothing comes out.

  “I guess,” she says. “I liked it a lot when I first saw it. Didn’t look as nice on the way out, though. Besides. I couldn’t get warm. The wind and the fog just cut right into my bones, and I could never get warm.”

  “And when you were on the Wakapi, you were always complaining how you could never get cool.”

  “Oh. That’s true. I guess that’s a problem, huh?”

  Carly hits the end of the bottle with the heel of her hand, and about three times more ketchup than she wanted lands right on the bacon. Right where she didn’t want any.

  “Yeah, for you,” Alvin says.

  They eat in silence for several minutes.

  Carly watches people through the window as they get out of their cars and make their way into this roadside diner. An old couple who stop to buy a newspaper from a dispenser on their way in. A family with three little kids who have to fold up two strollers and leave them in the entryway. Trade them for booster seats.

  Seems like they all have routines. Which Carly figures is another way of saying lives. She can’t help wondering how that would feel.

  “I appreciate how you’ve been buying my food,” Carly says.

  “Can’t let you starve.”

  “But I’ve got to tell you something about that. I’ve actually got eighty dollars. This nice old lady who gave me a ride loaned it to me. But she was very specific about what it was for. She gave me the money in case I needed a room. You know, if it was night and I didn’t have any place to stay. But I didn’t need to use it for that. And I didn’t feel right using it for anything else. Because it wasn’t for anything else. It was for a room. So the reason I didn’t tell you I had that money is because I think I ought to send it back to her now.”

  “OK,” Alvin says.

  She waits, still half expecting him to say more.

  “Maybe we could even stop in Fresno and I could give it back to her.”

  “We’re past Fresno.”

  “We are? I didn’t see us go through Fresno.”

  “We didn’t. We took the I-5. It’s faster.”

  “Oh,” Carly says. “OK.” She eats a few more bites. “Only thing…I sort of wanted to tell her it meant the world to me how she did that. But I guess I can write her a note and wrap the money up in it and mail it.”

  She waits to see if he has anything to add to that. Apparently not.

  “And I wanted to tell you it meant the world to me how you drove all the way up there to get me. But I haven’t figured out the right words just yet.”

  “Those’ll do,” he says. Without looking up from his plate.

  “But I don’t just want to keep eating on your dime. I want you to write down what you spend on my food. In my little notebook. And I’ll pay it back. When I can. When I’ve figured out how to earn some money.”

  “Shouldn’t be hard,” Alvin says. “You’re a good worker. Seem to be. If you’re willing to work, you can always make a little here and there. Speaking of which. I need to put some new fence in over at my place. You show up and help me, we’ll get her done in a day and we’ll call it even on the food.”

  “Yeah, OK. Thanks. I’ll still owe her for the bus ticket, though. Even after I give her back her eighty dollars.”

  “Ah. More details coming out about how you managed to beat me there. And here I thought you were magic. Just flew through the air or closed your eyes and beamed yourself from one place to the other. Just all neat like that.”

  “That would’ve been nice,” Carly says.

  “Don’t argue. You ran into some unexpected kindness. That’s a type of magic all its own. That’s like magic wearing a disguise, like a false nose and glasses, so you think it’s something more everyday than all that.”

  She waits for him to open the car door for her. The way he always seems to want to do. Instead he’s holding the keys in her direction.

  “You want to drive from here to the state line?”

  “Hell, yeah!”

  She climbs into the driver’s seat. Buckles up. Alvin climbs in beside her.

  “Think we could put the top down?” she asks.

  Alvin pushes a button on the dashboard. A little motor whirrs somewhere, and the top goes back. All by itself. Just like that.

  “Everything changes,” he says. “Huh? When I was going off to college, I had a convertible. Not a new one or anything. You wanted the top down, you had to put it down. You know. With your hands.”

  Carly shifts into drive and then checks all around the car. In both side mirrors. And in the rearview mirror, even though she plans to go forward. She does it to impress Alvin with how careful she can be.

  “Only problem is, you still don’t have a hat,” he says as she pulls out of the lot. “You’ll get all sunburned again.”

  “Might be worth it.”

  Alvin just shakes his head.

  A few minutes later, when they’re doing sixty-five on the I-40 East, the wind in Carly’s hair, he says, “We’ll have to stop and get you a proper hat. That floppy old-lady thing is just not you.”

  Carly grunts her disgust.

  “I think she did that on purpose. Just because she knew I’d hate it.”

  He doesn’t say anything for a moment, so she glances over at him. Catches a wry half smile.

  “Answer number one, I’m sure that was the only hat she had to give you. Answer number two, I have to allow for the possibility that you might be right about that all the same.”

  “If you buy me a hat, you have to write it down in my notebook.”

  “Tell you what. I was gonna stop tonight at a real live motel. Get us each a room. Which would you rather? Sleep in a real room? Or sleep in the car again and have the hat?”

  “I’d rather have the hat. But you still have to write it down.”

  “Carly. It’s a gift. I’m offering you a gift. When somebody offers you a gift, you just take it and say thank you. See, this is what I mean. About how you and Delores are so alike it’s funny. If you two ask for some help, or act like you could use some, or like you’re grateful for some, I guess you feel like it means you’re admitting you needed it. Why do you think she’s so happy having Jen around the house? She’s going blind, in case you didn’t notice. But she can’t bring herself to say she shouldn’t be living on her own anymore. But just look how happy she is now that she doesn’t have to. Somebody wants to give you what you need, just say thank you. Especially if you didn’t have to ask.”

  “Right,” Carly says. “OK. Thank you.”

  “You just keep practicing that,” Alvin says. “I expect it’ll get easier as time goes by.”

  WAKAPI LAND

  May 23

  Just as Alvin turns into Delores Watakobie’s long dirt driveway, Carly says, “Maybe we should’ve called. You know. Let somebody know you found me and you were bringing me back. And then somebody could’ve told Delores.”

  Alvin is wearing that knowing half smile that Carly sees on so many faces and never quite understands. He brakes in front of the henhouse, shifts into park. Pulls on the hand brake.

  “Wish I’d thought of that,” he says.

  “Meaning…you thought of that?”

  “I called Pam that first morning and told her we were on our way back, and to drive over and tell Delores so she could stop worrying.”

  “Where was I?”

  “Sleeping.”

  “Oh. Yeah. I had my days and nights turned around.”

  “You might’ve mentioned that a time or two. Or ten.”

  “Was she really worried?”

  “Ask her yourself.”

  He flips his head in the direction of the house. Delores is standing in the open doorway. As if trying to decide whether to go to all the trouble of meeting them halfway.

  Carly steps out into
the dry oven of the desert. Sets her wonderful new hat on her head. Saves Delores the trouble by walking to where she stands.

  “Well, well,” Delores says. “The prodigal loudmouth.”

  Carly doesn’t know what to say. So she says nothing at all. In the silence, she hears and feels Alvin step up behind her.

  “What’s that?” Delores asks, and reaches up to touch Carly’s new hat. “Mind if I take a look close-up?”

  Carly takes it off and hands it to the old woman. She still hasn’t said a word. She can’t help being painfully aware of that.

  Delores holds the hat up close to her face. Runs her hands over the felt. Feels the shape of the crown, the weave of the band.

  “This’s a nice piece of goods. Couldn’t of been cheap. Where’d you get a nice hat like this?”

  “It was a gift from Alvin,” she says.

  Delores hands it back to Carly, who snugs it back onto her head. It feels good. She likes who she is when it’s up there.

  “Damn,” Delores says. “Now I got to wear that old floppy thing myself. Hate that hat. Pretty fancy present, Alvin. Don’t remember you ever gettin’ me anythin’ that nice, and how long’ve we known each other? All your damn life, isn’t it?”

  Alvin speaks, and Carly notices how much his voice has become a comfort to her. She feels that, deep in her gut. Like a hot water bottle, or the first sip of a hot drink going down when you’re cold. When the fog and the wind has gotten into your bones and you just can’t get warm.

  “You want a better hat, Delores? I’ll be happy to get you one.”

  “Don’t you dare, young man,” she says, pointing one spotted finger in his general direction. “You know I can do for myself. Always done for myself, an’ if I want a new hat, I’ll weave my own. I can still weave, you know. Don’t need to see good to weave. Day somebody got to gimme a new hat’s the day I let my creator put me six feet under.”

  She turns and shuffles back into the house.

  Carly looks at Alvin. He’s smiling that same little wry half smile he uses on her.

  “See what I mean? Birds of a feather.”

  “Except I shut up and took the hat.”

  “That you did. Say, day after tomorrow for that fence work, OK? I’ll come by, pick you up.”

  “OK.”