“Yeah,” he says, not looking away from the road.
When I first moved to Oakland, I kept having dreams of my mother running through a field to pick me up, laughing behind a potted plant, singing that song about the wheels on the bus. The ghost of her was always there. It still is.
I look at him again and feel an urge to curl up into his arms as he drives, like in an old movie. But unfortunately, he’s not Marlon Brando and we’re not in a silver Thunderbird. He’s a guy with a secret plan and a demonic sidekick who may return at any moment—and this crap Toyota has bucket seats.
The highway starts to slope downward into a valley, where the shivering trees huddle, lined up like frightened soldiers watching us speed by.
Levon keeps checking the rearview. Every time a car passes us from behind, he starts breathing faster.
I debate asking another question but notice Levon glaze over in a way that must have triggered a memory. Instead of asking him to elaborate, I sink into one of my own: my mother and I at the shore, somewhere in the Northwest, Oregon maybe. The clash of the mountains and the sea, the waves exploding in violent bursts. It was the first time I had really witnessed the power of the ocean. The bus had stopped on a turnout, and some of the roadies were throwing a Frisbee. I don’t remember any of the band members being there. They must have stayed on the bus.
My mother took my hand, and we walked along a path that wrapped around the mountain. As we got higher, there was more Pacific to see—a dark, inky, churning blue. We got to a bench and sat down, and my mother started rolling a cigarette. I didn’t like the smell, but I loved watching her delicate fingers during the ritual and thought it was magic the way she rolled, licked, and fastened it almost all in one motion. Everything she did—walking, eating, laughing, rolling a cigarette—was fluid.
After she finished, we walked higher and higher until we couldn’t see the bus at all. I started to feel scared. There was no railing, and the waves’ spray was landing near our feet. She sensed my fear and held on to my hand tighter, and I closed my eyes to let the sun on my face. When I opened them, she led me to a small clearing where a few wildflowers sprouted out around some rocks. She picked one and put it in my hair. When we walked back to the bus, everyone complimented my flower, and I beamed with pride. It was a simple thing, but it went deep.
I looked up at my mother and could see her own pride radiating off her heart-shaped face. As a child, the world revolves around you. For the first time, I could see that my mother’s world revolved around me too. My father was just some guy who wore leather and screamed into a microphone, sweating under the bright, hot lights. My mother had a big, clear, open heart, but I was naive to think then that she would always keep me safe.
I must have fallen asleep, ’cause when I wake up, I see signs for Washington, DC.
“You make a noise when you sleep,” Levon says.
“You mean I snore?”
“Not exactly. It’s more like a whine.”
“I was dreaming about my mother.”
“Oh.” He hands me a bottle of Smartwater.
“Be careful. I may get smart enough to run away.”
“You would’ve done that already.”
“True.” I look at his expression, strong but still with a hint of vulnerability, his features blending together in some kind of beautiful accident. I sink farther into my seat.
He turns the radio to an all-news station. There are a few local stories and then an entertainment news segment. My kidnapping is the headline story, only because my father is famous, and this time a website is mentioned in addition to a tip line.
“Shit,” Levon says under his breath, checking the cracked rearview again.
“We’re going to have to lose the car,” he says.
“And definitely change our appearance,” I add. “That is, if you want to make it to Miami. These things don’t go away. A legendary rock star’s daughter’s abduction is, like, front page. In fact, I don’t even want to see the newspapers. The irony is that the only time I felt like anyone’s daughter was when my mother was alive.”
Levon checks the side mirror now, like the car that’s been steadily behind us might be an unmarked cop. I hope not. I know it sounds strange, but I don’t want this to end.
Chapter 7
Eventually, we pull off to a Hampton Inn on the outskirts of DC that’s next to a dog adoption center. As Levon checks in, I walk over to the fence and look through. There are a bunch of pit bulls and a few mixed breeds, all in cages a little bigger than their bodies, with cement floors and dirty water bowls. I’m not sure if I’ve seen anything more depressing. I want to adopt them all and pile them into the back of our beat-up Toyota, but that would make us more conspicuous.
Our room smells like paint and garbage. There’s a small TV, but the plug is frayed. It says in the little hotel pamphlet, which is a piece of paper folded in three, that there’s a “business center.” I tell Levon I’m going to see if there’s an auto body place around here and also somewhere to get supplies for changing our appearance.
“That wavy hair has to go,” I tell him. “I’m thinking shorter for you and blond for me.”
He touches his hair and looks in the mirror, considering it.
“And I’m assuming you’ve got, like, a thousand for another car. Either that or we’ll need a paint job, and that will run you about three hundred, I’m guessing.”
“Paint job,” Levon says, counting his wad of cash. “Black.”
“Yes. Matte, not glossy.”
I walk out, and he doesn’t stop me. I could so easily turn him in, and I even think about it when the desk clerk asks, “Can I help you?”
“Yes…um, this is going to sound weird…”
“What is it, sweetheart?”
“Actually…I’m looking for the business center.”
She looks at me funny, but points me to a room with faded walls and an old PC whose keys have been partially rubbed off, which makes typing a little difficult. Even so, I find an auto body shop and a Walmart, both within a five-block radius.
I check my Gmail and there are, like, a hundred new messages in my inbox. A couple from the Borings, who suddenly care about me now. I open one of them.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: ?????????
Candy! There are reporters all over campus—and camera crews. They checked your laptop and went through your books and stuff. We didn’t know your dad was famous. Is that what this is about? They keep asking us all these questions. We told them that you keep to yourself and like to make your films. I hope you are OK.
Your friend,
Brittany
Friend? That’s a stretch. I wonder if my popularity will go up now that I’ve been kidnapped. Even though the Borings are boring, being with them did feel like a community or whatever. There was stuff that we sometimes did together without having to interact. Watch a movie or study. Speaking of studying, I hope Brittany turned in our report for social studies. It was the only assignment I still had to turn in before break. Did she really not know who my father is? There was a mention of me going to NRS in Us Weekly, but who reads that anyway? Well, I do, but only when I’m bored out of my skull at the dentist’s office or sitting at the barbershop near campus where the only choice is that or Field and Stream.
The only person I want to reach out to is Fin, but I don’t think he does email. Neither does my grandmother. The rest of the emails are from teachers and other people from the school, but I see one in the middle that stands out. It’s Billy Ray, who I haven’t heard from in a while.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Holy shit
Candy Cane—
I saw you on the news this a.m., wtf? It was weird, cause I’v
e been thinking about you a lot. Tap Water broke up, and I’m doing solo stuff now. You would totally hate it. I miss you. Please don’t be dead.
Billy Ray
I am close to hitting Reply, but I realize that the police could monitor my emails from the IP address. In fact, I better shut down now, in case they already have.
On my way back, I duck into the lobby bathroom and film myself again.
“Candy Rex, in the flesh. I’m now in DC. I don’t think the guy I’m with is going to hurt me. But his partner, Jamal, already did. If something happens and I die, please tell Rena thanks for taking me in, even though she’s never hugged me and her house smells like mothballs…and please give my royalties to Fin Adams, the janitor at NRS, and tell my father, Wade Rex, he’s an asshole.”
When I get back to the room, Levon is looking at the pictures from his wallet again. His lips rest in that half smile, like he’s dreaming of a better place.
“There’s an auto body shop that will paint the car a few blocks away and a Walmart,” I say.
“Cool,” he says, still looking at the pictures.
I’m not sure how long I stand there gazing at him before a piercing siren in the parking lot snaps me out of my trance. Levon springs up and grabs my arm, leads me into the bathroom, and says, “Shh… Just be quiet.”
I look around the bathroom. It’s depressing but also familiar—I grew up in hotel bathrooms. I have a sinking feeling that he’s going to be caught, that all of this is going to end. Was it ’cause I checked my email? I think of the red car, sitting out there like a giant zit in the face of the parking lot. We should have ditched it sooner.
Please, please. Don’t catch us now.
Chapter 8
The sirens continue, and my heart goes into triple time. I am panting like a crazed animal. Twenty seconds feel like an eternity, until Levon finally opens the door to the bathroom.
“Stay there. Don’t move.”
He slams the door, which startles me.
Does this have something to do with Jamal? Did the police catch him, and he led them to us?
I wait, wondering what would happen if this did end. Back to my regular life? Is it really as bad as I think? I stare down at my hands, which are shaking slightly.
Levon comes back into the bathroom and sits down on the floor.
He is holding a gun.
“Is that real?”
“No, it’s a fucking water pistol. What do you think?”
He’s really angry now, and I realize how stupid I’ve been to think that he actually cares about my well-being. He looks at me, an entire past fleeting in the light behind his eyes, a whole life I know nothing about.
The sirens stop, and he goes back into the room. Through the crack in the door, I see him looking out the window, the gun still in his hand.
“Levon,” I call out.
“Shut up, Candy!” he whispers really loud.
I shut the door and sit back on the closed toilet. It must have been my email. They must have tracked us.
I’m not sure how long it is before he opens the door and says, “You can come out. It was an ambulance.”
I walk out into the room and peek out the cloudy window. The ambulance is leaving. Two uniformed men get out of an official-looking van and let out what look like more pit bulls for the shelter.
I walk over to the cheap mirror and pretend to examine my face, but I’m really watching Levon, sitting on the bed, looking cold and distant, and it occurs to me once again that this all could be a bad idea.
“Do your parents know where you are?” I ask him casually.
“Can you just shut up? For real, Candy. I need to think.”
“OK, OK.”
We sit in silence for a while, until there’s a knock on the door. Levon walks toward it, the gun still in his hand. I hide between the bed and the wall.
“Yeah?” Levon asks through the closed door.
“Sorry, wrong room,” I hear someone say.
We sit in silence some more, and he turns to me, apparently ready to answer the question.
“My mom is in Texas, haven’t seen her since I was a kid. My dad…”
Say it, Levon, just say it.
“My dad’s in jail.”
“Oh.”
Even though he’s spooked, his eyes still shine.
“Insurance fraud?”
He lets out his small bark of a nervous laugh. “No.”
“Nothing violent though, right?”
He puts his hands together, tips of his fingers touching. “It’s complicated,” he says, which is code for I can’t really tell you.
“Complicated how?”
“He’s not a violent person. I mean, he loses his temper like everyone else, but…he’s innocent.”
“He didn’t do this thing, this…sort of violent thing?”
“No.”
“And I’m assuming that’s why we’re here?”
He nods.
I breathe in, hold it, and then breathe out slowly.
What did my dad do? If Levon’s father loses his temper and wound up in jail, what does that make Levon? I need to get a cell phone. Now.
“OK, well, before any more sirens, we need to do something about the car,” I say.
He nods again, and we start to get ready.
Twenty minutes later, we’re in a tiny office in the back of an auto body shop, flanked by a dirty, red throw rug and two worn leather chairs. The owner, a one-armed guy named Eel, says his “boys” will paint the car black for $350. He doesn’t seem suspicious at all—I’m sure he’s seen it all.
“Where did his arm go? Was it a Fargo moment?” I whisper to Levon, who tries not to smile. As he starts to hand Eel the money, I stop him, pretending I’m his girlfriend.
“Babe, I need my hair done. I was going to get highlights, the kind you like.”
He looks at me, incredulous.
“Three hundred cash,” I say to Eel. “Final offer.”
“Deal,” he says, like it’s nothing. I probably could’ve gotten him down to two fifty, but Levon seems impressed by the fifty-dollar discount. What else can I impress him with?
We go to a trendy burger place, and the menu is written on this huge chalkboard above the cashier station. I imagine someone running a wet cloth down the center of it, obliterating someone’s meticulous work. All the rules suddenly erased. We stare at the lists of choices—over a hundred of them.
“What happened to lettuce and tomato?” Levon asks.
“Get the one with bacon and blue cheese,” I tell him.
“OK.”
“I’m getting the California—avocado and ranch.”
We eat our burgers while Eel and his boys paint our car. It feels like I’m still a character in someone else’s movie and something bad is eventually going to happen, but right now I’m in the sweet spot, on a road to nowhere. The burger tastes amazing.
“Did you know food tastes better when you’re happy?”
“I guess,” he says, looking at me funny.
Levon cuts his burger in half and puts mustard on his fries. He wipes his mouth after every bite.
I notice someone staring at us from the corner of the restaurant and check if there’s anything behind me—just a wall.
“We’ve got a peeping Tom at four o’clock,” I tell him. “I’ll meet you at Walmart.” Levon gives me an extremely slight nod, and I slip out the side door.
Outside, the afternoon sun is burning its last light, evening threatening. It’s a seedy part of DC, but the buildings seem to glow in the muted dusk. I think about my picture on the TV and secretly smile. It feels good to be wanted. We are outlaws, Levon and me. As I walk, my happiness is darkened by a pang of fear about Jamal—lurking in my thoughts like a snake, ready to bite. Is he coming back?
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Phone, phone. Even though she’s completely unemotional, Rena does care about me. She must be worried. I really need to call her. And Fin. I need him to get my films.
I stand outside Walmart, trying to block out the feeling of Jamal’s fist, the look in his fierce eyes, his dirty smirk while he sat on the cot. I check around for cops or any official-looking vehicles.
I could just keep walking. People will know who I am, anyone who watches the news. But I don’t want to. I know it’s stupid, but I have to follow through with this.
Walmart is packed with people in ten-dollar T-shirts with dirt under their fingernails, curses piercing their sentences like stains.
I meet up with Levon near the pharmacy section.
“Who was that guy?” I ask.
“It’s cool. He stopped staring after you left.”
“That’s what I’m worried about. It’s me on the news, not you.”
“Let’s do this fast and get back,” he says.
I get scissors for his hair and dye for mine. I also get him a cowboy hat, which he tells me he’ll never wear. It’s a no-cattle hat, popular with white girls on spring break. Either way, it’s only seven dollars, so it goes in the cart. In electronics, I show him the pay-as-you-go cell phone for forty bucks, with twenty-five anytime minutes on it.
“We can’t travel without a phone. It’s an absolute necessity.”
We pay and walk quickly back to the auto body shop, trying not to be conspicuous. If I were writing the script, Levon would be my boyfriend, and we would drive off, starting some rebel life together. But no, we’re going to Miami so he can…what? Try to blackmail my loser dad who probably won’t give him a dime? What will happen to us then? I grab his hand, and he looks at me like I’m crazy, shaking it off.
Stealing Candy Page 4