“Jesus! Where in Colorado?”
“I don’t know. I can’t remember. It started with—”
“Alamosa?”
“Yeah,” he said. “That’s it.”
I felt like I was moving underwater. Everything was happening so slowly, and my foot ached, and I was wearing a prom dress, and Nick was on the other side of a locked door, saying the most insane things and breaking my heart. “You lied to me, Nick.”
“I didn’t lie.”
“Yesterday!” I yelled it loud and furious. It filled up the whole house. “I asked you who the girl was and you said you didn’t know.”
“But you knew too. Didn’t you?” He was angry. And he had a point. I did know yesterday. But it wasn’t a good enough point. I heard the doorknob turn. “I’m opening the door. This is stupid.”
I grabbed it. “No,” I said, pulling it shut again. “You’ve known for a month! I’ve known for—two days. And I had to find out by catfishing your stupid fucking dad. I went to his office, Nick!”
“What?”
I plowed ahead. “And I’m telling you this right now because I couldn’t look at you one more second knowing I was keeping it from you. But I guess you don’t have the same problem.”
Nick was silent. “I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want it to be happening. I didn’t tell you because I thought if you knew about my dad—”
“Stop.” I tried to cool my head but couldn’t. “God. Nick. I believed in you. I believed you were good. And brave. And honest. When I told you that you weren’t like anyone I’d ever met, I meant it.” Tears tried to come. I willed them to stop. “Was I wrong?”
There was nothing. Only silence.
“Nick?”
I heard him take his hand off the doorknob. He’d answered me. He’d answered me in silence. And I didn’t have time for silence.
“Do you know anything else that you haven’t told me?”
“No.” He sounded defeated. Again, there was a long silence. “Can we just talk without this door between us?”
“We’ll talk later.” It was a lie, of course. I already knew later I’d be gone.
“I thought I was doing the right thing. Please. Can we just talk? Now?”
I stood back and took a snapshot in my mind of the morning sunlight on the tile in the hallway and the closed door and the new scuff marks I’d made when I’d kicked the door with my gold shoe. I needed to remember this moment—to keep it. Because the chances were very high I’d look back and remember this as the very last moment I spent in love with Nick Allison, maybe the last time I’d ever even speak to him.
“Let me just go change my clothes,” I said. “I’ll be right back.”
I turned and clicked down the hall and into my bedroom. I opened the bedside drawer, grabbed Syd’s phone and her letter from Stanford, a coin purse I knew contained at least a hundred dollars, and the letter Patience had sent me with her address on it. I grabbed the first two articles of clothing I saw—a pair of running pants slung over a chair and my R.E.M. T-shirt off the floor—and shoved them into my bag. Then I reached into the drawer again and grabbed Lives of the Saints and threw it in, along with the phone and the letter and the cash. I worked fast. There was no thinking. All my decisions had been made. There were no decisions. I was on autopilot. It was so easy.
I found my keys in my purse. I walked out of my bedroom and down the hall to the front door and then out to my car. I swung open the door and got in and turned it on and backed out of the gravel and onto the road.
And I just started driving.
Before I even knew what I was doing, I was a mile away. Then two. Then I was getting on the highway. And then I was gone. I took out the letter with Patience’s address and typed it into the map on my phone. I glanced at the distance and the time it’d take to get there. Six and a half hours. I didn’t know if that was near or far or a long time or a short time. I only knew that I would be there, at Patience’s doorstep, in six and a half hours.
I put my phone and Syd’s in the console under the radio. I wouldn’t need the map until I got to Albuquerque in a few hours. I’d never driven to Albuquerque by myself. I’d never driven anywhere outside Las Cruces, really. But I knew how to get there: you went north on I-25. There wasn’t even another direction. I-25 ended in Las Cruces. You could only go up.
My one regret was that I hadn’t left a note or anything for my dad. He wouldn’t know where I was until I texted to let him know. And I didn’t want to text him, not yet. All I wanted to do was drive. So that was what I did.
At 8:15 A.M. I passed Hatch and by 9:00 P.M. I was approaching Truth or Consequences. My dad should’ve come home from his run by now. But he hadn’t called or texted. Maybe he’d seen someone while he was out running and got caught up in a conversation. My father couldn’t pass up a chat with one of the little old ladies who walked the ditches in the morning. His viejitas. Or maybe he hadn’t noticed my car was gone. Maybe Nick hadn’t told him I went to change my clothes and never came back. It didn’t matter. I considered it lucky and I pushed him out of mind, along with everything else—Nick and the hallway and my freshly broken heart. I pushed it all out and focused solely on the highway and the little towns hanging off the side of it, down in the river valley, so peaceful from this distance.
But the farther away I got, the more difficult it became to deny Nick could’ve been right. Syd had been in Alamosa three months ago. There was no way of knowing if she was still there. She could’ve just been passing through. She could’ve stopped to see her mom on the way to somewhere else. She hadn’t been there a week after she disappeared, when Patience wrote me back. She’d been somewhere else then, and she could have gone on to somewhere else in the last three months. But I wouldn’t let that stop me either. In fact, every time the thought occurred, I pressed harder on the accelerator in protest. It was too late to turn around now. I was nearly to Socorro. I was probably only an hour and a half away from Albuquerque. I reached for my phone to check the distance and the damn thing rang in my hand.
My heart splattered on the windshield like a bug.
It was my dad.
I knew there were patches of I-25 with no cell phone reception. Lots. I could theoretically be going through one of those right now. NO SERVICE. Sorry, missed your call. But I’d made one bad choice in leaving without telling him. I allowed myself that one bad choice. From here on out, I only had good ones left.
“Hi.” I tried to sound calm and sorry.
“What the hell’s going on, Miranda? Where are you?” His voice was a freight train busting into the side of my quiet morning, blowing it to bits.
“I’m pulled over on the side of the road. Outside of Socorro. Did Nick tell you I left?”
“Of course he did. Jesus Christ. Socorro? And why are you pulled over? What’s wrong?”
“I’m just—I pulled over to talk to you.” I hadn’t actually pulled over, but now I felt guilty for lying and began easing my car to the shoulder. I went over the very loud rumble strips and was sure my dad could hear it.
“I honestly don’t know what to say to you, Miranda.”
“I know. I’m sorry, Dad. I’m sorry. But I know where she is.”
“No.” He was silent for three seconds. “I’m getting in the car. Stay where you are. You stay right there.”
I’d expected my father to be upset, but I hadn’t expected him to stop me now. “No,” I said plainly. “I’m going to find Syd. I’m not a kid, Dad.”
“You are a kid! You’re my kid, and I’m telling you to sit your ass in that car and wait for me.”
“This is why I didn’t tell you I was leaving.”
“Oh, don’t give me that horseshit. Don’t turn this into a referendum on my parenting. You snuck out and you lied. And now you’re god knows where and—and where are you planning on sleeping tonight, by the way?”
“I’m coming home. After.”
“Don’t be stupid, Miranda! You can’t drive to Colora
do and back in a day.”
“Yes, I can.”
“Oh Christ. And if you can’t? You’re not thinking.”
“I’ll get a hotel. I have cash.”
“You can’t rent a hotel room! You’re seventeen years old!”
I didn’t know you needed to be a certain age to rent a hotel room. But I wasn’t going to let this detail stop me. “I’m coming home tonight. Or I’ll stay with Syd.” I rolled my eyes at my own foolishness while I said it.
“Oh, now that’s fucking brilliant.” I heard his heavy footsteps on the gravel. I heard the beep-beep his truck made when he unlocked the doors. He was on his way.
“What are you doing?” I tried to keep calm.
“I’m getting in the goddamn car and I’m coming to get you.”
“Please don’t.”
“No, sorry, Miranda. You lost the privilege of suggesting what I should and shouldn’t do when you left the house this morning.”
“Listen. Will you just listen to me for a second?”
“No. I won’t. That’s how angry I am right now. I will not listen to you. Hold on two seconds.” I heard the sounds of the inside of his car. It was much longer than two seconds. In that time I tried to come up with a good argument, but I couldn’t. I’d lost.
“Are you there?” He was back, speaking a little more calmly.
“Yes,” I answered.
“There’s a rest stop before Socorro—it’s that big wooden one; we’ve stopped there. The one with the rattlesnake signs. Drive there. Lock your doors and wait for me. This is what is happening. I’ll be there in less than two hours. Do you understand me?”
I couldn’t find any other protest, sitting there in the car in my prom dress as the semis sped past me. I was burning with anger at my dad, at Nick, at Syd. “Fine.” I didn’t care if he could hear me crying. He’d won. I’d lost. It didn’t matter anymore.
“All right.” My dad was silent. “I love you, Miranda. You know I love you more than anything in this world. But goddamn, this is the stupidest thing you’ve ever done.”
“Okay, thanks. Great. Thanks so much,” I said. “That’s just wonderful.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. Just get to the rest stop. I’m checking my phone. It’s exit one fourteen. What mile marker are you at?”
I could see the next mile marker in the distance. “One oh three.”
“Great. Good. You’re close. Drive eleven miles and you’ll be there.”
I can do math, I thought to myself. “Bye,” I said heavily.
“See you in a while.”
I felt like I’d sprung four flat tires. How had that conversation gone so badly? I’d been blown away by my father like a leaf in a strong wind. See you in a while. If Syd had been with me, she’d have face-palmed. Nice, she’d say. You should be a lawyer. There was nothing to do but drive the eleven miles. I waited for a semi to pass, then I eased back over the rumble strips and onto the highway.
I found as I passed each mile marker, my anger increased and my fear decreased. It was a formula, an equation, a natural law being proven inside my body. When the big wooden rest stop appeared in the far distance at the side of the road, looming like a great monument to failure, with its giant signs warning in many languages about the lurking danger of rattlesnakes, I put on my blinker.
But as I approached the exit, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t stop. I reached into my bag and took out Lives of the Saints and let the book open to where the spine was broken on Saint Jude. I looked at my mother’s writing, the stars she’d written around the words Patron saint of the IMPOSSIBLE!
I laid the open book on the passenger seat. The little flame over Jude’s head flickered. I reached the exit. I pressed my golden toe to the pedal.
18
As soon as I passed the rest stop, I freaked. I didn’t know what to do. I pulled over and grabbed my phone. I looked at it for a long time. It felt like a weapon now, evidence I’d need to get rid of. I knew I needed to call my dad. I needed to say, No. I’m going. Turn around and go home. But talking to my dad hadn’t worked out well a few minutes ago. I considered turning my phone off and not turning it back on again until after I’d seen Syd—if I did see Syd. My dad could just wait. But I couldn’t do that, either. He’d lose his mind.
I texted Nick instead. Will you call my dad? 575-555-6552. Tell him I’ll be home tonight. I’m turning my phone off. Tell him that, too. I pressed send. I considered sending another text saying something to Nick. But I couldn’t think of anything to say to Nick. I tapped on the map and noted the next highway exchange happened outside of Santa Fe. I could remember that. I turned my phone off and put it in the glove box to keep it out of sight. Then I chucked Syd’s phone in there too. I looked down at the book. Ryan Gosling Saint Jude looked serene and thoughtful.
I flipped the page and went to the last paragraph and I drove, my eye moving from the highway to the book and back again. I couldn’t remember how Jude had been martyred. It suddenly seemed like very important information. In Beirut … along with Simon the Zealot … by ax.
I flipped the page back.
Hey, girl, it’s gonna be all right, Jude seemed to say.
I noted I wasn’t crying; I wasn’t even close.
I gripped the steering wheel and got back on the highway.
* * *
I kept reminding myself to loosen my grip on the steering wheel. I was giving myself blisters. By the time I reached Albuquerque, I’d left reality. I was living in a sci-fi novel, driving into some postapocalyptic dust bowl city, searching for signs of life. And I was wearing my prom dress. This detail hadn’t been lost on me over the last three hours. I kept rolling down the windows and lifting my arms to keep the flop sweat from ruining the fabric. I hadn’t brushed my teeth or washed my face before I drove off. I guess part of me believed there was no way I’d actually go through with what I was doing right now. Part of me thought I’d drive around the block, cool down, and go home, change clothes, and talk to Nick. But that was not what happened. This was what happened. And now I needed to pee. Bad. I’d passed loads of gas stations, but the fear that somehow my father would catch up to me if I stopped for three minutes kept me from pulling off the interstate. Now I had to piss like a racehorse, as Syd would say.
When I reached Albuquerque, I took the exit toward Central Avenue and followed it until I came to a gas station directly across from the UNM campus. I’d been to this gas station before, just earlier this year, when my dad dragged me to see Neil deGrasse Tyson speak on campus at Popejoy Hall. We filled up here before we headed home. I was relatively certain this wasn’t the one and only gas station in the city of Albuquerque, but it was the only one I knew, and so I went out of my way to find it.
“Fill up on pump three.” I slapped the bills down. The guy behind the counter looked me up and down with apprehension. He was a man who didn’t like funny business and wanted to know whether or not I was up to it. Before he could come to any conclusions, I turned and headed back outside, my dress billowing behind me. “Pump three,” I repeated as I pushed through the door and the bells jingled.
Outside, no one gave me a glance. Granted, there was no one else getting gas. But there were plenty of passersby. And not a single one of them gave me a look. It felt good to be anonymous. If I’d gone to any gas station in Las Cruces in a prom dress at noon, everyone would know about it by one. By two the old lady at La Cocina would be genuflecting at the sound of my name. Here in the big city, I felt like an adult. I was free. Across the street, at the entrance to the university, there was a big bronze statue of a wolf perched on a boulder, her head down as if about to pounce. UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO LOBOS, the sign beneath it read. The wolf was eyeing me, fierce and unafraid. I tried to internalize her gaze, to own it for myself, and for Syd.
I grabbed my running pants and T-shirt from the passenger seat and swished back inside to collect my change and use the bathroom. I asked the guy behind the counter if he had a map of Color
ado. He laughed. He didn’t carry maps. No one carried maps anymore. “Don’t you have GPS?”
I sauntered to the bathroom. It was revolting and closet-sized and the walls were covered in graffiti and yuck. There were no hooks, and there was no way I was putting anything down on the disgusting floor. So I put my purse on my shoulder, hitched up my dress and slung it over my head, and squatted there, peeing for so long, it became comical. If Syd could’ve seen me now, she’d have loved it. I watched myself in the filthy mirror as I washed my hands. Then I commenced taking off my prom dress, trying to keep it from touching the floor while at the same time wearing my purse and putting on running pants over my high heels. (Though I’d intuited a need for Lives of the Saints on the way out, I hadn’t thought to grab shoes.) All in all, it was a circus act. It took at least ten minutes. When I walked back into the store with my dress over my arm, wearing running pants, a T-shirt, and heels, the man gave me a disapproving look. My status as a fishy person had been confirmed.
I kept my head up and grabbed two bottles of water, a bag of almonds, and a troubled-looking banana. I took my items to the counter and made sure to look directly at the man while he rang me up so he’d know I was in charge. I was a lobo. I was fierce.
When I got back to my car, I carefully draped my dress over the passenger seat. I opened my glove box and rooted around for the map of New Mexico my dad insisted I keep in there (just in case), the one Syd had made fun of me for having. Thankfully, the map’s detail extended into the southernmost part of Colorado. I found the route I’d need to take to get as far as Alamosa. Once I got there, I’d worry about how to get to Patience’s.
I eased back onto Central and then back onto the highway. The traffic was heavier and there was a snarl of interstate exchanges to get through. Then I nearly missed the exit to get on Route 84 at Santa Fe. But once I made it through Santa Fe, I relaxed a little. I was doing a good job keeping my father, and Nick, off my mind, though every once in a while I saw the closed door, or the rest stop receding in my rearview mirror, and felt awful. When I thought of what I’d said to Nick this morning, I felt worse. I hadn’t even heard him out. I hadn’t even begun to imagine what I’d have done if I were in his position. I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want it to be happening. And then I’d done exactly what I’d accused him of doing. I lied. I said I was going to change my clothes so we could talk things over. And I left. Now I was four hours from home. I might not even make it back to Las Cruces until morning. I was standing him up for prom. Again. For real this time.
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