“When?” she says, looking at me in the eye for the first time since she arrived. I smile, hoping it will make her smile too. It doesn’t.
“Oh you know.” I scratch my elbow and shrug. “Right now.”
She sucks in a long breath of air and sighs. “Figures. I didn’t know that, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come.”
“No, no it’s fine. Really. I can move tomorrow.”
“Who moves in the middle of the night, anyhow?”
I throw my hands in the air. “Someone who wants to keep it a secret.”
This gets a tiny smile out of her. I take that tiny smile and roll with it—hoping to lighten the tension in here. “So I guess I’ll have to kill you now that you’ve caught me.”
This does not get a smile out of her. She swallows, her eyes far away. “That would be great, actually. Can you make it quick and painless?”
“Uh, what?” I smile stupidly, wishing this was still a lighthearted moment, but knowing it’s not.
“Slow and painful is okay too. I don’t really care.”
I sit on the arm of the couch. “Miranda, what’s going on?”
She opens her mouth to speak, closes it, opens it again and says, “Can I have some water? I’ve been walking for hours.”
I find the box marked Kitchen, rip it open and make her a glass of water. Miranda takes the glass with shaky fingers and drinks a small sip. I get my phone off the coffee table and unlock it. “I’m calling your mother. She’s probably worried sick about you.”
“No!” Miranda rushes forward and pushes my hand, forcing the phone to press against my chest. “She’s not worried about me. She kicked me out.”
“What?” There’s no way my sister would kick out her own daughter. All she does is brag about her and borrow her clothes. I point to the couch. “Sit.” With eyes wide like a toddler, Miranda sits as she’s told. The more I look at her, the worse she looks. There’s a large purple bruise on her upper arm, and her eyelids are swollen. It’s dawning on me now that there’s a completely different side to my sister that I know nothing about. “Tell me everything,” I say, my voice soft.
Miranda takes another sip of water, obviously buying for time. “Where are you moving?” she asks.
“Tell me what happened,” I counter, my hands on my hips.
“Hollywood? Paris, maybe?”
“I don’t know where, actually, I’m just going.”
“Wow.” She nods, biting her lip. “That’s totally bad ass. I heard you quit your job.”
“I didn’t quit—I—” The look on her face says she knows I didn’t quit. No telling what Maggie has said about me. “I—, I just decided I needed a new, er, career.”
Miranda looks around the room but her eyes are far away. “I want to come with you. Take me with you. I don’t care where we go.”
I frown. “I can’t do that.”
“Yes you can. I’m eighteen.”
“You have school.”
“No I don’t.”
“No wonder Maggie kicked you out! You’re an excellent student.”
She cuts me off with a shake of her head. “I can’t go back. It would be too humiliating.”
I take a deep breath. “You need to tell me what happened.”
She matches my serious look with one of her own. “Promise me I can come with you.”
“Tell me.”
She stands up, her red eyes staring straight into mine. “Promise.”
“I don’t even know you,” I say in a moment of desperation. The words hit her like a slap in the face and I immediately regret it. Of course I know Miranda; six-year-old me was there the day she was born, clinging to Grandpa’s hand and as he showed me her crib in the nursery. I just don’t know her. Maggie and I never hang out outside of work and to me, Miranda is just another weird teenager who I could never connect with. Kids hate me, teens included.
She turns toward the balcony for a moment, and when she looks back, her eyes fill with tears. “I’m pregnant, okay? Please take me with you.”
Chapter 6
How could I say no to that? An hour later, all seven boxes plus one backpack are in the U-Haul and Miranda and I are cruising down Interstate 45, going north. I’ve never driven with a trailer before, and it’s proving to be a challenging task. Gusts of wind swoosh against the trailer and it tugs my car this way and that way, making me keep a death grip on the steering wheel. Miranda’s cell phone is charging via my car’s USB port and she’s playing Angry Birds. We haven’t spoken at all, but at least she seems content.
This is beyond weird. I have so many questions to ask, but can’t seem to ask any of them. The girl in my passenger seat is going through more emotionally than I ever have, and I can’t even talk to her. We share the same blood—Grandpa’s blood—and I can’t even make myself talk to her, comfort her, anything. Relation or not, we’re strangers.
My stomach growls in an embarrassingly loud protest two hours later. “Are you hungry?” I ask.
“God, yes,” she says, clutching her hand over her stomach. She reaches for her backpack and unzips it. “My wallet is in here somewhere.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I say, practicing a new type of smile that I hope will make her feel better. “I’ll pay. Grandpa really took care of us, didn’t he?”
“What do you mean?” she asks, zipping her backpack closed and shoving it under her feet.
I want to say duh, but I stop myself. “His inheritance.”
She cocks her eyebrow at me, completely unaware of what I’m talking about. I change lanes to let an impatient motorcycle driver behind me in the fast lane. “I never knew he had so much money saved up. I always thought the old man was broke, ya know?”
“I didn’t get any inheritance,” she says with a shrug. “Well he left me his glass figures that I’ve always liked, and some other things. But not money if that’s what you mean.”
I almost swerve off the road in shock. “Grandpa left you ten thousand dollars. It was in his will.”
Her eyes light up. “You’re shitting me. There’s no way.”
An angry feeling wells up inside me. “Maggie didn’t tell you? You didn’t get a cashier’s check after he died?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. Mom gave me the stuff Great Grandpa left me, but she didn’t say anything about money.”
“Why would she keep money from you?”
Miranda kicks her backpack. “I don’t know, but money would help a lot with my situation right now.”
I touch her arm in what I hope to be a comforting gesture, but it makes the awkwardness grow thicker inside my SUV. Without a word or another forced empathetic look of pity, I put my hand back on the steering wheel.
The road ahead of us is dark and empty. “I guess we’ll keep driving until we find an exit with some food,” I say just as my stomach grumbles. The clock on my dashboard says it’s just after midnight. I’m not even tired.
“Turn here,” Miranda says, pointing at an exit sign that leads to a dark county road with no brightly lit McDonald’s signs.
“Why?” I squint at the upcoming exit. “Where are we?”
“Fuck if I know,” she says. “I’m sick of being on the interstate.”
She doesn’t understand that the interstate is safe. It always leads somewhere no matter what, and home is right behind us, about three hours away should we decide this was a terrible mistake. Which it totally is. But in the spirit of throwing all caution to the wind and going wherever life takes me, I let my foot off the gas and take the exit.
The paved road trickles into a bumpy gravel stretch that’s barely big enough for one car, and probably not big enough for my SUV and U-Haul. I slow to a crawl and drive until we come to a T in the road. The faded green sign shows a left and right arrow, with the right one going back to the interstate and the left one going…
“Salt Gap?” Miranda swipes her finger across her cell phone then squints back at the rugged street sign. “Is that
a town?”
“Hey you’re on Google maps!” I yell, pointing at her phone. “That’s cheating!”
She drops her phone in her lap and holds up her hands in surrender. “Sorry, you’re right. Totally cheating.”
“Well, since you’ve already cheated…where are we?” I ask, crossing my arms as my car idles at the intersection.
“We’re in middle-of-nowhere-assed-west-Texas.”
I motion for her to continue. She shrugs. “It doesn’t show up on the map. But we should definitely turn right to see what the hell a Salt Gap is.”
We turn right and drive on an even more rickety gravel road that’s even narrower than the one before it. We drive for what feels like miles. I can’t stop imagining that a werewolf will jump out of the shadows or Bigfoot will tackle our car and eat our brains. Well, maybe that’s zombies. Okay, now I can’t stop thinking that zombies will suddenly be in the middle of the road, waiting to eat our brains.
We are exactly nowhere. No street lights, no houses, no stores. Not even a happy little yellow striped line in the center of the road, reminding me that I’m on public territory. We could be entering a Texan Hannibal Lectors’ secret hideaway and not even know it.
“There,” Miranda says suddenly, her voice making me jump. “A sign.” She squints as she reads it. “Salt Gap, Texas.”
I echo her, reading the tiny little line at the bottom, “Population 1209.”
We look at each other do something unexpected. We laugh.
“We have to stop here,” Miranda says. “We’re from a place with a population of four million. This should be good.” She makes a puppy face over her smile, and because she seems happy for the first time tonight, I agree. What the hell? It’s just a tiny dot on the map of Texas with twelve hundred and nine people who are probably all related. What’s the worst that could happen?
“What’s the best that could happen?” Miranda says.
“What?” Did the girl just read my mind? “You mean worst, not best.”
“No I mean best. So many people focus on the worst thing that could happen to them, but why not focus on the best?” She leans back in her seat and looks at the roof of my car. “We could drive into town and be hailed as gods because we’re in a fancy new SUV and these people have probably never even seen cars. Then they’d build us a mansion and shower us with gifts and we’d live happily ever after as the reigning queens of Salt Gap, Texas.” She crosses her arms all matter-of-factly. “That’s the best that could happen.”
“You’re weird.”
She smiles. “Let’s stop here. I have a good feeling about it. Plus I have to pee.”
The town of Salt Gap is exactly that—a gap in between miles and miles of empty land. We follow the main street, aptly named Main Street, from one end of town and back. It takes about ten minutes. There’s a small grocery store called Big Chief, two gas stations and several family-owned stores in the main part of the town. Miranda points out how almost every store name starts with Salt Gap.
Her window rolls down at the touch of a finger and she sticks her head out like a puppy on its first car ride. “Salt Gap Cleaners, Salt Gap Cycles, Salt Gap Archery.” These people love their hometown, eh?” She wipes the hair out of her face. “Oh! Salt Gap Diner. Open twenty-four hours. Park this bitch, I want some pancakes.”
My stomach growls in agreement. We stop at the diner and both of us topple out of my car. Sitting for so long has turned my legs to mush. Judging by the way Miranda is slouched over the hood tells me her legs are mush too. I’m about to ask if she needs any help, being pregnant and all, when she says, “I’ll race you!” She pushes off my car, making it wobble, and hobble-skips toward the door. I burst after her.
We reach the heavy wooden doors of the diner and Miranda pushes her body through them, laughing with a mighty ha ha ha because she beat me.
“Not fair, you cheated!” I cry, trying to catch my breath.
“Whatev,” she says, pulling a hair tie off her wrist, attempting to wrangle in her unkempt hair. At this exact moment we both realize the same thing: everyone is staring at us.
Salt Gap Diner is about the size of my condo. It has ten two-person tables and a bar that stretches from end to end at the back of the room. If I had to choose a theme for it, I would pick antique/rustic/cowboy. Country music plays from the jukebox in the front of the diner where we stand. Half the tables are seated with customers, and all of the customers watch us like we’re some kind of city folk freak show.
“Shit,” Miranda whispers under her breath.
A thin girl about my age appears at our side holding two laminated menus. She has beautiful blonde hair that is so perfectly golden it has to be natural, and she’s wearing blue jeans with holes in the knees and a red Salt Gap T-shirt. “Good evening, ladies. Is it just the two of you?”
I nod. Her voice is twangy but not annoyingly so. She smiles, turns on her heel and walks us to a table in the far corner of the room. This must be where they put the outsiders.
“Hi,” Miranda says cheerfully to an older woman who gives us a curious look as we walk by. “Can I help you with something?” The woman shakes her head and goes back to eating her food. I try not to laugh. Miranda can be a bit bold.
“My name is Elizabeth and I’d love to help you with anything you need today, okay?” our waitress says as she places the menus in front of us. Mine has as sticky goo on the corner. “Today’s special is chicken fried steak, but y’all might want breakfast since it’s past midnight, which you can find on the front of the menu.”
I order a coffee and Miranda orders a Diet Coke. I’m halfway positive that I’ve read in magazines before that caffeine is bad for pregnant women, but I’m not about to say that in front of our waitress and embarrass my niece.
“So where are y’all from?” Elizabeth asks when she brings our drinks, her welcoming smile revealing crooked teeth.
“Houston.” I skim over the menu, but I’ve pretty much settled on the chicken fried steak. I don’t care what time of day it is. You can’t go wrong with chicken fried steak, and I can’t remember the last time I’ve eaten anything that’s fried.
“Wow, that’s a ways off.” She clicks her pen open and closed, open and closed as she talks to us. “What are ya doing way out here?”
“Oh you know,” Miranda cuts in. “Impromptu road trip. Aunt Robin here lost her mind.” She motions to me and then twirls her finger around her temple in the universal sign for lunatic. “I thought I’d just tag along.”
Elizabeth nervously bites her lip, unsure if she should laugh or console me. Unfortunately, I don’t know that answer either.
“I’ll have the chicken fried steak,” I say.
“Me too,” Miranda echoes. “And can you change the mashed potatoes for cheese fries? And maybe add some hash browns, plus, like two pancakes?”
I laugh into my hand as Elizabeth’s eyes go wide as she writes down Miranda’s laundry list of an order and leaves our table as fast as she can. I don’t blame her. I kind of don’t want to be around me either.
The food is delicious and I’m envious of Miranda’s cheese fries. She finishes every bite of food on her plate and then starts leeching off of mine. I let her because I’m not that hungry. There’s a hole in my chest right now, not in my stomach. We stay until two in the morning, when a group of rowdy twenty-one year old guys barge in, having just celebrated someone’s birthday by drinking a little too much.
As I’m paying for our meal, it dawns on me that I have no idea where we are going after this. We still have a few hours until dawn but I could probably drive for a few more hours before I pass out at the wheel. But, do I want to keep driving? Not really. Miranda taps her fingers on the glass window in front of the diner, her eyes far away. I don’t know what she’s thinking, but it can’t be anything pleasant.
“Are there any hotels around here?” I ask Elizabeth as she swipes my debit card through their ancient machine. She’s also watching Miranda’s expression with
a pained one of her own. I wonder what she thinks we’re doing out here, away from home and looking like something the cat dragged in.
“We have a B&B just down the road about a mile and a half away,” she says, taking a cell phone out of her back pocket. “Just a sec, I’ll get you a room.”
Miranda and I exchange glances as Elizabeth calls someone named Shelly and tells her she’s sending over two guests. She snaps her phone closed and gives us that warm welcoming smile again. “Gotcha all set up,” she says. “You’ll get a discount since I referred you.”
I thank her and turn to go, only to be stopped with a loud yelp from Miranda. The door to the diner slams open, knocking Miranda in the face and silencing her scream as a man in an undershirt and sweatpants storms inside. Miranda drops to the floor holding her hands up to her face. Yelling and chaos erupts all around me as I fall to my knees to check on her. She writhes in pain as blood drips out of her nose.
Of all the voices going on around me, the only one I recognize is Elizabeth’s. She’s saying the name Will and the word no over and over again, her voice growing more desperate by the second. When I’m positive that Miranda will be okay despite what’s probably a broken nose, I rock back on my knees and try to figure out what’s happening.
Undershirt guy, Will I guess is his name, is going on some kind of roid-rage rampage right in the middle of the diner and Elizabeth is his target.
“I give you everything!” he yells, jabbing his finger on her chest. “Everything!”
“I know, baby,” she pleads with him, making an attempt to grab his arm but he shakes her away. She grabs for him again. “Baby let’s talk about this at home, okay? I’m about to leave.”
“Where is he?” Will looks around, knocking chairs out of his way, even bending to look under a table. Miranda lets out a whimper and I turn my attention back to her. She reaches for me with one hand while the other one cups her nose. Blood drips from under her fingertips. I take her hand and help her pull up on her feet.
Elizabeth and Will are still arguing, and I’m looking around for a paper towel or something to help Miranda. I can’t believe no one tries to help us. So much for southern fucking hospitality.
A Little Like Fate (Robin and Tyler) Page 3