Miranda chokes back tears, her breathing coming in a huff now. I look her in the eyes. “We need to get you to a hospital.”
“Like fuck we do,” Miranda snaps. With one arm, she pushes me out of her way and walks right up to the roid-rage guy as if he’s not screaming and not two hundred pounds heavier than her.
“You better fucking apologize!” The shrillness in her voice sends chills down my arms. Will’s features flicker with what might actually be fear but it only lasts for a Nano second. The very next second he shrugs a hand toward my niece. “Go away, girl. This isn’t about you.”
Miranda straightens to her full height. Blood drips down her nose and over her lips. “You broke my nose, you piece of shit. I can have you arrested.”
“Yeah?” He drops his hold on Elizabeth’s arm. “Who is this?”
“They’re just passing through,” Elizabeth says, giving us a weak version of her charming smile. Her features don’t look as beautiful right now. “Y’all should go,” she says, her eyes pleading with me.
“Miranda, drop it,” I say, trying to gain control of the situation. Sure, I feel sorry for Elizabeth, but this is her problem. I can’t beat up this guy and my cell phone has no signal out here, so short of MacGyver-ing some way to take him down with laminated menus and kid’s meal crayons, I’m useless. “Let’s go.”
“You’re a piece of shit,” Miranda snaps at him, her hands balled into fists at her side. She looks like some kind of natural disaster survivor, in her dirty pajama pants, knotted hair and swollen nose to match her swollen eyes. Something in the way she shoots daggers at Will makes me think of Maggie and how she would react at seeing what happened to her daughter since I took her under my wing.
With the imagined image of Maggie’s face burned into my brain, I grab Miranda’s arm and pull her toward the door. We’re not staying here tonight. We’re getting back on the interstate and driving for a long, long time.
I push open the door just in time to see a hooded figure slam a baseball bat through my windshield.
What the hell is wrong with Salt Gap, Texas?
Chapter 7
“Hey!” I yell, my voice choked up and useless because hey is the only word I can manage to think of in my total shock. The man wears jeans and a black jacket, its hood pulled tightly closed around his face. He glances back at me when I yell but then grabs his bat off my hood and slams it into the left headlight.
I want to run, to grab his arms and pull him away from my car, but I’m paralyzed against the door of the diner. Miranda pushes past me, stepping in front of me almost protectively. “What’s going on?” she says, peeking over the hand that covers her nose. The asshole with the baseball bat runs around the passenger side of my sixty thousand dollar vehicle and takes out Miranda’s window, then the back window. Miranda lets out a little gasp. I hear her suck in a deep breath through her mouth. “Oh hell fucking no,” she says, stepping forward and grabbing a handful of rocks from the gravel parking lot.
“What did we do to you, you disgusting backwoods hick?” She spats, the ripped fabric of her pants dragging along the ground as she strides toward him in total confidence. I guess I could be that confident too if I looked like the walking dead. I call her name but she doesn’t listen. He ignores her insults and moves around the back of my car, slamming his bat into each panel of metal like he’s making a home run. Miranda yells louder, “You have a problem with people having nice things?”
My back presses against the wall of the diner. I’m paralyzed with shock. In the back of my mind I know I should try dialing 9-1-1 or run back inside and ask for the police. But I can’t do anything but stand here watching this surreal chain of events unfold, making me question everything about this stupid move.
The guy takes out my tail lights, each swing of his bat causing an equally sized hole in my heart. I’m calculating the cost of my insurance deductible when the guy stops swinging his bat and gets a good look at Miranda. “Fuck you,” he hisses. His throaty voice makes him sound way older than he is. With one expert swing of her pitching arm, Miranda rears back and hurls her handful of rocks right at his face.
He ducks, but not quick enough to avoid them. There’s no mistaking the sound of rock-on-tooth as one collides with his mouth and he cries out in pain. This is bad. The thought of having Miranda get beaten to a pulp by this lunatic is enough to make me peel myself off the wall and march into the parking lot.
Having no idea what I’m going to do or say when I get there, I ball up my fists and square my shoulders. If this were Houston, the cops would be here by now. “Thanks for ruining my car,” I say, trying to sound lighthearted. Do lighthearted people make psychos a little less psycho? It can’t hurt to try. “I guess we can exchange insurance information now?”
He throws his bat in the bed of an old Ford pickup truck parked next to me and pops open the driver’s side door. “Your car?,” he murmurs under his breath, stepping behind the door as if to let it shield him from me. “Guess the bastard has a new family and is sending a woman to do a man’s job. Figures.”
“With all sexism aside,” I say, crossing my arms. “Who do you think sent me here?”
Our eyes meet for the first time. He’s not just too young for his voice—he’s entirely too young in general. A teenager. He spits on the ground and wipes lips with the sleeve of his jacket. “Houston.”
My heart stops cold. Miranda’s jaw cracks as her mouth falls open. I take a step forward. “You know I’m from Houston?”
He gives me a look like I’m a little slow. “Uh, no.” He enunciates each word slowly and with an extreme amount of mockery. “You were sent here by Jared Houston.”
Miranda and I exchange confused glances. “You little shit, you beat up the wrong car,” Miranda says with a delirious snort of laughter. “We don’t know anyone by that name. We don’t even live around here.”
“What?” he asks. Fear flickers across his eyes as he surveys the damage he caused to my car.
A line of blood drizzles out of Miranda’s nose and she winces and smiles at the same time. “You are in so much trouble,” she says between laughing and gasping for breath.
“We’re on a road trip,” I tell him. “Just passing through.”
“Oh, shit,” he says. “I—I’m sorry.” His hard exterior crumbles with each word. His cheeks flush red. “I—I thought you were Jared.” He slumps into the driver’s seat, his head resting on the steering wheel. “Oh God I screwed up. They’re gonna kill me.”
“Not if I kill you first,” Miranda says, but the venom has left her voice. She’s all giggles now.
I step up to my car and place my hand where the glass used to be. Now it’s pooled on the dash in hundreds of little glass shards. I guess my car is still drivable, minus the use of the headlights.
I lean against the cold metal of my precious car, with its leather interior, upgraded sound system and voice activated navigation system. A tear rolls down my cheek, and I’m reminded of this old memory from back when Miranda was a baby. She wasn’t old enough to walk yet and had a fever. Maggie was staying with us at our Mom’s house for the Christmas holidays and had to go to the twenty-four hour pharmacy to get her fever medicine. I was about seven years old. Under Maggie’s strict rules, I was to sit on the couch with baby Miranda and not move a muscle until she came home with the medicine.
After a little while, I ended up falling asleep on my back while lying on the couch with Miranda resting on my chest. I woke up to the sound of her coughing and the feel of warm baby vomit oozing down my neck, into my ears and through my hair. The vomit just seemed to keep coming and coming, covering both of us with the smell of sour milk. I jumped up and held her at arm’s length, crying and coughing and freaking out. I remember thinking at that moment that I had absolutely no idea what to do. I couldn’t clean the throw up out of my hair and neck without putting Miranda down, and I couldn’t clean Miranda without cleaning myself. The situation was hopeless and I had no idea where to s
tart.
The same desperate feeling of hopelessness falls over me now. I can’t stay here because Miranda needs medical help, but I can’t leave because my car can’t be driven. I can’t fix my car without leaving. We’re in the middle of nowhere and our cell phones have no signal.
“What am I supposed to do?” I blurt out to no one in particular.
“We’ll go to the bed and breakfast place,” Miranda says. Her hand touches my shoulder. “My nose is fine, I don’t need a hospital.” Even as she says it, she sounds like her vocal cords are projecting through a fog horn.
“The bed and breakfast is a mile and a half away. We can’t walk there in your condition and we can’t drive there with no tail lights.” I say the last two words louder for the benefit of the juvenile delinquent sitting in his truck, tapping his fingers nervously on the steering wheel.
“I’ll drive you,” he says, letting his hood on his jacket fall to his shoulders. He has a mass of curly brown hair and bright blue eyes. “It’s the least I can do. My name’s Marcus, by the way.”
When we arrive at the Salt Gap Inn a few minutes later, Marcus hops out of the driver’s seat and grabs our bags out of the bed of his truck. He’s such an eager beaver now, you’d think he was a member of the peace corps and not some jack ass who ruined my car.
“My parents will kill me,” he says, shifting the two bags to one arm and pulling open the inn’s door with the other. “But I’ll have the money to fix your car. Assuming I’m not dead first.” He smiles, but it isn’t very convincing. Maybe he will be dead first. I’d kill him if he were my kid.
He sets our bags on the floor in the foyer of the inn. It’s a massive three story Victorian style home with a wraparound porch and antique wooden filigree decorations in every corner. The scent of vanilla and cinnamon wraps around us in that warm Southern welcome I had started to think wouldn’t happen in Salt Gap. There’s a guestbook to our right and Miranda goes straight for it as if this were an ordinary vacation where ordinary vacation-like things were necessary.
When she’s finished signing both of our names, Marcus takes the pen and writes his name, address and phone number on the diner receipt he had in his pocket. “Here’s my information,” he says, handing me the paper. “I’ll have my dad come here tomorrow and talk to you. He will probably write you a check or something.”
“Er, thanks,” I say. The little jerk is too well-spoken to be so apt at vandalism. This will officially be the weirdest car insurance claim ever.
He gives a tiny wave and heads toward the front door to let himself out. Although I do want the little shit gone and out of my sight, I can’t help but stop him. “So what did this Jared Houston guy do to piss you off so badly?” I ask.
He runs a hand through his wild hair and glances at his feet. “He was my sister’s fiancé. She had their baby and he left her. Just packed up his shit and drove off in the middle of the night, not telling anyone.” He takes his eyes off the floor and looks at me. “She’s been raising that baby for a year all by herself and it kills me. When I saw his SUV with a U-Haul at the diner, I figured he moved back here and I couldn’t help myself. But…I guess that wasn’t his SUV.”
“You’re a good brother,” Miranda says. “I wish I had a brother like you.”
Marcus gives her a weak smile and then apologizes to me again before leaving. I’m glad I asked why he vandalized my car. Hearing his explanation put the first real smile on my niece’s face tonight. And even if everything has gone to hell, at least we’re somewhere safe for the night—and that’s really the best outcome I could have hoped for.
Miranda and I stand at the front desk for a few minutes, looking around for someone to help us. Elizabeth had said a woman named Shelly was waiting for us, but we are a little later than expected. Miranda checks out everything in the room with a child-like curiosity, picking up glass figurines and admiring them for a moment before moving on when something else catches her eye. The place looks like something out of an old movie. Dark wooden floors creak under our footsteps and hand-woven rugs and runners soften the sound.
I’m about to give up and suggest we sleep in the car. Miranda’s eyes narrow and she goes up to the front desk. She reaches over the counter and grabs an envelope with the name Carter written on it in delicate handwriting. She raises an eyebrow and opens it.
Inside is a key, a real metal one not a plastic card one like Houston hotels have, and a note written on Salt Gap Inn stationary. I read it aloud.
‘“Ms. Carter, thank you for choosing to stay with us this afternoon. Unfortunately my arthritis is acting up and I must turn in early tonight. Please see yourself to your room at the end of the hallway to your left. If you need any assistance, do not hesitate to call my nephew at extension 519. Thank you and I hope you enjoy your stay, Shelly Singleton.”
I picture a portly old woman with thick glasses writing this note to me before she went to bed. Now this is the kind of southern hospitality I’d expect from a town with twelve hundred citizens.
Miranda leads the way to the end of the hall and unlocks our room. It’s small, with flower print wallpaper, a bay window decorated with pillows and a queen sized bed in the middle of the room. It’s exactly what I’d expect for a mere eighty dollars a night and it’ll have to do. Luckily, it has its own bathroom which is what Miranda needs more than anything right now.
She showers for a long time while I lay on my back on top of the flower-print comforter. There is a single glow-in-the-dark star stuck to the ceiling above me. When I was a kid, my whole bedroom was full of them, minus one empty spot in the corner where I peeled off the stars that spelled out my crush’s name. I guess I should have known back then that relationships were a bad idea.
Miranda sings an off-pitch version of some Katy Perry song. It’s distracting to have another person in the room with me after having lived alone for so long. We’ll have to sleep in the same bed since the only chair in here is a wooden rocking chair and the floor is cold and creeps me out. I’m not about to sleep on the floor and I can’t make a pregnant girl do it either.
It occurs to me that this is the craziest thing I’ve ever done. I once went skydiving while drunk and I let my college boyfriend talk me into getting a bird tattoo on the top of my foot—which now I hate because it reminds me of him—but those are nothing compared to this. My car is smashed, a pregnant teenager is in my care, I’m stuck in the middle of nowhere without a home to go back to, and oh yeah—I don’t have a job.
There was a time in my life when I thought money would solve all of life’s problems. I’ve pretty much always felt that way, back when I was broke in college and even when I had some money in the bank. But now I have loads of money and everything feels wrong, like it can’t be patched back together with wads of cash, or held down with a stack of gold coins.
I reach for my phone on the nightstand, unlock it and scroll down my contacts list to the—oh, shit…G section. Grandpa’s number is still here, but I can’t call him. A heavy sinking feeling consumes me as warm tears pool to the corner of my eyes. Realizing that I was about to call a dead guy to ask for advice makes my cheeks flush. It’s not like T-Mobile will redirect your cell number to heaven when you die. Not only have I lost my job, I’ve lost my mind too, apparently.
The bathroom door swings open and Miranda walks out in a new set of pajamas and a towel wrapped around her head. Her nose isn’t bleeding anymore, but it’s three times its normal size and completely black.
I sit up in bed. “God, Miranda. You look terrible.”
She cocks her hips and strikes a pose. “I take it you don’t like my new nose job? I hear they are all the rage in Hollywood.” She snorts at her own joke and then her face crinkles up in pain. “Oww, shit this hurts.”
“I tried getting cell service so I could Google broken noses, but I have zero bars out here,” I tell her, attempting to be helpful. I really do feel terrible that I can’t help, having never had a broken nose myself. I have heard that if you
punch someone hard enough in the nose, their cartilage will shoot through their brain and kill them. I have no idea if that’s true or not, but I’m glad it didn’t happen to Miranda.
She sits next to me on the bed. “My boyfriend broke his nose playing football. They just put some tape on it and he was fine in a few weeks.”
“Weeks?” I blurt out, not wanting her face to look like black water balloon for that long.
She shrugs. With slow movements, she brings her middle finger up to her nose and touches it lightly. “I don’t know, I think it looks kind of badass.”
My shower is lukewarm thanks to a certain someone rudely using all the hot water, so I have to shampoo my hair quickly. The bathroom has a claw foot tub and porcelain pedestal sink. People in Houston would pay a lot of money for original pieces like this in their luxury lofts.
I can tell by the sound of the bed squeaking, then Miranda groaning in pain over and over that she’s having a difficult time finding a comfortable sleeping position. It will be a miracle if I don’t roll over in my sleep and bop her in the face with my arm. Maybe I should sleep on the floor.
After my shower, I find her lying on her back under the sheets, her arms wrapped around two pillows that are squished to the sides of her face. I grab an extra pillow out of the closet and lay down next to her. My feet sink into the cool, crisp sheets and loosen them from the corners of the bed. Nothing feels better than crawling into a professionally made bed after one of the worst days of your life. I can only imagine that Miranda feels the same.
“You comfortable?” I ask. She mumbles something that I can’t hear from over her fluffy face guards. Never, in a million billion years would I imagine that I’d be going to sleep next to my niece in a town called Salt Gap.
Exhaustion tugs at my eyelids, but suddenly I feel like talking. “I’m tired, but I feel like I can’t sleep tonight.”
A Little Like Fate (Robin and Tyler) Page 4