by Noir, Roxie
I don’t need a speeding ticket. I don’t need to whip around a curve too fast and hit a deer. I don’t need to fly off the road, into a tree.
The last thought sends a shudder down my spine, a chill through the air.
Thalia is sitting in the passenger seat, whispering to herself. I think it’s Spanish. I think she’s praying. She hasn’t moved since she got into the car except to turn her head every so often and look out the window.
I don’t interrupt her. There are a hundred thousand things I could say, but they’re all useless. I know because I’ve heard them all, every last one of them, from well-meaning people who only wanted to make me feel better after my father died.
The truth is that there’s nothing. Words are empty vessels, only said so the speaker can feel as if they’ve helped somehow.
I look down, let the needle rise to sixty-five.
Then her phone rings and shakes in the cupholder, and we both jump.
“Sorry,” Thalia says, grabbing it.
“We’re almost to the interstate,” I tell her. “Sounds like you’ve got service again, though it might cut in and out a little. There are some pretty empty parts between here and the tidewater.”
She clicks her phone open, face glowing blue, flicking through her notification screen.
“Shit,” she hisses, softly.
“News?” I ask, evenly, calmly, like my chest isn’t constricting, but she shakes her head.
“Nothing since she went in,” Thalia says, and holds her phone up to her ear. “But I forgot to tell my roommates what was going on and I think Margaret’s about to call the — hey, it’s me.”
On the other end of the line, Margaret says oh, thank fuck loudly enough that I can hear it perfectly.
“I’m fine, I’m not kidnapped,” she says. “I’m not — what? No, my kidnapper didn’t make me say that.”
She pauses, the voice on the other end quieter now.
“My mom’s in the hospital,” Thalia says quickly, a gasp for air at the end of the sentence. She inhales, exhales. “She was in a car accident. She’s in surgery right now. Bastien called me, that’s all I know, we’re driving to Norfolk and we’re about to get on eighty-one.”
The narrow two-lane road I’m on widens, the trees suddenly further from the shoulder. Through the forest I can see bright fast food signs, a lone Hampton Inn.
Thalia clears her throat, and suddenly I can feel her looking over at me, eyes glassy, lips puffy.
“One of my professors was at the banquet and volunteered to give me a ride,” she says.
There’s a long spell of silence, then: “Does it matter?”
More silence. She leans back in the passenger seat, closes her eyes.
“I know,” she says. “I know. Thank you. Thanks for checking on me. I’ll let you guys know when I’ve got more info.”
Another small pause, and then she says, “I love you too,” a smile in her voice. “Later.”
Thalia puts her phone back into the cupholder, pulls one foot onto the seat.
“They know I’m with you,” she says.
“I told you, I don’t care,” I tell her as the road opens to four lanes.
We go around a wide curve in the road and suddenly a Wal-Mart looms in front of us, two gas stations, a Chick-fil-a, a brightly lit green sign announcing Interstate 81.
“They also know that we went on a date,” she says, the lights passing over her face. “And why we didn’t go on another one.”
“Then they know we didn’t do anything wrong,” I tell her, and turn onto the on-ramp.
“Right,” she says, and goes quiet again as I merge onto the interstate, speeding up until I’m doing eighty.
“Can I ask you something?” she says, after a spell.
“Shoot.”
“How old are you?”
I steal a glance away from the road at her: watching me, her eyes glassy and puffy but dry for now. I understand. There’s only so long at once that you can stay mired in the grief and misery of unknowing; every so often, you have to come out.
“You’re trying to figure out how much of a creep I am,” I say, smiling at the road.
“That’s not quite how I’d phrase it,” she says, and for the first time since she got the phone call, I hear the smile in her voice. “I’d say I’m just after some information.”
“Twenty-eight,” I tell her.
“Oh,” she says, and she sounds relieved.
“Should I even ask how old you thought I was?” I tease. “It’s the glasses, isn’t it?”
“I like the glasses,” she says, not answering my question. “They’re your professor costume.”
“It’s not a costume.”
“You weren’t wearing them when we met,” she points out. “You don’t usually wear them to class, only the first two sessions. And you wore them tonight, to the banquet.”
I touch the bridge of the glasses with one finger, like I’m checking that they’re still there. I try not to read into the fact that she knows how many times I’ve worn my glasses to class.
“What else have you been taking notes on?” I ask, suddenly aware of the weight of my glasses on my face, the few tiny scratches on the lenses. “Have I worn any shirts twice?”
“I’m not the fashion police,” she says, as her phone dings softly and she looks down at it. “I just notice whether you’re Caleb or Professor Loveless on a given day.”
Which do you prefer? is on the tip of my tongue, but I swallow it. I adjust my glasses again, the solid frames against my face reminding me that tonight I’m Professor Loveless and she’s my student, that I’m giving her this ride because I’m a good Samaritan and nothing more.
“Any updates?” I ask, as she types something into her phone, then clicks it off again.
“She’s still in surgery,” she says, taking a deep breath. “Bastien’s been texting me, but there’s no news. Apparently my father’s been standing in front of a window and staring out of it without moving for twenty-six minutes. It’s just the two of them for now, none of my aunts and uncles are local. And me.”
“Your other brother’s not local either?” I ask.
No answer. I look over, and she’s flipping her phone around in her fingers, the rosary wound around one wrist.
“Didn’t you say you had two?” I ask, suddenly feeling unsteady, like I’ve wandered into the wrong territory.
“And you’re teasing me for remembering when you wear your glasses,” she says, but there’s something in her voice that makes me glance over at her. “Do you remember everything I said that night?”
She’s trying to smile but it’s not quite working, her lips not fully cooperating, the smile not reaching her eyes.
“I try,” I tell her, honestly. Too honestly, but Thalia has that effect on me. “I’m sorry, that was the wrong question.”
Thalia is silent for a long moment, thinking. I just drive and listen to the silence.
“I don’t think Javier is local,” she finally says. “But I don’t know, because I don’t know where he is.”
I stay quiet, respect her silence.
“I don’t think anyone knows,” she goes on, her eyes forward, watching the interstate as we rush toward it, white lines disappearing under my car. “Not my family, at least. The last time we heard from him was last March. He was sleeping in a car with a friend of a friend of a friend in Richmond, and he managed to borrow a phone to call my mom.”
She clears her throat.
“I don’t even know how to tell him about Mom’s accident,” she says, and now she’s whispering, her voice ragged again. “No one knows how to reach him, we don’t even know if he’s…”
I reach over and take her hand in mine. I do it without thinking, the movement automatic, the need to comfort her and protect her almost overwhelming even though I know I can’t.
“It’s a whole fucking mess,” she says, and she laces her fingers through mine, squeezing.
I squeeze bac
k, hold her in my grip, the wooden rosary beads pressing into my wrist.
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” I say.
There’s a long, long silence, long enough that I think she’s chosen not to say anything, to take me up on my offer.
“He was a Marine,” she finally says.
Chapter Sixteen
Thalia
This is a story that I don’t know how to tell because I never tell it. It’s our ugly family secret, our shame, a gaping hole that we’ve slapped a band-aid over so we can pretend that we’re all fine. We tell people that he’s in North Carolina or Washington, D.C., working some job, and then we change the subject because the truth is too much.
I don’t know what would happen if my father found out that I told a complete stranger. He’d be furious, for starters. Even my roommates don’t know the ugly details of it, just the broad strokes, because they’ve watched it go down.
“He didn’t really want to be,” I go on, trying to start at the beginning, not exactly sure where that is. “When we were kids he wanted to be an artist. The two of us used to watch Bob Ross on PBS for hours. You know, happy little trees and all that?”
“Of course,” Caleb says, his fingers still anchored between mine, warm and strong.
“He was pretty good at it,” I go on, trying to remember how to get back to the main point of the story. “Took all the art classes in high school, did really well, and for a while he talked about applying to art school or something. But I guess he wanted Dad’s approval more because one day he came home and he’d enlisted.”
Caleb changes lanes, speeds up, passes a big rig. I look up at the driver for a moment, and he’s staring straight ahead, dead-eyed.
“He did two tours of Afghanistan, and on the second one he tore his rotator cuff, blew out his knee, and compressed three vertebrae in his lumbar spine when they took fire and he dragged his best friend’s body behind a wall while wearing fifty pounds of equipment,” I go on. “He left active duty. Started drinking. They gave him fistfuls of pain meds at the VA and not much else.”
I don’t tell Caleb that last year, when I went home for Christmas break, Javier woke me up nearly every night, screaming. I don’t tell him that he used to disappear for two or three days, then come back wearing the same clothes, rings around his eyes, smelling awful and looking worse.
“I see,” Caleb says.
“He got addicted,” I say, simply. “What he got prescribed wasn’t enough any more, so he found it on the street until my parents put him into rehab. Which worked, until it didn’t, and when they found out that he’d been using again my dad kicked him out and cut him off. And now we don’t know where he is.”
Caleb looks over at me, and I can see the disbelief written on his face, the disgust, the horror. I can’t say I blame him.
“My father believes that the only real love is tough love,” I say, and I try to keep my voice from shaking. “My mom had to fight with him over sending Javi to rehab in the first place. He’s the kind of person who thinks that all help is weakness, that if Javi really wanted it he’d be able to magically will his way back to being better instead of needing sissy bullshit like therapy and rehab and psych meds.”
I take a deep breath, even though I feel like someone is strangling me.
“And now I don’t even know where he is so I can tell him that Mom is in the hospital,” I finish. A tear splashes down my cheek and I wipe it away, exhale a long, shuddering breath, close my eyes and lean back against the headrest. “I guess Bossy and I will start calling all the shelters and halfway houses tomorrow, but they hadn’t heard of him last month, so I’m not really expecting a miracle.”
Inhale, exhale. I bite my lips together and try to keep myself from crying more, because Caleb’s seen enough of my tears by this point in the night. He’s already volunteered to be my driver. He doesn’t need to be my therapist, too.
“I’m sorry, Thalia,” he says, holding my hand even tighter, the pressure warm, steady, reassuring. I’m sorry isn’t enough, but what is? What could someone possibly say that could fix this?
“Thanks,” I say, and then I realize the car is slowing down. I open my eyes as we decelerate, coming to a stop sign at the end of an exit ramp off of I-81. Caleb looks both ways, then turns right and right again, into a gas station so brightly lit that I have to shield my eyes.
He doesn’t say word, just parks across three parking spots, gets out of the car. Bewildered, still trying not to cry, I watch as he crosses in front of the car to the passenger side door.
He pulls it open and I look up at him, one hand stretched out, and I stare like I’ve never seen a hand before, utterly uncomprehending.
“C’mere,” he finally says.
I unlatch the seatbelt. I unwind from the car, still blinking in the bright lights, stand, and then his arms are around me and my head is buried in his chest, and all I can think is oh.
Then I cry, and Caleb doesn’t say a thing. He just stands there and holds me.
I don’t know how long we stay like that. Too long, probably, but he never tries to back away, never tries to let me go. He just stands there and holds me while I cry because I’m scared for my mom and furious for my brother and afraid that I’ll never see either of them again.
“I’m sorry,” I finally gasp, coming up for air. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry —”
“Don’t be,” comes his calm, steady voice.
“I’ll be sorry if I want,” I say, petulant, and that gets a chuckle from deep in his chest.
“Fine,” he says. “But I don’t have to accept it.”
I finally pull away, wiping my eyes, clearing my throat. Trying to act like I didn’t just cry my eyes out in a Mobil station in the middle of nowhere, and failing.
“We should go,” I say. “We’re not even to sixty-four yet, are we?”
“We’re close,” he says, and reaches out, takes my face in his hand.
He swipes away my tears with his thumb, and then, for a long moment, he just looks at me.
I think he’s going to kiss me.
I want him to kiss me.
I’ve wanted him to kiss me for two weeks. I’ve wanted him to kiss me every time I walk into calculus class.
But right now, I really, really want him to kiss me. I feel raw, like the inside of my skin has been scrubbed out, and I feel needy, and I want him to kiss me and fill the void and make me feel something good. I want to climb him like a tree and I want him to shove me against his car, trap me here, whisper more dirty things in my ear.
And then his hand leaves my face and he gives me a half-smile and nods toward the car.
“Come on,” he says, and he walks back around the front of the car, the moment shattered. “We’ve still got a ways.”
There’s no kiss.
Of course there’s no kiss.
There can’t be a kiss.
Chapter Seventeen
Caleb
We leave the lights of the gas station and slink back into the darkness of the interstate, illuminated only by headlights, the occasional billboard.
It’s after eleven at night, and we’re sharing the road with tired families and long-haul truckers. I can still feel the warmth of her face on my hand, the wetness of her tears on my shirt, and I try to knock the feel of her body against mine from my mind.
She’s a student. An undergrad. I’m her professor.
Everything about this is inappropriate, yet here I am.
I drive north on I-81, get on I-64, drive east, out of the mountains. Thalia asks me to tell her about my perfect family — her words, slightly sarcastic, not mine — so I tell her about being the youngest of five brothers, about never being called the right name on the first try, about never wearing anything but hand-me-downs, about always being the worst at everything because I was the youngest.
But I also tell her about learning to drive at thirteen because my older brother Eli decided it was time, even after I ran the truck into
a ditch. I tell her about the times that Daniel let me sneak out with him, and I thought I was the world’s coolest high school freshman.
I tell her that Levi’s the one who took me hiking and camping when I was a teenager. That his house in the woods is still my refuge, though since his fiancée moved in I make sure to call first before I go over.
I tell her that I talk to Seth, who’s a little less than two years older, almost every day, that he’s my best friend, that I’ve been worried about him lately.
And I tell her about my niece Rusty and how much I love being an uncle. I tell her about my nephew who’s supposed to show up in a few weeks and how excited I am for him.
I don’t tell her about my father. Not now. It’s not the time and it’s not the place.
We drive through Charlottesville, over the Rivanna river, through the woods. Twenty minutes later, trees flashing past, she laughs for the first time since we got into the car. Her face is still tear-stained. Her eyes are still bloodshot and puffy. I know she’ll probably be crying again before morning, because that’s how these things go, but she laughs that one time and I feel like I’ve won a gold medal.
We drive through Richmond and I see her looking out the window at the still-lit city, and I know she’s wondering if her brother is out there, beyond her reach. We stop for gas just outside the city, and she offers to pay. I don’t let her.
The closer we get to Norfolk, all the way on the eastern end of the state where the Chesapeake Bay meets the ocean, the quieter she gets. She checks her phone, again and again, fidgets, looks out the window at the low-slung suburbs outside the car windows, bathed in orange light.
“Anything?” I ask, nodding at her phone, and she sighs.
“Bastien’s just complaining about my dad,” she says, opening it, flicking through the screens, turning it back off. “Apparently he’s alternating between standing perfectly still, staring at the wall, and freaking everyone out, and driving the nurses crazy.”
“How’s Bastien?” I ask. I’ve never met her younger brother, obviously, but since she’s been reading me his texts all night I feel like we’ve become close friends.