In the bedroom, I take the lumpy pillows; all the clothes in the closet, even the ones that aren’t mine; and the pilled pink blanket with fraying satin trim.
Do I need sheets? I do need sheets. You can use them for things like escaping from windows or pulling a person out of a ditch. I picture myself hanging by my hands off a bent sapling, bare feet dangling over a ravine with a river raging below.
I wish I had someone to come with me, pull me out if I get stuck. Tie the sheet around your waist, April, before you get too close to the edge, I tell myself. Tie the other end to a tree. There’s the plan. No falling in ditches without a lifeline. You can’t afford to. I wad up the sheets and the mattress pad and jam them in the bag.
I take my mom’s ring out from under the mattress and shove it in my pocket. The box digs into my thigh, but that’s good. I know it’s there.
I get down on my knees and reach my arm under the mattress until it’s all the way under, the side of my face pressed against the edge. I feel for the photo and pull it out. It’s rippled and crumpled and there’s a stain across my mother’s face where I had to pick off a soup noodle after I saved it from the trash. It’s her wedding day and her dress is simple.
I tuck the picture in the corner of the bathroom mirror and study our faces, doing my best to ignore the swollen red marks on my cheek. I look like her, and I wonder what it is that’s different between the way Irene looks like her and the way I do. What makes it okay in Irene but not me? Maybe it’s the nose or something about the way my mother and I have the same dark eyelashes and a dimple in our chins when we smile.
This picture lady, in her white veil and bright blue eye shadow, plays my mother in every memory. When I think of her now, where she could be, what she might be doing, she’s still wearing her wedding dress and her face always has that perfect grin.
I slip her photo between the pages of my favorite book—the one she liked to read me about Max and all those wild things—and shove it in with the blankets. It’s the last bag. I tie it closed and throw it on top of the pile. I still don’t know what I’m doing. I pace until I do. A plan works its way into my head a step at a time and then it’s all there.
I open the last bag again, tear a page from the book, and sit down to write.
* * *
I walk past the elementary school on my way. My dad’s truck is on the grass even though there are still empty parking spaces. Mrs. Varnick’s car is in a handicapped spot but doesn’t have a sticker. Her grandson plays the violin and he sucks. Matty’s sister plays the recorder. I don’t know what Gary’s son plays, but I see his Harley. I wonder if Margo rode on the back. Those concerts take forever. Long and painful. Squeaking reeds and kids chewing on drumsticks when they aren’t hitting cymbals off beat.
It’s a five-minute trek from the school to Irene’s apartment. The front of the building is lit up nice like it’s an architectural gem, even though the paint is peeling and someone spray-painted WWJD in yellow on the front step. I sneak around the back of the building to stay in the shadows, and get a splinter climbing the rickety wood fire escape. The sliver is thick and grey, stuck right in my palm. When I yank it out, the blood forms a tiny red pearl. I wipe it on my jeans.
It’s easy to get in. Irene leaves the window in the boy’s room open just a crack. He’s got croup or asthma or something like that and always needs fresh air. Waste of heat, if you ask me.
His room is painted dark blue and he has a red bunk bed with yellow stars all over it. I bet my dad built that bed for the boy. His blankets look so much warmer than mine. I take his sheet, just in case, wrapping it around my arm to keep it from trailing.
There’s a Tupperware container of leftover Hamburger Helper in the fridge like it’s just waiting to be my road trip food. I take that, one of Irene’s forks from her good silverware set, and a half-eaten package of Chips Ahoy! for dessert.
By the door, hanging from a wooden rack painted with the words Bless Our Happy Home, is a row of keys. The boy’s house key hangs from a blue and yellow lanyard, next to the one for the mailbox on a paper clip, which is next to Irene’s praying angel keychain. I use the boy’s key to pry open the angel’s ring and circle Mrs. Ivory’s car key around until it slides off.
I turn the knob on the front door to lock behind me so maybe it’ll take them a while to figure out anything even happened. I’m careful to close the door slowly, but the click of the latch sounds like a gunshot in my head. Everything is always louder when you’re trying to be quiet. I spin a story about Irene asking me to take her car to pick up the boy and babysit for him after the concert so she and my dad can go out, but no one stops me on my way across the parking lot.
Mrs. Ivory’s car is backed into a space at the far end of the lot. My dad has Irene trained for his constant getaway plan. The car is spotless. Cleaner than Mrs. Ivory ever kept it. Vacuumed and dusted in all the cracks and crevices. There isn’t even any gunk in the indents of the steering wheel. The mirrors have the same streak-free shine as every surface in Irene’s apartment, and the floor mats are brand new. Irene’s got this angel air freshener strung from the rearview. It matches her keychain, and smells like the bathroom at Margo’s Diner. I pull it off and hang it like a Christmas ornament on the hedge that outlines the lot.
Irene’s legs are shorter than mine, but when I fumble for the lever to move the seat backward, the trunk opens instead. I go out to close it, but grab Irene’s emergency kit first, turn it over and look inside, so if anyone’s watching they’ll think I meant to open the trunk.
Back in the car, I survey the parking lot. It looks clear. I find the right lever, but the seat still won’t move, so I jerk my body forward. The seat gives and I get smushed against the steering wheel. I yank the lever and push back until it feels about right. I mess with the mirrors because I know you’re supposed to, but I don’t know where they’re supposed to be.
Cars start much easier when you have the key. First try, no problem, and I’m out of the parking lot and down the road like nothing is wrong or out of the ordinary. I take the long way so I don’t have to drive past the school and risk catching my dad outside for a smoke. And even though Mrs. Varnick is at the recital, I turn the headlights off when I drive past her house. Just in case.
First order of business is to yank garbage bags from the front of the motorhome and throw them out the door. Then I work on shoving them in the car. When I cram a bunch of bags into the trunk with my foot, something crunches loud in a way it’s not supposed to.
I can’t fit everything and I don’t have time to sort it, so I pull the bags from the trunk, ripping them open to make sure I keep the important stuff: my book with the picture of my mom tucked inside, clothes, empty guitar case, blankets, food, cassettes, rhyming dictionary. I wad up sheets and blankets and stuff them behind the driver’s seat. Clothes go behind the passenger’s seat. The ring goes in the glove compartment. Food up front for easy access. Everything else gets left behind, scattered on the ground. I take a quick pass through the motorhome, pee one more time. Then I leave, pulling the door hard until it clicks shut. Hide my key under the mat. I don’t want it anymore.
When I back down the driveway, I run over a plate or a cereal bowl. Something fragile. I feel it snap under the weight of the car.
* * *
The lights are on at Matty’s house, but no one’s home. I watch for a minute from outside to be sure. His mom leaves the kitchen light on all the time so it looks like they’re home, because she never locks the door. I let myself in, sprint through the living room like lightning, and tiptoe up the creaky steps to Matty’s bedroom.
I lie on his bed one last time and look at the glow-in-the-dark solar system stickers on his ceiling. The lights are on, but I can still see the stars because I know they’re there, pale yellow against off-white. We stuck them up together, standing on his bed, mattress jiggling under our feet. At first we tried to do constellations, but we only got as far as Orion before we gave up and started plaste
ring stars and planets everywhere. We bonked heads and Matty fell backward, pretending it knocked him out. When I leaned over to see if he was okay, he pulled me down too. That was the first time he kissed me.
I curl the blanket over my body and breathe in Matty. I start to feel like I could stay in this bed. I could wait here for him and get married and learn how to make venison burgers and kiss his mom’s ass until she likes me. I roll up the other side of the blanket into a cocoon. I could go to church and make potluck or bring potluck or whatever the hell you do with potluck. I could return the car. I could finish high school. I could be that person, the one who stays. The one who makes good on things. But then I think about inertia. That whole body at rest thing. I think about how wives don’t play guitar in bars and double dating with Mark Conrad for all eternity. Matty coming home with a six-pack every night, covered in factory grease. I think about Molly Walker and all those holiday sweatshirts. If I stay, I will always be a body at rest. And I can’t even make regular hamburgers.
I get up and root around, pull Matty’s favorite sweater from the pile of clothes on the closet floor. His navy blue cotton roll neck. Thick and warm, and it smells like he does when he’s just gotten out of the shower. I pull it on and lean over the bed to kiss his pillow. Like the kiss will be there waiting for him when he gets home, and he’ll know it’s there. I leave the note I wrote him on top of the kiss, the pearl promise ring he gave me tucked in the folded paper. My eyes sting. I pinch myself hard on the fleshy part under my thumb, like my mom used to do when she was crying and wanted to hide it.
Matty’s house looks smaller when I back down the driveway. Smaller and sad. All lit up; warm and inviting and no one home to enjoy it.
By the time I get to the highway, I’m flat out sobbing. I get myself together and wipe my face on my sleeve, but then I realize it’s really Matty’s sleeve and start all over. I wish I’d left him more, but I just couldn’t write it. All the note says is: Matty, I have to go. I’m sorry. Love Always, April. I wrote it on the last page of Where the Wild Things Are. That’s the part where Max finally comes back home and the food his mom made is waiting for him, because even though he was acting like a horrible kid she still loves him enough to make him dinner.
* * *
I’ve never driven on the interstate, only the back roads that snake around Little River. My knuckles go white and my palms sweat every time a truck passes, but it seems like the fastest way to get distance. Irene was nice enough to leave me with a little more than half a tank of gas, but by the time I get to the Waterloo exit, I’m three hours in and running low. I don’t know where the next rest stop is, so I exit, pay the toll with coins Irene left perfectly organized in the change compartment, and find a gas station.
I have a hundred and seventy-eight dollars saved up from work. Tip money and the little extra Margo started throwing me on top of my shift. When I pull out the wad of ones and fives to pay for gas, I realize I didn’t say goodbye to Margo. I call from the pay phone outside, sure she’s staying at Gary’s and I’ll get the machine. But then she picks up and says hello, and she knows it’s me even though I don’t say anything back.
“Oh, girlie,” she says, her voice blurred and watery. “What did you do?”
— Chapter 7 —
Ithaca, NY
I decide to spend the night in the parking lot of the Wilson Farms gas station just off the interstate, so I can get going and get gone as soon as I wake up. I park around back, out of sight, but cops keep pulling in. There’s a clear view of the cars when they enter the parking lot, but then they drive toward the front of the building and I can’t see them anymore. Three in an hour and I can’t get to sleep. I know they wouldn’t notice me unless they were looking, and they probably aren’t looking yet. They’re most likely stopping for donuts or coffee or cigarettes, but every time a car door slams I jump three feet out of my skin and can’t settle down until way after they leave.
Cop car number four pulls in and enough is enough. If I’m not going to sleep, I may as well move. It’s safer anyhow.
On the way back toward the interstate, there’s a sign that says ITHACA and that it’s forty-one miles from here. I’m not looking forward to getting back on I-90, and don’t know where I’m going other than away, so Ithaca is as good a destination as any.
A few months back Gary drove down to Ithaca to meet with some guys starting a brewery. He loved the beer. Came back with as many kegs as he could fit in his truck, but he sat at the counter at Margo’s Diner and complained about Ithaca through his whole dinner. Soup, salad, meatloaf, coffee, and lemon meringue pie, mouth full and everything. He couldn’t stop talking about how much Ithaca pissed him off.
“Freaking dirty hippies,” he said to Margo when she brought him extra gravy. “From the looks of them, there isn’t a shower in the whole damn city.”
“Amazing anything gets done,” he said when I cleared his dessert plate, wiping his hands on his jeans even though he had an unused napkin right there on the counter. “They’re all wacked out on weed and oh, Peace, dude-man.” He flashed me a finger vee and an exaggerated goofy grin, curling his bottom lip under to look like he had buckteeth. “And the cops ride around on bicycles with flashing lights on their asses.” He laughed hard and his face turned red. He was always too intense. “I guess if you want to rob a bank, do it in Ithaca.”
So I feel like the sign for Ithaca is fate or something close to it. I don’t have plans to rob a bank, but I did steal a car, and I’m pretty sure I can get away from a cop on a bike if I need to. Plus, if Gary hates Ithaca, I’m thinking I’ll like it.
I follow the sign and make the turn. I was too nervous to pass anyone on the interstate, so I got stuck behind this truck going fifty for what seemed like forever. The road to Ithaca is full of curves and I can’t see too far ahead because it’s dark. I’m still only going fifty, but it feels fast. And since I have a destination, I’m not as antsy.
* * *
On the phone, Margo said that Dad and Irene hadn’t quite put two and two together yet. Dad stopped by the motorhome after the boy’s recital to make me apologize to Irene. He was so freaked when he found it trashed that he actually went inside the diner to ask Margo if she knew where I was, even though it’s been seven years since the breakup and they hadn’t said two polite words to each other that whole time.
When I called, Margo promised she’d talk to him. Tell him that he needed to let me go. That the car should be mine anyway and I’ve been taking care of myself for practically forever and sixteen and a half is almost eighteen and I just needed out and he owes me. She promised, and Margo doesn’t make promises lightly. “I may be a lot of things,” she told me once, when I asked her if I really looked okay in the homecoming dress I found at the rummage sale, “but I’m nothing if I’m not honest, girlie. I just don’t see the point of telling it any way other than how it is.”
* * *
I didn’t think forty-one miles would be all that long, but following the twisting road makes me tired. I watch the miles tick by on the dashboard like it’ll tell me something, but I didn’t think to look when I started, so all I know is that I’m five miles farther than I was the last time I looked. My eyelids are heavy. I want to let them drop. Rest my eyes for a second. I give in once and instantly feel like they’re glued shut. When I finally get them open, I’m all the way on the other side of the double yellow line. I yank the car back and almost go off the road. I have no problem keeping my eyes wide after that.
* * *
A sign says it’s five miles to Ithaca, and then a few minutes later there’s a campground. I’m too tired and broke to look for another option. I pull over at a hut by the entrance, but it’s closed up and the lights are off. There’s a sign on the door. I can’t see what it says. When I get out to look, someone yells “Hey!” and I practically jump out of my boots.
In the moonlight, I can see a tall figure crossing the main road. “Too late for check-in,” he says. His voice is
deep and rough. I picture tobacco-stained sandpaper hands. The green glow of his watch shines suddenly, but not bright enough to see him any clearer. “Past midnight.”
Behind him, there’s a small cabin, lit up and warm. I hadn’t noticed it when I pulled in. I wonder if he was sleeping. Maybe those lights weren’t on before.
“Sorry.” My voice is thin. “Is there someplace else I can go?”
“This is the last campground open,” he says, getting closer. I can see the outline of his face now. Long beard, furry hat. He turns to look behind him and I catch his profile—beak of a nose. “And we close for the season on Thursday.”
“Please, is there any place I can go?”
“Ah, stay here.” He yawns, belting out an arching sigh, stretching his arms in the air. “Bathrooms are open. Showers are coin-op. Any campsite. No one’s here anyway. We can settle up tomorrow.” He turns and walks toward the cabin without fanfare.
“Thank you!” I yell after him.
“Sleep tight,” he yells back.
By the time I get in the car, the lights across the road have gone dark and I can only see the edges of the cabin because I know it’s there.
I park at a site across from the bathroom. I’m feeling ambitious. Light a fire, craft a tent of some sort from the blankets I have. I keep the headlights on and search for sticks to toss in the fire ring, but in the shrubs there’s a pair of eyes, reflecting green. My blood stops running. I tell myself it’s just a raccoon or a possum. I try to stay calm. But twigs snap behind me. I scramble back to the car. Lock the doors and sit in the driver’s seat very still, trying to watch the windshield and the rearview mirror at the same time, waiting for whatever was out there to get me. Nothing happens. Nothing at all. I yawn so hard it feels like my face could split in two. My eyes tear.
The People We Keep Page 6