Don't Fail Me Now(37)

I smirk. “I think you mean first mate.”

“I don’t know,” he laughs. “That sounds pretty intimate for someone I just met yesterday.”

My skin feels tight as I suddenly realize how close we’re standing, so close I can feel warmth coming off his skin like a space heater, sending wafts of citrusy deodorant and tangy sweat into my lungs.

“Sure, you can drive,” I mumble and walk hastily over to the edge of the bed where the girls and Denny are now watching a bunch of teens in short, tight funeral outfits freak out while staring into their phones. I pretend to look interested, but out of the corner of my eyes I’m watching Tim as he carefully empties five packets of chicken-flavored ramen noodles into paper cups, fiddling with the dinky coffee-machine buttons to get the hot water to dispense.

Despite his annoying tendency to second-guess everything I say, there’s something about Tim that’s so sturdy and even and just kind of . . . good. It’s like watching a different species through binoculars, trying to figure out what it’s gonna do next. Buck was definitely never like that. I remember him being affectionate and fun sometimes, but even as a kid I got the sense I couldn’t really count on him, or Mom. They both seemed like—I didn’t have a word for it then, but unstable, I guess, like the atoms we learned about in physics that can turn radioactive, vibrating and contorting while they try to balance out but can’t. I wonder if some people are just born that way.

“Dinnertime!” Tim calls, arranging the steaming cups in a row on the desk, and Cass, Denny, and I spring up like the scavengers we are, hardwired to eat whatever is offered before anyone else can get it.

I slurp down the hot, salty broth with a hunger I didn’t even realize was there. And later, when the TV is off and everyone but me is asleep and the only light in the room is the moonlight peeking through a gap in the heavy yellow drapes, I watch Tim’s chest rise and fall in the next bed and wonder if I’m more like him or more like my parents. Can I steady myself and find a way to be the rock my family needs, or will I be cursed, too, with a life spent freewheeling through the universe, desperately reaching out for something, anything, to hold me down?





NINE


Thursday Morning

Terre Haute, IN




I have two vivid dreams, one after the other. In the first, I’m driving down a dark, rural road, so groggy I can’t really see, so I keep running the car into trees, which send me spinning backward with a gentle, rubbery bump. In the second, I’m looking for Mom in the empty halls of a jail, but every time I turn a corner, sure that I’ll find her on the other side, there’s a crumbling brick wall.

Knock, knock.

Mom? I yell in my dream voice, which annoyingly comes out like a whisper no matter how hard I strain. I put my palms on the bricks and find that they’re loose, so I pull them out one by one as the knocking gets louder.

Mom, I’m coming!

“It’s the manager.”

I stop pulling bricks and try to peer through the hole.

Mom, is there someone with you?

“Please open the door, it’s the manager.”

I seize out of the dream and into a pool of bright sunlight. Cass is huddled under the covers next to me, and Denny is sprawled across us, making a sloppy H. I realize two things at the same time: (1) The knocking is real, and (2) I’m not wearing pants.

But then Tim is up, his shirtless back wide and pale and smooth, his hair knocked out of its Hardy Boy tidiness and into soft curls and peaks from the pillow. He stumbles as he pulls khakis on over his boxer shorts and steps over the remnants of our noodle cups to get to the door. I lean back and stare at the ceiling, my heart pounding, as I hear the locks click open. This can’t be good.

“Can I help you?” Tim asks groggily.

“Yes,” I hear a stern male voice say. “You can come with me. Get your friends and get your things.”

“Why?” Tim asks. “What is this about?”

“I’ll explain downstairs. For now, just get everyone and everything out of the room.”

Ten minutes later, we ride down three floors with the extremely pissy-looking hotel manager, who wears his jet-black hair in a mushroom cut—a bold move for a middle-aged man the height of a hobbit. It’s barely seven A.M. Denny is clinging to my arm, and I don’t think Cass has even woken up yet, but I can’t tell because she’s got sunglasses on indoors, like a movie star, or a drunk. Tim and Leah look gray and nervous; Mushroom won’t answer any of their questions. I’ve decided to keep my mouth shut, both because I don’t want it to get me in trouble and because I’m a little bit afraid I might throw up.

This feeling only intensifies when the elevator doors open into the lobby and I see two uniformed cops waiting at the front desk. I get hit with a panic attack that’s like a FIFA World Cup player kicking me in the chest at close range. This cannot be happening. We’re in the middle of Indiana with only a half tank of gas and a family-size bag of Skittles to our name. I dig my nails into Denny’s palm so hard he yowls.

“Your credit card was declined,” Mushroom says as we reach the cops. The front desk faces the continental breakfast buffet, and a sunburned family of four tries not to look like they’re eavesdropping while they eat their Corn Flakes and stale pastries. “Early this morning we received a call from Jeffrey Harper,” he continues, “the cardholder, who told me directly that he did not authorize the charge.”