Don't Fail Me Now(48)

Standing in a Taco Bell, listening to my mom’s excuses . . . 1,500 miles and I can’t seem to get anywhere I haven’t been before. I chew nervously on the insides of my cheeks as I delete the message and stuff my phone back in my pocket. She does sound better, at least—not that it means anything. She’s always better, until she’s not. In some ways it’s worse when she’s good, because then I’m just waiting for something to happen, wondering if this will be the day, or the next one, or the next one. I always find a reason to go in the house before Cass and Denny, just in case, so I can be the one to find her if she ODs. I’ve never found any tips for that scenario on the cover of a teen magazine.

Luckily, I can’t dwell on it for too long, because Denny barrels out of the bathroom with a big wet splotch on the front of his pants.

“It’s from washing my hands!” he says, scowling, as I attempt to suppress my laughter. A big bald guy comes out of the men’s room and gives us a long, piercing look, but luckily Denny has his back turned. I wonder if he knows yet that he’s in for a lifetime of looks like that—and that the looks won’t be the worst of it. I glare at the bald man and pull Denny toward me.

“Whoa, D, you fall in or something?” Cass appears with her burrito, which bends limply over her fist in its foil sleeve.

“He washed his hands very thoroughly,” I say, planting a firm kiss on my brother’s forehead.

You’re all they got right now.

“Um, congrats?” Cass holds the burrito out to Denny, but I push it back.

“That’s for you,” I say. “Eat.”

Cass grimaces. “I feel like puking.”

“Just eat the wrap then.”

Cass groans in protest but leans against the wall and reluctantly begins to peel open the foil. Across the room, Baldy is sitting with a younger, bleached-blonde woman with sunburned shoulders. She’s talking to him, but he’s not looking at her. He’s still staring at us with narrowed eyes, like the very sight of us offends him to his core. He’s got an American Gothic face, kind of pruney and all kinds of mean. Instead of Family Circus, we must have stumbled into the Racist Rodeo hour. Lucky us.

“Hurry up,” I say to Cass, who is tearing off minuscule strips of the soft, damp tortilla and placing them on her tongue like Communion wafers.

“I’m done,” she says, looking peaked and pitiful under the fluorescent lights. I should give her some serious shit about her blood sugar, but we have to get back to the car and I’m not in the mood to force-feed a feral teenager, so I let Denny dispose of the evidence as I usher them both out the door, feeling the bald man’s eyes on my back the whole time.

? ? ?

When we make it back to the block where we parked, there’s a little crowd gathered, and my first chilling thought is that maybe Tim’s dad was just baiting him to call so he could trace our location, and that he already sent the cops straight to us. But as I get closer I hear clapping, and then I can see Tim standing under the theater marquee with a rolled-up paper bag at his feet, doing some sort of white boy shimmy as he sings an a cappella rendition of “San Antonio Rose.” His voice is smooth and sweet, like a dorkier Bruno Mars.

“Oh no,” Cass says, instant humiliation draining even more color from her face. She hangs back while Denny and I move in closer. Just as he’s finishing, I see Tim see me, and he smiles wide and wiggles his eyebrows, like, top this. That sneaky bastard. This was supposed to be a battle of wits, not American Idol.

After the last note, the onlookers clap and holler, and a few of them step forward to drop coins and dollar bills into the bag. Leah is leaning on Goldie’s hood, arms crossed tightly on her chest, looking reluctantly proud but sitting far away enough to safely deny any association with him.

“Thank you so much,” Tim says. “This next one goes out to a girl I know.” Someone whistles, and he laughs. “No, it’s not like that. She once told me to buy a taco or step aside. But”—he pauses and winks, to the crowd’s delight—“I think I’m growing on her.” And then he launches into a song I haven’t heard in so long, it takes my breath away—“Michelle,” by the Beatles.

Buck used to sing that to me all the time when I was little. He doesn’t get too many points for creativity—it’s the only popular song with so much of my name in it—but I didn’t know it was a real song back then; I thought he made it up for just me, and it always made me feel special and safe. I find myself blinking back tears.

I want to meet Tim’s eyes, but I can’t. It’s too dangerous, what I’m feeling right now, this combustible concoction of new euphoria and old, aching rage. On the one hand, this is the first time a guy has ever sung to me—in public, no less—and it makes me feel dizzy and hot, like my plasma has been replaced with champagne bubbles. But then, the song also reminds me of the man who took away my trust, who’s at least half the reason I’ve spent the past decade avoiding getting close to anyone. Your parents are supposed to teach you how to love, so what the hell are you supposed to do if they leave you hanging? How are you supposed to know what to feel or even how to express it? I stare at the pavement sparkling under my shoes in the glow of the streetlamps and try to let whatever this is—this song, this boy, this moment—wash over me, and when he’s done I clap so hard my palms sting.