Don't Fail Me Now(52)

In one swift and jarring motion, she flips over to face me, her head just six inches from mine but its contents still completely out of reach.

“No,” Cass says. “They won’t.” Then she turns away again.

I lie awake for hours sending silent prayers out into the universe. Just get us to California, I think. If we can make it that far, I’ll know there’s hope for us, that things can get better, and I’ll prove it to Cass, too. Now that Tim and Leah are national news, though, getting the rest of the way means throwing out our old rules for a new set. We can’t just take whatever we can find to survive, by whatever means necessary. We have to move like ghosts, drawing as little attention to ourselves as possible. It means no more stopping strangers on the side of the road to siphon gas. It means we’re down two bodies when it comes to scavenging for food. It means avoiding any and all rest stops, toll roads, and speed traps. It means we can’t trust anyone but each other. Just get us to California, I beg the bowed ceiling of the cheap polyester tent. I don’t care about the journey, just get us to the destination.

? ? ?

In the morning—or what passes for morning, when the sun is just starting to pink up the sky—I crawl out of the tent and look across the lake at Tucumcari Mountain, which is swathed in mist like a Q-tip. A sign at the entrance to the campground last night said that Tucumcari comes from a Comanche word, tukamkaru, which means “to lie in wait for someone or something to approach.” It’s a little creepy how much it applies to us at this point.

But I want to regain some control, take action instead of lying in wait, which I think I can do if I can just fix the goddamn car. Somehow this beige behemoth—which existed long before I did and was broken long before we were, and which has carried my family on every journey we’ve ever taken, however brief or ordinary, however fraught with tension or filled with wild, fleeting joy—seems like the key to turning things around. I know it makes no logical sense, but I wake up convinced that if I can fix Goldie, I can fix everything.

The only problem is I don’t really know anything about cars except for where to put gas and how to do a jump start. Since Buck left I think Mom took her to a mechanic maybe once, when the muffler fell out (and only then because the neighbors complained after a few days). Otherwise when something goes wrong she just kisses her hand, smacks it on the dash, and holds it up to the sky, the way people do when they run a light just as it’s turning from yellow to red. She stopped going to church a long time ago and barely talks religion, but I know Mom thinks God has kept Goldie running all these years, which gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “Jesus, take the wheel.”

I was going to hit up a library and find some DIY repair books or web pages, but since that’s no longer an option, I’ll have to wing it. Luckily I do remember some of the things Tim said it might be—wheel bearing, shock mount, heat riser, exhaust pipe—and if there was a siphon pump I bet there’s also a tool or two banging around in Goldie’s trunk with the rest of Mom’s junk.

But when I get to the car and peer through the streaky back window, I notice two things immediately. One, Tim is splayed on his back in the driver’s seat, lips slightly parted, his left arm wedged between the seat and the door, his right hand disappearing into the cup holder. He’s still wearing the Barack shirt (at least Mom’s haphazard thrift shopping was good for something, and he’ll no longer be recognizable by his school clothes) and a pair of comic book boxers. The second thing I notice—and the thing I should have seen first, really—is that Leah is gone. I walk around to the front of the car and scan the lake, holding my breath, until finally I see her about a hundred feet away, her long hair blending in with the tall yellow grass. Reluctantly, I put my mechanic ambitions on hold and walk over to where she’s sitting.

“Hey,” I say, crouching down next to her.

“Hey.”

“You been up long?”

“I couldn’t sleep.”

“Yeah, me either.”

“I’ve never slept well,” she says, pulling up blades of grass from the ground and letting them sift through her fingers. “My mom says when I was a baby people kept telling her I would start sleeping through the night, but I never did.” She rips out another handful of grass and examines it before letting it go. “I still don’t.”

“Me either,” I say.

“Must run in the family,” she sighs.

“Listen,” I say. “I’m sorry this has all gotten so crazy. I should have known something like this would happen. I probably should have just left you alone.”

“It’s okay,” she says. “I’m glad you found me.”

“You are?” It’s hard to hide my surprise. So far everything about this girl’s life has been downgraded since she left Maryland.

Leah nods. The sunrise lends her face a golden cast, turning her eyes into twin pieces of sea glass. “I’m sorry I was so bitchy at first,” she says. “I was just . . . it just felt so unfair.”

“What did?”

“That that was how we had to meet, you know?” Her chin trembles a little bit. “I knew you guys existed when I was about five. I overheard them fighting, and my mom said something about me not even knowing my sisters. But when I asked her later, she told me to ask my dad, and when I asked him”—Leah stares down at the grass between her crossed legs—“he said you lived far away and that I could never meet you.” She breathes in deep in that way people do when they’re trying not to cry.