The Highway Kind(23)

“I’m always tired,” she said. “Turn right up here.”

They drove in silence for a minute or two. Then he said, “I’m guessing your mother has some problems. I don’t know what kind. I suppose I don’t need to know.”

She didn’t answer.

“Mind if I get gas?” he said, and he flicked on his turn signal.

He pulled them into a SuperSpeedy, lit almost to daylight and busy even at this time of night. She sat in the warm cocoon of heated air while he filled the tank of his car. Then he leaned in. “I want a doughnut. You want anything?”

“A doughnut sounds good.”

He nodded and went inside. She watched as he stopped at the cash machine and then sank back into the plush of the car’s interior and pretended this was her life, that she was an adult and she was heading far away from the shabby little duplex instead of to it; this was her car. The man inside was her husband. He had a good job and she had a purse full of credit cards in good standing. When she looked out the window she saw a couple just like the one in her imagination, obviously coming back from a night out somewhere nicer than the hotel restaurant.

“Hello,” she said to them through the closed window. “My name is Lisa Mitchell. This is my husband, Chris, and our dog Kermit. He’s a Havanese. It’s the national dog of Cuba.”

The door to the convenience store opened and Chris came out carrying a box, so she shut up before he could see her talking to herself.

Back in the car, he took one doughnut out of the box and handed the rest to her. “All yours.”

“I don’t need charity doughnuts,” she said.

“Charity doughnuts, my ass. They only sold them by the dozen.” That was a lie but she let him get away with it. The doughnuts smelled amazing and Margot would eat them, because all she had to do was open the box.

“Thanks,” she said.

“You’re welcome.”

He started the car, and she expected him to put the car in gear and pull out, but instead he just sat and stared back into the SuperSpeedy. His brow was furrowed and his jaw was working slightly, as if he were poking at a sore tooth with his tongue.

“I’m not eighteen yet,” she said.

“You mentioned that.”

“I know,” she said, “but that’s why I don’t answer questions. Until I’m eighteen, I have to be careful. Anyway, I’m just telling you because I can see you feel sorry for me—things will get better.” She spoke with a conviction she didn’t entirely feel. Except she had to feel it, because otherwise her feet wouldn’t move, her lungs wouldn’t expand. “I mean, the ride and the doughnuts—I really do appreciate them. But you don’t need to feel sorry for me, is all I’m saying.”

“What are you going to do when you turn eighteen?” he said. “Is that what the car is for?”

“Is what what the car is for?”

“Well,” he said, “if you’re eighteen, and you have a car, you can pretty much go anywhere you want. Do anything you want. You don’t have to live at home. You don’t have to live in Pitlorsville. You could drive to LA, break into show business. Or you could drive to Houston and break into the oil business. We get born into these situations, and you do the best you can with it, but sometimes the best you can do is get the fuck out, you know?”

She thought of the car, gleaming white by the side of the road—the road that stretched on, all the intersections and exits that led from here to places like LA and Houston and Seattle and Des Moines and who the hell even knew where.

“My mom needs me,” she said.

“Yeah, well,” he said. “Everybody needs something. We don’t all get it. You need a car, right?”

He was smiling but the things he said hurt. “What about you?” she said. “What do you need?”

In the semi-light from the SuperSpeedy, she saw him roll his eyes, as if the things he needed were legion, and there was no point in talking about it. “What do I need,” he said, almost to himself.

Then he didn’t say anything else, and for a moment they sat in silence in the parking lot, the engine the only sound. The silence lasted so long that Caro began to feel nervous. “Are we going to go?” she said.

“Yeah, but—” He turned to look at her. “Maybe we could help each other.”

Her guard snapped back up. He must have seen it on her face because right away he said, “No, no. Not that. Don’t worry. I could use some help with an errand, is all.”

“An errand,” she said.

“Really quick. I just need you to run something inside to a friend of mine, at his office.”

“What?”

“A package. Not a bomb or anything, I promise.”

But not something legal, or he’d do it himself. “You said you work in pharma,” she said. “You mean pharmaceuticals? Like drugs?”

“Legitimate medicine. Headquarters in Jersey and everything. I rep all sorts of things: Antibiotics, boner pills. Statins for high cholesterol.”

“Is that what’s in the package you want me to run inside to your friend?” she said, a bit dryly. “Antibiotics and boner pills?”

“Not exactly.”

“So painkillers.”