The Rest of the Story(111)

“At the beginning,” he said, starting to jog up to the next level. “Come on.”

The good news: we found his Audi at the very start of level two. The bad: it was parked right against a wall and blocked in by a huge SUV directly behind it.

“What the hell,” he said, eyeing it. “This is insane. We’ll never get it out.”

My phone was ringing again, but I couldn’t stop to answer it. Instead, I walked around to the Audi, which actually had some space ahead of it. “I think I can back it out.”

“You can’t even get in there!”

“I can try,” I said, gesturing for him to throw me the keys. He did, and I unlocked the car, then stuffed myself in the small space on the side away from the wall, inching down between it and the car beside it, a Mercedes. “I think I can crawl in the window, if I can get it open.”

“This is crazy and stupid,” he said. “We shouldn’t even be trying to get out of here. Doesn’t she have family that can come help her?”

“We are her family,” I said.

He just looked at me as, although my insides felt compressed to the point of flattening, I finally made it to the passenger door. I eased it open about an inch, which was all the give there was, before sticking my hand in and wiggling it around until I found the window button. Because the key was in my hand, it went down. Thank God. I pitched myself in, crawling behind the wheel.

“There’s not enough—” my dad was saying, but I ignored him as I started the engine. We’d practiced parking endlessly before my test, in the garage under Nana’s building, before I’d hit that car and gotten spooked. No time for fear now. I put the car in reverse, easing back a tiny bit.

“Okay,” my dad said, coming around to the front. “That’s as far as you’ve got before the bumper. Now go for—”

I already was, inching up, the wheel turned as far as it would go. Then back. Then up again. Slowly, I began to make a space between the Audi and the SUV, although it took another ten passes or so before it was wide enough to reverse out entirely. But I did it. My phone was ringing the entire time.

“All right,” my dad said. He looked as surprised as I’d ever seen him. “Now, let me behind the wheel.”

“I’m already here,” I said. “Just get in.”

He paused, as if he was going to resist this, but then climbed into the passenger seat. I hit the gas as soon as his door swung shut behind him.

Out in front of the hotel, it was crazy windy, the trees bent sideways, rain pelting the glass as I tried to peer through it. We passed a couple of Tides employees, running toward Campus, as I turned onto the road. A layer of water was running across it.

“Flooding,” my dad said. “Go very slow and don’t brake.”

I did as he said until we were past it, then sped up. My phone rang again. “Can you get that?” I asked. “It’s probably Trinity.”

He picked it up. “Hello? Trinity? Look, we’re on our way . . . Celeste? It’s Matthew.”

I had to slow again to drive over a power line, broken and wiggling like a snake. Yikes. “Ask her if they found Gordon.”

“. . . yes, we’re going there,” he said. “Trinity is very upset and Gordon . . . well, she’s probably hiding. We’ll find her. What? No, we just left the hotel. We should be there . . . what’s in the road?”

I waited to hear the answer to this question, but there was none: the line went dead, and he lowered the phone, looking worried. “Sounds like there might be a problem,” he said. “We’ll see.”

A couple of miles later, we did: a tree had fallen across both lanes, bark and leaves scattered all around it. The sky was as dark as I’d ever seen it in my life, and suddenly, probably much later than I should have, I felt my heart begin to race. I was scared.

“Dad,” I said as we stopped. “Now what?”

He took a breath. We’d gotten this far—extracting the car, dealing with the weather—and now it was all for nothing. I thought of Trinity, crying in the dark of the TV room. I was about to turn to him and say we should just run the rest of the way when I heard it.

Music.

It was distant, and barely audible above the whipping wind and the rain. But it was there, tinkling piano music, growing louder and louder. It seemed nuts I didn’t put together that it was the Yum truck until it appeared on the other side of the tree, its lights blinking.

“Roo,” I said, feeling a rush of relief. I pushed my door open.

“What?” my dad asked.

“Just come on.” I jumped out and started to run, going around the tree with him following. The rain stung my skin, the howl of the wind filling my ears: it felt like the storm might just carry me away, like Dorothy when The Wizard of Oz is in black and white. But then Roo was holding open the door, and I was climbing in. The music was still going.

“It’s stuck,” he said by way of explanation as my dad piled in behind me. I moved to the cooler, my spot, while he took the front seat, putting on his belt as Roo backed up. “But at least people can hear us coming.”

We started driving the final stretch, passing Conroy Market, where the power was also out. Roo stuck his hand out the window and gave a thumbs-up to Celeste, who was standing outside, her phone to her ear. Then she, like everything else, was lost in the wind and rain behind us. But still the music kept playing.