Don't Look for Me(7)

I smell gasoline and notice three plastic cans on the floor beside me. Otherwise, the truck is clean but old. The leather on the seats is cracked, worn all the way through in places.

“Hey!” the girl says, annoyed with me now. “Answer my question!”

My concern shifts quickly from the road and the black sky and the gas cans to the girl with the mask who has just admonished me for not paying attention and answering her question. I somehow pull the question from my immediate memory. Something about the mask and her voice … I take an educated guess.

“It sounds just fine to me,” I say. She looks at me through the side mirror with folded eyes and I imagine her whole face is in a scowl.

So I smile. A big, warm smile through lips that tremble from the cold and now, also, from the realization that I am locked inside a truck with strangers.

“What’s your name?” I ask. I try to be friendly. I just need a ride to town.

The girl looks at the man before answering. He nods and says, “Go ahead! Don’t be shy,” which is strange because she seems anything but shy to me.

She spins all the way around this time, smiling so wide I can see the creases of her cheeks poking out from the sides of the mask.

“Alice!” she says. I take a moment because the name sounds out something else in my mind. She says Alice but I hear Annie. And my heart skips just one long beat.

Alice again turns back to face the road, this time with a little bounce and the man tousles her hair. It’s playful but awkward, like he doesn’t do this often.

The truck slows.

I look through the windshield to where the headlights are shining and see storefronts with boarded windows. As we pass, they fade back into the darkness.

The truck rolls down the street. The man keeps his eyes ahead.

“Is that the town?” I ask.

We pass a building that looks like a diner from the shape of the gray silhouette and the large sheets of plywood that cover a row of windows. Beside it I see a sign on a lawn. It’s merely a flash as our lights pass. It says The Hastings Inn.

“Maybe there—at the inn. You could just drop me…”

The man looks carefully out the window, scanning the street.

“Looks like it’s closed. Everything’s boarded up … and gosh—looks like the whole town’s lost power.”

My voice cracks as I ask the next question. “Can we go back to my car? Maybe I can use some of the gas you have here? Even just a gallon. There’s another station about half an hour away—at the casino, right? I saw a sign for it on Route 7…”

Please, please, please! Let us go back to my car and then my life two hours from here, no matter what’s become of it. I crave it now and I don’t even know why. I crave my irreverent daughter who hates me and my cruel son who dismisses me. I miss my husband who pretends to be asleep when I come into our bedroom to be with him and I miss the dogs who want nothing but food. God help me, but I even miss the pain that never leaves.

It comes from a hidden place. A primal instinct. This missing of things.

The truck makes a turn and picks up speed.

“They’re empty,” he says now. “We were on our way to get them filled but the station was already closed.”

I look at the gas cans. I swear I can hear liquid splashing inside them but maybe I’m mistaken. Or maybe what I hear is nothing more than a few drops left at the bottom.

Why would he lie? The gas station was closed.

“What can we do?” I ask now.

“Road’s blocked. Tree just came down. Didn’t you hear it on the radio? Only one way to go now.”

I didn’t hear anything. I can’t hear a radio over the sound of the engine. And how was it reported so quickly?

The girl seems to know where we’re headed.

I open my purse to grab my phone. I have to tell them what’s happened, John and Nicole. I dig through the contents—wallet, brush, mints, tissues. I take them out and place them in my lap until the purse is empty.

Now I remember—the phone was in the charger, out of the purse, sitting on the seat.

I have no phone. A new kind of fear rises.

I ask now—

“Do you have a cell phone I could use? My family is probably very worried.”

Alice looks at her folded hands which sit in her lap.

And the man shakes his head.

“No. Sorry. I left it at the house. Don’t worry. We’ll be there soon. You can make your call and we’ll see what can be done about getting you home.”

“Or you could just stay with us tonight!” Alice says. Again, turning back. Again, with exuberance.

The man is smiling now.

“One thing at a time,” he says.

And so we drive. We make turns. Left turns. Right turns. Deeper into the woods.

I can’t bear the silence. I can’t bear not knowing what this is. So I do what I think would be normal if my mind weren’t running in circles.

“I’m Molly, by the way. Molly Clarke. I really appreciate your help.”

Alice giggles nervously. The man stares ahead.

I try to catch his eyes in the rearview mirror.

“Can I ask your name as well?”

He looks at Alice. Alice stares back at him and pokes his shoulder with her finger.

He shrugs, his attention returning to the road. His face is amused.