Hadley & Grace(44)

She leads them to the computer department, where she logs onto the internet and researches hotels that accept cash deposits, along with possible routes into Canada. She doesn’t have a passport, but she knows there are other ways to cross the border.

When she’s done, Skipper says, “Can I get a uniform now?”

“I can take him,” Mattie offers. “They probably have baseball pants and team T-shirts and hats.”

“We’ll all go,” Grace says. She grabs a burner phone from the endcap, since Hadley’s been using hers, then follows them toward the boys’ department.

“Is there anything else you need?” she asks Mattie.

“Do you mind if I buy a book?” she answers shyly.

The answer surprises Grace. “Of course not.”

They don’t have any Colorado Rockies stuff, but they find gray baseball pants, blue socks, a Dodgers T-shirt, and a matching Dodgers hat, which Skipper proudly calls his travel uniform.

In the book department, Grace expects Mattie to choose something from the Young Adult section or from the display featuring the Game of Thrones series. Instead she goes to the tiny “Timeless” section and smiles when she spots a book with the image of a frizzy-haired man wearing an ascot on the cover. She tosses it in the cart.

It takes Grace a second to remember why the book looks familiar, and the answer comes to her along with confusion. She can’t fathom what a fourteen-year-old, twenty-first-century girl could possibly find entertaining about the story of Candide, a book Grace CliffsNoted in high school in order to pass ninth-grade English.

Mattie smiles again when she puts the book on the conveyor belt, clearly excited.

“Really?” Grace says. “It’s that good?” From what Grace can recall, the story is about a depressing series of misadventures in which everyone dies.

“So good,” Mattie says, her face lit up. “The main character, this guy Candide, he’s hilarious. It’s like he doesn’t get it. His life totally sucks. It sucks and it sucks and it sucks. Everywhere he goes and everything he does turns out bad, but he just keeps trudging forward with this stupid, ridiculous optimism, convinced that it’s all happening for a reason, when really it’s just happening because life sucks. It’s completely moronic, but you’ve gotta love him for it. He just totally doesn’t get it.”

Mattie returns to putting things on the conveyor belt, a smirk on her face, and though Grace has never read a book for pleasure in her life, she thinks she might at some point read that one.

They leave Walmart and go to Peggy Sue’s Diner to “load the bases,” as Skipper says.

Afterward, her stomach bloated from inhaling a tall stack of pancakes, two eggs, and half a slab of bacon, Grace is so tired she’s afraid she might collapse. The temperature is now in the hundreds, and the combination of the heat and their early-morning start is making her woozy.

She decides to take a short rest before they continue on. She parks in the shade and moves Miles to the front to give Mattie and Skipper more room. The air conditioner whirs at full force and makes it almost comfortable. Mattie opens her book. Skipper plays on his computer game.

“First Base?” Skipper says as Grace’s eyes grow heavy.

“Huh?”

“Can you help me make a trade on my fantasy team? I want Wolters, and Coach has him.”

“Sure. Is he catching on Tuesday?”

“I think so.”

On and on they talk about Skipper’s fantasy team and the trades he wants to make before the game, and Grace drifts away to the strong wish that somehow they’ll make it to the game and that somehow it will all work out.

She and Miles won’t be with them. Her plan is to ditch this car for another, then drive them all to Bakersfield. From there, the Torellis will be on their own. She and Miles will head to Canada and then, God willing, find their way to a nonextradition country. She and Virginia talked about it once, hypothetically discussing becoming jewel thieves and where they would escape to with their riches. They decided on either Indonesia or the Maldives, though Virginia argued for Dubai or one of the countries near South Africa, since almost everyone in those places speaks English.

Forty minutes later, she wakes to Mattie leaning forward, staring at her.

“What?” she says, self-conscious of how she must have looked sleeping. She raises the seat and wipes her mouth for drool.

“Teach me to drive,” Mattie blurts.

“What?”

“Think about it. It makes sense. My mom can’t drive, and you being the only driver is too much. In nine months, I’d be getting my permit anyway—”

Grace holds up her hand, stopping her, and Mattie swallows back the rest of what she was going to say as she looks at Grace through her eyebrows.

Grace feels her stress. She remembers all too well what it’s like to be fourteen and to have your life ripped out from under you and to be terrified of what is to come. Fourteen, a strange age, almost fully formed, but not quite, still young enough to be at the mercy of others, even when they don’t necessarily have your best interests at heart.

Mattie looks like she is going to burst an artery, her eyes bulging as she waits for Grace to answer.

“What would your mom say?” Grace says.

“She’s not here,” Mattie answers, almost making Grace smile, the remark a lot like something Grace would say.