Playlist for the Dead(55)
Like Astrid, I thought. “I’m guessing you’re not thanking those guys for the opportunity, though.”
“Hardly,” he said. “Like I told you the other day, I’m fine with them getting what they deserve. To a point.” It was an odd thing to say, and I wasn’t sure how to take it. “But that’s partly why I’m so excited about the race tomorrow. I’m going to destroy Ryan, even with him driving Trevor’s fancy new truck. He has no idea what he’s getting into.”
That’s exactly what I was worried about. I wasn’t sure how to ask what I really wanted to know. I mean, I’d been looking for someone else who had a vendetta against the trifecta, and now I’d found him. Did that mean I had the answer to my question? Did that mean I finally knew who was behind the attacks?
Except the way he talked about what happened—he sounded kind of like me. And if we both thought things had gone a little too far, did it make sense for either of us to be responsible? “You’re going to destroy him at the race,” I said, hoping he would understand.
“Yes, at the race,” he said, and I thought maybe he did. “I can beat him, because he sucks, and he thinks Trevor’s truck is like, magical or something, but it isn’t, and this is the one place I can completely humiliate him on his own terms, and I’m going to do it. And that’s what I need to focus on right now.”
He sounded like me again. We both wanted Ryan to get what he deserved, but in public. Where everyone would know exactly what happened. Still, I had to be sure.
“Fair and square?” I said.
“Fair and square,” he said. “I mean it. This kind of thing can be really dangerous if you screw around.” I remembered that stupid TV show that got canceled when a bunch of dudes got trapped in their truck.
“I wasn’t sure how worried you were about things being dangerous,” I said.
He gave me a look, and now I was sure he knew what I was talking about. “I worry,” he said quietly. “More than you think.”
“I’m glad,” I said. “Good luck.” I still wasn’t as sure as I wanted to be—if it wasn’t me and it wasn’t Eric, I was at a loss to think of who was left, but I wanted to believe there could be someone else. And I really wanted to believe that the only bad thing that was going to happen to Ryan was that he was going to lose the race. I hoped it was true.
And I was looking forward to being there to see it.
RACHEL TOOK ONE LOOK AT ME as I came downstairs Saturday afternoon and sent me back upstairs to change. “Which part of ‘mudding’ did you not understand? You’re going to be covered. Find something crappier.”
I wasn’t exactly dressed fancy, but when I saw Rachel and Jimmy I understood. They were both wearing all black, with raincoats and big clunky boots—Rachel’s were rubber, Jimmy’s were combat, duh—and while I wasn’t familiar enough with Jimmy’s wardrobe to tell, I knew Rachel’s clothes were really old; I recognized her leggings as ones she usually reserved for use as pajamas. I put on an old sweatshirt, my oldest jeans, and winter boots and got the nod from Rachel.
“What exactly is happening here?” Mom asked. “You all look ridiculous.”
I didn’t point out that, as far as I was concerned, Rachel and Jimmy tended to look kind of ridiculous all the time. Not to mention that Mom was wearing her work outfit; her scrubs today were covered with little ducks.
She must have seen me looking at her. “Don’t say it,” she warned, and then turned to Jimmy. “Drive safe,” she said. “You’ve got my whole life in your car.”
Jimmy gestured as if tipping his chauffeur hat. “I’m on it, Mrs. Goldsmith.”
We still had a few days to go before Halloween, but the air was chilly, and Rachel’s hair tangled in the wind as we walked outside to Jimmy’s car. I wished I’d brought a coat, but I had a long-sleeved T-shirt on under my sweatshirt, and I hoped it would be enough. “You’re sure this is a good idea?” I asked as I got into the backseat, surprisingly clean given how much trash was in the front.
“Don’t ask me,” Jimmy said. “This was all your sister’s idea.”
“You need to get out more,” Rachel said. “And won’t your girlfriend be there?”
“We haven’t exactly formalized our relationship,” I said, but I blushed anyway. So annoying.
We passed the rest of the drive quietly, listening to Jimmy’s radio blaring out some whiny-voiced old singer wailing about Tom Sawyer over the insistent screeching of several guitars. I tried to block it out of my head by thinking about Hayden’s playlist; my favorite song on it was by Bon Iver, a band that was really just one guy, but he had this amazing high voice—not anxious and jangly like the guy singing now, but soft and throaty, almost feminine. Hayden had been pretty aggressively not into it when I’d made him listen, but he’d softened his stance over time, and I wasn’t surprised to hear a song about lost love on the mix, not after everything I’d learned.
It took about twenty minutes to get to wherever it was we were going. I wasn’t sure whether to think of it as a party or a drag race or what, but regardless, we ended up deep in a field that I was guessing had recently been stripped of soybeans—it was too flat for corn. The rain from the other day had left it nice and muddy, more so than some of the other fields we’d passed.