The Unwilling(15)

It didn’t matter to the girls. They spoke across the seat as Jason disappeared inside, and I watched him through the glass. At the feedstore, the tractor started up, pulled onto a side street, and disappeared. I smelled pollen, pine resin, and hot pavement. Sara tucked a strand of hair behind an ear, and I saw the pulse at her throat, the flush of her cheek.

“Gibby, hey. I’m talking to you.”

My eyes shifted up from Sara’s skin. Tyra was leaning over the seat, a cigarette between two fingers. Lipstick made a rim on the filter. Virginia Slims. Menthol. “I’m sorry. What did you say?”

She rose up on her knees and leaned farther over the seat. “Is it true what they say about your brother?”

“Tyra, this is uncool…”

“Zip it, Sara. I’m talking to Gibby.” Sara tried again to turn the conversation, but a strange, hungry glint had kindled in Tyra’s eyes. She leaned even closer, the seat back in her ribs. “They say he killed a lot of people.”

“Do they?” I asked.

“In the war, they say. Maybe even in prison.”

“I don’t really know about that.”

“But you’re brothers, right?”

“Tyra…”

“It’s hot, Sara. Okay. The scars. The stories. I know you see it.”

“I don’t think it’s hot at all. If it’s true, it’s sad. If it’s not true, then you’re being really stupid.”

“Oh, like you wouldn’t screw him.”

Sara took off the glasses and showed me her eyes. “I’m sorry, Gibby. She gets stubborn when she’s drunk.” She looked back to Tyra. “Stubborn and ridiculous.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“Drop it, Tyra.”

“Fine. Whatever.”

Tyra spun around and slumped in the seat, reaching for the radio and moving it up the dial, passing John Denver and the Hollies before settling on Eric Clapton and turning it up. I wasn’t surprised by her feelings for my brother. I’d seen similar things in one form or another. Fascination. Loathing. Jason understood the effect, but paid little attention. He kept the dark glasses on, kept the silence.

Back at the car, he picked up on the tension. “What?”

He slid into the driver’s seat, and Tyra shook her head, arms crossed. Sara tried to smooth it over. “Party slows down without you. That’s all.”

“Well, I’m back.” He rustled around in a paper bag. “No wine, but I got these.” He handed a pint of vodka to Sara and another to Tyra, who twisted off the top and took a pull.

Sara touched her friend on the shoulder. “We all good now?”

Tyra drank again, and spoke to Jason. “Let’s drive, all right?”

Jason did as he was asked, backing away from the curb and making a slow roll through the little town. The kids watched us pass, and so did the old men. In the empty lanes beyond, the day was just as clear and bright, but the mood had shifted. Tyra sulked and drank. She put her hand in Jason’s lap, and looked at Sara as if offering a challenge no one understood or cared about.

“Here.” Sara passed the bottle, but I had little use for straight vodka. “You sure?” she asked.

“Yeah, I’m good.”

She took the bottle back, drank small sips, and trailed a hand in the hot, hard air. After that, no one really spoke. The radio played. The sun beat down. I watched the countryside, liking how large certain trees grew when they stood alone in empty fields. Around four o’clock, we came to a crossroads and a right turn that took us deeper into the countryside. Jason took his first pull on the bottle, gesturing at pine forest, shimmer, and sandy verge. “This is the edge of the sandhills. Another hour or so, then we turn back west. Everybody happy?”

Strangely, I was, and it was only in part because of Sara. Her hand was back on my leg, yes, but Jason was being very cool, and Tyra had settled into the kind of quiet resentment that was easy to ignore. I thought the day had found its second breath, that everyone was good.

I was wrong about that.

The first sign came when Tyra took another giant pull on the bottle, and Jason said, “You might want to slow down.”

She took another swallow instead, turning the radio louder.

“Do you mind?” I asked. “They’re new speakers.”

She turned them even louder. Jason studied her from the corner of his eye, then said to me, “I’ll buy you new ones if she blows them.”

“Damn right.” Tyra said it loudly, and turned her face to the wind.

After that, Jason took us south. At first, we had the road to ourselves, but we passed a pickup, an old sedan. They fell away, far behind, and the car was steady at seventy miles an hour when we crested a small hill and saw the bus a mile or two ahead. We dropped off the slope, and heat devils shimmered far out on the blacktop. Beyond the distortion, the bus seemed half-real and half-mirage, a white shape that floated above the road and solidified as Jason took us up to seventy-five and then eighty, the road perfectly straight as it cut through a world of wind and sunlight and scrub. The bus swelled as we raced up behind it, and I could feel the speed building.

“Shit.”

Jason’s foot came off the gas as we closed the gap. The car fell back, fifty yards behind the bus, then a hundred. “What’s wrong?” I asked.