How to Disappear(45)

He looks relieved.

I feel miserable. Resent that this wedding is cutting into my temporary true romance because I can’t do this again anytime soon. Gainesville, Florida next. Or maybe Pullman, Washington.

I hate this. I hate that he can’t know Actual Me. Hate that I can’t go sneaking out with him in Cotter’s Mill. Take him to a party on the lake where Liv and Jody get to look him over, and Summer embarrasses herself with shameless flirting.

I hate how not-normal and approaching expiration this and everything else is. I hate that I can’t keep him. I hate everything about this.

Then he hands me a box.

“What’s in here?”

“No big deal—it’s a phone.”

“You can’t go getting me phones!”

“What if I’m up in South Dakota and the only thing to talk to for miles is a cow?”

“You got me this because talking to me is better than talking to livestock?”

“Don’t forget phone sex.”

“What?”

“That was a joke.”

It’s a cute green burner. Expensive for a prepaid.

I want to hurl myself around his neck.

He kind of grabs me, followed by neck-wrapping.

Sweet.

Sweet sweet sweet sweet sweet.

I really like this guy.

Damn.





47


Jack


This is a bad idea.

I don’t look like the prep guy who shows up at Yucca Valley Correctional with clockwork regularity because his mother makes him anymore. I look like Jeremiah from El Molino, unshaven and scraggly haired, a cross between a hipster and someone who’s been camping for too long.

Don says, “Nice hair, Jacqueline.”

“Nice jumpsuit. You have something to tell me you couldn’t say on the phone?”

Don’s eyes narrow. “You’re here to dance like Pinocchio. Some people need to see me pull your strings.” His head bobs as if he’s inviting me to stand up. “So dance.”

I don’t move. “You’re the one in the cage, not me.”

“Don’t be such a smug bitch! You think you disappear in the middle of this, ditch my car, and nothing happens?” His voice is rising. He glances across the prison yard. “Try to look like a guy getting a message. Is that too hard for you? You don’t want to be sorry.”

A you’ll be sorry from Don is his most reliable promise. He saves it for special occasions.

“Fine!” I sound just like Nicolette with the defiant little fine of the defeated person: not as much fun when you’re the one who’s defeated. “Everybody knows you made me come. Take a bow. Can I go now?”

Don says, “Are you stupid?”

I look around the yard, wanting to figure out who he’s trying to impress.

“Words need to start coming out of your mouth, Jack-off,” Don leans in. “And when you get around to doing this thing, make sure it’s an accident.”

This thing I’ve been pushing further and further into the realm of the theoretical, parsing out directions I could go as if they were equidistant points on a compass. But here’s the reality: I’m taking concrete instructions from a man I visualize with slime dribbling out of the corners of his mouth when he speaks.

“That’s why you wanted me to take your gun? So I could stage an accidental shooting? Clever plan, Don.”

“Just finish her.”

For a second, I hope she’s on a bus out of El Molino right now, heading for somewhere I’ll never find her. Then the thought of never seeing her again makes me feel something close to panic. Followed immediately by the image of my mother’s house burned to the ground.

“Jesus! I’ll just make her disappear. She’ll go on a hike and whoops—something like that. Does that float your boat?”

“It’s not my boat you have to worry about.” Don looks around as if he’s still trying to spot someone. “It’s Yeager’s boat. And you’d better float it good.”

I’m making every muscle in my face stand down, a skill well honed when kids wanted to meet up after school to see who was the badder ass. I knew I could break them in half but declined, seemingly impassive, afraid of what I’d do to them if I said yes.

If Don sees me panic, he’s right, I’m his bitch. I try to sound as much like him as I can manage. “How much longer does this puppet show have to take?”

With an intensity that spews up through his rage, he says, “I flap my lips, you nod like a good little boy.”

I start nodding.

“Not that much!”

“Fine.” I stop and sit there glaring at him while he tells me the plot of a science-fiction movie he got to see for good behavior. I nod at appropriate intervals until the buzzer goes off and visitors are ushered out.

Just before he stands up, he says so quickly that it’s almost as if it didn’t happen, “The thing with Mom. I don’t know how long I can hold them off. They’re not nice guys. You’ve got to get this done.”

“Don!”

He’s on his way out before I can even get a read on his face. “Have a good one,” he calls to me casually, as if he didn’t just tell me his friends are going to execute my mother.