How to Disappear(54)

“I’m not the most trusting guy.”

Her face falls. I know I have to fix this fast, but all I have room for in my brain is getting her out of here and processing that she’s been talking about me, that when she goes even more missing than she is right now, somebody out there will know God knows what about me. At some point, someone—Olivia most likely—is going to put two and two together and get four, and this won’t be good for me.

I just want to get her out of here and into my car before we have company.

We’re leaving now, and we’re leaving fast.





55


Cat


It’s stars. And it’s the middle of the night. And it’s romantic.

The affection-binging camel is a glutton for this stuff.

Plus, how bad could one more night be?

The gym socks slither down my ankles.

J says, “Wait here. I’ll get the car.”

“I think I can manage to walk two blocks without breaking.”

He grins the hot grin. “Said the agoraphobic wreck.”

Really? He tells me his secrets. He comes apart. I stick him back together, plus pie and a lot of making out. But now it’s three thirty in the morning, and he isn’t being very nice.

“I never said I was a wreck.”

“You came very close.”

“Not that close.”

He seems nervous, looking around my room, pulling the curtains over the bed closed tighter. Switching off lights.

“If you’re looking for evidence of all my other boyfriends, I had a half hour to hide everything.” Exactly one half hour. J is punctual.

“Can we go?”

“You invited me. Aren’t you supposed to be all happy I’m coming?”

He puts his arm around me. It’s so rigid that stretched out, it could be a battering ram. Which makes me feel kind of secure. I might need a battering ram.

But he was so smiley before. After we changed the subject. After we buried the whole conversation about his horrible dad in three boxes’ worth of baked blueberries and lightly whipped cream. He ate seconds. He had a purple tongue from all the berries.

God, I don’t want to leave him. Have to. Don’t want to.

“Can we please go?” he says. He takes the grocery bag and drags me out the door.

All the way to the car, he’s bent over me like a live raincoat with a hood. My head is under his chin for part of the walk, and then he’s moving from one side of me to the other on the sidewalk, like he can’t make up his mind.

I say, “You’re acting kind of strange.”

He says, “Hurry up.”

We drive through student housing, south of the college, and then pull onto the freeway. Then off. Then on again.

I say, “Do you even know where we’re going?”

“It’s a surprise.”

Then it occurs to me that maybe this is the big seduction scene.

A car that smells like peanut butter sandwiches so isn’t what I had in mind.

He reaches behind my head and weaves his fingers through my hair. “We could be in the mountains in two hours. It’ll be awesome.”

Except he’s changed directions twice.

I say, “Are you all right? Listen, if you’d rather go to a motel instead of the mountains, I might be open to it.”

One last slight fling.

Why not?

I know why not, but I halfway don’t care.

“You might be?” he says. “I have to keep outwitting you to hang on to my virtue.”

“Stop teasing me.”

“I’m sorry.” He sounds kind of shocked, actually. “You want to go to a motel with me?”

Shock is not what I was after. “That might not mean what you think it means. You know, fool around a little. Not conceive your first-born child. Sack out. Beats going into a ditch when the driver falls asleep.”

“So fooling around with me . . . or whatever . . . would be a step up from being in a car wreck?”

“Possibly two steps. Even three.” I have no idea what I’m doing to freak him out, but he’s driving like a crazy person. Perfect speed limit, checking his rearview constantly. First we were pointed south, then west, and now we’re pointed toward the mountains.

I say, “We could park and eat sandwiches. We could wait a while. Maybe you’ll feel better.”

“Wait for what?” He’s shouting at me.

“Don’t yell at me! It’s not like I’m questioning your manhood. Do you want me to drive?”

He shouts, “I’m fine!” Looking straight ahead, he says, “I need to talk to you. Let’s get out of here.”

We need to talk??? This is so not what I had in mind.

“Just so you know, you can’t break up with people after you drive them two hours from home. It’s bad form. If that’s what this is.” I’m rethinking my stealth breakup by disappearance. If this is what breaking up with him feels like.

“How can we break up if we were never together?”

This feels like a blow to the head until I remember I’m the one who said we weren’t together in the first, second, and third place.

“Are you teasing me?” I say. “Because I thought all was forgiven. Only then you call me at three in the morning because you’re pissed off and you want a sandwich.”