The Night Swim(28)
“We’re going your way. I can drop you off,” said the driver as he screwed on his fuel cap. “It’s no trouble.”
“Please, Jenny,” I begged, looking up at the ominous sky. “I don’t want to walk in a thunderstorm.”
“All right,” she relented grudgingly. She threw the beach bag into the back of the truck and I scrambled in with it. Jenny was about to climb over the side to sit with me when the driver opened the passenger door.
“There’s space here,” he said, waiting until Jenny reluctantly slipped inside.
His three friends came out of the store. The one with the gray eyes lit up a cigarette, ignoring a no-smoking sign by the fuel pumps, and sucked in the smoke like a starving man getting a long-awaited meal. The other two triumphantly removed a selection of candy from under their shirts as they scrambled into the cab next to Jenny. They’d obviously stolen their stash without Rick noticing. Jenny was stuck in the middle. The driver sat next to her and the other two boys sat between her and the front passenger door. I could tell that she wasn’t happy about being boxed in.
The one with gray eyes jumped into the back with me, staring into space as he sucked on his cigarette. Through the glass partition, I saw the two boys in front swigging from a half-empty liquor bottle as they turned on the truck engine and drove out of the gas station. One of them offered Jenny a sip directly from the bottle. She shook her head.
When we reached the road, we made a turn so fast that I catapulted against the truck, bruising my shoulder so painfully that I had to bite my tongue to stop myself from crying. The boy with the gray eyes helped me up. He told me to hold tight on to the side of the truck so I wouldn’t hurt myself again.
“Please tell him to drive slower,” I pleaded.
“I’ll tell him first chance I get. What’s your name?” he asked, trying to distract me.
“Hannah,” I answered. “What’s your name?”
“Bobby,” he said.
We stopped abruptly by the one-way bridge. We had to wait for two cars and a pickup to cross over before it was our turn. While we waited, Bobby jumped down and spoke to the driver. I don’t know what he said. They were arguing about something. He didn’t return to the truck. He walked off back toward the gas station, smoking his cigarette. A couple of times he turned around, like he was unsure about something. But he kept walking anyway. I watched him disappear in a cloud of dust as we drove off, across the bridge and up the hill toward my house.
We drove so fast that my knuckles were white from holding the side of the truck so tight. My hair was blowing across my face. I couldn’t see a thing. When we came around a turn, the truck slowed down. I was relieved to see the square smudge of our white house and the faint red of our rusty roof set among the pine trees. I expected we’d be dropped off by our front door, or at least at the start of the dirt driveway that led to our house from the main road. Instead, the truck pulled up on the main road, halfway up the hill. We still had to cross the field to get home.
“You can get out now,” the driver shouted through the partially open window. I tossed out the beach bag and jumped down. I walked over to the passenger door of the cab and waited for Jenny to get out.
She was trapped between them in the middle of the cab. She couldn’t get out unless either the driver or the other passengers climbed out first. Nobody made any attempt to move. Jenny sat stiffly as they drank from the liquor bottle, passing it to each other over her lap. It was starting to rain heavily and I was getting drenched.
I knocked on the passenger window. The boy sitting right next to it rolled down the window, leaving a narrow gap.
“Your sister says she wants to go fishing with us,” he shouted over the blustering engine. I choked from the foul stench of liquor on his breath, which wafted in my face through the narrow gap.
“Jenny hates fishing,” I said.
“I reckon by the time we’re done teaching her, fishing is going to be her favorite sport.” He smirked. “She’ll be home soon.”
With a screech, the truck sped off in the opposite direction from the sea.
18
Rachel
The radio station receptionist who’d greeted Rachel hours earlier when she’d arrived had long gone when she emerged from the soundproof room after recording the podcast. The overhead office lights were off. The only people around were recording the evening program inside a studio with a red “On Air” sign illuminated above the closed doors.
Rachel let herself out of the building. It was early evening and she was exhausted. The cumulative effects of four to five hours’ sleep each night were taking a toll. She was well aware that she needed to break the unhealthy pattern she’d fallen into since arriving in Neapolis. Too little sleep, too much fast food on the run. No regular exercise. Back home she ran four mornings a week. Since arriving in Neapolis, she hadn’t done a single proper run unless sprinting across the park to visit the City Hall archive counted as a workout.
As she crossed the road to her car, Rachel saw a letter fluttering on her windshield. She sighed. She was getting tired of Hannah’s games. Rachel tossed the letter onto the front passenger seat and put on her seat belt. She had no intention of hastily tearing the envelope open and reading the letter from behind the steering wheel as she’d done at the highway rest stop. It was time to try a new tack. To show no interest in Hannah’s letters. Perhaps that was the way to draw Hannah out so they could meet, and talk in person, rather than play this cat-and-mouse game—the purpose of which Rachel couldn’t begin to fathom.