past her told her to “settle down.”
“I never wanted to hurt you,” Tim said. He hadn’t shaved that morning; she could see the pale stubble on his cheeks.
“Well, you’re doing a good job of it,” she said. “What does she have that I don’t have?”
“It’s not you, CeeCee. It’s me,” he said. “You’re wonderful and I just … it’s completely my fault.”
“Damn straight,” she said.
“I’m really, really sorry.” He put his hands on her shoulders, but she raised her arms quickly to cast him off. “Can you cry?” he asked.
She put her hands to her face and let her shoulders heave.
“That’s better,” Tim said. “I’d like to think that losing me would tear you apart. Like losing you would do to me.” He pulled her toward him. “Okay, now I’ll comfort you tenderly for one last time.”
She buried her head on his shoulder. “Oh, Tim, I don’t like this,” she said.
“I know, babe.” He patted her back in the halfhearted manner of a lover who’s already moved on. “Me, neither. But you and I know what’s really still between us. Come over tomorrow night, okay? Just be sure to show up after dark so no one sees you. And come around to the back door.”
“Okay,” she said.
He pulled away from her. “Now look pissed off before you go back in,” he said.
“Pissed off isn’t good enough.” She wiped her dry eyes with the back of her hand. “I’m going for complete devastation.”
“Don’t forget who loves you.” He winked at her.
“Ditto,” she said, and without thinking, she drew back her hand and let it fly, her palm connecting with his stubbled cheek in a slap that turned every head on the street.
He looked at her, wide-eyed with shock as he raised his own hand to his crimson cheek.
“Oh, my God, Tim, I’m sorry.” She tried to reach for him, but he backed away.
“That’s it,” he said. “I’ll put your things out on the curb for you.”
She watched him walk up Franklin Street, losing him quickly in the crowd of students. She looked down at her palm. What had gotten into her? And why had hitting him felt so good?
She was stoic once inside the restaurant, as she pretended to tamp down the raw emotions of a woman scorned. Ronnie was solicitous and comforting, and CeeCee knew that she and their manager, George, were talking about her behind her back. She hated being the object of their pity and she hated that they now viewed Tim as a selfish womanizer. But she knew this was only the beginning of her necessary lies.
Chapter Nine
I wish I could see you now, at sixteen. You’re an amazing twelve-year-old, so I can only imagine you’ll get more amazing as you get older. Yesterday, when the nurse tried to keep you out of my room because I was so sick, I could hear you talking to her through the closed door. You told her, “That’s MY mother, not yours. I’ll take care of her.” Even though I had my head over the basin, it made me laugh. And it let me know how strong you are and that you’re going to be just fine without me.
How did you ever get so brave?
EVEN THOUGH THEY WERE ONLY A FEW MILES OUTSIDE OF Chapel Hill, the tension in Tim’s van was already so thick CeeCee could feel it on her skin. They still had a good hour and a half before they reached New Bern. The bucket seat felt lumpy to her, pressing against her back in the wrong places. Marty sat on a beach chair turned sideways behind Tim’s seat. He held a hand-drawn map on one knee and a beer bottle on the other, and he and Tim had been arguing about which roads to take since pulling out of their driveway. She wanted to tell them to shut up; if they couldn’t agree on something as simple as how to get to New Bern, how were they going to make the more critical decisions that lay ahead of them in the next couple of days? But she said nothing, afraid of making Tim any more agitated than he already was. They were on edge, all of them. These were their last few hours as law-abiding citizens.
The mattress in the back of the van was covered with suitcases, duffel bags and backpacks. It had taken Tim a full day to pack and she’d felt sorry for him as she watched him weigh what to take and what to leave behind. He and Marty would never be returning to the mansion. She, on the other hand, brought only a couple of changes of clothes and her toothbrush. That was all she expected to need. Three days, max, Tim had told her. Then Andie would be safe, the governor’s wife returned to hearth and home, and CeeCee could go back to Chapel Hill.
She was in charge of the cassette tapes on this trip. The Eagles, of course. Creedence and Queen and Chicago and old Stones. None of it very soothing.
“Turn that crap off,” Marty snapped at her when Queen started singing “We are the Champions.”
“Don’t talk to her that way,” Tim said.
“It’s all right,” she said, pressing the eject button. “What do you want to hear, Marty?”
“I don’t know.” He sounded desolate all of a sudden. “Stones, I guess.”
She put in the cassette, and “Under my Thumb” filled the van.
“Turn it down,” Tim said.
She did. She would do whatever she was told to keep peace in the van.
Tim turned onto a highway, and Marty grabbed his shoulder from behind. “I told you not to go this way!” he shouted.
“Let go of me.” Tim’s knuckles were white on the steering wheel. “It’s a straight shot from here, Marty.”
“Stop it, you two!” she said. “We have to pull together, okay? Y’all told me this would be easy and now you’re at each other’s throats.”
The two men shut up, probably stunned into silence by the fact that she’d confronted them more than by her request to stop fighting. No one said a word for nearly an hour. She put on the Eagles when the Stones tape was finished, then tried to get comfortable as she watched the terrain grow flatter, broken up by miles and miles of tall pines. The small houses were acres apart from one another. Some of them were well maintained, with white wrought-iron railings on the front steps and gazing globes in their yards. Others had sheet plastic over the windows, sloppily patched roofs and weedy, knee-high lawns.
“We’re in the boonies, boys and girls.” Marty finally broke the silence.
“The boonier, the better,” Tim said.
Marty leaned forward between the bucket seats and pointed to an opening in a grove of pines. “Turn here,” he said. She could smell tobacco and beer on his breath.
Tim turned onto a narrow one-lane road.
“Now, watch for a road off to the right,” Marty said. “It’s about a mile down, I think.”
He knew the couple who
