Go ahead and shoot me. I’m not scared.”
He laughed, yanked the gun out and waved it in the air. “Damn gun doesn’t work. It’s just a prop, man.” He pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. It was jammed. “Scared you, didn’t I? See, I told you I wouldn’t shoot you. Look here, now. It’s almost over. He’s turning down that dirt road.”
She looked to where the Datsun was turning, west where the sky hung in purple and pink waves. The gun doesn’t work, she thought; she’d driven all those miles for a cute guy with a smile and a gun that didn’t work.
The Datsun slowed, took another turn, and Katy thought to just plow straight ahead to get to anywhere but where they were going. Jesse was shaking with quiet laughter. “All you got to do is raise a gun to somebody’s face. They put the bullets in it. They see their heads blown off. All you got to do is raise the gun. Devil works likes a magician, man, half the game is sleight of hand. Most people. You believers. You do all the rest.” He waved the gun in the air. “This is what you get for believing in things.”
She kept driving down the narrow gravel road, saw a field of fallen trees as if a great wind had leveled the land. She remembered she was in hurricane country. Every year the coastal towns prepared for the seasonal storms that spiraled out at sea, gathering up strength like a fist rising to slam the coast.
She scanned the horizon for any sign of something she could know. Then she saw it. The radio tower, just a few miles away maybe. If she could get to that tower, she’d know where she was, and Randy’s house was only a few miles from that. She sighed. She’d be all right. The tower, there it was back there, a sign that she wasn’t as lost as she had thought. She followed the car down another gravel road, but it curved as if it might go someplace. She kept watching the land for a sign of a house, a tractor, a powerline, anything that looked like someone could be around. The road kept curving, surrounded by nothing but thickets and brambles and trees.
“Where the fuck is he going?” Jesse leaned forward in his seat.
Katy said, “I thought we were going to his grandmother’s house.” But she didn’t believe the words any more than she believed in that hundred-dollar bill, which was probably a fake. She looked out at the land, thought the trees looked familiar. Then she saw a house. A little brick house. Once they stopped the truck, she could run to that. Driving on, she saw an old tire on the ground, thought maybe she’d seen that before, but in the country people were always just leaving their old stuff scattered in the fields: tires. washing machines, old cars. At least with all this junk, people couldn’t be too far away. And she could run. She’d been a real good runner back in school.
Jesse leaned out the window, looked around. He yelled, “You’re driving in fucking circles, man. I thought you knew where you were going.” He sat back in his seat, kept his eyes on the Datsun. “The fucker is stoned,” he said. “That’s another reason I hate riding with him. When’s he’s stoned, he doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing.” He gave her that smile. “Don’t you worry. He’ll get us there. It’ll be all right.”
The Datsun eased to a stop, then made a quick turn down a little road she could hardly see for the trees.
“See,” Jesse said. “We’re getting there.” The rutted road led them through thickets and overhanging branches so thick she was sure there would be nothing but more trees and dirt and rocks where they were going. And the crying, that stinging ache, rose behind her eyes. The sky was shrinking to a thin patch above. She looked left, right. All she could see was trees. She wished she’d paid attention to where the sun was when she’d seen that house. She hoped the guys would do what they wanted and leave. She knew they’d take her truck. Billy had warned her to keep the doors locked. She glanced at the man sitting in her truck. He might rape her. But he might be too stoned for that. If he did, she’d go still so he wouldn’t hurt her. And when she got her chance, her first chance, she’d run. She’d take whatever he did, play along, but at the first chance, she’d run. She might have to run a while. But she’d live. She’d been through worse than this. She’d live. She’d get to Randy. Maybe the whole point of this was to get to Randy, who’d give her the nerve to leave Billy behind. If she could be with Randy, she could get over Frank. There was always a reason for things. It just took time to understand. She’d never really wanted the safe guy. Poor Billy. He loved her. She wished she could want the safe guy. If she’d wanted the safe guy, she wouldn’t be stuck in a truck with a guy who’d do God knew what if he got the chance. But she was stronger than he could guess. She was. And smart and fast, and she would do whatever it took to get out of this mess alive.
Sacramental Things
Livy Baines used her ring finger to dab night cream on the tissue-thin skin of her eyelids; they were bluish, sunken a little, but not as bad as they were for most women her age. She worked gently around to the crow’s feet, then touched at the lines beginning to form underneath her eyes. She stepped back from the mirror and saw a face that was growing to look more like her own mother, who was buried down in Suck Creek, than like her daughter, Katy. Livy glanced at the clock. It was going on midnight. She imagined Katy tending bar now, pressing cold beers into the hands of men who smiled at the simple sight of her girl. Yes, she was a pretty girl. Everyone said so. Livy tried to remember when she’d crossed the line to looking more like her mother than her daughter, who was tall and lean with thick, curly dark hair, sapphire eyes, and a smile that made every other man who met her fall in love. She could have been a model with that face and that long, slender frame. People used to say the same thing about Livy. She looked at herself in the mirror. Not bad for her age, just an older, more filled-out version of Katy. But the last time she’d had a facial, the woman had asked if she’d considered getting rid of her “eleven.”
“My what?” she asked. The girl was referring to those two creases in the middle of her forehead that ran straight down between her eyebrows. Everyone was getting them Botoxed now. Livy leaned toward the mirror, pressed her fingertips at her temples, lifted the skin back. She did look a little younger that way. But Lawrence would have a fit at the waste of such money, and Katy, she’d just shake her head and laugh and say, “Whatever makes you happy, Mom.”
How long ago was it those boys had thought they were sisters at that Mexican restaurant? Livy had laughed, thanked them for the compliment, but she’d figured they where just throwing out flattery to get near Katy. She played along, bought a round of beers for the boys, and they all laughed and talked, the boys’ eyes on Katy, but polite, as if they knew that to keep Katy’s attention, they’d have to be nice to her mom. Those were the good years, years between being married, years when she had Katy in a life where they could be more like friends than mother and daughter. Livy had gotten a job at an insurance firm, and Katy had gone to college. On a good track, it seemed. Then Katy met Frank, who was nothing but bad, and Livy got to where she couldn’t drive for the anxiety attacks. She looked in the mirror, figured it was around then that the “eleven” started digging into her face. Frank was a coke dealer. Even though Katy swore he had inherited his money, Livy knew the truth. She’d stayed with Joe all those years to keep Katy in private school, to get her ready for college. And there she was, dropping out of college and living on a boat with a coke dealer. Those times put the years on her face.
Then she met Lawrence at her shrink’s office, of all things. She was signing in at the reception desk when he strolled into the waiting room as if he owned the place, the kind of walk she liked in a man. He stopped, stood still in the middle of the room, and gave her a nod that was more than a nod, something more like a bow and a smile that said, How can a woman like you have any kind of problem that would bring her to this place? She couldn’t remember what she said to him, just remembered the warmth, the twinkling in his eyes. She couldn’t remember the last time a man had looked at her like that. It turned out he was dating the shrink then, and now he was married to Livy. It was one of those see-it-got-to-have-it
