Compromised (10 page)

N
icole says, “Are you finally awake?”

“Yeah. What time is it?”

“It's after three
A.M
.”

“Have you been up long?”

“No. Just since the house next door started their own nightclub. They're smoking enough fatties to get the entire state high.” Nicole and I peer out the window at the people gathered outside. “Fuck. Figures we'd have to crash next to a party house.”

I inhale and cough. My eyes burn and I cough some more. “It's like they're right here. In the house.”

Nicole moves toward a door and puts her ear to it. “Shit. They
are
in the house. In the garage. No wonder it's so fucking loud.”

I sigh. It's like we're doomed to share our sleeping arrangements with druggies. From the smell of things, we might as well have been lying on a bed of smoldering pot. I clear my throat, peering out the window. “It looks like some more people are on their way to party. Probably already stoned.”

“Why?”

“They don't even have their headlights on.”

“That's weird,” Nicole says.

Weird is becoming a new normal for me. My stomach growls. “I'm hungry.”

“That's because you puked up your breakfast.” Nicole pulls away from the window. “You probably just have secondhand munchies, anyway.”

Just as she says that, there's a heavy bang on the garage door. It sounds like metal clanging against metal. “Police!”

Nicole and I freeze.

There's a moment of silence, then the sound of a door crashing in. “Everybody down. Nobody move. You move, you die!”

I hear scrambling, glass shattering. “Fuck! Oh fuck!” somebody shouts.

Nicole and I run to the back bedroom. I manage to get
the window open and rip off the screen. A blast of icy air hits me. It smells like snow.

Heavy boots clomp down the hallway; doors are being kicked open; “Clear! Clear!” the police holler.

“Move!” Nicole throws our backpacks out the window and we climb into the black night, landing on the new-fallen snow. The cold bites through our clothes and snow reaches past our ankles. We run, scrambling over two neighboring fences, lucky there aren't any dogs, and run some more, heading toward the highway.

My throat and ears burn. But we keep running until we see the sporadic glow of headlights from the highway, blinking like fireflies in the night. Then we walk in silence, not stopping, not until the first rays of light shine down on the glistening asphalt—drifts of snow sweeping across the wet pavement.

“What are the odds we'd crash at a house used by mobsters?”

“Mobsters? More like second-rate dealers, I'd say.”

Nicole hugs her arms to her sides. “True. I mean, it wasn't even a Joey Lombardo–worthy arrest. Did you hear some of those guys? They cried like babies. Today's dealers have no style.”

All I could hear was the thrum of my heartbeat in my ears, so I wasn't too concerned about whether it was a what's-his-name–worthy arrest. Sometimes I have no idea what Nicole is talking about. “Yeah,” I finally say, and start to recite the periodic table to unravel the gnarl of anxiety in my stomach. When I get through it twice, I exhale. “This isn't going as planned,” I mutter.

“Jesus, Jeops, it's not like all of life has a plan. Today I didn't wake up and say, ‘Oh. I think I'm going to crash in the house where there's going to be a huge police raid.' You can't plan life. Shit happens.”

“Yeah. And your Plan B?” I ask.

Nicole shrugs. “That's Plan B. Plan A is the way life goes.”

She makes no sense. There's always Plan A. At least for me. I always know what I'm doing every day. I realize I've made a mistake in my other write-ups because they were too global. I need to do micro-experiments—just take it one day at a time to work toward the big happily-ever-after purpose.

So today my purpose is to find another library. Do more research, because I'm tired of the runaway part of looking for Aunt Sarah. Maybe I can get some phone numbers
to the restaurants or something instead. Risk it with the waitress. See if they'll put a manager on the line.

I look at Nicole. Now she has to be part of the purpose, too. That bugs me. I watch Nicole and wonder again if I have to worry about pills and suicide. She drums her fingers on her thighs and peels the dried skin off her lower lip until it bleeds.

Snow dusts my shoes. “You, um, okay?” I ask.

“Yeah. Just cold.” She claps her hands on her arms. “What? Why are you looking at me so weird?” She wipes off the blood. “Habit.”

“Yeah. Habit.” I'm just not wanting her to do the forever-escape thing Mom-style. “Just wondering if you're okay. That's all, I guess.”

“I guess.” Nicole sighs. “Goddamn, it's cold for November. Your lips are blue. Let's get some coffee,” Nicole says. She points to a clump of restaurants on the freeway exit. “Wherever they'll have free refills.”

“Yeah.”

We walk toward the neon signs blinking in generic restaurant windows to start off day three.

“I
think from now on, we might have to steer clear of empty houses. No more Motel 6 stuff.” Nicole slurps down her fourth cup of coffee. “Goddamn, my feet are cold.”

I swirl my spoon around the thick cup. It feels good to hold it in my hands and warm up even though everything in my intestines is screaming, “No! No!” I stare at the black liquid. “You know that caffeine is the most widely used psychostimulant in the world? It enters the body and is absorbed by the stomach and small intestine within forty-five minutes.”

“No shit. So as we speak we're getting high.” Nicole stares at her coffee for a while. “Yippeeee,” she says.

“Kind of.”

The waitress comes back. “You sure you only want coffee.”

Nicole holds her cup out. “We're sure. Gimme another hit.” I think she thinks she's being funny.

Nicole and I take turns going to the bathroom to clean up. I forgot to pack a toothbrush and toothpaste, and my teeth feel way past fuzzy. I look in the mirror and realize I look as bad as I smell.

When I get back to the table, our coffee cups are full. My head spins, but I slurp it down. It's like this weird take-it-when-you-can-get-it instinct has set in. “Next round, let's ask for decaf,” I say. “Maybe it won't make me feel so sick.”

Nicole nods. I pretend not to notice that all the baskets of jams and butters are conspicuously empty. In a way I'm glad Nicole takes care of the pseudodelinquency stuff. I go to pay for the coffee when the waitress says, “This one's on me, sweetie.”

“Thanks.” I shove the crumpled bills back in my pocket.

“Go home,” she says, and slips me some saltines.

That's what I'm doing. I'm going home. At least that's what this whole plan is about. I rub the locket between my
thumb and forefinger. Nicole and I grab our backpacks and leave the restaurant, heading down the highway.

“Well, we can at least talk to pass the time,” Nicole says. Saltine crumbs gather in the corners of her mouth. Another hour has passed without us getting picked up. “Are you peeing again?”

I squat behind some shrubs. “It's a diuretic.”

“It's a what?”

“Caffeine. It makes you pee.”

“Well you don't see me peeing every ten minutes.”

“I dunno. Maybe I'm more sensitive.”

“Yeah. I'm sure I've built up a high tolerance to caffeine.” Nicole sighs.

“I hate drip drying.”

“Well, it's not like we can afford three-ply Charmin. Just shake a little.”

I air dry as long as I can stand the cold down there and join her on the side of the road.

“So?” Nicole asks. “Let's talk.”

“I'm listening.”

Nicole stops. “Jesus, Jeopardy. We have a billion miles plus to go and I'm not going to do it in silence. The days are long enough as is.” She glares at me. “If you're not
spouting science facts, you don't say anything. At all. Fuck, it's annoying.”

“I just don't talk a lot. Not about the stuff you'd be interested in, anyway.” Plus it's only a little over two hundred fifty miles. A billion is a bit hyperbolic.

“Like you would know what I'd be interested in.” Nicole bites her lower lip and mutters, “I'm not stupid. I can actually hold a decent conversation.” She turns and keeps walking. She is so exhausting.

“Okay, okay. Sorry. It's just I've never been one of those best-friends-forever people, you know?” Most people don't get that it's nice to be quiet—that every second doesn't have to be filled with hot air.

I listen to the crunch of our shoes on the gravel. “I've never actually had a best friend,” Nicole finally says. “I mean, how do people get to be best friends, anyway? You know all those BFF necklaces and shit like that? I never got it.”

I puff on my cold fingers. “It's actually under debate.”

“What?” Nicole asks.

“Friendship,” I say. “Darwin said it had to do with self-interest. People are attracted to each other based on what they can get out of each other. A scientist named George Williams, though, came up with the theory that friendship
in the most genuine sense aids in the process of natural selection because it makes people healthier and all that stuff. I think it's probably a little bit of both, you know?” I clap my hands on my thighs, trying to get my legs to warm up, too. “And all those friendship gimmicks—well, that's pretty much marketing. Personally, I think it's pretty crappy to make people feel obligated to express friendship with things. It doesn't seem congruent with the essence of the idea.”

Nicole pulls out a cigarette and laughs. “You're about as big a geek as they come.”

I swallow and walk ahead. For some reason that really stung.

Nicole follows me, puffing and inhaling carcinogens until the butt almost singes her skin. “C'mon, Jeopardy. I didn't really mean it in a bad way. It was actually pretty cool to hear about friendship like that.” Nicole flicks her cigarette onto the highway. Orange ashes die and dance on the snow.

“Hey!” I say.

“Ah shit,” she says, and scoops up the butt from the snow. “I guess it just takes getting used to you. The way you talk. Really.”

I'll give her that. I've always been good at science, bad at people.

“So,” Nicole says, “we don't have to be BFf or anything. But maybe we can talk a little more. Just to pass the time. It's colder than fuck out here and it'd be nice to have a distraction.”

We walk down the road for about twenty minutes before Nicole stops. She turns to me. “So here are the rules: No questions. We pick a theme of the day and just tell what we want or think about it.”

“Fine by me.” I keep walking. “What's today's theme?” I feel like we're in kindergarten.

“I dunno. You pick. I'll pick tomorrow.”

I pause and think about kindergarten. “How about like doing a show-and-tell. We can talk about something we have with us. That's easy enough.”

Nicole nods. “Sounds good.”

“You go first. Whoever picks the theme goes second.”

“Good rule.” Nicole pulls out a ratty map of the United States from her coat pocket—kept in a tattered plastic bag. It's on top of a pile of postcards, a playing card, and the prescription pill bottle. At least now I know where she keeps the pills. Plan B. I shake the thought away and look
at the map that Nicole shows me; the creases are paper thin and some spots have been taped up. The edges are curled in and fuzzy.

Nicole smiles. A real smile. Her eyes, too.

I hold out my hand, and Nicole hands me the map. I'm careful not to pull on it, sure it'll disintegrate. There are green dots on different cities.

“What are the dots?” I ask.

She points to the postcards. “They're places my dad's lived and traveled. Here's Chicago.” She points to a green dot. “That's where he is now. See?” She points to the postcard that says “You'd love it here” in scrawled man writing.

“Why don't you go live with him?”

She shrugs. “He's kind of hiding, I think. He works for some people, you know?” She smiles, emphasizing the “some people.”

“Sure,” I guess. I look at the postcard. “It's dated last week.”

She nods. “Just got it. It's like a sign I got this just when you—”

“Is that where you want to go? Chicago?” I ask.

“Anywhere's better than Reno,” she says. “But, yeah, Chicago's good.”

“Is this place better than Reno?” I look down the highway and its scattered cars and trucks. Black exhaust billows from the tailpipe of an old Chevy. We cough.

“Even here,” she says, looking around.

I motion to the postcards in the bag. “They're all from your dad?”

“Yep.” She seems proud about it. I would be, too, I guess. Real letters from somebody who cares.

“What do they say?”

“Postcard stuff,” she says.

Pretty vague.

“What about your mom?” I ask.

“No questions,” she says, her eyes getting dark. “What's your thing?”

“Okay.” I think for a bit, then unclasp the locket and open it up. “That's my mom,” I say, pointing to the girl on the right. “And that's my aunt. Her name's Sarah. I don't know if she's alive or dead. I don't remember her. I don't know if she even cares about me. But the only way to find out is by following this stupid box of clues, starting with Boise.”

“Wouldn't it just be easier to call?”

“Complicated. That's what I was looking up at the
library. She's got a different last name—Jones. About as generic in the name department as they come. So…until I figure out a better way to find her via the net, Boise's my best shot. At least somebody there will know her. Plus I needed to get away.”

“Don and Cherry?” Nicole asks.

“Yeah. They kinda freaked me out.”

Nicole laughs. “They're not really so bad. Just a bit over the top when it comes to God, Jesus, and all that salvation shit.”

“Did you live with them?”

“Nah. But I know a couple of kids who did. One got sent back to Kids Place because she peed on their family Bible.”

“Oooh,” I say.

Nicole shrugs and looks at the picture again. “You look a lot like her—like both of them. So what happened to your mom?”

I close the locket and put it back around my neck. “No questions. Your rule.” I don't feel like playing the 101-ways-your-mom-can-die game. My head feels fuzzy and throbs from the coffee overdose.

Nicole nods. “No questions.”

We continue walking. “Well, that killed about five fucking minutes.” Nicole kicks a rusty can off the side of the road. “Christ. It's only nine twenty-two.”

I sigh.

Nicole shrugs. “You think we'll get a ride sometime?”

“Yeah. Sometime.”

“Well, stick out your thumb, because, Goddamn, it's cold out here.”

We don't have to wait long. A lady with Coke-bottle glasses picks us up in an old station wagon.