Infinity + One (16 page)

THE RIDE THAT should have taken three and a half hours took almost six. We rolled into Portsmouth after the sun had already gone down. Shayna lived in West Portsmouth, across the Scioto River, and she said you could still see what was left of the old Ohio-Erie Canal, but it was pretty overgrown, and in the dark it was impossible to see. I was too tired to care much about seeing any sights anyway. The baby had slept most of the way, which probably meant a sleepless night for her mother, but it had made the drive more bearable. Katy and Shayna had dozed off and on too, but I stayed awake with Finn, watching the Ohio landscape drift by, pondering the twists and turns of fate and fame, wondering how it all shook out.

We’d stopped once for a bathroom break and food, which I insisted on buying. Shayna let me. I could see there were things she wanted to say, but for whatever reason held back. With Shayna directing us the last few miles, we finally found ourselves in front of the Harris home at a little after six o’clock that night. I helped carry kids and luggage into the tidy rambler while Finn unchained the Fiesta from behind the Blazer. I referred to it as the “party in the back.” Get it? Fiesta? Yeah. Nobody else thought it was very funny either.

Katy was asleep by that time, and though she was too old to be carried to her bed, and it was still early in the evening, I scooped her up, cradling her slight figure in my arms, knowing that my tenderness for her was partially due to her illness. Minnie’s illness. I’d even slipped and called her Minnie once on the long drive. She’d looked at me blankly, and I’d stuttered and corrected myself immediately, but Finn had shot me a look. He didn’t miss much, but I really wished he’d missed that.

Shayna pointed me toward Katy’s room, and I swung through the opening, laid her on her bed, and untied her sneakers before I pulled a blanket up around her shoulders. I straightened, took a couple of steps back, and noticed the posters on the wall were mostly of me. Weird. And kind of cool. I found a black, felt-tip marker among a handful of colors protruding from a tin pencil can on a dresser littered with crayons and paints and drawings. I went around the room and autographed all of the posters.

“Bonnie Rae?”

I turned, and Katy was looking at me sleepily, trying to keep her eyes open. “I don’t want you to leave.”

“I don’t want you to leave.” Minnie had said the very same thing the night before I’d left for Nashville the first time. I had clung to her and she had squeezed me back.

“Then I won’t,” I’d said simply. “I’ll stay here. There’s always next year.”

She’d sighed and let me go, pushing away from me in our double bed. “No. I’m just feeling a little sad. You need to go, Bonnie. You’re going to win. I can feel it. Then you’ll make a million dollars, and we’ll travel all over the world together.”

I was feeling sad too. Scared. I’d never spent a single night away from Minnie. Not in all our fifteen years. “Can’t you come with me?” I’d asked. I knew the answer. We’d been over it.

“You know there’s only enough money for you and Gran to go.” And she’d been too sick to go. She’d been too sick for me to leave her too.

“Can’t you stay?” Katy’s voice. Not Minnie’s. Katy was trying to sit up, and I crouched down beside her bed.

“Where would I sleep?” I tried to smile. “I can’t fit in your bed. And what about Finn? I don’t think Riley wants to give up her crib.”

Katy snickered at the thought of Finn in Riley’s crib.

“You and Finn must be as tired as we are,” Shayna said from the doorway, and Katy and I looked up at her.

“Look, Mommy. Bonnie Rae signed all my posters.” Katy pointed at the walls.

“Uh, yeah.” Shayna had that same dazed look she’d gotten when I told Katy who I was. “What . . . I mean . . . how, I mean, I know it’s not my business. But, what are you . . . doing?”

“I figured I should make them valuable in case you wanted to hawk them.” I felt a little stupid, suggesting my signature was something special, but Katy seemed pleased.

“No! I don’t mean the posters. What are you and Finn doing tonight? You should stay here. The couch in the family room folds out into a bed.”

“Yeah! Yeah! You and I can sleep in the family room and have a sleepover!” Katy’s eyes were huge, and she no longer looked the slightest bit drowsy. She was up and out of bed immediately.

“Slow down, Katy. You know you get lightheaded,” Shayna said.

I thought I heard Finn come in the front door. He was probably standing there, just inside the entry feeling awkward and not daring to venture any further.

“And I don’t think Finn, Bonnie, and you can all fit in the fold-out bed. A little crowded, sis, don’t you think?” Shayna was trying to discourage the group sleepover, and Katy wasn’t hearing any of it.

“I have to pee! Don’t leave, Bonnie, okay?”

I stood and headed for the door, wanting to reassure Finn. Wanting to make sure he didn’t leave without me.

“I saw something about you and Finn on Entertainment Buzz or one of those shows at the hospital,” Shayna blurted out as I moved to walk past her. “I was just flipping through channels. I stopped when I saw they were talking about you, thinking that Katy would want to watch, but she’d fallen asleep. They said you’d been taken, or something. They tried to sound serious, but mostly they all just sounded really excited. I felt really sad for you, and I was glad Katy was asleep. It would have upset her to think you were missing.”

“Leave it to E-Buzz to get it all wrong,” I said and forced a laugh. “Finn didn’t take me, obviously. I think you can see that I’m fine. And he’s a good guy.”

“So you’re . . . okay?”

“Tell me this, Shayna. Do I seem like I’m in trouble? Does Finn seem like the kind of guy who steals pop stars for ransom?”

“No,” she said with a smirk. “Actually, if I had to guess, I would say you’d kidnapped him.”

“Shayna, you’re a smart woman,” I said, patting her shoulder. And she laughed.

“Why did you help us?” Her laughter faded, and her eyes were suddenly bright, like she wanted to cry.

“Because you needed help.” I shrugged. “And my sister had leukemia too.” Damn it all. I felt emotion rise in my eyes too.

“Finn?” Katy ran out of the bathroom and shot past us in the hallway, in search of Finn, and I followed her gratefully, not wanting to continue the sensitive conversation with her mother.

“Finn?” Katy shouted again, and ran to the front door. Finn sat on the front stoop. I’d guessed wrong. He hadn’t even come inside, though Shayna had left the door propped wide open, welcoming him.

“Finn! Bonnie and I are sleeping on the fold-out bed. We’re having a sleepover. You’re sleeping in my bed.”

And that was that. We were staying. You didn’t say no to a kid like Katy. Finn just closed his eyes briefly and avoided my gaze, but he seemed resigned to the fact that it made as much sense as anything else, and when Shayna thanked him profusely and produced a pair of army boots that were almost new, claiming they were too big for her husband, he accepted them with quiet dignity. I too had noticed his boots were worn out and his feet kept getting wet, and I had made my own plans to replace them when I could. Maybe it was better this way. Finn didn’t seem to like it when I paid for him.

Shayna started dinner—spaghetti—and Finn left for a while, claiming he needed to get some exercise. I resisted the urge to tag along as much as I longed to stretch my legs and match my stride to his. I was pathetic and needy, and we both knew it, and I didn’t like that I felt that way where he was concerned. Plus, I really thought Finn might explode if I asked to go with him. He threw on a pair of basketball shorts, a T-shirt, and some worn running shoes and was out the door, his hair pulled off his face, his expression stony.

He was gone for an hour, but when he finally came through the door, dripping with sweat, he looked a little less explosive than he had before. Still, even sweaty and ornery, he was impressive to look at. Shayna tried not to stare as she informed him of the clean towels in the bathroom and invited him to help himself to the shower. It had been a while since there had been a man in the house, obviously, and Shayna looked at me apologetically, as if she were having lascivious thoughts and felt guilty about them. She bit her lip and turned away, and I felt bad for her once again. Shayna Harris was juggling a lot of crap. And shit is incredibly difficult to juggle. No matter how hard you try, it still falls apart and slips through your fingers, and even when you’re managing to keep it aloft, it still stinks.

After dinner, with Finn’s permission, I lightly sanded his old guitar, and Katy and I drew little flowers all over it, intertwining the blossoms with curling long green vines. We painted the blossoms in different shades of pink, using some of the little tole paints on Katy’s dresser. When we were done, Katy and I both signed our names on the back, and Shayna applied a clear overcoat to seal our efforts. I could tell she was one of those crafty ladies that was good at making tin cans and weeds look pretty.

Finn told Katy she could keep it, that it would be a collector’s item someday. I don’t think Katy knew what he meant, but I hoped Shayna did, and told her if she needed the money she shouldn’t be afraid to sell it. I would send Katy a new one to replace it. I also left three thousand dollars in her cookie jar. I was frustrated that I couldn’t leave more because I had so much more. I just couldn’t
access
more at the moment, and I needed to make sure I still had some cash to get myself and Finn to Vegas.

I didn’t know why I needed to get to Vegas so badly. There was nothing there for me. But I was focused on it like it was the ribbon strung across a finish line, as if the journey itself held the answers to my questions. And I believed if I could just have until Vegas—just a few days is all—I would figure out how to live again.

COULD YOU FALL in love with a voice? Finn shut his eyes and listened from the little room, lying in the little bed, covered in a little pink spread, surrounded by life-size pictures of Bonnie Rae Shelby wearing skimpy outfits and long, blonde curls, making love to a microphone. Katy was requesting one song after another, and Bonnie Rae was giving the sweet ten-year-old a private concert . . . in her pajamas. Talk about Make-A-Wish.

You would think he would stare at those pictures while he listened to her sing. But Finn didn’t stare at the images. He didn’t need to. The real thing was a room away. So he had turned off the lights, climbed into bed, and now lay with his eyes closed, just listening.

He heard giggles—childish and adult—and he wondered how Bonnie was still going strong at ten o’clock at night. He was exhausted, and she hadn’t had any more sleep than he had in the last twenty-four hours. And she still hadn’t showered or had a minute to herself. He wondered if this time with Katy was good for her, healing maybe. It was the only reason he hadn’t insisted they leave. He’d wanted to get on the road. He’d needed to press his foot to the gas and leave Portsmouth behind, to get back on track.

What had happened to his road trip, the road trip he’d been so eager to make that he hadn’t even waited until morning to leave home as originally planned? He hadn’t been able to sleep that last night in Boston, the night he’d found Bonnie on the bridge. He’d gone to bed and lain there for an hour and then thought, “Why wait?” So he’d folded up his bedding—the only thing left in his basement apartment—and pulled on his clothes. Then he’d headed out. His mom worked the swing shift at the hospital, so she would be getting home about midnight too. He planned to catch her right as she got home, say goodbye, and be on his way. That was the plan. That was Saturday. And that plan, and every other one since then, had been shot to hell.

Now it was Tuesday. Only three nights later. And he was in a strange house, in a child’s bed, in southern Ohio.

He almost laughed then, so damn bewildered and incredulous that laughing was all he really could do. He rubbed his face, too tired to give in to the urge to howl, and just sighed instead, noting wearily that Bonnie Rae had closed her concert and was saying goodnight to Katy, promising she’d be back after she showered, telling the little girl to try to go to sleep.

Bonnie Rae had called Katy Minnie. It had happened only once, but he’d seen the stricken look on Bonnie’s face before she’d corrected herself and patted Katy’s cheek. It was the same look she’d worn when she’d been watching them in the convenience store, before she’d befriended them.

The bathroom was right next to Katy’s bedroom. He saw the light pool in the hallway as Bonnie entered, and then watched it narrow to a long thin line as she closed the door, and the light seeped out beneath. The shower came on next, the sound soothing the way rushing water always was. Someone had told him in prison that God’s voice sounded like rushing water. That’s why babies love to be shushed. That’s why the sound lulls people to sleep. He wondered how anyone would know what God’s voice sounded like. Especially someone convicted of homicide.

He felt himself drifting off when he heard Bonnie crying. He was pretty sure that this time it had nothing to do with short hair and a resemblance to her homely brother, Hank. She cried like she’d been holding it in all day. Maybe she had. Maybe spending time with Katy had been a very bad idea. He sat up immediately, wondering if they should go, if he needed to get her out of here.