Infinity + One (23 page)

Finn wouldn’t get to see his dad, after all. I felt bad about that, and told him as much as we slid into the Charger, the luxury of Bear’s car feeling almost exotic after days spent in the rumbling old Blazer.

“I’ll ask him to get the Blazer when this is all cleared up. Then he can drive to Vegas and spend a few days with me there. I think he’d be willing. He’s been trying to get me to come to St. Louis since I was released, hoping that I would go to school.” Finn shrugged and let his father’s suggestion hang in the air.

“Why don’t you? Go to school, I mean. You’re so smart. Then you could do math all day long, right?”

“Nobody wants to sit and do math problems all day, Bonnie. It isn’t like that. I love numbers and patterns, and I see them everywhere, but I don’t need to sit in school to do that. Plus, I don’t want my father to have to explain me to his colleagues. People in his circles don’t have kids who spent their college years in jail.”

“I’m guessing people in his circles don’t have kids who can multiply large numbers in their heads, and who can remember every card that’s been played in a poker game either.”

Finn grunted, like he didn’t have an answer for that and started Bear’s car.

I reached over and turned it back off. He looked at me in surprise, and I took a deep breath.

“I’ll do whatever you want to do.”

Finn raised his eyebrows, waiting for me to explain myself.

“I’ve been selfish. I can make this go away. We’ll just go to the police. I’ll make a statement. Then we’ll get the Blazer. And it’ll all be over.”

“I just told Bear I would get you to Los Angeles,” Finn said, his face blank.

“I can get myself to Los Angeles.”

“With what? You don’t have any money.”

“I have cards.”

“I’m guessing every last one of those cards has been suspended. Your gran strikes me as the thorough type.”

“So take me to a bank. I have my ID now, I have my account numbers. I’ll get what I need.”

“I’ll take you to a bank.”

I nodded, a lump rising in my throat. “Okay.”

“But we’ll do what we planned. We’ll call the shots. We go to LA—you let the world see that Bonnie Rae Shelby is just fine—and then you decide what comes next. Not your gran. Not me. You.”

I nodded again, the lump now lodged behind my eyes, making them water. I blinked hard and pulled my sunglasses out of my purse.

“Why?” I whispered, as I pushed them up my nose. “Why are you doing this for me?”

“I don’t know.” Finn answered. And I could see from his frank expression that he didn’t. He was telling me the truth. “I don’t know. I don’t want any part of this circus. I don’t want cameras in my face. I don’t want people talking about me. I don’t want to see my face on a magazine. I don’t want any of it.”

“So . . . why?” The tears leaked out from under my glasses.

“I don’t want any of that . . . but I do want you.”

When a man says something like that to a woman, he’s supposed to lean forward and kiss her. Hard. Then he’s supposed to make love to her. Harder.

But Finn didn’t. Of course not. He looked like he wanted to take the words back as soon as he’d said them, and he scrubbed his hands over his face, Finn-style, letting me know he was agitated and extremely uncomfortable. He reached over and yanked my glasses off my nose. I guess he needed to see what I was thinking. He swallowed when he saw my tears, his Adams apple working in his strong throat, and then he looked away from me, tossing my glasses on the dashboard, like he was tossing away his good sense.

“You drive me crazy! You irritate the hell out of me. You make me want to pull my hair out, and every damn thing has gone wrong since the moment we met.”

I nodded, agreeing with him, and dug for something to wipe my nose. I found a napkin in Bear’s middle console and mopped at my face. I thought Finn was done, that he’d said what he was going to say, but then he spoke again.

“But I still
want
you.” Finn sounded stunned by the admission, and emphasized the word
want
like he couldn’t believe it himself.

“You want to have sex with me?” I squeaked, wanting that too, but hoping there was more.

“Yes!” Finn didn’t sound especially happy about it. “Yes! But if that were all, I wouldn’t feel like this. I wouldn’t be doing this. But I want
you
.” This time he emphasized the word you, and I felt myself relax a little, and I smiled through the tears that hadn’t stopped falling through his tirade.

“Good.” I laughed. “I want
you
too. So we’re even. Infinity plus one does equal two, see? Me and you.”

His hand shot out and wrapped around my neck, pulling me to him, taking my mouth with equal parts impatience and reluctance, like he could no longer help himself, but was trying to talk himself out of it right up until his lips touched mine. My hands curled in the front of his T-shirt as his tongue curled in my mouth. And we didn’t come up for air for a very long time, oblivious of anything beyond the black windows of the tricked-out ride, completely unaware of the two television vans that had pulled up in front of Jason Clyde’s home at the end of the cul-de-sac.

I SENT A text to Bear as soon as we were back on the road, telling him we were on our way, and got an immediate reply.

I’ve got you registered at the Hotel Bordeaux under my mama’s name, just like we always do. Call before you arrive and they will bring you in through the back per our usual – no check-in required. Bill covered. Mr. Clyde can act as your security until I roll in on Sunday. Your tickets for Sunday will be with the concierge. The hotel will have a limo available for the big show. You got wardrobe covered? You won’t have a team there. Just you and me, Rae. That’s what happens when you go AWOL
.

I responded:

I don’t have any hair left, I think I can handle my makeup, and I’ll buy a dress in Vegas. It’s just the Oscars. No big. :P I Love you, Bear
.

And his final text:

Love you too, Baby Rae. Be wise. I’ll see you Sunday
.

THE BANK WAS small, but it was still a bank. Normally, this wouldn’t bug me. The bank back in Grassley had been a little, brown brick building that had bats in the rafters and smelled like mold—a fitting statement for the state of Grassley’s financial situation. I hadn’t spent much time in any bank, truth be told. I had opened a little checking account and received my own debit card when Minnie and I got our first job at fourteen. It was a job at the Grassley Grill. We shared it, splitting shifts when there was only enough work for one of us. We started out scrubbing toilets and cleaning fryers and then worked our way up to cashier, making $6.75 an hour. I think minimum wage has risen since then, but half of every paycheck went into my bank account, and I watched my money like a hawk. Gran and I had emptied that account and Minnie’s account when we went to Nashville. It had taken all of our savings and hers, which wasn’t much, to buy our bus tickets there, and if I hadn’t made it all the way through the competition and won, we wouldn’t have had any money to get home because Gran spent it all on that damn wig.

But I knew how it worked, even though it’d been years since I’d managed my money. As long as I had ID and my account numbers, I should be able to withdraw whatever I wanted at my bank, no matter what branch I went into, anywhere in America. I was nervous, though. I was going to walk right up there and tell them I was Bonnie Rae Shelby, hand them my ID that didn’t look much like me anymore, and ask for ten grand. I would have asked for more than ten, but I wanted cash, and I didn’t want there to be a problem getting it.

Ten thousand would get me and Finn to Los Angeles, with plenty to spare. I was going to have to buy an Oscar-worthy dress, and Finn was going to need a tux. Plus, I was going to have to wire some money to Finn’s father to get the Blazer from the impound yard. And after a few days, the charges would be steep. Ten thousand shouldn’t be a problem—there was fifty times that in this one account. This was my cash account, and Gran’s too, I supposed, since her name was on the account as well. I had money in mutual funds and trusts and stocks and bonds, money in property and land, and, like Gran, money stuffed in my sock drawer at home. But in the last five years, I’d hardly dealt with my finances at all. I had people for that. Now I wished I had been more hands-on.

The bank smelled like new carpets and leather, with just a hint of Windex thrown in to convince bank patrons that the facility was squeaky clean and therefore, safe and secure. The girl behind the marble counter smiled at me from her little open partition and asked me how she could help me. She was as clean and tidy as the shiny floors, and a gold plaque at her workstation identified her as Cassie. I felt a little grubby in Finn’s over-sized T-shirt and my tight jeans that needed a wash, but I still flashed her a giant Bonnie Rae Shelby grin on full wattage and pulled out my driver’s license.

“I need to withdraw some money from my savings account.”

“All right. Do you need a withdrawal slip?”

“No ma’am. I have one.”

I handed her the withdrawal slip I had already filled out, along with my driver’s license and watched as her eyes grew big. She glanced at me furtively and looked away, two bright red dots appearing high on her smooth cheeks. She either recognized me, or I was in trouble, or both.

She started click clacking away on her computer, her fingers flying over the keys. Then she opened a cash drawer and set five bundles on the counter, each bundle encircled with a band that said “two thousand.” She slid all five bundles into an envelope and pushed a button on a funny little machine to print out my check-sized receipt. Thank you, Cassie. Thank you, Lord.

“Cassie?” Another woman who had been manning the drive-up window behind Cassie, approached the young teller and pointed out something on Cassie’s computer screen. Then they both looked at me. The older woman pulled her aside just to the left of the partition, and I heard her explain something in dulcet tones. Cassie stepped back to her position and tried to smile. The spots on her cheeks were now the size of tomatoes. She looked mortified.

“Um. I’m sorry Miss . . . um Shelby. I’m new . . . and I haven’t seen something like this before. Um, there’s an alert on this account. There’s been some fraudulent activity reported, and no money can be released from the account without the presence of both parties listed on the account.” She said all of this like she was repeating exactly what her superior had just told her.

“But this is my account.” I tapped my driver’s license. “And I am here in person—standing here in front of you . . . not fraudulent. You have verification that I am who I say I am. And that’s my money.” I tried to keep my voice level, my smile in place, but my heart was in my throat, and I felt the burn of shame creeping up my neck in a scarlet line. I had felt this way often growing up in Grassley, using food stamps at the grocery store or having Mama’s debit card declined at the gas station. Shame was like a loud, embarrassing cousin who constantly tagged along and always made sure everyone knew who he was related to. But everyone had cousins in Grassley, so at least then I wasn’t alone.

But I was alone now, staring at the slightly uncomfortable face of a girl who knew who I was . . . who Bonnie Rae Shelby was. Her supervisor stood behind her, prepared to jump in if she needed to.

“So I can’t get any money from my account even though there’s half a million dollars in there.”

“Actually, ma’am,” the supervisor spoke up. “There’s only about ten thousand dollars in the account. A large sum was removed two days ago.”

I choked as if I’d been sucker punched. Gran was the only one who could walk into a bank and pull five hundred grand from my account. “But you just said no money could be removed from the account without both parties present,” I gasped.

“The money must have been withdrawn before the alert was placed on the account,” the older woman answered neatly. The expression on her face indicated she believed I was the reason there was a fraud alert on the account. And I guess I was. But it was my money.