Infinity + One (7 page)

“Why Infinity?”

“I was born on August eighth. Eight eight. My dad is a mathematician. He thought those eights were a sign. An eight looks like the symbol for infinity, so . . .”

“Whew! And I thought our names were bad! My oldest brother is Cash after Johnny Cash, next is my brother Hank after Hank Williams, and my sister was Minnie after the one and only Minnie Pearl.”

“And Bonnie Rae. Where did that come from?”

“I was named after both my grandmothers.” I heard the bitterness in my voice and shook my head, mentally shaking her off. I didn’t want to think about Gran. “Bonita and Raena. My birth certificate and my driver’s license say Bonita Rae Shelby. Luckily, no one has ever called me Bonita.”

“All right. I gave you Finn. Now you give me something,” Finn demanded.

“Well, Huckleberry.” I grinned at him cheekily, enjoying the fact that his name represented so many possibilities for teasing, which is probably why he went by Clyde. “I am a Pisces, and I enjoy long walks on the beach, sunsets, and romantic dinners.” Clyde sighed and shook his head, clearly not enjoying my sarcasm.

“You said your sister
was
Minnie. Isn’t she Minnie anymore?”

I lost the cheeky grin. It was too much work to keep it in place. “She will always be Minnie, but she died last October.” I shrugged as if time had already stitched up that particular wound without leaving me uglier for it, the way Appalachian Annie said it would.

“I see.” Clyde didn’t say he was sorry the way most people did. He just stared at the road, and I noticed for the first time that we were back on the freeway, the trees shooting up on either side, reducing our visibility of the world to the space between us, the road behind us, and the never-ending ribbon of black beyond us.

“Are you still taking me with you?” I asked in surprise.

“Is that what you want?”

I looked at him again, wondering if there was something in his words I was missing, some warning signal that I should see, a detectable, cautionary bleeping urging me to get out while I still could.

“Finn?” I liked the way his name sounded. It fit him in a very non-fitting way. Finn was a whimsical name, a name that would be right at home with Peter Pan and the Lost Boys. Finn Clyde was big, scruffy-jawed, and a little intimidating. Definitely not whimsical. But it worked all the same.

“Yeah?” he answered.

“I don’t really want to die.”

Clyde’s eyes slid from the road to search my face before they slid back again.

“I just don’t want to live very bad,” I said. “But maybe that will change if I can just get away for a while, figure out who I am and what I want. So yeah, I want you to take me with you.”

Finn nodded, just a quick jerk of his head, and that was my only response for several minutes.

“Your sister . . . was she older or younger?” Finn asked.

“Younger. By one hour.”

Finn’s eyes snapped to mine in shock.

“What? We were twins,” I explained, his reaction confusing me.

“Identical twins?” His voice sounded funny.

“Yes. Mirror-image twins. Ever heard of that?”

Finn nodded, but the expression on his face was so inscrutable that I thought maybe he needed more explanation.

“If we stood looking at each other, it was like looking in a mirror. Everything was reversed on our faces. I have this mole on my right cheek?” I touched it, drawing his eyes to my face. “Minnie had the same mole, in the same place on her left. I was right-handed, Minnie was left-handed. Even the natural part in our hair is exactly the mirror image of each other. We didn’t ever think much of it until we got into high school and took biology. There was actually a unit on twins. We didn’t realize there was a name for what we were.”

“Mirror-image twins,” Finn said quietly.

“Yeah.” I nodded. “In identical twins the egg actually splits, but in mirror-image twins, it splits later than usual. Quite a bit later. The original right half of the egg becomes one twin and the left half becomes another.” I remembered the text book definition perfectly. I was a half. Minnie and I together made a whole. How could I possibly forget something like that?

“How did she die?”

I looked out the window and laid it out. “Minnie died of leukemia. She was diagnosed when we were fifteen. She got well for a while. Remission. But she got sick again two years ago, and everybody kind of played it down so that I wouldn’t get distracted, so that I would keep singing and touring and sending money home. That was my job. Send money home.”

“You weren’t there when she died?” Finn’s voice was hushed, reverent even.

“No,” I answered woodenly, my attention on the landscape, letting the trees rushing past whisk away the emotion that was brewing beneath the words. “They didn’t tell me until after her funeral, a week later. I was on tour, see. And Gran didn’t want me to cancel the dates. We’re talking big money, sold out shows, powerful interests. Obviously, much more important than Minnie’s funeral or my feelings on the matter.”

The anger came whooshing back, and I opened my mouth to take in more air to release the heat in my chest, but everyone knows that you have to suffocate a fire. The rush of air down my throat only fed the flames. I sat, gasping, my face turned away, and then I held my hand over my mouth in a belated attempt to dampen the blaze. I wondered if Finn could see the smoke curling between my fingers and out my ears. I was so hot with fury that I reached out and unrolled the window, fiercely turning the old handle, letting the icy wind fill the interior of the Blazer and nip at my face and kiss my cheeks. Clyde didn’t complain about the cold or try to speak over the bellowing wind, and I closed my eyes and wished it would whisk me away. But I leaned my face too far out, and without warning, my hat, Bear’s hat, was snatched off my head. I watched it tumbling down the freeway, lost to me, just like Minnie.

Suddenly I wanted to throw everything out the window. I wanted to start grabbing things and hurling them out, as if tossing things out the window would purge me. It was the same feeling I’d had when I started attacking my hair in the dressing room.

But I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t throw my newly acquired things out the window. I couldn’t throw Finn’s things out the window, either. I had to get a grip. I grabbed the handle and starting winding, watching the space narrow, listening to the wind wane and finally cease altogether as the pane reached its destination. I sneaked a look in Finn’s direction. He was looking straight ahead, just waiting. I shrugged.

“According to Gran, she didn’t tell me because Minnie was gone, and me crying at her funeral wasn’t gonna bring her back.” I didn’t cry now either.

“Gran said we all knew it was coming, and that we had all said our goodbyes a hundred times. But I hadn’t said goodbye. Not even once.” I was proud of how calm I sounded. Clyde just continued to drive, not commenting, but I could feel the intensity of his attention, and it spurred me on.

“When they told me, I threw a fit worthy of a pop princess. I broke things, and I screamed and cried, and I told my Gran I hated her and I would never forgive her. And I won’t either. And then I packed my bags and headed home to Grassley. Which was fine with Gran. She had waited to tell me until I had a week-long break for Thanksgiving. It was the first time I’d been home in eight months. But when I got there, nobody was home but my mama. Daddy had moved out, Cash was in jail, and Hank just got out of rehab for the umpteenth time—he’d moved into Gran’s house in Nashville. And Minnie was in the ground.

“I spent a week with my mama, and she seemed like she was handling it all pretty well. She told me my dad got an apartment in Nashville not far from Gran’s and is pursuing his dreams. Isn’t that special? I think I’m paying for that, too. I have been making money for my family since I was ten years old. And I don’t have a relationship with any of them anymore. I never had much with my brothers in the first place. Cash was okay, but Hank has always scared me a little. Hank on drugs is even scarier. Gran’s the only one who can stand him. It’s because they’re two mean peas in a pod. Minnie, and my parents, I suppose, were my reasons for keeping on.” I shrugged like it wasn’t that important.

“When Thanksgiving was over, I was an obedient little Bonnie Rae, and I went back out on the road. I didn’t go back home for Christmas. I just kept working, and last night, I finished my tour.”

“So your parents have split up?”

“Yeah.” I leaned my head against the window. “I found out a couple of days ago that Mama’s got a boyfriend, and he’s moved in with her. We can all just go our own way now, I suppose. It’s just . . . everything I thought I was working for was just a lie. You know? Money makes things easier. It can even transform your life, but it doesn’t transform people. And all my money couldn’t save Minnie, and it sure as hell didn’t fix my family.”

“Is that why you wanted to jump off that bridge?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. I kind of lost it last night. Gran had a surprise for me during one of my songs. That set me off, I guess.”

“What was it?’

“Gran had someone make a film, a series of shots of Minnie, pictures of us together. Pictures of her last days. And they ran it on the screen behind me as I sang ‘Stolen.’”

I heard Clyde curse under his breath, just a whisper of sound, but his sympathy chipped at my composure. “I couldn’t sing.”

What an understatement. I couldn’t sing because I could only stare at that huge screen. In that moment, I had nothing left that was mine. Gran had stolen everything. Every part of me. Just like the song said. And then she’d sold it all. And I had allowed it.

“What did you do?” Clyde asked.

“I walked off the stage. Bear and Gran were waiting backstage, just like always. I told them I was sick. That I couldn’t go on. The concert was almost over anyway. My exit only made the moment more meaningful, Gran said. Everyone would understand, she said.”

The heat was building again, and I started to pant. I paused and leaned back against the seat, collecting myself. I ran my hands through my hair, over and over, the short silkiness evidence of what came next. I continued more calmly.

“Bear walked me back to my dressing room, and then he went back down to take care of some other security issues. Gran went out on the stage and made my apologies, apparently. I don’t really know. I chopped off my hair, pulled on this sweatshirt, took Gran’s purse, and I left. And here I am.”

“You took your Grandma’s purse?”

I laughed—a loud gasp that popped my ears and burst the bubble of anger that I’d been floating in. After all that, Mr. Finn Clyde was worried about Gran’s purse?

“Yep. I sure did. Mine was still on the tour bus.” I pulled the purse from where it sat between my feet and started pulling items from it. Gran’s phone, handfuls of bills, her wallet with her shiny credit cards.

“I was a minor when I got started in the business, and Gran has always controlled the money side of things. Her name is on every one of my accounts, and I’ve never taken her off.” I was pretty certain she paid the balances on these cards from accounts with my name on them. So I didn’t feel too bad that I’d used one of them at Walmart and then again to fill up Clyde’s gas tank in Albany.

“I should probably give her purse back to her, huh?” I rolled down the window and threw the designer bag out onto the freeway. I kept the wallet and the cash, though. And the Tic Tacs. Orange Tic Tacs are tasty.

“I should probably let her know I’m okay too. But I can’t actually call her since I have her phone, now can I?” I laughed as if that was the funniest thing in the world. The phone vibrated in my hand like it was laughing with me, and I almost dropped it. Instead, I decided it was probably time to face the music.

“Hel-lo?” I said in my best sing song voice.

“Bonnie Rae?”

“It’s Gran!” I said to Clyde, as if I were thrilled to hear from her.

“Bonnie Rae? Who are you with? Where are you?”

“Why, Gran, I’m with Clyde! Haven’t you ever heard of Bonnie and Clyde?”

“Bonnie Rae? Tell me where you are!”

“You know what, Gran? The tour is over. I am an adult, and I am officially on vacation. You need to leave me alone for a while. And Gran? You’re fired.” And then I returned her phone the same way I’d returned her purse.