Sloth (13 page)

I could crash too,
she told herself.
I could pull out onto the road and crash into anything. No drugs, just me. Just an accident. It could happen to anyone.

But it was no comfort; yes, some deaths were random, some accidents were really just that. But some effects had causes—some victims had killers.

”Stop,” she ordered herself again, aloud in the empty car. She couldn’t think about it while she was driving, not unless she really did want to crash into something. (And she didn’t, she assured herself. Much as she hated herself and what she’d done, it would never come to that.)

By the time she’d pulled into the lot of Guido’s Pizza, she’d reassembled herself into some semblance of calm. She smoothed down her hair and did a quick mirror check: She wasn’t exactly decked out in a suit and heels for her interview, but then, given Guido’s usual T-shirt and grease-smeared apron, her faux cashmere and khakis would probably do the job.

Just keep it together,
she begged herself.
Just for one more hour, keep it together.

And she did, all the way across the parking lot, up to the door of the restaurant, where she almost slammed into a guy backing out the door carrying a large stack of pizza boxes.

He turned around to apologize—and she nearly lost it.

”Hey,” Reed said, his smile just peeking out over the top of the boxes.

”Hey.” Her heart slammed against her chest. Would he be able to tell, just by looking at her? she wondered. Was her guilt painted across her face?

”Listen, about yesterday . . .”

“I’ve gotta go,” Beth said quickly, clenching her stomach and trying to keep her lower lip from trembling. She brushed past him and stepped inside, immediately blasted by a wave of garlic that made her want to throw up.

”See you later?” he called hopefully as the door shut behind her.

Beth pressed both hands to her face and took a deep breath.
God, I hope not.

It turned out that “Guido” was actually Roy, a sixty-two-year-old widower from Vegas who, having a hankering for small-town life, had moved west to find himself. He’d found Grace instead, a go-nowhere, do-nothing town in dire need of a pizza parlor, however mediocre.

And that’s pretty much all Beth took in from his half-hour monologue as she trembled in the chair across from him, willing him to continue talking so that she wouldn’t have to speak. It was hard enough to listen when there were so many loud thoughts crowding into her head.

“My daughter, she wanted me to move in with her and her husband. They fixed up the room over the garage real nice.”

My life is over.

“I raised her right—but that’s no life for a man, livin’ off his daughter, wasting away the days starin’ at someone else’s walls.”

My life should be over. I killed her.

“It’d be different if there were grandkids, but you know how it is today, no one s got any time for family. ‘What’s the hurry, Dad?’ she keeps asking me. ‘What are you waiting for?’ I say, but she just laughs, and that husband of hers . . . it’s not my place to say, but if you ask me, he doesn’t want the bother.”

I didn’t mean to.

“He’s not a worker, that one. Never did a day’s hard work in his life. Not like me. Twenty-five years at the casino and now here I am, shoveling the pizzas every day, and let me tell you, life couldn’t get much better.”

But it’s still my fault.

“Couldn’t get much worse, either, if you know what I mean. That’s life, eh? Gotta take that shit and turn it into gold, I always say. And it’s not so bad. Rent’s low, sun’s always shining, and customers know better than to talk back.”

Ruining my life won’t change anything.

‘”Course, can’t say as I don’t miss the old days. Vegas now? That’s nothin’ but a theme park. But in my day . . . yeah, you had your mob, and you had your corruption— but you also had your strippers and your showgirls and your cocktail waitresses. And then there was my Molly....”

I don’t even know what really happened.

“So what’s your story? I got your resume here, and I see you got plenty of experience serving. But why ditch the cushy diner job and come here? Don’t know as I’d see this place as a step up.”

I know what happened.

“Beth? You still with me?”

Beth tuned back in to realize that a large, calloused hand was waving in front of her face. “Oh . . . sorry. Yes.”

”So?”

She tucked her hair behind her ears, a nervous habit. “So . . . I’m, uh . . .” She wasn’t good at bluffing, even on a good day. And this had not been a good day. “I didn’t quite hear what you asked.”

He gave her a friendly smile. “Nerves got you, eh? Take your time. A few deep breaths never hurt anyone.”

She tried to follow his suggestion, but the heavy scent of garlic made her head pound. She didn’t know why he was being so nice to her. She didn’t know why anyone would be nice to her anymore.

“I asked why you wanted this job,” he repeated.

But Beth couldn’t concentrate on sounding responsible or eager to work in a grease-stained pit. She just shrugged. “I think it would be ... I mean, I like pizza, and ...” She’d prepared a perfect answer the night before—but it had escaped from her mind, and now she had nothing. She held her hands out in surrender. “I need the money.”

He grinned. “Who doesn’t? And why’d you leave your last job?”

Another perfect answer that she no longer had. “Creative differences?” she said instead, giving Roy a hopeful smile.

“Gonna have to ask you to be more specific on that one, hon.”

“Well . . .” She giggled nervously, her eyes tearing up. “I dumped a milk shake on one of the customers.”

“Can’t say as clumsiness is something I look for in a waitress,” he said, tipping his head to the side. “But I’m no ballerina myself, if you know what I mean.”

“No,” she said quickly. “No, I did it on purpose. I just
dumped it on his head. It felt great.” Her giggles grew into full-scale laughter, the kind that steals control of your limbs and your better judgment. There was no joy in the spasms rocketing through her body, just an explosion of all the tension she’d been storing since morning—once it started coming out, she couldn’t figure out how to shove it back in again. She flopped around on the chair, heaving with hysteria, gasping for breath, until finally Roy’s frozen scowl brought her back to reality.

“Look, I don’t know what the joke is,” he said, standing up, “but I really don’t have time for this kind of thing.”

“No!” she cried, leaping up. “No joke. This isn’t me— I’m a great employee, really, just give me another chance, I really need this job, I’ve tried everywhere else in town—”

His expression warmed, but he shook his head. “I’m sorry. I am. But I can’t hire you just because I feel bad for you—I need someone reliable, and it’s pretty clear that you’re—”

“Not,” she finished for him. It would have been hilarious if it hadn’t been so sad. Reliable was all she’d ever been. Good ol’ reliable Beth. And now she didn’t even have that. She slumped down over the table, her head resting on her arms and her arms resting on something wet and sticky, but she didn’t cry. She’d been holding it all in for hours now, and it seemed the tears had all dried up.

When she felt the hand on her shoulder, she knew who it was, and she knew she should stand up and rush out of the restaurant without even looking at him, but she was too weak and too selfish, and so she lifted her head up and smiled. “Hey. Again.”

“You’re having a bad week,” Reed said, without a
question in his voice. “Come on.” He grabbed her arm gently and pulled her out of the chair, walking her toward the door. She let herself go limp, happy for a moment to be a marionette and let someone else pull the strings.

Once outside, he sat her down on the bumper of his truck, then perched up on the hood.

“I should go,” she mumbled, avoiding eye contact. “I should get out of here.”

“Slow down.” He pulled something out of his pocket— a small, squished paper tube, and offered it to her. “This always helps,” he explained.

Drugs,
she thought, and the hysterical laughter threatened to burble out of her again.
Why does every guy I’m with keep shoving drugs in my face? Doesn’t he know what could happen?
That shut down the laughter impulse immediately; Reed, better than anyone, knew what could happen. She waved the joint away and sighed heavily.

“What is it?” he asked, his soft, concerned voice so incongruous against his punk rock wardrobe and apathetic pose. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing. I just screwed up my interview,” she admitted. “And everything.”

Reed laughed, a slow, honeyed chuckle. “Don’t worry about ‘Guido.’ He’s a pushover. I’ll talk to him, vouch for you—he listens to me.”

“Why bother?” she asked. “You don’t even know me.”

“So tell me.”

“What?”

“About you.”

So she told him about how she made up stories for
her little brothers when they had trouble falling asleep, and about the stacks of blank journals that were piled up on her bookshelf, each with two or three entries she’d written before getting distracted and giving up. He told her that he’d taught himself to play the guitar when he was twelve, when the school had started using the music room for detention overflow. She admitted that she liked Natalie Merchant, Tori Amos, Dar Williams—the sappier, the better. He admitted that he hated the whole girl-power, singer-songwriter, release-your-inner-woman genre, but recommended Fiona Apple and Liz Phair to bulk up her collection.

They didn’t talk about Kaia.

Reed was lying back on the hood of the truck, staring up at the darkening sky. Beth couldn’t stop watching him, the way he moved his body with such fluid carelessness, as if he didn’t care where it ended up. The cuffs of his jeans were fraying, and his sockless ankles peeked out above his scuffed black sneakers. Beth resisted the crazy urge to touch them.

“I should take off,” she said, realizing that the sky was fully dark—her brother’s babysitter would be eager to leave, and her parents would be expecting to find dinner on the table when they got home from work.

“Wait—” He grabbed her wrist, and she gasped as the touch sent a chill racing up her arm. Their eyes locked, and neither of them spoke for a long moment. She had time to notice that his skin was softer than she’d expected, and then, abruptly, he pulled away. “If you need me . . .” He dug a scrap of paper and a stubby pencil out of his back pocket. She now knew he always kept
one on hand, for times when a strain of melody popped into his head and he needed to record it before it disappeared. He scrawled down a number and handed it to her.

Beth knew she shouldn’t take it; she should never have allowed herself to lean on Reed, even for an afternoon. But she let him hand it to her, and she let herself smile when their fingers touched.

“Why are you doing this?” she asked.

“What?”

“Being so . . .
nice.
”

“Because you—” He stopped in the middle of a word, closed his mouth, and looked beyond her for a moment, out to the dark horizon beyond Guido s pizza shack. She wondered if he was thinking about that day on the side of the highway—and she wondered if letting him believe in it, and believe in her, counted as a lie. “Because you look like you could use it.”

She couldn’t stand it anymore. “Reed, I should tell you—”

“I gotta go.” He gave her an awkward wave before sliding into the driver’s seat.

“Wait—”

But before she could say anything more, he shut the door and drove away.

“A little to the left, farther, no, now to the right, faster, faster, okay . . . not there—now! That’s it! Yes!”

“Awesome!” Miranda cried, tossing down the controller and shooting her fists in the air. “I rock!”

“You really do,” Adam marveled. He threw himself
back on the couch, kicking his feet up on the coffee table. “Who knew?”

“High score!” Miranda cheered, pointing at the screen. “See that? I got the high score.”

“Mmph,” Adam grunted.

“Oh, don’t get cranky just because you got beat by a girl.” Miranda tapped her thumb against the buttons until her initials were correctly entered in as a testament to her glory. “Where has this game been all my life?” She glanced over at Adam, giving him a playful grin. “Think I could convince the phys ed department to give me some sort of credit for playing Wild Taxi?”

“
Crazy
Taxi “Adam corrected her. “You’ve really never played before?”

Miranda shook her head. “My cousin gave me his old PlayStation, but that was, like, when I was a kid. And it broke after a couple days. This is much cooler.”

“Okay, so what’s next? Resident Evil or Tony Hawk?”

Miranda checked her watch and her eyes bugged out. “Adam, we’ve been playing for two hours.” She hadn’t even noticed the time passing, which was pretty much a miracle since the first ten minutes in Adam’s living room had dragged on forever. Without Harper around, the two had nothing to say to each other; all the more reason to consider Sega Dreamcast a gift from the gods.