When We Were Friends (11 page)

But let’s face it. This was just as much about myself.

I wish I could say I was excited, seeing my life split so suddenly and dramatically away from my expectation of it. But the thing was, it was seven in the morning, I’d been up for twenty-four hours straight. All
of this was suddenly starting to feel real, and I was finding it hard to breathe.

Through all the last-minute preparations, I hadn’t had time to think. I’d just been reacting, moving on pure momentum, pushed by my fury at Sydney, and then by fear and then by Star. Lying in bed with Star in the early morning, most of me had expected that I’d wake up to find Molly had been nothing more than a hallucination. That I’d just head off to my mural, then back home for dinner, cereal or meat with bottled sauce fried on the Foreman grill, my only adventure coming from the book I would read after the dishes were done.

I had only two hundred dollars in my wallet, all the ATM had let me take, and there was no way I could disappear for long on two hundred bucks. But I couldn’t risk going to another ATM or stopping at a bank once I was on the road, because if anyone identified my composite, they’d be able to trace my location. So on my way out of town I stopped at Six of Swords and left a note, printed in all caps, folded and taped to the door.

Not much of a note, it didn’t convey just how desperate and immediate the situation was, so at the last second I added:

Which of course I regretted an hour into the drive, when it was already too late to go back. I was pretty sure now that something awful had happened to Sydney. And even if she was okay, someone else was bound to see the note first, and what would happen when they did?
For sure they’d give it to the cops, who’d know it was related to Molly’s disappearance. The police would take fingerprints off the paper, and then what?

I’d been fingerprinted once, at a Cops & Kids picnic my school had hosted when I was eleven or twelve. They’d set up a fingerprinting station where a woman in uniform had rolled the fingers of my right hand across a pad, then let me see them on a computer screen. Did that mean my prints were on file? Was the Cops & Kids program just a cheap ruse to get preemptive records on all potential future criminals?

I knew I had to at least get out of the state. I had no idea where I’d end up, except that I needed to get as far away as it was possible for my ’97 Tercel to get. Idaho, I thought, or Kansas, one of those places you always forgot about when listing states, places I knew nothing about except fourth-grade geography, shapes and capitals and major crops.

I wanted to floor the accelerator, drive five hundred miles an hour and disregard any red lights. But of course all I needed was to get pulled over by a cop, who’d take one look at my frantic, sleep-deprived face and snap on the cuffs. So I kept myself at five miles above the limit, driving from suburb down through gawking farmland. Mile after mile of it, buried in sameness, talk radio on to keep me awake and Molly asleep, stopping to brood over each fork, which way, which way? If I’d been Star and believed in intuition it might’ve been different. As it was, every decision felt wrong.

WELCOME TO WEST VIRGINIA
. West Virginia seemed to look exactly as wilted as eastern Virginia had, the ragged grass the same faded green, motor homes evenly spaced in tired rows like gravestones, yards with sagging laundry lines and white-painted tires planted with hopeful but stunted pansies. But I’d crossed the state line, which was progress. Progress, but terrifying and suddenly exhausting. I turned up the radio, drove faster, the wind stinging my driver’s-side eye.

Mid-afternoon I passed through a small town, its houses run-down,
with boarded windows and missing shingles, overgrown front lawns. A sudden wave of dizziness hit, and I made myself pull to the side of the road. I needed coffee, and maybe a protein-packed lunch to keep me going. Or what I really needed was amphetamines, but coffee and lunch would have to do. I rested my head on the steering wheel until the spinning began to settle, then started up the car again, driving through downtown.

Downtown
was a bit of a misnomer, since the street seemed to be made up mostly of old homes with signs proclaiming them to be dentist and law offices. But on the corner was a tired café with a drooping striped awning. “How ’bout it?” I whispered to Molly, and pulled the car off the road.

Inside, the café was thick with tarry smoke. Generating that smoke was a woman sitting behind the register with a cigarette, watching Laurence Welk on a staticky TV. Her graying hair was tied in two braids, fastened with the bright pink bobble-bands never worn by anyone over six years old; she was one of those women who look like they may be seventy, but might just be forty and having a bad day or an unfortunate life.

She glanced at the door when I entered, then back to her show. “Take a seat wherever,” she said, speaking around her cigarette. “Menu’s on the table.”

The thick, hot air clogged my throat; my brain suddenly felt like syrup. I set Molly’s car seat carrier on the floor, then followed it without meaning to, sat down on the floor with a thump.

“Hell,” the woman said, her voice weary. “You on drugs?”

“No.” I swallowed back a wave of nausea.

She narrowed her eyes. “You sure look like you’re on drugs.”

“No, just … tired, sorry.”

“You planning to eat off the floor?”

“No, I’m okay, I’m fine.” I reached for a table leg and used it to pull myself up to my feet, and immediately felt the room resume its tilt-a-whirling. I sat at the table, closed my eyes in an attempt to steady the room, and then lifted Molly’s carrier onto the seat
beside me. The woman rose and pointed at the laminated menu tucked behind the napkin dispenser. “Soup today’s clam chowder, but I wouldn’t recommend it. Same with the meatloaf special because Lord knows what Manny puts in with the meat. Cherry pie’s got fresh berries but the blueberry’s made with canned. What you want to drink?”

“Coffee,” I said. “And a turkey sandwich if you have it.”

“Wouldn’t recommend the turkey neither. You want a sandwich, try the chicken salad. Much better.”

“Right,” I said. “Chicken salad’s fine.” She went into the kitchen and I folded my arms on the table, rested my head on them and closed my eyes. Beside me, Molly had started to talk, a string of random consonants and vowels all spoken in a calm, lilting tone of voice. Without lifting my head from the table, I set my hand on her belly, absorbing the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed.

The chicken salad was remarkably good, made with walnuts and raisins and a vinaigrette rather than mayonnaise, sandwiched between slices of thick rye bread. And maybe it was the food in my belly or the bitter, grainy coffee, but by the time I was halfway done I felt rejuvenated. Not that I could drive more than another half hour before falling into a dead faint, but at least I was no longer tempted to drive off a cliff just for the chance to sleep.

I opened a jar of vegetable medley and began feeding Molly, talking to her in low tones. Taking a kind of silly pleasure each time she opened her mouth in preparation for the spoon, the fact that she was trusting me to provide for her.

“Are there any hotels around here?” I asked the waitress as she dropped off my folded check.

“Hotels? This ain’t a tourist town, honey. Even the folks who live here don’t want to visit.”

“Or within twenty miles or so? I just need somewhere for the night.”

She tilted her head, then nodded. “There’s Muriel, up on Livingston Hill in Mill Creek. She’s more of a B&B, gets folks who spend the night before river running. Don’t know how she’d feel about the
kid, but no harm in asking.” She tore a page off her order pad, flipped it over and drew a little map. “Take the highway ten, fifteen miles and you’ll see the turnoff for Livingston. Her house is on the left; you tell her I said hi and that I sent you, okay?”

“I will, thanks,” I said. “Sounds perfect.”

The B&B was near the top of a steep, windy road that had me worrying about deer and my transmission. It was a colonial style house, painted yellow with red shutters, a wheelbarrow on the lawn holding flowerpots, a stone rabbit and, weirdly, a hubcap on a stick. As well as a sign reading
THE BUNNY HOUSE
, which I raised my eyebrows at, then shrugged. The Bunny House it was. I knelt by the stone rabbit with Molly. “Bunny!” I said softly. “Look, it’s a bunny rabbit.” I guided her hand to touch the stone ears, nose, mouth, naming them each. And she patted the bunny with her fingers spread, like she was trying to console it.

At the front door I rang the bell, smiling widely at Molly, willing her to stay chipper and undisruptive, B&B-worthy. She complied by grabbing the ends of my hair, and sticking them in her mouth.

The woman who answered had large breasts drooping to her larger belly, making her profile seem oddly triangular. She peered out at me from under her wet-mop–colored bangs. “Yes?”

“Hi,” I said, then stopped, suddenly too exhausted to go on. No energy to talk to someone new, form words, force an expression any more animated than catatonia. “Rooms,” I said finally. “Do you have any? Or know where I could find one?”

The woman smiled then, and wiped her hands on her loose cotton skirt before holding one out to me. “Muriel Burns, pleased to meet you and yeah, I have rooms. Usually only book up on weekends.”

I took her hand. Should I give my real name? Why hadn’t I thought of this before? My brain was too paralyzed to think up anything on the spot. I opened my mouth, and out came something that sounded like
Laaayoahhh
.

“Leah?” she said. “Welcome.”

Leah, a soap opera name, not a vixen like Alexis or Erika with a k,
but the girl-next-door with dimples and a ready smile, who would probably work as a nurse before falling into a coma and then dying a tragic death. It would do.

Muriel stepped back and waved me into a small entryway with doors on each side, and a steep, carpeted staircase. The bunnies were everywhere: on the reception desk, knee-high statues guarding the door, in paintings and sketched on the faded wool rug. “So welcome!” She bent to smile at Molly. “You have teeth yet? Oh yeah, you do! Little Tic-Tac teeth.” She smiled at me. “Your husband here?”

“Um, no.” Exhausted again. Too exhausted to lie, so I left it at that.

Muriel shrugged. “Well then. Small room’s ninety a night and the big room’s one-ten, both including full breakfast. How long you staying?”

“I … don’t know yet.” I thought of packing up tomorrow morning and getting back on the road. The idea made me want to kill myself. “Probably just tonight, but could I let you know tomorrow?”

“Guess that’ll work. Come on up and I’ll show you the rooms.” She started up the stairs and I followed behind with Molly, into a room papered in pale green with a four-poster bed, an armchair in one corner and sink in the other. “Here’s the smaller room,” Muriel said. “Bathroom’s shared, out in the hall.”

“It’s perfect,” I said. At that point a rat-infested subway tunnel would’ve seemed perfect, as long as it had a bed.

“I don’t have a crib, though. You got something for her to sleep on?”

“She hasn’t had any problem napping in her car seat carrier, so she’ll be fine.” So far Molly seemed like the un-fussiest baby on the planet. Was that a natural sunny predisposition, or something to worry about? Maybe it meant she was used to being ignored when she cried. Or that she was punished for it. It was something I couldn’t stand to think about, not right now.

Muriel pulled a key out from her pocket and handed it to me. “Breakfast’s at eight, restaurant menus for dinner are in the basket
by the front desk. You need anything, just ring the front bell, okay?” She kissed her fingers and touched the top of Molly’s head. “She reminds me of my Ashton, how she was years ago. Same wise eyes that seem to notice everything.” She smiled sadly, then held up her hand to me and left.

I unstrapped Molly from her carrier and let her tour the room while I sat hunched on the bed, elbows on my knees. “Can you believe this?” I asked her. “What’re we doing?”

Molly gave me a quizzical look, then lifted the fringe from the round Oriental rug and held it toward me as if she thought it might suffice as an answer.

I pulled out a bottle and handed it to her, watched her suck hungrily at it. Could she tell I had no idea how to take care of a baby? If I had her for more than a few days I’d have to buy books, study them to make sure I wasn’t screwing her up somehow. But now, now all I wanted to do was sleep.

I fished my cell phone out of my purse and dialed. “Ma?” I said when she answered.

“Is it you? Oh Lainey, you don’t know how I’ve been worrying. I wasn’t going to do a reading but I couldn’t help it, I’ve done ten of them, I can’t stop. And they’re all so inconclusive, good and bad both. I can’t tell anything.”

“Well I’m fine, Ma, you don’t have to worry about me at all, okay?” My voice broke and I swallowed, swallowed again. “Have you watched the news today? Do you know if Sydney’s okay?”

“I haven’t turned on the TV. I can’t stand to. I know my limits, but if you want I can check tomorrow.”

“No, don’t. I’ll get a paper or find an Internet connection somewhere. I’m in West Virginia now, at this bed-and-breakfast, and I’m doing fine.”

“And Molly?”

I watched Molly, who was taking a break from her bottle, clenching it between her teeth and clapping at it with both hands. “Currently she appears to be celebrating,” I said.

“You’re doing a good thing, Lainey, don’t you ever forget that. Turning your life upside down to keep her safe, that’s a good thing.”

I frowned, knowing the truth behind the bravado, that
she
was the one who’d sacrificed the most. “How are you?” I said.

“Oh I’m great. You know the shop you were painting for dropped off a gift basket filled with all kinds of organic goodies?”

“Seriously? I called from the road and told them I couldn’t finish the job because I broke my wrist. You should really send it back, Ma. It was obtained under false pretenses.”