Driving With the Top Down (24 page)

“Really great,” Kevin said. “And I have actually been able to get some work done while he’s hanging out with the other kids in the evening, so no time has been wasted.”

“Good, I’m glad. What are your plans for tonight?”

“The kids are all going to do the whole hang-out thing, and the rest of the parents and I are going to be hanging downstairs at the bar. Some band is playing that’s supposed to be pretty good.”

Great. Sounded like he was spending a lot of quality vacation time with all the other dads—and mom—drinking Dogfish Head 60 Minute from the tap while she drove around a moody teenager and a moody non-teenager.

“That sounds like fun. Hey, have you heard anything from Chris?”

“Nope. Why, is something wrong?”

“No,” she said, knowing Tamara’s bad attitude didn’t merit complaint, since it was what they had all expected anyway, “but isn’t he curious how things are going for his daughter?”

Kevin snorted. “You know Chris—out of sight, out of mind. He probably doesn’t even remember he
has
a daughter. We’ll have to reintroduce them.”

She pictured Tam’s face. Tam laughing. She’d been so tentative at first, but she was opening up now. And that was just in a few days! How did her father not feel that a hundred times more? “That’s horrible.”

“That’s Chris.”

Okay, yes, she knew Tamara had been difficult for Chris. The idea of being a bachelor and suddenly taking in the daughter you’d had very little contact with, beyond sending a monthly check in her direction, was also a difficult one to imagine—Tamara’s mother had effectively separated the two since the girl was born, and Chris was never moved to do anything about it. In its own weird way, that made them pretty compatible. But when she died and he’d found out he had to take Tam in, there was really no choice, except the one to man up and be a good father or to accept your responsibility in a minimal way and try to change your lifestyle as little as possible. Chris had chosen the latter.

Great guy.

“Gotta go,” Kevin was saying. “Just wanted to let you know about the change of plans. Will you call the kennel so they keep Zuzu an extra day?”

Why can’t you?
she wanted to ask, but she knew why not. She’d long since created a dynamic where she handled everything and all but pushed his hand away from any task he tried to initiate and said,
I’ll do it
.

So he expected her to do it because she did
everything
.

She fixed things. Antiques, relationships, name it.

“Sure,” she said, as usual. In the background, she heard a spike of a woman’s laughter, and the manly chorus of laughter that followed. At least it had sounded like a woman. Was she just overreacting and imagining things now?

“Thanks, babe. Have fun!”

It was only after she hung up that she realized he hadn’t really asked much about how it was going for her. But he wasn’t a phone guy, never had been, so she couldn’t allow herself to take that personally.

Could she?

She went back inside and sat on her barstool.

“So how’s the perfect husband?” Bitty asked with the tiniest edge to her voice. She had a smile on her face like it was a joke, but Colleen knew her well enough to know the dig wasn’t 100 percent in jest.

“I never said he was the perfect husband.”

“Okay…”

They were both quiet for a minute, until Colleen dropped the bar napkin she had been twisting in her fingers without noticing, and said, “Look, I’m sorry things are rough or whatever they are with Lew. Believe me, I deal with my own struggles too. Things didn’t just work out blissfully for me either.”

“Okay,” said Bitty, shaking her head with a laugh.

“What?”

“I mean, isn’t that a little silly? Like a supermodel insisting to a handicapped person that life sucks for them sometimes too? Yeah, it’s probably true, but I’m pretty sure I win. Or lose. However you want to look at it.”

Colleen felt the indignation rise in her throat. Just like Bitty, she wasn’t ready to lay everything all out on the table, but it pissed her off that Bitty felt like her situation could beat anything Colleen was going through.

Which was what, exactly? This stupid problem she hasn’t been able to get past in her seventeen years of being with Kevin? That question that had always nagged at her?

“I’m not going to get all into it or fight about whose life sucks more, but I will say that we all have the monsters we battle in life.”

Bitty looked at her dubiously. “Are
you
fighting a monster?”

“I’m about to.” A shiver of nerves rocked through her core as she thought the thoughts she had avoided even admitting to herself this whole time. The reason she was here. The reason she had decided that now was the time. The reason she had hopped in her car and ended up in Florida, and the reason she thusly ended up spending the last two weeks with her messed-up niece and former best friend.

The reason she hadn’t said aloud yet. And yet now time was winding down. She was about to fight her battle. About to come face-to-face with the thing that had held her down for the last seventeen years.

Sometimes, when you’re close with someone, or even if you used to be, they can read your thoughts.

Bitty’s almond eyes were wide as she looked at Colleen, who was staring at the debris from her shredded napkin. “I have a question.”

Colleen braced herself. “Hit me with it.”

“What did you mean earlier, about Lew having the power to grant me mercy?”

“Oh.” Here it was. Everything on the table. “I saw the article.”

Bitty looked genuinely confused. “What article?”

“The one in the newspaper about your disappearance. By some coincidence, the paper was at the rest stop and I just happened to see your picture.” Bitty looked blank. This was so awkward. “I’m sorry, I probably should have said something, but I didn’t know what it was all about, so I thought I should just feel you out.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. What newspaper? What article?”

“Are you serious?”

Bitty sighed and tilted her head. “Does this seem like a good time to joke?”

“Then you don’t know that you’re regarded as missing in Winnington?”

Bitty gave half a shrug. “Missing in the sense that I didn’t report to my soon-to-be ex where I was going, but how is that newsworthy?”

“Oh boy.”

“What?”

“Honey”—Colleen signaled the bartender—“you’re gonna need another drink.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

Tamara

The house she went to with—what was his name? Rich?—and his friends was pretty cool. It was a duplex that was kind of trashy and worn down, but in that beachy way that doesn’t make it all that gross. It was surrounded by big lush tropical plants, and inside was like the inside of a stoner-surfer guy’s slightly altered brain. Outside, surfboards that were obviously often put to actual use were kept near a rack of kayaks. Inside, the walls were plastered with pictures of hot girls, beach scenes, and surfing. On every surface was beer, a bong, other paraphernalia, or Sex Wax. Slung over the couch were Volcom sweatshirts. She would go on to find Hurley bathing suits slung over the shower curtain rods, and not one but
two Endless Summer
posters hung in the bedrooms.

She floated around a little at the party before finding a comfortable piece of couch to sit on. It was one thing to be at a party and know only the small group you came in with, but an entirely other thing to be at a party in a city—where was she again?—you’ve never been to, where the only people you know are the people you actually
don’t
even know.

Looking around the party, she realized how similar it was to the ones back home. It was almost exactly the same, but seemed like a theme party. An “Everyone Dress Up Like Floridians” party or something. But the people were all the same. The girls were still squealy and annoying. The guys were half-douchey, half-hot. And she felt alone in a crowded room. Not really that much different.

Except these people didn’t know she had a blow job video online.

With an awful icy clutch of her heart, she realized that they could very well find that out. Anyone there could stumble across it. Maybe even recognize and remember her.
Hey, isn’t this that chick who came to our party once?

That could happen at any point. She could buy bubble gum at a gas station, and the age-spotted old man could recognize her from it.

She resisted the urge to cry.

“Hey—hey, what was your name?”

Glancing up, she realized Rich was talking to her. “Tamara?”

Why had she phrased it like a question? Was she unsure who she was?
Wow … way to overthink things,
she thought to herself.

“Tamara, right, do you wanna do a dab?”

“A what?”

He laughed, and so did other people. Why?

“Do you smoke? Weed?”

“Yes…”

“And you’ve never heard—? All right, look, if you smoke, it’s the same shit. It’s out of a bong and everything. You’ll be fine.”

More people were looking at her than would have she wanted. “Is it pot?”

“It’s hash, yeah.”

“Um … okay.”

She followed him out to a patio and glanced at her phone. It had been about an hour. But she’d just smoke and go back. She’d be fine.

Everyone seemed to know each other pretty well here, she noticed. That made her feel even more out of place. Especially when she thought about how it’s not like she felt more
in
place back home.

Whatever.

She watched as Rich’s friend used a butane lighter to do something to whatever was in the spot where weed usually went on the bong.

She was really going into this with a lot of knowledge, clearly.

Rich hit it before she did, then handed it over to her.

“Just like normal?” she asked.

He coughed and nodded at her, handing her the lighter.

At first it felt like normal. Made her cough. Pulled her away from reality just enough without being scary. But then it was too different. She was in a side room with Rich and his friend. It didn’t feel sinister. They were watching something. Some YouTube clips on the TV and laughing. She was sitting up on a bed. There was a puppy on the bed in front of her.

She scratched the puppy’s ears. “Who’s this?” she said, her voice sounding startlingly normal. It was disturbing that she could sound like everything was fine, when she felt so not normal.

Rich and his friend exchanged a look. “That’s Roxy.”

“Oh … why’s that funny?”

“Because you just asked that.” Rich laughed but gave her a good-natured smile.

“Shit,” she muttered, looking at the puppy. Maybe Roxy did sound familiar. Or was that because she had just heard that a second ago? She shook her head, trying to right herself.

She looked at her phone. It was 10:33. She felt like it was 3
A.M
. But hadn’t it been only nine fifteen last time she looked at the time? It had been, because she was supposed to go home. Or, not home, but back to Colleen and Bitty.

Bitty Bitty Bitty. Colleen. Clean.

Their names sounded like they were from a different life. One she didn’t live in anymore. But in reality, it hadn’t been long since she was last with them.

And in reality, she really would rather be with them. She wanted to be with Colleen, to have that Mom-ish presence around her that she’d never really had. She wished she were in a hotel room with them, watching something dumb on TV, eating vending machine snacks, and not feeling this sour nausea in the pit of her stomach.

She wanted Colleen to come pick her up, like she was just a kid in school, going home to the safety of family.

Which was stupid, because Colleen was only the babysitter. And here Tam was being the dumb kid who accidentally called the babysitter “Mom.”

She stood up. No, no, standing was not happening.

“You leavin’?” asked Rich.

Why, did he want her to leave? Was she unwanted
everywhere
?
Stop overthinking!

“Uh … no, I need just a min—just a minute.”

She crawled back onto the bed, and lay almost facedown. She heard them laugh at her, but couldn’t do anything to stop it. She was desperate for revival. Would a minute or two give her strength again?

Her heart was jumping out of her chest, but also felt like it was slowing down. She lay there, wishing she hadn’t done this. Wishing it was tomorrow, when this would be over.

More time passed. She didn’t know how much. She heard their conversation but immediately didn’t retain it. Couldn’t respond.

No, her heart definitely felt like it was slowing down. Like to a scary level. It felt like work to keep breathing. Could that happen? It was supposed to be involuntary to just keep breathing, whether she chose to or not, right?

But it felt so much like work. If she stopped breathing, she was sure she would just die. Her heart would just slow down. All she had to do was let go. She felt sure of that. This was what dying felt like. This. She was separate from her life. Close to death, something that terrified her. She had no idea what was ahead of her if she chose to let go. This, though, this was what it felt like to know you were about to die.

She took in a deep breath and felt better briefly until everything slowed down again. If she could just let go and be dead, if her involuntary reflexes were somehow rendered useless by whatever she had smoked, did she want to hang on? Or did she want to let go?

What was the point?
What
was the point of going on? She had nothing. No one. All she had was a school full of people who had by now certainly seen her video.

Suddenly she became aware that Rich and his friend were just messing around. The laser they’d had earlier—when was that? She hadn’t remembered it until now—they were using it to have the puppy crawl over her. She could hear them pointing it at her butt and in that region. She couldn’t stop them. She was too lethargic. Too brink-of-death. Too high.

She just had to put up with it. Like she did with everything.

Finally they lost interest and left the room. Tamara looked at her phone—10:42. What? It had only been nine minutes?