Southbound Surrender (26 page)

Piper looks at me and says, “Are you up for the challenge? I think it could be kind of fun. As long as I can order food at the same time, I’m in.”

“Sure, why not?”

“We could wager something. I’m a betting kind of girl.”

“Okay,” I say, nodding my head as I weigh the odds of me winning. Piper’s wicked smart, but I’ve been harboring a serious amount of random facts for a long time. “Since it is only day three, and I’ve already won what I want, why don’t I give you a shot at winning what you want? If you win, I’ll go to med school.”

She studies me seriously and asks, “Who says you won your prize yet?”

“Well, I think it’s pretty obvious. Also, I knew I had a pretty good shot when I saw the pen you were using when you were studying for your finals in the truck. It was the pen you stole from me at Target.”

“You never said anything about it. I was wondering if you noticed,” she says as she hits my arm.

“I’m a details guy. I always notice.” I flash a bright smile. “So you want a shot at winning?”

“Cash, I don’t want to put that on you. I think you should do whatever you want to do. If driving a truck makes you happy, then you should drive a truck.”

“Well, here’s the problem. My job requires me to be on the road about ninety percent of the time. That leaves me about ten percent of Piper time. Considering that you are in the last year of undergrad and plan to go to med school for another four years, you’re going to be stuck in one location. Then you have your residency and God knows what else. And after what happened with the attempted hijacking, I’m never going to let you come on a trip again. This leads me to my current dilemma, which is how driving a truck cross-country equates to no Piper Sullivan.”

“So…” She lifts her eyebrows. “What does this mean?”

“As I see it, I have plenty of options.”

“The world is your oyster,” she says.

“But I’ve narrowed it down to two reasonable choices.”

“All in a matter of three days?”

“Yes and stop interrupting me,” I say with a smile. “One, I can try to get a local delivery job. Viv has two guys who run the local routes, but maybe I can convince her that she needs another guy to run locally. Two, I can go to med school since I’ve spent the last year seeing all the shitholes that America has to offer. Here’s my proposition: if you beat me at this little trivia game, then I will go back to school. If I beat you, then I will commit to getting a local job. Maybe even in Madison.”

“Really?” She eyes me suspiciously.

“Really.”

“That sounds like a reasonable wager to me. I don’t think I can lose.” She holds out her hand to shake on it.

“I never lose at trivia. All those useless facts I’ve acquired over the years are going to come in handy.” I grab her hand and give it a squeeze.

The waitress hands us a stack of papers and pen, “I assume you’re a team?”

“No,” Piper shakes her head and points to me with her thumb. “He’s my competition. As long as we can get some food, we’re in, but separately.”

“No problem,” she says. “What do you want?”

“We’ll take some sandwiches. Whatever you can make that’s delicious in the least amount of time works great for us,” I say.

“Okay, two tuna salads. I’ll get right on it.” She leans toward Piper. “Just make sure he doesn’t cheat. Cheaters are eliminated.” She winks at us.

“What’s your trivia name?” Piper asks.

“Cash Money. Yours?” I say as I scratch the name lightly on the paper.

“Pink Balloon.”

“Sounds about right. Be prepared to lose Pink Balloon.”

“Ha,” she laughs as she returns the papers to the waitress.

“Good luck, and I’ll get right on those sandwiches!” Leanna calls over her shoulder as she walks up to Jimmy and hands him her stack of papers. Reba does the same.

Jimmy shuffles through the papers, then holds them up and says, “All right, it looks like we have eight competitors, which means that after the first round, three will be eliminated. In the second round, another three will be eliminated. During the final round, there will be a head-to-head competition with the remaining two groups or individuals. Each round will consist of three questions. You ready?”

A resounding, “YEAH!” erupts from the sea of gray. We’re competing with the gray hairs of retirement and bridge clubs, which only means we’ve got stiff competition.

“The first round is American History,” Jimmy says without any papers in his hand. He’s running the trivia contest off the cuff.

Piper groans and lets her head fall down before turning to look at me. “You want to be partners?”

“Nope,” I say with a smile. “Not at all.”

The café buzzes with whispers and laughter. Heads come closer together as teams feverishly write down the answers to Jimmy’s questions. I'm thankful that I managed to pay attention in Mr. Lee’s AP History class back at Xavier despite the fact that I had become an inconsolable fool after Piper’s departure.

After round one, Leanna makes three tallies by Cash Money and only two by Pink Balloon. Piper nudges me in the gut with her elbow. “Not entirely fair, half of these people were probably alive.”

“Come on, perfect score on her SAT.” I get another elbow, except this one’s harder.

The other waitress, Reba, slides two plates in front of us. We dig in while Jimmy announces that we have moved on to the next level.

“Lucky,” I mumble with food in my mouth.

Piper throws her hands in the air, pumping toward the ceiling.

“Sorry, Gray Brigade, Blueberry Hills, and Brighter Days. You have been eliminated. Thanks for playing,” Jimmy says. A group of women to our right throws up their hands and boos him before they start laughing. “Rough crowd here. All right, round two is science. We are now down to five competitors.”

“Eat my dust, Piper Sullivan,” I say as Jimmy offers the first question about the shape of DNA. We both answer correctly with double helix. Jimmy then asks where theoretical physicist James Maxwell was born. We are the only two who answer Scotland. The final question Jimmy asks is how many bones are in a typical human body. Piper contemplates for a moment before she starts writing feverishly. I know she’s writing more on her slip of paper than what I wrote, which is two-hundred-six. I hold my pen over my paper, racking my brain before it hits me, and I start writing again.

“Well, look at that,” Jimmy says as he reads through the papers. “We’ve got some geniuses in the crowd who have thwarted my trick question. Impressive.”

Frank scrunches his eyebrows down and gets a puzzled look on his face.

“Most human adults have two-hundred-six bones in their body. HOWEVER,” Jimmy continues with a point of his finger. “Infants have three-hundred bones in their bodies because they haven’t been fused together yet.”

A few groans filter through the crowd as contestants throw their pens down.

“It looks like Pink Balloon and Cash Money are the two finalists for the head-to-head final round. Pink Balloon and Cash Money, where are you all?” Jimmy calls as he scans the crowd.

“I’m Pink Balloon and this is Cash Money.” Piper pops off her chair and gestures her hands toward me like Vanna White showing off a new puzzle on the Wheel of Fortune.

“You both going at it alone?” Jimmy asks.

“You bet we are.”

“Come on,” Jimmy says. “That was a tough question. Nice work to the both of you.”

A small round of applause ripples through the crowd.

“Thanks!” Piper calls out. “We have a little side wager going on.”

“You do, now?” Jimmy replies, apparently amused. “Let’s hear it.”

“See, Cash here is a truck driver. We’re both from Wisconsin, and he’s one of the smartest people I know, besides myself of course,” Piper pauses, which elicits a few laughs from the crowd. “If I win, he has to ditch being a truck driver and go back to school. If he wins, he is going to keep his truck.”

“Interesting,” Jimmy says.

I stand up and yell, “To stay a truck driver!” I give a small fist pump in the air, which elicits a few claps.

“To go back to school!” Piper calls and pumps her arms in the air. The noise amplifies with whistles and loud cheers, and then Piper takes a bow.

“We’ve got a real game here, ladies and gentlemen. Let’s make this interesting. The last category is movies,” Jimmy says as he tucks the microphone into his armpit and rubs his hands together. He brings the mic back up to his mouth and lowers his voice. “We are in the last round of head-to-head competition at Rosewood Café.”

I know what you’re thinking right now. You think I should throw the game and let this beautiful woman who has walked back into my life win. A guy, no matter what, always lets the girl win. But the problem is that I’m not that kind of guy. I like competition, and she’s already edged me out on the whole SAT and college degree stuff.

But the prospect of her winning the bet and the subsequent result of me going to school is interesting. It’s not good or bad. It’s just interesting. If I could just get through the undergrad work, I might actually enjoy the rest of my classes. And who’s to say that I can’t find a job as a physician that would allow me to move around outside the confines of a concrete jungle. My head spins with the possibilities of a future. A future with Piper Sullivan.

Then Piper’s head flips back to the windows behind us and her body goes rigid. She stares for a second longer until she finally turns back to me, her jaw slack with disbelief.

“We have to go,” she whispers as she puts her hand on my arm.

“But the contest, we’re in the championship round,” I argue. I’m not one to walk away from a challenge. This is unfinished business that needs tending to.

“It’s her.”

“Who?” I follow her gaze out the window. I see the tail end of dark hair swishing past the glass, and a pair of high heels that sparkle in the sun.

“It can’t be, I thought…” I say as Jimmy’s voice echoes through the café, directed at us.

“Question number one,” he starts.

“We have to get her,” Piper says ignoring Jimmy and the gaze of the crowd. She weaves through filled chairs while muttering, “Excuse me, sorry, excuse me.”

“Piper, wait.” I throw a handful of bills on the table, grab the bag and follow her lead, maneuvering through the crowd. I call to a baffled Jimmy on the counter, “I’m sorry everyone, we have to forfeit. Good luck to you all!”

Piper slams against the door, swinging it open onto the sidewalk where we both just saw the woman that we thought we’d never see again. Piper’s already jogging down the sidewalk, calling her name by the time I join her outside.

“L,” she yells, but the woman in the mini-skirt keeps walking. Her red heels click against the sidewalk only twenty feet ahead.

“L,” she yells again. The woman finally stops, but she doesn’t turn around.

I catch up to them both while Piper puts her hand on the woman’s shoulder and spins her around. L’s clear blue eyes stare back at us.

“What are you doing in Miami?” Piper asks. “We thought we’d never you see again. I chased after you that morning. I was worried about you.”

“Piper and Cash,” she says cautiously, raising an eyebrow at us. Her sequined shirt glitters in the sun. “I could have sworn I left you in Tennessee.”

“We could say the same about you,” Piper says as she drops her hand from L’s shoulder.

“What are the odds?” L puts her hands on her hips and finally lowers her eyebrow. She shakes her head in disbelief.

“So, you decided to visit Miami for the first time, huh?” I ask. Again, I’m waiting for the sky to split open and a beam of light to come pouring down, but it doesn’t happen. Miami is our last stop, and it seems more than peculiar – okay, it seems completely impossible – that we ran into L.

“Not exactly,” L says as she tucks her arms across her chest.

“What do you mean, ‘not exactly’?” Piper asks.

“It isn’t the first time I’ve been to Miami,” she replies.

“After we saved your life, you went and broke a cardinal sin of the truck? Remember, L? There were no lies in the truck if you wanted to ride,” I say. “You told us you’ve never been here before.”

“I also told you that my name is L,” she says with a shrug of her shoulders before she turns and starts walking down the sidewalk away from the beach. She calls over her shoulder, “It’s been fun running into you both. Have a nice life!”

Piper and I exchange glances as the woman clicks down the sidewalk. Piper whispers, “That’s it? Have a nice life?”

“It can’t be. There’s no way we ran into her just for that. There has to be more.”

I admit it. I’m finally caught up in all this universe crap that I’ve been trying to play off. First, I find Luella’s tapes in the basement, then Hudson brings me Piper’s address, then we run into five people that have brought us meaningful messages, we almost get hijacked, Piper lets me in on a secret more than twenty years old, and now, one of our messengers is back with an unenlightening message. There’s no way that we went through all that for ‘Have a nice life.’

“No way,” I yell to the woman and I run after her. I catch up a block later and grab her arm, “There’s no way that’s it.
Have a nice life?
I don’t think so. What’s your story? What do you have to tell us? Is it about Big Dave? Hudson? Dr. Sullivan?”

The woman finally stops walking. “My name is Amy.”

I look at her with a blank face.

“I’m Shaman Amy.”

“
You’re
Shaman Amy?” I ask in disbelief. Big Dave said the last he heard she was living in the Appalachian foothills completely off the grid. The fact that she is standing in front of me is preposterous, but then again, everything about this trip has been unbelievable.

She nods her head slowly.

“There’s no way…” I stop mid-sentence and study her. I’ve always thought about what I would say to Big Dave’s spiritual healer if I ever had the chance to meet her. Here I am, getting that chance.

“In the flesh,” she says. “When I woke up that morning, I saw the picture of Luella taped to your dashboard. I realized who you were, and then I bolted.”

“Why?”

“Okay,” Piper interrupts. “Somebody’s got to fill me in here.”

“Piper, this is Shaman Amy. She was Big Dave’s spiritual healer and helped him through everything when my mom died. She turned him on to the whole spiritual world stuff,” I reply.