This One Time With Julia (17 page)

That’s pretty much how I killed Houston that day in the car. I felt pretty sick afterward, and threw up for a little while into the river, leaning over the railing. Then I suddenly felt freezing cold, so I went back to the car and got Houston’s jacket out of the trunk. I couldn’t hear anything. Both my ears hurt like crazy. I figured I’d thrown up so hard that I’d burst my eardrums. I could still taste acid on my tongue and both my eyes were stinging as I started the car and got back on the road.

I’d never driven to the hotel alone, and I really had no idea how to get there. The road got very narrow right away with thick woods on both sides. I drove pretty well for a while, but I was basically still too far on tilt to operate a car. After a few miles I made a couple of bad mistakes and crashed into a tree. I slept for a minute or two against the steering wheel and woke up to find some deer watching me through the passenger window. Both my legs seemed to be working fine, so I got out of the car and stretched out my back while I looked at the accident. The tree that I’d hit wasn’t even broken, but I’d done a terrible thing to Houston’s car.

Across the road there was some kind of recreation area, and a bunch of women were sitting in a circle on the grass. I think they’d been having a picnic, but now they all stood up and started to get angry about what I’d done.

“You can’t even come to the park anymore,” they said.

“What on earth is happening to us?” they said.

They all lit cigarettes and scowled. I thought about apologizing for ruining their picnic, but I knew I should probably just get out of there. I left the car behind and continued down the road until this trucker pulled up next to me and asked if I needed any help. I explained that I’d ruined my car.

The trucker was pretty nice, though I don’t remember much of him except his moustache and the Coke can he was always spitting into. He rode with all his windows open, so I had to zip up Houston’s jacket to keep warm. He said he’d been driving for fifteen hours straight, all the way from New York. I asked him how New York was. He said it was pretty good. For a little while I remember driving through thick walls of smoke that poured out of the forest on both sides of the road. He told me the forest rangers were intentionally burning the trees, to prevent forest fires. At first I thought he was joking, but he wasn’t. He explained it a couple of times, but I still couldn’t understand why anyone would do that.

He dropped me off about a mile from the hotel, and I walked home from there. I found Julia on the back lawn hanging laundry on a clothesline tied across some trees. By now it was the middle of the morning.

“Smell these clothes.”

She handed me a shirt. It was warm from the sun and smelled sweet, and it reminded me of her even while she was standing right there. When I took the shirt off my face I saw that she was staring at me.

“You’re wearing Houston’s coat,” she said.

“I know.”

“What happened to his car?”

“I crashed it.”

“Why? Where is he?”

“He’s gone.”

“What are you talking about?” Julia snatched the shirt away from me. “What did you do, Joe?”

“I did what you wanted me to.”

“I never asked you to do anything.”

“You didn’t have to.”

“Joe.”

She came very close and held both my shoulders, looking back and forth between my eyes.

“Did anybody see you?”

“No.”

“Has anyone seen you since?”

“Maybe five people so far.”

“Who?”

“These four women having a picnic. And this trucker. But he said he was going to New York. You wanted me to do it,” I repeated.

“Don’t say that. I don’t ever want to hear you say that again. We have to get you out of here.”

Soon we were doing a million things: sneaking me upstairs, packing my book bag, clearing out my room. Within ten minutes we were fighting our way through the woods, looking for where we’d hidden Alvin’s car. Once we found it and pulled off the tarp, it started on the very first try. I’d already crashed one car that day, so I was relieved that Julia wanted to drive. Soon we were rolling along the dirt road, leaving the hotel behind us.

Julia hadn’t done much talking this whole time, and I also noticed that she would barely look at me. Once we were on the highway she said she’d faint unless she ate something, so we stopped for lunch at this place that was supposed to have excellent cheeseburgers. It was called Frenchie’s, or Frenchman’s, or France or something. Julia’s family used to stop there on the weekends to drink lemonade, because it was exactly halfway to their summer farm. But she hadn’t been there for years.

Outside it was barely afternoon, but inside that place it was already nighttime. You could tell that most of the air had been blowing through cigarettes all day. A lot of people were drinking and playing pool. It was hard to picture Julia’s family eating there. “I’m remembering it all completely wrong,” she said. Then she shoved me up against the wall and kissed me. It was the hardest kiss she’d ever given me. She whispered in my ear, “Just hold me here and don’t let go.”

“Okay.”

“I know the waiter from high school, but I don’t think he’s seen me yet. It was a stupid idea to come in here.”

“Should we leave?”

“Just hold me here and tell me when the coast is clear. But make sure you look in a natural way.”

I looked toward the bar in a natural way. The only waiter I saw was this big blond sunburned guy. He had a haircut like you’d probably see in the army.

“What’s he doing?” said Julia.

“He’s just standing at the bar.”

“Kiss me again.”

I kissed her again. I guess this was the last time I ever kissed her. It didn’t last too long, because the bartender was coming over. He said, “Julia,” and touched her on the shoulder, and we had to stop kissing and talk to him. With one hand on my belly Julia whispered, “Just a minute.” Then she turned around and said, “Brian,” and soon the two of them were hugging.

“Julia Manning,” he said. “About time you stopped by. I haven’t seen you since graduation.”

“I know,” she said. “I’m terrible, I know. But here I am.”

“How’s Cecily?”

“She’s fine.”

“Your dad?”

“He’s doing fine. And yours? How are you all doing?”

“Aw, we’re doing fine.”

“And your folks?”

“They’ll be in later,” said Brian. “They’ll be pretty thrilled to see you.”

“Meet my friend,” said Julia. “Brian, Joe.”

Brian and I shook hands. I don’t know why he had to squeeze so hard. His smile was amazing, but he never stopped looking at Julia the whole time we shook hands. “I’ve read some pretty nasty things about your father,” he said. “If you want to know, I don’t believe a word of it.”

“Well, thanks. Thank you, Brian.” She smiled at him harder than ever.

“If you want my opinion, it’s all the lawyers who should go to jail. The FBI and the damn lawyers, all of them. They just can’t leave a man alone to earn a decent living. We’re slow right now. I’ll sit with you for a bit.”

“We can’t stay long.”

“Just sit right there,” said Brian sternly. “I’ll bring us all some nachos.” He squeezed Julia’s hand, then went off and came back with some nachos and a bunch of sodas. Then I just sat there while they talked about a lot of people that I didn’t know. They also talked about churches and golf clubs, and geometry teachers, and track and field meets, and some of the funny things that happened at their high school. I had nothing to contribute, so I just sat there drinking my soda too fast, and I eventually started to go on this very blurry kind of tilt. When I went off to pee, I got distracted by some people gambling on pool, and it took almost an hour to lose all the money I had on me plus another hundred from this ATM they had there at the bar. When I got back, Julia and Brian were singing a song I’d never heard.

“Looks like you play a mean game of pool,” said Brian.

“What are you doing?” I asked Julia.

“Just telling some old stories.”

“Can we leave now?”

“I guess we should.” She turned sadly to Brian. “What do we owe you?”

“No Manning will ever pay me for food,” said Brian. “It’s just so good to see you. And I’ll let everyone know you’re back in action. You have to come to my barbecue on Sunday.”

“I’ll try,” said Julia. “Tell everyone I said hi.”

By the time we were back on the road, it was late afternoon and the sky had clouded over. “There are so many people that I never make the time to see,” she said. “And Brian told me such a good story about my dad.”

The story was about how Brian’s dad owned the storage company, and it caught fire one day, and how Mr. Manning had talked to some important friends who were able to keep the publicity from getting really bad. Brian said he’d saved the family business. He thought Mr. Manning was a great man. And talking to Brian had reminded Julia that she thought this too.

“Where are we going?” I asked her again.

“I think we just have to get you as far away as possible. Nobody at the hotel would ever help the police, but you should still be out of town for a while.”

“What about you?”

“I can’t run away. Don’t you think it’s a little suspicious if I disappear too?

“Where am I going?”

“Have you told anyone you’re from Los Angeles?”

“No.”

“Then why wouldn’t you go back there?”

“I can’t drive that far myself. Plus I have no idea how to get there.”

“That’s why we’re heading to the bus station.”

“We are?”

“You shouldn’t be driving Alvin’s car anyway. As soon as I drop you off, I’ll have to get rid of it somehow.”

“When do I come back?”

“We’ll just have to see,” said Julia. “We didn’t exactly plan this out, did we?”

I hadn’t made any specific plan, but I definitely never thought that I’d be leaving by myself. If I’d known that I would have done something completely different. But I didn’t have another idea at the moment, and everything was happening so fast.

“I put some cookies in your bag,” said Julia. “Will you hand me one, please?”

I got the cookies out and gave her one, and then took one myself. They were pretty great cookies. They had big chocolate chunks and sometimes a little hunk of brown sugar that never got mixed in right. Maybe I ate them so fast because I had no idea what else to do. By the time Julia finished her second cookie I had almost finished the whole bag, and when she noticed she got pretty annoyed. She wrapped up the last cookie and put it in the glove compartment. “Don’t eat this one,” she told me. “I’m saving it for later.”

I promised, but when we stopped for gas and Julia went in to pay, I could smell that cookie melting in the glove compartment. I got out and walked around the car a little, trying to forget about the cookie while I stretched my back; but then I couldn’t help it. I got back in the car and carefully unwrapped the cookie, just to lick it once—just to get another tiny little taste—and then I put it back where it belonged.

Julia came back and got behind the wheel again. We drove less than a minute before she asked me, “Did you eat that cookie, Joe?”

“No.”

“I was saving that cookie. I specifically asked you not to eat it.”

“I swear I didn’t eat that cookie Julia.”

She reached over my knees and opened the glove compartment. She took the cookie out and looked at is suspiciously. “What did you do? There’s chocolate all over your chin. Did you
lick
the cookie?”

I couldn’t answer. I was so ashamed.

“Joe, did you really lick this cookie?”

It was the sort of thing that normally made Julia laugh, but now she didn’t laugh. For a second she squeezed the steering wheel so hard that her arms started to shake. “You unwrapped the cookie and licked it.”

“Just the part that was melting.”

She started twisting the wheel back and forth. We were swerving all over the road. It was extremely dangerous. Finally she slammed on the brakes and pulled over to the shoulder. I didn’t have my seat belt on, so I sort of crashed against the side of the car.

“We can’t keep kidding ourselves,” she said.

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m not going to let you go back to Los Angeles and wait and wait and then slowly realize. We both already know what’s going to happen.”

“I don’t.”

“Well, I do.”

It all happened so fast. Maybe I could have stopped it if it hadn’t happened so fast. She found this tissue in between the seats and wiped the chocolate off my chin. “This isn’t really who I am,” she said quietly. “I don’t even think I can say it.”

“You’re breaking up with me.”

“There, I made you say it. Don’t you think it’s probably for the best? Did you really think that we were in it for the long haul?”

“Yes.”

“Well, then I’m sorry that I fooled you. My only defense is that I fooled myself too.”

“But I didn’t do anything wrong.”