Time Flies (19 page)

Across from me in the booth, B.J. checked the time on her cell phone. “Wow, that must have been some traffic. I thought we would have made it to the Cape ages ago. But good thinking—I’m famished.”

When she looked up, her mascara was smudged but her eyes were barely puffy. Maybe the trick to crying as you age is to stay in an upright position so the tears can drain.

B.J. looked over one shoulder at the McDonald’s employees
and then pulled a can of Tab out of her purse. When she opened it under the booth, the metal ring made a click followed by a little whoosh of pressure releasing. She reached for her paper McDonald’s cup.

“I can’t believe they don’t have sweet tea here,” I said.

B.J. made a face. “Yuck. How can you possibly like sweet tea anyway? You don’t even put sugar in your coffee.”

“I don’t have to drink it to think it’s a civilized custom.” I waited until she finished pouring her Tab under the booth table, then handed her my cup. “And I really don’t think you have to be that sneaky. We paid for small sodas to get the cups.”

B.J. filled my cup under the table. “I know, but it’s more fun this way. Remember when we used to sneak nips of Kahlúa into the dances?”

I reached for a french fry. “I think we only did that once. And we chickened out and threw them away before we had to walk by the chaperones.”

B.J. reached for a fry, too. “I don’t think so. I think we did it at all the dances. Ohmigod, this is the best dinner I’ve had in decades. I think we should have only french fries for every single meal the whole time you’re here. I mean, why the hell not?”

I slid the plastic tray to the exact center of the booth. I leaned the two bright red super-size cardboard containers of french fries against each other until they were standing up. I arranged a few fries up in our little paper cups of ketchup, like flowers in tiny vases, and then I tied the straw wrappers around two straws like little scarves and placed the straws in our cups of smuggled soda.

B.J. eyed my masterpiece. “Do all metal sculptors play with their food?”

“I’m pretty sure that’s how it starts. Though I also remember getting in trouble for wrapping our cat with my Slinky when I was about six.” I reached for another fry. “So, are you okay now?”

B.J. twirled her straw around in her drink and made the ends of the paper scarf flutter. “Of course I am. Why wouldn’t I be?”

I didn’t say anything.

She shrugged and tried to smooth out her frizzy hair at the same time. “I’m probably just coming down with the flu or something.”

“Never mind,” I said. “I was just asking.”

I reached for a fry and dragged it around in the ketchup until it was fully loaded. I pictured Ted Brody hanging up his phone and shaking his head as madly-in-love couples holding hands thronged onto his romantically lit courtyard. Right now he was probably wiping his brow dramatically and thinking,
Whew, whatever I wanted to talk to that crazy sculpture lady about, uh, never mind
.

Kurt and
Crissy
might even be eating there at this very moment, for all I knew. Kurt probably wouldn’t even recognize my work when he saw it hanging on the courtyard wall.

I couldn’t believe Kurt had canceled that card. Maybe he’d simply called the credit card company and said the cards had been stolen, which would mean they’d merely cancel the old cards and send new ones. Maybe he did it just to make me call him so I’d have to listen to all the things I didn’t want to listen to. Or maybe he’d actually closed out the account. I wasn’t stupid—I’d seen enough talk shows to know I needed to check our bank account balances and insurance policies. I needed to call a lawyer or a legal advocate or a legal something. Maybe I could find one who made
house calls so I wouldn’t have to drive to the office. Or maybe I could just climb under this booth and hide.

So much better for me to leave the past behind and focus on the future, even if it was a future that started with the past and built from there. Maybe that was what The Moody Blues meant by
Days of Future Passed
. I’d have to remember to bring that up when I finally saw Finn.
Ooh, heavy
, he’d probably say with a twinkle in his eyes. What color
were
his eyes anyway? Black-and-white yearbook pictures had serious shortcomings.

Maybe I’d just stay right here and get a job at McDonald’s. I could find an apartment within walking distance. The work was probably pretty repetitive but I bet they had decent benefits. Health insurance and maybe even dental, all the things you’re about to lose when you’re a self-employed artist whose husband has left you. I’d have to let Trevor and Troy know I was okay, but Kurt would never hear another word from me. He’d eat his heart out with worry while I ate my weight in McDonald’s french fries.

“It started back in high school,” B.J. whispered.

I shook my head to make room for her words.

B.J.’s eyes didn’t quite meet mine. “Remember when pierced ears first came into style?”

“My dentist pierced mine,” I said. “Can you believe there was a time when they actually did that? And it’s also pretty amazing to remember that there was a time you couldn’t just walk into a mall and get your ears pierced. Ha, maybe because there weren’t any malls yet. Wow, if you think about it, we were practically pioneers.”

B.J. closed her eyes. “My older sister and her friend were piercing each other’s ears up in her room, and I talked them into
doing mine. So they held all these ice cubes on my earlobes and took this huge, huge, darning nee . . .”

She paused and made that funny dry-mouth sound.

“Needle?” I said.

“Ugh, I can’t even say the word.” B.J. reached for a fry, then put it down. “If I even see a picture of one, I freak out. I had natural childbirth just to avoid the epidural—I mean, how messed up is that? And I couldn’t even stay in the examining room when my kids got their vaccinations. If it weren’t for laughing gas, my teeth would probably be falling out of my head by now. And if you gave me a choice between lockjaw and a tetanus sh . . .”

She put her forearms on the booth and flopped her head down on them.

“That’s awful,” I said. “You poor thing. I mean, it must really get in the way of your life sometimes.”

She lifted up her head just enough so that her eyes met mine. “It
dictates
my life. I will do anything to avoid nee . . . well, you know. And it’s so embarrassing, I never talk about it.”

My mouth was suddenly dry. When I reached for my Tab, my hand trembled just a little. I faked a smile. “So exactly why was it that you wanted us to get tattoos then?”

B.J. pushed herself away from the booth and looked at me. “I just hate to let it control me. And I’ve always wanted a tattoo, basically my whole life, since we were kids. And I guess I thought I might be braver if you were with me.”

I faked another smile. “Hey, Beej, we did it. We got our tattoos. Which can only mean we are both wicked, wicked brave.”

CHAPTER 20

“I can’t believe we finished all those french fries,” B.J. said as we walked back out to the Mustang. “I feel like I’m going to throw up.”

“I feel fine,” I said.

“Great,” B.J. said, “then you drive.”

Across from us in the truck section of the parking lot, a scruffy-looking guy wearing a baseball cap was parked directly under the bright floodlights. He leaned out the open window of his eighteen-wheeler and licked his lips at us.

“Yuck,” B.J. said. “Now I really feel like I’m going to throw up. Did he just lick his lips at us?”

“Don’t look,” I said. “It will only encourage him.”

B.J. stopped walking and fluffed her hair. “Well, I suppose in a way it’s a compliment. I don’t know about you but sometimes I feel practically invisible. I mean, you walk past a bunch of construction
workers and nobody even glances your way anymore. Not that you want them to, but when they don’t it’s kind of a rude awakening. And at least you have sons—try walking down the street with your beautiful daughter if you want to feel like you don’t exist anymore.”

I grabbed B.J. by the arm. “Keep moving. And don’t look over.”

B.J. looked. “Ick. What the hell is
that
supposed to mean?”

“Uh, I think he’s simulating what he’d like you to do to him. Or us to do to him. Or maybe he just wants to do it to himself.”

“Really? I always wondered what that meant.”

I gave B.J.’s arm another yank. “Come
on
.”

She shook my hand off. “I don’t know. If you stop to think about it, this is bullying, plain and simple. And the only way to deal with a bully is to stand right up to him. Otherwise he’ll just keep doing it, and the next person he picks on might not be able to take it in stride the way we can.”

Somehow, in the time it had taken us to inhale two super-size containers of McDonald’s fries for dinner, the sun had managed to set completely. Even with a handful of stars and the glow of the golden arches and the lights dotting the pavement, it was dark now, scary dark. There were a few cars scattered across this end of the parking lot, but they were empty.

“B.J.,” I whispered. “I mean it. Let’s get out of here.
Now
.”

She put her hands on her hips. “In your dreams, jerkface,” she yelled.

“Please tell me you didn’t really just do that,” I whispered.

B.J. rummaged in her purse and pulled out her keys, along with a tiny pad of paper with a mini pen attached. “And furthermore,”
she yelled, “we are going to report you for harassment to whomever it is that governs the big wheel truckers’ association.”

The door of the eighteen-wheeler swung open.

I screamed.

B.J. threw me her car keys. “I can’t see the license plate from here. Drive me by fast and then we’ll get the hell away from this loser.”

Two large leather boots appeared beneath the door of the truck. The trucker jumped down and hiked his jeans up over a river of white flesh until they met his T-shirt. He was tall and wide with a high round medicine ball of a belly. The baseball hat was casting a shadow over his face, so I couldn’t make out his expression from here, but he had a mean tilt to his head.

B.J. was halfway to the Mustang before I realized she’d started to run.

I could feel my whole body freeze, the way it does in a dream when someone is chasing you. The trucker stepped under a light and grinned at me. It was an ugly grin, a bully’s grin.

“Run,” B.J. yelled.

I ran. She jumped into the passenger side and pushed the driver’s door open for me.

I bent over and leaned my head into the car. “You drive.”

Behind me I heard a long
woo-hoo
of a whistle, aimed right at my rear end.

I jumped in.

B.J. reached over and turned the key in the ignition.

“Go,” she yelled. “Now.”

“What an idiot,” B.J. said. “We probably should have held our ground—I hope he doesn’t think he scared us away. At least we got his license plate number. Can you believe the way he looked running across that parking lot after us? I mean, how about try finding a gym instead of harassing hot women, buddy.”

I gripped Mustang Sally’s frayed leather steering wheel and focused on trying to breathe. I’d planned to make B.J. drive once we’d made it safely out of the parking lot and had ditched the trucker. But once I started looking for a place to pull over, suddenly the entrance to the highway was my only choice and before I knew it we were on it.