Waiting for Augusta (16 page)

She shrugged. “I might, but then I'd be somebody else and not me, in which case you wouldn't be about to borrow a truck so you can drive me and your daddy to Augusta National Golf Club. And
you
might be nicer to
me
for not letting you get stubborn and ruin your dead talking daddy's dream. Now you've got a chance to do the right thing. You would have felt guilty the rest of your life, and nothing's uglier to feel than guilt.”

May Talbot's face flashed in the windshield for a second before I blinked her away.

Noni gave herself a little harrumph of approval. “And I'm not mean, I just know how to speak my mind. You should try it sometime.”

The engine died again. I'd give it a few seconds before trying another time. “It's hard to get a word in with you, unless you're stuffing your face with pie or cobbler. And I did try speaking my mind and now my dead talking daddy won't talk anymore.”

“Oh.” Her voice lost some of its sharpness. “Sorry. I'm sure he's just taking a break.”

“Maybe.” I picked up the urn and gave it a good shake, hoping he'd shout at me to stop. He didn't. This was the
longest he'd gone without talking since he'd spooked me back in the kitchen. Letting my anger loose to his shiny urn face had freed up space inside me, but him going silent afterward made me sick to my stomach. Like I'd blown the best chance I'd ever gotten to make him proud of me. To make him
see
me.

I put my grit and worry into turning the key again. The entire truck sputtered like it had before, then sighed with relief along with me as it roared to life.

Woo-hoo, thank you!
it shouted.
Been waiting for this, let's drive!

I gave the dashboard a pat, looked in the rearview mirror, and backed up, trying not to hit the barn. “Get the map out, Noni. Let's figure out where we're going.”

“How're we gonna do that?” she asked.

Shifting into first gear, nervous sweat sinking down my side, I rolled us down the Marinos' long driveway and paused. The sun was just under halfway up the sky to my left. East. I turned toward it, ignoring the arm Noni'd flung out to steady my own.

“Geez, take it easy,” she said. “Don't fly off the road.”

So she was nervous about driving, too. That made me feel a little better. I shifted into second gear. “Look at the road atlas and flip to the Georgia map. You gave the Marinos' address to that barbecue place, didn't you? What town are we in?”

“Feather.”

“Then find Feather.”

She brought her legs up on the seat with her, holding the map close, her finger going up, then down, shifting left to right. Finally, after what seemed like forever, she laughed. “There we are! We're about halfway through Georgia, halfway down. Looks like that train was going a little south. Sorry about that. Keep heading east and north a little, stay off the big roads, and we've got maybe this much left.” She held out her hand, showing me the distance between her widespread index finger and thumb. “Two hundred miles, maybe.”

“I hope we can get two hundred miles on one tank of gas.”

We drove past peach farm after peach farm, all of them with trees lined up nicely in a row, standing in the places they should be, doing their jobs right. I wondered if any of those trees ever wanted to run away and go join a pecan grove instead, or if they all felt like the peach orchard fit them perfect.

The roads weren't completely smooth, but after the stop signs became few and far between, I got comfortable enough to put the truck into third gear and was content to stay there. There was something magical about driving down a road, just me and a mysterious girl who, try as I might, I couldn't stay mad at. I grinned and tilted my head Noni's way. “Told you I could drive.”

“Indeed you can, Benjamin Putter. But there's still plenty of time for a wreck, so pay attention.” She twisted open the pickle jar. “Pickle?” She stuck a spear next to my face. “I'll hold it for you.”

“No, thanks.”

I wished Daddy could have seen me driving when he was alive. The golf ball in my throat grew heavy at the thought of him, the whole him, sitting beside me, maybe giving a lesson, correcting my grip on the steering wheel the same way he did with golf clubs.

I shifted my stance. It was uncomfortable driving like that, but it looked like we'd maybe make it to Augusta if the car didn't die on us. I wouldn't go too fast, not wanting to break the engine or get pulled over. We'd be okay. In the back of my mind, I wondered what I would do once I got there. Should I stay with Noni? If we made it onto the grounds, should I scatter Daddy even if his voice didn't show up again, telling me to do it? Or should I do like I said back at the orchard and take him back to Hilltop?

“Pass me Daddy, will you?”

Noni tucked Daddy beside me, anchoring him with the pickle and peanut butter jars. I glanced at the black line declaring the gas tank to be full, hoping it wouldn't sink down too fast.

Aw, don't worry
, the gas gauge said.
I'll stop when I stop, nothing you can do to change it.

When we realized that empty roads made for somewhat relaxing driving, we played with the radio and soon were singing along, shouting out made-up lyrics to the songs we didn't know, Noni and me trading high and low notes, mixing voices
together in a way that sounded like something between two crows fighting, two sheep laughing, and two pieces of sunshine slamming into the windshield, like if we sang loud enough we could blast away the clouds filling the sky.

Daddy was a terrible singer. He used to serenade Mama at the café, screeching loud in an off-key voice every time he brought a load of meat in from the pit, embarrassing her until she'd sing a few lines for him, give him a kiss, and tell him to get on back.

After a time, the radio stations all turned to static or adults talking about things we didn't care about, and we let silence take over. It took me a while to get up the courage to say my next words. I tried to keep my voice real casual. “Hey, Noni, tell me something about you.”

She shuffled around, trying to get comfortable. “I already said I'm not ready to tell you the whole truth yet. I don't know why you can't keep your nose out of my business.”

And I don't know why her business had to hop onto your business,
the steering wheel harrumphed.
She's an Augusta thief, that's what she is
.

“Noni, take the wheel for a second, will you?” With a white-knuckled grip, she held both her breath and the wheel while I shifted my position. “Thanks. Well, how about some little truths? You've already told me a couple. A few more couldn't hurt.”

“I don't know.” Keeping her eyes on her lap, she reached
in her pocket, touching but not removing something. I thought it was her wandering rules, but when I glanced over quickly, I saw a folded piece of newspaper sticking out—the one I'd seen in her pocket at Darry's café.

Her hand pushed, shoving it out of sight. “Fine. Little truths, that's it. Noni's a nickname. I like pork with a lotta sauce. And I can read lips. That's how I knew what you said to May back at your house.”

“How'd you learn that?”

“Seemed interesting, so I tried. It's not as hard as you might think.”

“Okay.” I looked over at her, hoping for more.

“I always wanted a brother or a sister.”

“Me too.”

“My daddy and I talked all the time, every day, but it's not the same as having someone close to your age around.” She tucked her knees up and wrapped her arms around, like she wasn't sure if little truths were allowed after all. “I lived near a train track—told you that already. There was something about that railroad yard in Hilltop that made me ache the minute I saw it. Same thing when we hopped the coal train. And, well . . .” She squirmed against her door and squinted at the sun. “There's something else. Something bad I did.”

This is it
, I thought.
She'll tell me about that bruise
. “It's okay. You can tell me.”

“I took something from my father on the day that he left me forever. His favorite thing in the world. Something that he loved most.”

“What did you take?”

A corner of her lip disappeared into her mouth, and she chewed. Her fingers lifted in the air, and she closed her eyes, reaching. The hand dropped with a dull thud against her thigh. “I don't want to say. But I was mad at him for taking me with him everywhere and not letting me go to regular school, so I took it.” She sighed. “He said school wouldn't suit me anyway, because I had a fiery personality and a dragon's temper. He said I could try to make friends anywhere, even traveling, I just needed to be more friendly. Who knows what that means, though.”

“What? You've got a temper?” A smack on the arm was my answer. “Sorry. Thought maybe I'd gotten good at jokes.” I turned my head from the road to see Noni resting her head on curled up knees.

Fingers digging through her sock, she found the scrap of paper with her wandering rules on it, studying them. “I can still see myself taking it,” she said. “And then I lost it and couldn't get it back. I tried, but just got stuck. I called for help, but he didn't hear me. Then the thing I took from him was gone.” The paper disappeared into her sock. “And then he was gone, too.”

She put her legs back down. “Part of me thinks if I get it back somehow, he'll be okay, wherever he is. And then maybe
I can find a home without him.” She unscrewed the pickle jar again and took out a big spear, the juice dripping all over her shirt while she crunched through it. “Stupid, I know.”

“It's not stupid.”

She took the backpack and put it against her door, leaning against it. Her left arm lay limply by her side. “I'm gonna rest my eyes. Do some thinking.”

I looked at her elbow bruise again. It almost looked alive, like it would talk if a person took enough time to really listen. A
reminder
, she'd said,
to follow the rules
. The bruise was like a solid cuff, chaining her to something I couldn't wrap my head around. If someone had been beating on her or grabbing her, which had crossed my mind, the mark left behind wouldn't be so even. For the life of me, I couldn't imagine what thing or situation would cause something like it, or why it didn't seem to be getting better, while the smoker burn on my arm from earlier that week had hardened already, shelled over with new skin.

While Noni slept, I drove on, staying on country roads and driving a steady thirty, thirty-five miles an hour. Any faster and the engine started sounding funny. I stopped to pee on the side of the road one time, and Noni tapped me once to do the same. Soon enough, it was an hour or two before twilight. We'd already missed tournament play for the day. I figured if we got to Augusta that evening, we'd have plenty of time to stick with our plan of trying to sneak over
the fence somehow. And getting into town at night would work to our advantage, people in general not reacting well to almost-twelve-year-old drivers.

I rolled my window down and let the last two days blow into me as I steered the truck, Augusta calling us closer. Dark, mean clouds filled the rearview mirror. We were surrounded by them now, like they were boxing me into a smaller and smaller space until I'd have no place to run away from the fact that Daddy was gone and I had to go back. No place to run from facing whatever waited for me in Hilltop.

Noni's father had told her that people meet up with their life on the road they take to run away from it. Was my life hidden ahead somewhere, or was my life chasing after me, begging me to wait and give it a second chance, clawing at me the way last night's thunder had clawed at the wind?

I murmured the questions out loud, hoping something in the truck or the road or the scenery would answer me. But all those things were as quiet as the road was empty. We'd barely passed a single person, and I found myself wondering if a road could feel lonely.

“Daddy?”

He didn't answer. The hum of the truck became louder in his silence. The vibrations almost hurt my ears.

The gas tank was getting low. Real low. Almost empty, and it was starting to grow dark. I fumbled for the map, tucked into Noni's arm, and checked the place names
covering the Georgia page against the last town we'd passed through. We'd driven a little too far east, trying to stay on country roads. We'd turned north at some point, staying along the Savannah River, which separated Georgia from South Carolina, and to my surprise we were no more than fifteen or twenty miles south of the black circle marked
AUGUSTA
. I felt a surge of warm, golden relief shoot through me, and I let out a bark of laughter.

When I looked up, it was too late, and my startled laugh became a horrified yell that woke Noni, who screamed and pointed.

“Look out!” she yelled. “Turn the wheel, crazy!”

It was too late to tell her to put her seat belt on.

It was too late to realize that mine wasn't on either.

It was too late all around, but I slammed on the brakes anyway, wrenching the wheel to the right so we'd miss the front cab of the truck that had snuck out from a tiny side road without me noticing. The driver didn't see me either and was pulling out with a long, rickety platform hooked up behind him filled up and stacked five cages high with—

“Chickens!” Noni yelled. She wrenched the wheel far to the right, aiming us into the side ditch and right toward a huge oak, looming over us with Spanish moss that I had a feeling wouldn't do cow plop to cushion the blow of a crash.

I hip-shoved her off me and turned the wheel back left a few inches. “Better chickens than us!”

I swear, life slowed in that moment, and those chickens all turned together, staring us down like they were preparing for battle. Ten feet from impact, it occurred to me what was happening. The most famous chicken in Hilltop, Mrs. Clucksy, had some kind of psychic connection with chickens in Georgia, and she'd sent out a call for revenge. She might have gotten her precious cash egg stolen, but I was about to pay the price for messing with her.