Compromised (9 page)

N
icole is still with me. I never really thought she'd actually go through with it—running away for real. It's unlike her previous patterns of sticking around and waiting to be found. That's the thing about humans—highly unpredictable variables.

I have to construct a new hypothesis, change the materials and variables. And that irritates me, because even my purpose has to change.

Lately it seems I have more questions than answers. My variables pretty much suck.

I sigh.

I like the first hypothesis I constructed—the one with the new family and being invited to stay and all. That's the hypothesis I want. That's what I'll do even if I have to dabble in a little data manipulation. At this stage in the procedure, things are getting pretty desperate.

It's all about looking at things objectively. I don't have to care what happens to Nicole. She's not part of it. She isn't a variable that's ever been part of the procedure.

I turn to her. “I don't want you coming with me. You go your way, I'll go mine.”

“You need me.”

“I need you? So far I've spent the night in a rat-infested warehouse with some whacked-out druggies, almost got caught at a café because we ate pancakes for three hours, have my stomach in some kind of flaming inferno because you insisted that we need to drink all the coffee we can, have thrown up among other disagreeable bodily functions, and just feel downright rotten. You add nothing. Zero. I.
Don't. Need. You
.” I hold out my hand. “Good-bye.”

Nicole tsks and shakes my hand. “Fine. Go ahead.”

“Fine.” I start to walk when Nicole whistles. I turn back. “What?”

“You're going the wrong way,” she says.

“I am—” I look up. I'm heading toward the mountains. “Crap.” I walk past her. “Good-bye.”

“Bye,” she says, and walks after me.

I turn around. “Go away.”

“Free country. I'll go where I want.”

I listen to her scuffle her feet behind me. She's one of those walkers who don't pick up their feet but drag them. She probably doesn't even unlace her shoes to put them on. I hate that. It's irritating. Scuffle. Scuffle.

And she talks.

Nonstop. To herself. To me. I don't know. But I really wish she hadn't had those cups of coffee. Then she sings. She must know the word to every top 40 single on the
Billboard
charts from the past fifteen years.

Mom used to watch this old show,
Name That Tune.
If it were still on, we could go on it to make the money to get to Boise. Nicole'd rake in the cash.

I stop to rest. It's been a couple of hours and nobody's picked me up yet. Probably because I haven't got the
courage to stick out my thumb. And Nicole's right behind me. It's like she knows I'm too scared to hitch on my own. I walk off the highway and sit on the embankment, leaning against my pack. My stomach growls.

Nicole sits a few yards away, slurping down some grape jelly. I turn away and massage my stomach.

Then I get up, walk to the highway, and stick out my thumb. Within seconds an SUV veers over to the side of the road, coming to a screeching halt, kicking up dust in my eyes. “Hey, Little Miss, you need a ride?”

I look in the rear window and see a couple of guys leering at me. “We've got room,” they holler. One of them throws a beer can out the window. Another opens the passenger door of the car and throws up.

“Come on.” The guy takes a step forward. “Don't waste my time. You need a ride or not?”

I shake my head. “No, thank you.”

“No thank you?” He turns around. “Hey boys. This little lady doesn't want a ride anymore? We're not good enough for ya?” He walks toward me, and I walk back until I almost bowl over Nicole.

She pushes me aside and pulls out her cell phone. “One more step, asshole, and I call nine-one-one.” I look over and
see her phone is dead. Dear God, I say before I remember that I don't believe in God.

The guy steps forward. Nicole dials and puts the phone to her ear. “Yes. Um, about ten miles past the last exit on I-80,” she says.

The guy turns pasty white.

“C'mon, Mike. Let's go,” one of them yells. “We need to get to the Old Bridge. Dude, if my balls get any bluer—”

The guy spits a glob of chew at me—it streams in the air and spatters all over my face. “Stupid bitch.” He jumps into the SUV; it leaves skid marks on the side of the road, pelting us with asphalt and stones.

Nicole puts her cell phone away. Her hand is trembling.

My heart thunders in my ears. When I can finally hear over the din, I whisper, “Um. Thanks.” Then I drag my sleeve across my face trying to wipe away the billions of germs that probably have landed on me and now are infesting my being: glandular fever, hepatitis B, swine influenza. I already can feel my lymph nodes swelling.

“What a total MRSA,” I mutter.

“Mersah?” Nicole asks, and hands me a couple of napkins.

“Flesh-eating bacteria. Nothing. Thanks.” I take the napkins and try to control my voice. Then I pick up the cans they threw out on the side of the road and shove them into my backpack.

“What're you doing that for?”

I shrug. “Habit. Um, ‘Keep America Clean.'”

She rolls her eyes but comes forward and dabs off some more spit from the side of my head. “Nasty stuff,” she says.

“Yeah.” I rub and rub, keeping my mind off anaerobic bacteria. I shiver.

Nicole holds her hand out and touches my arm. “It's okay.

I exhale and rub my hands on my jeans, hoping she doesn't notice how scared I am.

“It's dangerous alone,” she says.

I nod.

“Let me come along.”

I look up at her. “What's in it for you? Why don't you just stay at Kids Place?”

“Why do you need to know?”

I pause. “Because it's a long way. And it doesn't make sense to me, okay? I don't get the feeling that you like me all that much. And personally I think you're pretty much the
most irritating human being on the face of the planet.”

“Thanks.”

“I'm just being honest.”

“Honest, huh?” Nicole asks. “That's something you don't get much.”

I shrug. “I don't have the energy to put on a front. So why? What's in it for you?”

“I can't be there”—she points to Reno—“anymore. And I can't be on the streets. I've done that.” Nicole takes out a cigarette and lights up. “Shelly's been in the system for four years; Jess, six.”

“And you?” I ask.

“Nine.”

“So?”

“Have you ever just thought if you could start all over again, things would be okay?”

Who could argue with that? That was the story of my life. “Yeah.”

“I just need a clean slate. And you're it.”

N
icole hands me some jelly and I slurp it down. I'm glad she swiped it. And she starts to talk. And talk. And talk. Another hour goes by when she says, “We've gotta lay down a few ground rules.”

“Fine.” Maybe if we get her ground rules out of the way, she'll shut up for a while. I need time to think.

Now the method has to include Nicole. She's not a variable anymore. She's a constant. But maybe the purpose and my hypothesis can stay the same. Aunt Sarah and me as a family and Nicole doing whatever she wants to do.

But part of me doesn't think so.

“Are you listening?” she asks.

“Do I have a choice?” I say.

“These are the ground rules. They're important, so listen up. One: We never give anyone our real names.”

“Since you don't even know my real name, I hardly think that'll be a problem.”

Nicole glares. “Two: We never fall asleep in anyone's car. Or if we're real tired, we take turns sleeping. Okay?”

“Okay.”

Nicole sits down on the shoulder of the road. “Let's take a break. You got any rules?”

I think about it. “Not really.”

She nods. “Fair enough. And three: Loyalty. Like Cosa Nostra.”

“Cosa Nostra? The mob?”

“Listen, Jeops. We just stick together. However you want to call it.”

I've heard that one before.

We both lean back on our packs. Comfy enough for a rest. “How's your stomach feeling?” she asks.

“Okay.”

“Okay.” She inhales. “Shit.” She brushes off her pants. “There's so much fucking dust in this dump.”

“Could be from Chad,” I say. “The Bodele Depression. You know billions of grains of sand are moved by the wind
all around the world, blown across the Atlantic on trade winds—and most come from there. It's like a hub—you know. A place where all travel begins.” I like that, thinking that the dust that lands on me isn't just Reno dust. I just hope these dust particles haven't given any unwanted microbes or bacteria a free transatlantic ride. “It's kind of like hitchhiking—what we're doing.”

“The only time you talk is when you're vomiting science facts and shit.” She takes a drag. “Jesus, Jeopardy, can you turn off the Discovery Channel and be a person for once?”

I shrug. It's better not to talk at all, I remind myself.

“Total academic diarrhea,” she mutters. “You might want to keep that science shit down to a minimum out here. People on the streets don't like that, you know, being talked down to all the time like they're stupid or something.”

“Sure,” I say, “and you're real different with all of your Mafia stuff and nonstop talking. At least I do turn it off.” I close my eyes. I can't believe I thought I wanted her along. Theory is always different from practice.

“I talk that much?” she asks.

“Nonstop.”

She offers me a drag.

“No thanks.”

She stares at the cigarette and flicks the butt on the road.

“Can you not do that?” I ask.

“What?”

“Throw your garbage out like that. Here,” I hold out a plastic bag. “Go pick it up and we'll throw it away when we find a garbage can.”

Nicole glares.

“Go on.”

“Jesus, Jeops. It's just one cigarette butt.”

“Well, cigarette butts account for twenty percent of all litter items found. And there are a hundred and seventy-six million pounds of cigarette butts thrown out each year in the States. You are contributing to that.”

Nicole goes and picks up the butt and flicks it in the plastic bag. “Happy?”

“No.”

“Je-sus,” Nicole mopes. We sit quietly until she says, “This is my first time out of Reno. It's like breathing for the first time.”

“You've never been anywhere besides Reno?”

“Yerington. But Yerington doesn't count.”

“Why not?”

“Have you ever been?”

“No.”

“Well if you had, you'd know that Yerington is a pit. Shithole, Nevada.”

“So why'd you go there?”

“You can't help where you're born. I'd bet half the people in Africa wish they weren't born in some mucky desert with no water, either.”

“Well, I hardly think Yerington can be compared to the most impoverished continent in the world.”

Nicole glares at me. “Have you been to Africa?”

“No.”

“Seen some kind of Discovery special about Yerington or Africa?”

I shake my head. “Not that I remember.”

“Well, then, how would you know? Sometimes it's not about a book or sci channel documentary. Sometimes just living it is good enough to know, okay?”

I shake my head. There's no reasoning with someone like Nicole.

“It's good to leave, you know. Start over,” Nicole says. “Breathe.”

“Yeah. It is, I guess.” It feels really familiar, in a weird way. This is the only thing I really know how to do. Leave. Reinvent. But it leaves me more tired than happy. Maybe Nicole has a lot more to run away from.

“Hippie van!” Nicole jumps up. “It's a sure thing.”

This rattletrap of a van chugs down the highway, other cars racing past it. I can practically see the cloud of marijuana smoke encircling it. Nicole and I stick out our thumbs, and it pulls over to the side of the road just as she predicted.

“Where're you heading?” The guy is major retro: long hair, Lennon glasses, flip-flops, and a McShit T-shirt.

“That way.” I point down Highway 80 east.

He laughs. He looks harmless enough. A bit like he walked off the timeline about forty years too late, but that works, too. “Hop in. I'm going to Winnemucca.”

Nicole and I jump in. “Logan,” he says, holding his hand out.

“Capone.” Nicole shakes it and motions at me. “That's Jeopardy.”

“Capone and Jeopardy?” I mouth.

She nods.

“That's cool. I don't need to know your names,” he says.
“Doing the Kerouac thing?” he asks.

Nicole and I exchange a look. Whatever that means.

“Never mind.” He laughs and pulls back onto the highway. I'm smooshed between the two of them. He hands Nicole a piece of paper. “I've got satellite radio. What do you want to listen to?” He looks at her. “That's the programming.”

“That's obvious.” She clears her throat and squints at the paper, finally passing it to me. “You pick. I get first sleep shift, okay?” she whispers.

“Okay.” I look at the list. Everything is blurry and I realize how tired I am. “Anything,” I say.

“Right on,” Logan says. He turns on NPR. Talk radio. That's all I need. More talk. Blah blah blah blah. He finally turns to a station that's playing the Velvet Underground's “Run Run Run.” It's a nice change and I lean my head against the back of the seat, humming along.

“Groovy that you're into the music.” He's the encapsulation of the 1970s.

He rests his hand on my thigh and I squirm closer to Nicole, who appears unconscious. I kind of want to flick it off—like a fly or something. God, I bet he's totally into free love and stuff. I mentally tick off the diseases he probably
has—chlamydia, herpes, hepatitis B, HIV—when he pulls his hand away and stares at me. I feel like a specimen stuck under a microscope. Figures the only guys I'd attract were ones who forgot the century had changed. My face feels hot.

“Just trying to go with the vibe. Boomshanka, right?”

I glare at him. The only vibe going on is the one in his pants. I pull my leg away. Creep.

“We're cool, Jeopardy,” he says, “You look like you're smart—like you come from a nice home. Is it worth running from?”

“I'm not running from anything,” I say. Not technically. I'm actually running to a place. It seems to make it okay that way.

“Groovy. Just trying to keep it real.”

“Can I turn up the radio?” My hand accidentally brushes his arm when I do and I jerk it back.

“It's cool,” he says. He turns the radio up and keeps his hands on the wheel.

When we get to Winnemucca, it's late afternoon. The sky looks gloomy—threatening to snow. Logan pulls over. “Peace.”

“Yeah, yeah,” says Nicole. “Peace. Love. Boomshanka.
Whatever. Thanks for the ride.”

We tumble out of the van and watch it chug down the highway.

“What a piece of work,” Nicole says.

“Boom-what?” I ask.

“Beats me. Boomshanka. Must be some rock band or something.”

“Or something is more like it.” And the two of us laugh. It's fun. Laughing.

We walk down a side street. Some of the houses are empty; one has a
FORECLOSURE
,
BANK OWNED
sign up.

“Wanna sleep inside tonight?” Nicole asks.

I nod. I stare at the black house. It's a pretty shabby neighborhood, so the likelihood of tripping an alarm is nil. We find an open window, pull off the screen, and slip in.

We use the bathroom—though it has no running water. It just feels good to sit on a semi-clean toilet. Though it can't be any later than six or six-thirty, we fall asleep, curled in the living room. My last thought is that the carpet smells like smoke and cat pee.