Deliver Her: A Novel (12 page)

CARL

What was it about a little rain that turned normal drivers into morons?
Carl wondered as he negotiated I-93 in the light drizzle, staying left to head toward Concord. All it took was a little common sense. He tried to pass a tractor-trailer loaded with new cars, including a cherry Mercedes dangling perilously from the rear. The guy wouldn’t cut him a break, keeping his cab nose to nose with Carl’s sedan. Carl stepped on it, passing him and, for good measure, another charter coach. Headed to Canada maybe? He didn’t know how the driver could see through the steamed-up windshield.

“That guy would do better with his defrost,” he said of the bus, navigating back to the middle lane. “That’s better. Nice open road now. Just another eighty miles or so.”

“Did you feel that? That jiggle?” Murphy asked from the backseat. “The temperature’s dropping a little. Maybe there’s black ice.”

Carl slowed. “Sorry. This car doesn’t handle the same as my Suburban.” As he spoke, the trailer sailed by him again on his left and slid in front of them. Resigned, he inserted a CD into the player.

“Cool,” Alex said at the opening riff. “‘Lifeboat.’” Her eyes widened in the rearview mirror.

“Another
Rainmaker
track. Self-produced in ’76. In their college dorm.” As long as the girl liked the music, he might as well play it. It would put her in a better frame of mind for her arrival at The Birches, he thought. Behind him, however, the teenager was yawning. “But you know all that, don’t you?”

“Kinda. My dad’s into them.”

Carl flicked at the tree frog, sending it spinning. “He ever been, your father?”

“Nope.”

“Been where?” Murphy piped up from the back.

“To Amphibian’s
Rainmaker
shrine. Picture a twenty-foot version of this in brass.” Carl flicked the frog again.

“Why on earth did they choose a frog?” Murphy asked.

“Their mystical properties. Wanted the album cover to stick in people’s minds. They say touching the statue brings you luck, money, fertility. And rain. Lots of rain. Real tree frogs lay eggs close to water. In a foam nest that hardens over time. When it rains really hard, the nests melt, and their eggs drop into the water. That’s where the fertility part comes in.”

“And where exactly is this monster frog?”

Carl chuckled. “Tucked away in a forgotten little corner of New Hampshire, a place called Happy Corner. About as close to Canada as you can get. The band played a festival there once and loved it. Decided that’s where Rainmaker should live. Now it’s kind of a pilgrimage for hard-core fans. Something to see.” He sought Alex’s gaze again. “You know, it’s not all that far from your new school.”

Alex crossed her arms and stared out her window. Murphy’s questioning stare now filled the rearview mirror:
You’re not thinking about stopping there, are you?

He shook his head. Happy Corner was not part of this itinerary. Perhaps once the girl got settled, she’d find a way to visit.

The chorus of “Lifeboat” came around again, and Carl rapped the steering wheel:

Horizon before us, nothing but sea

You lookin’ all fine sitting right across from me.

The vision changes quickly, from tranquillity to war

Who are these people, the enemy, crashing through the door?

Arrivederci, freedom. Will I feel the pain?

Let me be your lifeboat, so I can see you again.

The
Rainmaker
album provided the soundtrack for the next hundred miles, Carl dissecting every track. Alex came out of her funk a little, warming to his narration, even contributing a bit of band trivia here and there. His charge had been well schooled; her father, Alex said again, when Carl complimented her encyclopedic knowledge of the band.

The guy sounded cool, Carl thought. Under other circumstances, he might have enjoyed meeting Jacob Carmody, the music providing common ground.

When they got to “Rose Volcano,” the second-to-last track, the two clashed. Alex swore it was on the band’s set list last year; Carl claimed Amphibian retired the song in Santa Fe in 1978.

“I was there, Alex. They made a big deal about hanging up that song. Even erupted a fake volcano on stage.”

“But on YouTube . . .” Alex protested.

“YouTube’s not the Bible.” He ought to remember; Santa Fe was part of his summer with Diana—the best one of his life, until he blew it.

Silent, Alex spun her braid and stared out her window.

“You really got around in those days, Carl,” Murphy commented.

“We had a pretty good gig,” he chuckled. Life was simple that summer, Diana’s dad loading their van with cases of soda they could sell, stacking the cases so high they could barely see out the back window.

“He probably wanted to make sure his daughter would eat over the next few weeks,” Murphy observed.

“You’re probably right.” They had picked up the tour in Albuquerque, Carl recalled. “Every night, I filled a cooler with soda and ice and rigged it to my skateboard. Just before the encores, Diana and I rolled it out to the exit. People came out so hot and thirsty they’d pay two dollars, three dollars apiece for a drink.” He lifted his hat to run a hand over his head. “Profits kept us going the entire tour.”

Alex sat up, her eyes admiring. “You’re so lucky.”

“Only thing was, we never got to hear the encores because we had to run outside to get ready.”

“Bummer. Encores are sick,” Alex yawned and turned her head again.

“What happened to Diana?” Murphy asked.

Diana, the elegant honor student so far out of his league, the serious sculptress he fell hard and fast for in high school. For her, he’d even cracked the books a little, just to sit beside her and feel the spark when his arm grazed hers. They crisscrossed the country that summer in the borrowed van, chasing music, their eighteen-year-old selves convinced they would spend the rest of their lives together.

Then, the morning Diana found him; the hundreds of miles of a silent ride home once they located their van keys. She told him she never wanted to see him again. By the time he had his act together a few years later and looked her up, it was too late.

“You know. Your old girlfriend?” Murphy prompted.

Carl shrugged. “It was a long time ago. Didn’t work out.”

In the hour or so since they’d crossed into New Hampshire, the rain had intensified, the traffic a sea of brake lights stretching to the horizon. Carl ejected the CD and searched for a news channel. “Might have a little situation up there.” They plugged along at twenty miles an hour for a good fifteen minutes, two lanes of traffic squeezed down to one, a single fluorescent-wrapped emergency worker waving everyone to the shoulder.

Carl spotted the wreck first. “Well, what do you know? Our buddy from before.” Up ahead, the trailer that had passed them awhile back lay on its side, splayed across both northbound lanes, its shiny vehicles clinging precariously to the tractor frame. Carl cringed at the damage the cargo had likely suffered. The driver stood in the grassy island, gesturing wildly to a state trooper. Southbound drivers rubbernecked, paralyzing the traffic on that side as well.

“Could have predicted that one. He’s lucky he’s standing.” Carl slowed and rolled down his window.

“Mandatory exit for everyone,” the red-faced worker said, rain pouring off his bright orange vest. He pointed to the exit ramp up ahead. “You gotta get off there. Shutting down northbound 93 till we get this cleared.” Sirens whined in the distance.

“That could take hours.” Carl merged into the stream of cars bumping along the grassy roadside. “We’ll need a detour.” He tapped furiously into the GPS screen. “Problem is, the exits are further apart up here. There’s not another one for twelve miles or so. And we’re right up against solid forest here”—he pointed to a thick green mass on the GPS grid—“which pushes us much further east than I’d like.” They’d have to go way east, then double back again, he said.

They were off the highway now, in Lincoln, an area thick with shops and hotels and other tourist spots anchoring ski resorts. At the slower speed, the rain plinked off the windshield. He pulled into the next gas station and stopped.

“Probably better to figure this out the old-fashioned way.” He pulled a map of Vermont and New Hampshire from the glove compartment and snapped it open, studying it a moment before folding it down and offering it to Murphy. “This right here is 112, the Kancamagus Highway.” He traced a route that sliced through the White Mountain Forest. They’d take the Kanc into Conway, then hop onto 302 north up to Silver Mountain. The detour would take them out of their way a little, setting them back maybe half an hour, well within their timetable, he said.

“We could just wait here until they clear the accident and hop back on 93,” Murphy suggested.

Not necessary; he’d driven the Kanc many times before. The White Mountains were filled with camps and wilderness programs extremely popular with his clients. Carl knew to avoid the winding highway in winter when the access roads on either side weren’t maintained. But it was spring now. Leaving Murphy to hold the map, he smiled at his passengers.

“We’ll be fine,” he said. “We’re just lucky the whole Kanc is open now. A couple weeks ago, and we’d have been in big trouble.”

ALEX

Could it hurt to ask? Beneath the mirror, the frog’s omnipotent gaze challenged Alex to fire at Camo Man all the burning questions she and Cass had debated endlessly.
Would the Phibs embrace them? Were there sacred dances around the statue?
And most important:
How often did the band visit Happy Corner?

With the driver’s off-the-cuff mention of the place, everything had roared back to the surface: the expectancy humming under Alex’s skin, the anticipation and curiosity she’d pushed so far down she’d convinced herself they had disappeared.

But asking would be a betrayal. That pilgrimage to the site of Amphibian’s first festival, to Rainmaker’s home, was to have been their journey, hers and Cass’s—their
raison d’etre
, as Cass described it when she was feeling super-dramatic, which was pretty often. Spellbound by a public radio account of the colony that sprang up from the band’s hallowed ground, this was what Cass had proposed the day Alex’s parents announced their split: that they visit Happy Corner the summer after high school. Their pact kept Alex going even as her parents’ relationship imploded.

Armed with names generated at FindYourInnerHippie.com (Blossom Jade Sweetwater for Cass, Indigo Wren Sterling for Alex), they immersed themselves in Happy Corner lore. Alex fancied herself tending the self-sustaining gardens, collecting fruits and vegetables for locally sourced communal meals, while Cass fantasized about assisting in Happy Corner’s school for Phibs offspring, run out of an old barn.

Stoked with excitement, the friends stepped up their gum-chewing, wrapper-folding enterprise, each stick moving them farther along their journey. They worked in Alex’s room, with her Rainmaker poster for inspiration.

Anything had been possible with that great golden statue in their future.

In the backseat now, Alex swallowed her questions. She’d sooner die than break the promise she’d made to herself after. And to Cass. Forgetting would be infinitely more challenging now, with Rainmaker so close. Her penance, she decided. Perhaps by virtue of proximity, the statue’s energy would radiate to her new prison naturally, which would be perfectly acceptable under the terms of her self-made pact.

Still, she wished Camo Man had never mentioned it.

Alex felt moisture on her face and opened her eyes. Rain sluiced through Camo Man’s open window as he plotted their detour on a map. Mom Haircut was all for waiting out the traffic; Camo Man was determined to move forward. Alex smirked.
A little trouble in paradise.

The driver turned up his coat flaps. “You folks wait here. I want to give the school an update.” He disappeared into the little store attached to the gas station, its windows plastered with Mega Ball posters surrounding a blinking “Hot Coffee” sign. A faded plaque outside read “Lynx,” a bus bearing the same logo idled in the parking lot while the driver smoked a cigarette outside.

“Why doesn’t he call them on his cell?” Alex asked.

“Service is pretty spotty in the mountains.”

This was the icing on the cake: her mother sticking her somewhere with no cell service. Alex’s phone kept her going, connected—the reassurance somebody was always out there, a lifeline, when her house full of people felt empty.

Beside her, Mom Haircut dug into her fanny pack, extracting an envelope. “Your mother wanted us to give this to you.”

Alex grabbed it, recognizing the signature scrawl that greeted her every time she opened her lunch bag. Without Cass at her elbow to chortle over her mom’s latest corny sentiment, reading the daily notes was like watching a movie without popcorn, or munching a hundred-calorie snack. Without Cass, something essential was missing. The notes kept coming, though. Alex read them quickly, away from Shana’s prying eyes.

Murphy beside her, Alex traced her name on the envelope, pondering its contents. Maybe if she had only texted Evan’s address to her mom last night instead of going off the radar, her mom would be saying this stuff in person.

“You don’t have to read it now.”

Damn straight I won’t—not with you sitting there watching me.
Alex fake smiled and stuffed the letter into her bag, hoping Mom Haircut wouldn’t do something lame like grab her hand, relieved when Camo Man dropped back into the front seat.

“It’s starting to sleet.” He took off his hat, sending another spray of water Alex’s way. “Temperature’s dropped a good fifteen degrees since we stopped.”

“Maybe we should wait it out,” urged Murphy. “It’ll only get worse as we go higher up.” Worrywart Mom Haircut, scared of a little sleet. Alex was up for anything that delayed the inevitable.

“We’ll be fine,” Camo Man said, turning to her. “Turnaround’s tight tomorrow, remember?”

“You have to think about
her
.” Murphy pursed her lips and looked out her window.

Hmm . . . a little like the Meg and Jacob Show
, Alex thought. No wonder she had assumed they were married, although Camo Man still sounded obsessed with that Diana chick. If he loved her so much, why hadn’t he fought for her, like people in love were supposed to do?
’Til death do us part.
Then maybe he’d have his own kids to worry about today instead of kidnapping other people’s for a living.

Peering out her rain-splashed window, she regretted opening up to the driver earlier over the music. Even if he
was
a certifiable Phib, which she was convinced of now, he only used their common passion to manipulate her. The man could turn on her at any moment.

Like her father, who had always been the fun parent, the silly parent, the parent who usually caved when her mom wouldn’t. When the tables started to turn, her dad becoming all bad cop, it threw everything off-balance.

Like when he started sleeping in the basement, suddenly all on her case to move her stuff out of there. The basement, where they spent gazillions of hours listening to music, was now off-limits. Her dad, grouchy and moody—when he wasn’t away working, he was sleeping down there.

Next, he’d moved on to her makeup. The guy who took her to get her lip pierced suddenly cared about her eyeliner application?

Fast-forward to her Sweet Sixteen: Alex’s cheeks flamed just thinking about it. The party was rocking—Shana’s toilet activity undetected, thanks to her mother’s obsession with getting lame family pictures. Why couldn’t they just cram into the photo booth and call it a night, Alex complained. She saw no point in family pictures now.

To her horror, her mother licked a finger right in front of the whole world and went to town on Alex’s face. “Hold still, Al. You’ve got glitter on your cheek.”

“Stop, Mom. It’s
supposed
to be there.” Mortified, she turned to make sure no one had seen. Behind them, the chocolate fountain had begun to give off a burnt smell, the basin lumpy with broken pretzels and strawberry hulls. Her parents posed stiffly on either side of her.

“Smile, Carmodys.”

Her mom pulled away suddenly. “Wait. Don’t move. We’re missing Jack.” She dashed off, leaving Alex with her father. He’d looked handsome that night. Alex hadn’t been able to remember the last time she’d seen him in a suit. Maybe Grandpa’s funeral? He didn’t have a suit kind of job. Maybe with the next one, he would.

“I can’t believe you’re sixteen,” he said.

At that moment, Cass had strolled by. “
Soooo
cute. You guys look amazing.”

Her dad smiled. “Next thing you know, we’ll be taking pictures of you girls at your graduation and sending you away to college.”

“That’s right.
Away.
” Cass locked eyes with Alex, undulating her hips and waving her hands at her sides, all the while moving away from the pair.

“What the heck is she doing?” her father asked as Cass slipped back into the ballroom.

Alex seized the moment. She was so anxious to know what her parents’ crazy arrangement meant for her future. Moistening her lips, she began. “Dad, I found this college . . .” The photographer posed them back-to-back in a cheesy father-daughter shot.

“College, huh? How are those grades doing, by the way?”

“Great. Awesome.” She couldn’t tell him all the tension at home made it hard for her to concentrate, paragraphs and equations blurring on the page. Alex lifted her chin at the photographer’s bidding. “Anyway, this school,” she said through a forced grin. “It has exactly the program I want. Marine biology.”

Her dad chuckled in sync with the photographer’s flash. Later, in the photos, his smile looked totally natural. “You loved scooping stuff out of the bay that summer, remember? So, which college are we talking?”

She’d watched the virtual tour a thousand times, imagined herself strolling to class in the shadow of the Kilauea Volcano, immersed in life below aquamarine waters. That’s how you knew it was the right school, wasn’t it—when you could see yourself there?

At that exact second, the DJ launched into “Best Night Ever.”

“University of Hawaii,” she yelled over the music.

“You’re kidding, right? We talking college or vacation here?” her dad called over Wale’s full-blown rap.

Please be joking, Dad.
Alex knew it was far away. But if she didn’t get away from the two of them and their mixed-up life, she would suffocate.

“It’s great you’re thinking ahead, but we’re not made of money.”

No. No no no no.
He couldn’t possibly crush her dream on the most important night of her life. She turned toward him, on the brink of tears. “But Dad, there’s scholarships. And financial aid. I can work in the summers for airfare and—”

The photographer interrupted. “Miss Carmody, could you turn back to me, please?”

Her father maneuvered her toward the camera. “That’s great, honey. But I don’t know how we could do that.”

“But this party . . .” She waved at the festivities behind her.

“Tonight was a special case,” her father said. “I’ll explain it sometime.”

Alex wasn’t able to imagine what those reasons could be, but if she had known her parents couldn’t afford a party of this magnitude, she would have scaled it way back. She would have told them to save the money for Hawaii.

Her dad had slung an arm around her for the last photo. “Sorry, Alex. It’s just not in the cards right now. Things are pretty tight.”

The banquet-hall air felt stale and warm suddenly. Alex longed to yank her father away and make him understand this was the only school she wanted. If they
were
officially poor now, couldn’t financial aid fund her dream? But the words wouldn’t move past the ginormous lump in her throat.

Her mother had dragged Jack back in time to hear her dad’s last comment. Before Alex could plead her case, her parents were off and running:

“Really, Jacob? Is this the time and place for that discussion?” her mom snapped. She tugged at her strapless dress, pressing her lips in an approximation of a smile.

“Alex brought it up. I just want her to know I’m doing everything I can for her and Jack,” he said.

“You mean your mother is,” her mother whispered, but Alex heard it anyway.

“Meg, please. I’m working on it.”

Two cheerleaders stared on their way to the chocolate fountain—seniors Alex hoped to impress. They laughed and touched heads, Alex imagining their snarky observation about her family.

“You don’t know anything about what I do,” her dad continued. Her parents had stopped posing and now faced each other. “It’s all about contacts, word of mouth.”

“Fine. Do it your way. Look how well it’s working!”

Alex froze. This could
not
be happening. These parents who lived separate existences 24/7 now picked her party to rip into each other? Willing the floor to open up and swallow her, she rolled her eyes at the returning cheerleaders while the bickering continued. Jack wandered over to the chocolate fountain, hands over his ears. Her parents moved apart.

Girl alone, the last shot.

Her father made a show of tapping his watch. Suddenly he had to go; something about Vermont at the crack of dawn.

“You can’t leave, Jacob. Alex hasn’t cut her cake. Or done the friends ceremony.”

Ignoring her mom, he hugged Alex good-bye. “Happy birthday, kiddo. Gotta get some sleep before I go to work.” He twirled his keys. “We’ll talk more about the college thing. Find a school on this coast, honey. Better yet, county. You can transfer after two years. You get good grades, you go for free.”

He slipped through the crowd, tugging at the knot in his tie.

“Mom, please. You have to talk to him.”

Her mother didn’t hear her. She was already pulling Jack to the bathroom, his chocolate hands raised in surrender. Trembling, Alex peeked into the ballroom. Barely anyone was left on the dance floor. She spotted Cass from the back, the silky violet trailing over her shoulder.
Thank God.
She strode toward her friend, blinking back tears. A few yards from Cass, she stopped short.

Holy crap.
Cass was slow dancing with a boy. Cass
never, ever
slow danced. That was, like, rule number one in the Cass playbook. Tucking herself behind a column, Alex watched the pair sway together, her BFF’s flushed cheek pressed against his sport-coated shoulder.

Cass looked so blissful, Alex couldn’t bear to interrupt. She backed away from the couple, ducking around the other dancers. In the corner, the line for the palm reader spilled out of her tent, the fuchsia decorations they’d carefully chosen now looking gaudy and childish. Alex and Cass had taken their turns before the party started. Not that the woman’s prophecies meant a thing anymore.

Thanks for laying out my whole future, Dad.

“Alex, wait,” Aunt Melissa called after her. Ignoring her godmother, Alex wiped under her eyes and zigzagged through the crowd, heading straight for the bathroom, hoping Shana had saved some party for the birthday girl.