Drain You (14 page)

“Don’t be jealous,” he said. “You can make me a mix too if you want.” When he said it, he sounded like Milkshake Whit.

“Yay.” I missed Milkshake Whit. It already seemed like forever ago.

We passed on through San Bernardino, heading deeper into the desert. It was already six thirty. The 10 East stretched out into the horizon. Traffic was brutal but it didn’t matter; we had all the time in the universe. And more crucial: We had Libby.

“So what happened at Brown?”

“Do you like long stories as much as Courtney does?”

“I like them better.”

Whit relaxed in his seat. “It’s not that dramatic. I was a creative writing major. Mainly plays.”

“Were you a good writer?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“To the story, or in general?”

“Doesn’t matter in general. If I’m a good writer, I’ll just write. School’s useless. I’m more interested in life.”

“Ah, don’t tell me.” I held up my hand like a stop sign. “You’ve been to Europe.”

“That was funny. You’re pretty funny.”

“I try.”

“Well…I studied abroad one semester, but that’s not what I’m saying.”

“What are you saying?”

“The thing that no one ever tells you, the thing my parents never told me, is that you don’t need to go to college. If I want to write, I need life experiences, not chemistry, not Rocks for Jocks. Not math I’m never going to use.” He shook his head, convinced. “It’s pointless. I realized that. Brown wasn’t for me. So I bailed.”

It sounded like a speech he’d given many times. Or like a speech he was preparing himself to give. I was buying it, but I was no Brown candidate.

“What are your plays about then?”

“I don’t know.” He laughed. “Divorce, class struggle, death and dying, the truth.”

“The truth is depressing.”

“Dude, Quinn, you have no idea.”

The sun was starting to slant in the sky, the temperature dropping, the rocks and desert shrubs were turning that shadowy lavender mystical color. I loved L.A. highways. I loved Southern California. My lingering fear faded, giving way to a gentle sense of accomplishment. Maybe not a job well done, but at least a job done. We saved Libby; it really had happened. We’d be at Lynn’s soon.

“Well, what about you?” Whit asked. “What do you want to do?”

“When, now? Or in…life?”

“Yeah.”

I hadn’t actually thought about it much since I was eight, so I gave him the old stock response: “Either be a bride or a mermaid.”

“Shoot for the stars. How about a mer-bride?”

“Libby’s going to be a hologram.” I sighed, remembering her own eight-year-old life quest.

“Whoa, sick.”

“I know.”

“Oh, damn, I forgot the pizza! Our victory slice!”

I put my hand over my stomach. The idea of pizza, even the smell of it, was not cool beans.

“I’m not hungry.” I leaned back and let dusk begin to settle down over our universe. “Like, at all.”

“Whit, I’m starving.” Twenty minutes later, waking up groggily from a car nap, deep in the empty desert, hunger pangs came on like a beast. A giant honey-mustard pretzel beast. “And I need a Big Gulp.”

“Tall order.”

“Rest stop,” I said in a monotone. “Seven-Eleven,” I said like a zombie.

“You were a lot less demanding when you were drooling.”

“You wish. How’s Libby?” I turned back to look at her. No significant change.

“She’s a party animal. Apparently she danced her pants off.”

Whit’s charms were working. I felt okay. Libby was with us and we were miles away from evil guesthouses. The early evening air was cool. Big Gulps and things flavored cool ranch were in my immediate future.

Whit steered the Camry off the freeway and into a gas station. After he’d parked the car, we both turned around and stared at the body in the backseat. To a Video Journeys customer I’d describe this part of the movie as
Weekend at Bernie’s
meets that passed-out chick in
License to Drive
meets, um, vampires.

“I guess I should put that dress on her.”

“Yeah, probably.”

Whit got out of the car, leaving Libby and me alone together for the first time since we’d kidnapped her. She hadn’t said a word or made a single sound or even opened her eyes for hours. It was hard to remember she was alive.

I scooted back to the seat next to Libby, propping her into an upright position. She slumped forward limply. Predictable.

I grabbed the soft flower-print dress from under the seat, placed it at Libby’s feet, pulled it up her long legs to her lap, and then worked my best gym-class locker-room
magic. I got her arms through the T-shirt sleeves and into the dress straps without a topless moment. Then I slipped the NIN shirt off her head and, voilà, she was presentable. If you were nearsighted.

At least she was fully clothed. Minus shoes.

I was out of breath. I opened my door and walked around to her side.

“Come on, Libby. Time to get up.” She stayed like a rock. “They have Cherry Coke Slurpees.” I leaned there against the open car door, staring down at the sad mess in Naomi’s sweet cotton dress.

“I bought one of every gross thing,” Whit said from behind me. I felt his hand on my shoulder. It was warm and sticky on my skin. His other hand held three plastic bags full of crap and a drink caddy crowded with two massive sodas.

“Look at her, Whit.”

“She’ll be fine.”

“No, I mean look at her. She’s still so beautiful.” She was. Stupid girl was gorgeous.

I tried to smooth down Libby’s bed-head hair. I put some of my ChapStick on her lips and one of my chains around her neck. What else could I give her? My high-tops? My Big Gulp? Everything I had, which was seriously, literally, nothing?

“I’m going to cry, okay?” But tears were already
starting to drip-drop down my cheeks. Then I drip-dropped to the ground. Everything went blurry. I could dimly make out cars pulling in for gas, a family waiting in line for the bathroom, bugs swarming around a parking lot lamppost.

For the second time today Whit hugged me deeply, trying to crush the grief out of my bones with his tender strength.

“I know Libby’s your best friend,” he said.

I shook my head. “She’s not really that good a friend actually, but whatever.”

“Is that how you really feel?”

I shrugged.

“Well, I’m sorry, but I don’t get that at all.”

“Libby can be her worst around me. We love each other.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Who says love has to be even? Who says Libby doesn’t give me certain things I can’t give her?”

“I don’t know her.”

“Yeah.” I rolled my eyes. This conversation sucked.

“How can that kind of friendship make you happy?”

I told him, “It used to make me happy,” but even while saying it, I didn’t know if it ever did. I’d never thought about it in those terms. I loved Libby; therefore she made me happy. Right?

“Well, you saved her life. Doesn’t matter what happens now. She owes you one permanently.”

“
You
saved her life. I was over by the window sunbathing.”

“Hey, you’re right. This girl owes
me
everything. Guess she’ll have to be my slave now.” Whit brushed the hair out of my face and used his Celtics jersey to blot the leftover tears.

“She’s pretty used to enslavement.”

“Harsh, man,” Whit said, grinning. “But nonfiction nonetheless.”

He hugged me again, then released me again. He lifted me up and handed me one of the plastic bags of snacks. My empty stomach rumbled. A bag of jalapeño Corn Nuts had never seemed such a sweet and heroic gesture.

“So if Libby’s my slave,” Whit started as he straightened my tank top, “and she has to do whatever I say, then after I squash her dreams of becoming a hologram, what do you want from her? I’ll make her give you anything.”

What I wanted was for Libby to wake up tonight with complete amnesia of all things Stiles-related. But that didn’t seem likely. So I compromised: “Uh, that’s my Nine Inch Nails shirt, for the record.”

“Done.” Whit reached over Libby’s body, grabbed the
T-shirt, and shoved it into my hand. “I knew this shirt belonged to more of a badass. Here. Consider this the first of many thank-you gifts from your best friend Libby.”

I looked at the shirt, then at the sleeping beauty. Snacks, sodas, and so few miles to our destination: I had seriously so many gifts.

I tossed the shirt back in the car. “Whatever, looks better on her anyway.”

Two minutes later we were back on the road, stuffing toxic waste in our mouths, finally,
finally
listening to
The Chronic
, talking trash, watching dust and dirt and nothing, shaking it all off. Then we started spotting the faint silhouettes of Joshua trees out in the desert. That meant Aunt Lynn’s cosmic vibes weren’t far away.

I knew some things never changed, but some things I wanted to. This would change Libby and me. Good.

Aunt Lynn was perched on a wooden porch swing when Whit pulled the Camry up into the dirt driveway. She got up and came out toward us, smiling, her arms outstretched, her blondish-gray hair piled into a loose bun on top of her head.

Although she was immediate family, Aunt Lynn was nothing at all like Stella or Libby, the Block glamour girls with their legs for days and their effortless city cool. Lynn had spent some time in that world, but then something
else had called to her, something weirder and more spiritual. So she’d said her good-byes and come out to the desert to wear giant white linen dresses, no makeup, and long crystal necklaces. And here she was, beaming, barefoot, happy in her outsider life, hugging Whit and me like we were her own niece and nephew. A set of wind chimes clanged peacefully from the porch like a good omen. I exhaled.

We exchanged the shortest pleasantries:

Haven’t seen you in so long. Look at you, you’re a woman now. Whit, Lynn. Lynn, Whit. He rescued Libby from bloodsucking male models. His older brother is one too. That’s the one I’m in love with.

All caught up.

I cringed when Lynn finally opened the Camry’s back door and found Libby crumpled up and unconscious in what she probably could only assume was a postdrug stupor. But she didn’t freak out. She just scooped Libby up, propped her against her shoulder, and began hobbling her niece toward the house. They were both barefoot, their bodies one mass under the porch light, angel and ghost.

We followed them into the house, and Lynn led Libby away down a hall while Whit and I seated ourselves on huge Japanese pillow cushions on the floor in the sparsely furnished living room. There wasn’t a couch, just the cushions and a low, long cherrywood table.

Then Lynn came back and brought us a small ceramic pot of tea with two cups. She told us she was so happy that we’d all be here when Libby woke up.

But I did
not
want to be here for that. I pinched Whit on the arm. He caught my drift.

“You’re staying for dinner, of course,” Lynn said suddenly, as if psychically picking up my escape signal.

All we could do was consent and relax back on the cushions and sip our tea. Lynn smiled, said, “Wonderful,” and disappeared down the hallway.

As soon as we heard the door close, Whit turned to me. “She’s taking this well. We dropped off a very, very damaged package.”

“Maybe she has faith. Third-eye stuff.” I felt it: Libby was safe here.

But were
we
? Was
I
? Dusk was close, the undead—wherever they were—were stirring, and dinner was only a meal. We couldn’t stay here forever.

“What do you think’s going to happen when they find out she’s gone?”

Whit looked at me and rubbed his eyes. “Nothing. She’ll be gone; they won’t know where. Or how.”

“What if they guess?”

“They won’t.”

I felt my nerves crawl. “I don’t know.” I looked out the window into the dark.

“Quinn, they won’t.”

Then there was a light creak down the hall, then footsteps, then Lynn came into the room, and in her hand was the bony hand of an old best friend of mine. Libby’s eyes were open—they
were
brown or something—and she was walking, one foot in front of the other, very slowly. Her free hand dragged itself absently along the wall.

“How is she scarier now than she was before?” Whit asked under his breath.

Somehow, with her eyes open, Libby’s head looked more like a skull. And with her spine upright and limbs moving, her body looked more like a skeleton. Seriously freaky.

Lynn whispered something in Libby’s ear and they separated, aunt to the kitchen, niece to the living room. She came in and collapsed in a heap on a cushion, her eyes huge and glassy. She showed no sign that she even realized there were other people in the room.

I leaned in to Whit. “We would know if she’s one of them, right?”

Whit squinted behind his tortoiseshell glasses. “Not until she kills someone.”

I glared at him. “Cool, Whit.”

“Or until she eats some food maybe?”

Lynn started bringing out huge bowls of salad. Me and Whit picked at ours, said thanks, took some bites.
Libby just sat there, staring ahead in an unfocused way.

When Lynn got up to get dulse flakes and cayenne pepper from the kitchen, I turned and grabbed Libby’s hand. She moved her head sluggishly in my direction. Weak, but a sign of life.

“Hi,” I said.

She just stared at me, vacant. I noticed the whites of her eyes were very white. I didn’t know why, but I’d thought they’d be bloodshot.

“Hi,” I said again, softer.

Her mouth hung open for a second, and then she managed a hollow, distant “Hi.” Her first word.

“How are you?”

Her mouth hung open again, but nothing came out. Her face twitched slightly. I scooted over toward Whit. No one was home at Libby’s. Not right now.

Lynn returned and sat back down. “Eat, eat,” she encouraged.

So we did—three-fourths of us at least—and tried to enjoy being together on a summer night, on soft cushions, with giant salads. I said a small, human prayer for such small, human things as these.

Aunt Lynn tried to persuade us to drive back in the morning, but we politely declined. I told her Bonnie and Elliott were expecting me. Whit said Naomi would be alone in the Sheets house. We made no return plans to
pick up Libby. For now this was a one-way trip for her.