Driver's Ed (6 page)

R
emy had gone on a shopping binge—a tray of sparkling eye shadows, a new tube of ultrathick mascara, more lip gloss colors.

Of course it was a lie that makeup could change your life, and even when she paid for the makeup, she knew it was a lie, but she didn't care; she would try this new stuff and see if it was still a lie.

Mac had watched her getting ready, keeping up a running commentary on how useless the effort was.

Her brother Mac had all the signs of growing up to be pond scum like Nickie Budie. The kind who would steal signs in a heartbeat. Nickie, in fact, had probably outgrown the stealing of signs and was even now busily concealing stolen car phones.

Remy was the kind of little kid that when she was bad and her mother glared at her and began to count, “One! Two!” Remy was so terrified of what would happen if Mom got to “Three!” she raced to do whatever she had been told.

Mac was the kind of little kid that when Mom counted, “One! Two!” Mac got into the spirit of the thing and yelled along with her, “Three! Four!” and never once considered what kind of punishment he would get.

It wasn't as if Mom and Dad gave in. Once Mac was so rotten and worthless, Mom and Dad took away his
television privileges. He went on being rotten and worthless.

Mom and Dad took away his radio. He went on being rotten and worthless. They took away telephone privileges, and then he was confined to his room, and no matter what Mom and Dad did to him, Mac went right on being rotten and worthless.

“What do we do now?” Dad said to Mom one night. “Take away his furniture? Leave him with nothing but a mattress?”

Then it dawned on them it was the mattress Mac loved. Lying awake on the bed doing nothing was Mac's favorite pastime. So they took away the mattress and after two nights sleeping on the floor Mac began to shape up.

Why can't I have a brother like Morgan Campbell? thought Remy. And then, more sensibly, thought, Since when do I want Morgan to be my brother?

When the car pulled up Remy felt like cookie dough. She was soft and sugary with nerves and delight. “Bye, Mom.” Remy rushed out before her mother saw who was driving. “We'll be at Lark's watching movies. Don't worry. My homework's all done.”

Her pleasure vanished when she reached the car. Nickie's ratlike eyes stared straight through the windshield instead of turning toward the person getting in his car. His arms were as thin as crossed broomsticks. Whitish hair oozed out of his head. Nickie Budie was truly a scarecrow.

Morgan was facing her, but motionless. Eyes wide and somehow calculating.

There was something awful and wrong about how the boys sat. Her heart suddenly leapt in panic, her
mouth went dry, and she climbed in back, grateful that Lark would be picked up next.

U
nlike everybody else Lark lived in a high-rise apartment complex. Residents' cars were parked underground. No earth had been left unpaved. Not a tree and not a bush interrupted the flow of stone and pavement. Every one of the hundreds of windows was covered by shades. The immense buildings gave no sense of being occupied.

No tiny gauzy Lark flew toward them.

Nickie leaned on the horn long and hard, which hadn't seemed so bad in front of a single house but was stupid in front of all these apartments.

“Go get her,” Nickie said, neither to Morgan nor Remy, just being obnoxiously clear that the driver did not run errands. Remy opened her door without speaking and crossed the pavement to Lark's building.

Mixed in with Remy's crush on Morgan was a queer nausea. A kind of knowledge that she was in trouble. She was going as fast as a car, and would crash like metal.

G
ood, thought Morgan. When the girls come back, I'll get the seating right.

He watched Remy enter the outer lobby and try the interior door. Of course it didn't open. She rang the apartment from the bell board and talked into a house phone. After a few minutes Remy came back alone.

Morgan flung open the front door and edged over against Nickie to make space for Remy right next to him. He felt feverish.

“Isn't Lark dressed yet?” demanded Nicholas.

“She can't come. Her mother's getting the flu and she has to stay home and help.”

Morgan found it difficult to imagine Lark heating chicken soup or soothing a headachy brow. But he forgot Lark instantly. Remy was extremely nervous. She sat gingerly next to Morgan, trying to thin herself and not touch him. Morgan reached over her lap and hung on to the handle of her door, slamming it satisfyingly and letting his arm brush over Remy on the way back. The control panel buzzed like hornets, demanding that the seat belt be closed.

“She says bring her the sign anyway,” said Remy.

Nicholas drove off too fast, making the tires whine, while Morgan and Remy fussed with the single seat belt.

It was long enough to go around them both.

T
HICKLY SETTLED
was on the curve of a sharp downward slope, deep in the woods. A few hundred yards into the curve the road would pass a couple of houses crowded by the edge of a brook. But here, although a new road had been cut into the woods for a future subdivision, no house had ever been built. No streetlights, no house lights, and only occasional headlights penetrated the dark.

Authority existed as it never had when Morgan and Nickie leapt into ditches at the sight of distant headlights. This time Authority was Police, and Authority could arrest them, in possession of stolen public property.

Morgan was amazed to find how much this appealed to him. Not
getting
caught, of course. But taking the
risk
of getting caught.

Morgan battled nausea and excitement.

If his parents knew
 … Well, he wouldn't tell. And there'd be no evidence. Lark was getting the sign, after all.

Remy was crowded next him. She wasn't shrinking anymore. He could feel her muscles relaxing, one by one, as she let herself lean on him.

The whole length of his thigh was tight against the whole length of hers. He couldn't feel much. Denim jeans were like armor.

Morgan slipped his hand across her lap until he found her hand. Curling his fingers around, he stroked the soft inner cup of her palm with his thumb. Right away he wanted more, and put his hand on the back of her neck, touching the bristly back of her hair. It did not feel the way he had expected: it was silk.

R
emy Marland was deep in a heady, vibrating excitement. The utter and complete joy of being sandwiched so tightly up against Morgan made all else irrelevant.

“We'll park here,” said Nicholas. He backed into the unpaved opening that would have been the exit from the housing development, if it had ever been built.

How silent the night was.

No underlying noise: no refrigerators humming, no radio, car, or plane. No coffee perking, computer printing, or baby brother crying.

And so dark.

No moon and few stars.

Nickie got out first. Morgan, who was in the middle, had to wait till Remy got out. Remy hated being outside the car. The night seemed to have a personality of its own. Soft and suffocating.

Lark had simply decided not to come. Why? Was
this part of Lark's master plan for Remy's romance? Or did Lark know something Remy didn't? Lark always knew something Remy didn't.

I want to go home, thought Remy, and immediately forgot the thought, because Morgan touched her again, his hot hand at the nape of her neck, having her silent permission to touch her there.

“Come on,” said Nickie irritably.

The boys were armed.

Signs were fastened down to make taking them difficult. On most road signs, after the town crew tightened the bolt, they hammered the extending tip upward to prevent unscrewing. A simple crescent wrench probably would not do.

They had a ratchet, therefore, a hacksaw, and a bolt cutter.

All three walked softly, as if creeping through an occupied house.

Nickie's child-thin shoulders and straw hair were outlined like a cartoon by the flashlight Remy held. Morgan was much wider than Nickie—football-tackle wide. Fantasy and hope for every girl in school.

We're stealing
, thought Remy.

The word landed on her like a mosquito. She actually physically brushed it away. It's just a sign, she reminded herself. A silly old sign warning drivers who don't use this road about a population that doesn't live here.

The boys got to work. Remy hung in the shadows.

Anyway, I'm not really doing this. They're really doing this. I'm just here. It isn't as if we're taking money. Or hurting anybody.

A car was coming. Its engine splattered the silent night.

Fear filled her mouth like a spoonful of peanut butter, sealing her shut, preventing speech and breathing.

“Don't worry about the car,” said Nicholas. “You can do anything you want. Nobody ever stops.”

“What if it's cops?” whispered Morgan.

Nicholas mocked him. “It won't be cops, little boy. Who would patrol here? Just keep on working.”

Headlights exposed them against the black pavement. Remy felt as if she were on an operating table, naked, her heart lying open.

It's just a road sign, she said to herself. It's hardly even wrong.

The car did not slow down, but shot past as if it had no driver, was a robotized vehicle on its way to another world.

The sign came down easily. The bolt had not been hammered up after all, and the wrench did the job. Remy was amazed at how large the sign was. It didn't look like much when you drove by. Nickie carried the tools while Morgan took the sign. Nickie popped the Buick's trunk. When Morgan dropped
THICKLY SETTLED
down, Christmas-tree needles from last year jumped up off the carpet pile.

Nickie got back in the driver's seat. Morgan opened the door for Remy and she almost got in, but sitting in the middle meant touching Nickie. She nodded for Morgan to go in first.

Nickie saw. He drove off with a screaming spurt, undoubtedly leaving tire marks.

Remy told herself that nobody was going to photograph the tread stains. Nobody would investigate who had taken
THICKLY SETTLED
. They would just put up a new
THICKLY SETTLED
.

She tried not to think about what could have gone wrong, reminding herself that nothing had.

T
he Buick surged onto the highway, seventy miles an hour by the time it got to the top of the entrance ramp. Morgan sucked in his breath. Nickie was a very aggressive driver. He expected the world to move over for him, and so far it had. It did again. Morgan let the air back out of his lungs.

“So, Miss Marland,” said Nickie tauntingly. The edge of his voice was like a paper cut. “What's your pleasure?”

A sentence Morgan's father used at political gatherings when he wanted action. Morgan had a brief picture of Dad's reaction if he could see his son now.

Remy's grip on Morgan tightened. Morgan felt the fine, thin bones of her fingers. She was afraid of Nickie.
Don't worry, Remy, I'm between you and Nickie. I'll take care of you. I know what a gutter rat he is. We'll never waste our time with him again
.

He could never say these things to Remy anymore than he could ever talk to his father. But he could act on them.

“Actually,” Remy said, “there is a Morgan Road.” He knew her eyes were blue, but in the dark there was no color. Just intensity. “We could get the street sign of Morgan Road,” she whispered.

Morgan's heart left earth so fast, he jet-lagged. She wanted a Morgan Road sign? How much could he read into that? His lips and cheek did brush her hair. Soft as a down quilt, as if he could bury himself there. Morgan's fantasies smothered him.

“Where's Morgan Road?” said Nickie. “We can
probably just unscrew it. That's the way street-name signs are. It'll be up high to stop us, but we can stand on the roof of this baby. This is a strong car. Use it like truck.”

Neither passenger heard a word.

R
emy loved taking
MORGAN ROAD
.

Fearful as she was of cop cars, neighbors, or wandering German shepherds, she wanted the expression in Morgan's eyes to continue.

All her reading and all her observations had convinced Remy that you could never tell. You could not look at a boy and see if he cared about you.

Wrong.

One look at Morgan Campbell and you could see that he was gone.
Gone
. What a lovely expression. Morgan Campbell was gone … on Remy Marland.

Laughter erupted in Remy's chest, as if she had been carbonated. Bottled with love.

She stood on the roof of the Buick, Morgan holding her ankles and Nickie telling her which way to turn the sign—“Don't be such a girl,” he accused her, “unscrew counterclockwise”—but in the end she couldn't turn it and had to change places with Morgan. Morgan finally wrenched it free and they leapt, laughing joyfully, into the car.

And kissed.

The kiss was easy and unplanned. Sweet and perfect.

Instead of kissing again, Remy turned away from Morgan, and got silly and flirty.

He loved it.

They had a second kiss eventually, and then Morgan kissed her throat and cheeks. They tried to keep their
eyes open to admire each other, but couldn't. It was too much. You could feel or you could see, but not both.

Like driving, thought Remy. I just need practice.

T
he vision of Remy in the car with him changed the map of Morgan's driving daydream as if he had changed countries or languages.

Distance didn't matter. Going toward the horizon didn't matter.

Holding her hand while he drove, and stopping somewhere they could be alone, was what mattered.

N
ickie stopped a mile from the high school at the corner of Cherry and Warren.

Cherry Road was a surprise in the dark, as if it sometimes went elsewhere and just for tonight had been rolled out here. It was narrow and almost invisible.