Drowning Is Inevitable (13 page)

“What are you doing?” he yelled over the music.

“I don't know,” I said.

My nose burned from the mysterious smoke clouds floating through the room, and I felt the music inside me now. Across the room Steven made eye contact with me and smiled. I didn't know if it was the alcohol, but for a second I felt invincible. The room was bursting with people, their movements in sync with the music. Max didn't take his hands off me.

“Get down from there,” he said.

Shaking my head, I pulled my legs from his reach, anchoring myself in the center of the table. I looked at the people standing around it. They looked back at me expectantly, like they were waiting for a show, and I felt obliged to give them one, my body moving to the music. Who was this girl? I didn't know, but I liked her. She wasn't afraid.

That's when the whistling started, making me feel high. I looked across the bar to see Maggie and motioned for her to join me. She looked back at me with worried eyes. A guy near me held up a shot—Southern hospitality at its finest—and I bent to take it. It burned down my throat. My audience cheered. I might be out of control, but it felt good.

Jamie was up on his feet and coming toward me. He looked worried, too, and I mouthed to him again, “I'm okay.” He didn't believe me this time. I felt a hand on my leg, but this time it wasn't Max. It was my new friend with another drink, but Max pushed him out of the way. The guy put the drink on the table and pushed Max back, using both hands on his chest. He yelled something in Max's face and flicked his eyes up at me, then said something else. Max reared back and punched him, his fist knocking the guy's face back. Blood burst from the guy's nose, bright red against the white of his face, like the blood on Jamie's shirt and his dad's blood on their kitchen floor, and just like that I was sober. People started pushing, their drinks spilling. Someone bumped the table, and I reached out to the wall to keep from falling.

There was yelling and shoving. I couldn't see Max anymore; a group of people surrounded him. The fight spread like a virus: elbows hit stomachs, feet were trampled, fists flew. I saw Jamie yell something at me, but I couldn't make it out. The crowd of people was moving like a current, and instead of bringing him closer to me they carried him away like the tide.

“Jamie!” I yelled.

The table rocked again, and I squatted down. I tried to get down, but there were too many people crowded around, everyone pushing, trying to avoid the commotion. I looked up to see Max, his face fierce, coming for me. He grabbed me and pulled me off the table, carrying me through the crowd, and by some miracle the people parted for us. The music never stopped.

We found our way out the side door, Maggie suddenly there behind us, the sound of sirens drawing close. Max dropped me to my feet.

Jamie burst through the side door as a police cruiser came down Oak Street, its red and blue lights reflecting off the side of the building, and I couldn't breathe. It stopped in front of the Maple Leaf, and we flattened ourselves against the side of the bar. Jamie reached out to grab my hand.

Seconds went by and we didn't move. I closed my eyes, thinking,
If I can't see them, they can't see me.
A few minutes later we heard a door slamming open, then yelling, the drunk and disorderly pissed they were being arrested and saying things to the cops they'd probably regret later. The arguing escalated. The sounds of handcuffs clicking shut mixed with the police radio.

We were pressed against the side of the building for maybe twenty minutes, but it felt like so much longer. My fingers were numb from Jamie's grip. Finally we heard the car doors slam shut, and the cop car drove away. We exhaled collectively, Jamie dropping down to rest his hands on his knees.

“What the hell?” Maggie asked. She looked from Max to me.

“Do you really think it's such a good idea to bring that much attention to ourselves?” She glared at me. “What were you thinking?”

“I wasn't the one throwing punches,” I said.

Max stared at me hard but didn't defend himself.

“Are you trying to get arrested?” Maggie asked him.

“You didn't hear what that guy said,” Max answered.

“It doesn't matter what he said. He doesn't matter. He's not in hiding. You are.”

She looked back at me. “Seriously, what were you doing?”

“I don't know,” I said.

“Are you sure?” Jamie asked, his voice almost a whisper. He looked down at Lillian's necklace before meeting my eyes. “Number nineteen, dance on a table in a bar.”

Of course. When I wanted to escape myself for a minute, I became her. I felt the night crash into me, and my face flushed.

“I'm sorry,” I said.

“Hey,” said Maggie, her voice gentler now. “It's okay. It was a stressful day. Now that we've blown off some steam, we're gonna be okay.” She looked at Jamie. “She just danced a little and maybe had too much to drink.” Her eyes cut to mine. “She's fine.” She said it like it was a threat, like I'd better be.

“We should probably go back to Steven's,” Jamie said.

“I'm going to stay for a little while longer,” said Maggie. “Listen to the rest of the set, then I'll be over.” She fidgeted.

I knew she wanted to see if her mom would show up. I stepped to her and hugged her tight. “I'll see you later,” I said.

She nodded and went back inside.

Walking down the alley to the front of the bar, we found Oak Street still very much awake and full of people. The girl with ninety-year-old eyes was standing by the entrance. She was arguing with a guy, and they were getting pretty loud. We stepped around her and crossed the street to Steven's house.

She yelled out after us, “It's not safe for you there. You can't trust anybody in that house.”

I didn't know what to say to that. Max herded us to the front door. I turned to look back at her just in time to see the guy she was fighting with walk away. She looked back at me like she was used to being walked away from. “They're all liars,” she said.

Because we didn't know what else to do, we went inside. Max pulled out his sleeping bag and opened it up on the floor of the living room. Jamie immediately dropped down on it, exhausted. Max walked into the kitchen, and I followed him. He ran the water in the sink and started washing his hands, which were bloody from the guy's nose. Standing next to him, I poured some liquid soap in my hands and reached into the water for him. The water was warm, and I cleaned his hands. I was getting good at cleaning blood off things.

For a while the only sound was the running water. “Two bar fights in three days,” I said. “You should probably chill out.”

“I'm sorry,” he said, his voice serious. “My temper is obviously something I need to work on.”

With my fingers running over his knuckles, I asked, “What did the guy say?”

He shook his head. “Maggie was right. It doesn't matter.” He looked angry with himself. “After telling you I'd help you and Jamie get away, I almost blew it by starting a bar brawl.”

I rinsed the soap off our hands. “Don't be too hard on yourself. I'm the one who started it. I'm sorry, too.”

We dried our hands on a towel. “I'm exhausted. Come on,” he said. He took my hand and led me into the living room.

I lay on the couch, and Max sat at my feet. Jamie was careful to leave room for Maggie on the sleeping bag.

Max said, “I'm gonna stay up, at least until Maggie gets back.”

My lids heavy from the tequila, I closed my eyes, but sleep didn't come easily. Too much had happened. I kept replaying that girl's warning in my head. If we weren't safe here, then where would we go?

Between that and the fact that we were apparently the only three people in the city of New Orleans trying to go to sleep, I couldn't wind down. Listening to the sounds around me, I wished for a mute button so I could turn them off one by one. That made me think of my favorite childhood book,
Goodnight Moon,
and the nightly ritual my grandmother had performed. She'd read the book, and then we'd say good night to everything in the room. It had always made sleep come, so I tried to channel her, wishing each noise and the day's memory a good night.

Good night, Jamie, sleeping soundly within my reach, and good night to your confession. Good night, Max, our bodyguard, and good night to your temper and your whiskey kiss. Good night, Maggie, sitting on a barstool waiting for your mom. Good night, people pushing and fighting and the music never stopping. Good night, people walking down the street with your too-loud laughs. Good night, artists who do not sleep. Good night, New Orleans.

I
t was three days before they found my mom's body. The river's current had carried her downstream for several miles before depositing her on the shore near some dock workers, who were never able to forget that day. They told the story to anyone who'd listen, their versions eventually making it back to St. Francisville. They told how her nightgown had clung to her still body. They told how her hair had moved in the water like it was alive. They told that she was still beautiful. For three days the town's people searched for her, some of them suspecting foul play, but not my dad. He said as soon as he saw my grandmother's back door, left wide open, he knew where she'd gone, and he went to the graveyard and waited for them to bring her to him.

Waking up on Oak Street, I was disoriented. How did I get on this couch? For just a second I felt like I'd been washed downstream. Looking around Steven's living room, I saw Max's sleeping bag rolled up tight in the corner, but everyone was gone. I heard music coming from the front porch. My head was pounding—my punishment from last night.

Luke was sitting on a stool on the front porch, his hands on the guitar doing strange things to my early-morning senses.
They're all liars.
I wrapped a blanket around my shoulders, a gift from someone in the night, and walked out to join him. With my bare feet planted on the splintered wood of the porch, I looked out on a still-sleeping Oak Street as Luke serenaded it. I watched his bare back, so tan it seemed used to no shirt, and how the muscles moved and pulled as he made the notes. He belonged nowhere and to no one, a perpetually homeless, stateless being. His hands were so worn. Maybe that's what happens when you walk away from your life, by your own choice or someone else's. The price of abandonment is wearing out, one piece at a time. That made me think of the people and place I had deserted, and I brought my eyes down to my own hands and wondered when the decay would begin.

I felt a familiar tug in my belly, and I saw Jamie coming down the street, reminding me I'd always belong to someone, to Jamie, my much-needed anchor. He'd keep the decay away. He walked right past Luke, neither one seeming to notice the other.

“Max is out looking for Maggie,” he said. “He said she never came in last night. I told him to give her a little while and she'd be back, but he wanted to go look for her.”

I guessed Maggie's mom never showed up at the bar. Jamie knew, like I did, that Maggie would need time to heal in private. She rarely backslid in her I-don't-care-about-my-mother recovery plan. When she did, it always took her a while to regroup. I knew she'd want to call her dad, her sponsor in her addiction to her mom, so to speak, who was always ready to talk her down and prevent her from going back for more. That stopped me. If she called her dad, he'd know where we were, and Jamie and I wouldn't have a chance to get away.
Please, Maggie, don't call your dad.
If she'd only come back to me, I'd tell her what I had always secretly hoped: that there's nothing wrong with a child being addicted to her mother. It's only a natural craving.

Jamie and I went back inside, and I tried to distract myself by taking care of basic needs, finding Cheerios and almost-bad milk. We sat on the countertops and ate breakfast.

“Max said he'd help us get away,” I said.

Jamie stopped chewing and stared at me.

“Us?”

“Always.”

We heard the front door open. I put my bowl on the counter and walked into the living room. Max was standing in the doorway. When he moved into the room and shut the door, the sunlight dropped unceremoniously from him. Luke was still playing on the porch, our very own soundtrack, the music slow and lulling.

“No Maggie?” I asked.

“No. I've been looking since before dawn. I don't know where else to try. I was hoping she came back here.”

“She will … eventually. You look tired.” And he did, his face drained and weary from too much worry, too much alcohol, and too much living beyond his eighteen-year-old expectations.

He reached out to take my hand and said, “I'll sleep later. Right now we need to find her.”

He pulled on my hand, his body leaning toward the front door, wanting me to join him in his search. I stood my ground, making him look back at me.

“Maggie doesn't want us to find her, not yet.”

He frowned.

“Don't worry. She'll be back, but be ready. When she comes back, she'll be angry and looking to take it out on anyone who gets in her way.”

Max understood addiction. He looked sad, sadder than he'd looked since leaving St. Francisville, and I wanted to comfort him. For just a second, I wished I was a normal girl in a normal place with the boy she loved. I wanted to take advantage of the sounds coming from the front porch and be bold and pull him into a dance, the slow-moving, spinning kind; we'd dance and smile and he'd see me as spontaneous and Lillian-beautiful. But I was not a normal girl, and this was no normal place.

Jamie came into the living room, and Steven exited his bedroom in nothing but a very short bathrobe, ending all conversation

“I've got some errands to run today,” Steven said. “Y'all just make yourselves comfortable.”

I worried about where he might be going. I imagined there were many places in New Orleans with televisions and headlines spilling our secrets by now. He walked by me, headed to the bathroom, and my arm shot out to him. He stopped and looked at me quizzically.

“What kind of errands?” I asked.

His brows went up, and so did Max's behind him.

“I was bored and thought about getting outside for a while today,” I said. “I was just wondering where you were going.”

“I need to get some more paint supplies. The store's just up the street, and then I was going to visit with a couple of friends down the block. You're more than welcome to join me.”

I relaxed and then wasn't sure what to say. “Oh, okay. Maybe …”

“I'm gonna grab a shower. You let me know.”

“Okay, thanks.”

Steven nodded and walked into the bathroom. Max and Jamie immediately came to stand next to me.

“What was that about?” Max whispered.

“Luke told me last night that our photos are everywhere. You know we're on TV. Oak Street seems like the only place that doesn't watch the news.”

Jamie asked, “What were we going to do if he said he was leaving the street? Tie him up in the back?”

“Of course not,” I said.
Well, maybe—whatever was necessary.

We entered into a staring contest. Jamie was the first to turn away.

When Steven came out of the bathroom, dressed and ready, I said, “I'm just gonna hang out here and wait for Maggie to get back.”

“Okay, try not to get into any trouble,” he said. “Well, any
more
trouble.” He walked to the front door before turning back to face us. “Just because I don't have a television, doesn't mean I don't hear things,” he said. “I knew your story yesterday.” He pointed to Jamie. “What you'd done.”

Jamie tensed.

He laughed. “Relax, sweetie. I'm no rat. I don't want cops at my house.” He opened the door, but before he left he said in a singsong voice, “But nothing comes for free.”

The screen door bounced off the jamb. We hadn't moved from our spots.

Nothing comes for free.

“We can't stay here,” I said. I started pacing.

“We can't leave without Maggie,” Max said.

“I know that,” I snapped.

“We need time to figure out what to do next,” Max said. “Where can we go?”

“My mom's friend Beth. She'll help us.”

Maggie finally returned around lunchtime in a very special mood, announcing to the room, “I'm okay. I'm sorry if I worried y'all.” She looked right at me. “I didn't do anything stupid.”

We were the only ones in the house who were awake. All the other live-ins were still sleeping.

“Can I use your sleeping bag?” she asked Max. “I feel dead.”

“You can't sleep,” I said. “We have to get out of here.”

“Why?” she asked.

“Luke knows about us, Steven knows, this whole house probably knows.”

Her jaw dropped.

Max said, “Steven said he wouldn't call the cops, but then he gave us this cryptic message about nothing being free. I have no idea what his idea of payback is, and I don't want to find out.”

“We have to risk it,” Maggie said.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because we need my mom. Which sucks for us, because she's a terrible person. But it's true. You guys can't get anywhere without ID, and I know she'll be able to hook us up. She'll come back here. I know she will. Steven said she's singing at the bar tonight.”

I guess we didn't look convinced, because she said, “Trust me, guys. We need her. We have to stay put for now.”

She grabbed the sleeping bag and disappeared into one of the rooms down the hall. Max was looking at me like I should go talk to her, but I shook my head.

“We won't be able to change her mind,” I said. No one could convince Maggie that her ideas weren't great. And she was probably right. We probably did need her mom.

“Then we're gonna need money,” Max said. “Nobody in the ID business is going to donate their services. What are the chances your mom's friend would give you money?”

“In addition to harboring fugitives? I don't know. Maybe.”
If she even knows who I am.
Maybe I could use the letters I'd brought with me as proof I was who I said I was. “It wouldn't hurt to ask her.”

“We'll need to find her,” said Max. “Any ideas where to start?”

When I told him no, the weariness in his face amplified. He'd taken on the responsibility of keeping everyone safe, and he only truly relaxed when we were together. Maybe that was why he'd gone looking for Maggie. He was trying to keep us all in one place—a task that was becoming increasingly difficult.

I grabbed my bag and opened it. “I have these letters.”

I went into the kitchen, and Jamie and Max followed me. I reached inside the bag and pulled out my mom's shoebox, then spilled Beth Hunter's letters out on the table. I laid them from left to right, lining them up so the corners touched. They took up the length of the table. The older ones were yellow and worn, having spent many years in the graveyard before I found them. After all this time I wasn't just going to find Beth Hunter; I was going to convince her to save Jamie and me.

“Beth leaves them at Lillian's grave. I've never actually met her,” I admitted.

“The last one came a couple of weeks ago,” Jamie said. “It said she was moving to New Orleans.”

I leaned against the counter and watched Max as he looked down at the letters, reading the names on all the envelopes. He reached down to pick one up, and I shifted uncomfortably. Up until that moment only three people had ever touched them: me, Jamie, and Beth Hunter. He seemed to sense my discomfort and put it back down.

“She just leaves them at your mom's grave?” he asked. “But she never comes to see you?” He looked from me to Jamie for confirmation.

“She doesn't come see me. I don't think she sees anyone. Her parents moved away a long time ago.”

“You said her name is Beth?”

“Yeah, Beth Hunter.”

Max frowned. “Why didn't you ever tell me about the letters?”

I shrugged.

“Just another one of your and Jamie's secrets,” he said.

“Max,” I sighed.

“I'm sorry. I'll stop.” He exhaled loudly. “It's just that if you'd told me about the letters, I could've told you that my mom gets letters from her, too. Not this many, though. I found them once.”

Jamie and I traded looks. Max's mom was at least nine or ten years older than Beth or Lillian, and I had a hard time imagining how they were connected.

“My mom and Beth's older sister Marie were best friends growing up,” Max said, as if reading our minds. “Marie spent whole summers at my mom's house when they were growing up. There are a lot of photos of them together. There are pictures of Beth and your mom, too. Apparently Marie was always left to babysit Beth, who was always with your mom, so the four of them spent a lot of time together.”