Gone South (20 page)

“Relax. A girl wouldn’t steal car parts.”

“But Mel’s not like most girls,” Calv said. “She’s more like, you know, what’s-’er-name. The NASCAR girl.”

“Danica Patrick?”

“Yeah. But Danica wouldn’t steal. She don’t need to.” Calv frowned. “You think Mel meant what she said about her dad?”

“That he’s not her dad anymore? Sure, she meant it. One thing about Mel, she’s honest.”

The absurdity of the statement hit him and he started laughing. Calv
joined in, hooting so loudly that Daisy woke with a jerk and hid behind the couch.

When the creepy guy slowed for a red light, Mel opened her door and jumped out with her bedroll. The truck roared after her, its horn blaring, and chased her into a ditch full of alligators—

Gulping for air, she sat up. Just a nightmare. A nightmare. She couldn’t place where she was, though. Couldn’t remember—

An angel-shaped night-light shone by the door. Now she remembered.

She was staying with Tish. In the McComb house.

There hadn’t been any alligators. Just muddy water and trash. And the guy hadn’t chased her. He’d yelled and hit the horn, but she was already running away in the opposite direction. She never saw him again.

She never saw her duffel bag again either, but her real treasures were safe.

Her heart wouldn’t stop pounding. Still, a nightmare was better than the panic attacks when she lay there and felt all alone in a universe she’d never asked to be born into. The ceiling would get closer and closer, like it might fall and smash her. After a couple of minutes of that, her chest always felt crushed and she had to run outside where she could breathe.

She was glad to be on the ground floor. Whenever she needed to slip outside in the middle of the night, she didn’t wake Tish.

Mel pulled socks on, opened her door, and walked into the kitchen. The clock on the microwave said it was … nearly five. It didn’t feel like morning, though.

After finding the gray hoodie where she’d hung it on the back of the couch, she put it on and unlocked the front door. “Brrr,” she whispered.

She’d be warm enough, though, in her new flannel pajamas. Grammy
jammies. A couple of years ago, she would have thought they looked stupid. Now she loved them just because they were pajamas. She would never sleep in her clothes again, as long as she lived. Clothes weren’t for sleeping in.

She moved quietly across the porch and settled into one of the wicker chairs. It held a nighttime chill that spread all through her, making her wish she’d brought a blanket. And her cigarettes. She had to hoard them, though. Once she finished the pack, she would quit for good. She wanted her hair to smell nice, not nasty, next time she ran into Darren. If she ever had any money, she’d put it toward clothes, not smokes.

The sky was clear, sparkling with stars. Stormy weather was more fun, though. More interesting. She’d always loved to sit in the sunroom with the windows open when a big storm was rolling in. The wind would rush through the pecan tree in the backyard first, then flatten the grass and whip toward the house. She’d breathe deeply, so deeply that she felt like she was eating and drinking the air instead of inhaling it.

“You’re not safe there in a thunderstorm, not really,” her mom always said. “Not with the windows open.” She would stand there and frown at the windows, but she never closed them. Maybe she’d been hungry for the excitement of the storms too, but she could never admit it.

Poor old Mom, trapped in a boring life. She kept her days cluttered up with busywork. She was always redecorating a room or sewing new curtains or trying another fancy recipe, but nobody appreciated any of it. Well, maybe Nicky and Jamie appreciated the homemade cookies anyway, if they weren’t too fancy.

The sky was a little less black now, the stars fading. A few birds chirped in the trees. Mel stood, rubbing her cold arms with her hands. If she didn’t get back to bed now, before hundreds of birds woke up and started their racket, she’d never go back to sleep.

Her gaze drifted to the driveway and the little old Volvo that showed up as a blob of white in the dark. When they got back from Target, Tish had locked it as carefully as if it were some expensive car.

Grandpa John’s Corvette wasn’t just locked. It was locked up tight. A prisoner. As trapped as Mom. Mel would rather fight off a thousand creeps than be trapped like that.

She went inside, careful not to make noise so Tish wouldn’t know she’d been sitting on the porch in her pajamas in the middle of the night. Tish was funny about things like that. She was the proper type.

The open window helped, but the nasty fumes still made Mel cough and gag. She scooted backward into the hall, but the air there wasn’t much better.

“Mel,” Tish called from somewhere, “are you still scrubbing the grout?”

She stifled a cough. “Yes.”

“Stop it right now.” Tish came around the corner with a dustpan in her hand. “I appreciate all your hard work, but give yourself a break. It can’t be good for your lungs.”

Mel sat back on her haunches. “No, it’s okay. I mean, this was the deal, right? I can’t stay if I don’t work.”

“But you don’t have to work all afternoon. It’s a beautiful day. A Saturday.” She laughed. “I guess that doesn’t matter to two people who don’t have jobs. Anyway, go take a walk or something. You’re the girl who loves to be outside, right? The fresh-air kid.”

“Right.”

Tish smiled at her. “Shoo, then.” She walked away, humming.

With a sigh, Mel pulled off her yellow rubber gloves and dropped them on the counter. She’d get back to the job in a few minutes. She didn’t want to leave it half-done.

She washed her hands and checked her reflection in the mirror. She looked awful. Bags under her watery eyes. No makeup. Her long brown hair with its
scraggly ends. Thrift-store clothes. She stuck out her tongue at herself and walked out to the porch, where she took a big breath to clear her lungs.

It was weird to be sent outside like a little kid. Shoo, go outside … and do what? Play hopscotch? It was like being grounded, in reverse. At least she had a house to go back to, which beat walking around for hours and waiting for night to fall just so she could find an unlocked car to sleep in.

She headed down the sidewalk, farther into the neighborhood instead of toward Main, where she might run into somebody she knew. A few houses down the block, she heard a vehicle coming up behind her. Slowing down.

She looked over her shoulder. A white car with a bar of lights on the roof. A cop.

She hoped it wasn’t Darren, when she looked and smelled gross, but then she hoped it was him. Everything about cops made her feel mixed up. She hated them and loved them. They could throw a girl in jail, but they could help her find her way home too.

Right now, her feet seemed to be glued to the sidewalk. She couldn’t move, just stood there staring as the driver’s window slid down. It
was
Darren. His eyes were that gorgeous baby blue, and his mouth had a delicious curve to it.

“Hey, Mel.”

“Hey, Darren.” She gave him a quick glance, then pretended there was something interesting down the street a ways.

“You get around, don’t you?” His voice was so soft and sexy that she had to look again.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Sometimes you hang out at the park. Sometimes you walk around residential neighborhoods.”

Her insides went chilly. He’d been watching her, but not like a guy watching a girl he liked. He’d been watching her like a cop because she was a suspicious person.

“I live on this street now.” She pointed behind her. “See the big house with the white car in the driveway? That’s where I live. My friend owns it.”

“I see,” he said slowly.

“I’m not shacking up with some guy. My friend’s name is Letitia. The one who was, um, at the gazebo with me. She’s cool.”

Darren nodded. “What else have you been up to? Going to college?”

“I was working in Florida for a while,” she said with a shrug. “I’ve been around a little.” Then, realizing what she’d said, she quickly added, “Not in a bad way.”

“I know.” He smiled, giving her hope, but then his radio crackled. “Gotta go,” he said.

It was her last chance to flirt with him. “Yeah, you have places to go. People to bust.” Then she groaned inside. She couldn’t have picked anything stupider to say.

“Don’t be one of ’em,” he said. “See you around, kid.”

Kid? She wanted to argue that she was a grown woman, but he was already pulling away so she gave him a quick wave and started walking. Her face burned.

If he was watching in his rearview mirror, he didn’t see Melanie Hamilton who loved him. He saw Mel the little kid. Or Mel the delinquent. Definitely Mel the freak who smelled like bathroom cleaner. And Mel the idiot who didn’t know how to talk to a guy.

She should have asked him how he’d liked the police academy, or where he was living now, or how his brother was doing. She should have said anything but what she’d said.

Okay, so she had to learn how to talk to guys. She had to buy clothes and makeup and get her hair done. But that meant she had to get a job, and nobody would hire her when she looked like a homeless person and everybody thought she was a thief.

Tish ate alone at the kitchen table, eyeing some of the cleaning projects she hadn’t tackled yet: dusty light fixtures, scuffed woodwork, the stove’s greasy knobs. In Nathan and Letitia’s day, most people had housekeepers to do the dirty work, but Tish only had Mel. Now it seemed she’d gone on a hunger strike.

Finished eating, Tish stopped in the hallway near the guest room and listened. Again, she thought she heard sniffles.

She knocked gently. “Mel? You okay?”

“I’m fine,” said a muffled and miserable voice from behind the door.

“There’s food still on the table for you. Do you want to eat?”

“No. Thank you.”

“Okay. I’ll put it in the fridge. If you get hungry, let me know. Or help yourself to the leftovers.”

Mel didn’t answer.

About to walk away, Tish smelled cigarette smoke. She sniffed to make sure. It was faint but unmistakable. “Mel? Are you smoking in there?”

“What?”

“Are you smoking?”

There was a short silence. “Sorry.”

“No smoking in the house, ever. Put it out.”

“Yes ma’am.”

“I didn’t buy this house just so you can set it on fire.” Tish couldn’t believe her ears. When had she started to sound like a mother?

“Why are you so in love with this stupid old house? Don’t you care about me? And my lungs? No, you only want me to stop smoking so I won’t set your stupid house on fire!”

Well, maybe
that
was why Tish had fallen into the maternal role. Mel
sounded like a spoiled teenager who claimed to be mistreated by her parents. Tish put her hands on her hips so she wouldn’t be tempted to yank the door open and say what she was really thinking. “You know the vacant lot next door? The house that used to be there burned down. I don’t want my house to burn down, especially with somebody in it. You or me or anybody else.”

Mel snorted and said something Tish didn’t catch. Maybe that was a blessing.