In Honor (13 page)

“So it worked out just fine. We drove all the way back to Odessa and figured out you and Stevie were a size two, you got your dress, and we didn’t have to listen to you cry about it anymore.”

I smiled at this new story of my brother. It sounded like him. And like Rusty, to have gone along with it. He was the one person Finn never had to ask twice for anything. He held my eyes a moment, then laughed, and I did too. It felt good to talk about Finn that way. Together. After a second, though, it kind of trailed off into the sound of the rain on the roof. I looked down and fiddled with the seat belt.

Rusty leaned back and took another drink from his flask. “Yeah. There’s a lot of stupid things your brother talked me into.” His eyes slid over to me. “And now you. Carrying on the family tradition.”

“I didn’t talk you into anything. You passed out in my car.”

“You kept driving.” That smirk again.

I smiled. “I know. Stupid.”

“This’ll work out just fine too. The rain’ll stop soon and Pala won’t be too banged up, and we’ll keep going.” He shrugged. “Or maybe we won’t. Doesn’t matter. He woulda liked your crazy-ass idea, anyway.”

“Yeah?” I smiled. “I bet he would’ve liked that you came along for the ride.”

Rusty nodded vaguely and looked out the window. “Maybe so. Jury’s still out on that one.”

12

We got cozy. Not cozy like close to each other, but cozy like when it’s pouring rain out and you’re in the house all warm and safe, and you could sit there forever, watching it stream down the windows in wavy little rivers. It was that kind of feeling sitting in Finn’s car, with its old vinyl smell all around us and the rain drumming down steadily outside. Rusty and I lay stretched out in each of our seats, passing the last of our road snacks back and forth.

I shook the sour powder from the bottom of the Skittles bag into my palm and licked it off. “There was a lot of stuff you and Finn did together that I never knew about, huh?”

“I guess so.” Rusty shrugged. “Bet you didn’t tell him everything either.”

I rolled the remaining sugar granules on the roof of my mouth, thinking about it, then swallowed. “No, not
everything
. But you guys had secrets together that started a long time ago.” I could remember exactly when. “It was third grade,” I said. “That summer after you guys finished third grade and I just got out of second. That was the summer you guys dropped me for each other and stopped telling me things.”

Rusty looked at me like he was surprised, or maybe he just knew there was more coming.

“Yep. Girls hold on to those things. That was the first summer you guys didn’t let me ride bikes down to the creek with you or go to your rope swing or camp out in the backyard or
anything
.” I was a little surprised at how all my seven-year-old indignation came rushing back, clear as day. But up until then, the three of us had been like a team. We did everything together—me working my hardest to keep up with what the boys were doing and them slowing down just enough to let me. Next to my parents dying, which I hardly remembered, Finn and Rusty deciding I couldn’t be a part of it anymore was the most traumatic thing that had happened in my short little life.

“I don’t remember any of that,” Rusty said.

“Course you don’t. You weren’t the one left behind cryin’ while your brother and the friend who used to play Barbie-Legos with you ran off together and said you couldn’t come because you were too little. And a girl.”

“Barbie-Legos?”

“Yes, Barbie-Legos. You played it with me if Finn was doing something you didn’t want to do. You’d bring all your Lego guys over to my Barbie house, and they’d have pool parties and barbecues together.” I paused, remembering something else. “And your Lego guys were always trying to get my Barbies to go skinny-dipping.”

Rusty nearly spit out his sunflower seeds. “Maybe I do remember that,” he said, laughing.

“And then you guys ditched me.” I tried to keep from smiling, to see if I could emphasize just how broken up I’d been to be kicked out of the boys’ club, but the thought of him sitting there with me and my Barbies was too funny not to.

Rusty put a hand to his chest. “My apologies, then. For trying to get your dolls naked and then ditching you for your brother.”

“Thank you,” I said solemnly. “Maybe one of these days I’ll get over both.”

We were quiet a moment, and the sound of the rain grew louder. Rusty leaned his head back against the window and looked over at me. “You know, you can’t blame it
all
on me.”

“Blame what?”

“That you didn’t hang around us later on. I tried, in tenth grade, to keep you around.”

I sat up. “What’re you talking about?”

Rusty popped a few sunflower seeds in his mouth and grinned. “I told Finn I was gonna take you to homecoming.”

“You did not.” I leaned over the seat, all kinds of interested to hear about this.

“I did. You were cute that year. Probably why he told me no.”

That year . . . as opposed to now?
I wanted to say something snappy back, but in a strange way, I was too flattered that he’d thought so. Rusty was the only other sophomore besides Finn on varsity that year, and when they’d come home after practice, I’d made sure I was around. Maybe pass through the kitchen in short shorts, acting like I couldn’t care less that Rusty was there. But I’d thought he was cute that year too. Until after homecoming, when I heard he hooked up with this slutty senior girl in the backseat of the Pala. Then I tried to boycott riding in it for a little while out of principle, but it was too far to walk to school. Instead I settled on making a big show of disinfecting it in front of Finn and Rusty, to make sure they knew the depth of my disgust.

“Guess Finn knew what he was doing, telling you no,” I said. “We
all
knew what you were doing with Melanie Sloan that night.”

Rusty shook his head, smiling. “Melanie Sloan. She smelled like cigarettes and Sour Apple Pucker.”

“Nasty.”

“Yeah,” Rusty mused, “but in a good kind of way.”

“Oh my god. You . . .”

He just grinned at me, and we were right back there, in high school, when he was Finn’s best friend who alternately intrigued and repelled me. We sat for who knows how long like this, kids camped out, waiting for the rain to let up, swapping stories about Finn and eating through my candy supply while the rain streaked the sky gray outside. There, in our own little world, with Finn as the link between us, we let our guards down, enough to really laugh together.

So when the sun finally did come out, I was more than a little disappointed it had to end. Rusty was the first one to swing open the door and bring us back to reality. He stood stretching in the moisture-thick air, arms high above his head, and I caught myself looking a few seconds too long at the thin line of stomach that showed between his raised shirt and low-slung jeans.

The little jolt it sent through my stomach startled me, and I got out quickly, glancing around for something else to focus my attention on. From the looks of it, we’d zigzagged off the road and skidded through the mud until a cactus, one of those tall, prongy, two-armed ones, stopped us. I shook my hair off my face, and hopefully the blush out of my cheeks, and walked over to examine the cactus. It leaned to the side, like a person who’d had one too many drinks, and I felt a little bad about the scar the Pala’s bumper was sure to leave.

Except for the sound of a pickup drifting by on the highway, the rainwashed desert was as still and quiet as could be. Rusty popped the hood with a dull
thunk
, and we both walked over to survey the engine. What we’d be looking for I had no idea, but I figured he would. And I was right. He went straight for the radiator cap, testing it for heat first out of instinct, though it’d long since cooled. As soon as he opened it up, I knew we were in for it.

“Damn,” he said, taking a closer look. “It’s bone dry in there.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Means all that steam was the water getting out somewhere.” He leaned over the radiator, inspecting it. “Could be a crack. A hose. A slow leak. This been running low on water before now?”

I hesitated, reluctant to admit I hadn’t really kept up so well on all those little details in the last few months. “I don’t think so. Nothing I noticed.”

Rusty rested a forearm on the raised hood, considering the engine. “We’re gonna need that water you got.”

I went back to the cab and grabbed the almost-full jug, silently thanking the old minimart guy yet again. “You think this’ll last us?” I asked, handing it over.

“We’ll see.” He tipped it in and let half the water glug into the radiator before capping it. “Like I said, worse comes to worse, we stop off at my mom’s.” Before I could reply or ask a question, he brought the hood down firmly and headed to the driver’s side, dangling the half-empty water jug in his hand. All cool and aloof again, in a way that made me kind of wanna get his attention back. I didn’t move from the hood. Just stood there trying to figure out how we’d gone from so easy and comfortable in the car back to . . . this way.

“Hey, Rusty?” I wanted to tell him thank you . . . or that I was really happy he was here . . . or—

“Yeah?” He said it over his shoulder, didn’t even bother to turn around as he headed for the driver’s side, and somehow that one tiny thing brought my senses back.

“I’m driving,” I said. That got him to turn around. “You’ve been drinking. Out of your little flask thingy.” I waved an invisible one between my thumb and forefinger.

He blinked once, twice, then tossed me the keys. “Fine. Just watch the brakes. And the temperature gauge. It starts climbin’, we got a problem.”

13

Half an hour down the road, we had a problem.

“It’s going up—the temperature gauge. Past where it usually is,” I said, squinting at the shaking needle.

Rusty leaned over close; so close I could smell the mix of gum and alcohol and whatever deodorant he was wearing. “Damn.” He slid the heater knob over to the little red bars, then turned the vents on high. Hot, sticky air blasted out at us.

“What’re you
doing
? It’s a hundred degrees in here already.” I reached to turn it off, but Rusty blocked my hand.

“Leave it. It’ll help cool the engine down.”

“No, it
won’t
. That’s not gonna do anything but make it more miserable hot than it already is in here.” I had no idea if it would help or not, but the last thing I wanted right then was the heater on full blast. I leaned forward on the wheel and felt the wetness of my tank top cling to my back. “Seriously. Turn that off.” I reached for it again.

“We got about forty miles of nothing between here and Sedona, half a jug of water, and a leaking radiator,” Rusty said, kicking off his boots. “Give it a few minutes. If it doesn’t work, you can turn it off.” He leaned back in the seat and stretched out his legs, then locked his fingers behind his head. “It’ll work, though.”

“Fine.” I sighed loud enough for him to hear, unstuck my legs from the seat, and tried to distract myself from the thick, nasty heat. Rusty, with his bare feet down by the door, didn’t look half as bothered by it as me, and I wished I’d thought to take my boots off before we got on the road. I briefly contemplated my slip-them-off-while-driving move, but didn’t wanna chance landing us off the road again, so I settled on flying an arm out the window instead.

With the heater blasting in the postmonsoon mugginess, and only the Navajo Nation radio station, which was broadcast in Navajo, we were in for a long forty miles. Rusty had gone back to his former self and wasn’t much for conversation. But after a few minutes that felt more like a few hours, I gave it a try anyway.

“So, we’re gonna stop at your mom’s, then?” I said lightly.

Rusty nodded.

“She’ll probably be happy to see you, huh? Or have you seen her a lot since you’ve been at school? Flagstaff’s not that far from Sedona, right?”

He let me get out all my questions before he answered. “Nah, it’s pretty close. I don’t see her a lot, though.”