Infinity + One (20 page)

FINN WAS ONLY blocks from his dad’s house when he passed a little park and saw a familiar orange Blazer snuggled up to the curb, not another vehicle in sight. He slammed on his brakes and slid in front of his old Chevy, relieved that Bonnie was actually in St. Louis, mystified that she had stopped at a park in an unknown city after midnight, and still pissed about what she’d pulled in Cincinnati.

He could see that Bonnie wasn’t in the Blazer as he approached, but he peered into the back windows to make sure she hadn’t crawled into the backseat and fallen asleep again. He couldn’t make out anything but a few of his boxes, Bonnie’s duffle bags, and a lumpy blanket, but as he pulled back and turned away, he noticed the dark streaks on the driver’s side window. In the half-light of the tall street lamps, the streaks looked like blood. Finn grabbed at the door handle, suddenly afraid of what he’d find slumped across the front seat, but the door was locked.

His stomach filled with ice and his hands shook as he framed them around his face to see inside the dark interior. He couldn’t make out a shape or a form, but the light made strange patterns against the seat and camouflaged the floor in shades of black.

“Bonnie?” he yelled, and looked under and around the Blazer. There was no trail of blood outside the vehicle, no macabre footprints walking away. He wished he could open the damn door! He tried to see in again from another angle, looking this time through the passenger window, and felt a measure of relief when he confirmed that Bonnie wasn’t unconscious in the front seat.

“Bonnie?”

He set out through the park at a brisk pace, his eyes scanning benches and quiet corners until after about five minutes, the path curved around and he saw, among the trees, a small play area. He rushed toward it, knowing intuitively that she was there. A girl like Bonnie would be drawn to the playground. Sure enough, standing tall on the top of a steep, metal slide was Bonnie Rae Shelby, feet planted on the platform, hands in her pockets, face to the sky. Was it the bridge all over again? It felt like a loop of the first time he saw her, and the relief he felt at finding her was immediately overpowered by the same dread he’d felt when he’d seen the blood on the car window.

The gate was hanging open, evidence that she’d passed through it. He slipped through it too, grateful that he wouldn’t have to make a sound. He wanted to call out to her, to tell her to come down, or to at least
sit
down, but he was afraid he would startle her and cause her to fall. So he froze, her name on his lips, his heart at his feet. She didn’t seem upset. She didn’t seem to be crying. He moved a few steps closer, but her face was angled away, the curve of her cheekbone the only thing visible from the angle he approached. There were no dark streaks on the pale pink of her coat, so no obvious bleeding. She seemed entranced by the view from the top of the slide and completely at ease with the height.

I’m just a poor wayfarin’ stranger

Travelin’ through this world of woe

There’s no sickness, toil or danger

In that bright land to which I go

Her voice rang out like bells across the park, and Finn took a step back, the sound as shocking as it was sweet.

I’m goin’ there to see my Father

And all my loved ones who have gone on.

Just a poor wayfarin’ stranger

Travelin’ through this world of woe.

He didn’t recognize the song. He’d never been to church, and the only song his mother had ever sung was the theme song to
Cheers
. And she’d sung it badly. This was something different, so different as to be incomparable. And Bonnie, singing for no one but the stars and the hovering trees, sang the words like a broken hallelujah, a heartsick hosanna, and the song echoed in his chest as if he hummed along with her.

I know dark clouds will gather ‘round me

I know my way is hard and steep

But wide fields arise before me

Where God’s redeemed, their vigil’s keep.

I’m goin’ there to see my brother.

He said he’d meet me when I come

Just a poor wayfarin’ stranger

Travelin’ through this world of woe
.

The last note hung in the air for a full five seconds and Finn realized he was holding his breath. He told himself that was the reason for the tightness in his chest and the moisture at the corner of his eyes. He wanted her to sing again. But she had clearly finished the only number she was going to perform. She dropped her chin to her chest and sank to the little metal platform, her legs stretched out in front of her, positioned for a turn down the slide.

Relatively safe from being startled into a fall, her arms wrapped around the bars at the top of the slide, Bonnie didn’t even turn as Finn approached, and she seemed oblivious that anyone might have heard her concert in the park. He circled the slide and stood at the bottom, looking up at her.

She blinked and then gasped a little, as if she thought for a moment he wasn’t real. Then she smiled. It was a smile that said she was thrilled to see him and overjoyed by his presence. She’d smiled like that when he’d promised her he would wait for her outside of the Quik Clips. She had smiled at him like that when he’d told her they were going to have to spend the night in the Blazer in the middle of a blizzard. She’d smiled that way when he told Shayna and her girls he would get them home. Now she smiled at him, sitting there on top of the slide as if it made perfect sense for her to be there, like she hadn’t just stolen his vehicle and led him on a chase across two states. She smiled at him, her whole face infused with light, and he forgave her. Instantly. No longer furious. No longer scared. No longer ready to strangle her, tie her up, and call the police. All of that was gone—evaporated like snowflakes on his tongue.

It was one a.m. on a Thursday, the end of February, in a cold, deserted park in St. Louis, and there was no place he would rather be.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hi.” Dammit. Now he was smiling too. And shaking his head in surrender. “What in the hell am I going to do with you?”

“You could move so I can go down this slide.” She winked. He didn’t move. So she let go. He knew she would. She flew toward him, whooping all the way down, and at the last second he stepped back so he didn’t take two red cowboy boots to the shins. She barreled into him anyway, all momentum, wrapping her legs around him, and he grabbed her, falling back as he did. Thick, rubber playground bark broke their fall, for the most part, but Finn still found himself flat on his back with Bonnie sprawled across his chest.

“I told you to move.” She laughed, her face above his, her knit cap clinging to her head. He reached up and pulled it all the way off, and she immediately ran one hand over her hair self-consciously, smoothing down the strands that floated with static. He followed her hand with his, a caress that had nothing to do with her hair and everything to do with needing to touch her.

HE DIDN’T PULL me to him, didn’t wrap his hand around my body to urge me closer. My mouth hovered above his, waiting. I didn’t dare move. Not because I didn’t want to, but because I was worried that Finn would suddenly jolt wide awake, wipe the cobwebs from his head, shake me off, and leave me in the park.

I wouldn’t blame him if he did. He should hate me. Yet he was looking at me like everything was going to be okay. He was looking at me like he wanted to kiss me again. And I wanted him to kiss me more than I’d ever wanted anything in my life. His mouth was so close I could taste his breath on my tongue, and I wanted to lick my lips to savor the sensation.

Then his lips weren’t close, they were there. And here. Above. Inside. Around. My eyelids fluttered, and my belly plunged, and the heaviness in my limbs made me want to sink into the kiss like an anchor in the sand, digging in, yet strangely weightless. Then both of his hands were in my hair, securing my mouth where he wanted it, holding me still as he tasted my lips and asked me to let him in. And I welcomed him with a sigh that slid into the cold night and drifted away just like my song. It was a new verse, a duet of lips and the merging of mouths. It was rising crescendos and crashing cymbals, and it was unlike any song I’d ever sung. And even as he withdrew, the kiss echoed around me, inviting me to repeat the music of his mouth against mine.

Clyde’s hands were still framing my face, but he had knifed up from his back as he kissed me, sitting with me straddling his lap, my knees on either side of his thighs. And I wanted to stay there, connected, and press my body against him, but he rolled me off and stood, brushing the playground debris from his jeans. I wished I could crawl up his legs and pull him back to the ground, but he pulled me to my feet instead.

He searched my face for several long moments, as if composing a tongue lashing of a different sort than he’d just given me, but then he sighed and turned, pulling me along after him.

“Tomorrow,” he said.

We walked hand in hand through the gate and back through the park, winding our way toward the entrance. I followed slightly behind, the sidewalk not quite wide enough for us to walk side by side, so when he stopped short, I ran right into his back and then had to lean around him to see what had caused him to halt.

“The Blazer’s gone.”

“What?” I stepped around him and followed his gaze to the place I’d left the Blazer forty-five minutes earlier. Finn was right. The Blazer was gone. A small, dark-colored car was the only car parked along the curb.

Finn started to jog, to run toward the place the Blazer had been, and I clomped after him, the boots of my heels sounding like applause against the pavement.

“It’s a tow-away zone!” he yelled, pointing at a sign about a hundred feet beyond where I’d parked his Blazer.

“But . . . why didn’t they tow that car?” I protested, unable to believe I’d screwed up once again.

“I’m sure they will if we don’t move it!”

“This is your car?” I asked.

“This is my rental car, Bonnie. How do you think I got here?”

Oh, no. I turned in a circle, as if the Blazer had moved itself somehow, as if maybe we’d gotten turned around inside the park and come out on the wrong side. But we hadn’t. Finn’s rental car was there, and he’d obviously parked it beside the Blazer and come looking for me. I had parked in a tow-away zone, and Finn’s Chevy was gone. I sat down on the curb and rested my head on my knees. My money and my things were in the Blazer. But I could deal with that. I couldn’t deal with his displeasure. Not now. Not when he’d just forgiven me.

A few minutes later, Finn sat down beside me, a solid presence on my right, stretching his long legs into the street. I held my breath, waiting for him to tell me he never wanted to see me again. And then he laughed. It was quiet at first, just a chuckle, a soft murmur that made me lift my head from my knees. Then he started to shake with it, laughing so hard that he fell back against the grass that butted up to the curb. I turned toward him, stunned, not quite ready to laugh with him.

“Finn?”

“Unbelievable,” was all he could say, his hands covering his eyes as if he needed a break from reality. “Unbelievable.”

WITH FINN’S DISPOSABLE phone we called the number for the towing company printed on the sign—the sign that was so small and far enough away from where I had parked to engender some serious righteous indignation on my part. The Blazer was indeed in the impound yard, and it would cost $250 for us to get it out. Added to that, we couldn’t get it out immediately, because it was after hours, and the tow truck driver on duty had been called out on an accident and didn’t know when he would return. He said we could come in the next morning during office hours, which would run us another $100 in storage fees, by the way. Finn said college campuses were notorious magnets for towing, especially during the late night, early morning hours when confrontation was less likely. He said we were lucky they hadn’t had time to get both vehicles. I didn’t dare tell Finn how truly unlucky we were because my/Gran’s wallet was still in the Blazer, along with all my money and his phone.