Less Than Nothing (18 page)

The shouter makes a final try for Derek’s legs and gets a foot in the face for his reward, and now both thugs are on the ground, going nowhere anytime soon.

The whole thing didn’t take more than fifteen seconds, but felt like an eternity. When Derek returns, he’s breathing hard and his lip’s bleeding, but otherwise he appears okay. He glances over his shoulder at where the two men are lying on the grass. Near the street, two women are pointing at us, hands over their mouths, expressions of shock on their faces. When Derek speaks, his tone’s tight.

“Grab your stuff and let’s move. Hurry.”

I don’t need to be told twice. I grab my backpack as he snags his rucksack, and we jog to the corner of the park and cross the street. His ear’s swelling, and I can see the beginning of a bruise on his cheekbone. He licks away the blood on his lip and winces.

“They won’t be down long. We need to get clear of this area, because those types will have friends, and when they come back, they’ll be hunting us in a pack.”

“I’m all for that.” Thunder booms again, and the air now has that electric tension that immediately precedes a downpour. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. No problem.”

We hurry down the street to the next block and turn the corner. Traffic’s thinned to nothing as rush hour fades, and the business district’s almost empty. We’re almost to the end of the block when Derek cocks his head. “Hear that?”

I don’t know what he’s talking about. “No. What?”

“That Dodge has some kind of glass-pack muffler. Distinctive sound.”

I study his profile. “No way.”

He nods. “They recovered faster than I thought. I must be losing my touch.” He regards his knuckles, which are bleeding. “Next time I’ll use a brick.”

“Where to?” I ask.

“Shit,” he says and pulls me into a doorway. “They just turned down this street.”

He’s holding me close, my head on his chest. I’ve now got the physical intimacy I’ve been hoping for all day, but it couldn’t be in worse circumstances. I can hear the truck now, close. If they’re doing a street-by-street search, we literally have no chance unless a miracle happens.

And I don’t believe in miracles.

We hug the wall, and Derek whispers in my ear, so close I can feel his breath on my cheek.

“Crouch down. Maybe we’ll get lucky and they won’t see us.”

I do as he says, and now we’re side by side, his arm around me, his eyes alert and shining with a hard light I’ve never seen before. His muscles are tense, and I can tell he’s gearing up for another attack – only this time on an empty street, and likely with tire irons or a baseball bat.

I’m sure we’re dead, and then an explosion like a bomb going off echoes off the buildings. Raindrops the size of golf balls pour from the heavens in sheets of heavy rain that blow down the street in a gray curtain. We’re dry in the recess of the doorway, but the air’s opaque from the downpour. A bright flash of lightning trees through the clouds overhead, followed closely by a blast of thunder so loud it shakes the foundations.

The Dodge rolls past us, its wipers working furiously, and we can barely make it out. I decide to reevaluate my beliefs about the miraculous as its taillights disappear into the haze. It’s quiet now except for the steady tattoo of rain on the street and occasional thunder. I’m thankful that we’re safe for now, in the shelter of the doorway of an anonymous office building closed for the night.

“Big noise, huh?” Derek says, and I nod and start breathing again. I’ve been unconsciously holding my breath since Derek pulled me in, and I’m getting dizzy. We watch the rain washing down in heavy bursts like the pulsing of a heart, and I shiver even though it’s hot out. He feels the shudder run through me and holds me tighter, and suddenly it’s hotter where I’m sitting.

“Yeah. You think they’ll give up?” I ask, turning my face toward him. The perspiration on his chin is only inches away. If I was Melody, I’d lick it. The thought comes and goes in an instant, but once I’ve had it, I can never un-have it, and I wonder how he’d react if I did. He’s so close. All I’d have to do is lean in, just a tiny bit…

“Probably. They got some nice bumps. If it was me, I’d be heading to get some ice. My guess is they’re gone. But that’s not our only problem.”

“What?” I ask, my impulse stopped mid-slurp.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if they call the cops.”

Damn. I hadn’t thought of that. I’ve been too busy trying to figure out how to maneuver Derek into a romantic moment while we’re running for our lives. I immediately feel guilty and selfish. What’s wrong with me?

He peers out into the deluge and then tenses.

“What is it?” I ask.

“A taxi. His light’s on. We should get as far away as we can while there’s still time. Anyone hunting for us will be looking for a couple of street people near the park.”

Thank God one of us is thinking. Derek stands and darts from the doorway and flags down the cab.

The driver pops the trunk. I shake off the rain and get in the car as Derek loads our junk, and then he slides in next to me. The driver looks at us expectantly after flipping the meter on.

“What’s the best area to pick up a ride out of town?” Derek asks.

“What do you mean, pick up a ride?” the driver asks, suspicion obvious.

“Hitching,” Derek explains.

“Which way?”

“East.”

The driver’s face hardens, and his eyes dart to the rearview mirror. “You got money for my fare?”

“Of course.”

“Lemme see it.”

Derek sighs and digs out a twenty-dollar bill. The driver nods. “For five more bucks, I’ll take you to the country club. There’s a big shopping center there. Lots of cars. On Isaac Hayes.”

“Come again?” Derek asks.

“Isaac Hayes highway. Runs east. It’s about fifteen miles from here.”

Derek nods. “Let’s go.”

The driver turns the meter off. “Normally it would run over thirty, but with this weather I’m feeling generous.”

Right.
More like his chances of picking up a fare in the storm are close to zero, and since we’ve just announced we don’t know the area, he’s going to turn an eighteen-dollar ride into twenty-five. I start to say something, but Derek grabs my hand and squeezes. His message is clear:
Don’t open your big fat mouth
.

I resist my impulse and squeeze back. His hands are so much bigger than mine. And yet as nimble as a surgeon’s when he’s playing guitar. My impression is that his fingers are talented in more ways than one, and I’m thinking about just going for it and kissing him when I catch a look at myself in the driver’s mirror. I look like a wet rat, my hair soaked from the rain.

I give Derek a sidelong glance. His lip’s split, but the blood’s drying. I’m betting that only one person in the car is obsessed with kissing right now, and it’s not Derek or the driver. I sigh and lean back in the seat, enjoying the feel of his skin pressed against mine, my heart thumping in time with the wipers as the downpour beats on the roof of the car.

“I’m sorry, Derek,” I whisper. He turns to me.

“About what?”

“I shouldn’t have flipped them off. I know better.”

“They deserved it. They were looking for trouble.”

“Maybe, but I gave them what they wanted, and you had to fight because of me.”

He shakes his head. “I had to fight because a couple of violent assholes decided to pick on people they thought were helpless.”

“How’s your lip?”

“This is nothing. I used to get way worse from my brother.”

“Is that where you learned to fight?”

He laughs. “You could say that. But I don’t go looking for trouble, and I don’t enjoy fighting. Some people get a kick out of it.” His face changes for a split second and then returns to normal. “Not me.”

I see a flash of something I can’t describe in his eyes. Fleeting, but there. Pain? Bad memories? I want to ask how he broke his nose, but I don’t. It doesn’t feel like the right time. I reach up and touch his face, and he squints.

“It’s swelling,” I say.

“I guarantee they look worse than I do.”

“I believe it.” I hesitate. “Did you get into fights in Seattle?”

“A couple. But I learned pretty quickly that it’s smarter to avoid most fights than to get into them. Nobody’s there to do stitches or ice your face when it’s pouring rain and you’re broke. And you never know if the other guy’s going to pull a knife.” He looks lost for a moment and then gives me his smirk. “You know how it is.”

I try to imagine what it would be like to have someone come at me with a knife, but I can’t. I’ve never been in a fight, so I have no frame of reference. The truth is that the closest I’ve ever come to being in one was just now, with Derek in the park. I’m a complete wuss under my street-girl toughness, but I’ll never let on. I spent way too much time building that hard exterior, like some kind of conflict-avoidant beetle with anxiety issues.

“Did anyone ever do that? Come at you with a knife?” I ask.

“Once.” He stares off through the window at the storm.

I frown. “What happened?”

He sighs and shrugs, like it’s no big deal. “It was some crack head in Vegas. It didn’t last long. He didn’t have a chance – he was trying to rip me off, but his reflexes were slow.” He pauses. “I put him in the hospital. I’m not proud of it. I kind of lost it and kept going after he was already down.”

I don’t want to think about Derek being violent, and now I’m sorry I asked. My mind automatically diverts to Ralph – Ralph hitting me, lashing out over real or imagined misbehavior. And my mom, always siding with him, too drunk to care most of the time, every day with me around a reminder of the husband who left her. I close my eyes, trying to banish the visions of their fights, Ralph screaming at her, she screaming back, always drunk, nothing ever resolving, and inevitably Ralph taking his anger out on the daughter who hated his guts.

I must have made some sound unconsciously, because Derek squeezes my hand again and pushes my wet hair out of my face. I lean my head back, willing him to do more, to caress me or kiss me, but nothing happens. I open my eyes, and he’s a thousand miles away, gazing through the window at the downpour, lost in his thoughts.

I manage a smile and wiggle my fingers in his hand. “So much for Graceland and Elvis, huh?”

He shrugs. “It’s just a house. Actually kind of creepy when celebrities name their houses, you know? Like Michael Jackson? I don’t know about you, but when I make my first billion, I’m totally not going to name any of my properties.”

“You’re a rebel. Nobody’s going to tell you what to do.”

“Damn right. Conventions be damned.”

“You’re thinking about having conventions at your house? How big a place are we talking?”

“Massive. It’ll even have electricity and plumbing. And real beds.”

“Just don’t let Bull build it for you.”

He laughs, and his funk is broken. “Or handle the janitorial stuff.”

“Or touch anything.”

“Ever.”

We cross a bridge over the Wolf River, and the rain lessens, slowing from monsoon level to normal freak storm intensity. I lean on Derek’s shoulder. The leather of his jacket is wet, but I don’t care. I feel a powerful surge of closeness to him that I don’t want to end, so I leave him to his thinking, my head on his arm, strangely content even as we leave Memphis, possibly with the cops on our tail, our future as uncertain as ever – but with each other.

Which makes it all better, if only for a moment.

We wait out the storm at a Chinese restaurant in the shopping center and share a large helping of kung pao chicken and fried rice. It’s dark by the time the cloudbursts are over, and we reluctantly emerge from the climate-controlled restaurant into the muggy stifle of a late summer Tennessee night.

A maroon Buick sedan picks us up and gets us as far as a rest stop between Nashville and Knoxville at half past one in the morning, where the talkative self-declared traveling salesman driver turns off the highway to disappear into the night. There aren’t many cars on the road, so the area’s eerily quiet. The surrounding mountains are still, blanketed in fog. I’m just thankful that it’s not pouring down rain – I can deal with a night sleeping on a concrete picnic bench, but it really sucks in the rain.

We have the rest stop to ourselves, so we drop our stuff by one of the tables, and Derek goes to the bathroom to rinse away any remaining dried blood and wash up. I sit back, tired and cranky now that my brilliant idea of going to Memphis turned into an epic disaster. There’s no cell service in the hills, so I content myself with staring at the distant constellations, imagining how many other people around the world are also sitting watching the stars at that very moment.

Headlights bump down the access road, and a yellow Camaro pulls in and kills its engine. I look up when I hear the door slam and spot a rangy figure approaching from the car. It’s a man in his forties, his face lean and angular. I feel like an icy draft just blew through my soul when our eyes connect. When he smiles, I can make out in the moonlight that his teeth are crooked.