Perfect Escape (11 page)

Outside, I stood and blinked in the sunlight. It was another chilly but beautiful spring day. Not a cloud in sight. I would hang on to that as another sign of good luck. I needed every sign I could get.

“Oh, hey,” someone said over my shoulder. I jumped. Like a fugitive. Which I kind of was, I guess.

It was the blonde from last night. She was coming out of the room next to ours, emptying a trash can into a cleaning cart. She had a baby strapped in one of those cloth carriers on the front of her, facing out.

“You need something?” she asked.

“Hey,” I answered. “Yeah. You got any vending machines here? I’m starving.”

She shook her head and pulled off a pair of rubber gloves, tossed them into the cart, and rubbed her hands on the front of her jeans. The sun glinted off her lip gloss. She was so pretty, in an undiscovered sort of way.

“Used to,” she said, “but it broke down and Archie didn’t want to pay to have it fixed, so…” She shrugged.

“That’s okay,” I said. “I’ll find a McDonald’s or something.” I rooted through my purse for my car keys.

“Yeah,” she said brightly, walking toward me. She’d slipped her forefingers into her baby’s fists, making him look like he was flying. He struggled to bring his fist to his mouth. “There’s no McDonald’s here, but Edwina’s has some great pancakes.”

“Edwina’s?”

She pointed with the baby’s fist. “That way. Toward town. You’ll see it.”

“Oh. Yeah. Okay. Thanks,” I said, unearthing my keys and plugging one into Hunka’s door.

“But you aren’t gonna get too far with that,” she said. I looked up and she was pointing—with her foot this time—at the front of Hunka. I walked around the front of the car to where she was pointing and looked down. The front passenger-side tire was completely flat.

“Son of a…” I muttered. “How’d…?”

But then it dawned on me how. Grayson yanking the
steering wheel hard to the right, Hunka jumping through the ditch, the whining sound that had accompanied us for miles after that.

“You got a spare?” the blonde asked.

I shook my head. “I don’t think so. I’ve never seen one.”

“There’s a garage not far that way,” the blonde said. The baby started to struggle, and she pulled him out of his carrier and began bouncing him on one hip. “They can probably fix it. I can walk it with you, if you want.”

I chewed my lip and thought it over, staring at the tire, as if it would change if I looked at it long and hard enough. Great. Now I needed gas
and
a new tire. What other choice did I have? I couldn’t afford a tow. We couldn’t stay here forever. And we couldn’t leave here on that tire.

“Okay,” I said.

The blonde beamed as if I’d just said I’d be her best friend or something, and hopped on her toes. The movement made her look even younger than she already did. “Great!” she exclaimed as the baby twisted his sticky fingers into her hair. “Let me put Bo down for a nap first.”

She took off toward the office, practically skipping, her hair swinging behind her as she cooed to the baby. I sat on the curb, thumbing through the ratty car manual that had a permanent curl from being crammed into the glove box since God knew when.

I’d never changed a tire before. Had never even seen anyone else do it. But it couldn’t be that hard, right? After all, I was supposed to be relatively smart, despite my obvi
ous shortcomings in calc. You definitely don’t need to know calc to know how to change a tire. This was doable.

I fumbled in the trunk until I found the jack, then followed the directions, black tire marks streaking down the front of my shirt and covering my hands. Sweat trickled over my eyebrows as I muscled off the lug nuts and pulled the flat tire off.

Once it was off, I sat on the curb and brushed my hands together.
See, Kendra? You did it
, I thought.
You’re not a total failure. You made one mistake, that’s all. And if you can do this… who knows what you can do. For yourself. For Grayson.
As if changing Grayson was going to be as easy as changing a tire.

I heard, emanating from the office, Bo’s cries, escalating, escalating. I heard a booming voice that sounded like the same voice that had boomed “Re-NA!” last night when we arrived, and then the baby’s cries died down. I scowled. Archie seemed like one heck of a dad. The thought made tears spring to my eyes. I didn’t want to admit it, not even to myself, but I already missed my dad so much. He would’ve changed the tire for me. And he would’ve been proud of me for doing it on my own.

Both of my parents were pretty awesome, in that traditional, stuffy TV-family kind of way. We didn’t have the most normal family in the world, but somehow they made it seem like our version of normal was good enough. Or at least they tried. We had game nights and movie nights and the occasional stilted extended-family gathering where we
clung to one another like life preservers. They knew what their parents and siblings and cousins thought about our family’s situation—how people gossiped—and they didn’t care. They stood their ground when it came to Grayson—he was fine. We all were fine. We loved each other and we were good people. So what?

They didn’t deserve what I was doing to them. I wasn’t even sure if I still qualified as “good people” anymore, with what I’d done.

But maybe if I helped fix my brother, they would forgive me eventually.

At that thought, I pulled my cell phone out of my purse and turned it on. Immediately, it vibrated. I had dozens of messages.

First, I looked at my texts. I had about ten from Lia and at least as many more from Shani. They all said pretty much the same thing:

Where R U?

Why rn’t u @ school?

Why rn’t u answrin ur texts?

Where R U?

Where R U?

Ur mom called my house this am. Where R U, “friend”?

Where are you, Kendra, when we all want your hide? Where the hell are you?
The question of the day. Even I didn’t know the answer to that.

And then there was a message from Bryn:

OSS for rest of yr. I did not protect u.

And a very similar one from Darian, with a combination of Lia and Shani thrown in for good measure. I had no idea how he even got my number:

Busted. Can’t play in the Truman game 2nite. Where r U? Everyone’s looking 4 u.

I’ll bet they are
, I thought, and closed my eyes. I didn’t want to read any more. I hit “delete all” and watched them back off, one by one. I would text Shani and Lia later. Explain to them what had happened.

Maybe.

I heard the door to the office open just as I looked at my voice mails. There were three, all from Mom. I listened to the first one.

“Kendra? What’s going on? The school called and said you haven’t shown up yet. I’m worried. Call me.”

I hit “delete,” feeling like the rottenest daughter on earth. It never occurred to me that lying to Mom about where I was would make her think something had happened to me. It never occurred to me that she would trust me so implicitly.

Who was I kidding? Changing a tire didn’t make me smart. How could someone supposedly so smart be so stupid? I hadn’t thought about Grayson’s meds, hadn’t thought that Mom and Dad would think I was lying dead
in a ditch somewhere, hadn’t thought what the calc final could do to my life. I kicked at a rock with the toe of my shoe. Idiot.

In the next message, her nose sounded plugged up, and worry seemed to be laced with panic in her voice. “Kendra? It’s Mom. Where are you, honey? I called Shani’s house, and her mom said you were never there last night. And I called Brock’s house to see if Grayson knew where you were, and Brock’s mom said she hasn’t seen Grayson since before he went to Oak Meadows. I’m worried sick. I’m about to call the police. Call me back immediately.”

My hands were shaking when I hit “delete” on that one, but I never got to listen to the third one because the blonde was back.

“Okay,” she said brightly. She’d changed into a baby-blue sweater, which made her eyes look amazing. I wrapped my arms around myself. The sun was warm, but there was still a chill in the air, and I was cold. “Bo should be good for a couple hours. Let’s go.”

I stuffed my phone back into my purse, grabbed Mom’s credit card, wiped my eyes with the back of my hand, and opened the passenger door. I tossed my purse into the backseat and locked it in there. I missed Dad. And I felt bad for Mom. But right now I had more pressing business to take care of.

I had to get Hunka fixed and back on the road.

“Yes, let’s,” I said, more brightly and confidently than I
felt. If faking confidence was what would get me to California, so be it.

Besides, in a way I’d been faking a lot of things for a lot of months now. It was old hat for me.

What would faking one more thing hurt?

About fifteen minutes into our journey, I decided that the country definition of “not far” and my definition of “not far” were two different things. We started walking down the shoulder of a barely-more-than-dirt road toward a yellow-and-orange road sign:
A SLOW DRIVE GETS YOU HOME ALIVE
! There was nothing ahead of us but more road and some hills. Definitely not “not far.”

I still hadn’t shaken off Mom’s phone calls, so I was silent, walking along, bent over to roll the flattened tire with my hands, which wasn’t easy.
Just like they did in the old days
, I thought.
Except in the old days it was all for fun, not to get the runaways back on the road to California.

“What was your name again?” the blonde finally asked. “Kenzie?”

“Kendra,” I mumbled. “It’s kind of an old-fashioned name.”

She scrunched up her forehead. “I think it’s pretty,” she said. “I’m Rena, by the way.”

I nodded. At least I wasn’t cold anymore. Moving that tire had me sweating. I was already breathing hard, too.

“I hope you weren’t planning on getting married this morning, what with the flat tire and all,” she said.

I glanced at her. “Married?”

“Sure,” she said. “Aren’t you on your way to Vegas? That’s pretty much where everyone who stops here is headed. Everyone like you guys, anyway. We get a lot of young couples. Eloping is pretty popular. Makes cleaning the rooms kind of disgusting sometimes, though.”

I let out a bark of laughter. “We’re not going to Vegas,” I said. “That’s my brother. He didn’t even sleep in the bed.” I laughed again, imagining anyone having to clean up after Grayson, ever. “We’re going to California. To visit an old friend.”

Rena’s face clouded a little. “Wow,” she said. “California’s a long way. Must be a good friend.”

“My best friend,” I said softly, then realized I’d stopped walking and, with a start, set the tire in motion again. “We haven’t seen each other in a while. I miss her.”

It was an awkward thing to say to someone I’d just met, and Rena seemed not to know how to respond. We walked along in silence for a long time. I felt sweat trickle down my
back, and then when the breeze ruffled my shirt, I shivered. Cars and trucks occasionally blasted past us, breaking the middle-of-nowhere silence. I winced and squinted against the kicked-up gravel every time one passed, but Rena didn’t seem to even notice. After a while she took over rolling the tire, and I was shocked at how much faster we walked. She didn’t struggle at all.

Finally, at the top of a hill, she stopped abruptly. The wind had picked up, and our hair whipped around our heads. I could see the “town” splayed out below us—a few houses, a couple lots full of farm equipment, a restaurant, or maybe two.

“Are you a runaway?” she asked, so point-blank that my mouth dropped open, but nothing came out. She looked deep into my eyes for a long time, ignoring the strands of hair that were sticking to her eyelashes and lips. I didn’t answer. Just stood there, shivering, my blood feeling as if it’d been replaced by icicles. After a while, she looked out over the town and then back to me. Her face was grim. “I’m not gonna bust you,” she said quietly. “Just… you act like one.” My mind was reeling with all the possibilities of what could happen if I admitted to being a runaway on my first day out. She must have taken my silence as an answer because she eventually started walking again.

The sun ducked behind the clouds, and that, combined with our brisk pace and Rena’s question, made the whole world feel cold and gray. It was one of the things I hated about spring—it could never decide if it wanted to be warm
or cold. I reached over and started rolling the tire again, if for no other reason than to see if the work would rid me of my goose bumps.

“It’s down there,” she said at last, pointing at a falling-down garage about fifty yards away. The lightness had sneaked back into her voice again. “Mechanic’s name is Buddy. I used to be down here all the time, back when me and Archie had a car. It was a real piece of crap. But I kinda liked coming down here. Buddy’s a hick, but he’s cute. Got a dimple right here.” She touched her chin with her finger, leaving a black smudge there. On me, it would have looked like I needed a bath. On Rena, it looked cute. “Buddy tried to kiss me once,” she said. “If Archie found out, he’d kill him.” She giggled. “But I didn’t mind so much.” She sighed heavily. “Ahhh, I’m just a married old hag now, I guess.”

I was stunned. “I thought Archie was your dad,” I said.

She shook her head. “Old enough to be. We got married last June. Two months after I turned seventeen, and three months after I got pregnant with Bo.”

“Your parents let you get married when you were seventeen?”

She shook her head. “I left home when I was fifteen. They don’t even know about Archie. Or Bo.”

The tire slipped out of my hand and rolled a few feet away, then toppled into the grass beside the road. Pushing the new tire up this hill was going to suck. I jogged for it.

“That’s kind of sad,” I said, bending over to pick it up. “Don’t you miss them?”

She shrugged. “Sometimes I miss my mom, but Archie takes good care of me and Bo. He can be kind of mean sometimes. And he wasn’t too happy about Bo in the beginning, but as long as I stay out of his hair, he doesn’t give us too much trouble.”