Run Away Baby (18 page)

“Are you ready for this?” Charlie asked her.

“As ready as I’ll ever be.”

“Do you have anything with you?”

“Not really. Lip balm and some money…” She unzipped the flimsy nylon pocket of her shorts and showed him an envelope with $1500 dollars in it. She’d accumulated it over the past several weeks by a mix of asking for money here and there from Randall and returning purchases for cash. “You still have that twelve hundred, right?”

“Right.”

“Good. Where is it?”

“With my stuff. Don’t worry. I have it.”

“Okay. I trust you.”

“No rings?” he noticed.

“I left them at home. I thought it was more believable that I’d go running without them.” Really, she’d worn them out of the house and slipped them off the second she’d gotten into the orange grove. Abby had debated what to do with the rings over and over with herself. Her hair was pulled back in a giant clip and they were hiding inside her twist of hair. It was like having an additional fifty thousand dollars along, although, as tempting as it was, she knew better than to pawn these in her future. She hoped they’d come in handy in some other way, as long as Charlie didn’t reach up and decide to let her hair loose. He’d never done anything like this before, but today could be the day.

“You don’t have your phone, right?”

“No. I can’t, since it tracks me. You know that.”

“What about that?” he asked, nodding at the iPod strapped to her arm.

“There’s no tracker in this. It’s just my iPod. I thought it would make it more believable that I was running.”

“Good idea.”

“Thanks. These shoes are new -- they were still in the box, since I
never
run -- so I left the shoebox out too, to help him along. It’s like, the shoebox is open on the bed, the drawer with my shorts is open, and I’ve got a bottle of sunscreen sitting out on the kitchen countertop. I really spelled it out for him.”

Along with her running shorts and shoes, she was wearing a simple white t-shirt. Nothing too bright or memorable. She had a sports bra on. It was every bit as uncomfortable as she remembered. She
had
actually gone running, for the first time in years, to a scrawny patch of fruit trees half a mile from their house. When she came out the other side Charlie was waiting for her. He’d brought her back here to his place, even though she’d thought they were going to go straight to his uncle’s abandoned farm.

“I’m not quite ready,” he’d told her.

“Okay,” she’d said. But it wasn’t. A plan this important shouldn’t already be off course.

Once they got to his apartment she saw that he had sleeping bags, grocery bags of food, a cooler, lots of beer. His party props reminded her that this was nothing if not an adventure. She felt a little reassured when she saw everything he was bringing, lined up and ready by his front door, though the beer surprised her a little. They usually drank wine.

“I didn’t get to load the stuff up yet,” he explained. “It’ll only take a minute.”

“Okay. Are you feeling alright?” she asked. His skin was bordering on green.

“No. Not really.”

Instead of taking anything outside he went to use the bathroom. Abby heard him turn on the fan and a faucet, but it did little to help muffle the sound of his diarrhea. She turned on the TV so she wouldn’t have to hear him. Finally she went into his bedroom and sat on his bed to get away.

The reality that things were in motion hit her. She’d been thinking about her dad coaching her when she was a kid playing soccer. “Have a plan, Abby! Have a plan!” He’d never liked the way she ran down the field kicking the ball, not looking where she was going. “You understand that the whole point of the game is to get it in the goal, right?” he’d say on the car ride home.

“I’ll figure it out,” she’d tell him, hoping it was true.

“Everything gets easier with experience,” her mom would say. “You’ll be fine. I know you will.”

“If not, can I keep living with you guys?”

“Sure Sweetie. All three of you girls can stay with Dad and me forever.”

Charlie was finally out of the bathroom. He stuck his head in the bedroom. “I thought you left or something” he said. He had an armload of gear.

“Of course I didn’t leave.”

“Well then, I’m going to load up the truck.”

“Wait,” Abby said. “How are you going to get this stuff into your truck without anyone seeing you?”

“No one is ever out at the back of my building. And, I know what you’re thinking, but there aren’t any cameras out there.”

“What if someone
is
out there? What if someone sees you?”

“I like camping. So I’m going camping. That’s what they’ll think. I do that sometimes.”

“Okay. Fine. I’ll try to relax.”

While he loaded his truck, she stayed inside, hiding. When Charlie came back in she was in the same spot.

“Where’s Randall again? I forgot what you told me,” Charlie asked.

“He’s golfing with his friend. He’ll be distracted for a few hours. By early afternoon, he’ll be looking for me. It’s going to go from zero to a million, in a short amount of time.”

“So I guess you’re saying we should get rolling.”

“I guess so.”

“Alright then. Let’s do it,” he said.

“Okay.” Abby stood up.

“Wait,” said Charlie.

“What is it?”

“Maybe we shouldn’t do this.”

“It’s too late. It’s already started,” said Abby. “And I want to leave him. I can’t believe I’m actually doing it. But I’m glad.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t go to Grove. Maybe we should run away someplace else. Together.”

“Let’s talk about it more when we’re driving. Or when we get to Grove,” she said.

Charlie nodded. “Okay.”

“I’m going to use your bathroom. I’m guessing this place we’re going to has no bathroom.”

“You’d be right.”

“I was afraid of that.” She went into Charlie’s bathroom and locked the door. She stared at herself in the mirror. Over her t-shirt she was wearing one of his sweatshirts. She’d put it on while she was sitting on his bed. A hooded sweatshirt, the better to hide beneath. It was cooler today than normal. She had on no makeup. She felt properly ugly, properly disposable. A person about to disappear off the face of the earth.

She couldn’t stop thinking of her family.

I’m sorry. I’m so sorry this is my life,
she wanted to tell them.

“You okay in there?”

“Yeah.”

“We should go.”

She came out of the bathroom just as he was tucking his phone into his jeans pocket.

“Were you texting someone?” she asked

“It’s nothing.”

“Who’s it from?”

“No one. Just one of those spam texts where someone wants to give me a free pizza.”

“Oh. Think they’ll deliver to where we’re going?”

“I don’t think so.”

“No one knows, right?”

“Right.”

“Okay.” She twisted the drawstring cord on the neck of the hooded sweatshirt.

“You ready, Abby-girl?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

They walked out to his truck. He opened the door for her. She got in.

“You’re bringing all kinds of stuff to make it comfortable, I see.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I figured there wasn’t any point in suffering.”

“It’s nice there? Rustic, but nice?”

“Yeah. It’s okay. Not exactly
nice
. But it’ll do.”

“I can handle it,” Abby said. She smiled, trying to show him she was brave. She put on her sunglasses and leaned into him. He put his arm around her, but once they were out of town and rambling down the highway, he pushed her away. Not hard, just kind of freeing his arm. He shook it out.

“It was falling asleep,” he said.

“It’s okay.”

Both their windows were down. She scooted away from him, over to her side. She put her hand out and played with the wind resistance, making waves, pressing back against it, slicing through it.

They were going the way she’d taken Esmeralda’s car. She had been concerned he might take her in some completely different direction than she’d expected. Someplace far, far from her buried treasure. But she recognized the billboards and the houses. They were on the right path. The path to Grove.

She thought about the pictures Randall would choose. They’d all be beautiful. She’d have long blonde curls and she’d probably be wearing evening gowns and bikinis. She’d be showcased on yachts and lounging in elite, notable locales. Pictures of Abby looking ordinary didn’t exist. Randall had never seen a reason to commemorate that side of her. This would be his big chance to show off how gorgeous she was, and how lavish and important his life is. He’d offer a huge reward for tips about her disappearance, because he could.

He was going to love that Ernie Blankenship was still in town to take part in it all. That was an accidental act of generosity on Abby’s part.

There would be news conferences and interviews that she’d miss out on since she’d be safely away from technology -- the complete opposite of how she’d lived these past many years. She wasn’t sure which was creepier.

She and Charlie were getting close to their destination. She recognized a house painted teal. A one of a kind landmark. They were nearing the dirt road she’d turned on to bury her treasure. Cinder Road it was called. Maybe another five or ten miles to go.

Randall would definitely want to use the picture of her in Holland. The one with the wooden shoes. That picture was special to her. It had been taken when she was on the family trip to the singing competition. It was the only picture in their house from before Abby lost her soul. She didn’t want it dragged into all this, but he would because he thought it was cute. Maybe the news people would veto it since it was from years and years ago. She wasn’t that pretty anymore and her face couldn’t look so bright or hopeful. She’d almost brought it with, but in the end, she hadn’t had the guts.

Like all beautiful people over the age of twenty-two, how Abby actually looked and how she looked when she was trying hard had diverged quite a bit. Her appearance without makeup was a disguise in itself. This person with the greasy ponytail and her hand out the window would never be confused with Randall’s sophisticated wife. Even her posture wasn’t a match. Randall’s wife, this beautiful missing woman, she had amazing posture. Now Abby, the real Abby, she was a slouchy nobody. Anyone’s eyes would travel right over her.

Stories like this blew over quickly, Abby told herself. It would be big news around here for a couple of weeks. In places like Nebraska and Wyoming no one would have ever heard of her. Some little shop in some little town had a sign going up in the window right now, saying
Help Wanted, Barabara Walters please apply inside
.

Abby guessed they were nearing Cinder Road when Charlie abruptly veered off to the left on a different little road. She’d been so busy looking out her side that she hadn’t seen the name of it.

“Where are we going?”

“To the farm.”

“This is the way?”

“Yeah.”

Abby looked through the back window. The road they were on was unpaved and all she could see behind them was a cloud of dust. Charlie pulled to the side of the road.

“Why are we stopping?” she asked.

He jumped out, not even closing his door. His pants were coming down, he was squatting behind the truck. As the dust cleared Abby could see the top of his head and the side of him, but with the windows down she could hear him with no problem. At first she thought,
What did he eat? My God
.

But then a clearer reality formed. The obvious answer. He was scared shitless.

Why was he scared even more than she was? It didn’t make sense.

She fiddled with the drawstring around her neck. It did not make sense.

“Are you okay?” she asked when he got back in the truck.

He nodded, looking straight ahead, hands on the steering wheel.

“I guess we’re just about there?”

He nodded again. The truck was in park; they weren’t moving.

“You’re having second thoughts,” she said.

Charlie shifted into drive and they went bumping down the road again, up a small hill, down into a dip of a valley, up another small hill. They were in an orange grove now. They went a little farther and a burned out house appeared on their left. And then finally, a large, weather-beaten shed. Charlie pulled up in front of it, left the truck running, and walked up to the big sliding door. He reached into his pocket, took out a key, and unlocked a padlock.

He slid open the door and came back to the truck. Without a word he got in and drove into the shed.

“Here we are,” he said, turning off the truck.

It was quite dark inside, even with the light coming in from the open door. The shed was huge and empty, with other rooms sectioned off in the back. It had a dirt floor and gaps in the walls where rays of light poked in.

“Here we are,” he said again.

“Should I get out?”

“Yeah.” He walked around to the back of the truck and started gathering the supplies. Abby went around to help him. He handed her a sleeping bag. “It’s not all this bad. It doesn’t all have a dirt floor, either. In the back there are rooms that got added on. My uncle used to have a little studio back there.”

“Okay. That’s a relief.”

“Follow me.”

“Are there lights we can turn on? I mean, I can kind of see right now since the big door’s open, but for later?”

“There’s no electricity here anymore. I’ve got some flashlights. It’s probably better if we don’t use them though. Especially at night.”

“Does anyone ever come out here?”

“They shouldn’t. No trespassing signs are posted everywhere. But you never know.”

Abby followed him through the shed. At the back there was a wooden door with a latch handle. Charlie opened it. Some light was coming into this part. They went up a couple of spidery steps to a room with a wood floor and a small dusty window. It was empty except for a saggy recliner and a tool bench along one wall. There was an empty pegboard with outlines showing where tools once hung.

“After all these years it still smells like cigarettes,” said Charlie, almost fondly.

“This is it? This is the studio?”

“My uncle added it on. It was his little getaway. In here,” Charlie said, “is the bunkhouse.” He opened a little door and showed Abby another small room with a wood floor, a small window, and two wooden platforms on either side of the room. “There used to be a twin mattress on each of those, and sometimes my cousins and I would sleep out here if it wasn’t too hot.”

“Oh. Fun,” said Abby. It looked like something out of a nightmare.

“We’d go in his studio when we were supposed to be sleeping. We’d dig around, smoke his cigarettes, drink his alcohol, look at his dirty magazines. It was great.”

“Sounds great.”

Charlie took one of the sleeping bags he’d brought, unrolled it, and smoothed it out on one of the lower platforms that used to hold a mattress. He fussed with it some more and then sat down. Even though it was cool outside, it was smoldering in here. “Come on over here,” he said.

“Can we open one of these windows? I can barely breathe.”

“Sure.” He leaned over and pounded on the rusty latch a few times. He was able to get the window to pop out a few inches. It didn’t really help anything. Abby sat down beside him.

“Take your clothes off if you’re too warm,” he said.

Abby brushed away a spider that was repelling from one of the bunks. “I don’t know if I’m in the mood.”

“I’ll be on the bottom.” To prove it he lay down flat on his back.

She took off her armband and set it along with her iPod on one of the bunks. The iPod had become precious to her since she now had barely any possessions.

“It’s not very… romantic in here,” she said.

“Romance is a state of mind.”

“Yeah, I guess so. But I’m not really there right now.”

“Once we get started you’ll get into it. Come on. Take your clothes off.”

She peeled off her sweaty shoes and socks, sweatshirt, t-shirt and shorts, sports bra, and underwear while Charlie watched. She was careful to keep her hair firmly clamped in place.

“Aren’t you going to take your clothes off?” she asked him.

He unbuttoned and unzipped his pants, and pulled them down a little. As usual he wasn’t wearing underwear.

“That’s all you’re going to do?” she asked.

“Ride me,” he said.

“I’m going to hit my head on the top bunk.”

“Be careful.”

She got on him and they had sex for a while without talking. Even with the little bit of padding the sleeping bag provided, Abby’s knees hurt. After a couple of minutes, she pushed his shirt up a little, wanting to run her hands over his belly and chest. He pushed his shirt back down.

“What’s up? Can’t I look at you? I mean,
I’m
totally naked.”

“You’re gonna see it anyway, I suppose.” He lifted his shirt to reveal the word WARRIER on his stomach, a few inches above his belly button. That portion of his stomach had been shaved and the tattoo looked very fresh. It was really big and in a font that made Abby think of Christmas cards, but that she guessed was supposed to look Gothic.

“When all your stomach hair grows back it will be kind of hard to see it,” she said. Also, she was pretty sure it was misspelled.

“I might start shaving my stomach. I don’t know.”

“Huh. Just that spot and leave the rest?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I’ll shave everything.”

“That’s an idea. Well, anyway, it’s a nice tattoo,” she said, lowering his shirt so she wouldn’t have to look at it.

They’d slowed down but Abby started moving again, ready for it to be over. Finally Charlie came and she got off him. She sat on the edge of the bunk, feeling him leaking out of her onto the sleeping bag edge and wooden platform. He started snoring immediately.

Abby got dressed, setting the sweatshirt aside, just as Charlie awoke with a sputtering jolt and sat up.

“You alright?” she asked.

“Yeah.” He wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand.

“A little tired, I guess?”

“I guess so.” He stood up and pulled up his pants. “Do you want to see the pond?” he asked.

“There’s a pond?”

“Yeah, I told you about it.”

“I don’t know. I’m really scared of alligators.”

“There aren’t alligators in it.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“Then I guess so.”

They went back through the front section of the shed and out the big sliding door, from the sweltering heat to the relief of cool air and bright sunshine.

“It’s pretty out here,” said Abby.

“It is, isn’t it? The pond is this way.” They began walking around the side of the shed.

“Aren’t there any little doors? Any people-sized doors? Can we only come and go through that big door?”

“There’s a door right there,” Charlie said, as they rounded the back of the shed. “A little nervous, aren’t we?”

“No.”

“I would have used it, but I don’t have a key for that one.”

“I was just asking. It’s a big building. I figured there must be a few doors, that’s all.”

“That,” he said, as they passed a couple much smaller, nondescript sheds, “is the pond.”

It wasn’t a pond so much as a small lake. “It’s huge,” Abby said.

“Do you want to walk down to it and take a look?”

“Sure.” Just then she heard what sounded like a vehicle approaching. “Do you hear that?” she asked.

“Uhhh…” Charlie turned, looking back up toward the sheds and dirt road they’d come in on. The view of the road was blocked from here.

“Charlie, someone is definitely coming. What should we do?”

“You stay here. It’s probably someone who’s lost.”

“I don’t want to stay here alone. What about alligators?”

Charlie looked helplessly at Abby as they listened to the vehicle stopping on the other side of the shed. One car door slammed, and then another. A sudden low wind rustled the tall grass around them and the buzzing cicadas seemed to all hush at once.

“What should we do?” Abby whispered.

“I’m sorry,” Charlie said. He looked sick.

“Why are you sorry?”

From around the side of the shed came the cousin Abby had seen at the flea market, along with a woman. Abby’s initial reaction was relief that it wasn’t Randall. She wouldn’t have been surprised to see him; she believed his omniscient grasp over her life was like a web that could drop on her at any moment, anywhere. She glanced at Charlie, wondering what he would say or do, how he would explain to them why they were here.

“Chuckles,” the cousin said to Charlie.

Charlie nodded and looked down.

The woman looked like two wrong halves that had been put together: skinny on top and big on the bottom. She wore a fanny pack around her waist.

“Hi. I’m Meggie,” she said to Abby, pushing her pink mirrored sunglasses up into her stringy black hair like a headband. She didn’t seem at all surprised to see Abby and Charlie.

Before Abby could answer, this woman squinted at her and said, “And you must be Abby.”

“What’s going on?” Abby asked Charlie.

He ignored her question and instead said, “Abby, this is my cousin Rake. Rake, this is Abby.”

“You said
Rake
?” Abby asked.

“That’s right,” said Charlie’s cousin. “I’m Rake. I believe we already met at the flea market. You two checking out the pond?”

Neither Charlie nor Abby answered.

“I said, are you checking out the pond?” he repeated, focusing solely on Abby.

“Yeah, I guess,” she said.

“When Rake asks you a question, you need to answer him,” said Meggie.

“What do you think of my dad’s place?” Rake asked Abby.

“It’s fine.”

“It’s
fine?”

“It’s nice.”

“I grew up here. This old place used to
be
something. We had a nice house until it burned down.”

Abby nodded.

“You passed it on your way here. I guess you didn’t notice it?” Rake said.

“I saw it when we drove in,” said Abby. “That’s really sad that that happened.”

“Yeah, it was sad,” Rake said emotionlessly. Then he made a big, frowny face and pretended to wipe his eyes. Like Boo hoo hoo.

“You want a cigarette?” Meggie asked Abby.

“No thanks.”

“What do you mean no thanks? I said, do you
have
a cigarette?”

“Oh. Sorry. I don’t.”

“I suppose you don’t either,” Meggie said to Charlie.

“Nope. I don’t,” he said.

“What’s the matter, Chuckles?” she asked. “Usually you’re always smiling and in a good mood.” She pulled a handful of tall grass and tried to tickle his chin with it. Rake ripped it out of her hands and threw it on the ground.

“I am?” asked Charlie.

“Well, when
I
see you.”

Charlie shrugged. He was looking at Rake. They were sending one another some kind of message with their eyes. Abby was trying to send her own message to Charlie, but he wouldn’t look her way.

“We’re gonna have to get some smokes,” Meggie said to Rake.

“Like I already told you, we’ll go into town in a little while. Hold your horses,” Rake said to her.

“I want some
now.
We should have got some on the way. You said we were going to have a campfire and drink some beers, and I can’t drink without cigarettes. You know that.”

“Beers and a campfire?” Abby asked. Wouldn’t neighbors notice the smoke and flames? She looked at Charlie, desperate for him to make them go away. Why would he though, when he had clearly invited them.

“I don’t smoke weed,” Meggie said to Abby. “It makes me paranoid.”

“Okay.”

“Beer is my drug of choice. In my family there’s a lot of alcoholics, but if you stick with beer you’re pretty safe. Do you smoke weed?”

“No.”

Meggie laughed. “I didn’t think so.”

Rake and Charlie started walking away together. Abby began to follow Charlie but he turned and said, “I need you to stay with Meggie, okay?”

“Why?”

“Just do it.”

Abby went back to where Meggie was standing.

“Why were you going to follow them?” she asked Abby.