One minute the road is dark and we’re a bullet hurtling through empty space, and the next minute red strobe lights are crashing all around us. Sirens. Cops.
“I wasn’t speeding,” Mack is practically yelling.
“Okay, okay. So pull over. Maybe they just need to get by.”
“Yeah, and there are so many fucking cars coming the other way that they can’t pass?”
“Mack, pull yourself together. Don’t talk, let them do the talking.”
“Easier for you to be calm. You’re not the one whose license is on the line.”
He’s so bent out of shape I’m beginning to think he’s worried about something more than just a traffic charge. In the mirror I can now see that there’s only one police car. State trooper, actually.
“Mack, you don’t have drugs in here, do you?”
He doesn’t answer.
“Mack?”
“Are you crazy?”
“You said you quit, but you’re going ballistic here. I thought—”
“It would be suicide to carry coke in a car. Every idiot knows that. Any routine stop of a teenager and they search.”
The silence settles between us as the sirens die. The flashing light slices across the empty field, the stubble of last year’s cornstalks glistening and then gone and there again. Minutes pass and finally the black bulky form of the trooper climbing out of the cruiser twenty yards back appears in the side mirror.
My head pounds. My fingers are clammy. “You lied to me. You said you were only smoking pot. You said you quit.”
“I meant pot.”
“You said coke.”
“I meant pot.”
“Goddamn it, Mack. I’m not going to be here and you—”
“Shut up, shut up, here’s the cop.”
Exactly like in every damn movie I’ve ever seen, the trooper raps on the window. Mack lets it scroll open.
“Just the two of you boys?” the trooper says. At his waist metal gleams in the holster. He scans the truck cab with his flashlight.
Mack nods. I nod.
“So where are you headed at four in the morning?” His words are clipped, official, but he’s smiling. As if he thinks it’ll loosen us up.
What was I thinking to leave in the middle of the night? If I’d strung out a story about Mack and me going to the mall in Fredericksburg, no one would have thought twice. All that planning for nothing. We’re underage. There’s probably a curfew in Fredericksburg. The trooper will call our parents. We’ll have to go back. My mother will never leave me alone again. I’ll never get to New York. And I can’t tell anyone the real reason. Not even Mack knows how badly I need to get out of Virginia and find a doctor who’ll listen to me.
“One of our friends from Mary Wash called about a party.” Good for Mack. Typical teenager putting his foot in his mouth.
“A party at the college? You two old enough for that?”
“Oh, it’s not that, officer. We’re not going to go to the party.” He’s buying time, thinking fast.
I’m glad he’s the one behind the wheel. My mind is totally blank. Holden, Holden, I’m falling apart here. This is my deal, not Mack’s. He’s having to rescue us when I should have worked the possibilities out in advance and been ready for this.
Mack turns off the engine, like he’s so concerned about the gas. Smart. “Carrie’s upset. Our friend. Some guy tried to…you know…take advantage of her. She’s pretty, uh, wrecked.”
“She should call the campus police.”
“I know. We told her that, but she’s embarrassed. Thank you though for the advice, officer. We’ll try that when we get there. When she’s calmer.”
The trooper shines the flashlight around the cab again, down to the floor, up along the dashboard. “The city has a curfew. Did you know that?”
“Curfew? No, jeez, no. Did you know that, Dan?”
I shake my head, a boulder in my throat.
“You’re lucky you weren’t speeding. I’d better check your license while I’ve got you here.”
Mack scrambles to pull his wallet out of his back pocket. The seat belt hangs him up and he’s stabbing at the button to release it, while I’m thinking, Be cool, buddy, be cool.
The trooper straightens, his hand at his back like it hurts. He has to be older than he looks. People my parents’ age have back problems. He must bend down to windows a lot in his job. He raises his voice.
“And if I were you, I’d wait until after seven before you head back to”—he takes the license Mack thrusts out the window and holds it under the flashlight—“Tappahannock. Seven is the end of curfew.”
“Thank you, officer. We’ll do that. Thanks.”
“Thank you,” I repeat. What idiots.
In Fredericksburg all the parking spaces below the train tracks are marked HANDICAPPED. Mack swings through the parking lot twice. When he starts in the third time, I put my hand on his arm.
“Just drop me off.”
“I’m not going to drop you off and let you stand here by yourself like some homeless person without any goddamn friends.”
“You are pissy. Park, then. We can huddle on the sidewalk and do that Boy Scout triple handshake and you can pat my back and talk about old times.”
“Can’t you read the signs? All the spaces are fucking handicapped.”
“I am fucking handicapped.”
He laughs at that.
Once we’re up the ramp and I’m huffing on the platform, he takes out his wallet.
“Dan, don’t get all twisted over this. I had money left over after I paid the insurance.” He sticks a wad of bills in my pocket. “Take it. You don’t know what those Broadway hookers cost these days.” With his head down, he’s in the shadows.
“You read it. You read The Catcher in the Rye, you dog, you. Why didn’t you say something?”
He’s embarrassing me, even though I know he’s not trying to. My eyes are blurring up. Damn. After the will, I said I was done crying. Don’t. I’m talking to myself. Not here, not with Mack. He read Catcher because I told him to, because his best friend is dying and there’s nothing more he can do for me except that.
He shrugs. “Mi casa es su casa.”
“Did you really give up the weed too?”
I can’t bring myself to say coke. Even now I want to believe it was only a few times. But when he doesn’t answer, we both look away.
“You’re a first-class idiot,” I say.
“You’re a know-it-all.”
“I’m entitled.”
“Just because you’re sick? You get to tell everyone else how to live their lives?”
“Because I’m dying. You know I’m right. It’s a bad habit. Dangerous. Drugs make you less, not more. If you get caught, everything else you want to do goes down the drain. Look what happened tonight. Why screw it up?”
“You’re the one who’s always promoting free will.”
“Yeah, but good choices, not lousy ones.”
“And disappearing in New York and leaving your family in limbo, that’s a good choice?”
“I don’t have many options.”
“You’re chickening out. You’re scared and you don’t want anyone to see it, so you’re running away.”
“Go screw yourself.” I stalk down the platform. Minutes later, when I hear the train, I turn to retrieve the suitcase and it’s sitting by itself on the empty platform. He’s gone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Coming off the train in the underground station in New York City, my legs are shaky and my head weighs ten tons. I forgot to pack Tylenol. It’ll cost more here, my first mistake. And I need to eat. The train food was ridiculously expensive. I ate every one of Meredith’s organic cookies. I’d counted on one a day, but they’re gone already. Most of the way I slept, despite wanting to see the places I’d read about in books. Union Station in D.C., Philadelphia, New Jersey. I know, I know, no one really includes New Jersey on his list of must-see places, but it is north of the Mason-Dixon Line. They talk with that wild twang that makes me feel not a little sympathetic after the big deal they make about Southern accents. The long nap has left me groggy and not quite steady on my feet. When I hesitate on the top step, the conductor reaches for my suitcase. I had no idea I looked that out of it.