“Better?”
“Better.”
He rolled down both windows and turned off the engine. The sound of passing cars and birdsong filled the truck. “All right,” he said. “Let’s try to talk about this rationally. What are the facts?”
“I’m being a baby.”
“That’s not a fact. That’s an interpretation, and not one with which I particularly agree. Let me give you an example of a fact. We’re in north South Dakota. Fact.”
“Okay. It’s early evening.”
“Hey.” He raised an eyebrow. “That was a pretty little sentence, Tom.” She smiled.
“What else have you got?”
She paused and looked him in the eye. “I’m running away from home.”
Lamb widened his eyes. “You are?”
She looked down at the handkerchief, twisted in her hands. “Maybe.”
“Oh, Tommie.” He stared out the windshield. “I don’t know how that makes me feel.”
Nothing.
“You could have told me that was what you were doing. Did you think I wouldn’t let you come with me?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me the truth.”
“I thought you wouldn’t let me because I don’t want to go back.”
“But right now you do want to go back.”
“I feel bad!” Her voice rose to a thin, hysterical pitch and she was crying again.
“Ssh. I know. It’s okay. Listen. Listen, Tom. Do you remember our deal?”
“We spend a week, then you take me back.”
“Almost.”
“We spend a few days and you take me back.”
“That’s correct. And is that running away from home?”
She shook her head.
“That’s like a vacation, right?”
“But a secret vacation.”
“Well. I don’t know how I feel about the word secret. It’s more like the kind of thing a teenager would do, right? A teenager vacation.”
She wiped her nose with the handkerchief.
“And you agreed to this deal.”
“Yes.”
“No running away.”
“No.”
“Good,” he said. “I don’t know how it makes me feel, that you were keeping this from me.”
“I’m sorry!”
“Hey now, hey now.” He ran his hand from her forehead into her hair. “Take it easy. I was a teenager too, once. Ten thousand years ago. I know what it’s like. And I bet seeing that mom and her little girl gave you a little bruise right here, right?” He pressed her breast with his thumb, right where her heart would be.
She nodded.
“Well, let’s talk about this. Because if you feel bruised about something you didn’t even do—like run away—then our trip is off to a pretty shaky start. And we have to get it back on track together. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Tom, look at me. Good girl. Can you give me a smile? I love to see that. Good. Now tell me if you feel like you’re running away.”
She shook her head.
“Why not?”
“Because I’m going back in a few days.”
“You’re not abandoning your mother.”
She shook her head, lips pulled into her mouth and her eyes filling up again, and he put his hands around her face and drew in close, his breath warm and steady on her mouth and nose and chin.
“No. You’re not. She is probably worried, but we’ll send a postcard, and she’ll get it tomorrow, or maybe the next day, and that will make her feel a lot better.” He held her face close and spoke nearly into her mouth. “And by the time she gets worried again, you’ll be knocking at the door. A little more mature, a little wiser. Your beautiful long hair kissed with October sun from being so high up in the mountains. And she’ll be able to see all this, won’t she?”
“Yes.”
“And it will be such a relief to her, that you’re growing up wise and straight and tall.” His voice a soft and easy rush against her face.
“Yes.”
“And she’ll love you more than ever. And you’ll love her more than ever.”
“Yes.”
“There is room enough in your heart, Tom, for more love than you know, okay?” He looked directly into her eyes. She glanced up, and down again to the thin yellow stripe across the chest of his shirt, and back up again.
“Okay.”
“That probably doesn’t mean much to you now, but I want you to remember that I said it. I want you to remember that your heart includes everything. It is very, very big. No matter what gets in there—bad feelings, sorry feelings, ashamed feelings—you don’t have to cast it out. You just let your heart contain it all.”
“Okay.”
“I sound a little funny, don’t I?” He backed up, releasing his hands from her face. She smiled and nodded. “How are we doing now? Should we go back to our facts?”
She nodded.
“I’ll start. Here’s a fact: you blow your nose like a honking loon.”
She laughed. “You make me laugh.”
“Oh, sweetheart. That’s my favorite fact of the day.” He smiled broadly and took her face in his hands again and kissed her forehead. “Is that okay? If I do that?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay,” he said, sitting up straight. “I think that made me blush a little. Did that make you blush?”
“A little.”
He smiled. “How about this one: we’re almost there.”
“We are?”
“Another fact: this is the only time you and I will ever be in his truck together, in the middle of the day, at the skirt of the mountains.”
“We could go west or east.”
“Eventually, come hell or high water, Tom, you’re going back east.”
“I think we should go on to the Old El Rancho Road.”
He raised a hand. “Now don’t be so hasty, Tommie. If you change your moods so fast, I’ll feel like you don’t really know what you want. Like you’re too young for this. I’ll get to thinking you’re just saying what I want to hear.”
“Oh.”
“Listen, dear. It is of the utmost importance to our friendship—to me—that I not feel like a bully here. Okay?”
“But I really do think we should go.”
“Let’s do this. Let’s park this truck across the street—see that place over there?” It was an empty boarded-up restaurant made of dark slabs of wood and fashioned with a porch to resemble a general store. “Then we’ll take a walk. Just to clear the air a little, right? And when we get back to the truck, we’ll make a decision.”
Outside the air was cool and bright yellow. Lawns around the houses were deep and soft, the air fragrant with sweet and rotting cow manure. A metal sprinkler ticked and a few kids in dirty T-shirts were circling each other on their bikes in the middle of the wide street. Crickets and frogs in the muck-filled retention ponds were in full chorus, the faces of the tiny houses blinking blue and gold-lit windows.
“Pretty little town.”
“Yeah.”
“I wish I could buy your mother a house like that. In a town like this. Or like one of those, with a glassed-in porch. With a bedroom from where you can hear the train whistle in your sleep. And a little breakfast nook downstairs for hot rolls and coffee in the morning.”
“That’d be the day.”
“Tell me,” he said and held up his face to her. “Is it a good face?”