Don't Fail Me Now (9 page)

“Hey,” he says, grimacing a little. I look past him to Leah, who refuses to break eye contact with her shoes.

“She wasn't in on this one, huh?”

“No. Well, she knew you might call, but she didn't expect—it's all just a lot for her, I think.”

I take a few lungsful of this real-life Yankee Candle air and weigh my options. I could make everyone's life easier and just leave her out of it, get the details for the hospice like Cass wanted and then split. But for some reason I can't shake a nagging feeling not only that we need her but that she needs us. Why else would she have made Tim drive her out to a Taco Bell in a bad part of town? Also, as far as I know, we've only got four living blood relatives, a number that will soon shrink by a full 25 percent. And she's one of them. I push past Tim and walk straight up to her.

“I'm Michelle,” I say, forcing my hands to stay at my sides and not hug my chest defensively like they want to. Leah glances up at me, taking in my hair, my face, my slept-in shirt and well-worn jeans. I clench my fists, not out of anger but because
I don't want her to see my nails, chewed down to the quick—another coping mechanism I've relied too much on lately.

“Hi,” she says, avoiding eye contact and crossing her arms. She reminds me a lot of Cass already.

“Look,” I say. “I know we've never met, and this is a weird way to do it, but I feel like I should tell you that we're going to California. To see Buck.”

Leah knits her thin blonde brows and looks over my shoulder at Tim.

“You didn't tell me that,” she says.

“I didn't know!” Tim appears at her side, and now I have
two
Children of the Corn staring me down. “You're
driving
to California?” he asks incredulously.

“Yup.”

“In . . .
that
?” Leah asks, nodding her head at Goldie. I look back and see Denny watching us through the back window. He's got a finger up his nose. I turn to Leah and offer a thin smile.

“Yup.” Tim and Leah exchange perplexed looks. They don't understand why I'm here. They've never had to live with an escape route constantly evolving in the back of their minds. “I
heard
,” I say, looking pointedly at Tim, “that you might want to try to see him before he . . . you know.” Leah bites her lip. “So I figured I should come and ask if you want to come with us.”

“What?” Leah says, shock replacing her frown of confusion. “Drive cross-country? Like,
today
?”

Tim grabs my arm and pulls me a few feet to the left. “I thought you were going to talk to her,” he whispers.

“We
are
talking,” I shoot back, yanking my arm away. Behind me, I hear the car door open and know without even looking that Cass is standing on the curb now, ready to have my back if
I need her.
That's what real sisters do
, I think, watching Leah pout. But then it dawns on me that if Cass saw enough commotion to break her mime act and come to my defense, there might be people inside the school—people with a lot more power—ready to come to Leah's. We have to get out of here soon.

“If you don't wanna come, don't come,” I say, holding up my hands. “But
you're
the one who found
me
. I figured I should at least ask.”

“It's really nice of you,” Tim says. But Leah looks like she's slowly imploding.

“What about school?” she asks, her face getting pink. “I can't just
leave
. And what about Mom and Jeff?” She lets out a laugh of disbelief. “Don't your parents even care where you are?”

“
Leah
,” Tim says.

“And you want me to get in that falling-apart car right now and just
go
?” she continues. “I don't have clothes. I don't have a suitcase. I . . . I don't even have my retainer!”

“Neither do we,” I shrug.

“So you're just wearing
that
for a week?” she asks, barely able to mask her horror.

“We didn't exactly have time to pack,” I say. “And we don't have time now, so if you don't want to come, just tell us where his hospice is, and we'll get going.”

I want her to take the bait at this point. She might be spoiled, but based on all of the emoticons on her Facebook, I expected that she'd at least be happier. What does she even have to be that pissed about (dying loser dad aside, obviously)? She has the life that everyone's supposed to want—pretty, thin, white, blonde, popular, family just screwed up enough for her to have a legitimate claim on teen angst but not so much that she turns
tragic and starts to scare off the ripped lifeguards at the country club pool. I'm working myself up now, starting to get angry. We're risking everything to go on this trip, and she's sulking because she won't be able to bring her
retainer
?

“Well?” I ask impatiently.

“He . . . didn't tell me the address,” she says, tucking her hair behind her ears. “He sounded kind of out of it.”

“So you don't even know where it is?”

“He said Venice Beach, right?” Tim jumps in, putting a hand on Leah's shoulder. She nods.

“The Golden . . . something,” she says and then sighs heavily. “I guess I could map it on my phone for you.”

“Don't bother,” I say. “I'm sure we can find it.” I give them a wave and turn to head back to the car. I know I should probably thank her, but I'm afraid if I talk any more I might crumble; I don't know if it's disappointment that she's not what I wanted her to be, or shame for dragging myself and my siblings through this crappy Disneyland detour of Things We'll Never Have, or just the anxiety of what lies ahead for us, but I'm suddenly on the verge of tears.

“Wait!” I hear Tim call, but I can't turn around until I get myself under control, so instead I lean against the car on my elbows and pretend to check my phone.

“You should go,” I hear him say. “You know you won't have another chance. And this is something you could regret for the rest of your life, Lee, I'm serious.”

“I don't even
know
them,” she stage-whispers, her voice high and unstable. “And Mom would freak.”

“She wants you to go, it was her idea.”

“Yeah, on a plane or something. With
her
.” There's a long
pause. “I'm not going anywhere by myself with them. And seriously, that car—”

“What if I go with you?” Tim says. “What if I come, too?”

I freeze. That was not part of the plan. I like Tim more than Leah at the moment, but that's not really saying much. And it's another mouth to feed—or to have to listen to. For twelve hours a day. Plus, I'm not even sure the middle seatbelt in the back works. I spin around.

“We have to go,” I say. “So whatever's happening, it needs to happen now.”

Leah scrunches up her face like she might cry. “I don't
know
,” she squeals, looking desperately at Tim.

“What do you have to lose?” he asks. “A few days of school, maybe a few weeks of being grounded. But this is your
dad
. I know if it was my mom . . .” he trails off and tries to compose himself. It's the same line he used on me in the parking lot last night. I hope he really does have a sick mom, because if not, he might be kind of a sociopath.

Leah looks back and forth between her school and Goldie a few times, as if weighing the potential costs of such an enormous social downgrade against the chance to reconcile with her biological father. “Okay,” she finally says, squeezing Tim's hand. “I'll go if you go.”

Tim hugs her tight, and I have to look away. Something about their obvious closeness and how much he cares about her makes me irrationally jealous. They've only been steps for, what, three years, he said? I can't remember the last time I hugged my real sister that way. Maybe that's the problem. Maybe I'm the one creating the distance.

“We're in,” Tim says, walking toward me with Leah
following/being dragged behind him. I hear a tapping on the car window and turn to see Cass looking at me with murderous eyes.

“
We?
” she mouths. All I can do is break eye contact and suck in my cheeks.

“So what now?” Tim asks.

“Now get in the car,” I say.

Tim blanches. “We'll need early dismissal notes to get past security,” he says.

“Not if they can't see you,” I say, annoyed that he's only just realizing this roadblock. Devereaux rule #4: Identify your obstacles in advance. I knew the minute I saw the guard station that I'd need a way to get Leah out, if she said yes. I open the trunk hatch, shove aside the boxes of ramen and the random bags of Mom's stuff, and gesture to the space in between.

“No way,” Leah says. “No. Effing. Way.”

“Got a better idea?” I put my hands on my hips and give them my best I-suffer-no-fools face, a dominant gene mutation inherited from my mother.

“I just don't think we'll both fit,” Tim says hesitantly.

“It's not for both of you. One can go on the floor in the backseat next to Denny. We've got plenty of clothes and a few sheets we can cover you with.”

“It's like riding in steerage on the
Titanic
!” Leah whimpers.

“Only to the bottom of the hill,” I say through clenched teeth. “Then some prime first-class seating will open up. Our amenities include seatbelts and all the Golden Grahams you can find embedded in the cushions.”

A few minutes later, our reluctant cargo loaded and concealed, I walk shakily around to the driver's side door and slide
back into my seat, Goldie's furious rattle matching the rising panic in my chest. Whatever I started this morning is growing, fast, and threatening to spiral out of control. I've got two extra runaways now, who come with a lot of extra baggage. And if we get caught, I know there'll be no cozy stopover at Aunt Sam's this time, no chance any CPS agent would grant me custody. They'll split us up. I'll lose Cass and Denny, which means I'll lose everything.

I ease the gearshift into drive and roll slowly out of the parking lot. There's no going back now.

Wednesday Afternoon

I-40, Near Cumberland, MD

Usually I love highway driving. That steady thrum of engine, white noise of rotating tires, and the blur you catch if you look out the side windows, like life just turned into a watercolor. But these past two hours in the car have been tense. As soon as she sat down, Leah got chocolate frosting on her butt, which led to a stream of delighted poop jokes from Denny that almost made her cry. Then Tim's knees were digging into my back through the seat, and I asked Cass to switch with him, and she gave me the finger. When we finally stopped for gas and Tim clambered into the passenger seat, he asked me where the USB cord was so he could charge his iPhone, and then he proceeded to try to diagnose Goldie's rattle for twenty miles. Meanwhile, Leah and
Cass were concentrating on totally ignoring each other while Denny updated us all on the status of a booger he was slowly excavating from his left nostril.

But then, as if by magic—or intense boredom—three of them fell asleep. Unfortunately for me, though, the chattiest one is still conscious.

“Could it be a loose wheel bearing?” Tim asks, straining his seatbelt as he leans forward to reach an ear toward the front of the car. He peers over the dashboard like he might be able to see what it is using X-ray vision if he just concentrates enough. “Maybe it's the lower shock mount, or the heat riser or heat shield on the exhaust pipe,” he mutters.

“It's fine,” I say for maybe the thirteenth time. “If it bothers you so much, you can look under the hood when we stop for the night.”

Tim shuts up for a minute, and I hear the faint tapping of his finger on a screen. “How far do you think we'll make it today?” he asks. “I can hit up Yelp for hotels and make a reservation.”

I'm already regretting bringing them along. I spent so much time worrying about how we'd fit in with them that I never considered the fact that they might not fit in with us. There's no way they're going to be able to hack three nights of sleeping in a car and taking “showers” in fast-food sinks. “Why don't you worry about your parents,” I say, changing the subject. “You need to make sure they're cool with this.”

“‘Cool' is not a word I'd use to describe my dad,” Tim says with a laugh.

“Well, your school then. Aren't they gonna call someone when they realize you guys disappeared?” For once in my life
I'm thankful that no one cares where we are. It makes running away a lot easier.

“Crap, you're right,” he says. “Don't talk for a minute.” I hear the tapping again, and Tim clears his throat. “Hi there, this is Jeff Harper,” he says in a slightly deeper voice. “I sent a family friend to pick up Tim and Leah this morning. Unfortunately there's been a death in our family, and I need to take them out of school for a few days.” He pauses. “My mother. Yes, thank you. I appreciate that.” I grip the wheel tighter. I hope he knows what he's doing, because it sounds like he's just quoting
Ferris Bueller's Day Off
. Tim coughs nervously, a dead giveaway. “Yes, of course,” he says. “If you, uh, send the form to my email address I can fill it out and fax it right back. Yup, it's jharper71 at Yahoo. Okay, thank you so much. Take care.”

“What was that?” I ask. “Now your dad's getting an email from the school, genius. And where are we supposed to find a fax machine?”

“Relax, I know his password,” Tim says. “He never checks his personal account until he gets home from work. I'll just download the form and delete the email. And then we can just go to a Kinko's or Staples.”

I purse my lips in reluctant agreement. “Only if you can find something on the way. I'm not taking some crazy detour through the backwoods of Ohio just so you can use the latest cutting-edge technology from 1992.” I glance over to see Tim smirking at me.

“You're the boss,” he says. We drive in silence for a few minutes, and I stare at the back of the car in front of us, a powder blue Prius with the bumper sticker
NOT A LIBERAL
. I wish
more people would be up-front about things that might not meet the eye.

“That was pretty cold, killing off your grandma,” I say finally. “It's bad juju.”

“Juju?”

“It's like a superstition,” I explain. “Bad luck, or a bad omen.” I'm not sure of the exact definition, but my mom says it all the time—which is ironic, considering where her own juju landed her.

“Well, she's already dead,” Tim says. “So I don't think it counts.”

“She's rolling in her grave then.”

“She was cremated.”

I swallow back a smile. Tim is quicker and more resourceful than I gave him credit for, but I'm still a long way from trusting him.

“What about your schools?” he asks. “Want me to call them?”

“Nah, they won't care,” I say, flipping on my signal to pass the dick in the Prius. “They're used to us being gone for no reason. My mom's not exactly on the PTA.”

“I can't believe she's okay with you guys driving to California by yourselves,” he says. “That's so awesome.”

I blink into the harsh late-morning sunlight, trying on this new image of my mother like a dress a few sizes too big, this blithe free spirit who probably sells handmade dream-catchers at craft fairs and treats fevers with essential oils and who trusts her kids to live their own lives and explore the world, sending them off to find peace with the father who left them. It's a prettier picture, but still all kinds of negligent.

“Yeah, she's . . . hands-off,” I say. “What's Karen like?” It's
an innocent enough segue that I hope Tim can't tell that the answer to this question will unlock a Pandora's box I've been dying to open for years. When I was younger I thought more about Leah, but recently, when I lie in bed at night imagining what might have been if Mom and Buck had worked it out, gotten clean, and turned into normal parents, I focus more on Karen. My mom has her issues, but back then she was young and bright and beautiful. What did this other woman have that Mom didn't? What made him pick her over us?

“She's great,” he says. I wait for more but instead hear the tapping of Tim on his iPhone again. I guess I shouldn't have expected more from a guy.

“Does she work?” I ask, trying to sound bored with my own question, like I'm just making conversation to keep from falling asleep at the wheel.

“Yeah, she's a real estate agent.”
Tap, tap, tap
.

“Did she always? Or was she, like, a stay-at-home mom before?”

“I think always.”
Tap, tap
. That battery's gotta die sooner or later.

“But she was young when she had Leah, right? Not even out of college?”

“I guess, yeah,” he says distractedly. “I don't know what she did then.”

I decide to change my tack. What I really want to know is if Karen was wild when she was young—a junkie or a drunk or at least a rebel. I need to know if Buck was trading up or just hopping from one disaster to another.

“Does she have any tattoos?” I blurt. I don't realize how random and strange it sounds until the words come out.

Tim laughs. “Um, yeah, actually. How did you know?”

I shrug, keeping my eyes on the road, both for safety and because I know they'd give me away. “Just a guess. I mean, I know she married Buck, so . . .”

“Right, he was covered in them.”

“You met him?” I also need to know when Buck left Karen. He wouldn't have overlapped with Tim unless he was still around three years ago, and that—I can't even think about that.

“No,” Tim says, sending my pulse back down to normal. “But I've seen pictures. Leah has a framed one in her room of the day he got hers.”

“He got
Leah
a tattoo?”

“No, the one of her name.”

The tidal wave I didn't see coming hits me full-force, so hard that I have to make a conscious effort to keep control of the car. I stare at the white slashes on the black tar ahead of me as blood rushes to my head so fast that dots start flashing in front of my eyes.

“Woah, are you okay?” Tim asks, putting a hand on my arm.

“Don't touch me,” I say. “I'll be fine, just—” I take a gulp of air, which makes things a little better. “Just please don't touch me.”

“Sorry. Do you need to pull over?”

I shake my head. What I need is to unhear that last sentence. I need to unlearn the fact that Buck spent money to tattoo Leah's name on his body but could never seem to find the means to pay child support for us.

“You know,” Tim says, “my dad left my mom, too. And she wasn't that different from—”

“
Stop
,” I say. If I wanted any more of Tim's pity, I could have just told him the truth about Mom.

“I just want you to know that I understand—”

“No, you don't,” I snap. “You do
not
understand.”

“Maybe not exactly, but—”

“There's no but,” I say, my voice rising. “You don't know, and you can't know, and I can't listen to how hard your cushy life is right now, okay?”

Tim goes quiet for a minute. Not even a tap.

“You know, you invited us,” he finally says. I shoot him an angry side-eye. “Okay,
her
,” he corrects himself. “But so far you've acted like you hate us.”

I seethe silently at the road. “I don't hate you,” I say, unconvincingly.

“Well, you've got a chip on your shoulder about something.”

“Just drop it, okay?” I look over at Tim, who's staring ahead, squinting with worry or hurt, I'm not sure which. I know I need to stop taking out my anger on him when it's really for Buck. And Mom. And Karen. And everyone else who made it so I'm sitting in the dying old car of a dying old man (okay, not
old
old, but midthirties, which is kind of old) with the half sister I never wanted and the non-brother I can't seem to shake. But there's just too much of it, and it keeps spilling out. I decide the best thing is just to not talk at all for a while.

• • •

Tim Google-maps a Kinko's just off the highway in Cumberland, and I pull into a strip mall that looks almost exactly like the one we left from this morning. It's funny—and sad—how so much effort must have gone into making every place in the country look basically the same, all of those architects and builders just slapping up the same crap from Tampa to Tacoma. I guess all this boxy plastic and glass and cement is supposed to feel comforting.
But I wonder if anyone ever tried to tell them that familiar isn't always comforting. Sometimes it's what you're running from.

While Tim goes in to print his fake absence note, I send a quick text to Yvonne, who's the only person I care about disappointing.

Have to take the rest of the week off
, I type.
So sorry, family drama
. I hit send before I remember to thank her for the money and then overcompensate in a second text with all caps and smiley faces. Part of me hopes she'll let this truancy slide, but there's also a shameful sliver of hope that I've filled my last burrito. If whatever Buck has for me is as valuable as he thinks it is, maybe it could float me for a while as I figure things out.

“Where are we?” Leah suddenly cries shrilly from the backseat. “Where's Tim?” She sits up looking absolutely horrified, like she's woken to discover she's in the middle of a carjacking. This wakes Cass and Denny up, too. Cass takes one look at Leah and hops out of the car, and then Denny shoves her, yelling, “You're sitting on Max!” As her lower lips starts quivering, I almost start to feel bad for Leah.
Almost
.

“Relax, I didn't throw him out of the moving car,” I say. “He's in the Kinko's faxing a form to your school.”

“Oh.” Leah looks down at her lap and taps on her own iPhone, which I didn't notice has been clenched in her hand this whole time, possibly to keep it from falling into Denny's eager, sticky grasp. “I guess I should text my mom.”

“Don't tell her where you are yet,” I say, frowning down at the dashboard and feeling more and more like a criminal. “Just . . . say you're staying over at a friend's house. Will she buy that?”

“I don't know,” she says.

“I'm hungry,” Denny announces, and I reach down into the plastic bag to get him a package of crackers.

“Well, you have to
make
her buy it.” I shoot Leah a serious look in the rearview mirror.

Leah sighs heavily, annoyed. “She's gonna know I'm gone eventually. I can't stay over for a week.”

“I know,” I snap. I'm angrier at myself than at her—how could I not have thought about this before? Tim and Leah aren't like us. They can't just skip town without anyone asking questions. It's not a relief to anyone when
they
disappear. I take a deep breath and try to change my tone. “I just need time to come up with something else.”

“You could say we're on a spaceship!” Denny offers, neon orange crumbs dropping onto the floor of the car.

“Thanks, buddy, but I don't think that's very believable.”

“A
red
spaceship,” he says, as if that changes everything.

“Fine, I'll just tell her I'm going to my friend Hannah's,” Leah grumbles and carefully opens the door Cass just bolted from, stepping her long, porcelain legs over the seat cushions to keep skin-to-garbage contact at a minimum.

“Can we leave her here?” Denny asks once the door slams shut, licking peanut butter from a deconstructed cracker sandwich. “Max doesn't like her.” I smile in spite of myself. I've noticed “Max” likes to say things Denny thinks are too mean to pin on himself.

“Tell Max for once I agree with him,” I say, turning around to grab a cracker. “But we can't leave her. She's . . .” I chew the cracker into a few sharp pieces and force them down my throat. “She's family,” I finish, nearly choking on both the food and the words.