33
AMANDA
“Amanda, dear, can you hear me? It’s time to wake up . . .”
The voice was muffled.
Distant.
As if shouted from the opposite end of a long tunnel lined with foam.
The first time Amanda heard it, she thought it came from Mr. Carmichael, her cheer instructor back at Douglas High.
The second time she heard it, she realized that made no sense.
She’d run away midway through her sophomore year, and that was a few weeks ago.
Mr. Carmichael didn’t know where to find her; nobody did.
That was the whole point of running away.
To lose yourself. To get lost from others.
To find your true self, not the self others wanted you to be.
For as long as she could remember, Amanda wanted to be an actress.
Not the kind on television, but the kind you find on the big screen down at the Cineplex.
Ten feet tall and larger than life. The kind talked about around the dinner table and photographed in gorgeous gowns on red carpets all over the world, surrounded by equally gorgeous and famous men, with gawking fans held at bay behind velvet ropes.
Perfect hair. Perfect makeup. A body toned by personal trainers and dietitians.
Nobody famous ever came from Midbo, Florida.
A fact made painfully obvious with a single glance down the two-lane road passing through the center of town.
At the businesses all in various stages of death.
At the people trudging along the sidewalks wearing their best hand-me-downs.
By the time she was in elementary school, Amanda knew if she wanted to become an actress, she’d have to get out of Midbo.
By middle school, she had saved up nearly six hundred dollars and had a solid plan.
During her sophomore year of high school, the weekend of the Homecoming Dance, Amanda left a note on the kitchen counter, stole her stepfather’s pickup, and hit the road, taking nothing but the truck, her money, and a duffel stuffed with clothes and her best makeup.
She’d start in New York, and once she conquered Broadway, she’d head west to California to start her real career.
She didn’t expect to get famous right away—nobody did—but with Broadway behind her, arriving with experience, she’d have a leg up over anyone she might have to compete against.
Amanda had been the prettiest girl in Midbo.
She’d be the prettiest girl in New York.
And she’d be the prettiest girl to land in Hollywood since Judy Garland.
She could sing.
She could dance.
This wasn’t simply a desire.
This was destiny.
Amanda planned to take over the world.
She got as far north as Savannah, Georgia, before things started to go wrong.
Amanda had made it a point to stay in cheaper motels.
Not the really bad ones between major cities right off the highway exits, but the classier ones.
The ones that offered free HBO and sometimes had a pool.
Sometimes they even offered a complimentary breakfast, which was perfect, considering that she had to stretch every dollar.
Amanda had been in the small dining room of just such a motel when someone stole her stolen truck.
The keys were in her pocket, so she had no idea how they stole it.
When she first went out to the parking lot and didn’t see it, she thought maybe she’d just forgotten where she parked.
She circled the motel lot three times, hoping to stumble into the truck somewhere else, but she didn’t.
And each time she passed that initial parking space, she became more certain that was exactly where she’d left it. The truck was gone.
Amanda had always been a glass half full person, so she sucked in a deep breath, put a smile on her face, and told herself she still had her duffel and she still had her money.
Well, down two hundred since she left Midbo after gas, food, and lodging so far, but she still had some money.
A little over four hundred. That was more than enough to get her where she needed to go.
She’d once read that Madonna arrived in New York with only ten dollars in her pocket, and look at her.
She’d have way more than that when she reached the city.
Three semis were gassing up at the pumps.
Amanda studied the drivers and settled on an older man, probably late sixties, early seventies, with a nice smile and a “Honk for Jesus” bumper sticker on the back of his rig.
Amanda asked if he could take her north; he said he could, and that was that. His name was Jerry.
About forty miles outside Savannah, on a stretch of highway lacking so much as another vehicle for nearly an hour, Jerry pulled his rig to a stop on the shoulder, turned on his flashers, and offered Amanda a proposition.
He told her if she wanted to go any further, she’d have to suck his dick.
If she didn’t want to do that, she’d have to pay him for the gas he burned taking her this far and get out here.
Amanda had no idea where “here” was, and she wasn’t about to do that, not with him, some guy she didn’t even know.
She wouldn’t even suck Billy Hayworth’s dick back in Midbo behind the Walmart, and she thought he was cute.
Jerry was old and smelled like rubbing alcohol.
Amanda politely said no thank you and asked Jerry how much she owed him.
When he saw the wad of bills she pulled out of her pocket, he punched her square in the jaw with a solid right hook.
Amanda blacked out.
When she woke, she was on the side of the road, her throbbing head resting on her duffel bag. All her money gone. Jerry hadn’t just taken gas money; he took every cent she had and left her there. The sun was starting to go down, it was getting cold, and Amanda was hungry.
Several cars drove by; nobody stopped. Not until a guy in a brown Mazda. He told her he’d take her as far as Charleston, but she’d have to do something for him. This time, Amanda did it.
“Amanda, dear? Can you hear me? You really need to wake up.”
The voice from earlier.
The one in the tunnel who sounded like Mr. Carmichael.
When Amanda’s eyes fluttered open, she realized it wasn’t Mr. Carmichael.
When she saw where she was, her eyes filled with tears. She couldn’t scream—something was in her throat.