Chapter Thirty-seven
Present Day
Somewhere between Michigan and Iowa
Tick-tick-tick-tick. Tick-tick-tick-tick. Tick-tick-tick-tick. Tick-tick-tick-tick.
I tear my gaze from the highway’s hypnosis-inducing rhythm that took me to such a dangerous, mind-numbing place.
I’ve spent these last hours driving through even more miles of my subconscious than I have trekking through Michigan, Indiana, and Illinois.
I’ve practically driven drunk, intoxicated on memories.
It’s a little scary actually, just how absent I’ve been, how little I recall of the drive.
“Get it together,” I tell myself through gritted teeth. How ironic it would be if Noah showed up, but I absentmindedly drove my car off a cliff and ended up at a hospital instead of at the waterfall.
Not that there are that many cliffs along the interstate in this fairly flat part of the country, but still.
I take a deep breath. Just another few miles, and I’ll cross the border into Iowa. Eventually, I’ll trade the interstate for a crisscross quilt of rural highways that will take me to familiar gravel roads.
I can do this. And I’m close enough to home now that I might be able to find a non-country station on the radio.
I hit one of the presets I never took the time to reprogram in Michigan and . . . voila! I’m two measures away from the beat drop on Beyoncé’s latest single.
Music. Distraction. I can do this.
Within thirty minutes of crossing into Iowa, I reset my cruise to sixty-two—the fastest speed I’ll risk on these bored-country-cop highways.
At the end of a commercial-free hour of music—thank you, God—I’m in the home stretch.
Literally. I keep my focus steady, forward, as I pass the blacktop turn-off for Parre Hills.
As I slow for the first of two gravel roads, my stomach tightens. My chest, too.
Dizzy. I try to blink it away, but when Janey nudges my shoulder with her nose, I realize my breathing is keeping up with my blinks.
She whines.
I’m scaring her. “Sorry, girl.” I take a deep breath. In. Out.
Inhale. Exhale. “Noah.”
Noah.
Gravel dust chases my taillights, layering off-white waves on the rear window. Out my side window, the sun is descending, teasing the blue of the sky with shades of melon and lavender.
Lavender. Like those roses Noah sent me, for being a dumb hotel.
I shake my head. “We’re almost there, Janey.”
Caught up in memories as I’ve been, these hours have seemed to take little more time than a hike to the waterfall.
A hike I will soon make, but from a different direction than I used when I still lived with my parents.
A stretch of fresh rock bullies the tires. The tread loosens its grip, sending the back end into a fishtail.
I lift my foot from the pedal and yank the steering wheel to the right. Memory tempers sudden panic, and I gently pump the brakes, regaining a hold on the road just in time to make the final tight curve. The road straightens, and my mind wanders back to where my memories left off.
Maybe living with Grandma Maddie was not the ideal solution to my problems with my mother.
Or maybe it was. And maybe they aren’t my problems so much as hers, but I bore their brunt.
When God says, “Honor your father and your mother,” I don’t think he means for his children to submit themselves to abuse.
Until I enforced distance from Mom, I didn’t truly recognize that abuse was what I had experienced. Emotional, verbal, and—
My hand moves from the steering wheel to my cheek, remembering her slap. My resulting fall. That forced, unnecessary, invasive clinic visit.
Direct and indirect physical abuse.
Accepting Grandma’s open door was a mode of survival I probably should have sought sooner, instead of continuing to live in an arena of fear and under a microscope of distrust.
I don’t know if my leaving affected my mom to the point that she regretted her own behavior, but by Christmas, a tentative sort of peace settled between us. Still, it was a bit awkward when I left Christmas dinner with Grandma Maddie.
Yes, I had questioned my decision to move out. More than once. But every time I thought of going back home, only to pack up and leave again in May, that soul-deep whisper of “Hold on” found me, and I decided against it. My plans hadn’t changed, and neither had my parents’ objections to them.
It hadn’t been easy taking buses and trains to audition for the various musical theatre programs to which I applied.
It hadn’t been easy finishing high school while taking classes at La Bella.
And it most certainly had not been easy—although it had been satisfying—to tell my parents I won a full-tuition scholarship to the University of Michigan.
I smile now at that memory. With the scholarship, my parents assumed I would quit La Bella, but I kept to my plan.
I finished the program the first week of May and immediately began the application process for my Michigan esthetician’s license.
Before my old KHS classmates even flipped the tassels on their graduation caps, Janey and I had moved into an apartment with three other musical theatre majors, and I’d started working at a day spa near the U of M campus.
It’s been a busy summer, but I’ve made some like-minded friends, and I’ve gained a steady stream of regular clients at the spa.
Even after classes start up in a couple of weeks, forcing me to scale back my hours at the spa to part-time, I should have a little extra left over every month to build my savings.
The savings that will be necessary when, two years from now—hopefully—I’ll be moving to New York.
The two days I’ve taken off work this week will pinch a little bit, but that pinch won’t matter once Noah . . .
Eight, nine. Eight-seventeen.
Anticipation swells in my chest like the feeling that rises each time the first notes of an overture sneak under the curtain to tickle the ears of the actors waiting backstage.
God, please let him come.
The angle of the sun glints off the brown sign for the County Nature Preserve like the wide lens of a spotlight. My eyes follow the late afternoon’s glow as it extends down the road and up the lonesome tree-line. I look at the clock.
5:38 p.m.
I’m almost three hours early. In August.
“Idiot.” Good thing I picked up a few more bottles of water when I stopped for gas. The heat index is probably in the triple digits.
I glance in the rearview mirror, where Janey’s ears have perked up. “Not you, sweetie. Me. I’m the idiot.”
I pull off into the sad excuse for a parking area. Unlike the dusty path behind us, the forward view isn’t marred by the passage of a recent vehicle. In fact, there’s not another car in sight.
“He’s not here yet.” Taking a deep breath, I check the dashboard clock again. “Of course he’s not here yet, idiot.” This time, I’m sure Janey knows I’m not talking to her.
I angle the rearview mirror toward my face. Purplish blue smudges from several sleepless nights—anxious, anyone?—join with the long drive to stain the thin skin beneath my eyes. A patina of fatigue dims the gold flecks in my brown eyes, to the point of shadow.
I wrinkle my nose at my reflection. I have the skills and the products to camouflage my fatigue, but in this heat, I would probably just sweat them off, anyway.
Why waste good makeup? Especially while I’m in the midst of learning several quite pointed lessons on how frugality helps pave the path to dreams.
A wet tongue glides up the side of my face. My scowls relaxes into a smile.
Janey thumps the silver tip of her long white tail against the back seat. Looks at the gate. Whines.
“You’re ready to go, aren’t you, girl?”
One more moment of artificial coolness . . . and I open the door.
As soon as the car’s protective seal is breached, a thick wave of heat sucks the breath from my lungs. Not patient enough to wait for me to open the rear door, Janey ambles over the console, jumps out the driver’s door, and immediately heads for the grass, curved tail in motion.
I chug the rest of my half-full bottle of water and then retrieve my backpack from the floor of the passenger side, stuffing the extra water bottles and Janey’s portable water dish in the backpack.
After securing my keys in the outside zippered pocket, I shoulder the pack and slide my phone in the back pocket of my shorts.
I don’t bother turning up the ringer volume.
Mom had my number changed the same week Noah left for London.
He’s not going to call, and I don’t want to know if anyone else does.
I shoot a glance back up the road.
“Do you think he’s close?” I retrieve my just-put-away phone and check the time.
Wow. I’ve made it to a quarter to six now. A full eight minutes since I last checked the time. “It’s still early. He’s probably miles and miles away.”
My abdominal muscles tighten. A sour twinge seeps into the joints of my jaw. I recognize the sensation, but I can’t reconcile it with the current geography.
Stage fright? Here?
It makes sense, I guess. But this isn’t just another performance, on just another stage. This is my life. Tonight, my past, my hope, and my future will collide.
Eight, nine. Eight-seventeen.
The refrain reverberates in my head with determined, desperate hope.
Inhaling through my nose, I pull the breath deep into my diaphragm.
The well-exercised muscle expands. As Mr. Barron taught me, I picture the tissues stretching thinner and thinner, giving me permission to exert both volume and control.
Choosing “ah” as my sound, the G above middle C as my note, I crescendo the breath over fifteen seconds and then repeat, taking the note up a step, to an A.
Even though I have no need to warm up my vocal chords, the exercise usually calms my coiled nerves.
And it does help, some. Still, I have to rub my arms as phantom gooseflesh prickles against the heat.