Chapter 23
Amanda is driving me home the next morning when I remember something I’ve been trying very hard to forget. It’s my birthday today. My sixteenth birthday. The first day I could officially get a driver’s license if I wasn’t cursed with shitty genes. What a stupid day.
“Today’s my birthday,” I say out loud because I can’t help myself. When I was little, we would go out to dinner on my birthday and I would get to pick the restaurant. I picked Red Lobster every year for nine years in a row. I wonder if some Cheddar Bay Biscuits would make me feel better right now.
“Shut up,” Amanda says.
“No, I’m serious.”
“For realsies? It’s your actual birthday?! Why didn’t you tell me before?”
“It’s not a big deal. I didn’t really want to celebrate this year.”
“HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!”
She looks at me and grins, pulling over onto the shoulder, wheels spinning a little on the gravel. She picks up the keys from the center console, spins them on her finger, then holds them out to me.
“Wanna drive?”
What?
“I can’t,” I say. Then, pushing back the whole truth, “I mean, I don’t have my permit yet or anything. And you’re not exactly adult supervision.”
“Technicalities. Anyway, who’s going to tell on you,” she says, sweeping her hand toward the endless snowy fields, “the cows?”
She’s right. There’s no one for miles. We’ve got so much roadway to ourselves, it’s like we’re in a car commercial. I look at the keys.
“For chrissake, birthday girl. Live a little.” She pops her door open and jumps out. A second later, she opens mine and offers to help me up, like we’re on a date in a black-and-white movie. I find myself giggling.
“You’re so freaking weird,” I say, taking her hand.
She settles into my spot. “Thank you. Now hurry up; it’s cold.”
I walk around the car, my legs feeling a little wobbly, my breath coming in quick, visible puffs.
Is this fear or excitement? Is there even any difference?
These days, good and bad are all mixed up together, like pain is the main ingredient of pleasure somehow, and vice versa.
Would the show last night have felt like such a success if it hadn’t almost been canceled?
For that matter, would Amanda seem like such a supercharged friend right now if I hadn’t been putting her on the top of my enemy list for months?
Well, if I’m scared, that’s probably a good thing; it’ll up my focus. Let’s do this.
I press the ignition, and the engine thrums through the seat in a way that it doesn’t when I am a passenger, like it’s connected to my nervous system.
I shift the car into drive, my foot still on the brake.
Then, stupidly, I go to flick on the turn signal, even though we’re alone in the hills.
Instead, the wipers spring to life with a squeal that makes us both jump.
“Oops,” I say. I move the arm back to its starting position and the wipers settle.
“Do you want to adjust your mirrors or something?” Amanda says to me with a smirk. I can’t tell whether her joke is that I’m being too careful or not careful enough, so I try to laugh it off while glancing at the mirrors.
“I think we’re good,” I say.
I press evenly on the gas, and I’m driving.
I’m driving! It’s the easiest thing in the world.
It feels so much easier than all the pretend driving I’ve done in my life, easier than bumper cars, easier than go-karts, and way easier than any simulated, video game version of driving.
The lane is wide, and the double yellow line at the center of the road is solid and supportive, like the railing on a staircase.
It’s so natural and intuitive that I start to feel angry.
Why would anyone think I couldn’t do this?
How fucking stupid do they think I am? An orangutan could do this!
I speed up, so that as we crest each rolling hill, the next descent feels a little like a roller coaster, like we left our stomachs at the top. I’m dominating.
“How about some music?” I say.
“DJ Amandazing is here and fierce!” Amanda rolls through the channels, pauses at the “garage band” station, and cranks it.
Heavy bass shakes the windshield in its frame.
I touch the brakes to ease us around a bend, then give it gas to pick up speed again.
The sun’s feeble winter rays manage to break through the wall of clouds, and it looks as though someone dropped a warm filter over the entire landscape, like maybe Mother Nature wants to wish me happy birthday, too. I start to feel good.
“Amandazing? Did you just make that up right now?” I ask.
“Um, yes?”
“Oh no, no you didn’t. You’ve been waiting months to use that!” I look over at her for a moment, and she’s covering her face with her hands, a silent laugh shaking her body. I’ve caught her. I start laughing, too. “You’ve probably been doodling that name in glitter pen all over your diary.”
In mock outrage, she takes one of her mittens out of her lap and starts slapping my arm with it. “OMG, I don’t have a diary,” she says, snorting. “And I definitely don’t have a fucking glitter pen!” She hits me once more for good measure.
I hold up my right hand to block the surprisingly strong sting of the wet fabric. “Hey! Hey, I’m driving here! You don’t want me to scratch your precious baby, now, do you?”
“That’s right, you better concentrate. More focus, less roasting, before my mitten gets a mind of its own.”
I pull a pretend zipper closed across my mouth. Then I unzip a tad and mutter out of the right side of my lips. “It’s not my fault you had Amandazing business cards printed.” I grin. This is fun.
Amanda collapses against her door, fake exhausted. “I give up. I’m a complete fraud. Do your worst.”
I pat her hand. “Aw, you know I say it all with love.” We both take a big inhale at the same time, recovering from our giddy fit.
What happens next probably only takes five seconds, but those seconds stretch out like the sticky hands you get as arcade prizes, where there seems to be no limit to how long they can get without snapping.
I am pushing the gas pedal, almost flooring it, to get the tiny sports car up the steep hill.
Then we’re at the top, and the sideways sunlight glances off the windshield.
The glare fills my vision with a bright yellow blur.
I grab the edge of the visor above me and flip it down hard, blinking, and with each blink, starburst fireworks flash in front of my eyes.
I refocus, and everything is fine. Then it happens.
I don’t know where he came from or what he’s doing, but there’s suddenly a person.
A person stands in the road in front of me, and it’s too late to swerve out of the way.
My hands leave the wheel and shield my face, my body acting reflexively, unwilling to watch what happens next, to watch us run over a human being.
I slam on the brakes, and Amanda’s scream fills the car.
She grabs the wheel, steadying it as we skid to a stop.
The industrial smell of burning rubber is immediate.
I’m half gasping, half crying. I can’t get any oxygen into my lungs.
Is this what hyperventilating feels like?
I mouth the words paper bag but no sounds come out.
I might die of suffocation right here, which would be a relief.
Amanda grabs my arm and gives me a shake.
“What the hell? What was that?” she yells at me, pissed. Like I don’t already know I’ve done something unforgivable. Fatal.
I shake my head again and again, wishing myself back in time so hard I might snap my wincing muscles. “Do you see them? Are they dead?” I finally manage, hoarse.
“What?” she says, easing the gearshift into park from the passenger seat and pressing the ignition button off. She opens the door and stands up, pulling her hiked-up skirt back down over her tights and smoothing her sweater. She doesn’t look behind us. I can’t look, either.
“Can you call 911?” I want to get out of the car, too, but my right foot is still smashing down the brake pedal while my other leg has gone completely numb.
She laughs then, a little bitterly, but she actually laughs. “Why, because you’re completely mental?”
Why the hell would she ask why? I can’t say why. It’s too awful. “Amanda, can you just go look?”
“Look at what?”
“At the guy!”
“What guy?”
Oh my gosh, she didn’t see him? She doesn’t know? No, no, I can’t possibly tell her that I just ran over someone with her car, that she was just witness to a murder, no, not a murder, what do they call it, what will they charge me with before I go to jail for the rest of my life—
Wait. Wait a minute. “Why did you scream just now?” I ask.
“Uh, ’cause you took your hands off the wheel, closed your eyes, and slammed on the brakes? Hello! I realize you don’t have your license, but it’s supposed to be hands on ten and two, baby, ten and two. And eyes on the road. Duh.”
Finally, all the adrenaline I’m pumping starts to work for me. The door flies open and I lurch out of the car, sprinting back up the hill. Dark skid marks attest to the scene of the crime. But where is the victim?
I spin around, bewildered. What the—?
All at once the truth becomes clear, and I start spinning again, this time laughing like a complete maniac. A “get out of jail free” card from the worst fuckup I ever made. Only I didn’t really make it. My eyes played a trick on me, and all I can think now is, Thank you, universe.
Time to do some damage control with Amanda. “I am so sorry, lady. I thought I saw something in the road. Is the car okay? Are you okay?”
Amanda looks a little less mad now. She shrugs. “Yeah, I’m fine.” Then she leans over the hood of the car and says to it, “How are you, my baby? You gonna be all right?” She looks at me and grins. “I think her tires are a little sore, but she’ll survive. You just scared her there.”
“I scared me, too! I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have been driving.”
Walking around the car toward the driver’s side, Amanda pats my head on the way. “I forgive you. But only because it’s your birthday.”
We climb back in, Amanda driving and me on the passenger side where I belong. As I pull the door closed, a voice in the back seat makes me jump out of my skin all over again. “You didn’t tell me it was your birthday today! Happy birthday!”
Instantly, I know. The person I suddenly saw, the person I ran over, wasn’t a person at all. It was actually just a snarky, always-has-to-be-right, pain-in-the-ass ghost.
“Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you,” Mason is singing full volume in the back seat, and being dead has done nothing to change the fact that he is completely tone deaf. “Happy BIRTHday, Hattie Murpheeeee—”
“Oh, eff me,” I let slip out.
Amanda says, “Seriously, it’s okay,” in response, but it’s hard to hear because Mason is crowing the last line of the birthday song with way too much enthusiasm.
“Thanks for understanding, Amanda,” I say, shooting a glare toward the back seat. “It’s just—I don’t know why—my head is splitting all of a sudden.”
“Maybe that’s why you thought you saw something. My sister gets these migraines and they totally affect her vision.” Amanda flips down the visor on my side of the windshield for me.
“Do you think that’s what happened, Murphy?” Mason asks, feigning innocence. “Are you getting a migraine?”
I’m already furious with Mason for scaring the crap out of me, so I have no patience left for him now. All I can do, though, is try to ignore him. I can’t carry two conversations simultaneously.
“Yeah, migraines sound tough,” I say.
“Anyway, once you get your license, I’m sure you’ll be more relaxed,” Amanda continues.
“Why don’t you tell her what really happened?” Mason leans forward so he’s wedged between our two seats, looking back and forth between us like he’s at a tennis match.
“And once you’re relaxed, the rest of it becomes almost automatic,” she says.
“Tell her what happened,” Mason says again.
“So do you think you’ll get your license right away or are you going to wait awhile?”
“You should probably tell her the truth.”
“Shut up!” I snap at Mason. My head is spinning.
Amanda lets out a little gasp and puts one hand to her mouth. Mason pushes back and slumps against the back seat.
“Oh, shit, Amanda. I wasn’t telling you to shut up,” I say.
“You weren’t? Then who were you telling?”
Oh my God. How to explain this? I sigh. “I guess I’m talking to myself.”
“But you weren’t even saying anything.”
“My brain is, though. My brain is full of things I don’t want to hear.”
Amanda’s eyes leave the road for a second to glance at me. “Like what?”
“Like—” I pause, trying to drill down to the core of it all. “Like do you ever just look at your parents and think, ‘No matter what, I just don’t want to be like them’?”
“Only like every day. You know my mom threw a plate at my dad once? An actual dinner plate. She shattered it against the wall like she was the villain on a daytime soap opera or something.”
“And then, even while you’re thinking about how different you want to be, the transformation is already happening. You can feel yourself morphing, becoming more and more like them in all these inescapable ways.”
“And then you’re trapped.”
“Exactly.”
“Powerless.”
“Yeah.” My eyes start to well up with tears. I let them fall. “I’m glad you get it.”
“Are you kidding? My parents are forever in a sweat about money, about saving every cent, and guess what? Now I am physically incapable of buying something at the mall unless it’s on sale.” Amanda shakes her head as if she’s a lost cause. I feel so connected to her I want to hug her sweet face.
“Yeah, so, the whole situation makes me feel pretty fucking crazy sometimes,” I say.
“Now we’re getting somewhere,” Mason says from the back. I guess he can’t help himself.
I turn toward the car door, and as quietly but seriously as I can, I say, “Please, just go.”
Amanda laughs. “Girl, the light is red! I’m gonna go ahead and wait. I think we’ve had enough vehicular excitement for today.”
“You are so right, Amanda. Right, and also an excellent driver. Dare I say an Amandazing driver?”
“Thank you!” she says, then chuckles. “I guess I’m not like my mom in that way.”
“Oh, snap, mom burn,” I say as I check the back seat. Mason is finally gone.