Something in the Way(40)

"And not for you?"

Lake shouldn't be in the truck. I shouldn't've been noticing or still  thinking about those soft-looking hairs on her leg. I should've sent her  back. I didn't even want alcohol but somehow I'd ended up in a  situation. I would've killed for a cigarette right then. "Gimme those."

She handed over the pack, and I stuffed it between the seats. "I thought  about what you said the other night. I'll quit, it's just going to take  some time."

"I can help," she said.

"How?"

"I don't know. There must be some way."

"It's not like AA where you get a sponsor."

I took the on-ramp to the highway. It was dead, not many cars around,  just lots of black pavement flanked by shadowed trees. The sliver of a  moon waxed from new to full.

"I could check in on you." Her voice barely carried over the grumble of  the engine. "Or you could call me when you get the urge."

Seemed about right, replacing one impulse with another. Lake instead of  nicotine. Only, I didn't think that was how she meant it. I glanced over  in the dark. "What's going on?"

"What's going to happen? After camp?"

"I don't know. Guess I finish the job by your house. Then I find more work until I graduate. You go back to school."

"What about Tiffany?"

The way I saw it, I had two options. Stop seeing Tiffany and end my time  with the Kaplans, or keep both girls in my life. "I don't know, Lake,  but like I told you before, that's between me and your sister."

"Where do you live?"

"Lake . . ."

"You said you'd get me books about what to major in."

"I will."

"But when? I start school in a week. Next thing you know, it'll be time  to fill out applications. I'll have homework, and my dad's making me  take a college class. I won't have time for anything else."

I slid my hand down the wheel. "You freaking out a little?"

"No, but maybe I don't want to do all this anymore. I don't understand why everyone else gets to decide for me."

I only realized then, from the panic in her voice, what she was after,  pestering me about the cigarettes, Tiffany, the future. She didn't know  if we'd see each other after this. I didn't know, either. Maybe I  wouldn't if I didn't keep things up with Tiff. The truth was, I had  little control over the situation, and Lake had even less. "I'll get you  your books," I promised.

"Forget the books. I don't care about them."

"You should," I said more harshly than I meant. "If you don't know your  options, how're you going to know what to major in?" Truth was, her dad  wasn't a big man, but he scared me. He had power over Lake. I had  wondered more than once if she'd even ever considered a school aside  from USC. This was too big a decision to let her dad make for her.  "How're you going to stand up to your dad if he tries to force you into  something you don't wanna do?"

"What if I don't want to go to school at all?"

I gripped the steering wheel, frustrated, even though I knew she didn't  mean it. Neither of us had any control over this situation and she was  looking for something to hold onto. "That's not what I meant. You know  it isn't."                       
       
           



       

"It was just all laid out for me before I was even born."

"Then ask yourself what you really want, but don't say it isn't college.  It is. The question is where you want to go and what you want to do  when you get there."

"What do you mean ‘where'?" she asked quietly.

"Doesn't have to be USC, Lake. Doesn't have to be what anyone else says."

She bit her thumbnail and sat quietly a while, obviously thinking. I  hoped she was beginning to see she had options. She wasn't going to  figure it out tonight, but it was a start.

We entered town suddenly, a building or two at first and then we were on  the main boulevard passing fast food joints, log cabin inns, and  souvenir shops.

"I live in Long Beach," I said, hoping it might calm her down a bit.  "I've got a roommate and a kitchen that barely fits two people."

"I didn't know that," she said. "That's far."

"From where? You? About a forty-minute drive."

"Oh." The vinyl squawked as she adjusted her foot. "Are you happy there?"

I couldn't remember feeling much more than complacency since Maddy's  death. Lake was the only thing recently that hadn't been some kind of  job or obligation. "I guess. I'm not really one thing or another."

The first liquor store I passed was dark, so I pulled into a bar called  Phil's a few stoplights down. It took me a minute to decide where to  park. There were people out front, and I didn't want anyone to see Lake  in the car. I chose a space off to the side, farthest from the building.

"Why are we here?" Lake asked.

"Picking up booze." A flyer on the window advertised line dancing. Three  women stood by the door, smoking, and my mouth watered for a cigarette.  "I'll only be a minute. You can't come in, so just lock the doors and  wait, all right? Don't get out for any reason."

"What do you think'll happen in a minute?"

I guess she didn't know yet that one minute could change your life. That  if I'd left baseball practice one minute earlier, things might've been  different for Maddy. Lake was intuitive but too trusting. She hadn't  hesitated to have me come into her parents' house that day, even though I  was three times her size and carried tools that could kill a grown man  with one swing. She should have someone looking out for her. I wanted to  be that someone.

I got out of the car, slammed the door shut, and waited for the thunk of  the locks. The girls were average-looking. Jeans, cowboy boots, tank  tops spotted with sweat, hair stuck to their foreheads. "Hey there," one  of them said. "Looking for a dance partner?"

I went into Phil's and took out the twenties. "Can I buy some beer off you?" I asked the bartender.

"How about Jack instead?"

"That's fine. Whatever you got for forty bucks."

He nodded and headed into the back.

"Got a cigarette I can bum?" One of the girls from outside sat on a  barstool next to me. I had a pack in my shirt pocket, but cigarettes  cost money, and money was finite. I only spent it on what I cared about.  "No."

She took a swig from her beer. Her ring caught my eye, a big, bulky  thing with a silver band that looked oddly familiar. The bulbous, dark  stone covered everything below her knuckle. I looked closer. Maybe it  was glass, and hunter green, not black stone.

"What is that?" I asked.

She showed me her hand. "A mood ring."

"Fuck. Yeah, I remember now." Maddy had one. My mom had bought it in the  seventies and handed it down to her. Sometimes, when I was broody,  Madison would force it on my finger and ask me to make it change colors,  from dark to light. To make it happy. "What's the green mean?"

"I forget. I feel bored, though, so maybe that." She looked up. "Where you from?"

Words were like money, not worth wasting when it wouldn't get me anywhere. "Not here."

If I were at home, if Lake weren't in the truck, maybe things'd be  different. Girls were a fine distraction. All but Lake. She was crystal  clear to me, as was everything around her. Scenery was more beautiful. I  felt blood pumping through my veins. Things sharpened that'd gone dull a  while ago, even memories of Maddy. Over time, I'd forgotten some stuff  about Maddy without realizing it, and around Lake, they were coming  back. The way she read like Maddy, or now, this ring I probably would've  overlooked. Any memories of Maddy usually came with a blinding kind of  pain I'd learned to accept, but seeing that ring again, it didn't make  me want to drive off a cliff. It was okay.                       
       
           



       

But did that mean I was forgetting Madison? I couldn't even picture her as clearly anymore. Not as well as I could Lake.

"Where then?" the woman asked. "Never seen you here before."

"Can I buy that off you?" I asked. "The ring?"

She furrowed her brows, inspecting it. "It's not worth anything."

I didn't care. It wasn't as if I was going to drive up to my mom's and  look for Maddy's, even though it might still be there. "How about I give  you the change from the alcohol?"

She smiled. "Phil's not going to give you any change." She took off the  ring and slid it across the bar. "Take it. I'll get another."

The bartender returned fisting two paper bags. He handed me them by  their necks, and I gave him the money. I put the ring in my pocket and  thanked the cowgirl. Maybe I owed her a little more time than I gave  her, but I had none to waste.