One Week (8 page)

My half-laugh is almost real this time. “No, it isn’t.”

“Still…” he says, and gives me a cautious look. “I’m not saying there is anything that would ever make it all right, but maybe it would be worth it just to check. Not right now,” he says quickly. “But maybe someday.”

“Maybe someday,” I agree. And for the first time, it seems possible.

Jess gives me a quick smile, and after a moment I smile back. “This got really heavy really fast,” he says. “Perils of late night conversations.”

“Yeah,” I agree, like I have so much experience with them. “Do you think you can get to sleep?”

As I ask the question, there is another stream of curses, punctuated by more breaking glass. Jess grimaces, and shakes his head. “I doubt it. You?”

“Not a chance. I’m not really a very good sleeper under the best of circumstances.”

Jess stretches out on the bed and looks up at the ceiling. “Well, what do you do when you can’t sleep?” he asks, yawning.

Um. “I, uh, make up stories about my stuffed animals,” I say, embarrassed.

Jess laughs. “Really? That’s what you do?”

“It’s from when I was a little kid,” I explain defensively. “I get really bored.”

Jess sits up against the pillows and folds his legs. “So tell me one.”

I shake my head.

“Come on,” he says. “What else are we going to do?”

I can’t just think of one on the spot like this. That is, I guess that’s what I always do, but I feel like such an idiot. I can’t believe I told him that. I wrack my brain for a moment, then settle on an old favorite.

“So Piglet and Mr. Spectacles decide to rob a liquor store…” I start.

*  *  *

 “That’s the kind of story you used to tell yourself to get to sleep?” Jess asks when I’ve finished. “No wonder you’re an insomniac. It’s
Toy Story
meets
Reservoir Dogs
.”

“Someone should pay me the big bucks to write the screenplay,” I agree.

Jess snorts. “Yeah, right. With Christopher Walken as Mr. Spectacles. You had some messed up stuffed animals there, Bee.”

I nod sleepily, and glance at the clock. It’s after 4 a.m. I let out a yawn, and stretch my arms behind my head. “Your turn,” I say, and lie down on the bed. “Tell me a story.”

“Oh, I don’t think I could top that,” Jess says drily.

“You don’t have to,” I say, flapping a hand at him. “I know it’s impossible. Just do the best you can.”

Jess’s story isn’t nearly as well-plotted or evenly paced as mine, nor are the characterizations as precise. In fact, it’s kind of boring. I feel my eyes start to droop closed, and while I still hear his voice, I’ve lost track of what he’s saying. I drift in and out, not really asleep, but
not really awake either. I feel Jess shift around in the bed, and I murmur a bit about going back to my room, but he
shushes me. Which is good, because I really don’t want to move.

I’m half-dreaming, but I think I feel Jess’s hand on my hair and shoulder, brushing it gently. I wonder if I should pull away. I wonder if I want to.

And then a car alarm goes off outside the window and I jump and Jess sits up and the moment is over. Which is probably for the best.

Neither of us can get back to sleep after that, and we just kind of chat about nothing until the sun starts to come up. We look out the window, watching the darkness get grayer, and I realize I’ve never seen the sun rise with anybody else before. It seems like it should be significant.

“I don’t think I can face daytime without some seriously strong coffee,” Jess says, and closes the curtain. “Do you want to go find a Starbucks or something?”

“Sure,” I say. I glance down at myself. I’m still wearing Jess’s T-shirt and sweatpants. “I’ll just go get dressed,” I say sheepishly. “I’m sure you’d like these back.”

I let myself into my room, where I am dismayed to discover that my clothes are still damp. Like, really damp. The shirt is okay, but if I squeezed hard enough I bet water would drip out of my jeans. I’m struggling to get into them when there’s a knock at the door.

“Just a sec!” I call, jumping and tugging at the waistband.

“It’s just Starbucks, Bee!” Jess calls. “No need to primp.”

I yank the door open in irritation, and finish buttoning my jeans. “I’m not primping,” I say irritably.

“I can see that,” Jess says cheerfully.

I run a hand through my tangled hair and make a face. “Should we go ask the front desk about where to get coffee?”

“We could,” Jess says. “But I think we’d just get stared at. I don’t think people really ask for directions
here. We’ll find something. We’re still in California, after
all.”

And, of course, he’s right, and there’s a Starbucks at the train station. We walk/hobble over, and I order the largest and most espresso-filled drink they have. It’s slightly terrifying, but it feels like a necessity.

After we finish our coffee and split a scone, Jess pushes me in the direction of the newsstand on the other side of the terminal.

“Our train leaves in about forty-five minutes. Go buy yourself some books or something, would you? You were driving me crazy reading over my shoulder like that yesterday.”

I make my way over to the newsstand, shaking my head. He had seemed so engrossed in his book, I didn’t think he’d noticed. And it was either read over his shoulder or claw my eyes out. Not that his book was much better. A biography of some dead jazz musician? People read those?

I give the newsstand selection a quick glance and sigh. We’ve got bodice-rippers, really cheesy-sounding P.I. mysteries, Dan Brown, and Harry Potter. I grab one of each. I also snag a deck of cards and a couple of bags of Skittles. Maybe I can talk Jess into playing Skittle poker at some point.

I walk out of the newsstand and look around until I spot Jess. He’s on the payphone again. Hasn’t the man ever heard of cell phones? He doesn’t look too pleased with the conversation, and I figure it’s his mom again. Though why he would call her just to get yelled at is beyond me. Masochist. If there’s one thing about payphones, it’s that nobody can call you on them—you initiate all contact. So why would Jess be putting himself through this, again and again?

The guy needs to be rescued from himself. I walk around behind him and tap him on the shoulder. He turns around and mouths “What?”

“The train’s leaving,” I say.

Jess frowns and looks over at the board. “No, it isn’t,” he says. “We’ve got another half an hour. Give me a sec.” He turns back to the phone. “Uh huh,” he mumbles. “I know.”

I roll my eyes. Most people, given an out like that, would take it in a heartbeat. Leave it to Jess to be either too self-sacrificing or too stupid to figure it out.

“No, Jess,” I say loudly. “It’s leaving
right now
. We have to go.”

Jess whips his head around and glares at me. “I’m sorry, hold on for just a moment,” he says into the phone, then covers the mouthpiece with his hand.
“What?”
he says, exasperated. “Will you give me a minute? We have plenty of time!”

“Yeah, I know,” I huff. “I’m just trying to help you out here—you’re on the phone with your mom again, aren’t you?”

“So what?”

“So why are you bothering if you’re just going to get yelled at? Most people who are old enough to get kicked out of college on a drug bust don’t report their every move to their mother, you know. Call her when you get to New York if you have to, but in the meantime, chill out, would you?”

Jess grips the phone with one hand and runs his other hand through his hair, making it even more unruly than it already is. “Look, Bee,” he says tightly. “I get that you and your father have issues, and so you ran away. That’s your business. But see, most of the rest of us in the world are not heiresses that can just run away from our problems. We have responsibilities. When you get to New York, you can do whatever the hell you want. When I get to New York, I have to figure out how to pick up my life again, because my life affects the lives of the people that depend on me and have sacrificed for me. So yeah, I am calling to check in with my mother, and I am being yelled at, and I’m just going to suck it up. Okay?”

“Who is that? Who has run away?” I hear the voice on the other end of the line squawking. “Jess?”

Jess looks at me for a long moment before answering. “It’s nobody, Mom,” Jess says into the phone, and then turns away from me. I stand there staring at the back of his neck, feeling the blood rush up to my face.

After last night, I thought…I don’t know what I thought. Is that how Jess sees me?

And worse—is that how I really am?

I try to shake myself out of it. Who cares what he thinks, anyway? Obviously whatever connection we had last night was something so flimsy it can’t last in the light of day. I walk away, and wander around aimlessly, and then decide to just get on the train.

I show my rail pass to the train attendant, and am delighted to discover that it does in fact entitle me to a sleeping cabin. Or “roomette,” as they’re calling it. It’s about the size of a closet. Not my closet—mine is pretty big, come to think of it. But someone’s closet.

Anyway. Like most closets, including mine, it doesn’t have a toilet or a shower or anything—I still have to go use the public ones at the end of the car. But it’s something. And the seats fold out into a bed, so maybe I can get some decent sleep. It looks like there’s another pull-down bed up above. And they provided sheets and blankets, and I can adjust the air-conditioning, and there’s a little table that folds out. And that’s about all my exploring has to offer. I kick my bag of books from the newsstand out of the way and flop down on one of the seats. It occurs to me that Jess will have no way of finding me here—if, that is, he would even bother trying. Which he probably won’t.

I rummage through my purchases and pull out a bodice ripper. If I actually saw somebody on the street with hair and muscles like the guy on the cover, I’d have to run away and hide. Or point and laugh. The girl does have nice hair, though, and isn’t it handy how it’s covering her exposed breast like that? I prop my feet up on the chair opposite me and try to immerse myself in the problems and passions of Lady Delia Swarthmore, Virgin Extraordinaire, and her dashing pirate kidnapper.

I look up from Lady Delia’s predicament (should she continue to wear her sodden and formerly sensible but now completely revealing dressing gown, or should she accept the scandalously low-cut gown from the likes of the pirate?) as the train lurches into motion. No sign of Jess. I suppose he must have found a seat someplace else. Which is fine. I sink down lower into the seat and try to make myself care about Lady Delia’s ditherings, but I just can’t manage it. I fling the book across the room, which is too tiny to make the flinging at all satisfactory, and bite my lip.

I hate feeling like a spoiled brat. I go out of my way to avoid the spoiled brat mentality. If I actually were a spoiled brat, I would have no problem with anything in my life—I would be all “Yay clothes! Yay famous men! Yay parties!” just like everybody I know thinks I should be. And I’m not. Obviously. I’m running away from all of that.

Which is totally the mature and responsible thing to do.

Or not.

I cover my face with my hands and scream into them.
But quietly. Wouldn’t want to disturb the other
passengers.

Clearly running away is not a solution to anything, nor is it particularly independent or empowering to do it using Daddy’s credit cards. I do realize that. So what the hell am I doing here? What is this supposed to accomplish, exactly?

I don’t know what I’m doing. Which is the whole problem. I’ve
never
known what I’m doing. I’ve spent my entire life not knowing what parts of my life are mine, and what parts are manufactured for show, and I just wanted to get away from all the demands and expectations and
noise
so that I could figure it out. But yeah, I guess my chosen method of self-discovery is a little irresponsible.

But accepting pot deliveries for your friends isn’t? Please. Jess has no business being even remotely judgmental. And I’m an idiot for caring at all about what he thinks.

With my attitude properly readjusted, I walk the two steps it takes to cross the roomette and pick up my book. Lady Delia deigns to accept the scandalously low-cut dress that was probably previously worn by a prostitute. Of course.

The slow—and then whoa, not so slow—whittling away of Lady Delia’s standards and inhibitions passes more time than I thought it would, and when my rumbling stomach causes me to look up, the sun is
already setting and we’re well clear of the greater
Sacramento area. I lean my chin against the window and look out at the flat deadness of Nevada—or that’s how I’ve always thought if it, anyway. With the sun setting and the brush flying past, it looks golden and alive.

I look at my bags of Skittles doubtfully and decide my stomach is empty enough to deserve some real food. After a day in which I ate nothing but a tiny cheeseburger and some chips and a Snickers from your friendly
neighborhood vending machine, I’m starving. I dig the key the attendant gave me out of my back pocket and lock up the roomette, and head off in search of the dining car. Which probably won’t have real food either, I realize, but it’s got to be at least slightly less plastic than Skittles.

I stumble through car after car (how long is this train, anyway?) before finally coming to the dining car. I slide the door open, stumbling slightly as the train jerks, and look up to see Jess sitting at one of the tables.

I don’t know whether to back away or what, but he smiles widely and gestures me over.

“Hey,” he says, as I slide into the seat across from him. “I looked for you, but I couldn’t find you anywhere. Where are you sitting?”

It’s like nothing happened at all. “I, uh, it turns out I have a roomette,” I stammer.

Jess gives me a weird look. “Like a Rockette? Does it kick?”