The Summer the World Ended (10 page)

He hung up and fished her flip-flops out from under the table. “Ready?”

“No, but… Yeah.” She stepped into her flops, tapped the tips on the floor to seat the thongs between her toes, and meandered outside. It wasn’t even eleven yet, and the air felt hot and muggy. “Blech.”

She leaned against the passenger-side door while Dad paced around the motel room in a circle, three times. He walked outside, patted down his pockets, and re-entered the room to do another circuit. The second time he approached the exit, he backed out and pulled the door closed. He hit the button on the key fob to unlock the truck and jogged over.

“What the hell was that?” Riley pulled herself up into the seat and closed the door.

“I wanted to make sure we didn’t forget anything. Never know what you can leave behind that seems inconsequential, but someone can use to, uh… steal your identity.”

“Right…” She let her head thud against the seat back, and closed her eyes.

The engine started. Dad backed up, turned, and drove. She swayed with a turn onto a larger road and tried to get comfortable. Motion and bumps jostled her for a few minutes, though sleep wasn’t in reach. Riley shot upright and opened her eyes when the truck went over a stiff bump.
What can I say to make him turn around?

They swung through the drive-through of a Dunkin Donuts.

Dad grinned. “Breakfast time.”

“Coffee,” said Riley, earning a raised eyebrow. “And one of those croissant things with the egg on it.”

The scent of coffee and eggs lingered in the cab for an hour and change after the last trace of either was long gone. No one said a word. Dad focused on the road, tapping a finger on the wheel as if worried about something. Riley tried to think about anything other than Mom, but everything she called to mind eventually traced back to her old life. She didn’t feel like crying any more, and sank into an implosion of blah.

A few minutes past noon, Dad chuckled out of the blue.

She glanced sideways at him.

“You remember why we nicknamed you Squirrel?”

Her face reddened. “Dad. I’m not a little kid anymore. Don’t call me that.”

“When you were three, you got a hold of a muffin and held it in both hands like a―”

“Squirrel with an acorn,” droned Riley.

“You didn’t forget.” He took his eyes off the road for two seconds to grin at her.

It seemed different from the last time he smiled, somehow more genuine.

She made a sour face at the door. “I didn’t forget.”

You used to call me that, and then you left.
Her hands clenched to fists.
I hated everyone that still had a dad.
The corners of her eyes burned as overworked tear-makers struggled to find moisture. Riley gritted her teeth.
Why does he have to keep calling me that?
It made her angry with Dad all over again for leaving. It made her angry with herself for lashing out at her mother for using it.

“Sorry,” said Dad.

“What”―she started to snap, but relaxed and sighed the rest―“for?”

“For whatever put that mug on your face.”

“Look, Dad, just… don’t call me that.”

“Okay, okay… fine.” He sighed, seeming sad. “I guess I’ll have to learn you’re not my little girl anymore.”

Why did you leave if it bothers you?
She squirmed in her seat. “Don’t hit me with guilt. I got enough already. You left. You still haven’t trusted me with why.”

He squinted at the road. His mouth opened and closed a few times, words dead at the tip of his tongue.

“Is it something Mom did, and you don’t wanna ‘speak ill of the dead?’”

“No.” He pursed his lips for a moment. “I was getting involved with some stuff at work that I was afraid would wind up putting the two of you in danger. We got a whisper that some foreign nationals were attempting to threaten immediate family to turn someone.”

She furrowed her brows. “Turn someone?”

Dad wrung his hands on the wheel, causing the truck to wobble in the lane. “Pass sensitive information to hostile governments in exchange for… not hurting the people you love.”

“Oh, damn.” She looked straight ahead. “Seriously? That’s…”

“Like something out of a movie?” He reached over and squeezed her hand. “I didn’t believe it either until Dan’s wife died in a crash two blocks from their house. Only her car and a garbage truck were on the street. That was no accident.”

“Who’s Dan?”

“He sat across the aisle from me at the office in Edison. The company we worked for at the time was a frontend for DoD software development. It let them bring in civilians to work on classified projects, each person getting a small piece of the puzzle without having access to the whole pie. The code was modularized down to a level that no one really knew what they were working on.”

“Oh.” She swallowed. “Are they, like, still trying to kill you?”

“Nah. I’ve covered my tracks pretty good.” He eased to the right lane and took an exit ramp. “If it were possible, I would’ve quit. I’d already been approached by the Russians. I had no choice.”

Riley twirled an extra-long piece of frayed denim on her shorts around her finger.

“I can’t believe Lily let you wear those. You’re not old enough to show that much leg. Does your ass hang out of that thing?”

“
Dad.
” Riley blushed. “Jesus… No it does not.”

The truck stopped next to a row of gas pumps. Dad killed the engine and opened the door. A rapid pinging came from the dash since he’d left the keys in. “I’ll run inside and grab some road snacks.” He handed her a credit card. “Go ahead and fill it with regular.”

Riley looked around. “Where’s the guy?”

Dad paused halfway out the door. “What guy?”

“The gas dude. The one you give the card to.”

“Riley…” Dad cracked up for a moment. “Wow, you don’t get out much do you?”

She glared.

“New Jersey has this strange fear of people pumping their own gas. You have to pump it yourself.”

She stuck the card into her chin and bit her lip. “Really?”

“Yeah, come on.” He slid off the seat. “I’ll show you.”

Riley undid her seat belt and climbed down out of the truck, scuffing flip-flops around the nose to the gas cap behind the driver side door. She turned the credit card over in her hands, standing on tiptoe to look around. One semi truck and a few normal cars dotted the massive filling station. No one paid much attention to her standing there.

Dad pointed at the pump. “Put the card in that slot and push the button for regular.”

“We’re not gonna get in trouble?”

“Nope.” He walked her through the steps of running a gas pump.

Riley wrestled the hose into place and squeezed the trigger with both hands, continuing to hold it.

Dad waited a minute before he couldn’t stop from laughing again. “Flick the little kickstand thing down, you don’t have to stand there with it.”

Riley did so, and stepped back with her arms folded. “Oh.”

“Be right back.” Dad jogged across six lanes of filling stations, and ducked into the convenience store.

She folded her arms and stared at the numbers racing upward until the unexpected growl of a semi roaring to life startled a yelp out of her, not that anyone heard it. The truck pulled away, leaving her a clear view of the store and Dad through the windows. With him in sight, she felt a little safer. Dad collected a few items and went to the register. At the moment he gathered two bags and walked out, the pump stopped with a loud
click.
Riley pulled the hose out of the tank and hung it on the pump. Dad slipped past her and set the bags behind his seat.

“Might wanna use the bathroom while we’re here. I’d like to make some progress before we have to stop again.”

“Okay.” She looked around at the wide-open tarmac, wondering if there was really anyone out there who’d want to hurt her to make Dad be a spy.
No way. That’s got BS all over it.
When will he tell me he got caught cheating?
She glanced up at him. “Dad? You really left so no one hurt me an’ Mom?”

He looked her straight in the eye. “Yes.”

If he was lying, he was damn good at it. Riley found herself jogging to get behind the safety of a closed bathroom door.

full day of driving and another awful motel room later, they took a break at a rest stop somewhere near the western edge of the Texas Panhandle. The dashboard clock read 11:12 a.m., but it seemed wrong. Riley figured out his truck’s clock must’ve been set to New Mexico time, which meant Texas was at noon. Her emotions had taken a beating over the past week, and offered little more than a crash-test-dummy’s personality as she fell out of the truck and followed him to a place with the name Bernadette’s over the door in sputtering neon. A middle-aged woman in a green apron led them to a table, gave her a strange, intense stare, and backed away.

“This is like a knock-off of Denny’s,” whispered Riley after they’d been seated in a window booth.

The hostess and three waitresses clustered at a counter lined with padded stools, near a cake minder full of brownies. All four of them looked at her and whispered.

Riley looked down at the menu, her appetite gone.

“Hon?” Dad slid his hand across the table. “What’s bothering you?”

She let him hold her arm. “They’re all watching me. Probably calling me bulimic or something.”

“One, you’re a beautiful girl. Two, don’t let what anyone thinks affect what you think of yourself. It’s your body. You’re the one who has to live with it.” He waited two beats. “You’re not, are you?”

“
No.
” She’d leaned on the word so hard it came out sounding more like ‘Noah.’

“Sooner or later you will laugh at a joke.”

“I know… It’s just old.” She sighed. “I eat normal, I just don’t gain weight. Actually, I kinda eat a lot.”

“Oh, you’ll probably hit thirty-five or so, then turn into a blimp.” He chuckled. “One day, your metabolism will fall on its ass.”

She smirked. Her almost-laugh died as she remembered Mom battling the scale. Her mother wasn’t fat by anyone’s imagination, but she worried constantly about it.

“What can I get you folks?” asked a nervous woman with dark skin and straight hair. She looked a bit like Amber might after growing up and having kids. “Coffee? Juice?”

Riley shot a forlorn look at Dad, then at her abandoned menu.

“Two eggs over easy with hash, please. She’ll have an omelet with Swiss cheese and mushrooms.”

The waitress jotted down the order. “Drinks?”

“Two coffees, please.”

“Be right back with the coffee.” She collected the menus and rejoined the gossip hounds.

Riley stared out the window, watching traffic whistle past on I-40 in the distance. Dad rambled on through a story about how he and Lily met in college. He punctuated it with self-flagellating comments about how it had been a mistake to leave and he’d regretted it every minute of every day.

Her most elaborate response was “mmm.”

Their food arrived, and Riley went about the motions of eating. The eggs tasted like foam rubber, the home fries oozed grease. She assaulted it with black pepper, though the seasoning had been sitting out so long it added little more than color.

Look at them staring at me. They don’t think I’m gonna eat this whole thing. Or, they think I’m gonna puke it up as soon as I finish.
She stared defiance at them while shoveling eggs and potatoes into her mouth. They only whispered more feverishly.