Walk Me Home (28 page)

“They live here, Wade. I’m telling you, they live here, too.”

“And I’m telling you I wish they didn’t.”

Jen jumped to her feet. “We’ll walk,” she said. “Just go ahead and give us our Christmas money. We’ll walk into town.”

“It’s like three miles, honey.”

“I don’t care.”

“Each way.”

Jen looked down at Carly. To see if she was game. Carly nodded. Of course she was willing to take a six-mile walk. Even though she never had before. The trick was figuring how not to end up back here.

“OK. It’s your life.” She doled out a twenty-dollar bill for each of them. “Give this to your sister who isn’t speaking to me. And tell her merry Christmas.”

Jen walked over to where Carly was still sitting. Cross-legged on the hardwood floor in the emptiness. It was hard for a place to look small with nothing in it, Carly thought. But this place managed.

Jen held the twenty down to Carly. “She says—”

“I heard her.”

As they were walking out the door, Carly heard Wade say, “Thank the Lord they’re gone. Not a moment too soon.”

“What’d you get?” Jen asked when they met up again on the corner near the ice-cream store. “How’d you know already what you wanted?”

Carly took it out of her pocket and showed it to Jen.

“A phone card?”

“Yup.”

“They have prepaid calling cards for only twenty bucks?”

“They even had cheaper ones. But I wanted all the minutes I could get.”

“You going to call your friends back in Tulare?”

“Yeah,” Carly said. “That’s what I’m going to do.”

“I’m going to have a great big chocolate sundae with my money while you do that. I don’t know what to spend the rest on. Yet. But I sure want that sundae. Give me the energy to walk all that way back.”

“I’ll meet you in there,” Carly said.

She walked to the pay phone at the end of the block. Her feet were already swollen, making her shoes uncomfortable. They weren’t meant for that kind of walking. And she didn’t have anything better. It was going to be a long walk back.

If she could even bring herself to go back.

She punched the numbers on the card into the pay phone, then touched Teddy’s cell phone number by heart.

Six rings.

“Hi, this is Ted—”

“Teddy?”

“—I can’t pick up right now, but leave a message.”

“Oh,” Carly said. “I thought it was really you. Oh, crap. Teddy, this is Carly. I just called to say merry Christmas. I’m in New Mexico. We’re in the new place. Should’ve brought the address, but I don’t know it yet. I’ll call again. So…that’s all, I guess. Just to say merry Christmas. And that I miss you.”

Carly hung up the phone. Stood in front of it, staring at it, for a time. As if it might have something more to offer. Then she hobbled back to the ice-cream store. Jen stood outside, staring through the window. Steaming up the glass.

“Should’ve known they’d be closed,” Jen said. “You were fast.”

“Nobody was around.”

“Oh. Yeah. Christmas.”

“This is the worst. Worst. Christmas. Ever.”

“It’s pretty bad. But she tried. You know? She didn’t know we wouldn’t be living in Tulare by Christmas when she bought us those gift certificates. She tried, at least.”

“She failed. How’re we supposed to live in that little box with her and Wade and no room and no privacy?”

“Maybe it’s not for very long.”

“How are we supposed to live there even tonight?”

“Oh, crap, I don’t know, Carly. She’s trying.”

“She’s failing.”

“You’ve got to talk to her sometime, Carly.”

“That’s what you think.”

For lack of anything better to do, they began the long walk home. At least, it seemed like a long walk at the time.

NEW MEXICO

February 28

Carly sat at the table, eating cereal for dinner because nobody had cooked. And reading the box. Despite the fact that there was nothing interesting on the box. In fact, if someone had asked her what was written there, she wouldn’t have been able to say. Wade emerged from the bedroom and plugged in the coffeemaker. Strange, she thought, how much of a morning routine they seemed to have in the evenings.

He sat down at the table. Carly carefully kept her gaze glued to the cereal box.

When she finally looked up, he was staring at her. It felt alarming. “What? I’m eating cereal.”

“Seems like you’re always here. Wherever I go in this house, there you are.”

“This
closet
, you mean? Besides, I’m never here. I ride my bike from school to the Internet café, and I sit there for hours because I don’t want to be here.”

“Every time I look up, you’re looking back at me. That’s all I know.”

“Look, it’s not my fault that we’re still living in this sardine can two months later. If you’d go out and get a job like you keep saying you will…”

Then she pulled back, wondering if she’d gone too far. She risked a glance at Wade’s eyes. They said yes, she had. But his mouth said far less.

“Nobody’s hiring in my field.”

“Then work in some other field.”

“I’m not gonna do just anything.”

“My mom does. You think she likes ringing up groceries and taking breakfast orders? She works whatever two jobs she can get.”

The dark of Wade’s eyes darkened. “Liked you better when you were a mute.”

Carly’s mom came striding out of the bedroom.

“Where’s Jen?” she asked.

Carly just kept staring at the cereal box. Reading the same part for the third time. About how the cereal was baked with love. She pictured a big factory where everybody’s feet hurt and nobody could wait another minute to take their break. Love. Sure. We all buy that.

“Your mother is talking to you,” Wade said, a thin veneer of calm brushed on over his dark rage.

“Forget it, Wade. Leave it alone. I’m going in to the market early so I can grocery shop before work. When I get home tonight, I expect help carrying the groceries in.”

“Tell your mother you’ll help,” Wade said.

So much for leaving it alone.

Carly nodded.

The door slammed behind Carly’s mom. Carly heard her car start up.

All of a sudden Wade had her by the left wrist.

“Ow!” she yelled. “Hey! Ow!” The more she yelled, the harder Wade twisted. “Hey! You’re hurting me!”

“I’ve just about had my fill of you,” he said. Eerily calm.

They were on their feet now, Carly moving backward, trying to pull out of his grasp. The harder she pulled, the tighter he held and wrenched. Carly waited for the sickening crack of a bone break, but it never had a chance to happen.

“Let. Me. Go!”

He did. Too suddenly. With a sharp push that sent Carly stumbling backward into the brick of the fake fireplace. The corner edge of the brick struck hard against the right side of her back. Her head missed the same fate by inches.

She looked up to see if he was coming after her. But Wade wasn’t even looking at her. He was looking at the front door.

“How long you been standing there?” he asked.

Carly followed his gaze to see Jen frozen in the open doorway. Letting the cold in. Her mouth open but no words coming out. Her eyes wide.

Carly seized the moment to escape, jostling Jen on her way by. She grabbed her bike from the spot where it leaned against the guesthouse, mounted it at a run, and pedaled fast in the direction of town. It hurt every time she pushed with her right leg. It hurt a lot. But she just kept pushing. She could see her breath as she pedaled.

She got her tears out of the way on the ride. So that, on the off chance Teddy picked up his phone this time, he wouldn’t have to hear her cry. It wasn’t likely he’d pick up. He hadn’t any of the other nine times she’d called. But somehow she thought he might this time. Because she so desperately needed him to.

Then she realized she hadn’t brought the phone card with her. But it didn’t matter. Because she knew the card number and the pin by heart.

“This is Ted—”

Everything fell inside Carly. Sagged into the lowest possible position. She sat on her bike, feet down on the pavement, in front of the pay phone. Absorbing the letdown. Shivering slightly. It took her a couple of beats too long to realize she should have been hearing the second sentence of the outgoing greeting.

“Hello? Ted here. Anybody there?”

“Teddy?”

“Yeah. Who’s this?”

“Teddy, it’s me. Carly.”

“Carly? Why didn’t you say anything? Why didn’t you say hello?”

“I thought you were your voice mail. That’s exactly what you say on your voice mail message. It sounds exactly the same.”

“Oh. Really? I didn’t know. Just a habit, I guess.”

A silence. One of the young women from the ice-cream store waved at Carly as she walked by, her heels clicking on the concrete. Everybody knew Carly in this town because of all the time she killed here. Trying not to go home.

It was already dusk, she realized. She’d have to ride home in the dark. If she dared go home at all.

She spoke. Since Teddy didn’t.

“I’m sorry I called so many times. I don’t want you to think I’m a freak. I’m not a stalker. Normally I’d just tell you to call me back. But you can’t call me back.”

“No, that wouldn’t be too smart. I got your new address. Thanks for leaving that on my voice mail. I’m worried, though. About all the calls you’re making to here. What if your mom sees these on the phone bill?”

“I’m calling from a pay phone. I’m using a prepaid card.”

“Ah. Good. Smart. She’d make trouble for me if she knew you were calling.”

“I know she would.”

Another silence.

“Are you OK, Carly? You don’t sound so good.”

“I can’t stay here,” she said. Her voice cracking on the word
here
. “It’s not even safe here. I can’t even go back there tonight, Teddy. I don’t know what to do.”

She couldn’t not cry, so she cried quietly.

“God, Carly. I don’t know what to say to help. I wish I could help. But if you run away from home, you can’t come here. This is the worst place you could come. This is the first place they’d look for you.”

“Oh,” Carly said. “Right.”

Another loss to absorb. She’d really felt somehow, at some deep level, that if Teddy answered the phone, he’d save her. She could just pour herself over the phone line to Tulare. And he would never let bad things happen to her again. But he was right. She couldn’t go to him. They’d find her. Bring her back. They’d make trouble for Teddy, and it would be all her fault.

And yet…somehow she felt just a tiny bit saved. Anyway. Even his voice could save her. At least, for the moment. For as long as it lasted. She didn’t even feel cold anymore.

“So…where are you living?” she asked.

“Oh. Nowhere.”

“How can you be living nowhere?”

“Well. I’m somewhere. I mean, I sleep somewhere. But it’s not my place. I’m sort of couch surfing right now. Freeloading.”

“Are you working again?”

“Yeah. I have to. I have no choice.”

“How’s your back?”

She didn’t like her own questions. They felt like small talk. But she didn’t know how to change that.

“Not good. But I can’t afford not to work. So I’m back with Ralph. He’s throwing me a couple or three days work a week. That’s
pretty much all he’s got to give me right now anyway. You know. With the economy so bad.”

“Right. Right.”

“You sure you’re OK? Is this, like…an emergency?”

Carly shifted on the bike seat. Stretched her back slightly, as if to assess the damage. The pain stopped her cold. A little cry escaped her.

“What was that, Carly?”

“Nothing. Something just surprised me.”

She couldn’t tell him. It wouldn’t be fair. He didn’t have his own place, and she couldn’t stay there even if he did. He wasn’t in any position to help her. So it wasn’t fair to tell him how badly she needed help.

“You know…it’s only another year and a half until I turn eighteen. And then I’m coming back to Tulare. I mean, the day I turn eighteen. The same day. I’m moving back. And I’ll get a job, and we’ll live pretty close together, you know? And then maybe I can see you all the time.”

“I’d love that, Carly.” Said with depth. With genuine feeling that oozed through the phone and blanketed her. Soothed her.

“You would?”

“Yeah, that’d be great. I’d love to hang out with you. I’d come by after work and say, Hey, you. Want to go get a burger? And we could complain about our days or our crappy bosses or something. Well. Not really. Ralph’s a nice guy. You could complain about your crappy boss. I could complain about something else.”

“I just miss you so much, Teddy.”

Something caught Carly’s eye in her peripheral vision. She shifted carefully on the bike seat to see Jen sitting on her bike. Maybe ten feet away. Close enough to hear everything. Jen had that same look on her face. The doorway look.

Teddy?
Jen mouthed the word.

Carly waved the question away. Then she realized she hadn’t heard Teddy’s answer. Had he said he missed her, too?

“So, listen, I should go,” she said, “but when you get a real address, e-mail it to me. OK?”

“You still have that crappy dinosaur of a laptop?”