Walk Me Home (37 page)

“I’ll come by first thing in the morning. I promise. I have to get back now. But as soon as she leaves tomorrow, I’ll come straight here.”

He kisses the top of her head. Pressing his lips down hard and leaving them for a long moment.

Carly can feel the imprint of them long after he walks out the door.

Carly takes a long, hot bath and washes out her dirty clothes in the sink.

Her room is small but nice enough. She can’t see the ocean, but she can hear it. Even with the doors and the windows closed. But she can hear it much better if she sits out on her little scrap of patio. So she wraps herself up in both blankets—the one from the bed and the one she finds folded in the closet—and sits outside for most of the night.

It’s too foggy to see the moon, but she can see where it is in the sky because the fog is brighter right there.

She doesn’t sleep much, and she doesn’t think much. No more than she can help.

She does have two clear thoughts, though. At about three a.m. it occurs to her that Teddy never asked where Jen is.

That kicks off another thought. It’s not completely new. It flitted through her mind when she chose to keep hanging on to the back of that freight train and not go back to Jen. But it’s been held at bay for such a long time that it almost strikes her as something unfamiliar.

The original plan was to walk off the Wakapi reservation, down that paved road from Delores’s dirt road all the way to the I-40. And to make a careful note of that intersection. So she could find the road back again. Instead she jumped a freight train in the pitch dark.

Now Carly’s not even sure she knows where Jen is herself.

TRINIDAD, CA

May 21

Carly lies down on the bed at about seven in the morning and falls asleep without meaning to.

At ten after eight, the phone blasts her out of sleep.

She sits bolt upright, her heart pounding. It takes her a minute to remember what a phone is. What she’s supposed to do with it. While she’s sorting this out, it rings again, making her jump a second time. It’s a loud ring. Loud noises spell trouble in Carly’s mind. Like sirens. Like the way the police knock on somebody’s door when nobody’s going to like what happens next.

She picks it up. Doesn’t even speak into it, because she’s that unsure.

She hears an unsteady “Hello?”

“Oh. Teddy. It’s you.”

“Did I wake you up?”

“Maybe. I don’t know.”

“Look. Curveball, kiddo. Just as she’s walking out the door, she tells me we’re expecting a very important delivery and I have to be here to take it. It’s really important. If I miss it, she won’t just kill
me. She’ll kill me, skin the corpse, and set my entrails on fire. And let’s just hope it would be in that order.”

Carly rubs her eyes. As if that will help.

“You’re not coming?”

Before she can even say “You promised,” Teddy intervenes. But she definitely would have said that. Given a little more time.

“I know, I know. I promised. So here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to take my life into my hands and let you come here to the house. But don’t ever tell her. And don’t drop anything or leave fingerprints or look around too much or…”

“Can I breathe?”

Silence.

“I know this is hard, Carly, but work with me here. Help us get through this.”

“Why do you always end up with women who push you around?”

The silence feels prickly. But she’s not sorry she said it. Not at all.

“You’re not supposed to ask questions like that.”

“Why not?”

“Because grown-ups don’t know the answers. Look. Can you walk down here? It’s about a third of a mile.”

“Gosh. I don’t know. A third of a mile. That’s an awful long walk.”

“OK, fine, but stand out on the road—”

“Teddy. I was kidding.”

“Oh. Right. I forgot. You walked halfway across Arizona. I guess we’ll get to that part when we talk. So, just…gather up your stuff—”

“That shouldn’t take long.”

“—and walk out to the road and make a left, away from town. I’ll stand out in the road. You’ll see me. If anybody from town is
out and around, we might have to abort the mission and try this later.”

“OK.”

She stares at the phone for a moment, wondering if she should say good-bye. Then she puts it back to her ear. Teddy is already gone.

It’s like a dream. A little too much like one.

In a dream, she’d see Teddy standing in the middle of the road in an impossibly green forest of perfect, giant trees. And of course she’d be walking. Because when you walk fifteen or twenty miles a day, you dream about walking. And he’d seem too far away for too long, like Carly just couldn’t make enough progress to reach him.

In a dream, something would happen before she got to him. He’d disappear, or the scene would change suddenly.

Apparently, this is not a dream. Because Carly walks right up to him and looks into his face. He averts his eyes. Then he looks all around and rushes her through the gate, locking it behind them.

Carly takes in the surroundings.

It’s on the ocean side. Just like she was hoping it would be. But then she wonders why it matters. Since apparently she doesn’t get to live here anyway.

It was a nice house, once upon a time. Natural brown wood shingles to blend in with the redwoods. Perched right on the cliff. But it’s in bad repair. And there’s junk everywhere. Old mattresses and a couch rotting outside, and bed frames and something under a blue tarp. And a tractor. Why would anyone need a tractor on this little lot? And old fencing. Why don’t people just throw away their fencing when they tear it down?

The classic Jaguar is sitting in front of the garage, along with a newer Mercedes and Teddy’s Firebird.

“This could be a nice house,” Carly says. “Why doesn’t she clean it up?”

“You’d have to ask her. But don’t. Because you were never here.”

“Why don’t
you
clean it up?”

“She would not appreciate that. She doesn’t like people touching her stuff.”

“It’s trash.”

“She doesn’t like people touching her trash. Now come on inside. We can still be seen from the gate if we stand here.”

He opens the front door.

It’s a little better inside. The furniture is a bit run-down. A coffee table in front of the saggy couch is covered with eleven beer bottles. Carly wonders briefly why he didn’t just sweep them off into the recycling bin before she got here.

Then her eyes are drawn out through the big picture window. It’s spotted with sea spray, so she walks closer, as if that will help her see through. Below her is an ocean not unlike the one she saw when she first came into town. Except without the boats anchored. Rocks the size of buildings, with waves foaming around their bases. One rock is so big it has trees on its crown, like an island.

Carly can’t take her eyes off the scene.

Then she sees an old car fender on the cliff, marring her view. And she wonders again how people live like that, and why. If this were her house, she’d clean it up right. And wash the windows.

She reaches out and almost touches the tips of her fingers to the glass. Then she remembers Teddy telling her not to leave fingerprints. Maybe he was kidding. Or half kidding. Then again, maybe not.

She shoves her hands deep into her pockets.

“What did she go out of town in?” she asks, still looking at the sea. Still trying not to look at the junk fender. “Her car is here.”

“She has three cars.”

“Why doesn’t she keep them in the garage? They’re so expensive.”

“Because…there are other valuable things in the garage. Look, this is why she doesn’t like people around. I’ll level with you. She has some things in this house that are worth money. That’s why she’s so weird about having people around.”

“She thinks I’ll steal from her?”

“No. I mean, she doesn’t know. She doesn’t know you. But she doesn’t think everybody’ll steal. She thinks everybody’ll talk. And then, sooner or later, somebody’ll steal.”

Carly listens to the surf, in the pause, when there’s nothing else to listen to. She looks around at Teddy. He’s sitting on the saggy couch, faced away from her. She can see the top of the back of his head. That bald spot looks a lot bigger. Or maybe it’s just that he’s keeping his hair shorter now.

“Where did she get a house like this? Where does she get all her money? What does she do?”

“That’s an awful lot of questions, Carly.”

“Just three.”

“That’s an awful lot.”

“Pick one, then.”

“Her father left it to her when he died.”

Maybe that explains why she doesn’t take care of it. Maybe people only take care of things they had to work hard for. Maybe they don’t take care of things that landed in their life for free.

She looks over her shoulder at Teddy just as he takes a long swallow from a half-empty bottle of beer.

“If you had a house like this, would you leave it to Jen and me when you died?”

“You’re forgetting I have a daughter.”

“Oh. Right. I did forget that. But you never see her.”

“But she’s still my daughter. Linda’s father hadn’t seen her since she was six. But she was still his daughter. There’s something about blood. It lasts forever.”

Carly watches out the window in silence, feeling the trajectory of those sentences as they settle into a place in her gut. Like bad food. Something that will need to come up and out later. So she can keep moving. Keep living.

“That’s a pretty clear message,” she says.

Nothing is what she thought it was. Carly was wrong about everything. Clearly. Everything. She’s actually known that for a while. But up until this moment she thought it was everything except how much Teddy loved them. But she was wrong. It was everything.

Now Teddy is standing shoulder to shoulder with her at the window, except for the fact that his shoulder is much higher.

“If there was something I could do, I would,” he says.

But that’s not true. Because she just asked him if he would leave them a house if he could. And he said he wouldn’t.

“What am I supposed to do now, Teddy?”

“Well. I don’t know. Oh. I know. The state has agencies to help kids like you. You know. Foster care and stuff.”

“Gosh, if only I’d thought of that.”

A long silence. The sound of the waves is the only good thing about it.

Then Teddy says, “I don’t know what you want from me, Carly.”

She doesn’t know, either, anymore. Until she hears herself say it.

“I want you to tell me what happened that night. When I was away up at the lake. And I want you to tell me the truth.”

“Yeah. Of course. Absolutely, I will. Come and sit down.”

He sits back down on the couch. Carly sits across from him in a stuffed wing chair with the fabric worn smooth on its arms.
She wants to see his face. To judge for herself if he’s telling the truth.

He picks up his beer before talking and drains the last of it. Half the bottle, from the look of it.

“I’m just sick about that whole thing,” he says. “But I appreciate that you want to hear my side. That you haven’t made up your mind against me. It was a total misunderstanding, but I’m not blaming Jen. Jen’s a great kid. It’s not her fault. But she was having a dream. That’s all. You were up at the lake and your mom was at the bar, and it was just me and Jen. And she was asleep in her room. But then I heard her make these noises, like she was having a bad dream. So I went in and sat on her bed and tried to wake her up. I put my hand on her cheek—I thought I could wake her up gentle, you know? But she opened her eyes and looked right at me and screamed. Like she didn’t even know me. The only thing I can figure is that she was still dreaming. Then she went out the window.”

Carly’s watching him the whole time. To help her judge. And it looks and feels like the truth. She already knew it, she realizes. She knew it all along. Teddy isn’t like that. He might be unfocused. And soft. But he would never do a thing like that.

“I
thought
that was what happened. I told Jen it was probably a dream.”

“I tried to tell your mom my side of the story. But I think she wanted to believe Jen so she could leave me for that guy.”

“Why didn’t you tell me where you were when you got settled?”

Teddy gets up and wanders into the kitchen. As though he didn’t hear the question. Or as though he’s chosen not to answer.

He comes back out with another open bottle of beer and flops down hard.

“I thought you’d be better off without me,” he says.

Before Carly can open her mouth to speak, a distant bell rings. Something that sounds like it’s coming from the road out front.

“That’s that delivery,” Teddy says. “Please don’t move. Please just sit here. Don’t do anything. This is important. I’ll be right back.”

The minute he’s out the front door, Carly walks through the house in the direction of the garage. Looking to see if there’s a door that opens into the garage from the house. Yeah, he told her not to. But now she almost has to. She has to see for herself what’s so valuable that no one can come near the place. She promises herself she won’t talk about it. Whatever it is, she won’t tell. If she doesn’t steal, and she doesn’t tell, there’s no harm done.