Wave (31 page)

But here they were, standing in front of him in their pressed Sunday garb—Walter in that same cheap brown suit, Violet in an understated, patternless dress. A suburban New Jersey variant of Grant Wood’s
American Gothic
without the pitchfork. Instead, Walter was holding a tiny suitcase that appeared antique.

“Have room for two old carpetbaggers?” he asked with a smile. His voice was scratchy, sandpapery. And while it was polite, it was also pleading.

Bud already knew the answer—no, he didn’t. Between himself, Nancy, the two boys, and Karen, they’d be maxed out.

“Hang on a second, Walter, okay?”

He walked back up and into the house, where Nancy was watching out the kitchen window, waiting for Karen to magically appear.

“Nancy?”

“Hmm?”

“We’ve got a new problem.”

Her shoulders sagged. “Oh no, what now?”

“The Carsons are outside. They need a lift.”

“Who?”

“The Carsons, from over on Magnolia.”

“Can we make room for them?”

“No, not if—” Bud leaned over to see if the boys were still in the living room. “—not if Karen shows up. There’s no way.”

Nancy shook her head. “My God….”

“Still no word from her?”

“I haven’t been able to get a call through.”

“Try again. We can’t wait more than a few more minutes.”

Nancy took the phone and dialed the number. Once again a recording told her there was no service available and that she should try her call again later.

“Well?”

“Still no service,” she said.

Tears welled in her eyes as she looked at Bud helplessly. The expression said it all—
Does this mean we’ll have to leave her behind?

“All right, let’s get them on the boat,” he said. “We’ll wait until the last possible minute.”

The boys bounded through the kitchen and out the door, yelling, “Boat ride! Boat ride!” When they reached the slip and saw the elderly strangers, they paused.

“Hello, boys,” Walter said. The smile was warm and genuine in spite of his crooked teeth, yellowed from years of pipe smoking.

“Hello,” Patrick said. Michael only stared.

“Patrick, Michael, these are the Carsons,” Bud said. “They live over on Magnolia Avenue. They’ll be coming with us.”

“Hi,” Patrick said with a distinctly friendlier tone this time.

“Hi,” Michael echoed, his brother having confirmed the situation.

“How come you’re bringing a suitcase?” Patrick asked.

The Carsons and the Ericksons exchanged glances. Bud waved his hand in the hope of conveying the message,
They don’t know.

Walter looked back to the boys and said, “I bring it with me wherever I go. You never know when you’re going to need something, right?”

The boys appeared to be confused by this alien idea, but confusion was good enough for all adults involved.

Bud checked his watch again. “We need to get going.” A light spray of perspiration had broken out on his forehead.

Nancy, nodding her agreement, shepherded the boys in first, then stepped in and helped Violet. As Walter came up to Bud, he said quietly, “Are you sure we can join you?”

Bud’s expression—a mixture of uncertainty and discomfort—said it all, and Walter Carson, while no rocket scientist, had been on God’s earth long enough to recognize trouble in a man’s eyes.

Bud’s eyes shifted briefly to the front of the house, hoping beyond hope that he would see Karen running toward them. No such luck.

“We were expecting someone,” he whispered, “but it looks like she’s not coming.”

“Who is it, Bud?” Walter asked, his remarkable calm communicating that there was no point in evading the truth any longer.

“Their mother,” he said, nodding in the direction of the boys. “She left work some time ago, on her way here, but there’s been no word from her and we can’t get through to her cell phone.”

Walter closed his eyes and, so slightly that it was almost imperceptible, shook his head. It was the gesture of a man who had seen his share of pain, death, and loss, and still, after so many years, could not understand why life had to be this way.

Bud added quickly. “If she doesn’t come, we should be able to take you. We’ll be over the boat’s weight limit, but I think we can handle it.”

“Bud…” Walter said. He did not finish the thought; it didn’t need finishing.

“Come on, we’ve got to go. Now.”

Walter lingered for one more moment, staring hard into Bud’s eyes. Then, with no trace of outward emotion, he allowed the younger man to help him board.

Bud unwound one of the two satin ropes that moored the boat and threw it in. He left the second one tied for the moment. Nancy was staring at him, on the verge of tears. No one else could see this, but he knew.

“I almost forgot something,” Bud said to no one in particular. “I’ll be right back.”

Reaching the yard, he closed the wooden gate behind him and ran up the slope to the back door faster than he had in years. His knees were shooting bolts of pain into his brain that, under normal circumstances, would have caused him to collapse like a rag doll. He barely gave it a thought.

He went into the kitchen again—realizing with a touch of surrealism that this was the last time he’d ever see it—and then into the living room. The TV was still on, now halfway through an episode of SpongeBob Squarepants. Bud opened the front door and looked up the street. Nothing—no cars, no people, no signs of life at all.
Come on, Karen, where the hell are you?
This part of the island, he felt in his gut, was deserted.

A thought, as cold and as solid as a bullet, entered his mind at that moment—
It’s time to get the hell out of here.

He went back into the kitchen, and grabbed the cordless phone from its wall-mounted base. It was a very modern phone that seemed out of place in their retro household—the LED screen with caller ID was the reason they’d bought it, in the interest of fending off telemarketers in the days before the government enacted the do-not-call list. It seemed to be working because the solicitations had significantly decreased since they stopped answering.

He pressed redial with his thumb and brought the phone to his ear. When he got the “no service available” message, he hung up and went out the back door.

Opening the gate to his slip, he found the Carsons sitting silently at the back of the boat, huddled together. The boys, clad in their bright orange life jackets, were leaning over one side, drawing shapes in the water while Nancy, eyes trained on his, waited for an answer. The wait was a short one.

“Let’s get going,” he said solemnly. He moved to the other rope and unwound it. Then he climbed in, glancing at his wife from the corner of one eye. She had turned away from him, from everyone.
Please don’t start crying, Nan. Not now, not in front of the boys.

He got behind the wheel and said, “Everybody ready?” Only his two youngest passengers responded.

He shifted into gear and, after a deep breath and a fleeting moment when he felt his own grief climb up into his throat, throttled the engine. The tiny craft groaned out of its water-filled box and into the sunny warmth of the bay.

The bridge was only a few hundred feet away now. BethAnn knew, deep down, that she was going to make it. Her nerves were still frayed to the point of madness, but the knowledge that safety was within reach helped soothe them to some degree.

She’d fallen in love with the Jag in the last fifteen minutes. Hopelessly, helplessly in love. It wasn’t just a machine, it was a divine creation. She’d never known such luxury in any form. The control panels weren’t simulated wood—they
were
wood. The dials didn’t have some classy, understated look to them—they were classy and understated. The seats weren’t that cheesy plastic copy of leather often called “pleather”—they were leather. It was simply unbelievable. She figured that a person driving a car like this every day couldn’t help but start feeling pretty good about herself.

She’d learn the proper way to drive a clutch. It would take some doing, but dammit, she’d do it. She decided this tidal wave was a blessing in disguise, at least for her. Symbolically, it would wash away the old BethAnn, enabling the new one to emerge. This was the turning point in her life, the moment that Lady Luck started to smile on her. By the end of this day, all the “bads” would be long gone—the trailer, working at the Acme, living on LBI. She’d never felt at home here, never felt welcome. She’d only moved here because of her ex, and since he’d left she’d always wanted to go, too. Now Fate was giving her a nudge, with the Jag the symbol of all that lay ahead—better times, a better standard of living. She’d try to keep everything on the same level. No more sitting around all day watching television. She’d land a better job, work her way up, start getting used to the good things in life. Yes, this was what the powers that be wanted her to do. That’s why she was given this dazzling ride—it was a down payment on her future.

The late model Buick ahead of her moved up again, so she moved up, too. Her shifting and accelerating skills hadn’t improved much in the last quarter hour. The stick still vibrated wildly, sometimes to the point where she had to let it go. And that noise—that horrible grinding, screeching noise. She was sure it wasn’t a good thing in any case, but as long as she got to where she needed to go she’d live with it.

She reached the point where she had to make the turn off Long Beach Boulevard and, just as she straightened out, she caught the distinct scent of something burning. Then she noticed a fine wisp of smoke undulating from the nose of the car like a ghostly serpent.

Her shoulders fell. “Oh Jesus, no. Not the radiator again!”

There was no chance to stop for water this time, she knew. She’d just have to live with it. She just hoped the car could.

As if on a roller coaster, she began the ascent up the bridge. She rolled the window down and yelled to nobody and everybody at once, “Come on, let’s go!” She peered at the clock on the dash and saw she had less than fifteen minutes left. “Move it!”

BethAnn was on the left side of the roadway—normally used by eastbound, incoming traffic—in the right lane, as the left had been designated for incoming emergency vehicles only. She watched in surreal detachment as two cops abandoned their posts, jumped into one squad car (leaving the other behind, its red and blue lights swirling) and sped like demons up the emergency lane. Her heart jammed itself into her throat—she was certain that the moment they reached the peak another vehicle would come screaming from the other direction, causing a spectacular head-on collision. A part of her—the part, no doubt, that hungered for the kind of negativity that only shows like
Springer
could provide—hoped this would happen. She’d love to see it just once in her life. But another part of her—the part that possessed enough reason to remind her that such an accident would very likely bog down this entire road and thus leave her stranded with a lifespan of some twenty minutes—was relieved to see that nothing of the sort occurred. When the cops reached the top, they both put their arms out the windows, motioning the traffic to follow. Then they disappeared into oblivion.

The race to get into the now-accessible lane was like the one between consumers waiting in endless checkout lines at Christmastime when a new register suddenly opens up. The mystery became: Who would take the risk of causing an accident by swerving into the “new” lane, and who would play it safe and remain where they were?

BethAnn was part of the latter contingent. She deduced—and quite accurately—that the bulk of the increasingly nervous drivers would take a shot at getting to safety as quickly and as effortlessly as the two cops just did. She watched in delight as the line in front of her seemed to melt away. Cars that were previously behind her sped by. In a matter of mere seconds, as she had expected, the left lane became packed and sluggish, and those who’d had the common sense to remain where they were suddenly found wide open spaces in front of them.

She gunned the gas and zoomed up to close the gap. The people who had passed her now watched in burning frustration as she regained her lead. She’d gone from the base of the bridge to halfway up in the blink of an eye.

The fact that a car with a manual transmission will drift lifelessly backward if the driver is not careful was previously unknown to BethAnn Mosley, but she learned it fast enough—before she had the chance to hit the brakes, she met with the vehicle behind her. It was a maroon Lexus sedan, and it looked pretty close to new.

“Oh, shit!”

The Lexus’s owner—a tall, thin man wearing expensive glasses that adjusted their tint automatically (at the moment they were in dark mode)—got out and quickly surveyed the damage to his car. The bumper had been badly dented and would obviously need to be replaced.

“What the hell’s the matter with you?” he said, gesturing angrily with his hands as he walked up alongside the Jag.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” BethAnn said quickly, eager to avoid conflict at the moment. “I’m just very nervous.”

“We all are, but that doesn’t mean you can drive like an idiot!”