A Really Awesome Mess (22 page)

Emmy didn’t say anything for a minute, and then uttered a soft, “Dammit.”

“What?”

“You’re right. It’s the most believable excuse. It’s so believable that no matter what we said, people would assume we snuck off to have sex. Dammit.”

“Well, you know, if you want to make it more credible, we could—”

“Yeah, with Willy and his funk in the backseat. That’s hot.”

“So it would be within the realm of possibility if Willy weren’t in the backseat?”

She punched me again. “I don’t give a shit if you’re driving. And no. Not within the realm of possibility. You wish.”

I stared at the road for a minute. “I mean,” I said, “kind of,
yeah. Not like … I mean, I just … like you. Like that. In the
I want to be your boyfriend
way.”

Emmy didn’t say anything, so I looked over at her. She had her eyes closed, and she was taking deep breaths. Only a few seconds went by, probably, but they went incredibly slowly. Finally she turned to me and sighed.

“Aw, crap,” I said. “The like-you-as-a-friend speech. Ugh, I’m sorry, you don’t have to say it. I’m familiar with it, and I’m sorry I brought it up and made the pig theft awkward and everything, and if it’s not too awkward to still be friends, I actually do still want to be friends. Okay?”

“Not at all what I was going to say,” Emmy said. “What I was
going
to say is that I think my mind and body are both still too messed up right now for me to really let anybody get close to either one. But, in the event that I start feeling normal enough for something like that, you’d be … I mean, you’re like first on the list.”

My face was on fire. I didn’t know what to say. She’d just told me she couldn’t be my girlfriend. So why did the air in this Honda Odyssey suddenly feel electric, and why did I want to kiss her?

I was so preoccupied I almost didn’t see the Audi TT whiz past us at about twenty miles per hour over the speed limit. “Son of a bitch,” I said.

“Nice,” Emmy said. “You know, this is what I mean about not opening up to anyone right now, because I just put myself on the line and—”

“Oh my God, I’m sorry, I wasn’t talking about what you said. That was incredibly sweet, and I totally get it. Well, I mean, I understand it. Sort of. But I was son-of-a-bitching about the fact that my dad just whizzed by in his midlife crisis car. I didn’t think the old man was gonna make it.”

“At the next intersection,” the GPS commanded, “Turn right on Rural Route 25.”

I did, and neither one of us talked for a while. For the first five minutes or so the silence felt nice, but then, after about twenty-five, it started to get awkward. I turned on the satellite radio.

“Oh God, my dad’s classic rock,” Emmy said, reaching for the dial.

“Hang on!” I said. “Look at the song!”

Thin Lizzy
, the screen said.
Jailbreak
.

Emmy rolled her eyes.

“Come on! You gotta admit it’s appropriate!”

“Fine. But after this is over, we’re listening to something made in the last fifty years.”

I drummed on the steering wheel as the song rocked on. I’d never heard it before, but it was pretty badass. And then I heard sirens.

“Oh shit,” I said, checking the rearview mirror.

Emmy smiled. “Relax,” she said. “It’s in the song!” Sure enough, she turned the song down and the sirens went away. Almost.

“Ha, ha. Funny. Turn it off.”

“I did!” she yelled. I looked over at her face. She looked serious. And yet I could still hear a siren. “Think it’s for us?” I said.

“Can’t take the chance,” she said. “Gun it. Hold on, Willy!”

I pushed the accelerator to the floor and watched as the speedometer crept up to seventy-five. This didn’t feel incredibly safe, or, actually, safe at all, on a two-lane rural road. But we were still ten miles from the farm refuge.

I drove for five minutes, my foot heavy on the accelerator and sweat dripping down my face. I checked the rearview mirror obsessively and saw nothing. Until I did. Way back—probably at least a mile—I saw flashes of red and blue.

“Shit!” Emmy said. “They can’t be after us. Can they?”

“Well, if I keep going this fast, they will be. We’ve gotta get off the road,” I said, and Emmy punched the GPS screen frantically.

“Okay,” she said. “The interstate is just a mile and a half away.”

“I think that’s a bad idea. Once we hit the interstate, the state police can come after us. They’ve probably all got our license number. Hey. Do you think they’re tracking us with the GPS?”

Emmy thought for a second, then powered it off. “Probably not.” She turned around in her seat. “Shit. They’re closer. Lights and sirens.”

I was going to go to jail. Grand theft auto, grand theft hog,
grand theft anorexic chick. Ugh. Well, I guess better me than both of us. “Listen,” I said. “I stole the pig. And when I saw you with keys, I made you drive me and the pig. I threatened you with bodily harm, and what with my manly physique, you were afraid I’d snap you in half, so you went along with it.”

“Dude. What the hell are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about the story we tell the cops. No reason for us both to get locked up.”

“Aw, Justin, are you trying to take the fall for me?”

“Well. Yeah.”

“That’s really sweet,” she said, and then she started to laugh.

“Um. Are you laughing at the fast approach of the long arm of the law, or what?”

“No,” she said. “I’m just laughing at my life. If you’d told me six months ago that I’d be touched because a guy offered to take the blame for the car and livestock I stole … well, let’s just say I wouldn’t have believed you.” Before I could formulate an answer, Emmy screamed, “Truck stop!” and pointed ahead on the left right by the ramp to the interstate.

It had a full parking lot, and I could see at least three other minivans. “Okay. Here we go,” I said and roared into the parking lot. I pulled in between two other minivans and killed the engine. “Now what?” I said.

“Now we take Willy and get the hell out of here.”

“Shouldn’t we, like, try to blend in or something?”

“Yeah, with a pig under our arm. We’ll fit right in. And truck stops are the sketchiest places on the face of the earth. Some evil truck stop pimp would probably have us both turning tricks in the parking lot within about ten minutes.”

“Evil truck stop pimp?”

“They exist. It’s a thing. Now come on. That cop will be here in seconds. We’ve gotta find a place to hide.”

I looked around the parking lot. I guessed we could break into another car, but then there was always the risk of the owners coming back. “There,” I said, pointing.

“No,” Emmy said.

“Come on. Let’s ask Willy. You know he’d love it.”

“God. I cannot believe the stuff I am doing for this pig. Let’s do it,” she said. She grabbed Willy, and we ran out of the door and across the parking lot and climbed into the Dumpster. It was exactly as nasty as I imagined a truck stop Dumpster might be. And Willy immediately started tearing through plastic bags and rooting around and eating whatever he could get his snout on.

“If I get through this without vomiting, it’s gonna be some kind of miracle,” Emmy said.

“So,” I said. “Come here often?”

Emmy rolled her eyes. “Just keep quiet for a few minutes until the cops go away.”

I pointed at Willy. “Tell
him
, will ya?”

“They’ll think he’s a rat.”

We spent ten minutes sitting in the Dumpster. Willy was as happy as a pig in a Dumpster full of garbage, but I was kind of grossed out. Things were dripping on me, and it smelled like sour milk and piss in there.

“All right,” I said. “I’d rather be locked up than stay in here for one more minute. Stay here and I’ll check to see if it’s all clear.”

“The hell with that. I am going to projectile heave until I drop dead if I don’t get out of here. Let’s go. Come on, Willy.”

Emmy grabbed Willy and we climbed out of the Dumpster. I didn’t see any evidence of a police car. “Should we go back to the car?” I whispered.

“Too dangerous,” she said, “they might be waiting for us on the road. We’re gonna have to go cross-country. We’re only a couple of miles away from the refuge. This way. I checked it all out on the GPS before I powered it down,” she said and scampered into the tall grass beyond the edge of the parking lot.

And now I was the one snickering. “What is it?” Emmy asked.

“Pig on the lam!” I said.

Emmy rolled her eyes. “If you keep saying corny crap, this walk is going to be even longer,” she said.

THE FARM ASYLUM—OR AT LEAST THE PLACE I ASSUMED WAS THE
Farm Asylum based on what I’d seen earlier on the GPS—was a little speck at the end of the field.

“Let’s make a run for it,” Justin said. He was holding a grunting and squealing Little Willy under one arm and grabbing my hand and dragging me into the cornfield with the other.

“If Willy doesn’t stop squealing, he’ll lead the cops right to us no matter how fast we run.” I kicked a stalk and then grabbed my shin. Those things were harder than they looked. “And getting hauled back to Assland by the po-po is not the way to get out of there anytime soon.”

“Sometimes I wonder if I even want to get out anytime soon—” Justin began, but couldn’t finish his thought because
Willy shrieked his little head off and wriggled out from under his arm. Willy fell with a plop to the ground and we both gasped.

But he wasn’t hurt, and started snuffling around the dirt and plants. “Go on,” I said.

“Maybe this sounds stupid,” Justin said. “But I feel safe at Assland. And even semi-happy sometimes. The real world—my real world—isn’t really like that.”

I got what he was saying. But I also thought it was kind of a cop-out. We couldn’t live in Assland forever. “No one’s real world is like that. You know what I mean?”

He melted back into his usual gloom. “You mean you think it’s better for me to feel crappy all the time?”

I shook my head. “Not at all. I just think maybe it’s time you figured out why you’re depressed at home but semi-happy in the loony bin.”

We started walking toward the speck that I’d pegged as the Farm Asylum, following the rows of corn. The plants slapped Justin in the face every so often, and he swatted them away, all annoyed. I guessed being short wasn’t always so bad, because I was below the face-swatting leaves and forged ahead untouched by maize.

The corn was planted in straight rows, which kept Willy in line. He walked happily behind us like a puppy. Justin took a deep breath, then slowly let it out. The effect was something along the lines of a leaky radiator.

“Easy, Emmy. I always know what to expect at Assland. Wake up, breakfast, school, lunch, groups, dinner, study hall, nightly reflection. At home, I never know what’s coming next.”

“Hate to be the one to point it out to you, but in life you never know what’s coming next either. It’s kind of what keeps it interesting.”

It probably would have been easier
not
to tell Justin how I felt about this stuff. But that was what I had done with Mason—like, I never explained how much us being “secret lovers” bothered me—and look where it had gotten me. So I thought it might be good for Justin to hear what I had to say, and for me to say it.

But Justin scowled at me. “Since when are you such a philosopher? And since when do you think you’re so healthy? You still weigh basically nothing, you still hate yourself and your life, so who are you to judge me?”

“Not judging. Just stating the facts,” I told him, his words landing with a thud in my gut. I’d gone for honesty and it had been received like criticism. Not exactly the effect I’d intended.

“Fuck off,” he said.

“Right back at ya,” I said.

“Cops probably weren’t even following us,” Justin finally spit out after eons of silence. “If you hadn’t gotten all paranoid, we’d have Willy safe and we’d be back at Assland by now.”

“Right, I forgot. Your favorite place on earth,” I said, kicking
the ground. A puff of dust flew up in my face and sent me into a coughing fit.

“And I forgot how mature you are,” Justin said, mimicking me by kicking at the dirt.

Unfortunately, he actually kicked a clod of dirt up, not just some dust. And the big dirt clod hit Little Willy on his little noggin. Willy looked pissed at being disrespected like that, squealed louder than ever, did a little piggy freak-out, and hauled ass away from us.

Justin looked at me, then took off. “Follow that pig!”

I ran like hell after both of them.

Pretty soon, we came to the end of the cornfield. But we still hadn’t caught up with Willy. He was a freaking speed demon. The
Pigs Rule
fact Jenny had quoted—that our piggy friends could run up to eleven miles an hour—seemed like an understatement. Either that, or Willy was especially gifted in track and field and was going to qualify for the next porcine Olympics.

We kept Willy in our sights until he stopped following our row of corn and took a sharp left. Then he was gone like pure vapor.

I leaned over with my hands on my knees. “I haven’t run that fast in … I guess ever,” I gasped.