One Week (14 page)

“Martha’s given us a truckload of snacks,” Jess says, holding up a huge brown paper bag full of crackers, nuts, and granola bars. “And I called Chicago Amtrak—they have our bags, and they say they’ll hold them for forty-eight hours. If we can’t make it from Nebraska to Illinois in two days, we don’t deserve our stuff back anyway.”

“And I can take you whenever you’re ready to go,” Peter adds.

I smile gratefully and say we’re ready, but in fact I don’t want to leave. Ever. I’m sure Mandy wants her house back, and I’m sure everyone wants it to be just the family already, but God, I wish this was my family, and that I could stay here. As everyone fusses over Jacob and as Peter thanks Herbert and Martha again, I sit quietly on the steps and pull on Mandy’s socks and sneakers. They are a little too big, but so comfortable. I tuck the extra pairs of socks into Martha’s bag of snacks. I stand up and hug Martha and Herbert goodbye, and then Jess pulls me gently out the door.

I spend the ride to the bus station listening to Jess chatting with Peter and looking out the window at Hastings. When we get there, Jess and I slide out and then Jess slams the door of Peter’s truck and reaches back in to shake his hand.

“We really appreciate everything you’ve done,” he says.

“Don’t mention it. And call Martha when you get to New York, would you? She’ll worry otherwise.” And Peter nods his head at us and drives off.

We stand there forlornly for a moment, and then Jess nudges me. “Mandy spotted me,” I say.

Jess shrugs. “Yeah, I figured she might have.”

“She promised she wouldn’t say anything though.”

“Well,” Jess says, shoving his hands in his pockets. “I guess we’ll find out. Come on.” And he starts walking
away
from the bus station.

I hurry after him. “I thought we were going to take a bus?”

Jess shakes his head. “Bee, I only have thirty dollars. Did you think that was going to be enough to get us to Chicago?”

I bite my lip. “I guess I just hoped…”

“We really could have used Herbert’s money,” Jess says, shifting the paper bag to his other arm. He’s walking quickly, and I’m half-jogging to keep up.

“I just couldn’t…after everything they’ve done,” I say pleadingly. “I couldn’t take advantage of them like that. I’m really sorry, Jess—”

Jess sighs and stops walking. “I know.” He reaches an arm around my shoulders and pulls me in close. “That’s one of the things I love about you,” he breathes into my ear. “You do what you think needs to be done, regardless of the consequences.” Jess lets me go, and starts walking again. “It just drives me crazy sometimes.”

I stare after him. Yeah, well, you know what drives
me
crazy, Jess? Trying to figure out when you’re coming on to me, when you’ll change your mind and push me away again. Drives me up the freaking wall.

I try to ignore Jess’s could-be-interpreted-as-
brotherly hug and catch up with him again. “So where
are
we going?” I ask.

Jess gestures at an overpass crossing the street ahead of us. “That’s I-80. I had Peter drop us at the bus station because a) Martha would never let us do what we’re about to do, and b) the bus station is closer to the highway than Mandy’s house is.”

“Huh?” I’m so confused.

Jess gives me a look. “We’re hitchhiking.”

I’m about to refuse, to say that there’s no way I’m getting in some stranger’s car, what with the probable axe-murdering. But then I remember it’s my fault, and this is our only option. I swallow hard, and nod as confidently as I can. “Right,” I say. “Good plan.”

Jess nods, and we walk on in silence. Walking up the on-ramp feels particularly surreal, for some reason. I’ve seen hitchhikers all the time, though of course I’ve never picked anybody up, but it never occurred to me to wonder how they got onto the highway. I pull the sweatshirt Mandy gave me tight across my chest, as if that would protect me from being hit by a car.

We walk a little ways up the highway and then take a moment to evaluate the situation. I-80 isn’t exactly the 405, but there is a steady stream of cars. Nobody’s slowing down though.

“Well, no one’s picked us up so far,” Jess says, trying to make a joke of it.

“This is insane,” I say finally. “Nobody picks up hitchhikers anymore—it’s not safe.  And I know this is all my fault, and I’m sorry, but I really don’t think this is going to work.”

“It’s all right, Bee,” Jess says soothingly. “I don’t think we look particularly threatening. I’m sure someone will stop.”

“Oh yeah? What about that paper bag? You could have C-4 in there for all anybody knows.”

Jess ignores that. He leans against the wall of the overpass and crosses his arms. “Maybe we just need to work on our technique. I’m from New York,” he says. “Nobody drives there. You’re from the city with the worst traffic problem in the entire country, so you tell me, how do people hitchhike?”

“I have no idea,” I scoff. “I ride in the backseat of a Rolls Royce. I don’t exactly pay attention.”

Jess rolls his eyes. “Great, that’s really helpful, Bee.” He pushes himself up off the wall and goes to stand closer to the edge of the shoulder. He stands there and then awkwardly sticks his thumb out. I try not to giggle.

After twenty minutes he calls over to me. “How long do I stand here like this?”

“Until a car stops,” I call back. “I’ll just wait here. Carry on.”

Jess scowls at me and stomps back to the wall. “Your turn,” he growls. “My arm is tired.”

No problem. I have an idea. I strip off Mandy’s sweatshirt and hand it to Jess. I reach behind my neck and loosen the straps of my halter top a little, so that it hangs lower on my chest. Jess raises his eyebrows.

“Is that really necessary? What if the next person that drives by is a soccer mom?”

I shrug. “It’s worth a try.” I tuck the bottom of my shirt into the back of my jeans and pull it tight across my chest. I walk over to the white line and turn to look back at Jess. “So what do I do?” I tease. “Stick my thumb out like this?”

And I stick my thumb out just slightly, and the white pick-up truck passing us immediately stops. I gape at it, amazed that my idea worked so fast, and then I burst out laughing. “Come on!” I yell, and run up the highway to where the truck has pulled over.

“Hi,” I say breathlessly as I look into the truck’s window. There are two teenage boys in the cab.

“Hi,” they say simultaneously. The driver glares at the passenger. “Do you need a ride someplace?” he finishes.

Jess sticks his head next to mine, and the driver’s face falls. “We’re going to Chicago,” Jess says. “So you’re probably not going that far, right?”

“Actually,” the passenger says, glancing at the driver and shrugging. “We’re going to Des Moines, so that’s some of the trip for you. You could hop in the back, I guess.”

“Great, thanks,” I say eagerly. “We really appreciate it.” I go around to the back of the truck and scramble up over the tailgate. I turn around to give Jess a hand up to see him standing way back on the side of the road.

“Jess!” I wave a hand at him. “Come on, let’s go!” I’m worried these guys will change their mind.

Jess walks over to me. “Do you know how unsafe that is?” he hisses. “There aren’t any seatbelts, and we’d be going eighty miles an hour! What if there was an accident? We’d be thrown out onto the road! There’s no way we’re doing this!”

I look down at him for a moment. Okay, he’s
probably got a point. But there has been no evidence of anybody stopping, and frankly, it’s cold out here. I reach out my hand again. “Jess?” I say. “Get your ass in the truck.”

He opens his mouth to protest again, and then shuts it. He hands me the bag of snacks and hauls himself into the truck bed. We settle ourselves against the wall, and I try not to think about how low the tailgate is.

“All set?” the driver calls.

Jess raps on the wall of the cab. “All set,” he says.

The engine starts up, and we pull onto the highway. I lean back against the cab and try to make myself comfortable on the corrugated truck bed. I would never admit this to Jess, but it is kind of scary. And really windy. Without saying anything, Jess hands me my sweatshirt back. I pull it over my head.

“I can’t believe you got someone to stop after not even a minute,” he grumbles.

“It was two bored teenagers,” I say, pushing my arms through the sleeves. “It was luck.”

Jess looks at me and shakes his head ruefully. “No, it’s that even though you’ve been wearing the same clothes for four days—”

“Five,” I correct him.

“Five days, and you don’t have any makeup on and your hair is blowing all over the place and in my eyes—”

“Sorry,” I say, and tuck it into the neck of the sweatshirt.

“And you still look amazing,” Jess finishes.

I smile at him. We’re sitting very close together in order to be able to hear each other, and to keep warm. “Thanks,” I say.

Jess clears his throat, and leans back a little bit, but he doesn’t scoot away. “So what’s the deal with your hair?” I ask, just to change the subject. “I mean, you don’t exactly seem the type to dye your hair,” I say, gesturing at his incredibly straight-edge jeans, button-down shirt, and hoodie.

Jess chuckles. “Yeah, not really,” he says. “I lost a bet.”

I wait for him to go on, but he doesn’t say anything else. “Come on,” I plead. “We’ve got nothing to do but sit here for hours. Open up a little bit.”

He shrugs. “This girl at a party boasted she could twist a cherry stem into a knot with her tongue. I didn’t believe her. I was wrong.”

Oh. “I can’t believe she had you dye your hair black for that,” I say disparagingly, as if anyone could tie a cherry stem with her tongue. Although maybe I can. I can’t say I’ve ever tried.

“Actually,” Jess says, grimacing. “It was supposed to be pink, but my hair was too dark and it didn’t show. So she dyed it black.”

“You agreed to a bet where you’d have to dye your hair pink?”

“Uh, yeah,” he says, sounding embarrassed. “It was a party,” Jess explains. “I was drunk. And, well…” he flushes. “I kind of wanted to sleep with her.”

Oh again. “So is she your girlfriend now?” I inquire casually.

“No.” Jess clears his throat. “It was just, uh, a one time thing.”

“So this is how guys try to get girls to sleep with them these days,” I muse. “By dyeing their hair pink. Or trying to. How very seductive.”

Jess snorts. “Yeah, well, it’s better than Thom
Derrek’s technique.” There’s an awkward pause, and I can tell Jess is regretting having made a joke about that. I don’t care, but it seems like he’s afraid I might. He gives me a sideways look. “I’ve been meaning to, uh, ask you about that whole thing. About how you’re doing. Are you, you know, okay? Do you want to talk about it?” Jess looks hesitant about bringing it up, but it’s clear from his worried expression that he’s been thinking about it.

To be honest,
I
haven’t been thinking about it. I haven’t thought about Thom Derrek since…I don’t know. It feels like weeks, but I haven’t even been gone that long. And I know it was awful, I know I was really fucking scared, but somehow it feels so long ago, like some other life entirely. And even as I hunch my shoulders against the wind and watch the farms and cornfields whipping by, I know that I like this life much better.

“I’m fine. Really,” I assure him. “I was upset,
obviously.” I bite my lip, remembering how I’d screamed at Thom Derrek and shoved him off of me. “It’s why I ran out of the house and left without a change of clothes or money or anything—but it’s not why I
kept
running. I mean, I would never have to see Thom Derrek again regardless, I know that—my father isn’t
that
bad. It was just kind of the last straw. It was definitely the worst thing that my father has done, but it’s not like it was the only thing. Does that make sense?”

Jess shrugs.  “I guess. What else did he do?”

I wrinkle my nose. “Just… little stuff. Like I would go shopping with my friends, and he would call US Weekly so they could go take pictures—even though no one would care about me if he would just stop trying so hard to make them. I’m nobody, and I hate those people that are famous just for being famous. It was humiliating. I mean, I went to go buy my first bra, and the whole world knew about it. It got so bad that I stopped wanting to go out anymore, and I kind of lost all my friends. I get it, I was boring, plus my wanting to hide from the cameras all the time meant they wouldn’t be photographed either, which they weren’t too happy about.” I push my hands up into the sleeves of my sweatshirt and pull my knees up under the hem. It might be April, but it’s really cold.

Jess wraps an arm around my shoulders and pulls me in closer. “Come here,” he says. “I’m sure they’d pull over so you could ride inside if you want.”

I shake my head and smile at him. “No, I’m okay.”

“Didn’t you ever try talking to your dad?” Jess asks. “Explain to him how you felt about that stuff? It’s just—he’s all you’ve got, Bee.”

“Of course I tried,” I sigh. “But he just couldn’t understand it. It was completely outside the realm of possibility that I didn’t want to take advantage of his position as a semi-famous person to become a really famous person and go to famous people parties and come out with my own line of clothing—to him, these were things that any normal girl would want. So I must just have been being a teenager and I’d get over it and he knew what was best for me.”

Jess shakes his head and hugs me closer to his chest. I think he kisses the top of my head, but I’m not quite sure.

“The sad thing is that we used to be really close,” I continue. “I’d go hang out on set all the time and we’d take trips together and we’d watch a lot of old movies and we just….we talked a lot.”

“What happened?”

I shrug uncomfortably. “We got into a fight when I was twelve, and we’ve never really gotten past it. 
I’ve
never gotten past it.” I sigh. “You remember how I told you my dad sent me all those cards and things and pretended they were from my mom?”