One Week (17 page)

Jess doesn’t look at me. He winds the sheet in his
fist,
and I can see the whites of his knuckles. “Face it, Bee. You’re too old to pretend to run away from home, and you’re too
young to do it for real. You have to go back.”

 I rip the sheet away from him, and wrap it around myself as I climb out of the bed. I don’t want to be there anymore. And even though—
God—
he’s seen everything there is to see, I don’t exactly feel like being naked around him at this precise moment. Or ever again.

“I'm not going back,” I say in as haughty a voice as I can manage, considering that I feel like I’m about to burst into tears and then throw up. “If you don’t want to see
me once we get to New York, that’s fine—you should just say that. In fact, I see no reason why we should have to see each other at all, starting now. If you’ll just give me some privacy, I’ll get dressed and happily never see you again.”

“That’s not what I’m saying at all. Jesus, sometimes you’re like a little kid. You always hear only the worst interpretation of whatever anyone is saying to you.”

Suddenly, I can’t stop the tears any longer. I waited all this time, thinking that sex was making love, that it was something special, like I was Lady Delia. But this is what it is. It’s the next morning, and being told that you’re a child, that you should go back to LA and never see each other again. I turn and face the window, clutching the sheet to my chest so tightly I can feel my nails through the cloth.

“Get out,” I say quietly, my voice shaking.

“Bee, please,” Jess says, and reaches out to touch my shoulder. “I'm sorry. This really wasn’t the time to talk about this, and I... shit, I say everything wrong. But look, I care about you, okay? It’s not that I don’t want to see you again—of course I do—but I think you need to think this through.” I flinch away from him.

“Get out,” I say again.

“Bee, come on. Talk to me.” I hear the patronizing concern in Jess’s voice and it makes me want to scream.
 But I don’t. I stand there and stare out the window and cry and ignore Jess as he talks at me and rubs my shoulder, and eventually he goes away.

And then I throw up.

I wipe my mouth with the corner of the sheet, and look down to see the smear of blood, but I can’t muster up the energy to cry about that. I get dressed. I strip the bed and ball up the sheets and, not knowing what else to do with them, leave them in a pile on the floor. I rummage through the cupboards to find something to clean up the vomit with, and find a pack of stale crackers that Jess somehow missed in his search last night. I’m not hungry.

I open the door of the trailer to find Jess leaning against the wall, and I toss him the pack of crackers. “Eat these before you pass out,” I say, and bang the door shut behind me.

I hear it slam again as Jess walks into the trailer. “I think it’s time we just got this trip over with as quickly as possible,” I say, not looking at him. “Agreed?”

“Not agreed,” Jess says. “Bee—”

“Fine,” I continue as if he hasn’t said anything. “I have a plan. We need to get to Tiffin. So get your shoes on and let’s go.”

Jess opens his mouth as if to say something else, but then he gives up and closes it. He sits down to put on his Converse, and when he stands up I hand him the crackers again.

“You can eat those while we walk,” I say.

Walking side by side with Jess is excruciating. Part of me can’t believe this is happening and wants to reach out and hold his hand. Which just makes me feel worse. Jess looks at the road ahead and doesn’t say anything, and I’m grateful for that.

I’m even more grateful when a car stops after not
even twenty minutes. The woman in the passenger seat rolls down the window. “Are you kids all right?” she asks.

“We’re fine,” Jess assures her. “But we could really use a lift. Are you heading into Tiffin?”

“We’re passing through there, sure,” she says. She glances at her husband, who nods and says, “Hop in.”

Jess reaches for the door handle, but I lean in to ask the woman a question. “Does Tiffin have a newspaper?”

She frowns. “There’s a small paper. We mostly read the
Des Moines Register.
It’s run by—what’s his name, honey?”

“Jeremiah Krienke,” her husband says.

“Right. But it’s mostly just stuff about the town, Little League scores, that kind of thing,” she explains.

“That’s fine,” I assure her. “Would it be at all out of your way to drop us over at Jeremiah Krienke’s office?”

“Uh, no,” she says, glancing at her husband, who shrugs again. “It’s on our way home.”

“Thanks so much.” I reach past Jess and open the door, leaving him to go around and let himself in on the other side.

“What’s this about a newspaper?” Jess asks me in a hushed voice.

I ignore him. It’s a very quiet ride into Tiffin.

We are dropped off outside of a small strip mall on Washington Street in downtown Tiffin. The place looks pretty empty, but the lights are on in the
Advertiser-Tribune
office. Stupid name for a newspaper. We thank the nice couple—we never even asked their names—and they drive off. I take a deep breath and push open the door. It has a little bell on it that dings when the door swings back, and a voice calls out from farther back in the office, “Damn it, Bill, I told you I don’t need another Op Ed on how pissed off you are about trash pickup in Bloomville. Come back when you have something new to rant about.”

“Uh, this isn’t about trash pickup,” I call. The fluorescent light over my head is blinking and buzzing, and the office is a mess. I hear some papers rustling and the squeak of a chair that’s used to being sat in all day, and then a guy in his late thirties appears.

“Yeah, can I help you?” he asks, and then trails off. “You’re Bette Gold,” he says flatly.

Wow. That was actually a lot quicker than I thought it would be. “I am,” I say coolly. “And you are?”

“I’m Jeremiah Krienke, editor-in-chief.” He nods his head at Jess, who is just standing there gaping. “And who is this?”

“It doesn’t matter,” I say dismissively. “You are not to mention him at all.”

Jeremiah Krienke crosses his arms over his chest. “Not going to mention him in what?”

“In the article you’re going to write about how I’m here in Tiffin, Iowa. I assume there has been a fair amount of media speculation on where I am?”

Jeremiah nods.

“Then I imagine this will make for a decent story,” I say dryly. “You can take one photograph of me, you can run it in tomorrow morning’s paper, and the
Advertiser-Tribune
will have a scoop on the
New York Times
. It will only cost you five hundred dollars.”

Jess lets out a choked laugh and grabs my arm to pull me aside. “Bee, this is stupid,” he hisses. “We can get there another way.”

I shove him off. “This will be faster. And it won’t matter—by the time the photograph runs, I’ll be halfway to New York.” I turn back to Jeremiah, who has been listening carefully to our exchange. “Well?”

Jeremiah’s expression doesn’t change. “Why exactly would I want to give you five hundred dollars when I could just call your father and collect the $50,000 reward he’s offering for information on your whereabouts?”

Shit. I forgot that my father had offered a reward, although it was an obvious move. I open my mouth to answer, and then close it. I have no argument to make, and now I’m pretty much fucked. There’s an awkward pause as I stare blankly at Jeremiah, and then Jess jumps in.

“Because what good would that do you exactly?” he says.

Jeremiah snorts. “Ten grand? Oh, I don’t know. My car needs a new transmission.”

“If you run the article, it’ll get syndicated,” Jess says. “Maybe you won’t make ten thousand dollars, but you will get noticed by the
Des Moines Register
. Maybe even the
Chicago Tribune
. Unless of course,” he says, gesturing around the dingy office, “you’re happy here in Tiffin.”

Jeremiah gives Jess a hard look, and then nods. “Fine,” he says to me. “But I don’t have five hundred. You can have three-fifty.”

“Done,” I say. That ought to be plenty to get us to Chicago. And I’m not letting that cash out of my sight this time. “One thing, though: the article says that I am traveling alone. There will be no mention of anybody else. Is that clear?”

Jeremiah looks back and forth between Jess and me, trying to read what our relationship might be exactly, considering that we’re traveling together but barely speaking to each other. But he doesn’t say anything. Instead he nods once, and then turns and picks up a camera off of the top of a filing cabinet. He hands me a copy of this morning’s paper. “Let’s get a picture of you in the town square,” he says. “It’ll give Tiffinites a thrill.”

We follow Jeremiah out the door, which he doesn’t even bother to lock behind us—guess there’s not much crime in Tiffin, or nobody wants to steal a paper that costs only two dollars. He’s a tall guy, and although I’m not particularly short and neither is Jess, we’re both half-jogging to keep up with him. We walk four or five blocks down Washington Street, and Jeremiah stops in front of a radio station window. He positions me so that the name of the station, WTTF, is visible over my shoulder.

“Why do I have the newspaper?” I ask, confused.

“It’s to prove when you were here,” Jeremiah explains.
“Also it guarantees the
Advertiser-Tribune
mention in any
article that runs the photograph.”

I hold up the newspaper in front of my chest, feeling like somebody who has been kidnapped and is being held for ransom. I remind myself that I’m the one getting the money here. Although it occurs to me as Jeremiah backs up the snap the picture that perhaps I should have asked for the cash first. Jess stands awkwardly over on the side, hands shoved in his pockets.

Jeremiah finishes up, and waves for us to follow him again. We cross the street and go into the Walgreen’s, where Jeremiah withdraws $350 from the ATM. He folds it up and hands it to me.

“I’m not all that comfortable doing this,” he warns. “I’ve got half a mind to call your father. What are you doing in Tiffin, Iowa? Do you even know where you’re going?”

“I know what I’m doing,” I assure him.

Jeremiah shakes his head. “I doubt it.” He sighs and extends a hand for me to shake. I do, feeling a little uncomfortable. When I planned this out in the trailer this morning, it felt cheap, but I didn’t think the newspaper would have any scruples about it.

Jess shakes Jeremiah’s hand, and asks for directions to the bus station. Jeremiah points us in the right direction, then turns and walks back to his office without another word. Jess takes my arm and says, “Come on.” I shake him off, and he scowls at me and walks ahead.

After our experiences with Mr. Mackey and riding in the back of Joey and Sean’s truck, the bus feels like warm, cozy heaven. There is an awkward moment as Jess takes a seat and then scoots over so that I can sit next to him, and I just stand there. I had planned on handing him half of the money and going our separate ways, but unfortunately our ways are still exactly the same. We walked to the bus station together, we got some sorely needed breakfast together, and we waited for the bus together, all in virtual silence. I could go sit somewhere else, but I’d feel like a pouting child.

“Just sit down, Bee,” Jess says wearily. “I promise not to try to talk to you or anything.”

In the end, I sit. And we spend the four-hour ride not talking at all.

I hate this. I keep half-turning to Jess, to laugh with him about the crazy woman sitting four rows ahead, or to comment on the fact that we have now been through seven states together, or just to talk to him. And sometimes I think about last night and my heart starts beating faster and I feel sure that he knows what I’m thinking about, that the entire bus must know. I wish so
badly that we could just go back to that moment,
because… I was so happy. I feel like I ought to want it to never have happened, but I don’t. 

When we pull into the station in Chicago, Jess leads the way to the Amtrak platforms. “I’ve done this part before,” he explains. We go find customer service, and miraculously our bags are still being held for us. The clerk seems bemused by my amazement at having my bag back (and Jesus, none of my money stolen), and points out that their policy is to hold claimed baggage for forty-eight hours, and this has been far less than that. To me it feels like it’s been so much longer.

We grab some food at Union Station, since we have another few hours before our train leaves at nine-thirty. I am dismayed to discover that it’s another twenty hours to New York from Chicago. It’s nothing compared to the days I’ve already spent traveling, but at the moment it seems impossibly long. After we finish eating, Jess and I sit in a Starbucks reading books we found at the newsstand, though I can’t concentrate. I debate leaving Jess behind and trying to catch a plane to New York, but even if I paid cash there’s no way they’d let me on the plane without showing I.D. Obviously I could just stay here in Chicago, but I have this obscure feeling that despite wanting to get away from Jess, and despite the fact that New York was a completely random choice anyway, I
have
to get there. New York is all I have left.

My ticket still qualifies me for a roomette, but they’re all taken on the next train out. The attendant says that if we waited for tomorrow night’s train we could probably secure one. I laugh hysterically, and Jess explains wearily that we’d really rather just get moving. Jess and I find seats in coach—together, naturally—and he shoves his duffle on the shelf overhead. It occurs to me that I have been wearing these same clothes for six days. The first thing I’ll do when I get to New York is go shopping. Right after I figure out a place to stay, that is.

I am such an idiot. What the fuck am I going to do
when I get to New York? Somehow, that part always seemed like the next step, like the thing I would figure out on the way there, but now the trip is finally ending, and after all this time I don’t have a clue what I’m going to do.