One Week (5 page)

I can’t help it. I roll my eyes. Oh yes, very exciting. Guy seems harmless enough, though. A little chatty, definitely a little delusional about the sexiness-level of sailboat covers, but nothing I can’t handle. I smile politely to make up for the eyeroll and put my earbuds back in.

Guy can’t take the hint, though. He starts talking at me again. I pretend I can’t hear him over the music, but that’s too subtle for him. He taps me on the shoulder. I
remove one earbud, and he says, “So where are you
headed, if not San Jose?”

Dude, if I wanted to tell you, I would have. If I wanted to chat, I would not put headphones on. “Just, you know, East,” I say vaguely. I know, I’m paranoid. But if you’re trying to get somewhere and not have your extremely controlling father already be there when you arrive, you probably shouldn’t go around telling everybody where you’re going.

“East, huh? I lived out East for a while. Scranton. Santa Barbara is a lot nicer, let me tell you. Now, Scranton…” And he goes on to talk about Scranton. As if anyone could possibly care. I get it, the guy is bored and probably lonely, and it’s unlikely that your life has a lot going on when you sell sailboat covers. But does he have to inflict himself on those of us trapped on a bus next to him? My eyes glaze over, but he doesn’t notice. I stop even making the polite “uh-huh,” noises, but he doesn’t notice that either. Finally I give up.

“That’s, um, really interesting, about the tallest building in Scranton and all, but you know what, I’m really tired. I think
I’m just going to take a nap for the rest of the trip. Long day of traveling ahead, you know.” I fake a yawn, put my earbuds back in, and close my eyes tight.

Five minutes later I feel another tap on my shoulder. You have
got
to be kidding me. I ignore him. The tapping grows more insistent, and then… how do I say this?... gentler. Less like a tap, and more like a caress. The sailboat cover salesman is drawing light little circles on my bare shoulder. I twitch away from him, and mutter, pretending to be asleep. He’s like those guys who catcall when you walk down the street—he just wants attention. If I ignore him, he’ll leave me alone.

Except he doesn’t. His finger dips forward onto my chest, and reaches under my halter top and down onto the top of my breast. I jerk away violently and turn to scream at him that he’s a pervert and an asshole, when I see him grinning at me.

“Is that how you like it, princess?” he drawls. “Soft
and gentle? Or perhaps a little rougher? Yeah, I think it’s
more fun that way too. When we get to San Jose, I’ll take you up to my suite and I’ll show you how to have a good time.”

I gape at him, and look wildly around to see if there is anybody listening, or if there’s anyplace else to go—but the bus is full, and of course everyone is just minding their own business. “Look,
sir
,” I say firmly. “That’s never going to happen. Don’t talk to me, don’t touch me,” I repress a shudder. “Just leave me the fuck alone. Okay?”

“I brought some toys,” he continues as if I hadn’t said a thing. “Always do, on trips like these. You never know what kind of girls you’re going to meet. You look like you’d be into—”

“Hey babe,” Jess interrupts, leaning over my seat. “Have you cooled off? Are we over our fight now? Because I forgive you if you forgive me.”

I look up at him, my eyes wide.

“Why don’t you come sit with me, honey?” Jess says. “You know, over there?” He points at the seat next to his, which is miraculously still available.

“Hey now,” sailboat cover salesman protests. “She has a seat.”

“Thanks for keeping my girlfriend company,” Jess says smoothly. “You know how these little tiffs can be. But are we all good now, sweetie-baby?”

I finally get it. “Yes! Yes, I forgive you. I’m sorry I was mad. Let’s go sit back there.” I scramble out of my seat, and Jess grabs my bag. I shuffle down the aisle—I’m still wearing Jess’s flip-flops, I realize—as quickly as I can, and step aside to give Jess his window seat back.

He hands me my bag, and we sit together silently for a moment.

“Um, thanks for that,” I say. “That guy was extremely creepy.”

“Yeah, well, I’d rather have punched him, or watched you slap him, or something,” Jess grumbles. “But I figured the best way to get through this as quickly as possible was to play the boyfriend. Guys like that are pretty much all talk, and they’ll back down if another
guy steps in. I hope you don’t mind,” he finished awkwardly. “It just seemed like the best way to get you
out of there.”

“No, of course, it’s fine.” I sigh regretfully. “I’d liked to have slapped him—I should have slapped him. Or punched him. Or thrown him off the bus. I just kind of froze.” I bite my lip. It’s what I always seem to do. “I would’ve thought I was tougher than that.”

Jess shrugs. “You looked pretty freaked. Which makes sense—I bet you don’t really encounter a lot of guys like that.” I snort. If only that were the case.

“Well. Thanks for rescuing me, anyway.” I look around the bus. “Not like anybody else was jumping at the chance.”

“No problem,” Jess nods, and smiles at me sideways. “Sweetie-baby.”

I laugh, and shake my head. Jess gives me a we’re-cool nod, and turns back to staring out the window.

It’s weird. I go to an all-girls school (private, with appropriately slutty uniforms and no one to show them off for, of course), I get picked up after school, and I immediately go home. I don’t have a whole lot of normal, day-to-day type experience with guys. Not that I think Jess is your average guy, by any means. Apart from the unfortunate style choices, the idiot really seems to have a thing for picking fights in public places, he’s traveling across the country with only eighty dollars to his name, and yet he spent what I can only assume was a fair percentage of his travel savings doing shots at the seediest-looking bar in Santa Barbara. And missed his bus on account of it.

Dude clearly has issues. And so while I
might
be feeling somewhat warmly toward him on account of the rescuing that, come to think of it, I totally didn’t need—I was like half a second away from taking out that toy-toting sailboat cover-selling asswipe—it’s clear that Jess just wants to stare out the window at the fascinating dead brown grass of California. After the morning I’ve had, that suits me just fine.

And since some alcoholic snorer prevented me from getting any sleep last night, I’m going to close my eyes and attempt to get some shut-eye now.

*  *  *

When I wake up, my cheek is numb and squished. I blink a few times, trying to figure out why this might be, when I realize I’ve fallen asleep on Jess’s shoulder. I jerk upright, and he looks at me, amused.

“I was just about to wake you up.” Jess gestures out the window. “We’re here.”

I look out the window and blink, confused. This doesn’t look like a bus terminal. It has a McDonald’s and a gas station and a Starbucks. It looks like a rest stop.

“We’re in San Jose?” I mumble, my voice scratchy from sleep. “Already? What time is it?”

Jess laughs. “No, we’re halfway. And don’t ask me where that is, because I have no clue. But we’re stopping for fifteen minutes so everybody can pee and get something to eat.” He frowns as he remembers that we are not two of those people. That is, he can get a burger or whatever with his remaining five dollars, but I’m stuck. My stomach rumbles.

Ugh, it’s not like I would ever eat McDonald’s anyway. I stand up and stretch. My knees are killing me. Everybody is filing off the bus and pouring into the rest stop. I frown. I’d better hurry, or there will be a long line for the bathroom. Jess grabs his duffel and I grab my bag—no sense taking the risk leaving our stuff here, given the kinds of people riding this bus, I guess—and we walk together across the parking lot. Jess slings his bag over his shoulder and holds the door open for me as we walk into the rest stop.

The smell of McDonald’s wafts over me.

It’s gross, I tell myself. It’s fake food. You’ve never touched the stuff in your whole life, and you’re not going to start now. Which is easy, because you have no money.

I can’t believe I just left the rest of that pizza in the motel. I could be eating that right now.

Jess reaches for his wallet and looks mournfully at his five dollars. “You sure there’s no chance of money until Chicago?” he asks.

I bite my lip, and shake my head. I just can’t do it.

He sighs. “Okay. Well, this ought to get us two little
cheeseburgers, anyway, and still have enough leftover for
something for dinner. Peanuts, maybe. I’ll meet you back here?”

I stare at him. Cheeseburgers for us? He’s going to get me a cheeseburger, after I took all his money?

“Bee?” Jess says, looking at me funny. “You going to go to the bathroom or what?”

“Um, yeah,” I mumble. “I’ll meet you back here. Thanks.”

I rush over to the bathroom, my face flushed. And there is indeed a line. A long line. Is this what people do, just stand in line all the time?

I settle in for the wait, my foot tapping. I have no idea how long I’ve been standing here. Long. But when it’s finally my turn, I look in the stall, and I just can’t possibly use it. There’s pee on the seat, and the last person—possibly the last couple of people—who used the toilet didn’t flush it. It’s too gross for words, and I step aside to let the woman behind me go. I’ll just use the next one that opens up.

Only that one is gross too, and the next one, and I really have to pee, but I don’t want to catch something doing it. How are all these women comfortable with this situation? It’s unsanitary! And there are totally not enough stalls.

I finally give up. I end up settling for a toilet with only minimal pee, and I distinctly heard the woman coming out of it flush before she left. I keep my butt elevated so as not to touch anything (which is not that easy—I thought my thighs were toned, but this is a challenge) and when I finish I realize I’ve peed on the seat. Just like everybody else. Well, that explains things. I kind of wipe the seat down with toilet paper—it doesn’t disinfect anything, but it makes me feel a little better—and wash my hands really, really well. I check myself out in the mirror, and immediately regret it. My hair is flat from the cheap motel shampoo, my eyes are all baggy and shadowed from not getting enough sleep, and I don’t know how I didn’t notice this, but I have a piece of basil stuck between my front teeth from this morning’s pizza slice. I plop my bag on the sink and do what I can to repair things, but there’s only so much eye shadow and blush can do. I look at the bruise at the base of my neck and turn away from my reflection.

That whole experience was an ordeal. I’m still marveling as I walk over to Jess. Who is standing there
holding a McDonald’s bag with a furious look on his
face.

“What?” I ask. “What did I do now?”

“Fifteen minutes,” he says through his teeth. “We had fifteen minutes. You know how long you were in there?
Thirty
minutes. That’s twice as much time. What the hell, Bee?”

“Oh,” I say lamely. “There was a line. Sorry.”

“There was a line,” he repeats incredulously. “And yet everyone else managed to get in and out of there in fifteen minutes and back on the bus before it left.”

“Well, if you knew what conditions were like in that bathroom,” I begin hotly, then trail off. Wait, what? “What do you mean, left?” I say slowly. “The bus left?”

“Yes, of course the bus left,” Jess snaps.

“But…it can’t have left without us. I have a ticket. You have a ticket. We paid for a bus to San Jose, not a bus to halfway to San Jose. It doesn’t get to just strand its passengers in the middle of nowhere…”

“It does if its passengers aren’t back on the bus when it’s ready to leave. What did you think was going to happen?”

“I—” I look around the rest stop, feeling panicked. “I don’t know. I didn’t realize how long it had been. I…what are we going to do now?”

Jess looks down at me and sighs. “Come on,” he says, and steers me over to an empty table. “Eat your cheeseburger. We’ll figure something out.”

I unwrap the cheeseburger slowly, but I don’t bite into it. “Like what?” I ask plaintively.

Jess shrugs, and takes a giant bite. “Another bus on the same route will probably come through at some point,” he says, his mouth full. “I bet they always stop at the same rest stop. We’ll show our tickets and explain what happened, and we’ll just get to San Jose later than expected.”

“Are you sure?” I ask in a small voice.

Jess looks at me, and he nods. “It’ll be fine.”

Okay. I take a bite of the McDonald’s cheeseburger. And it’s gross, like I always thought. But it’s also possibly the most delicious thing I’ve ever tasted. How can something be both of those things at once?

“Thanks for the cheeseburger,” I mumble. “And for waiting for me when the bus was leaving.” Although come to think of it, why did he wait for me? Surely any sane person would just have said the hell with Bee, and gotten on the bus. Right?

“You’re welcome,” Jess says. “It’s not like I’m in any great hurry to get home, anyway.”

I look at him curiously. “Why not? Why are you
going home in the first place? Isn’t it the middle of
term?”

Jess twitches his shoulder irritably. “Yeah, I guess. I don’t really…” he trails off, and looks at something over my left shoulder. “Hey, Bee, isn’t that…”

I frown at him, and turn around to see my face on the giant television behind me.

“…Daughter of renowned Hollywood producer Jeremy Gold, reported missing yesterday evening. Mr. Gold has offered a reward of $10,000 for news of Bette Gold’s whereabouts…”

“Shit!” I say loudly, and then duck back down when people turn to look. I pull my hair down so that it’s covering my face as much as it can.

Jess stares at me. “You’re Jeremy Gold’s daughter? He came to talk to my film studies class last year. Intense guy.”

“You have no idea,” I hiss. “Is anybody looking at
us?”