Panic (4 page)

“I can’t,” Nat repeated. “It hurts too bad.”

Then Dodge Mason came out of nowhere. He was suddenly next to them, and without pausing or asking permission, he put one of his arms around Nat’s waist as well, so that she could be carried between them. Nat gave a short cry of surprise, but she didn’t resist. Heather felt like she could kiss him.

“Come on,” he said.

They passed into the woods, stumbling, going as quickly as possible, moving away from the booming megaphone-voices, the screaming and the lights. It was dark. Dodge kept his cell phone out; it cast a weak blue light on the sodden leaves underneath them, the wet ferns and the shaggy, moss-covered trees.

“Where are we going?” Heather whispered. Her heart was pounding. Nat could barely put any weight on her left leg, so every other step, she leaned heavily into Heather.

“We have to wait until the cops clear out,” Dodge replied. He was short of breath.

A few hundred feet beyond the water towers, nestled in the trees, was a narrow pump house. Heather could hear mechanical equipment going inside it, humming through the walls, when they stopped so Dodge could shoulder the door open. It wasn’t locked.

Inside, it smelled like mildew and metal. The single room was dominated by two large tanks and various pieces of rusted electrical equipment; the air was filled with a constant, mechanical
thrush
,
like the noise of a thousand crickets. They could no longer hear shouting from the woods.

“Jesus.” Nat exhaled heavily and maneuvered onto the ground, extending her left leg in front of her, wincing. “It hurts.”

“Probably sprained,” Dodge said. He sat down as well, but not too close.

“I swear I felt someone crack it.” Nat leaned forward and began touching the skin around her ankle. She inhaled sharply.

“Leave it, Nat,” Heather said. “We’ll get some ice on it as soon as we can.”

She was cold, and suddenly exhausted. The rush she’d felt from completing the challenge was gone. She was wet and hungry, and the last thing she wanted to do was sit in a stupid pump house for half the night. She pulled out her phone and texted Bishop.
Where r u?

“How’d you know about this place?” Nat asked Dodge.

“Found it the other day,” Dodge said. “I was scouting. Mind if I smoke?”

“Kind of,” Heather said.

He shrugged and replaced the cigarettes in his jacket. He kept his cell phone out, on the floor, so his silhouette was touched with blue.

“Thank you,” Nat blurted out. “For helping me. That was really . . . I mean, you didn’t have to.”

“No problem,” Dodge said. Heather couldn’t see his face, but there was a weird quality to his voice, like he was being choked.

“I mean, we’ve never even spoken before. . . .” Maybe realizing she sounded rude, Nat trailed off.

For a minute, there was silence. Heather sent another text to Bishop.
WTF?

Then Dodge said abruptly, “We spoke before. Once. At the homecoming bonfire last year. You called me Dave.”

“I did?” Nat giggled nervously. “Stupid. I was probably drunk. Remember, Heather? We took those disgusting shots.”

“Mmmm.” Heather was still standing. She leaned up against the door, listening to the sound of the rain, which was drumming a little harder now. She strained to hear, underneath it, the continued sounds of shouting. She couldn’t believe Bishop still hadn’t texted her back. Bishop always responded to her messages right away.

“Anyway, I’m an idiot,” Nat was saying. “Anyone will tell you that. But I couldn’t very well forget a name like Dodge, could I? I wish I had a cool name.”

“I like your name,” Dodge said quietly.

Heather felt a sharp pain go through her. She had heard in Dodge’s voice a familiar longing, a hollowness—and she knew then, immediately and without doubt, that Dodge liked Natalie.

For a second she had a blind moment of envy, a feeling that gripped her from all sides. Of course. Of course Dodge liked Nat. She was pretty and giggly and small and cute, like an animal you’d find in someone’s purse. Like Avery.

The association arrived unexpectedly, and she dismissed it quickly. She didn’t care about Avery, and she didn’t care whether Dodge liked Nat, either. It wasn’t her business.

Still, the idea continued to drum through her, like the constant patter of the rain: that no one would ever love her.

“How long do you think we should wait?” Nat asked.

“Not too much longer,” Dodge said.

They sat in silence for a few minutes. Heather knew she should make conversation, but she was too tired.

“I wish it wasn’t so
dark
,” Nat said after a few minutes, rustling. Heather could tell from her voice she was getting impatient.

Dodge stood up. “Wait here,” he said, and slipped outside.

For a while there was silence except for a tinny banging—something moving through the pipes—and the hiss of water on the roof.

“I’m going to go to L.A.,” Nat blurted out suddenly. “If I win.”

Heather turned to her. Nat looked defiant, as though she expected Heather to start making fun of her. “What for?” Heather asked.

“The surfers,” Nat said. Then she rolled her eyes. “Hollywood, bean brain. What do you think for?”

Heather went over to her and crouched. Nat always said she wanted to be an actress, but Heather had never thought she was serious—not serious enough to do it, definitely not serious enough to play Panic for it.

But Heather just nudged her with a shoulder. “Promise me that when you’re rich and famous, you won’t forget the bean brains you knew back when.”

“I promise,” Nat said. The air smelled faintly like charcoal. “What about you? What will you do if you win?”

Heather shook her head. She wanted to say:
Run until I burst
.
Build miles and miles and miles between me and Carp. Leave the old Heather behind, burn her to dust.
Instead, she shrugged. “Go somewhere, I guess. Sixty-seven grand buys a lot of gas.”

Nat shook her head. “Come on, Heather,” she said quietly. “Why’d you really enter?”

Just like that, Heather thought of Matt, and how she had been so close to telling him that she loved him, and felt like she would cry. “Did you know?” she said finally. “About Matt, I mean, and Delaney.”

“I heard a rumor,” Nat said carefully. “But I didn’t believe it.”

“I heard she . . . with him . . .” Heather couldn’t actually say the words. She knew she was probably a little prude, especially compared to Nat. She was embarrassed about it and proud of it at the same time: she just didn’t see what was so great about fooling around. “At the frigging Arboretum.”

“She’s a whore,” Nat said matter-of-factly. “Bet she gives him herpes. Or worse.”

“Worse than herpes?” Heather said doubtfully.

“Syphilis. Turns you into a moron. Puts holes in the brain, swiss-cheese-style.”

Heather sometimes forgot that Nat could always make her laugh. “I hope not,” she said. She managed to smile. “He wasn’t that smart to begin with. I don’t think he has a lot of brain to spare.”

“You hope so, you mean.” Nat mimed holding up a glass. “To Delaney’s syphilis.”

“You’re crazy,” Heather said, but she was laughing full-on now.

Nat ignored her. “May it turn Matt Hepley’s brain to delicious, gooey cheese.”

“Amen,” Heather said, and raised her arm.

“Amen.” They pretended to clink.

Heather stood up again and moved to the door. Dodge was still not back; she wondered what he was doing.

“Do you think—” Heather took a deep breath. “Do you think anyone will ever love me?”

“I love you,” Nat said. “Bishop loves you. Your mom loves you.” Heather made a face, and Nat said, “She does, Heathbar, in her own way. And Lily loves you too.”

“You guys don’t count,” Heather said. Then, realizing how that sounded, she giggled. “No offense.”

“None taken,” Nat said.

After a pause, Heather said, “I love you, too, you know. I’d be a basket case without you. I mean it. I’d be carted off and, I don’t know, drawing aliens in my mashed potatoes by now.”

“I know,” Nat said.

Heather felt as if all the years of their lives together, their friendship, were welling up there, in the dark: the time they’d practiced kissing on Nat’s mom’s sofa cushions; the first time they’d ever smoked a cigarette and Heather had puked; all the secret texts in classes, fingers moving under the desk and behind their textbooks. All of it was hers, hers and Nat’s, and all those years were nestled inside them like one of those Russian dolls, holding dozens of tiny selves inside it.

Heather turned to Nat, suddenly breathless.

“Let’s split the money,” she blurted out.

“What?” Nat blinked.

“If one of us wins, let’s split it.” Heather realized, as soon as she said it, that she was right. “Fifty-fifty. Thirty grand can still buy a lot of gas, you know.”

For a second, Nat just stared at her. Then she said, “All right. Fifty-fifty.” Nat laughed. “Should we shake on it? Or pinkie swear?”

“I trust you,” Heather said.

Dodge returned at last. “It’s clear,” he said.

Heather and Dodge supported Nat between them, and together they made their way underneath the water towers and into the clearing that had so recently been packed with people. Now the only evidence of the crowd was the trash left behind: stamped-out cigarette butts and joints, crushed beer cans, towels, a few umbrellas. The truck was still parked in the mud, but its engine was cut. Heather imagined the cops would bring out a tow for it later. The quiet was strange, and the whole scene felt weirdly creepy. It made Heather think that everyone had been spirited away into thin air.

Dodge gave a sudden shout. “Hold on a second,” he said, and left Nat leaning on Heather. He moved several feet away and scooped something up from the ground—a portable cooler. Heather saw, when he angled his cell phone light onto it, that it still contained ice and beer.

“Jackpot,” Dodge said. He smiled for the first time all night.

He took the cooler with them, and when they reached Route 22, made a makeshift ice pack for Nat’s ankle. There were three beers left, one for each of them, and they drank together on the side of the road, in the rain, while they waited for the bus to come. Nat got giggly after just a few sips, and she and Dodge joked about smoking a cigarette to make the bus come faster, and Heather knew she should be happy.

But Bishop’s phone was still going straight to voice mail. Matt and Delaney were probably cozy and warm and dry somewhere together. And she kept remembering being high in the air, teetering on the flimsy wooden plank, and the itch in the soles of her feet, telling her to jump.

SUNDAY, JUNE 26

dodge

DODGE NEVER SLEPT MORE THAN TWO OR THREE HOURS at a stretch. He didn’t like to admit it, but he had nightmares. He dreamed of long, chalky roads that ended abruptly, leaving him to drop; and sometimes, of a dank basement where he was contained, with a low, dark ceiling crawling with spiders.

Plus, it was impossible to sleep past five a.m. once the garbage truck came rattling by on Meth Row. Impossible to nap, too, during the day, when the lunch crowd made a rush on Dot’s Diner, and waiters hauled garbage in and out, and emptied grease traps, and rattled the Dumpsters past Dodge’s window and into Meth Row for collection. Every so often, when the diner’s back door opened, the swell of conversation carried the sound of Dodge’s mom’s voice.

More coffee, honey?

But the day after the challenge at the water towers, Dodge slept soundly, dreamlessly, all the way through the lunch rush, and didn’t wake up until after two o’clock. He pulled on a pair of track pants, debated whether he should shower, then decided against it.

“Heya,” Dayna said when he wandered into the kitchen. He was starving. Thirsty, too. It was like the game was opening up a hunger inside him. “How did it go?”

She was parked in the living room, where she could watch TV and look out the window onto the back of the diner. Gray light came weakly through the window, and dust motes floated in the air behind her. For a second, Dodge felt a rush of affection for the little room: the cracked TV stand, the thin, patchy rug, the lumpy sofa that had, for reasons unknown, been upholstered in denim.

And of course, for her. His Dayna.

Over the years, the resemblance between them had faded, especially in the last year, when she had put on a lot of weight in her face and chest and shoulders. Still, it was there, even though they didn’t share a father, and she was much lighter than he was: in the dark brown hair, and the hazel eyes spaced far apart; the definite chins; and in their noses, which both curved almost imperceptibly to the left.

Dodge opened the refrigerator. His mom must have gone out last night; there were cartons of leftover Chinese. He opened them and sniffed. Chicken with broccoli and shrimp fried rice. Good enough. Dayna watched him as he piled it all onto a plate and, without bothering to nuke it, grabbed a fork and started eating.

“Well?” she prompted.

He had wanted to save the news, to torture her by not telling, but he had to talk. He had to share it with
someone
. He put the plate down, came into the living room, and sat on the couch, which he and Dayna had nicknamed the Butt. “It was a bust,” he said. “Cops came.”

She watched him carefully. “Are you sure you want to do this, Dodge?” she said quietly.

“Come on, Dayna.” He was annoyed that she’d even asked. He hauled her legs into his lap. Massage was the only thing that would keep them from total atrophy, and he still insisted on working her calves every day, even though she’d been saying for a long time that it was useless. She’d seen a dozen different doctors. And she’d been going to physical therapy for well over a year now.

But there’d been no change. No improvement. She’d never walk again. Not without a miracle.

Despite the daily massages, Dayna’s legs were thin—stalky and pale, like something that would grow on a plant. Even as her face had become rounder, the flesh of her arms looser, her legs continued to wither. Dodge tried not to think about how often, as a kid, those same legs had pumped her forward during a footrace, and propelled her into trees when they had climbing wars. She had always been strong—as hard as polished wood, scrappy and made of muscle. Stronger than most boys, and braver, too.

For Dodge’s whole life, she had been his best friend, his partner in crime. She was two years older than him, and had been the de facto leader of whatever scheme or game they had invented. When he was five, they’d bottled their farts and tried to sell them. When he was seven, they’d spent a summer exploring their neighborhood in Dawson, Minnesota, looking for treasure, and wound up with a garden shed full of weird shit: an old top hat, a busted radio, two tire spokes, and the rusted frame of a bicycle. They’d found adventure in whatever shitty-ass town their mom had happened to dump them.

Now they would never have another adventure. She would never climb, or bike, or bet him five bucks she could still beat him in a footrace. She would always need help to bathe, to get on and off the toilet.

And it was all Luke Hanrahan’s fault. He’d messed with Dayna’s car, fucked with the steering in advance of the showdown, forcing her off the road. Dodge knew it.

“Mom went on a date last night,” Dayna said, obviously trying to change the subject.

“So?” Dodge said. He was still vaguely annoyed. Besides, everywhere they went, his mom found some new loser to date.

Dayna shrugged. “She seemed into it. And she wouldn’t tell me who.”

“She was probably embarrassed,” Dodge said. In the silence, he heard banging from outside—someone was going through the Dumpsters. Dayna leaned forward to look out the window.

“Shit,” she said.

“Little Kelly?” he said, and Dayna nodded. Little Bill Kelly had to be thirty and at least six foot five, but his dad, Bill Kelly, had been police chief for twenty years before his retirement, and everyone knew him as Big Kelly. Dodge had only ever seen Big Kelly once, and even then only for a second, when he’d accidentally biked out in front of Bill’s car. Bill had leaned on the horn and shouted for Dodge to be careful.

Dodge sighed, eased Dayna’s legs off his lap, and stood up. Through the window he could see Little Kelly balancing on a steel drum full of old grease, methodically sorting through one of the Dumpsters sandwiched up against the back of Dot’s Diner, just next to the kitchen door. It was the third time in a month he’d been picking garbage.

Dodge didn’t bother putting on a shirt. He crossed the short concrete alley that divided their apartment from the diner, careful to avoid the broken glass. The kitchen boys drank beers during their shift sometimes.

“Hey, man,” Dodge said, deliberately loud, deliberately cheerful.

Little Kelly straightened up like he’d been electrocuted. He climbed down unsteadily from the steel drum. “I’m not doing nothing,” he said, avoiding Dodge’s gaze. Other than the stubble on his chin, Little Kelly had the face of an overgrown baby. He had once been a star athlete, a good student, too, but had gotten screwed in the head over in Afghanistan. Or Iraq. One of those. Now he rode the buses all day and forgot to come home. Once Dodge had passed Little Kelly sitting cross-legged at the corner of the road, crying loudly.

“You looking for something?” Dodge noticed that Little Kelly had made a small trash pile at the foot of the Dumpster, of tinfoil wrappers, metal coils, bottle caps, and a broken plate.

Little Kelly looked at him for a minute, jaw working, like he was trying to chew through leather. Then, abruptly, he pushed past Dodge and disappeared around the corner.

Dodge squatted and started to gather up all the crap Little Kelly had removed from the Dumpster. It was already hot, and the alley smelled. Just then he sensed motion behind him. Thinking Little Kelly had returned, he straightened and spun around, saying, “You really shouldn’t be back here—”

The words dried up in his throat. Natalie Velez was standing behind him, leaning her weight onto her good foot, looking clean and showered and pretty and like she belonged anywhere else but here.

“Hi,” she said, smiling.

His first, instinctive response was to walk past her, go into the house, slam the door, and suffocate himself. But of course, he couldn’t. Holy shit. Nat Velez was standing in front of him, and he was shirtless. And hadn’t brushed his teeth. Or showered. And he was holding tinfoil from the trash.

“I was just cleaning up. . . .” He trailed off helplessly.

Nat’s eyes ticked down to his bare chest, then up to his hair, which was in all probability sticking straight up.

“Oh my God.” Her face began to turn pink. “I should have called. I’m so sorry. Did you just get up or something?”

“No. No, not at all. I was just . . .” Dodge tried not to talk too forcefully, or breathe too hard, in case his breath was rank. “Look, can you give me a minute? Just wait here?”

“Of course.” Nat was even cuter when she blushed. She looked like a cookie that had been iced for Christmas.

“One minute,” Dodge repeated.

Inside, Dodge sucked in a deep breath. Holy shit. Nat Velez. He didn’t even have time to worry about the fact that she was seeing his house, his crappy little apartment, and had probably had to walk past the grease traps being emptied, had gone in her little sandals past the sodden bits of spinach that got trekked out of the diner by the cooks, past the Dumpsters and their smell.

In the bathroom, he brushed his teeth and gargled with mouthwash. He smelled his underarms—not bad—and put on deodorant just in case. He ran water through his hair and pulled on a clean white T-shirt, one that showed just a bit of the tattoo that covered most of his chest and wrapped around his right shoulder and forearm. His hair was already sticking up again. He rammed on a baseball hat.

Good. Decent, at least. He sprayed on a bit of this man’s body-spray thing his mom had gotten for free at Walmart, feeling like a douche, but thinking it was better to feel like a douche than to smell like an asshole.

Outside, Nat was doing a good job of pretending not to notice that Dodge lived in a falling-down apartment behind a diner.

“Hey.” She smiled again, big and bright, and he felt his insides do a weird turnover. He hoped Dayna wasn’t watching out the window. “Sorry about, like, barging up on you.”

“That’s okay.”

“I was going to call,” she said. “I texted Heather for your number. Sorry. But then I thought it might be better to talk in person.”

“It’s totally fine.” Dodge’s voice came out more harshly than he’d intended. Shit. He was screwing this up already. He coughed and crossed his arms, trying to look casual. Really it was because his hands suddenly felt like meat hooks at the end of his arms, and he had forgotten what to do with them. “How’s your ankle?” An Ace bandage was wrapped thickly around her ankle and foot; it made a funny contrast to her legs, which were bare.

“Sprained.” Nat made a face. “I’ll live, but . . .” For a brief second, her face spasmed, like she was in pain. “Look, Dodge, is there someplace we can go? Like, to talk?”

There was no way he was taking her inside. Not an icicle’s chance in hell. He didn’t want Nat gaping at Dayna or, worse, trying too hard to be nice. “How did you get here?” he asked, thinking she might have a car.

Again, she blushed. “I had my dad drop me,” she said.

He didn’t ask how she’d figured out where he lived. Like all things in Carp, it was usually just a question of asking around. The problem was where to take her. He couldn’t go into the diner. His mom was working. That left Meth Row.

Nat walked slowly, still limping, although she seemed to be in less pain than she had been last night. But she took the first opportunity to sit down: on the rusted fender of an abandoned, wheel-less Buick. All its windows were shattered, and the seats were speckled with bird shit, the leather torn up by tiny animals.

“I wanted to thank you again,” Nat said. “You were so . . . You were great. For helping me last night.”

Dodge felt vaguely disappointed, as he often felt when interacting with other people, when the reality failed to meet his expectations. Or in this case, his fantasies. Some part of him had been hoping she’d come over to confess that she’d fallen madly in love with him. Or maybe she’d skip the words altogether, and strain onto her tiptoes and open her mouth and let him kiss her. Except she probably couldn’t stand on her toes with her ankle the way it was, which is one of the 2,037 ways his fantasy was unrealistic.

He said, “It’s not a problem.”

She twisted her mouth, like she’d swallowed something sour. For a second she didn’t say anything. Then she blurted, “Did you hear Cory Walsh and Felix Harte were arrested?”

He shook his head, and she clarified, “Drunk and disorderly conduct. And trespassing.” She shifted her weight. “You think Panic is over?”

“No way,” he said. “The cops are too stupid to stop it, anyway.”

She nodded but didn’t look convinced. “So what do you think will happen next?”

“No idea,” he said. He knew that Nat was asking him for a hint. He swallowed back a bad taste in his mouth. She knew he liked her, and she was trying to use him.

“I think we can use each other,” she said abruptly, and it was this fact—the fact of her acknowledgment, her honesty—that made him want to keep listening.

“Use each other how?” he asked.

She picked at the hem of her skirt. It looked like it was made of terry cloth, which made him think of towels, which made him think of Nat in a towel. The sun was so bright, he was dizzy.

“We make a deal,” she said, looking up at him. Her eyes were dark, eager, and sweet, like the eyes of a puppy. “If either of us wins, we split the cash fifty-fifty.”

Dodge was so startled, he couldn’t say anything for a minute. “Why?” he asked finally. “Why me? You don’t even—I mean, we hardly even know each other.”
What about Heather?
he almost said.

“It’s just a feeling I have,” she said, and once again he found her honesty appealing. “You’re good at this game. You know things.” It seemed somehow surprising that Nat Velez, with her thick, perfect hair and slicked lip-gloss lips, would speak so frankly about a subject most people avoided. It was like hearing a supermodel fart: surprising and kind of thrilling. She plowed on: “We can help each other. Share information. Team up against the others. We have more of a chance of getting to Joust that way. And then . . .” She gestured with her hands.

“Then we’ll have to face off,” Dodge said.

“But if one wins, we both win,” Nat said, smiling up at him.

He had no intention of letting anyone else win. Then again, he didn’t care about the money, either. He had a different goal in mind. Maybe she knew that, or sensed it somehow.