The Queen of Everything (30 page)

"I'm sure it's fine," I said. I tried another
tack. "You can be the lookout. We can duck around a corner in the nick of time
if anyone sees us."

Kale sat up again. "Okay," he said.
We

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inched sideways between the cars, the lower
half of my body rumbling from the vibration of the ferry's engine. Wind took
hold of my hair and lashed it in front of my face. Kale said something, but I
couldn't hear him above the roar.

We reached the door leading up to the passenger
deck, pulled on, the handle, and walked up the steep stairs. "I hope he didn't
see me," Kale said when we reached the top. His voice was loud in the sudden
quiet of the ferry's cabin.

"Who?" I said.

"Mr. Wykowski? I just told you, I thought I saw
him. Sitting in his car and having a toke. He's got that license plate, I'd
rather be at a springsteen concert."

"I wouldn't worry," I said.

Kale lurked around, walking a few steps ahead
of me to make sure the coast was clear. Making us look more suspicious than if
he walked around with a sign on him that read she ran away with an arrow
pointing at me.

Kale decided the safest place for us to be was
on one of the front outside decks; no one went out there except the little kids
who wanted to swallow the wind blowing hard in their faces. It was cold as hell
up there, with darkness beginning to fall. The waters of the strait were choppy
as the ferry wound slowly through the islands of the San Juans. There are close
to forty islands and knolls set in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, most

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uninhabited but some inhabited and accessible
only by plane or private boat. On the ferry ride to the mainland city of
Anacortes, you stream by these islands, sometimes close enough that it seems you
could reach out and touch them. That night the islands were dark, forested
mounds, small and large, occasionally dotted with pinpoints of light from
isolated houses or the ends of docks. But mostly they were just dark and spooky,
like the lumps of a sea serpent's back.

"That's where I want to live," I said, pointing
to a small island that appeared to be floating past. I pictured myself there on
that island, fishing for my breakfast and cooking it up in a frying
pan.

I've noticed that, about that ferry ride. You
can forget almost anything when you're out there. It's as if there's this place
in between the mainland and Parrish; this place where real life is on hold and
you can't touch it even if you want to; this dreamy place that only the old
white ferries and the drifting sailboats can enter. The deep watery smell and
the cold air and the islands that play with your imagination when they pass all
put you into such an unreal state that it is like waking up when the ferry slows
and the engine quiets and you feel that bump of the boat into the pilings. The
whole ride is like disappearing into a daydream. Sometimes you need to disappear
into a daydream.

Kale had his hands shoved into his pockets.
I

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doubt if he even heard me through the wind.
Goose bumps stood out along his orangey skin. He looked deep in thought, and I
wondered if that might be possible. My fingers were so cold I wasn't sure if I
would ever be able to uncurl them. I motioned for him to come inside the ferry's
cabin. We sat down on one of the padded seats, behind a couple who looked tan
and rested from their stay on Parrish, their backpacks thrown on the seat beside
them. She was halfway through a thick book; his feet were propped on the seat
across from him as he read a newspaper. For a moment it struck me. That he could
actually be sitting there, reading about my father. This stranger with the beard
gone unshaven for his vacation. But I didn't want to think about that. Jesus, I
couldn't think about that, or I would see the Triumph covered by the tarp
sitting in our driveway. I would see my father with his head in his hands. I
would see those pockets of his jacket....

Kale rested his head against the back of the
seat. "You ever have those dreams where your teeth fall out?" he
asked.

"Teeth? Jeez, Kale, I don't know. Not really,"
I said.

"I have this dream?" he said. "Where I'm
chewing gum and someone comes along to talk to me, like the coach or someone?
And I try to get the gum out but it doesn't come out all the

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way. And I keep trying and trying, and still
there's more and more gum stuck in there. I just keep pulling more out." He
demonstrated as if I needed assistance with this mental picture.

"It probably means you have deep psychological
problems," I said.

He appeared to think about this. He put his
hands behind his head, his armpits showing that fluff of hair and giving off a
musty smell. A musty smell that made me think of that night on the boat. What we
did together, or rather, what he did on his own. The thought made me feel sick.
A cheese grater going against my insides. Kale seemed to be drinking for a real
long time, too long even for him.

"Kale?" I said.

I nudged him. It was getting late, but sleeping
was not on the agenda. I wasn't sure exactly what the agenda was, but I
definitely knew it didn't include him sleeping. "You tired?" I said loudly.
Kale's head popped up.

"Shit," he mumbled. He put his palms to his
eyes and looked over at me. "Too much partying is detrimental to the health, I
can attest. Plus, I worked all day. My boss? What an asshole. You miss a day and
he docks your pay, no questions, doesn't ask why, nothing. I mean,
Jesus."

"How unfair," I said. "Maybe we should get up
and walk around."

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"Nah, let's go back to the car." He rubbed his
hand on my leg. "Hey, people are getting up," he said.

He was right. The guy in front of us was
folding his newspaper, people were throwing out paper coffee cups and heading
for the stairs. I looked out the wide window beside me and saw the lights of
Anacortes a few minutes away. Disappointment fell heavy inside me. It always
hits a little when the ferry is about to dock--back to real life--but this was
worse; much, much worse. Dread. I remembered what I was doing. I was walking
around in someone else's body again, and I had no idea who that someone
was.

We followed the crowd back down to the car,
inching our way sideways again, past Mr. Wykowski, who was sacked out against
the driver's seat with his mouth hanging open. Kale made faces at him through
the window until I nudged Kale's shoulder with my hand. We continued down the
line to Kale's car, got in, and sat there a while until the ferry bumped into
place and the car engines started up.

"Kale," I said. He still seemed groggy. He
turned the ignition key at the sound of his name. "Let's get coffee," I said as
we clunked over the metal ramp and headed into town.

"Hey, that's fine, but I want you to know right
here I don't have any money with me. Hell,

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I don't even have my
wallet.
You called
and I was like,
bam,
out of there."

"I'm the fugitive, I'll pay," I
said.

The funny tiling about the Seattle area is that
you see coffee stands everywhere--street corners and gas stations and banks and
Laundromats. I spotted one right away. Kale pulled into the all-night
drive-through espresso place, which sat in the empty parking lot of an animal
hospital, closed down for the night. I bought us a couple of lattes from a girl
with a pierced tongue.

"Shit, imagine Frenching that," Kale said.
That's what I liked about Kale. Always full of insightful
observations.

We sat in the parking lot under the
sign

anacortes veterinary clinic. we care about your
pet with a big red cross, and sipped our coffee through tiny straws. "What I'd
like to know here," Kale said, "is, like, what the plan is. I mean, I don't
think I can drive around all night."

I looked out the window. I watched the girl
with the pierced tongue serve up another cup of java and reach out her arm to
hand back the change. I can't tell you if I knew where I was headed all along or
if it only occurred to me at that moment. All I know is that right then, after
Kale asked the question and began sucking the foam off the end of his straw, I
knew where I

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was heading. Let me tell you, it can be such a
relief to know where you're heading.

"Three hours, tops," I said. "Then we can stop.
We'd better get far enough away so they won't find us."

"You have some idea where we're going to end
up? I can do this maybe two days, then I gotta get back to work or I'll get
fired."

"We'll head over Snoqualmie Pass tomorrow," I
lied. "Eastern Washington? I've got friends who have a ranch there. I bet they'd
even give you a job. You like horses? They're rodeo riders."

"No shit," Kale said.

"Yeah, shit," I said.

"Hey, as long as I finish school I could swing
it with my folks. They won't care."

"Oh, you'd love it," I said. "The open range,
riding horses all day long. You've got to have a lot of stamina though. It's not
easy work, you know. People think rodeo riding is easy work."

"I got stamina," Kale said. Jeez, once you knew
how, you could play him like a fiddle. Maybe more like a kazoo.

Kale got dreamy again. "Maybe we should put on
some music or something," I said. "Kale?" I clapped my hands. "How about some
music?"

All I needed was for him to get me to the town
of Nine Mile Falls. I'd never been there, but I knew it was less than three
hours off the ferry. I knew because that's what she always

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said. Just before she said, "Come and see me.
Any time. I'll show you the salmon fingerlings."

"Sure, whatever," Kale said. I turned on the
radio. Listened a while until Jimmie Dix came on. Which made me think of him
in
his mirrored suit, which made me think of my mother, which made me
think of her driving up to the Beenes' house and finding me gone. Thoughts can
be so spoiled, the way they insist on having their way. The less you want them,
the more insistent they become. The more they stamp their feet and demand
things.

"I hate that fag," Kale said. "Jimmie Sucks Dix
is what he should be called."

I thought about Jimmie Dix in that video, where
he's on the beach with that woman. I bet he already knew love wasn't that
simple.

I pushed the search button on the radio, and it
found the next clear channel.
It's too bad,
I thought,
that we all
didn't have a search button.

Kale turned onto the freeway. "I'm hungry," he
said. Kale was getting cranky. His empty cup was rolling around by my foot, but
the coffee didn't seem to have had the effect I was hoping for.

"I'll buy you a cheeseburger when we get
closer," I said.

"I don't want a cheeseburger," Kale whined. "I
gotta watch my cholesterol. My whole family's got high cholesterol. I don't want
to just drop dead of a heart attack some day like Uncle Pete.

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Thirty-five." He shook his head. Personally, I
wouldn't have minded if Kale dropped dead of a heart attack right then, except
for the fact that he was behind the wheel.

"I can see you're so concerned about it," I
said. I rattled the Chee-tos bag with the tip of my shoe.

"What? Oh, fuck never mind. You know, I'm just
trying to talk to you about a legitimate worry of mine. Always gotta be the
wise-ass. You watch it or I'll be the wise-ass and drop you off right
here."

I shut my mouth. I'd forgotten that a kazoo
still has to be played carefully, or that little piece of tissue paper breaks
and it's all over. I just looked out the window at blackness, at the occasional
sign-- Wayne's world of camping, mini storage 4- less --and the headlights of
the other cars whipping past us. Kale's car seemed to be going awfully slow. I
didn't know if it was just him, a tired foot on the gas pedal, or if something
was wrong with the car. That's all we needed, to get stuck out there.

"You want me to drive?" I said.

"You don't know how to drive my
car."

"You could tell me what to do," I
said.

"Forget it. You're not driving my baby." He
patted the dashboard. A huge truck whipped past us, making his baby shudder.
"Shit!" Kale said. He beeped his horn at the driver. "Drive

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like an asshole. Oh man, look," he
said.

Up ahead were the spinning red lights of police
cars, parked at odd angles at the side of the road, and an ambulance, its back
doors open. Traffic slowed, a congestion of red brake lights. We were stuck
behind the huge truck that had sped past. Kale craned his neck, and I admit, I
did too. The scene made me shudder. I saw a lumpy bag on a stretcher, two cars
that looked like a pair of Coke cans squashed by some burly show-off.

I felt a dull ache start in my heart. Someone
was dead here. Really and truly dead and gone. I thought about Remington and
Markus D'Angelo. I thought about that picnic, and about Wes D'Angelo's hand on
his son's shoulder. I thought about what my father caused and my throat got
tight and my eyes hot and I tried not to, but I couldn't help it. I started to
cry. Too much emotion washed over me at once, and a feeling of panic came in its
place. I wanted to leap out of the car and run; I'd forgotten I was running
already.