American Heart

  Before I touched the Call button, I turned off the video.

  “Bobo’s.”

  I kept my eyes on the speaker by the dark screen. “Hey. Is Matt P. working?”

  “Hold on.”

  I took a breath. This was the part I was most worried about. I doubted Matt P. worked every night. I might be out of luck. But I got ready in my head, just in case. I’d been thinking about whether or not I wanted to try out an accent, to sort of get a read on how he would feel about making an ID for somebody foreign. But I wasn’t sure I could do any kind of accent right. I didn’t want him to think I was playing a joke.

  The line rustled. “This is Matt.”

  “Matt P.?”

  “’Sup.”

  “Uh, hi.” I’d already started in my normal voice. It was too late to go back. “I remember you once helped me and a friend out with some identification issues?”

  There was a long pause. I could hear beeps and whirls in the background, and then some kind of lion or dragon roar.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  He seemed to mean it. I bit my lip. It was possible that I had the wrong Matt P. But it sounded like him, as well as I could remember. He had the same low voice, and a lazy way of barely using consonants, like he had chew in his mouth when he didn’t. Tess had done a great impersonation of him after we’d left with our new IDs.

  “We went to your apartment? I remember it was across the street from a pancake house. And you had a dog. I forget its name.”

  “Well,” he said. “I’m from the Show-Me State. How come I can’t see you?”

  “I’m calling from a booth at a truck stop, and their screen isn’t working right.”

  He was quiet again.

  “Boogie.” It came to me, just like that. I jumped a little in the booth. “Your dog’s name is Boogie!”

  “Okay,” he said. “What do you want?”

  “Um, to get your services? I lost the first one. And I remember how much it cost last time. I can do that again. You going to be around tonight?”

  He was quiet. The timer on the booth was still ticking.

  “Hello?” I said. “Are you there?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “What do you look like? I need to know if I can find a good picture.”

  That was a lie. When Tess and I were at his apartment, he’d bragged that he had access to some database of something like two million ID photos, all of them electronically sorted by height and weight and hair and eye color. He was just a skeeve. When we went to his apartment in September, he was looking us both up and down, even though he must have been at least twenty-five, and he knew for a fact we were minors. Tess took me aside and told me not to drink anything he offered, even just water. She said it wouldn’t matter if there were two of us if we were both passed out.

  Still, I needed to bait the hook.

  “Um, let’s see. I’m about five foot eight.” I’d always wanted to be taller. “A hundred and twenty-five pounds. Dark hair, dark eyes.” I waited. “And if it matters, they’re unusually big.”

  He laughed. “Excuse me?”

  “My eyes,” I said, and laughed back at him, exactly the way my mom would have. “My God. You’re terrible!”

  That did it. He told me he got off work at eleven, and he’d be home by quarter past, and that he’d be available until midnight.

  “I’ll turn on the light over my door when I get home. Don’t knock until you see it turn on. If I’ve turned it off again, then you’ll know you’re too late.”

  That didn’t give us a lot of time. But he wasn’t so suspicious anymore. I got him to remind me of the number for the highway exit he was by, and then, with just a little more pushing, he gave me the number of his apartment. But that’s as close as he would come to giving me an address. He said if I’d really been there before, I should be able to remember the name of the complex, or at least how to find it.

  “I’m sure I’ll remember,” I said. I kept my voice steady, but unseen to him, I pumped my fist in victory. It had all worked just how I thought it would. I was a freaking mastermind.

  Then I caught sight of my reflected smile in the dark screen, and just like that, my conscience rose up and made me put my fist down, embarrassed. I didn’t recognize the person who was looking back at me, the person who was breaking the law and not even stopping to feel bad. Just now I’d been caught up in the game of it, in seeing how much of a solution I could put together. I hadn’t even been thinking about how what I was doing was wrong. But it was wrong. There was a reason she was on the run, a reason the government or whoever put up the money for the reward was looking for her. Maybe a better reason than I knew. Either way, I was betraying my country.

  I wished more than anything I could talk with Tess. She would help me think this through.

  “We’re all set, then?” Matt asked.

  “Yeah,” I said, quieter now. “Thanks. I’ll see you soon.”

  We weren’t all set, of course. Just because he was okay with making fake IDs for girls to get into bars didn’t mean he’d help a Muslim get out of the country, whatever she was willing to pay. I guess she’d find out when she got to his apartment. Even if she didn’t say a word, he’d know as soon as he looked at her she wasn’t under twenty-one. But it wasn’t like I could go in and get it for her—she’d need the license to say she was older for it to be believable, and if I asked him to do that, he’d still guess what was really going on, only I’d be the one standing there if he felt patriotic and called the police. I didn’t think Caleb meant for me to promise to be stupid and put myself at that much risk.

  Still, after I hung up and walked out of the booth I started to feel worried for her, which was crazy. I was doing all I could. More than most people would. I’d get her to St. Louis, and right up to the door of Matt’s apartment. The rest was out of my hands.

  5

  WITH THE CHANGE from the twenty, I bought an energy drink, a roll of clear tape, a spiral notebook, and a black hat with ear flaps on clearance because it was missing a button. I’d already spied a marker by the cash register, and when I asked the winged-eyeliner woman behind the counter if I could borrow it, she looked at me like I’d asked her to lend me a thousand dollars. But then she slid the marker across the counter and told me to be sure I brought it back. In the little eating area, I found an empty table tucked away from the front windows. But I still put on the black hat and pulled it low, on the off chance Aunt Jenny might stop for gas after coming out to pick up Caleb.

  It didn’t seem likely that she would. It seemed more likely that there would be no further complications, and that soon, I’d be heading to St. Louis with a fugitive to break the law. It was hard to believe, sitting there with the truck stop’s stereo tuned to a basketball game, the sound of the referees’ whistles and the time buzzer making me even more jumpy. I tried to focus on making the sign. But even as I worked, it occurred to me that if I got caught with her, I’d have to think fast to make it seem like I’d had no idea she was Muslim. I’d have to play super dumb, and do a good job of it. If I didn’t, and I got caught in the lie, everyone would think I was really stupid anyway, helping a Muslim, when everyone knows they only pretend to be innocent until they do their damage.

  Only Caleb wouldn’t think I was stupid.

  A family with two little kids, the parents wearing matching blue windbreakers, sat at the table across from mine. When the dad caught my eye, he smiled, not in a creeper way, just friendly, like maybe he felt sorry for me sitting all by myself in a truck stop. The energy drink went warm in my mouth, and I looked down without smiling back. He thought I was a nice girl, a good American. His face would change if he knew.

  The door dinged. I looked up to see the Muslim woman in her white coat. She was just inside, standing by a display of beef jerky packets like she wasn’t sure which way to go. She turned away from the lady at the counter, which was smart, and she had her hood pulled up over her blue knit hat. She carried a messe
nger bag like it was heavy, her right arm cradling it against her hip.

  I gave a little wave. She put her head down and started walking toward me.

  “Hello,” she whispered, sliding in across from me. She looked at the sign I’d been working on, and the two lines between her eyebrows went deep above the frames of her glasses.

  “What is this?” she asked.

  I picked up my handiwork to give her a better view. I was kind of proud about how well it had turned out.

  NEEDING RIDE

  TO ST. LOUIS FROM A WOMAN.

  HELP A SISTER OUT! :)

  I’d added the smiley face to keep it friendly, and then I’d gone over the whole thing with the clear tape to give it some structure. It wasn’t exactly laminated, but it was the same idea.

  She didn’t look impressed.

  “You said you could get me there!” She was whispering, but you could tell by her eyes she was mad. “You said you had a way!”

  I put the sign in my lap. Geez, I thought. So much for beggars not being choosers. So much for gratitude. Maybe she’d like to go back out to the woods and sit in her car with her radioactive license plate.

  “I do have a way. We’re gonna hitch.”

  She touched her glove to her ear and winced. “Hitchhike? To St. Louis?”

  “Sure. I do it all the time.” It wouldn’t do her any good if I showed a lack of confidence. I rolled my eyes. “Listen. You can’t believe all that stuff you hear about how dangerous it is. That’s just the media trying to scare you. It’s perfectly safe if you do it right. And that’s how we’ll be doing it.” I held up my hand to count on my fingers. “One, there’ll be two of us. Two, we’ll only get rides from women. And three, we’re not going to be standing out on the highway. We’ll get rides from places like this, where we have a chance to size somebody up. And I’ll take a picture of the license plate before we get in, and say I’m texting it to someone as a precaution. That’s about as safe as it gets.”

  She stared at me for a good long while. Then she squinted. “You have a phone? I thought you didn’t have a phone.”

  Good for her. She was paying attention. I took my phone out of my backpack.

  “Just the camera part works,” I said, showing it to her. “It doesn’t have service. Nobody would know that, though.” I held up my hands. “That’s just an extra precaution anyway. If we just get rides with women, we’ll be fine.”

  She pursed her lips, then leaned back. With the fluorescent light over the table, I could see she had freckles, very faint, along her cheekbones.

  “Oh,” I said, remembering. “I got ahold of the guy in St. Louis, so he knows you’re coming. He says he can do it. You sure you have the cash to give him?”

  She nodded.

  “And enough left over to give me bus fare back to Hannibal?”

  She nodded again.

  “Why don’t you give it to me now, then?” I said. “Probably a hundred dollars should do it.” I wasn’t trying to rip her off. If a ticket home was less than that, I’d give her back the change at the station. What I was doing would be even worse if I made any profit doing it.

  She got a leather wallet out of her messenger bag, and she looked around to make sure no one was watching before she slid five twenties across the table. I guess she wasn’t in any position to hold back.

  “But who will give us rides?” she asked. “It’s dangerous for them. They don’t know us.”

  She was right. That was the bigger problem. That was the part I didn’t get about hitchhiking. I mean, why take the risk if you were the one with the car?

  “Well,” I said. “I’ve never had any trouble. But we’ve got to make up a story about you. Do you speak anything else besides English and, you know”—the basketball fans were cheering too loud for the family across from us to hear, but I lowered my voice anyway—“Arabic?”

  “I don’t speak Arabic.” Her voice was even quieter than mine. I had to lean across the table to hear her. “I speak Farsi. Farsi and English.”

  “Nothing else?”

  She shook her head.

  “Okay,” I said. “I was thinking I could say you’re Italian, and that you don’t speak any English. I’ll say you’re my mother’s cousin, visiting from Verona. That way you won’t have to talk.” I sat back and waited for her to be impressed. I thought it was a pretty good story. I’d gotten Verona from Romeo and Juliet. Most people wouldn’t have thought of it.

  She frowned, looking at my empty energy drink can, then back up at my eyes. I don’t know what she was trying to imply. I’d only had one.

  “What if someone knows Italian?” she asked. “And they try to speak to me?”

  “You’re in Northeast Missouri. No one’s gonna know Italian.” I tried to say it just reassuring, not like she was being dumb.

  She looked past me, out through the windows. It was full-on night now, but the lights over the pumps were bright, making rainbows out of puddles of oil. There were cars lined up, waiting, and that seemed like a good sign. We were already south of Hannibal, so maybe an hour and a half from St. Louis. We would only need one person to say yes.

  “Portuguese. It’s even less likely.” She said it like she was in charge all of a sudden. “Say I’m visiting from Lisbon.” She waited. “It’s the capital.”

  “I know that, thanks.” I probably did know it. I’d just forgotten. It’s not like I’d recently had a reason to walk around thinking about the capital of Portugal. “Fine. Now we’ve got to come up with a name for you, something that sounds Portuguese.”

  She shrugged. “Maria.”

  I shook my head. That sounded kind of Mexican. That was the last thing we needed. Actually, I wasn’t sure even her saying she was Portuguese would go over so well with everybody. But it would probably be fine. “Let’s go with . . . Chloe,” I said.

  She tilted her head. “Chloe? From Portugal?”

  “Yeah. Say your mom heard it in a movie and thought it was pretty. It’ll be fine. And we need a last name. What’s a Portuguese last name?”

  I rolled my lips in like I was thinking. I didn’t know if a Portuguese last name would sound like a Mexican last name. But I didn’t want her to know I didn’t know.

  Her gaze moved up to the fluorescent light. “Da Gama.” She half smiled. “Like the explorer.”

  I thought about saying, “Oh yeah, good ol’ Vasco,” just to prove I knew something. But I didn’t really care what she thought. “All right,” I said. “You’re Chloe da Gama, my mother’s cousin visiting from Lisbon. But you don’t say any of that, okay? Don’t talk at all. Act like you don’t know any English.”

  She nodded. She put her glove to her ear again.

  “Why you keep doing that? Why you keep rubbing your ear like that?”

  “It’s clogged,” she said. “I got some water in it a few days ago, and I couldn’t shake it out. Now it feels as if a soaked cotton ball is stuck inside.”

  “Did you try putting hydrogen peroxide in it?” My mom used to do that for me and Caleb when we got water in our ears.

  She nodded. “I did try this. It still feels clogged.” She waved her hand. “It’s not so bad, though. I’ll get drops for it when I can.”

  “Okay.” I unzipped my backpack and started squishing stuff down to make room for the tape and the notebook. “Hey. I got your umbrella in here. You want it back?”

  She shook her head.

  “Okay. I’m going to use the bathroom and then we’ll head out with the sign.”

  She stared down at the table like she was either thinking hard or getting ready to throw up.

  “You’ll be all right, Chloe,” I said, part for a joke, and part for practice. And also because I didn’t feel so bad about what I was doing when I thought of her as Chloe, a nice Portuguese woman. I still didn’t want to know her real name.

  On the way to the bathroom, I stopped at the register to give the clerk her marker back. I asked if they had any ear drops, just to see. They didn’t h
ave any, though.

  We stood outside the truck stop’s door, staying under the roof because of the rain. I held the sign, and Chloe kept her head down and her hood pulled up. I understood she was worried about being recognized, but to make up for her looking kind of depressed and weird, I smiled at everyone walking by and tried to look as normal and as American as I could.

  It didn’t work. An hour went by and nobody stopped. It was mostly men getting gas or coming into the store, or sometimes a man and a woman together, or a man and a woman with kids, and when anyone in these categories looked at the sign, they seemed relieved we were only looking for a ride with a woman, as then they didn’t have to feel bad about not wanting to help a sister out. One man on his way in even smiled and said, “Sorry. I’m a dude,” and held up his palms like, What are you going to do?

  Sometimes just women walked by, by themselves or with kids, but they all lowered their eyes and hurried past us. I didn’t want to call out to any of them because it would be embarrassing, and also because I was nervous someone would complain at the counter. I was pretty sure it was legal to hitchhike in Missouri—Tess had acted like it was, and I remembered I’d seen people with their thumbs out on the side of the highway. Still, the clerk could probably throw us off the property if she wanted to. So there was nothing to do but keep standing there, looking pathetic. Chloe and I didn’t say one word to each other, as she was already in character.

  After a while, my cheeks started to hurt from forcing a smile for so long. It was getting colder out, and I wished I’d taken the toe warmers from her when we were back in her car.

  It was almost nine when a black woman wearing a pink pea coat and a matching beret gave us and our sign a dirty look as she was walking into the store. That about did me in. It was hard enough standing out there and shivering and feeling more and more worried that we might not make it to St. Louis before Matt turned out his light and closed up shop—I didn’t need someone walking by and giving me a look that made me feel even worse. I didn’t even want to look at Chloe. I felt dumb, like I’d been caught in a lie. I’d made it sound like I knew what I was doing.