Perfect Escape

  When it was over, an old Savage Garden song came on and we sang along to it, too, and then a Backstreet Boys song that had us dancing in our seats and laughing so hard we could hardly sing.

  “This station must be all-’90s-throwback-music-all-the-time,” Grayson joked in a radio announcer voice.

  As if in answer to what he’d just said, Madonna and Babyface poured through the speakers and we all cracked up, singing along. It felt comforting, singing along to all the songs we remembered from when we were little kids.

  Finally, a commercial came on and Grayson turned the volume down a little, then leaned forward and scooped up a handful of rocks and started lining them up on the dash. Uh-uh-uh-uhuh.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, wondering if maybe something I’d said or done had made him anxious. He’d been fine, and all of a sudden he wasn’t fine, and just like the rest of our lives, I wished I knew what made things change for him and, more important… how could we change it back?

  He glanced at me, then out the windshield, curiously. “What?”

  I pointed at the rocks in his hand. “Everything was going so good. Why are you doing that?”

  He stared at the rocks as if he wasn’t sure what they were exactly. “I don’t know,” he said. “It felt like I needed to.”

  That wasn’t good enough. It didn’t make sense. It never made sense. I wanted an answer. How could he ever expect to get better without an answer? “But why? I mean, if it’s about anxiety, like Dr. St. James said, then why? You weren’t anxious five seconds ago.”

  His ears turned red, and I could see his hands grip the rocks so tightly his fingers went white. “I don’t know, Kendra. Why do you always have to be asking me?”

  I swerved slightly to avoid a pothole, then looked back at him. “Well, what if it’s just a habit?” I chewed my lip. “What if that’s all it is? What if you aren’t mentally ill. You’ve got a habit. Like… like smoking or chewing your fingernails or something.”

  “A habit,” he repeated, looking at me incredulously.

  “Yes, a habit. You’re a rock junkie.”

  I grinned. I’d meant it to be a joke, but he shook his head and leaned forward to put the next rock up on the dash. Subject closed. His face was so close to the dash that had I stopped suddenly, he would’ve gone face-first into it.

  “I have a question about the rocks,” Rena said.

  Grayson glared at me as if to blame me for her sudden interest. I shrugged. Not like Rena wouldn’t have noticed it if I hadn’t said something.

  “Why rocks? I mean, why not marbles or matches or pennies, or…”

  Grayson paused. Seemed to really consider this, as if maybe he’d never thought about it before. “I guess,” he said, “it’s because rocks have a story.”

  “A story,” Rena repeated, doubtful.

  He nodded. “Yeah. How they were created, where they were created, that kind of thing. I don’t know. It’s probably stupid, but rocks kind of remind me of people.”

  “How so?” she asked.

  I knocked my fist against Grayson’s temple. “Well for some of us, it’s probably about hardheadedness. Like granite up here.”

  He leaned out of my reach. “No. It’s just… we take a long time to form, and when we do, we’re all different in one way or another, even if we seem alike or came from the same place or whatever. We all have our specific traits, our own histories. And, like rocks, people aren’t always as unbreakable as they seem. It’s… it’s just a theory I have.”

  She leaned forward and stretched her arm over the seat, pointing at a rock. “So what’s that rock’s story?”

  “This?” Grayson said, picking up the rock she was pointing at. She nodded. “This is quartz,” he said. He ran his thumb across the smooth, clear face of the rock.

  “I thought quartz was pink,” Rena said, turning her hand so it was palm up.

  Grayson gave her the quartz. “Sometimes it is. It can be lots of different colors.”

  “Why is this one clear, then?” she asked, bringing her other hand over the seat. She turned the rock around in her hands, studied it, then held it up and squinted at it through the sun.

  “Pure quartz is colorless,” Grayson answered, stroking the rock with his forefinger while she held it. “Colored quartz happens when there are chemical impurities in the rock, which I’ve always thought was really cool irony. Quartz is at its most beautiful when it’s been changed by impurities. But this one is pure. That’s kind of what I mean by rocks having stories.”

  “Pure. I like that,” Rena said, and a look flitted over her face that reminded me that there was a whole lot about Rena that Grayson and I didn’t know. It was a look of sadness, like this girl had some demons in her past. “Can I keep this one?”

  “Technically, it’s yours anyway,” I said. “We stole it from that gazebo.”

  “A memento,” Rena said, closing her hand around the rock. “Of that rock-headed old bastard, Archie. Not pure at all.”

  “Sure,” Grayson said, bending down to pick up another rock, anxiety flitting quickly across his face. He was probably worried that losing this rock meant he had an odd number of rocks left. Uh-uh-uh. “Keep it.”

  Bo started fussing, and I watched as Rena pulled him out of his carrier and nestled him to her chest. She talked to him in a low voice, but he kept squawking, arching his back away from her. She jiggled him and bounced him, but he kept going. She tried patting his back, but that only seemed to make the crying worse. She cooed and sang along to the radio right into the side of his face, but nothing worked.

  “Want me to pull over?” I asked, gesturing to an exit straight ahead.

  She peered at her baby with concern. “Do you mind?” she asked, yelling to be heard over the baby’s cries. “I don’t know what’s wrong with him. He won’t eat. He’s not wet.”

  “Maybe he’s sick,” I suggested, but Rena didn’t seem to register what I’d said.

  “Maybe he needs a change of scenery,” Grayson said.

  “I guess,” Rena answered, flipping the baby facedown over her knees and patting his back. He wailed and squirmed like he was being beaten.

  I pulled off the highway and down an outer road.

  “Pull back there,” Grayson said, pointing toward a tree-studded area next to a river. “You should be able to park.”

  I followed his finger and pulled up onto the grass and parked under a tree. We all got out and stretched while Bo screamed, writhing in agony, his little face beet-red.

  “Thanks, Kendra,” Rena breathed, streaking past us and disappearing on the other side of a tree. “I’ll make it fast.” She spread a blanket on the ground and laid Bo down on it, then sat cross-legged on it and swept Bo up into her arms.

  Grayson and I looked at each other and then paced past the tree and to the river’s edge. Bo’s cries never even so much as slowed down. He was shrieking so hard now some of the cries were silent and would catch in the middle, sounding jagged around the edges. I could hear Rena talking to him, but she still didn’t seem all that concerned.

  “I wonder what river this is,” I said. I picked up a leaf and tossed it in.

  “Green River,” Grayson answered. “There were signs.”

  I picked up another leaf and tossed it in, then crossed my arms over my chest. The wind had picked up, as it always does on a riverbank, and I wished I had worn my sweatshirt. Grayson counted softly under his breath. I didn’t blame him for being stressed right now. Bo’s cries were stressing everyone out.

  “Do you think there’s something wrong with him?” I asked.

  Grayson shrugged. “I haven’t been around a lot of babies.”

  I bumped him with my shoulder. “You were around me.”

  “I was three.”

  “No excuse, Genius Boy. When you were three, you already knew all about quartz, I’ll bet.”

  He grunted. “Probably.”

  “I liked what you said in the car,” I said. He stopped counting and
looked at me. “About the quartz,” I added.

  “Why?”

  I shrugged and bent to pick up another leaf. “I don’t know. I think maybe because of what you said about rocks being like people, you know? It’s like we’re all born colorless. We all have the potential to be pure. But then impurities creep in, and next thing you know we’re… changed. But we’re still beautiful. Changed doesn’t have to mean ugly. I like that.”

  He nodded. “Yeah. It’s a nice concept. In theory.”

  “I didn’t mean what I said about you being a rock junkie. I was… it was just a thought.”

  He shrugged. “Would be nice if that was all it was. If I could just stop.”

  “You’re not doing it now,” I pointed out. “So maybe you can.”

  He grunted again but didn’t answer.

  I sat on the grass and hugged my knees to my chest. Bo cried more at our backs, and Grayson glanced back there, going back to chanting the numbers under his breath. Something about the two things together made me love my brother’s illness a little. He was trying to quiet Bo. I knew that to my core. In a way, it was sweet. Frustrating and annoying but sweet.

  “What do you think of Rena?” I asked.

  Uh-uh-uh-uh. “Twenty-eight… twenty-nine…”

  “Do you like her? She seems kind of… spacey.”

  Uh-uh-uh. “Thirty-three… thirty-four… thirty-five…”

  I reached over and touched the calf of his leg. I wanted so badly to tell him about my plan to go to Zoe’s house. I wanted to make him happy, make him relax. “Gray. Do you still love Zoe?”

  At first I thought he was going to ignore me, like I’d never said a word. Not like I wasn’t used to that. But instead he stood there, counted to forty, and stopped. “Why are you asking me about Zoe?”

  “I miss her,” I said.

  “I don’t,” he said. “I can’t. She was too good for me.”

  “Bull,” I said. “Her parents wanted to make everyone believe that, but it wasn’t true. And Zoe never believed it.”

  “Well, they won anyway,” he said. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Would you ever want to see her again?” I asked, thinking maybe I should go ahead and tell him. Maybe I should come clean now and tell him that my plan was for this time tomorrow to be sitting in Zoe’s room making everything okay. That I hoped for him to be as excited to see Zoe as I was. That I wanted for it to be the three of us again, like we were before.

  Maybe I was hoping if I hinted hard enough, he’d put the pieces together. Did he even know Zoe was in California? Had she given him a photo with her address scratched on the back? I’d never asked him.

  But he suddenly stepped away from me angrily. “This is stupid,” he said, then whirled around and marched toward the tree where Rena still struggled against Bo.

  I got up and followed him, jogging to catch up.

  “Can I try?” he said, holding out his hands toward Bo.

  Rena held the baby up in the air, and Grayson took him, laying Bo’s rigid little body against his shoulder and pacing with him. Grayson did what he does best. He counted. Rhythmically. Evenly. In the same steady voice. One. Two. Three. Four. I had a feeling that Grayson would do this forever if he had to, keep going until he reached the magic number that would make Bo better.

  By the count of thirty, Bo was calming, his cries turning to hiccups and then to silence. The baby sucked on his fist, watching the light skitter across the water over Grayson’s shoulder, the occasional cry-shudder traveling through him.

  “Thank God,” Rena said, lifting her hair off her neck. “He’s never done that before.”

  “Maybe he’s sick,” I said again, sitting down with my back against the tree next to her. Rena chewed her lip in response, her eyes searching Bo worriedly.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “He’s not been acting right. But he’s not, you know, like, puking or anything.”

  “Maybe he’s sick with something else. Like an earache or something,” I said.

  “He’s probably just worn out. He’s not used to all this excitement. He’ll be okay.”

  After a few minutes, she got up and went to the car, then returned with Bo’s carrier. She picked up the blanket off the ground and draped it over him and Grayson’s chest.

  She stood in between Grayson and me, rubbing her arms with her hands and staring out at the river.

  “I don’t know about you,” she said finally, “but that water looks great to me.”

  Grayson and I glanced at each other. He turned away, continuing to count in Bo’s ear.

  “Are you kidding?” I said. “That water’s probably freezing. It’s barely May.”

  “All the better,” she said. She kicked off one shoe and looked back at me, wickedly. “I’m going in.”

  “You don’t know the undertow of that thing,” Grayson said between numbers.

  “It’s fine,” she said, and kicked off the other shoe. “Come on.”

  “Uh-uh,” I said, leaning hard against the tree. “You want to freeze, go right ahead. I’m good.”

  She wiggled out of her jeans and let them drop on top of her shoes, then came over and grabbed my arm. “Come on, Kendra, don’t be afraid,” she said. “I know you didn’t shower today. Dee a-sex webcam was in da way!”

  I rolled my eyes, smiling despite myself. “No way, crazy lady.”

  She pulled my arm harder. “Come on. Come on come oncomeon.” Then she started to sing that Shawn Mullins song we’d been singing earlier. And I honestly don’t know what happened. Maybe it was that I was so far away from home and had already done so many things Perfect Kendra would never have done. Maybe I wanted to show my brother that I could do spur-of-the-moment things like swim in a freezing river and everything would still turn out okay and nobody would die. Maybe it was something about Rena—motherless, running away, broken, but still spirited—that made me want to let go and live. Maybe I was slap-happy, or it was the jackalope or the song or the long hours in the car or, maybe, it really was just that I hadn’t had a shower and I felt gross. Whatever the reason, I did it.

  I got up and kicked my shoes off, too, leaving them under the tree next to Bo’s carrier. As I pulled off my jeans and tugged my T-shirt so it looked like a short dress, barely able to believe I was doing this, Rena went to Grayson.

  “Come on, Grayson,” she said. “You know you want to.”

  Uh-uh-uh-uh. “I’ll take care of Bo.”

  “He’s asleep.”

  Uh-uh. “No.”

  I laughed, watching Grayson turn a thousand shades of red when Rena, standing in a sweater and underwear, reached out and rubbed his arm. There was no way in a million years she was going to get my brother into that water.

  “It’ll be okay,” she whispered. “You’ll wash off the germs you got at that motel. And I promise there aren’t any germs that will kill you in this river.”

  “You have no idea what kind of germs are in that river,” he answered.

  “And, trust me, he does,” I added.

  She smiled. “True. But I also know I’ve swum in a lot of rivers, and look.” She turned in a circle, palms up. “I’m still here. Come on. Take it from the girl sitting in the same car with you. You need to bathe.”

  I held my nose and nodded. “You stink, big brother.”

  “What if we get caught? You can’t just decide to go swimming in a river. The cops will come.” He looked pointedly at me when he said the last. “We’ll get sent home.”

  I blinked. That almost sounded like he no longer wanted that to be the outcome to this trip. Maybe he was coming around. Maybe he was even enjoying himself a little bit. “We’ll get in and out fast,” I said. “We won’t get caught.”

  “Yeah,” Rena said. “Just a quick dip.” She pried Bo out of Grayson’s arms and carried him carefully to the carrier. She pulled up the sun visor, wrapped the blanket around the baby, and rocked the carrier a little to soothe him, but he was already sound asleep.

 
“Let’s go,” I said, hopping up and down. “I’m cold already.”

  Uh-uh-uh. Grayson looked out over the river uncomfortably, as though he didn’t know what excuse to make now that the baby was out of his arms.

  Finally, Rena stepped in front of him again. “You sure?” she asked playfully. She took off his glasses and handed them to me. I laid them on top of Bo.

  “Positive,” he answered, but he was starting to get that uncertain and angry look he’d gotten right before storming over to the jackalope statue.

  “Okay, you win,” she said. But before he could say anything else, Rena reached out and grabbed his hand, clamping down on it, and started running, pulling him along behind her and shrieking, “You’re going in, sucker!”

  “Wait! No,” Grayson argued, tripping after her, but he didn’t fight back too hard, and to me his face looked flushed and happy… and relaxed. And normal.

  I followed them, hefting Bo’s carrier to the river’s edge and setting it on the ground in the shade of a big rock. “She got you!” I called.

  They’d reached the riverbank. Rena paused to whip her sweater off over her head, then ran into the river, her bare back looking pale and beautiful in the sunlight.

  Grayson shucked off his shoes and jeans and inched timidly to the edge of the water.

  “Oh, no, you don’t,” I screamed, and shoved him from behind, knocking both of us all the way in. I landed on my hands and knees on the shallow river floor.

  The breath was sucked right out of me as the frigid water clung to my skin. We came up for air, our T-shirts sticking to us, and cussed and laughed. Grayson’s lips were already blue, and my teeth were chattering.

  But out in the water, neck-deep and cheering, was Rena. “This is amazing!” she shouted, lifting her arms high above her head and spinning around. “Come out. Marco!”

  Grayson and I glanced at each other and then started laughing. “Polo!” I yelled. We both dived in and swam out to her, forgetting about everything but that moment.