“Wanted to be on your own.”
“Exactly.”
“No friends you didn’t want to leave?”
“I’m not sure you know, because I’m not sure you’re out of high school, but once you leave high school, those friends drift into different lives, as do you. You might hold on to one or two, but it’s not usual.”
“You said you were in college. What about college friends?”
“No one in particular I regretted leaving behind,” he said. “So?”
“So what?”
“Do I pass the test?”
“Too soon to tell,” she said.
“You’re not in high school, are you?”
“No.”
“Are you in community college, college, what?”
“I’m in a private school that is far beyond high school or college. It’s called Spindrift.”
“The castle on the hill,” he said, nodding.
“It’s not a castle.”
“I asked about it when I saw it from a road on the other side of the hill. I got closer but saw that there was a guard at the entry, so I turned around. No one really knows that much about it. ’Least that’s how it struck me. They did say it was some sort of special school. What is it?”
“A special school,” she said.
He nodded. “It’s not run by the government, is it?”
“No. A famous biochemist who made a lot of money created it.”
“Well, what sort of kids go there?”
“Very smart ones.” She finished her mineral water and glanced at her watch.
In fifteen minutes or so, everyone at Spindrift would be heading for their rooms or the lounge. Corliss and Donna would realize she wasn’t there.
She looked at him. “Don’t you have any ambitions for yourself?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Part of what I’m looking for, I guess. What about you?”
“Ditto.”
He smiled. “Well, isn’t that something?”
“What?”
“You and I are at the same crossroads.”
She laughed. “ ‘Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,’ ” she said.
“ ‘And sorry I could not travel both,’ ” he added.
She felt the smile freeze on her face.
“English major?”
He leaned toward her. “Don’t tell your friends.”
“What?”
“I’m going to write that novel someday.”
She laughed.
“I bet you will.” She looked at her watch again. “I’d better go.”
“Is there really a curfew this early?”
“No. There’s not a curfew because there is no permission to leave,” she said, and stood.
“AWOL?”
“Exactly.”
“Need a ride back? If you’re not afraid of hanging on, I’d be glad to run you up at least close enough for you to walk in the gate.”
“Too complicated. I’d rather sneak back in.”
He signaled the waitress and asked for the check. She handed it to him, and he left money on the table.
“How will you get back up the hill?” he asked, walking her out.
“There’s a path and a hole under the fence.”
“Fence? You mean the place is fenced in, too?”
“In more ways than one,” she said.
They headed for the exit.
“I don’t know you well enough to say it, but I don’t think you’re a happy camper,” he said when they stepped out.
She stood there just looking at him. It was time for Donna’s Buddha-like pronouncements about happiness. She opted for something else: honesty.
“I’m not,” she said.
He looked toward the top of the hill. Of course, Spindrift wasn’t visible from this angle. “Why go back?” he asked. His question was so simple. He was at a place in his life where he didn’t do anything he didn’t want to do or anything that might displease him. He didn’t have much, but he had that, and for the moment, she envied him.
“Where else would I go?”
“Away,” he said. “Wherever. It’s sort of . . . invigorating to just leave and not have a specific destination other than anywhere but here. You go to A, and because you’ve gone to A, you go to B.” He shrugged, then added, “That’s about it. For now, at least.”
“A rebel without a cause,” she said.
He shook his head. “Not true. My cause is myself.”
She smiled.
“Why is that funny?”
“I wasn’t thinking about you. I was thinking about my schoolmates. Nobody up there comes right out and says that, but they live by it.”
“But not you?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Your friends didn’t want to come back here tonight, but you did. That’s something. I don’t know what’s up there, but you’re looking for an answer you don’t think you’ll find there.”
She simply stared at him.
He put up his hands. “Don’t say it. I don’t know what I’m talking about. It’s been . . . different,” he said, and started away.
“Okay,” she said. He paused and turned back to her.
“Okay what?”
“I’ll try it.”
“What?”
“Hanging on,” she said.
She liked that he didn’t smile or laugh. He just waited for her and walked silently with her toward the parking lot.
4
What Mayfair thought was remarkable about all this was her lack of fear. She wasn’t indifferent, nor was she as excited as she knew most teenagers her age would be when they were about to do something expressly forbidden. But she actually wanted to feel fear or some fascination with being reckless. Unfortunately, instead of riding her emotions when she first mounted his motorcycle, she was thinking deeply, as usual, and she hated it.
She began with logic, reviewing what she had in her possession and how long or successful that would make this . . . what should she call it, her flight? She had a little over two hundred dollars, her Spindrift door key and Spindrift ID card, two credit cards and her medical insurance card in her pink leather wallet, and the clothes she was wearing.
She drove the analysis back, screaming at herself inside, clamping down hard on her cerebrum, that part of the brain that she knew was responsible for higher-order functioning, thinking, perceiving, and planning. No thoughts, she told herself, no philosophy, and no statistics will be in my mind tonight. There was only one conclusion she’d permit, one thing she knew for sure: she hadn’t wanted to return to that aseptic white room and address some problem in higher math or molecular theory tonight, maybe not ever.
No, she told herself, what she wanted was to . . . breathe. That was it. She wanted to feel the wind in her hair and for a while be no one or nowhere, a nonentity, a blank page on which she could write everything new. After he had taken off with her sitting behind him on his motorcycle, she felt as if she was clinging to something wild, a creature who rode the wind. Seconds into it, she felt more alive than she had in the past few months, maybe the entire past year.
But he should know what he was in for, too, she thought.
When he stopped at a traffic light, she leaned forward to speak in his ear and not shout over the sound of the idling engine.
“I should tell you,” she said, “that I’m not quite eighteen.”
He turned sharply to look at her. “What does ‘not quite’ mean?”
“A month or so.”
He looked like he was worried, and then he smiled and shrugged.
“You’re worth the risk,” he said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, and accelerated.
She laughed and told herself this was good; this was what she wanted, an utter disrespect and lack of concern for rules and authority. They weren’t simply rebels without a cause; they were rebels without names, rebels without families, without countries, even without a planet.
Away from
the mall and the city lights of Piñon Pines, the sky seemed to open to reveal more stars in the moonless night than she had ever seen. She imagined they were flying toward them, thrust into space. They did look like they were getting brighter and larger with every passing moment.
Odd, she thought, how all this time, no one had mentioned how the evening sky above Spindrift was so clear and the constellations so visible in what was known as the high desert. All the time she had been there, no one had suggested a walk in the evening or even simply sitting outside. The only time she experienced the evening was two nights ago, when she, Corliss, and finally Donna had decided to venture off the property, but their attention was focused on the escape and not appreciation of the universe.
In LA, it had been nearly impossible. Streetlights and billboards, spotlights and windows lit in tall buildings washed out the stars. Most of the time, people were looking at one another, at cars, or at television or smartphone screens anyway; they rarely cranked their heads back, maybe because there wasn’t much to see, or maybe they, all of them, including her, were afraid to confront how small people were and how distant everything else was from them.
In the darker areas and on side roads, the air felt a lot cooler. She leaned forward to lay her head against him, tightening her grip around his waist. She saw herself as an Anggitay, a mythological creature with the upper body of a female human and a horse from the waist down, but instead of a horse, there was the motorcycle. Anggitays were said to be drawn to precious gemstones. She imagined that out there somewhere, a great diamond awaited her. She could see it reflecting the light of the stars in the darkness. Touch it, and become something magical yourself. She couldn’t recall the last time she had permitted her imagination such freedom.
When she had tightened her grip around him, his body had tightened, but in a good way. She could feel his inner strength; she felt protected, safe. At one point, he brought his right hand back a little just to touch her leg. It was as if he wanted to convince himself she was really still there.
“Oh, I’m here,” she whispered, not expecting he could hear her. “I’m really here.”
He made a turn and began to slow down. Up ahead, she saw a motel. It wasn’t very impressive, a U-shaped structure with a cream stucco facing, the office in the center, and what looked like a dozen cars parked in front of rooms. It was truly an inexpensive stopover. There were no facilities, no pool, nothing to resemble anything that had as its purpose being more than a rest stop, a hiccup located just off one of the main highways connecting cities and states. Leo was probably its longest-term resident.
He pulled up in front of the next-to-last room on the right and shut off the engine.
“Home, sweet home,” he said.
She slipped off and watched him stabilize his motorcycle.
“There’s a small refrigerator and a microwave inside. I have a few things.”
She nodded and looked at the other rooms that had lit windows. One had a panel truck outside. She imagined this was mostly a stopover for salesmen.
“Know anyone?” she asked as he started for his door.
He paused and looked at the motel. “No. People who stop at places like this aren’t really interested in making friends. ‘Where are you from?’ and ‘Where are you headed?’ are typical greetings, but no one listens to anyone’s answer unless it turns out to be that they’re headed for the same destination. That might make for some small talk, but these people . . . they’re like ghosts to me, and I’m sure I am to them. We’re all shadows passing in the night.”
He turned and unlocked his room door.
She contemplated it and then looked back down the dark road they had followed to get here. Somewhere beyond it, Corliss and Donna might be realizing she was gone and discussing what they should do about it. She felt sorry for them. The cost of friendship could be enough to bankrupt someone emotionally.
“Second thoughts?” he asked when she didn’t immediately follow him.
“Eighth or ninth would be closer to the truth.”
He waited. She started into the room, and he stepped back, turned on the light, and closed the door behind them. She laughed when she looked around.
“What’s funny?”
“Despite what this place is,” she said, “your room has more character than mine, and I’m in a multimillion-dollar institution.”
“Luxury beyond expectations,” he said.
The walls were a faded yellow, the flow interrupted by inexpensive, derivative prints of desert scenes. The queen-size bed had a black-laminated particle headboard. The bed was unmade, the gray blanket curled back on the right, and only one pillow had been used. There was a matching dresser with a mirror framed in the same material as the headboard, a small table with a phone, and a twenty-inch television on a stand. Beside that was the small refrigerator he had mentioned, and on a table next to it was the microwave. Directly across from her was the door to the bathroom, and she saw the shower curtain on the tub was pulled back. What looked like two saddle bags were on the floor near the telephone table.
“Your room can’t be worse than this,” he said. “You can hear the roaches crawling in the walls. I’ve actually stayed in some pretty nice ones for about the same cost in the Midwest.”
He opened the small refrigerator and held up a bottle of beer.
“No, thanks,” she said. She was suddenly drawn to the mirror above the sink in the bathroom. “Be right out.” She went in, closing the door behind her.
She stood there gazing at herself. It was always easier to talk to yourself when you looked in a mirror. Sometimes she imagined that it wasn’t a mirror. It was a window, and she was speaking to someone completely different, a stranger, in fact. It was always a more comfortable way to question her actions and her thoughts and analyze her plans.
What are you doing? she asked herself. Where are you going? You really don’t know anything about him. He could be a descendant of Jack the Ripper.
She waited, as if she really believed the image in the mirror would come up with a totally independent response.
Instead, it asked her a question. Weren’t you asking yourself that question the day before, and the day before that, and the day before that day? Where am I going?
What do you want? she asked.
I want what you want, it replied.
She heard Leo knock. Did he hear her talking to herself? Maybe he thinks I’m the descendant of Jack the Ripper, she thought. Statistically, women make up an average of eleven to twelve percent of serial killers in the U.S.
“You all right?” he asked. “I can take you back, Mayfair, if you regret doing this.”
She thought a moment and then turned around and opened the door, facing him.
“Trying to get rid of me already?” she asked. “I thought you were going to be my knight in shining leather and kill all the dragons threatening me.”
He smiled, stepped back, and performed an elaborate stage bow. “At your complete disposal, madam,” he said.
She stepped out. This was it, she thought. She looked at the bed and then, without any further hesitation, began to undress. She didn’t look at him while she did. When she was completely naked, she slipped under the blanket and put her hands behind her head and finally looked at him.
He stood there, smiling but obviously overwhelmed. “What did I do to be this lucky?” he asked.
“Maybe it’s pure serendipity,” she replied.
How shocked Corliss and Donna would be at this moment, she thought. How shocked am I?
He hurried to join her. When he was beside her, he leaned on his left elbow and looked down at her. “I don’t want to rush this,” he said. “Not a second of it. I want to convince myself I’m not dreaming.”
“That’s fine, but let’s be sure to be safe,” she said.
When he had turned back to her, he hesitated again. She saw the caution in his eyes.
“What?” she asked.
“Who are you? What is that
place, Spindrift? You’re not from outer space or anything like that, right? This isn’t Invasion of the Body Snatchers or something, is it?”
She laughed. “Maybe. We’re working on trying to find out. There are fifteen of us right now. We’re all what they call gifted; actually, each of us is one in three million.”
“Why?”
“Our IQs are off the charts. We’ve already done what most people take ten years of schooling to accomplish, some of us having done it before we were twelve. Scared now?”
“No.”
“How come?”
“I don’t see some big-brainy girl beside me. I see a clever, creative, and beautiful girl. Maybe I’ll say something stupid every other sentence, maybe she’ll know so much more than me about everything there is, but I don’t think I’ll care. I lost my ego somewhere outside Kansas.”
“What if I can’t stop thinking, even when you kiss me? For example, there is clinical evidence that a kiss has health benefits. It triggers a whole spectrum of physiological processes that boost your immunity. What if I couldn’t stop rattling off information and ruin everything romantic between us?”
He smiled with an air of self-confidence that took her breath away. “Oh, I think I can make you stop doing that,” he said, and he kissed her.
Before Alan Taylor had made love to her, she had drunk more than she should have. It had made her even more vulnerable. She was sure that before she and Leo would stop, she would think deeply despite what she had promised herself, but she would be thinking that Shakespeare was right when he had the porter in Macbeth describe the effect of alcohol on lovemaking: “It provokes the desire, but it takes away the performance.”
That wouldn’t happen here. They were drunk only on each other. His first kiss was soft but determined. He held his lips millimeters from hers right afterward, drawing her in, giving her the taste that would drive her to be the aggressor, forcing her to make an even greater commitment. She pressed her lips harder to his. He moved his hands under the blanket, caressing her shoulder with his left hand, gently lifting her breast with his right, exploring her nipple with his thumb as he pressed his lips to hers and brought himself over her, leaning to kiss her breasts. There was no rushing, no sense of the forbidden that would cause either of them to hurry before it was too late. That had been her only experience; it wouldn’t be now.