AC/DC were rocking my car, telling me she was the best damn woman they’d ever seen. Then, after they shook me all night long, Queen bit the dust, and Alice Cooper told me school was out, as if I hadn’t known. Gina and I hummed, we sang; Candy sat serenely, looking out the window. Not a muscle moved on her in response to either Kiss or the Bee Gees.
“Candy, how come you’re not singing?”
“Dunno. Dunno any of the songs.”
“You don’t know ‘Stayin’ Alive’?”
“Nope.”
“ ‘I Was Made for Lovin’ You’?”
She shook her head.
“Blondie’s ‘Call Me’? How could you not know ‘Call Me’? It’s been number one for like thirty weeks straight,” said Gina.
“Don’t listen to the radio.”
“What about ‘Hotel California’?”
“What about it?”
Gina and I didn’t know what to say. A girl who looked to be our age never heard of “Hotel California”?
“You don’t know any of those songs? Not one?”
She shrugged. “I don’t listen to the radio,” she repeated slowly, as in, which part of I don’t listen to the radio don’t you understand?
“How old are you?” Gina asked.
“Eighteen.”
“So what about when you were a kid? Didn’t you listen to the radio then?”
“Nope.”
“What about the Beatles? The Stones? The Monkees?”
“Don’t know ’em, I’m afraid. Sorry.”
“So where’d you go to school?”
“School?”
“Yeah,” said Gina, “you know, a building where you go and learn things.”
“Oh, yeah. Haven’t been to school in years. Hate school.”
“You dropped out?” We didn’t know anyone who had dropped out. We were impressed. It was scary cool.
“I just stopped going.”
“Yes,” said Gina. “That’s called dropping out.”
“Okay, then.”
“So where’d you live before you got on the road? Where are your folks from?”
“My folks?” She smiled dryly. “I don’t know where they’re from. They live in Huntington.”
“Where’s that?”
“West Virginia. On the banks of the Ohio.”
“Oh. Like the song.”
“Yup, just like that.”
“So how old were you when you dropped out?”
“Thirteen.”
“How old?” Then we fell silent.
“I hated school,” she spat.
“What did your parents say?”
“Dunno. Didn’t ask ’em.”
Gina turned around. “Come on. They must have noticed you weren’t taking the school bus in the morning.”
“Well,” said Candy, less bubbly, less bright, “my dad didn’t know, ’cause he wasn’t living with us. And my mom hated school herself and didn’t care if I went or not.”
“So what did you do when you dropped out?”
“Nothin’. Just hung out. Worked. Made money.”
Worked at thirteen? “Didn’t listen to music, though.”
“No. Look, a Burger King. Can we stop? I’m starved.”
2
The Price of Stamps
We stopped in Mokena, still on I-80. Food came to twelve dollars. I asked Candy for four. She said she didn’t have any money, she spent her last thirty bucks buying clothes at the radioactive mall. (“By the way,” she said, “did you know cockroaches can survive a nuclear explosion? They can live without their head for a week.”)
I didn’t know that and I also didn’t know what to do.
Gina came up to me as I was getting the napkins and straws, whispering in a hiss, “I refuse to pay for her food!”
“All right, fine,” I said. “I’ll pay for it. But we’re at Burger King, not the Four Seasons. Let’s just . . . just give me your share, will you?”
Candy, despite being stick thin, ate like a ravenous child. She swallowed the burger and the fries, finished her Coke, and said, “I’m still starved. Are you going to finish that?” pointing to the hamburger still in my mouth. I gave her two dollars and she went to buy more burgers.
“Shelby, what the hell are we going to do?”
“What?” I was watching Candy in line. A man in front of her turned and started talking to her. She smiled. He smiled back. Why was he smiling at her like that? And the man behind pointed to her patchwork bag and told her it was open. She closed it, thanked him, smiled at him, too. He smiled back. He leaned in, made a joke, she laughed. She had a good laugh. Hearty.
“You told her we’d let her off when we got food. Let’s leave her here.”
“Gina, it’s eight at night.”
“So, Miss Talking Clock?”
I chewed my nails. I never chew my nails, so that told me a few things. “We have to get a room anyway.”
“Get a room anyway? Are you out of your mind? She is a total stranger! Also she can’t pay her share.”
“So?” I stopped eating. “The dogs can’t pay their share either. And as I recall, at the rest stop on I-95, Molly bought a coffee, which she wasn’t supposed to drink, a sticky bun, fried chicken, a biscuit, ice cream and potato chips. I don’t recall you pitching a fit that Molly wasn’t paying her way.”
Gina took a breath. “My mother gave me money for Molly. And are you comparing my sister with a total stranger?”
“I’m just saying. And your mother gave you money for Molly? Then how come I paid for half her food? She didn’t give me any money for Molly.”
Candy came back, sat down. Warily we watched her wolf her cheeseburger. When she drank her Coke, she said the syrup in it was good, and the soda was fizzy, not flat. She approved the temperature of the burger and the crispness of the fries. While we were complaining about the six dollars she was costing us, she ate, commenting with every bite how good it was.
Gina cleared her throat. “Candy, can I ask you, um . . . what do you plan to do without any money?”
“I dunno. What do I need money for?”
“To eat, to sleep.”
“When I need money, I’ll get some.” She grinned, her mouth full.
“How far are you headed? And please don’t say where the ride takes me.”
She clapped her hands. “It’d be great if I could ride on with you, girls,” she said. “Wherever you’re headed.”
We stopped eating. I put up a false shield of indifference to parry the daggers coming at me from Gina’s eyes. I milled words through my brain but couldn’t get any out. Gina turned to Candy. “Look, we’re very tightly budgeted. We didn’t bring enough for you.”
And Candy said, “Enough what?”
Gina stumbled. “Money.”
Candy waved her hand, the one that still had half a burger in it. “Oh, don’t worry ’bout that.”
Gina glanced at me for support. But I’m terrible talking to other people about paying their share, so I let her flail on her own. “We brought barely enough for us. That’s it. No extra.”
“All right. But gas and motels you have to pay for, regardless of me.”
But what about food? “How about breakfast, lunch, and dinner, plus drinks and snacks?” Gina said.
“What, you didn’t bring any for a rainy day?” Candy smiled at me. “You look like you’re a planner, Shelby.”
“But this isn’t a rainy day!” cut in Gina. “A rainy day is when your car breaks down and you have to get it fixed. A rainy day is when you run out of gas and need to pay to get the car towed. A rainy day is an accident.” We both knocked wood.
Candy watched us puzzled. “What are you knocking wood for?”
“For luck. We can’t feed another person.”
“We really did budget very carefully, Candy,” I said apologetically.
“How do you budget for a rainy day?” the girl asked, knocking on the table. “But this table isn’t wood, it’s, like, plastic or
something. And why would knocking on wood bring you luck?”
“Oh, never mind!”
Candy brightened. “Look at it this way, you’ve knocked wood, so chances are good there will be no rain. And then you’ll have plenty.”
“But what if there is?”
“But you’ve knocked on wood.”
“Stop.”
“Well, then, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
We?
“Candy, we don’t know you. You can’t be frivolous with our money,” said Gina.
“Feeding another person is being frivolous with your money?”
It did seem peevish to be cheap about a few bucks. And we were going to be letting her off soon.
“What are you so worried about?” she said breezily, tapping on the Formica. “You have money now, don’t you? I have no money at all, and I don’t look as worried as you. You have to learn to relax. Instead of all this knocking, have you tried concentrating on something positive? Away from anxious thoughts?”
Plan ahead. Organize. Make a to-do list. Plan for the future. Be careful. Don’t overspend. This is what I knew. Assume horrible things are going to happen and plan accordingly. But I didn’t plan for this gal who didn’t have a penny. What would Marc say? You brought forty dollars for a flat tire, Shelby. Didn’t you bring a thousand for an unexpected guest?
“Look, I started out prepared, too,” Candy said in her throaty, lively manner. “But then I got thrown off a truck like a turnip.” She laughed. “Didn’t expect that.”
I wanted to say that perhaps getting into that truck in the first place was her mistake right there, but didn’t.
“Girls, don’t look so tense,” she said. “I found you guys, didn’t I?”
When we got outside and let the dogs run, she stretched, raising high her arms, her little skirt riding up; she smelled the air (in Mokena, off the interstate!) and smiled. She wondered if there was a river up close, maybe the Mississippi, because she could smell fresh water. She asked if we had any lip balm (like we would give the things we put on our lips to a stranger!). “Three hundred and fifty miles to St. Louis? It’s nothing. Let’s go, girls.” She was so upbeat. I didn’t know how to tell her to find another ride at a Burger King travel stop. I asked if she knew how to drive. She looked at me like I’d asked if she peed standing up. “No, of course not,” I muttered, sighing. “Why would anyone traveling on the highway know how to drive?” I got behind the wheel. We’d gone barely sixty miles the entire day. I said I was going to push on I-55 South till we got to Normal, Illinois. Then we’d stop. Normal. Nice name for a town.
On the way, I found out a few things about Candy. The girl had never watched TV. Didn’t know any prime time shows. She knew no nursery rhymes or popular songs, had not read Separate Peace or Ordinary People, never saw Rocky or Star Wars, could not recall a single quote from Shakespeare, had no idea how far California was from Maryland (“Far?”). Could not play any road games such as naming states or capitals (except Iowa and Des Moines). Could not name a single make of any car on the road (everything was a Cadillac).
She didn’t know how much a stamp was. How much milk was.
That was not a school thing. That was a something else thing.
Candy, as it turned out, had only one math skill, but she knew it cold—truck drivers covered 800 miles a day. Therefore the only thing stopping us from going 800 miles a day was will. I tried to explain it was probably 800 miles in a twenty-four-hour period, but she insisted it was “a day,” and that was it.
We asked again where she was headed and again she demurred, telling us she had some business to take care of a few miles down the road. But I had learned from Aunt Flo and Aunt Betty, that “a few miles” was code, for very very very far from where I was at the moment and completely out of the way. I didn’t pursue it. I was going to let her off in St. Louis and that was that. Beyond that, I didn’t care. It had gotten dark and was very hot out. The dogs were panting in the back, the AC wasn’t working great. Candy asked where we were headed after St. Louis. Gina said she was going to Bakersfield to hook up with her boyfriend. She didn’t say she was going to keep her boyfriend from “accidentally” marrying someone else. “Bakersfield?” exclaimed Candy from between the seats. “Isn’t that in . . .”
“California.”
“California!” She looked so happy in my dark rearview mirror. “What about you, Shelby? Are you going to hook up with your boyfriend?”
I told her I was going to find my mother.
“You lost your mother? Or,” she asked, with her funny little smirk and a poke at my shoulder, “did she lose you?”
“Neither,” I said, failing to be non-defensive. “Why would my mother lose me? We lost touch, that’s all.”
“Gotcha. So she’s expecting you?”
“How would I know?”
“You didn’t call her to say you’re coming?”
I didn’t say anything. I hadn’t called Lorna Moor in Mendocino. How hard could it be to find a Lorna Moor in a village of 500 people?
“Oh, a surprise!” Candy clapped her hands. “I hope your mom loves surprises. I know I do.”
I frowned, stopped talking, resumed sulking, turned up the music.
Reaching over between the seats, she turned the music down. “Tell me more about the mother,” she said. So, speaking into the darkness of the car, I related for the first time the truth I had so recently learned.
“Get out! Emma is your father’s sister?” Gina exclaimed. “Since when?”
“Apparently since always.” I shrugged as if it were no big deal. Fucking Agnes.
“How come you didn’t tell me? How come I was the last to know?”
“Well, no,” I said. “I was the last to know.”
“So let me understand,” Candy said. “Your mother left your father, your father went to the big house, and your aunt took care of you?” When I told her that was right, she thought a moment. “This aunt of yours,” she said, “is one decent person.”
I had never thought of her that way. “Is she?” The words flapped in the air like clothes on a line.
“So what have you been doing?” asked Gina. “Okay, you didn’t go to school, and we know you didn’t watch TV.”
“Well, no, no TV.” She paused. “My mother thought I’d be better off at a halfway house, so I got sent there.”
“Halfway house?”
“Yeah. It’s like an orphanage for kids with parents.”
Ah. That was worthy of conversation. The curiosity, the interest would make the road fly by. But to my disappointment Candy didn’t want to say any more. I could see Gina, less curious than me, wanted to say things, but couldn’t, and didn’t. The first and most important of which was: you can’t come with us all the way to California. That isn’t what Shelby and I planned. That isn’t what we want. Where can we let you out so that we don’t feel guilt and you’re relatively safe? Your safety is not our responsibility. We don’t assume duty for you just because we’re giving you a ride. What Gina said grumpily instead was, “What kind of mother names her child Candy?”
“A mother with a sense of humor?” offered Candy. She tapped me on the shoulder. “Shelby, why are you looking for your mother?”
“Haven’t seen her in a few years,” I said. “Wanted to have a visit before I went off to college.” When Candy didn’t say anything, I pressed on. I said I thought there was a scale in life, a scale that measured the half a dozen in one hand (me) and six in the other (California). I wanted to find my mother to ask her just how tipped that scale had been.
Candy pursed her lips and then laughed softly. “Shelby, darling,” she drawled in her hoarse bubble-gum voice. “What if you discover that you weren’t even on the scales? What if the answer you’re looking for isn’t the answer you want? You need her to say, yes, luv, you wuz six in one hand and California wuz half a dozen in the other. I could’ve stayed with you, I just chose to go. But have you considered the possibil
ity she might tell you there was nothing in the hand where you were supposed to be?”
I exhaled. Gina exhaled. “Well, no,” I stammered, “I guess I didn’t . . .”
Candy put her hands together and bowed her head. “You forgot to ask yourself this most important question.”
“Like you know the most important question,” I snapped. “You don’t even know how much a stamp is.”
“Is the price of stamps the most important question?” She shrugged. “What if the answer you get is not the answer you want? You forgot to ask yourself if what you want is truth or comfort. They’re two different things.” Candy shook her spiked head. “I’d think it over before I plunged headfirst into Mendocino.”
I could hardly let her out on the shoulder of the highway because she spoke up, could I? I fixed the rearview so I wouldn’t see her anymore in the reflection of the passing cars. I turned up the music. Thank God for the road. I could pretend to concentrate on it.
She began talking about the Mississippi with Gina. Gina was so good at that, talking about meaningless stuff to avoid talking about the real stuff. Candy asked why the river was muddy. Gina liked that; it brought out the teacher in her. She lectured that the Missouri was cold and crystal clear, flowing from the Montana lakes, but mixing with the warm, muddy Mississippi gave the combined river its decidedly brown look. Candy laughed and commented pithily how nine parts chocolate and one part shit was still shit. Gina disagreed with this assessment of the mighty Mississippi and so it went. Candy, who hadn’t heard of Huckleberry Finn (let alone read it) asked to be told Huck’s story. “We have time,” she said, her head leaning back. “And then I’ll tell you a story.” I wanted to tell her not to block my rearview mirror but couldn’t do it without sounding churlish, so I said nothing, wondering when we were going to get to Normal.
The storytelling flagged, then stopped; Candy had fallen asleep, curled up against the dog crate. It was ten P.M.
“What do we do?” Gina whispered. “Do we get a room?”
“Where do you suggest we sleep?”
“Well, I know . . . but what about—” She pointed to the back.