mullet and so many earrings across his face that it looked as though he’d been blasted with buckshot. He and I were alone in the store; Melody had vanished.
I quickly looked over my shoulder to make sure her Civic remained at the pump, then started walking around the store trying to figure out what to do with all the adrenaline, when it crystallized: I looked toward the pumps again, checking for any vehicle that seemed vaguely official, that maybe she had spotted me in her rearview, that she’d been supplied year after year with a cache of photos of our family and crew along with the statement If you see any of these guys then page us, that she called the feds on her cell, that they told her, Keep driving, that this was the reason she drove so far, that they would be waiting at the Chevron in Versailles. When you get to the station, Melody, run inside and we will be waiting for you.
As I assembled these thoughts—and the respective dread—I went to the refrigerated section and pulled out a massive bottle of water and walked around as though the biker mags and lottery tickets were really what had drawn me to this place.
I took my water to the counter and asked Mullet if he’d seen a girl come in.
“Girl?” Mullet’s muted response came with a glance to a small television below the counter where I could hear a crowd cheering. “Reds suck.”
“Not a girl. A young woman.” I nodded to the case behind him. “Four packs of Marlboros, quickly.”
Mullet mumbled as he placed the packs on the counter next to my water. “Woman?”
I started eyeing the store. “Where’s the back door?”
That snapped Mullet to attention. “Come again?”
My first thought was, That was how they got her out. My second thought was, That is how I’m getting out, too.
Mullet continued, “Why do you need to know where the back—”
“Listen, bumpkin, did a girl just come in here and magically disappear? Is it really possible, as the sole operator of this store, that you managed to miss a customer both arriving and departing?”
“I don’t think I saw—I don’t really know—”
“I don’t I don’t I don’t. Listen, you friggin’ hick, I’m only gonna ask you once more: Did you—”
My rant was squelched out by a piercing screech of hinges, then a quick slam of a door from an overly tightened spring. I looked up, and straight over Mullet’s head in the dim reflection of the window behind the counter I watched Melody step out of the restroom.
I stared at her image in the glass, said to Mullet with quiet anger, “How ’bout now. You see her now?”
She paused in front of the Hostess display, picked up a package of orange cupcakes and studied it as though looking for an expiration date. I always wondered who ate those things. My senses sharpened; I became so aware.
I could hear the gentle crinkling of the cellophane as she turned over each package.
I could see the shape of her face change as she licked her teeth.
I could feel the sweat arrive in my palms.
Mullet struggled to glance at the television out of the corner of his eye like a seventh-grader cheating off a neighbor’s test. I snapped my fingers a few times and whispered, “What do I owe you?”
As Mullet punched the keys on the register, Melody meandered toward the counter, glancing at various food products on her way. Mullet tossed a number my direction and I missed it. I couldn’t take my eyes off the reflection in the glass. Melody reached into a plastic barrel filled with ice and sodas and pulled out a Diet Coke, shook a small cube off the top of the can, and ran the cold residue between her fingers until it was dry.
I tried again. “What do I owe you?”
Mullet leaned forward and curled his hook-filled lip. “I’m only gonna tell you once more.”
I think he did tell me again. Who knows; my attention was elsewhere.
Melody slid right behind me and the front of air she shoved my way was laced with sweet flowers. It came and went within two or three seconds.
Then Mullet: “How about a third time, partner. Easier if I write it down?”
I slowly reached behind me and lifted my wallet from my jeans, so near to Melody that I could have opened my hand with the fantasy that she would put hers in mine; it was the closest I’d ever been to her in