getting together at Tanya’s house at eight. You’re invited.”
“No kidding?”
“This is her day off. She asked me to tell you about it. All of us are supposed to be there. Trailers only.”
“Like a meeting or something?”
“I don’t know. This is a first. It must have something to do with what happened last night.”
“Man.”
“Should be interesting, huh?”
“Yeah, I’ll say.”
“Anyway, I’ll be driving myself over, so why don’t I give you a ride? That way, I can meet your mother when I come to pick you up. Put her mind at ease.”
“That’d be great!”
“You think she’ll let you come?”
“Sure. Once she’s met you, she’ll…she’ll like you. Hell, she’ll be overjoyed. But what about your mom?”
“No sweat. I’ll make up a story, tell her a friend from school’s having a party. She’ll buy it. She believes whatever I tell her. She’s so strict it drives me crazy, but she trusts me. I can get away with just about anything.”
Shiner went silent. Jeremy lay down beside her. He folded his hands under his head. His elbow brushed against her elbow. She didn’t move it out of the way. He kept his elbow there, touching hers, and shut his eyes.
The heat of the sun pressed down on him. He felt the mild breeze roaming over his skin.
Everything’s going so great, he thought.
She would kiss me if nobody was around. Tonight we’ll be alone in her car.
He wondered what would happen at Tanya’s house. It made him excited and nervous to think about that.
But he felt even more excited, more nervous, about being in the car with Shiner. Maybe she wouldn’t take him straight home after the meeting. Maybe she would park someplace dark and deserted. Maybe they would do more than kiss.
Robin couldn’t shake the cold, hollow feeling that had settled into her after Nate left. She played her banjo and she sang, but she ached inside.
It felt like homesickness.
It’ll pass, she told herself.
She’d gone through a heavy period of real homesickness after running away two years ago. It hadn’t come at once. In the beginning there had been only rage against Paul, anger against her mother for taking up with him, fear that she would be caught and sent back to them, and fear for her own safety on the road. The homesickness didn’t hit until she’d been gone for more than a week. When it came, it was crushing.
She’d been walking through a small town just after dark. It was October. A chilly wind tumbled leaves past her. She smelled wood smoke from chimneys. On both sides of the street, warm light glowed from the windows of homes.
It hit her then. The loss. The sudden understanding that she was outside, alone, unloved, with no hope of ever returning to the home that had once been so cozy and safe and full of happiness.
She fell apart, but she kept on walking, striding into a wind that filled her gaping mouth and blew her tears across her cheeks.
She hadn’t been able to stop crying until sometime later that night when she decided to return home. She would find a way to deal with Paul. Maybe even go to the police.
The next morning she started hitching her way back.
A man named George picked her up. He was about forty, cheerful and talkative. It went fine for a while. Then he stopped the car on a deserted stretch of road with nothing but cornfields all around. He turned to Robin. She saw the look in his eyes, and she knew what was coming.
It was the same dazed, feverish look she’d seen so many times in Paul’s eyes.
“Don’t try it,” she said.
“Aw, now, don’t be that way. I’ve been nice enough to give you a lift.”
She wanted to leap from the car. But her pack and banjo were in the backseat. She couldn’t escape from George without risking the loss of them.
Her knife was in the side pocket of her pack.
She unfastened her safety harness and faced him. “Just let me get my things and leave, okay?”
He unfastened the top button of her shirt.
Voice shaking, she said, “You don’t want to do this. I’ve got syphilis.”
He smiled and opened more buttons. “Imagine that. So do I.” With both hands, he spread her shirt open.
Her fist crashed into his nose. Blood gushed from his nostrils. Hurling herself at him, Robin clutched his throat and slammed his head against the driver’s window. His eyes rolled in their sockets. She shook him by the neck, bouncing his head off the window