our escape. He says they should have us by tomorrow night. The fuck?
He compared Fee and me to those terrorists who bombed the subway in London last year. Those guys watched the search for them unfold on their phones and taunted the authorities and responded to all the breaking news on social as it happened. The “expert” says that, wherever we are, we’re watching too. And that, just like the London bombers, we will be caught—right around the time Jonze starts his free concert.
I can’t stop looking at this series of pics of the Hive someone posted on InfoNow—all of us at Zee Rohanian’s sixth birthday at the flagship Patriot Girls store, dressed in outfits that match our megadollar dollies, who sit beside us in wooden high chairs at the decorated table. We were all about the Patriot Girls when we were little. We wore star-spangled Patriot merch for years—so much red, white and freaking blue. For all the thousands my parents spent on them, I never really loved those dolls. They don’t want mommies, or even friends, they just want to be admired for their sketch contributions to American history.
And I’ve been thinking of all the birthday parties and BBQs and football parties on Oakwood Circle. Somehow my half-breed Canadian Jewish family always belonged. Sherm would say he and my mom got a pass on the whole race thing because the freckled, bespectacled Millers are not the dark-eyed, hawk-nosed Friedburgs who live on the street behind us, so it was much easier for everyone to pretend we’re from the same tribe.
Tom Sharpe affectionately called my parents “the Commies,” and Mr. Leon teased my mother about her bleeding heart when she got passionate about immigrant issues. I’d hear my parents arguing sometimes, after parties, with Sherman claiming Tom Sharpe had a point about this and that, or that Big Mike’s challenges on military spending and other economics issues had him asking himself some tough questions. Maybe it was politics that ruined them. Maybe Sherman started to lean right, and Shelley tried to yank him left, and they just tore, one thread at a time. I wish this night was over so I could stop thinking about this. We’ll have to make some kind of move, sometime tomorrow. Javier will need us to get out of here. But what?
* * *
—
God…your ears really can play tricks on you when you’re trapped in a shed with people hunting your ass. I keep thinking I’m hearing my name being called in the white noise of the wind. Freaky. Keep looking out the little window but can’t see anything except the moon and stars and a few tumbleweeds blowing around near Javier’s truck.
Couple of minutes ago I knocked over one of the suitcases in the corner of the shed when I moved away from the window, and I have to say I was pretty relieved when the noise woke up Fee and she opened her eyes a crack. I was worried she might be in a tequila coma. Then she raised her head a little, looked around the shed and croaked out, “Water.”
She’s seriously dehydrated. This is bad.
“I’m gonna get some, Fee. I’ve been thinking about trying to break into that Airstream if the guy leaves. I just don’t know how…with that dog…”
“Look in trash bags?” She pointed to the bags in the corner.
“Dude, there’s no water in the trash bags.”
“If we turn ourselves in, they’ll give us water.”
“Or kill us?”
“I’m dying of thirst.”
“You’re not.”
“I am.”
“You can go three days without water.”
“Can’t be true.”
“I’m gonna get you water, Fee. When it’s light out. In the morning. We’re gonna figure out a way to get you something to drink. I’ll break into Javier’s if I have to.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
“Ror?”
“Yeah?”
She looked like she was gonna say something, but instead she put her head back down on the balled-up blanket and closed her eyes.
Part of me wants to piggyback her to an Urgent Care—there must be twenty of them on the Pacific Coast Highway. My mom says there was a time, not so long ago, when people were not routinely shot in the streets, in their homes and on highways. Even I remember a time when there were more coffee shops than Urgent Care Centers.
Before I left to go get ready for the ball at Jinny’s, Shelley had called me into her room. She already had wine-face and it was only two in the afternoon. She patted the bed, where I plopped down beside her. “You know I think