Breakdown (Crash into Me) (6 page)

Getting ever closer, my eyes steered away from him, back to the road in front of us. My ears vaguely heard fuzzy speakers from one of the police cars making commands—something about “pull over immediately”, but at the last possible second, the cop leading the barrage hit his breaks, causing the tires to squeal, but giving William’s Bloody Mary just enough room to slide by. I watched the blare of red and blue, craning my neck as the cruisers followed its leader. We went by so fast the lights almost looked purple. I was almost certain I saw one of the cruisers tires blow out. Without question because of the short stop, another car that I hadn’t even been aware of hit the back of the second, putting all of them out of commission.

My body was loose and shaking as I tried to look behind me. It seemed like the sound that followed the actual impact took longer than I would have expected, though in reality I knew it must have happened far faster than that. I continued to watch long after it was out of sight, and the car had slowed down. It was only when William spoke again that I looked forward.

“Sorry about that, Jumper.”

William glanced at me before his hands tightened around the wheel.

“Are you still with me, Jumper?”

I looked from his hands to mine. They were shaking, but not in a bad way. On the contrary, the adrenaline was keeping me from feeling the pain I normally felt. I looked at my hands, to my wrists, and to the ends of my fingernails, half expecting to see the electricity zooming from my fingertips. I clenched them together and inhaled deep.

“I—yeah.” I nodded seriously, feeling the energy there as well my awareness of how much I loved it was wonderfully overwhelming. I smiled so hard my face hurt. “I think so.”

We drove around for a little while longer, stopping across the street from a liquor store that had all of its neon lights on even though it was closed. I stared at the brightly blinking lights of a smiling frog over the Budweiser logo. It was a stupid thing to be hypnotized by—especially considering the company I was keeping—but I couldn’t help it nevertheless, and I stared and stared until I had to blink away the little black dots.

“So,” he said. “What do you think?”

“What do I think?” I shut my eyes until all the colors went away. “I think I’m starving.”

When I opened my eyes they had adjusted to the dark, and I could see him smiling at me.

“I think I am too.”

Leaving Bloody Mary and my jacket behind, we walked to an all-night diner down the block. Right away, I could smell the intoxicating scent of something frying, and my stomach growled at me. Appropriately, the white walls of the diner were stained with small spots of grease, the American flag mural fading from too much sun and lack of cleaning.

On another positive note, other than a couple of students scrambling over books and coffee, William and I had the place to ourselves, and I was hungrier than ever, not at all turned off by the greasy floor.

Without thinking about it, I picked the biggest booth in the place, sitting in the middle and tapping my fingers excitedly on the sticky table. The adrenaline was still working its way through me, making me feel strong and stealthy, my mind centered and ready for anything.

“I’d offer to pay,” I told him in a sing-song voice. “But I didn’t bring my wallet.”

William looked both ways before sitting down across from me, his lips caught somewhere between a smirk and grin.

“That isn’t very Egyptian of you, Jumper.”

I frowned at him, but didn’t really mean the glare. My hunger was my new priority, like every inch of my stomach was empty, and the only possible way to make it right was to eat all the unhealthy food I could get my hands on.

“Hi there, my name is Johanna. I’ll be taking care of you tonight. Do you know what you want to drink?”

The waitress was hard looking with streaky hair that had been dyed one too many times, and though she didn’t look at us, I looked at her. Much older than me, but still slightly younger than my own mother, the middle aged woman seemed far too old to be working in the service industry, or at least I thought, too old to be a waitress in an all-night diner. When I started thinking about the circumstances that may have led her to that life, I felt an innate sadness emerge from the depths of me. Doing my best to push it down, I looked past her to the soda machines.

“Can I have an ice tea please? And pancakes and hash browns? Oh, and bacon? And lots and lots of syrup?”

William looked from her back to me, smiling the entire time. “Make it two.”

When we were alone, I started tapping the table again, using my fingernails again to vary the sound of the noise. I only spoke up again when I felt his gaze drift from my hands to my face, questions he clearly wanted to ask not being verbalized.

“What?” I snapped. Where had my sing-song voice gone? Did suicide attempts cause mood swings? I made a decision to look it up later and focused on the sound of William’s voice.

“Nothing,” he said dismissively. “I just didn’t peg you for a high carbs kind of girl.”

I stopped tapping and looked up. With the better lighting, I could see William’s eyes were not only blue, but speckled with yellow as well. They reminded me of late summer, the way leaves threatened to change colors while still occupying a blue sky. Liking it far more than I deserved, I stared at the withered, shaking hands of the waitress as she placed my iced tea in front of me. When she left, I stared at the ice cubes that struggled to melt.

“What kind of girl did you peg me for?”

“I don’t know.” Clearly uninterested in ice cubes or the hands of overaged waitresses, William slid his iced tea to the side and put his elbows on the table. “The carrot smoothie kind?”

It hadn’t occurred to me how thirsty I was until I started drinking, but now that I did, I gulped my iced tea like my life depended on it. That notion made me laugh, and I ended up snorting a particularly strong gulp of lemon flavor, causing me to sputter and cough out my laugher.

“You should watch your stereotypes, William. Just because I’m a girl doesn’t automatically mean I have an eating disorder. I didn’t assume you were Catholic just because you have an Irish surname.”

“I’d be the first in my family if I wasn’t.” He said with shining pride. “But I never said you did, Jumper—had an eating disorder that is.” He leaned back into the seat and shoved his hands into his pockets. “Women who look like you just tend not to eat things with ‘lots and lots of syrup’.”

I wasn’t sure if he was trying to compliment me or make fun of me, but either way I still kind of liked it and felt myself rise to the challenge for the second time that night.

“Syrup is a staple food for all other foods, the base of the food pyramid, the founder of all other foods…”

One of his eyebrows went up. “I’m pretty sure syrup isn’t technically even a food.”

“That’s just non-believer talk. Clearly, you have not accepted syrup into your life as your one true savior.”

Considering that he had confirmed his religion, I thought for a second that I had taken my joke too far and offended him. Once his face broke back out into a smile, I knew I was in the clear. Again, though, he leaned forward with his elbows on the table, his smell that much more potent, that much more lovely.

“Right then, so the whole water into wine thing, are you going to tell me that was actually syrup?”

I nodded and let myself laugh. “Amen.”

William chuckled like he really thought I was funny, and slid his iced tea across the table. Normally, I would have felt bad about it, awkward, but at that moment I didn’t care. I liked the game we were playing and was too thirsty, too hungry to care about much else other than making him laugh some more and quenching my thirst.

“Amazing.” He rolled his eyes but never stopped smiling. “Anything else I should know?”

“The tree of knowledge.” I waved him away. “Was actually a river of syrup.”

He shook his head in disbelief. “This has all the makings for a conspiracy novel.”

“I know.” I nodded seriously. “I know.”

“The first man and woman?”

I looked over my shoulder, feigning paranoia. “Sugar cane.”

“Wow,” William gasped.

If humoring me wasn’t enough, William interlaced his fingers as if in prayer. By itself, this drew more than one look from the diner’s other patrons, but when he closed his eyes and started mumbling to himself I was certain I might die of literal embarrassment. I grimaced into my hand, turning to the wall and closing my own eyes.

“What, Jumper? You’ve converted me!” Laughing still, he hit the booth table with his fist. “Take all my money! Where’s the compound? Where do I sign up?”

I couldn’t help it—I laughed.

When the food came, we both ate, though admittedly, I ate faster and probably more too. Hardly looking up from my plate, I never could have known for sure.

“Damn, Jumper, eat much?”

I poured more syrup over my hash browns. “Last meal.” I shrugged. “What can I say?”

From the corner of my eye I saw him tense, but he didn’t say anything, not even a joke, and for some reason that bothered me more than I wanted to let on.

“Lighten-up, William Do-gooder O’Reilly.” I stared at the dirty linoleum floor. “I think it’s safe to say you met your good deed quota for the day. Hell, maybe even the week.”

“I’ll admit…” He crumbled a piece of bacon in his hands until it turned to dust. “I wasn’t sure what I was going to do if you asked me to take you back to that overpass.”

I swallowed the food in my mouth. “What makes you think I still won’t?”

William smiled like he had just heard the greatest joke in the world. “Cause our agreement was that I’d take you to any place you wanted to go.”

“Yeah…”

“
Place,
Jumper, not places. You said you were hungry, so I brought you to one of the crappiest diners in southern California. I don’t have to take you anywhere else.”

“Ah.” I wiped my hands on a napkin feeling full and stupid, relieved and mad all at once. “A clever way to get rid of me.”

“I’m not trying to get rid of you, Jumper, just trying to bide some time.” He shoved a bite of pancake in his mouth and smiled.

I frowned, a stomachache quickly growing. “Bide
me
some time you mean?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Who knows? Maybe this syrup deity of yours will save you after all.”

To this I said nothing, picking at the rest of meal in silence and the awkwardness I had become so familiar with over the last several months. And, no matter how hard I tried, it seemed I could not avoid looking at the overaged waitress, her wrinkled hands impossible to ignore for some reason.

Once the initial syrup high and William’s laughter began to wear off, the fresh heaviness of the meal started settling. My stomach wasn’t bothering me too badly, but the self-awareness hit me as I began to feel embarrassed and annoyed at myself that I had let so much show—exposed what I shouldn’t have in my moments of weakness. How could I have let a stranger talk me off the ledge after I had been so determined? So sure?

How could I have been weak enough to let him see me cry?

William paid the tired looking waitress from a large stack of money, letting her keep the change and surely giving her the thrill of her night like he had given me. If I wasn’t so snowed under the weight of my own shame I might have even asked him about it—or at least would have let theories roll around in my head.

After walking outside, William opened the door for me, and I felt strangely obliged to let him do that much considering my sudden mortification forced me to look at the floor—and then the street—I couldn’t have found the door handle if I had wanted to.

It was well into Saturday now, but even if it was a weekday, the rush hour traffic probably wouldn’t have started for a good hour. Maybe, I mused if I hurried, I could get back to Port Elizabeth Street before sunrise.

“You have someplace to go, Jumper? Other than the afterlife that is?”

I told him exactly where my car was. The brief smile he showed me in return making me cringe because of the victory he so clearly thought he had achieved. When he realized just how close my car was to the overpass, however, it shrank back and I scolded myself.

Making William frown seemed to be just one of many regrets I would take with me. And while my instincts told me he wasn’t trying to be cruel, it was clear I had overstayed my welcome, and someone who looked like him, who was kind and interesting and clearly well-off, must have had a girlfriend at home—hell, maybe even a wife and kid. While I probably could have found a way to hurt myself right then and there, I didn’t want to burden him anymore than I already had, didn’t want to risk making him feel guilty or responsible when he had already been so damn nice to me. Therefore, I would play the nice, good girl my mother had raised me to be, get in my car when he drove me there, and let him think he had done a good deed. If nothing else, I could give William that for his trouble.

We were quiet on the drive, and I literally bit my tongue, keeping my eyes shut and pretending I didn’t feel his eyes on me. Maybe it was my imagination, but he seemed to be driving slower than before, and when it occurred to me why, I almost started laughing out of the sheer ridiculousness of it.