Run (13 page)

But I wasn’t an angel. I was just a kid who couldn’t see real well.

“I don’t think of you that way,” Bo said.

“You don’t?”

“As a sweet, innocent blind girl? Nah. I mean, you’re nice and all. But you’re tough, too. I think you’re kind of a badass.”

I laughed. Because there was no way that was true, no matter how much I wanted it to be. Telling off Christy was the only badass thing I’d done in my life. And even that had made me feel bad.

Bo didn’t laugh, though. “I ain’t kidding,” she said. “I think you’re a Loretta.”

“What?”

“Loretta Lynn,” she said. “She’s nice—at least, I like to think she is—but she’s tough, too. She dealt with a lotta shit, but she just keeps going. You’re a Loretta.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I always related more to Tammy Wynette.”

“Fuck that,” Bo said. “Tammy’s all right, but she ain’t got a backbone. She stands by her man. She’s a good girl, but she only goes bad to impress a guy. That ain’t you. You’re a Loretta.”

I still thought she was wrong, but I didn’t argue. Instead, I asked, “And who are you?”

“Me?” She sighed. “I’m a Patsy.”

Patsy Cline. I sat there in the passenger’s seat, trying to think of her reasoning behind this. To me, Bo seemed more like a Loretta. She was loud and didn’t take crap from anybody. But Patsy … was so sad. Her songs were about missing people, being lonely, yearning. I wanted to ask her why. Why Patsy? But, somehow, that silly question felt almost too personal.

Besides, the car was slowing down. I stared out the window, wondering where we were, but all I could see were trees and, straight ahead of us—

“Are we at the river?”

“Sure are.” Bo cut the engine and climbed out of the car.

I didn’t know what to do at first. I wasn’t sure why we’d just gone to the river. There was nothing to do here. Nothing interesting. It was the river that separated Mursey from the next town over. We’d all been there. All fished on it. There was no reason to go there if you didn’t have a boat and some live bait.

But Bo was getting something out of the trunk, so I climbed out of the car and just stood there, next to the door.

“I got you something,” she said, shutting the trunk.

“What?”

She walked over to me and held out the thing she’d gotten from the trunk. I reached out, my eyes not really processing it as more than a box. But then I understood.

“Beer?”

“You said you wanted to try one,” she said. “Here’s twelve. But drinking them all at once probably ain’t such a good idea.”

“Where did you get these?” I asked.

“My fridge. They’re Mama’s. She ain’t gonna miss them. I’ll just tell her one of her boyfriends drank them.”

We sat on the hood of the car, our backs pressed to the windshield as I popped open my first beer. Bo hadn’t taken one, probably because she was driving. And, even though I didn’t know much about alcohol, I knew for someone as tiny as Bo, it probably wouldn’t take much to get drunk.

I sniffed the open can. The odor was strong and familiar. One I’d smelled a million times on hot days when Daddy opened a cold can before watching a ball game. Part of me was still nervous, still worried about breaking the rules. But it didn’t seem as scary drinking with just Bo. It felt safer than the party. And, she’d just told me I was a badass.

Slowly, I lifted the can to my lips and took a sip.

And gagged.

“Ugh.”

“No good?” Bo asked.

“It’s kinda what I’d imagine pee tastes like,” I said. “Why do people drink it?”

“Guess they ain’t too worried about the taste.”

“It’s awful.”

But I took another sip. And another.

“How come you weren’t at school today?” I asked.

“Dunno. Didn’t feel like it.”

“Oh.”

She said it so casually. Like this was a choice she got to make every day. She’d wake up in the morning and choose whether she wanted to eat cereal or Pop-Tarts, to wear the pink shirt or the blue, to go to school or to not. Bo didn’t seem to have any rules. She could spend the night without asking permission, take her mama’s car, and basically do whatever she wanted. No one seemed to care.

Well, not no one. In a way, I guess everyone cared. What with the whole town keeping an eye on Bo and all. Judging her for every little thing she did. And even some things she didn’t do.

Still, Bo was free.

“Tell me something I don’t know about you,” she said. It was the same thing she’d said Friday night in my bedroom, when I’d told her I’d wanted to have a drink at the party.

I took another sip of the beer. A longer one this time. The taste was still bad, but it didn’t make me gag. “Um … Well …”

Once again, I was having a hard time thinking of anything cool or interesting. But I remembered Bo’s answer last time. The secret she’d told me. She hadn’t tried to impress me. She’d just been honest.

“I’ve never kissed anyone,” I said finally.

She didn’t laugh. Or say “Awww.” Or try and make me feel better about it. She just asked, “Is there somebody you wanna be kissing?”

“Maybe …”

Truth was, I’d been thinking about Colt a lot since the party and that dance. The night before, I’d laid in bed remembering the way his hands felt on me and trying to imagine what it would feel like to kiss him. Then I’d just rolled over and tried to push the thought out of my head. Colt Dickinson was moving away soon. He wouldn’t be interested in kissing a high school girl. Especially not me. And, even if he were, he was still Colt Dickinson. He wasn’t the kind of boy you had a first kiss with.

I didn’t wanna tell Bo any of that, though. I wasn’t sure how she’d feel about me thinking of her cousin that way. Probably that I was crazy. Or desperate. I’d danced with the boy once, and now I was wanting to kiss him?

So before she could ask who I was maybe wanting to kiss, I said, “Now you. Tell me something I don’t know about you.”

“All right … It’s stupid and it’s pointless and it ain’t never gonna happen but … I wanna be a country singer.”

“You sing?” I asked.

“Sometimes.”

I took another drink of the beer. Then, because I was feeling bolder than I usually did, I said, “Sing something for me. Now.”

Bo just laughed.

“I’m serious,” I said. “I wanna hear you sing.”

“I don’t sing in front of people.”

“You’re never gonna make it as a country singer, then.”

“You’re right. I won’t.”

“Come on, Bo. Please? Just a little bit of a song?”

She sighed. Then, so quiet I couldn’t make out the words, she sang. But with each note, each lyric, she got a little louder. Until I finally recognized the song.

“ ‘Jolene, Jolene,’ ” she sang, her voice getting louder and clearer.

And she could sing. Real well. Her voice was rich and thick. And it even had a little bit of Dolly Parton’s vibrato.

By the time she hit the chorus again, she’d gotten past whatever nerves had kept her from singing in front of people before. Like the music was in her, like it had possessed her, she hopped to her feet, standing on the hood of the car. Then she climbed onto the roof.

I spun around to watch as she belted out the song, using the roof as her stage. Her feet tapped to the beat and her arms waved around. I smiled. I couldn’t help it. No one who saw this could think of Bo Dickinson as anything but wonderful.

I finished my beer and tossed the can on the ground, making a note to pick it up later. Bo had finished “Jolene” and started in on “Delta Dawn” already, and that feeling that had dragged her onto the roof of the car found its way into me, too, because I started singing along with my not-so-nice voice.

“ ‘And did I hear you say, he was a-meeting you here today …’ ”

And then, without thinking, I was standing up on the hood, trying to keep my balance and the tune as I moved to join her on the roof. I stumbled a little, and Bo grabbed my hand.

For a second, we both stopped singing.

I thought she’d tell me to be careful. Tell me getting on the roof was a bad idea. I might fall. I couldn’t see the edge. She wouldn’t have been wrong.

But she reached for my other hand and pulled me up to join her. To share her stage.

She started singing again, picking up from where we left off.

We sang our way through half a dozen songs like that, belting them out from the roof of the car. And even though I almost lost my balance a few times, Bo never told me to get down. She just kept her hands close. Not gripping, not clinging. Just close. Ready to catch me if I started to fall.

“Hey, it’s our song.” Agnes leans forward and turns up the Reliant K’s radio. “ ‘Laugh with me, buddy,’ ” she sings along with Willie Nelson, smiling at me. She’s wanting me to sing, too.

I can’t, though.

I try to smile back, but the corners of my mouth feel heavy, and I’m glad she can’t see my face real well. “Since when is this our song?”

She stops singing for a second to answer. “Since I decided just now.”

We’ve been in the car for about an hour, and she’s been talking and singing the whole time, acting like we’re on a road trip instead of running from the law.

“Maybe we could get a cat,” she says once the song is over.

“What?”

“A cat. In our new place. Do you think Utah would get along with a cat?”

“I … I dunno.”

“Let’s ask.” She turns in her seat, looking back at the dog. “What do you think, Utah? Should we get a kitten when we find a place of our own?”

I hear Utah’s tail thumping against the backseat.

“You gotta promise not to eat the cat, though,” Agnes says. “Can you promise that?”

The tail keeps thumping.

“Good.” Agnes spins back around in her seat, laughing and smiling in a way that oughta make me feel happy but instead makes my chest ache. “Utah promises not to eat our future pet cat. So it’s decided.”

I keep my eyes on the stretch of blacktop ahead, trying hard to fight the thoughts of me and Agnes in an apartment with Utah and a cat. In my imagination, it’s small and white and way too fluffy. And she’s named it something like Waylon or Hank, after a country music singer. And we’ve got a place that’s small but clean, with bookshelves full of poetry and braille books and a kitchen that ain’t never empty.

I fight it because as nice as it sounds, that ain’t what’s gonna happen.

But I can’t tell her that. Not yet.

“Hey, listen,” Agnes says after a minute. “I’ve been thinking. I know we’re headed out to your daddy’s, and it’s a long ride. But we’re not in a big hurry, are we?”

I glance at her, then look back at the road. “Depends how you look at it. Why?”

“I was just thinking … I’ve never been outside of Mursey, and no one but Colt knows what car we’re driving now … We ought to make the most of this driving, you know? Make a few stops. Have a little fun.”

So she does think we’re on a road trip.

“Agnes, we don’t got much money—”

“I know,” she says. “And we don’t have to spend it, either. I’m not talking about tourist-type stuff, I just … If we see anything that seems fun, let’s try and actually stop, okay? Just to check it out. We might not get to your daddy’s until tomorrow, but that’s all right. What do you think?”

I oughta say no. I oughta keep driving and get out east, into the mountains, as fast as I can. The police are looking for us, and a couple bad haircuts and a cheap-bought car ain’t gonna disguise us for long.

But when I look at her again, out of the corner of my eye, she’s just smiling at me. Her hair’s blowing around in the wind, and she looks beautiful and hopeful. And I realize, even though she doesn’t, that we probably won’t get this chance again. If we don’t take the time to have some fun now, there’s a good chance we never will.

And I want her to have at least one good memory of me when all this is said and done.

“All right,” I say. “You spot anything that seems fun, we’ll make a stop.”

“Yes!” she shouts, and she sounds so much like a little girl that even I gotta laugh through the ache in my stomach and the tightness in my throat. “But you’ll have to do the spotting, Bo. It’s not really my strong suit.”

I smile. “All right. I’ll keep an eye out.”

And it don’t gotta be out long before I see something.

We’re driving through a little town, no bigger than Mursey, when I spot a sign taped in the window of some restaurant as we pass.

Summer Street Fair!!

Every Night This Week

Maple Avenue, 7–11 p.m.

Live Music! Good Barbecue!

I slow the car down as we pass, reading the large block letters.

This town’s tiny enough that it ain’t likely any cops would be looking for us here. And if the street fair gets crowded—and since it’s only one street, it might—it’d be easy to take off and disappear if anybody did recognize us. It’s a little risky, but maybe not too bad.

And it could be fun, I reckon.

A couple years back, the week Colt turned sixteen and bought that old pickup truck he’d been saving lawn-mowing and tobacco-field money for since he was ten, he’d taken me to a town half an hour down the road and we’d found ourselves at one of these summer street fairs. We’d wandered around for hours, listening to the band and smiling at strangers who didn’t know us as town trash.