After the End
Page 35
He huffs in amusement. “Did you convince Poe to talk?”
I take another sip of root beer and shake my head. I feel guilt rolling off me in waves and am surprised that Miles can’t sense it. I look away from him, and by the time I look back a dark cloud has stretched across his face.
“You didn’t,” he says.
I nod meekly, but reminding myself that rules don’t count in a state of war, I lift my chin and watch as he gathers together his memories of last night, flips through them, and then arrives at the answer. “What was in that tea you gave me in the tent?” His voice is flat. Dead.
“Something we grow in Alaska that’s a bit like brugmansia.”
“What the hell is brugmansia?” he says, and his face is crimson. His eyes dark.
“Angel’s trumpets,” I respond, knowing full well he has no idea what that means either.
“WHAT DOES IT DO?” Miles’s words are like four small daggers stabbing my skull. My hand rises to my forehead. Don’t think of him as a boy. He is your driver. Your oracle. That is all. I force my hand back down to my side and raise my chin. I had to use him—I had no other choice.
“It’s a narcotic, but when diluted enough, like it was last night, it can be used as a sedative,” I say.
“You drugged me.” Miles is breathless. As if someone has socked him in the stomach. Pain is scrawled across his face.
I steel myself. I am in the right. “I did what needed to be done.”
“Couldn’t you have asked me first?” Miles says. He looks like he’s still trying to make sense out of what I’ve just said. Like he doesn’t believe it. Like I’m playing a joke on him.
“You wouldn’t have said yes,” I respond, crossing my arms. And making my voice as flat as I can, I say, “Why would you, when you haven’t believed a word I’ve said so far?”
Miles stands there staring at me in disbelief, his hands shaking with emotion. “That is because YOU ARE DELUSIONAL!” he yells. “I’m not saying it’s your fault. You’ve been brainwashed. But Juneau, for God’s sake, there is no Yara. You don’t have special magical abilities.”
His face is a lightning storm. “But what is your fault is the fact that last night you gave me some kind of homemade drug without my knowledge. All for your crazy fantasy. Was there an aphrodisiac in there too? Because I would rather have kissed that fleabag raven than a freak like you. I can’t go along with this any longer. That’s it!” he says, and with a swift motion, stabs the pencil into the atlas hard enough to break it in half. Then, turning, he stalks toward the car.
His words sweep over me like an errant wind, hitting me square in the face before flowing over and around me and disappearing. Unimportant. Because I am staring at the map and the violent slash of graphite marking where the Snake River transects Idaho directly north of the Great Salt Lake.
I scoop up the atlas and make a dash for the car.
36
MILES
I AM ON AUTOPILOT. STANDING THERE IN FRONT of her as she told me how she drugged me and used me as her voodoo doll, I felt like I had been stabbed. But it only took one look at her self-righteous expression and I cauterized my wound with a blowtorch. Up until now, I still had a half-baked plan of talking Juneau into going to California with me. One that I had almost talked myself out of. What would Dad want with this delusional teenager?
But now my mind is made up. I don’t care why he wants her. I’m going to deliver.
I let her navigate us down every side road across lower Idaho in order to avoid the highway skirting the Snake River. She shouts out directions over the noise of the radio, which I crank up until it drowns out any other sound.
Seven hours we drive, until the blue haze of dusk settles around us and the trees look like silhouettes cut from black construction paper. A neon sign ahead announces EL DORADO MOTEL AND BAR. I turn the radio off. “We’re staying here,” I say, and Juneau doesn’t argue.
I pull into a parking lot empty except for two semis and a pickup truck and take a space in front of the office. A skinny man with a comb-over the color of squirt-jar mustard takes my credit card and gives me the keys for rooms 3 and 5. No way in hell am I sleeping in the same room as her.
I pace back out to the car, where Juneau’s pulled her pack out of the trunk and stands watching a couple of truckers eating dinner in the adjacent building through the bar’s plate-glass windows. “Your room,” I say, and hand her one of the keys without looking her in the face.
I pull my own suitcase out of the trunk and slam it shut, and ignore Juneau, who’s still standing there next to the car as if she doesn’t know how to find the hotel room with the big “3” on the door. I’m not about to offer my services. Letting myself into room 5, I toss my suitcase onto the flowered bedspread and pick up the telephone receiver, trying to ignore the overpowering smell of vanilla-scented room freshener. No dial tone. Of course.
I stamp out, pulling the door closed behind me, and make my way back to the office, where Mustardhead is watching a rodeo on an ancient black-and-white TV. “The phone in my room doesn’t work,” I say.
“Pay phone behind the bar,” he says, tipping his head slightly toward the far corner of the parking lot.
I find the pay phone and look at it for a second, unsure what to do. I don’t even know how much a pay phone costs. I remember something I saw in an old TV show and, picking up the receiver, press 0. “Collect call to Murray Blackwell,” I say, and give the operator Dad’s number.
“Blackwell,” comes my dad’s voice, and the operator tells him I’m on the line. Dad acts civil until she hangs up, and then comes the explosion. “Where the hell are you, Miles? I instructed you to come straight home. That was four days ago. If I wasn’t worried of getting you in worse trouble than you’re already in, I would have called the state troopers. What were you doing? Partying it up in Seattle?”
“I’m in Idaho. And I’ve got her, Dad.” I look through the glass at the truckers seated at the counter. They’re both watching me, like I’m more interesting than the music videos blaring from the TV above the bar. I turn my back to them and hunch over to get some semblance of privacy.
“You’ve got who, Miles?” my dad asks testily.
“I’ve got the girl. The Alaskan. She broke my phone. That’s why I haven’t been able to call.”
I take another sip of root beer and shake my head. I feel guilt rolling off me in waves and am surprised that Miles can’t sense it. I look away from him, and by the time I look back a dark cloud has stretched across his face.
“You didn’t,” he says.
I nod meekly, but reminding myself that rules don’t count in a state of war, I lift my chin and watch as he gathers together his memories of last night, flips through them, and then arrives at the answer. “What was in that tea you gave me in the tent?” His voice is flat. Dead.
“Something we grow in Alaska that’s a bit like brugmansia.”
“What the hell is brugmansia?” he says, and his face is crimson. His eyes dark.
“Angel’s trumpets,” I respond, knowing full well he has no idea what that means either.
“WHAT DOES IT DO?” Miles’s words are like four small daggers stabbing my skull. My hand rises to my forehead. Don’t think of him as a boy. He is your driver. Your oracle. That is all. I force my hand back down to my side and raise my chin. I had to use him—I had no other choice.
“It’s a narcotic, but when diluted enough, like it was last night, it can be used as a sedative,” I say.
“You drugged me.” Miles is breathless. As if someone has socked him in the stomach. Pain is scrawled across his face.
I steel myself. I am in the right. “I did what needed to be done.”
“Couldn’t you have asked me first?” Miles says. He looks like he’s still trying to make sense out of what I’ve just said. Like he doesn’t believe it. Like I’m playing a joke on him.
“You wouldn’t have said yes,” I respond, crossing my arms. And making my voice as flat as I can, I say, “Why would you, when you haven’t believed a word I’ve said so far?”
Miles stands there staring at me in disbelief, his hands shaking with emotion. “That is because YOU ARE DELUSIONAL!” he yells. “I’m not saying it’s your fault. You’ve been brainwashed. But Juneau, for God’s sake, there is no Yara. You don’t have special magical abilities.”
His face is a lightning storm. “But what is your fault is the fact that last night you gave me some kind of homemade drug without my knowledge. All for your crazy fantasy. Was there an aphrodisiac in there too? Because I would rather have kissed that fleabag raven than a freak like you. I can’t go along with this any longer. That’s it!” he says, and with a swift motion, stabs the pencil into the atlas hard enough to break it in half. Then, turning, he stalks toward the car.
His words sweep over me like an errant wind, hitting me square in the face before flowing over and around me and disappearing. Unimportant. Because I am staring at the map and the violent slash of graphite marking where the Snake River transects Idaho directly north of the Great Salt Lake.
I scoop up the atlas and make a dash for the car.
36
MILES
I AM ON AUTOPILOT. STANDING THERE IN FRONT of her as she told me how she drugged me and used me as her voodoo doll, I felt like I had been stabbed. But it only took one look at her self-righteous expression and I cauterized my wound with a blowtorch. Up until now, I still had a half-baked plan of talking Juneau into going to California with me. One that I had almost talked myself out of. What would Dad want with this delusional teenager?
But now my mind is made up. I don’t care why he wants her. I’m going to deliver.
I let her navigate us down every side road across lower Idaho in order to avoid the highway skirting the Snake River. She shouts out directions over the noise of the radio, which I crank up until it drowns out any other sound.
Seven hours we drive, until the blue haze of dusk settles around us and the trees look like silhouettes cut from black construction paper. A neon sign ahead announces EL DORADO MOTEL AND BAR. I turn the radio off. “We’re staying here,” I say, and Juneau doesn’t argue.
I pull into a parking lot empty except for two semis and a pickup truck and take a space in front of the office. A skinny man with a comb-over the color of squirt-jar mustard takes my credit card and gives me the keys for rooms 3 and 5. No way in hell am I sleeping in the same room as her.
I pace back out to the car, where Juneau’s pulled her pack out of the trunk and stands watching a couple of truckers eating dinner in the adjacent building through the bar’s plate-glass windows. “Your room,” I say, and hand her one of the keys without looking her in the face.
I pull my own suitcase out of the trunk and slam it shut, and ignore Juneau, who’s still standing there next to the car as if she doesn’t know how to find the hotel room with the big “3” on the door. I’m not about to offer my services. Letting myself into room 5, I toss my suitcase onto the flowered bedspread and pick up the telephone receiver, trying to ignore the overpowering smell of vanilla-scented room freshener. No dial tone. Of course.
I stamp out, pulling the door closed behind me, and make my way back to the office, where Mustardhead is watching a rodeo on an ancient black-and-white TV. “The phone in my room doesn’t work,” I say.
“Pay phone behind the bar,” he says, tipping his head slightly toward the far corner of the parking lot.
I find the pay phone and look at it for a second, unsure what to do. I don’t even know how much a pay phone costs. I remember something I saw in an old TV show and, picking up the receiver, press 0. “Collect call to Murray Blackwell,” I say, and give the operator Dad’s number.
“Blackwell,” comes my dad’s voice, and the operator tells him I’m on the line. Dad acts civil until she hangs up, and then comes the explosion. “Where the hell are you, Miles? I instructed you to come straight home. That was four days ago. If I wasn’t worried of getting you in worse trouble than you’re already in, I would have called the state troopers. What were you doing? Partying it up in Seattle?”
“I’m in Idaho. And I’ve got her, Dad.” I look through the glass at the truckers seated at the counter. They’re both watching me, like I’m more interesting than the music videos blaring from the TV above the bar. I turn my back to them and hunch over to get some semblance of privacy.
“You’ve got who, Miles?” my dad asks testily.
“I’ve got the girl. The Alaskan. She broke my phone. That’s why I haven’t been able to call.”
