“What is that?” I asked.
She showed me her hand. “A mood ring.”
“Fuck. Yeah, I remember now.” Maddy had one. My mom had bought it in the seventies and handed it down to her. Sometimes, when I was broody, Madison would force it on my finger and ask me to make it change colors, from dark to light. To make it happy. “What’s the green mean?”
“I forget. I feel bored, though, so maybe that.” She looked up. “Where you from?”
Words were like money, not worth wasting when it wouldn’t get me anywhere. “Not here.”
If I were at home, if Lake weren’t in the truck, maybe things’d be different. Girls were a fine distraction. All but Lake. She was crystal clear to me, as was everything around her. Scenery was more beautiful. I felt blood pumping through my veins. Things sharpened that’d gone dull a while ago, even memories of Maddy. Over time, I’d forgotten some stuff about Maddy without realizing it, and around Lake, they were coming back. The way she read like Maddy, or now, this ring I probably would’ve overlooked. Any memories of Maddy usually came with a blinding kind of pain I’d learned to accept, but seeing that ring again, it didn’t make me want to drive off a cliff. It was okay.
But did that mean I was forgetting Madison? I couldn’t even picture her as clearly anymore. Not as well as I could Lake.
“Where then?” the woman asked. “Never seen you here before.”
“Can I buy that off you?” I asked. “The ring?”
She furrowed her brows, inspecting it. “It’s not worth anything.”
I didn’t care. It wasn’t as if I was going to drive up to my mom’s and look for Maddy’s, even though it might still be there. “How about I give you the change from the alcohol?”
She smiled. “Phil’s not going to give you any change.” She took off the ring and slid it across the bar. “Take it. I’ll get another.”
The bartender returned fisting two paper bags. He handed me them by their necks, and I gave him the money. I put the ring in my pocket and thanked the cowgirl. Maybe I owed her a little more time than I gave her, but I had none to waste.
I didn’t want to be away from the truck another minute. From Lake.
20
Manning
Lake was exactly as I’d left her. Foot up on the seat. Eyes following me. The way she sat, the leg of her shorts gaped. I wondered if she’d taken them from Tiffany. I couldn’t see anything I shouldn’t, but it made me feel like shit that I even looked.
I stuck the whiskey in the back and the key in the ignition. Lake turned on the radio. Janet Jackson lasted until the end of the parking lot before I switched the station to rock. “That’s the Way Love Goes” was a little too breathy for the situation I was in.
“Can we drive a little?” Lake asked.
“We’re gonna. It’s another twenty minutes back to camp.”
“I mean just drive. Without going anywhere.”
There was hardly anyone on the street, but because the lot exited by a stoplight, I had to wait for a break to get across the lane and make a U-turn.
“Please?” she asked. “It’s my last night of freedom.”
“Technically, you’re not free,” I said. “You’re working. And supposed to be asleep.” I scratched my chin. I needed a decent shave. I’d started the week doing the best I could with what I had—a dull razor and cold water in a communal bathroom. Eventually I’d given up shaving every morning. It made me think of Lake’s legs. I guessed she had hair at all because she never wore anything that short.
The fucking red light wouldn’t change and a few more cars pulled up. Time was always slow when I needed it to be fast and vice versa.
Lake had only ever been sixteen to me. Slow.
I couldn’t get out of this parking lot. Slow.
This rare moment alone with her would end before it began. Fast.
What was another few minutes when our time was up anyway? I could tell the counselors I’d had car trouble or something. I didn’t care.
I gave up trying to cross the lane, reversed, and found another exit to a back street. It turned into a narrow alley, but with a few maneuvers, we got to a residential street.
Lake didn’t make any comment about getting her way. She just used the truck’s manual lever to roll down her window and shifted away from me. I turned up the music.
Lake looked over. “This is Pink Floyd.”
I raised my eyebrows, impressed. “Thought you didn’t know them.”
“I do now. I bought some of their CDs from Tower Records,” she said. “I like their album covers. Dark Side of the Moon. It’s a good name.”
Well, that was something. I’d introduced her to one of the greatest bands of all time, to “Wish You Were Here,” one of the greatest songs of all time, and that could never be bad.