“How old are you, Betty?” Officer Randy asks, scribbling away in a notebook.
“Eighteen,” I answer, barely able to keep a straight face. “So I took Rufus here under my wing. Well, I’ve had a few abandonment episodes recently, real ugly shit, you understand? So we’re headed to Boise to live with our Aunt Gerty. I’ve got a job lined up with Pringles, and Auntie Gee has agreed to let us live in her bonus room above the garage.”
Randy’s pen stops abruptly. “Boise’s in Idaho,” he whispers, a gotcha smile spreading across his huge face. “Ahab said Iowa.”
I clear my throat and cross my arms. “Yeah, well, like you said, Officer. Ahab’s a moron.”
Officer Randy furrows his bulging brow. Dear God, please let him buy this story. There’s no telling what sort of chain reaction a curious cop in northern Kentucky might set off. I could kiss my Objective good-bye, that’s for sure.
“You guys wait here,” he says. “I’m gonna get on the horn with the captain and see what I can do about getting you to Boise.”
The human bobblehead wobbles from the room. I hop up, poke my head out the door, and watch him disappear around the corner.
“Okay, Walt, listen up.” I turn, expecting him to be in la-la land with his cube. Instead, he’s standing right behind me, smiling, suitcase in hand. God bless him. “We’re not arrested, but it looks like we’re gonna have to break out of jail. You with me?”
“Hey, hey, yeah,” he says, bouncing on his heels.
Closing my good eye, I will every ounce of stealth, speed, and moxie into the toes of my Goodwill shoes. Mom—the flame of my fuse, the wind in my sail, the tick-tick-ticking clock in my ear—is sick. Labor Day is two days away. Forty-eight hours. I breathe in, out, in, in, out. I am energized. I am galvanized. I am mobilized, oxidized, and fully realized.
I am Mary Iris Malone, the Mistress of Moxie.
Stepping lightly into the hallway, my trusty high-tops lead us onward (ever onward!) through the small-town bustlings of the Independence police station. We fly past the bulletproof window protecting the captured dregs of society; past the closet-sized kitchen, with its engine-oil coffee and floppy box of day-old donuts. With buoyed spirits, surging stealth, and the white-water rapids of adrenaline, we follow my Velcro-laden friends into the foyer of the station: past the old lady in hysterics over her lost cat; past the debauched he-she in cowboy (cowgirl?) chaps; past the gorgeous guy with a black eye—
I stop on a dime. Walt runs into my back, giggling.
The guy with the black eye. It’s him—17C, from the Greyhound.
“Come on,” says Walt, still chuckling under his breath. “We’re breaking out of jail.” He grabs my sleeve, and pulls every part of me—save my heart—out the front door.
23
The Many Perfections of Beck Van Buren
“SORRY, LITTLE LADY. C’aint sell it to you without you got a valid driver’s license.”
The guy pulls an apple out of I-don’t-know-where, then plants it in his Moses beard. I can only assume there’s a mouth in there somewhere.
After our prison break, I was all set to hitchhike, when Walt spotted a FOR SALE sign in the window of a blue pickup in this guy’s yard. The problem is this: for certain, shall we say, cycloptic reasons, I’ve avoided taking the driver’s test like the plague.
I pull my permit—which the great state of Ohio only requires a written exam to obtain—from my backpack, and flash the card in Moses’s face. “I have this. Same thing, basically.”
He cracks a bite of his apple (damn thing is crisp), chews, says nothing.
Walt unlatches his old suitcase, pulls out his Rubik’s Cube, and gets to work. Moses raises his eyebrows; I can actually see his patience waning.
“Okay, fine,” I say, pulling out a wad of cash. “How about three hundred dollars? That’s fifty bucks more than you’re asking, cash in hand.”
Walt clicks the red squares into place, claps me on the shoulder, and does a little jig right there on the front porch.
“What’s wrong with him?” asks Moses, still eyeballing Walt.
“He’s Walt, man. What’s your excuse?”
Moses stops chewing momentarily, then backs up to shut the door.
“Okay-no-wait-wait-look, I’m sorry. My friend and I just walked from the police station, so we’re—”
“You see Randy down there?” he asks, cracking another bite.
“I . . . what?”
“Officer Randy. You see him?”
“Yeah, but—”
“How is that ole sonuvabitch? Still a rat bastard?”
I am Mary Iris Malone, a baffled bag of bones. “Are you gonna sell me your truck or not?”
“Not,” he says with a mouthful.
I twist my mom’s lipstick in my pocket. “Okay, I think we got off on the wrong foot.”
“Kid, I got stuff to do. Without a license, I c’aint sell her to you. Now you and your . . . friend, here, need to clear off my porch.”
“I have a license,” says a voice behind us.
I turn to find 17C scrolling through pictures on his camera, standing in the front yard like a deep-rooted tree, like he’s been there for years. Somehow, that black eye only makes him more desirable.
“And you are . . . ?” asks Moses.
A) Perfect
B) The god of Devastating Attractiveness
C) A flawless specimen, created in a lab by mad scientists in an effort to toy with the heart of Mary Iris Malone