Steve looked me in the eye. Like stared at me a whole three seconds. I wanted to say keep your eyes on the road, but I knew something big was coming, so I kept my mouth shut and stared back.
“She’s leaving. She’s leaving us.”
It felt like someone had punched me a good one in the stomach. It felt like the time I had been swinging on a tree branch that snapped, throwing me onto my back, knocking every bit of wind from me.
“But—” I said, “but wait . . . Are you going with her? I don’t get it.”
Steve shook his head. “Dad’s dropping her off in Europe. And coming back alone. I wanted to stay here. You know, because of school.”
I swallowed. School started in three days.
“I know,” Steve said. “If she loves me, why aren’t I going with her?”
I couldn’t say anything.
He shrugged. “I was supposed to take her to Europe too. But I said I wouldn’t do it. I thought maybe she would change her mind if I didn’t go along. She didn’t. She went without me. She went ahead and left.” He shrugged again. { 178 }
“That’s why I got in the motor home. I’d heard your grandmother talking about leaving when I stopped in the restaurant and then saw her in our driveway. I put it all together, and when she wasn’t looking, I snuck on. I just needed something normal.”
A stolen motor home was normal?
“They just fight so much.”
Was he going to cry? What should I do if he did?
But Steve didn’t cry. He held my hand a little tighter and drove us down that dark Texas road, straight into New Mexico.{ 179 }
104
Too Hard to Hear
We drove in silence for miles. And there was nothing I could do or say, but I sorta knew what Steve felt. A little. So I sat quiet and was just there.{ 180 }
105
Getting Closer
The sun edged up behind us.
And way out in front of us the horizon turned gray.
“Mountains,” Steve said, pointing with our clasped hands.
“My momma left me, too, Steve. I know it’s not the same. But I sorta get it.”
How could that matter, seeing he had spent his whole life with his momma and she was leaving now. Now that he was almost sixteen. Now that he maybe needed her the most?
That sure wasn’t the same thing as what had happened to me.
I didn’t know my mother.
I didn’t even care about my mother. Mostly.
Steve gave me a smile that was so hurt it took my breath away. “I know,” he said.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.{ 181 }
106
Realizing
As I went off to sleep, nodding with the movement of the motor home, I thought, Now wait a minute. Momma spent my whole life with me till she left. Sure it wasn’t as long as sixteen years, but how does any momma leave any baby that’s come from her body? And even in my almost sleep, I couldn’t see it.
Mark Spitz was driving the motor home.
“Good thing you don’t try to drive, Churchill,” he said, “’cause you fall to sleep as fast as a newborn.”
“Can’t help it,” I said. My mouth wouldn’t move, but I was sure he could read my thoughts.
“You know things aren’t what they should be,” Mark said. “There’s trouble.” I noticed the whole driver’s seat was wet. There was a pool of water near the gas pedal and the brake. Had he gotten out of the pool? And what would Steve’s daddy think of that?
“Winston,” Nanny said.
“Yes, ma’am?”
“Go get back on the bed. I’m driving now.”
I opened my eyes to the bright light of Arizona. “They’re huge, Nanny,” I said, and my breath tasted like old hamburgers and something worse.{ 182 }
“I’m gonna carry us on into Vegas, baby. And what are you talking about?”
“The mountains.”
Steve was sound asleep on the sofa, his hand dragging the floor. Thelma lay as close as she could get to him, her nose under his relaxed fingers. Boy, he was pretty when he was sleeping. Pretty eating a burger. Pretty all the time.
“I know it,” Nanny said. “I’m feeling claustrophobic. How could Judith Lee live here?” There was a smile in her voice.
I could see, tired as I was, that Nanny felt happy about closing in on her daughter. “I called her from a pay phone.”
I perked up some. “Really? What’d she say?”
Nanny shook her head. The Arizona sun blinded me. It sure was bare out here. Where were the trees? The grass?
“Nothing. She never answered.”
I stayed sitting next to Nanny. Swallowed. My throat was dry as ashes. “You thinks she’s moved on?”
“Since her last letter? I don’t think so,” Nanny said. “She has a couple of jobs.”
“What time did you call?”
“’Bout five a.m. Soon as I got up to change places with Steve. You slept right through it. Some hoodlum had torn all the pages from the phone book at the 7-Eleven.”
Denny sat on Nanny’s lap and pecked ground-up corn from her hand. She sure was relaxed driving now. Nanny, { 183 }
not Denny. I guess that all you need to do is drive across the United States of America and you get yourself some real confidence. Part of me wanted to tell her everything about Janet Green Simmons and her now-used-to-be husband Leon. But I kept my mouth shut.
“Go on back to the bed,” Nanny said. “I gotta smoke.”
“No smoking,” I said. “Feed the chicken.” I grinned at Nanny and went off to lie down.
Arizona sun pushed around the shades like sunshine in a mirror.
“I’ll never go to sleep. Never.”{ 184 }
107
Wrong
I didn’t even dream.{ 185 }
108
Close
I awoke to Nanny pulling into some place.
“Gotta clean out the sewage,” Steve said.
What kind of world was this? Steve’s hand was on my lower back and his breath burned on my forehead. “Miss Jimmie said for me to come wake you. She’s taken the animals out. ‘No hanky-panky,’ Steve, that’s what she said. You awake, Churchill?”
Was I?
Steve stretched himself out beside me. Draped his arm across my shoulders.
“Stephen?” Nanny’s voice from somewhere outside the motor home. Standing under the back window? Yup, I was awake.
“We’re here.” His voice was a hot whisper. “Stopped right outside Vegas.”
I opened my eyes.
“Hey.”
“Hey.” I spoke out the side of my mouth so my breath wouldn’t get in Steve’s face.
“You snore.”
“What?” I turned over and sat up. Bright light edged { 186 }
around the curtains and spilled down the hallway. Were we on the sun? “I do not snore. I’m too young.” I slid to the edge of the bed, where I caught a glimpse of myself in a full-length mirror. My hair was a mess—though much more tame than normal—and a red crease ran down my cheek. I wiped at spit, drying my lips on the back of my hand. How embarrassing!
Steve sat up too, grinning. He seemed healed up and haired over since our chat last night. Almost like it hadn’t happened.
“You should give a girl a chance to clean up.” What was I saying? Steve had been with me all this time, night and day, and had seen me every which way.
“Don’t worry. Only you, Churchill, can make snoring and spit sexy.”
“You’re gross,” I said, and hopped up into the little bathroom so I could do my business and brush my teeth. I refused to let myself smile at his compliment. Gloria Steinem would have been proud.
Steve’s voice crawled under the bathroom door. “You are sexy, Churchill. And your grandmother doesn’t know it, but I coulda copped a feel or stolen your virginity, you slept so hard.”
What?
“Get away from the door.”
“Don’t worry, I got the Lysol spray right here.”{ 187
}
“I said, go away!”
Steve laughed. Then he said, “I never thought I would spend part of my summer with such a crazy, foxy family.” He tapped on the bathroom door. “You hear me?”
My face flamed the color of a hibiscus. Why did there have to be a mirror right by the toilet seat? “I hear you. Now leave.”
“I’m going,” he said, and I heard him walk down the hall then open the door to the motor home. It closed with a click.
Sitting on the pot, I stared at my face.
Did I look like a virgin, too? Was that bad? And shouldn’t I be a virgin knowing my family’s reputation with losing important things?
I shook my head at myself.
Sheesh.{ 188 }
109
Getting Up the Courage
“I think we should sit outside the city limits a bit,” Nanny said. She’d already showered, done her hair, had me wash both Denny and Thelma, made Steve change his clothes twice and me three times.
“What’s the big deal?” I said. My nerves were thin as wire.
We were trying to find shade, but it seems Vegas doesn’t have any.
“She’s your momma, Winston.”
Steve raised his eyebrows at me as if to say, Sure is, or Look at me and what I’m going through, losing my momma when you are finding yours, or Kiss me. Truth is, I couldn’t quite read what he meant.
“Wish we were home watching the Olympics,” I said. But I said it real low.
“And you gotta respect her for that,” Nanny said.
“For the Olympics?”
“For giving you life.”
I looked at my fingernails and nodded. “I know, Nanny, but you kept me alive.”
For a moment I let myself think of me and Momma { 189 }
(what did she even look like now? All I knew were the last glamour shots from December, mine and Nanny’s Christmas present. A lot could happen to you in six or seven months) maybe watching Mark Spitz swim across the screen on our old black-and-white TV back in the Florida room.
Nope. Couldn’t see it.
“She’s your momma, Winston,” Nanny said again, and her whisper was fierce.{ 190 }
110
What Makes You a Momma is Being One
No matter what anyone says, you can’t be a momma if you’re not a momma.
I’m just saying.{ 191 }
111
At the Shell outside of town, Nanny filled up the motor home.
“It cost us a pretty penny to get here,” she said.
I didn’t say anything except, “I’m using a real john.” The same thing I said every time we pulled into a service station.
“I’ll come with you, Churchill,” Steve said.
I didn’t answer.
Thelma, who is private with her own pottying, ran to the side of the parking lot, looking for grass. There was nothing. “You’re gonna have to use the rock,” I said.
She gave me an embarrassed look.
“Sorry. I know how you feel. I don’t even want to be here.”
I slipped across the hot pavement. I could feel the burn through my flip-flops. And all across my back. And in my heart. A black burn there. Black as hell.
This is for Nanny, I thought. For Nanny. For Nanny.
I sure was choosing a poor time to feel unhappy about our trip. Perhaps I should have thought this earlier and stayed home with the chickens. Not that I would have been allowed to do that.{ 192 }
“Your hair looks different, Churchill.” Steve had jogged up next to me.
His words melted me. A little.
“Really?”
“Not so . . . big.”
“Ummm.” How should I answer that?
I stood outside the bathroom door.
“She had an affair.”
“What?”
Steve looked toward the pavement. “Lots of affairs.”
Thelma wandered around sniffing things. Nanny called her with a low whistle, and Thelma trotted back to the motor home, dodging cars as she went.
“My father said everyone he has ever loved has not loved him enough. Not enough to be faithful.” Steve swallowed.
Everyone.
Including my own grandmother. I cooled like I stood in Leon’s Deepfreeze.
“Who do I choose?”
I had no answers. Just guilt from something I hadn’t done.
Steve grabbed my hand. Pulled me up so close not even a travel pamphlet could fit between us. Right where everyone could see. Right where Nanny could see. The cooled-off part of me melted. I closed my eyes.
“You gotta be nicer to Miss Jimmie,” he said. He wrapped his arms around me, put his face next to mine. His { 193 }
skin was hot in the sun. If I touched him with my tongue, would he taste of salt? “This is her girl. Her daughter.”
Wait. A. Minute.
The motor home horn sounded. Nanny had seen us.
“Steve . . . you don’t . . .” I couldn’t end my sentence. I didn’t know what he knew about my feelings. Not with this new revelation.
But wasn’t he doing something similar with his momma? And his daddy?
Sort of. Kind of.
No, not a thing like this.
I pushed against his chest, but he held on. Not tight. Perfect. I could have pushed him all the way away, but I didn’t want to.
“She left me.”
“I know.”
“And Nanny.”
“I know.”
The horn blared again. Someone hollered out, “Cool it, sister.”
“But your grandmother wants this really bad. And so do I.” He pressed his lips to mine—a perfect kiss. In front of the whole world.
“Stephen!” said Nanny. “Stop that right now!”
But he didn’t. Not right away. He kissed me a little longer, a melted-caramel kiss. Then he walked me to my bathroom door and we went our separate ways.{ 194 }
112
Truth
In the almost-clean bathroom stall I decided that, for the next few minutes, until we met my momma, I would be super nice about what might happen.
And Steve was right. My hair looked real good in this dry heat.{ 195 }
113
Tragedy
MURDER AT THE OLYMPICS.
That’s what the headlines read on the newspapers. All of them. Front-page news.
That’s what people said at the filling station.
My steps slowed like I walked through wet cement. The cement poured down my throat and into my lungs. It hurt to breathe. What had happened? What did this mean? Who would kill athletes?
Who could kill anyone?
The sun was too bright. I was blind.
And all I could think was, what about Mark Spitz?{ 196 }
114
Death
Nanny said, “Don’t worry,” patting at me, but I could see she was scared too.
Black September. Jews. Palestinans.
People kidnapped. Dead.
Mark Spitz is a Jew. That’s what my brain thought, but my mouth couldn’t say anything. A Jew in Germany.
We watched the news on a small TV with aluminum foil wrapped on the rabbit-ears antenna. Everything on the screen looked fuzzy.
All of us, Thelma and Denny included, plus six men and one woman holding a baby, watched. Waited.
ABC didn’t know anything about our athletes at the moment.
We’d have to tune back in.
There was a blurry shot of a man in a dark ski mask.
My heart wanted out of my chest. I couldn’t feel my hands until Steve locked his own over mine.
They kept saying the same thing over and over.
Black September. Jews. Palestinians.
People kidnapped. Dead.
Dead.
Maybe even Mark Spitz.{ 197 }
115
True Worry
I lay on the bed.
Looked at the ceiling.
Swallowed down the worry.
Cried and waited
.{ 198 }
116
Meeting
“We’re pulling into the liquor store parking lot, Churchill,” Steve said.
I refused to look at him.
“Your mom’s gonna want to see you.”
“Winston.” Nanny’s voice cut into the room. The motor home shut down. “I see her. I see her right there.” Then: “You stay, Thelma. Denny. Out of the way.” I heard the side door open and close.
“I think you have to get up,” Steve said from the curtained doorway.
“I know.” The sun was too bright for what happened in Munich.
“Think about it later. I’ll stick with you.”
“I’m not so sure . . .”
Thelma jumped on the bed and nosed right up to my face. “Hey, girl,” I said, and the tears fell faster. “You back?”
She hrumphed down next to my body, and I put my arms around her and forced myself to stop crying, my face buried in my traitor dog’s neck, her collar jabbing right into my cheek.{ 199 }
117
Doing It
I would do this.
I could do this.
Now. Right now.
“Come on,” Steve said, and he slipped his hand into mine, and pulled me to my feet. With his thumbs he dried my face. “I’m not wiping your nose for you,” he said. He smiled that brilliant smile. “You can do this.”
Yes.
I could do this.{ 200 }
118
Momma
I recognized her right away. It was like looking in a mirror. A grown-up mirror.