Martha grabbed me in the hall during passing, with eight thousand bodies crushed together, and said, "I have to talk to you."
"Sure," I said. I knew she wasn't kidding. Usually, she holds everything inside and suffers, so when she tells you she wants to talk, you know she's hanging by a thread.
"I'll pick you up at seven," she said.
"Okay." I watched her get sucked into the mob going upstairs and continued on, very unhappy. I should not have said okay to Martha driving. I knew that she'd been drinking pretty heavily, and was probably suicidal. I wasn't enchanted with life at the moment, but I didn't want to die in a ball of flame.
But I couldn't figure out a way to get out of it, or to tell her I'd drive. That would be letting her know I didn't trust her. I didn 't, but I couldn't let her know. You understand.
So I went home and did my homework, sort of. Then I changed into sweatshirt, old jeans, and a denim jacket, brushed out my hair, and fixed my makeup as Martha pulled up on the driveway.
Outside, it was dark, but right at the tree line was a band of blue. It made the black part of the sky look like an Astrodome sliding back to reveal the rest of the universe. I felt dizzy and excited all at once. The air smelled grassy and all the front door lights on the block glowed like fireflies. Martha's headlights burned my eyes.
I slid into her '82 Mustang, and shut the door. Which isn't easy because you have to pull real hard and do it about three times. And the window rattles because it won't close all the way. "Hi," I said.
"Howdy."
Martha looked the way she usually looked, which was kind of a relief. I'd half expected her to be in all black with whiteface makeup and green hair. She jammed the automatic into reverse and left rubber on my dad's driveway. She got about three feet into the road and stomped the brake. I lurched forward and heard the other car pass by.
"Glad to see you're calm," I said.
She smiled and backed into the street, then bolted forward. Martha's actually a good driver, but she gets impatient.
A few blocks later, she pulled into the 7-Eleven parking lot, and said, "I'm buying Hostess cupcakes."
I looked at her because she's hardly ever sentimental. "Good thinking."
I stayed in the car and watched her go inside. The usual army of jacked-up trucks idled in the parking lot, and the usual group of dirtbags hung out just behind the store. I caught myself scanning for Corey, and turned away.
Through the store window, I saw Martha on line behind a big muscular dude with a pony tail and tattoos all over his arms. He was buying beer.
Martha came out with a paper sack and jumped in. She tossed me the sack and I dug out the cupcakes. I peeled off the plastic while she drove down Center A venue. She actually inched down Center A venue, because it was wall to wall cars. I tossed a cupcake to Martha and we both stuffed our faces happily.
Maybe not so happily. The cupcakes reminded me of times gone by, and of the obvious fact that Martha wasn't a pudgy little troublemaker any more and I wasn't a hyper elf. Daddy once said that when he passed forty he began to feel the weight of his life. Well, at seventeen I wasn't feeling tons, but there was a difference.
"So what's doin'?" I asked.
"No prom," she said.
"Sachs really said no?"
"Sure did."
She told me what went on in his office, which you've already heard from Martha. I said, "It's so stupid. All those jocks who got wasted and trashed the hotel just got reprimanded. Man, if you're a football player at Westfield, you've got it made."
She gave a rueful laugh. "I wonder if John Brody and Greg Fratelli got barred from the prom."
"I doubt they were even suspended for assaulting you."
"No way," Martha said. "They had a lacrosse match that Saturday."
"Forgive me."
Martha threw the blinker on and edged into the right turn lane. She actually snuck onto the shoulder fifty yards before the right turn lane, which is a Long Island tradition.
"Where are we going?" I asked.
"Ocean Point Harbor."
She made the turn when the light went green. I saw a silver oil truck careening down the curve and for a second I didn't think it was going to stop for the light, but it did. My whole body shivered. Martha's lead foot took over now that we were on County Road 93, which is two lanes each way, curvy, and fast.
The wind whipped past the broken window and I huddled in my jacket. "What are you going to do?" I asked.
"Stay home."
"But that stinks. We have the limo and everything."
"You have the limo and everything."
"There's got to be some way. Maybe Sachs is just giving you a hard time, and he'll relent at the last minute."
She gave a little laugh. "I don't think so."
I leaned back, feeling angry. "It won't be fun without you."
"Sure it will."
"No it won't."
She leaned forward to wipe her lips on her sleeve without taking her hand off the wheel. I glanced at her profile, edged in passing headlights. The inside of her car smelled like mildew, and a little like rum.
"Nobody's indispensable," she said. "I won't leave a hole in the evening."
"Hey!" I gave her a sharp glance. Naturally, I was attuned to suicidal references.
She laughed openly and shook her head. "Take it easy."
"Sorry. My life has been crumbling, and I've been watching your life crumble."
"Well, I'm crumbling faster than you are."
Her face tensed, and she accelerated with maniacal determination. The light at Midland A venue was turning amber and Martha was not going to get caught.
Martha ran the light just as it turned red, which is another Long Island tradition. I got a rush of adrenalin. Anyway, three cars behind us also ran the light.
Martha had that look like she wanted to say something. She thought it over for a while, then said, "You remember all those times we drove this baby into the city?"
"Uh huh."
"Like the Def Leppard concert. Remember the Def Leppard concert?"
"I could never forget."
With a slightly hysterical laugh, Martha said, "Man, that was wild. First Gina comes out in that half top and those tight spandex pants, remember? And we all discussed whether we were going to get raped or killed or raped and killed? And then we parked fifty miles away at the Meadowlands and got on the bus but it was a training bus and it wasn't going anywhere?"
Yeah, I remembered. I hated Def Leppard (forgive me, fans!), but going to a concert with Martha was the real show anyway. "And Gina," I added. "Remember how obsessed she was? How she stood up with her mouth open and grabbed the mike stand when it came sailing into the audience?"
Martha nodded and laughed merrily. She was not merry, of course. I could tell because she was driving faster and faster, which wasn't intelligent on this part of 93. It was dark as the inside of a sock, and the road whipped back and forth. We rocketed past the college and under the Long Island Railroad trestle and then Martha hooked a thrilling left tum onto Arcadia Road, about three inches ahead of an oncoming line of cars.
With infuriated horns at our asses, we kept going. "I wish I could have that back again," Martha said. "It was so great. Just cruising, and drinking, and joking, and going nowhere. Man."
I felt frustrated because I knew I couldn't make her feel better. And she was getting me troubled. "You're not exactly a hundred and three," I reminded her. "There's a lot of good times ahead."
"Not the same. Now it'll be, 'What time do we have to be back because we have to get up for work?' and 'I don't want to drive into the city because the car'll get scratched.' It'll never be free again."
I lifted my eyebrows. "Since when are you planning a responsible life? You'll always be free."
"No I won't."
She got silent and grim. I slumped back and watched bars of light slide across the roof. That brought back memories, of being a little kid and riding with Mommy and Daddy. I used to curl up in the back seat and feel the rhythmic bumping of the car and watch the lights pass across the roof. I used to guess if we were turning left or right. It was so soothing and safe. You really trust your folks at that age. Daddy could have been driving off a cliff and I wouldn't have known.
I started to talk about this to Martha. "Once we were riding home in a hurricane," I told her. "I remember we were on some kind of bridge and Daddy had to stop and look under the hood. I remember waves crashing up over the side of the bridge."
"I love old memories," Martha said. "You can see them again and again, the same colors, the same sequence."
"And you're never sure if they were dreams, right?"
"What about old dreams?" she said. "From when you were two or three years old?"
"Yeah!" I said. "I still remember one where I was trying to find this comic book I wanted—it was an Archie comic book. In the dream, I went into this drug store by a bus terminal and the comic book was on the shelf, but I never bought it."
Martha was silent, which deflated me, because a conversation like this needs a lot of talk, or else you feel silly. Martha had turned right onto Harbor Road and now we drove past baronial homes, set way back on sloping lawns, with willow trees and brick entrance gates. The road was narrow and rough. Through the trees on our left, we could glimpse the harbor, and all the boats tied up.
When Martha spoke, it startled me, because I thought she'd forgotten about the conversation. "I had a recurring dream," she said. "I was on a green bridge, except it was flat, like Colorforms. Remember Colorforms?"
"Sure," I said.
"It was a green Colorforms bridge against black night, but the night was flat, too. And I always fell off the bridge. Over and over again."
"That's supposed to mean something, falling."
"It's supposed to mean death."
I knew it was supposed to mean death, but I didn't want to say it. "They also say that dreams don't really mean anything."
Martha's profile was so dark it was unreadable. "I don't know if it meant anything, but it scared me. I know I'm going to see that bridge again, and I'm scared."
We'd gotten to the harbor. The road ended in a gravel parking lot. Martha pulled in and stopped the car, which relieved me a little. We got out and stood in very chilly air. The wind slapped the flags by the yacht club, and made the boats creek. I could hear the slosh slosh of water by the pilings.
I buttoned up my jacket and shoved my hands in the pockets. We walked on the gravel and then on the narrow boardwalk. My teeth chattered. Some boats had lights on. Martha said, "Making nookie on deck."
I laughed. "It's so cramped on one of these things."
"How far do you have to move?"
That made us both laugh. I was nervous walking between the boat slips. I always have this fear that I'm going to fall. We reached the end and looked out at dark oily water, rippled with cold moonlight. There were heavy clouds on the horizon. This had to be the loneliest place in the world.
I sensed that Martha was crying and I rubbed her back. She was shaking and she felt hot, even through the layers of clothes. "Can't your mom talk to Sachs?"
Martha shook her head.
"What about Rob? Have you talked to him at all?"
She chewed on her lip. Remember, I didn't know what was really tearing her apart. Not that the prom thing wasn't, but that's all I knew about. So I moved closer to her and said, "Maybe we'll all boycott the prom."
Laughter puffed from her lips. "That's unbelievably stupid."
"Well, I feel bad going. And I feel bad that you're not." She didn't say anything for a minute. Then her words gushed. "I never expected to care this much, Kimber. I mean, big freaking deal. The prom. Why do I care so much?"
"It's still a big thing," I said. In a crisis like this, I didn't fool around; I went right for the cliche.
Martha spun around with tremendous force. "It's not a big thing," she said. "It's a game. Sachs is playing a game. You're playing games. I'm so sick of it."
I clawed for something to say. She'd come out of nowhere and I wasn't even sure what she was talking about. Her eyes were on fire.
She grabbed my arm and turned me back toward the parking lot. "Come on," she said.
"Where are we going now?"
"Nowhere."
Oh boy. I followed her, half running because she was taking long strides, and I'm not tall enough to take long strides. She swept through the parking lot and flung open the passenger door of the Mustang. "Get in," she said.
"Martha, chill out."
"Get in or walk home. It makes no difference to me." Don't you love these decisions? She was obviously disturbed. But if I let her drive alone, she might kill herself plus I had no way of getting home from here and I'm not brave enough to go knocking on the doors of extremely rich people who probably had killer dogs.
So I took a deep breath and got in, slamming the door three times with mounting anger. Martha nearly stripped the gears as she started the engine, and she tore ass out of that parking lot, spewing gravel halfway to Connecticut.
I grabbed the hand grip and leaned back, feeling a little like an astronaut on lift-off. "Cut the crap, Martha," I said. "This doesn't impress me."
"I couldn't care less about impressing you."
Terrific. She was totally irrational. Well, so much for sharing childhood memories and forging a closer bond. I didn't know why in the blazes she'd suddenly turned into Mr. Hyde, but I was terrified. Martha took the narrow curves practically on two wheels. Her tires squealed like mad and I heard the pht-pht-pht of trees flashing past. My blood drummed in my ears.
She cut off oncoming traffic again, making the right onto 93, and now she really got in gear. She began to weave around other cars, clipping across lanes, deliberately cutting people off. She reached into her jacket (while I had a heart attack because she was now speeding recklessly with only one hand on the wheel) and drew out a flask!
"MARTHA!"
"Say good-bye, Kimber."
She began to swill at the flask while spinning the wheel back and forth with her free hand. This was a big show. Even when she drank and drove, she didn't do it like this. But at that particular moment, I wasn't into analyzing her sincerity. The Mustang was skidding into eternity.
"YOU ASSHOLE!" I screamed.
I lunged to my left and wrenched the steering wheel back the other way. Martha fought me for it. I heard her grunting. I bit down so hard on my lip that I bled. I could not believe that I was fighting for my life like some stunt scene in a movie! I'm even more amazed that I did it, instead of just shutting my eyes. But like I said, there are moments of crisis, and catalysts.
Also, not to make myself sound like Wonder Woman, Martha didn't really want to kill us; she was just being obnoxious. The thing is, being obnoxious at seventy miles an hour can kill you pretty dead. So I fought and as we fought I knocked the flask out of her hand (that was accidental). Then I punched her in the face (that was deliberate). And I started to scream. Nothing intelligent or meaningful, just animal noises.
Whatever I did, it worked. She suddenly stopped tussling and grabbed the wheel. More importantly, her foot eased up on the gas and the car slowed down. She was crying hysterically, and then she yanked the wheel to the left and the car slammed off the road and thumped-thumped onto the median, which was a wide grassy ditch. Martha stopped the car at a lunatic angle and I could hear steam rushing out.
For a few seconds, I was still speeding. Then, slowly, my body accepted the fact that it was sitting still. My heart pushed my chest out each time it beat, which was about a hundred and twenty times a minute. Martha's sobs sounded loud against the abrupt silence. The Mustang shuddered each time a car on the road went past.
Martha looked at me, her cheeks crisscrossed with wet tracks. "Kimber ... " she burbled. Then she pitched toward me and I hugged her while I cursed. We rocked back and forth like that with Martha saying she was sorry and me saying she was crazy. I loved her more than anyone at that moment.
And the very next morning, I understood everything that had gone on, and a lot more. But you know, even though I hated her guts when I found out, I think I'll always treasure that deranged car ride and the way we both said good-bye to our girlhoods in ways we didn't even comprehend.
Forget the prom, man. That was our graduation party.