THERE’S THIS THING the rain does in Florida. It trickles for a few minutes, and then the sky goes suddenly black and before you know it, you’re standing in a waterfall. It’s not even cold out; the water can be warm. Buckets and buckets pour onto you and you forget the sun ever shone. Forget the sun shone on you that very morning, heating up your skin until you were dying to escape into some air-conditioning, shone on you till you squinted your eyes and put on your shades. It’s like all that never happened, and the world is just wet and black and loud with the weeping sound of tires going through puddles. I’m crawling the car through sheets of water that seem to stretch forever down this blank stretch of asphalt Jesse’s got us on. I don’t even know what road we’re on, but when I see something that looks like a highway and the sign says SOUTH, I pull onto it.
I’m not a great driver. My brother Tully, who taught me, was always telling me I drove “like a girl,” which was the biggest insult in his book. I’d spit back and say, “Then the way a girl drives is awesome, as you can see from my mad skills, so up yours.” Or, “Thank you very much. Then I know I’ll pass my test the first time around.” But then his meanness kind of sapped my confidence when I was learning, because he’d laugh at my parking and say I looked over my shoulder too much and I shouldn’t be so fussy about my blind spot. I got my license, but the mad-skills thing was just a front. I never get to drive my parents’ van because one of them is always using it, and when I do drive, I get nervous, and hear Tully’s teasing voice in my head: “Ugh, Vicks, don’t be such a woman! Just change lanes!”
But I don’t want Jesse and Mel to think I’m anything less than stellar behind the wheel—especially since Jesse herself is an annoyingly good driver. Usually. And I don’t want to question where we are because I don’t want to get into it with Jesse about what turn she made or didn’t make. We don’t need to get to Miami anymore anyway, because Brady doesn’t really want to see me and I don’t want to see Brady; so driving one way is pretty much the same as another.
We are all silent. We just listen to the rain, which hammers the windshield with little relief from the sluggish wipers.
Great. A toll booth. The signs never say how much you need until you’re right up next to that little metal basket and then you’re digging around in your pockets and the guy behind you is irritated because you’re so slow, and besides, I’ve only got three bucks left after the hot dog yesterday.
“Toll thing,” I say, to get Mel’s attention.
She seems to have gotten the hint after we made her buy the doughnuts this morning, and hands me two quarters from her change purse. It’s so wet out, I wait until we’re under the roof of the toll booth to try and roll down the window.
Ugh. The window won’t go down.
“Bang it under the handle,” Jesse says from the back. She says it like I should know it.
I bang.
It still won’t go down.
“No, you gotta wiggle waggle it before you turn it.”
I try. No luck.
A guy in some monster-size pickup has pulled up behind me, and he’s honking.
“No, you’ve got to bang, then right away wiggle waggle. No pause in between.”
I bang, wiggle waggle, roll. The window opens. But we are way too far from the metal bucket where you’re supposed to throw your change. And I cannot do crap with my left hand. Really. Tully and Jay are always teasing me about it. “Throw past Vicks on the left,” they’d tell their buddies when we all played basketball. “She’ll never block it.” It’s even evident in the kitchen at Waffle House. T-Bone can pour pancakes with his left while he flips eggs with his right. But not me.
The toll is fifty cents. I toss the first quarter in the direction of the metal basket. It hits the pavement. Damn.
I unhook the seat belt, open the door, and look for the quarter on the ground.
Can’t see it.
“Just throw another one,” says Mel, handing me another quarter while looking at the truck behind us. “It doesn’t matter.” How can she be so calm?
I close the car door and throw the next one, which goes in. But the third one hits the edge and bounces out again. I am starting to sweat.
The guy behind us honks again.
Damn.
I open the door a second time to scout around the ground for those two quarters that didn’t go in. Where did they go? I can’t see them. Just asphalt and a few cigarette butts. Are they under a wheel?
Honk. HONK.
I’m not asking Mel for yet another quarter. Even though she said she’d pay for stuff, it’s another thing to keep giving coins to a person who is throwing them into the middle of the road like a complete fool. So I step out of the car, get down on my knees, and look underneath it.
Honk. HONK.
I can’t stand it. I get back in the car, slam the door, step on the gas, and drive through the red light.
“What are you doing?” screams Jesse. “We can’t go through without paying!”
“That guy was honking at me,” I explain.
Damn. Maybe Tully was right about me. Maybe driving like a girl is as lame as he thinks it is, and maybe I do cower in the face of monster pickups. Hell, I can’t even toss a quarter into a toll basket.
“Stop driving. Pull over,” Jesse commands. Although we are back in the torrents of water, I do what she says. The honker in the pickup drives past us. “Since when do you run through a toll booth, Vicks?” Jesse barks. “What are you thinking?”
“We tried to pay,” I say. “We left three quarters instead of two, even.”
“But they’re not in the basket!” yells Jesse. “I’m going to get a ticket! We’re gonna get in even more trouble than we already are. What if my mom calls the police and has them trace the license plate for a stolen car and now we’re caught on the hidden camera?”
“I tried to pay the toll,” I say. “I didn’t run through on purpose. That guy was honking at me.” It sounds stupid, even as I say it.
“Look,” says Mel calmly. “Let’s go back and pay it now.”
“I can’t reverse on the highway!” I cry. “There’s like no visibility. Someone’s going to drive right into me while I’m going backward!”
“Well, if you just walk back there and pay the toll,” Jesse says, “they won’t know what license plate it’s for.”
“Use your cell camera,” says Mel. “Take a picture of the car and of you paying the toll, that way you’ll have proof you went back and paid if they send you a ticket.”
“What planet are you on?” I say. “I don’t have a cell camera.”
“Oh.” Mel looks startled.
“Do you have one?” I ask her. “Use yours.”
“I lost my phone,” Mel says.
Since when?
Jesse’s breathing fast. “I can’t get two tickets in less than twenty-four hours. Mama’s already going to kill me.”
Mel has a new idea. “I know. We make the security camera work for us!”
“How?” I ask.
“We run out, find the camera, look at it, hold up a little sign with the license plate number on it, and put in a quarter.”
“Do we even have another quarter?” I ask.
Mel roots around in her purse and hands me three nickels and a dime. Jesse finds a pad of paper and writes the license number on it in lipstick.
I pocket everything and step into the downpour.
We are silent again when I’m back in the driver’s seat. Mel thoughtfully put a towel underneath me, but I’m shivering and damp and I can hardly see the road.
“I need another doughnut,” I say, squinting through the windshield.
“Me too,” says Mel. “Can you please just call a truce and eat doughnuts for a few minutes without any more arguing?”
“All right,” says Jesse. And if she can say “all right,” then I can too.
“All right,” I say.
Jesse hands up doughnuts from the back and we all three eat, driving ten miles an hour through the storm.
“Wanna play a car game?” Mel asks.
“Like what?” I ask.
“Um…free association?”
“Explain.”
“I say a word, then Jesse says the first word she thinks of, then you say the first word you think of, and we go around.”
“Yeah, okay,” says Jesse.
“Can I start?” I ask.
“Sure.”
Me: “Doughnut.”
Mel: “Naughty.”
Jesse: “Sticky.”
“No, Jesse,” Mel interrupts. “You’re still thinking about doughnut. You have to clear your mind and only think about naughty.”
“Okay,” says Jesse. “Sorry. Do-over.”
Me: “Doughnut.”
Mel: “Naughty.”
Jesse: “Repent.”
Me: “Regret.”
“Wine coolers,” Mel says. “Yeah, I know that’s two words, but it’s my game so I make the rules.”
“Ooh, wine coolers, huh? Now where did you get that idea?” I ask.
Mel bites her lip. “Unfortunately, last night was not the first time I’ve had more than is good for me.”
“Do we get to hear that story?” I ask.
“No.” She laughs. “We’re playing the game! Jesse, your turn. Wine coolers.”
Jesse: “Bad breath.”
Me: “Garlic.”
Mel: “Vampires.”
Jesse: “Bite marks.”
Me: “Hickeys.”
Mel: “Band-Aids.”
“You did not cover your hickey with a Band-Aid!” I shriek.
“I had to! It was so obvious,” Mel confesses. “But I’ve only had one hickey.”
“Let’s move on,” Jesse says. “Peroxide.”
Me: “Hair.”
“Did you really peroxide your hair?” asks Mel. “I hear that’s so bad for it.”
“I tried,” I tell her. “But it didn’t work. I ended up getting the frost-and-tip and leaving it on for twice as long as the box told me to.”
“Wow.” She fingers her own brown hair. “I would never have the guts.”
“It’s just hair,” I tell her. “It grows back.”
A silence follows. “Hey, you guys?” I say eventually. “I’m sorry I messed up the toll booth thing.”
“S’okay,” mutters Jesse. “I’m sorry I stole the car.”
My cell vibrates. We’re only going ten miles an hour, and I can tell it’s not Brady. It’s some number from Niceville, but one I don’t know. I hit “accept.” “Hello?”
“Is this Victoria?”
“Depends who’s asking.”
“This is Twyla Fix, Jesse’s mama.”
“Hello there, Ms. Fix,” I say.
Even though I know she’s probably pissed as shit, her voice still has that bounce in it, the one that makes Abe at the Waffle House blush. I’m tempted to hand the phone to Jesse, because I’m still mad at her, car game or no car game. But then I look back over my shoulder and see her waving frantically that she won’t—she can’t—speak to her mama, and she’s my best friend even if she did call me a sinner.
“Is Jesse with you?” asks Ms. Fix. “I need to talk to her real bad.”
“Oh, she just went off to pick up stuff for lunch with our friend Mel, you know, the hostess at the Waffle? And my boyfriend, Brady,” I lie, my voice sounding like a straight-A, student-government good girl. “Brady’s taking us on a tour of the school.”
“Where are you?”
“Brady goes to the University of Miami, you remember, I told you when you took me and Jesse to Applebee’s? He’s on the football team and he’s taking anthropology,” I say, to make him sound respectable. “We’re going to have a picnic down by the ocean, if the weather holds. Doesn’t that sound nice, Ms. Fix?”
“You girls okay in that car with the storm?” she asks. “Where are you sleeping?”
“We’re okay. We got a hotel across the street from campus,” I tell her. “Mel’s mom and dad gave her money for it. She has a credit card and everything. Don’t worry, it’s a nice clean place. Parents stay there when they come visit their kids at college.”
“I really gotta talk to Jesse. You know when she’s coming back?”
“The sandwich shop is kind of a ways from here. Could be half an hour, an hour? I can have her call you back if you want.”
“Do you know she left me without any way to get to my job?” Ms. Fix says, beginning to sound irritated. “Do you know I had to catch me the bus going all over town to look for her, and then was late to work and got docked an hour’s pay? Do you know I was up half the night, waiting for her to come home?”
“No, ma’am,” I say. “I did not know that. I’m so, so sorry if I caused you any problems. You know I begged her to take me down to see Brady. I miss him so much now that he’s in college, I just begged her and begged her to take me here. Jesse’s the loyalest friend, Ms. Fix. You should be really proud of her. She took off work to help me and everything.”
Mel is giggling into the fabric of her T-shirt and Jesse is staring out the window with her hand over her mouth, looking like tragedy just struck.
“Well,” says Ms. Fix. “I’m not happy with her. Do you understand me, Vicks?”
“Oh, I do,” I say. “But really, I take responsibility for everything. I just missed my boyfriend so bad and I had to, had to see him. You know how that is, don’t you?”
I say it like I’m lying. But it’s true.
Ms. Fix sighs on the other end. I can hear a dog barking. “My break’s over,” she says. “I gotta go.” She pauses. “You’re young and in love, huh?”
I swallow hard. “Yes, ma’am.”
“That’s a great thing, first love,” she says. “You treasure it now, you hear?”
“I sure will.” I was trying not to giggle before, but now I’m trying not to cry.
“I want Jesse calling me the second she gets back.”
“I’ll tell her,” I say.
Ms. Fix hangs up and I wipe my eyes on the bottom of my sodden T-shirt. “She’s off your back for an hour or two, at least,” I tell Jesse.
“I owe you,” she says.
“That’s for damn sure,” I say. “Hey, do we have any water?”
“You’re kidding, right?” Jesse says. She gestures out the window at the deluge.
“Hey, I’m thirsty,” I say. “Lying for your friends takes it out of a girl.” Really, I just want to get rid of the lump in my throat.
Mel looks around on the floor of the front seat and shakes her head. “Anything in the backseat?”
“Just a half-empty bottle of orange juice that’s been sitting here since yesterday,” Jesse reports.
“Gross.”
“Isn’t there anywhere to pull over and buy something?” asks Mel.
“Nope. All I can see is rain. Rain again. And then more rain,” I answer. “At least it’s not another hurricane.”
“What letter are they on now? G?” Jesse wonders.
“Nah, we had Greg offshore a few weeks ago. Didn’t make it inland. Now we’re on H.”
“Um, guys?” Mel interrupts. “Could Harriet be the name of a hurricane?”
“Sure,” Jesse says. “They name ’em in alphabetical order. So the next one’ll be Harriet, or Helen. Something like that.”
“They were talking about a Harriet in Dunkin’ Donuts,” Mel says. “Saying she was headed for Cocoa Beach and they wanted their relatives to leave town. But I just thought—”
“We’re in a hurricane?” I interrupt.
“Mel.” Jesse is serious. “Are you telling me you knew we were driving into a hurricane and you never said anything?”
“I didn’t realize what they meant,” Mel explains. “I thought they were talking about a cousin or a nasty old aunt or something. Mean Auntie Harriet.”
“You are so clueless,” moans Jesse. “This is dangerous. People’s houses get knocked over. Whole neighborhoods flood. Hello? Katrina?”
Mel starts blinking repeatedly, like she’s about to start crying. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I didn’t realize.”
“We have to get off the road,” says Jesse. “We can’t keep driving in this.”
And I want to do what Jesse says—but the water is coming down so hard I can’t see more than a foot in front of me—and the roof of the Opel is starting to leak.