I paused outside, on the edge of the vast parking tundra, and realized I had little notion of the van’s location. As far as I could see, vehicles in every direction were jammed together in the dark, their soft forms only hinting at the SUV, the minivan, the Lexus. The wind blew in sudden gusts, and I put on the big violet coat. Its majestic heft and length to my ankles clearly signaled its questionable origins. I began weaving through the parking slots, my earlier agility replaced by a slow, erratic muddle. People brushed by me, some actually shoving me out of their way, anxious to get beyond my presence. The weird kid in a woman’s fat coat without a clue as to where his car was parked was too pathetic to be funny. Who hasn’t been in that situation, searching the Alligator lot for another generic automobile? Laugh at your own peril; boomerang karma has been known to bite the ass within seconds of the mean thought, the insult, the mockery. I buried my head inside the coat’s ample hood, a poofy apparition damned to wander the vast wastes of the Rosedale tundra.
I was lost.
Chapter Six
I wandered for about an hour, trying to keep a level head in spite of the confusion, my eyes smarting with tears of frustration. As it grew late, the cars thinned out. I must’ve traversed the Alligator lot several times when I saw in the distance the yellow-and-black markings of an approaching wild feline, oddly out of context, as if it had somehow teleported itself from some tropical jungle to this frigid wasteland, perhaps to rescue me from certain death by freezing and starvation. The leopard before me could only mean Pia, in her new coat.
“What a sweet bonehead!” she said, holding me in a warm embrace for several moments. She then turned me around and pushed me ahead so that I was trudging still blindly but guided by her sharp pokes.
Magic aside, I do know a miracle when I’m found in the middle of the tundra. Ahead of me now, our van awaited. I slid the door open, cracking its frozen track, clambered onto the front seat with Pia, and started the engine. The car was an icebox, but I managed to stay warm inside my new coat until the heater kicked in.
We clambered over the front seats and settled snugly in back, ducking below window level. A soft glow from the parking-lot lamp shone in through the steamed windows. It was enough light to study Pia’s coat, an extravagant faux-fur item to midthigh, reminiscent of a Hollywood streetwalker. Though I’d never seen one, prostitution as a lifestyle and an avocation was one of my interests. I took to whores intuitively, finding common ground with their subversion of the established order, their pursuit of style, their lack of ambition.
“Great look,” I said. The yellow was a nice relief from her goth palette.
“Thank you,” she said. She poked me again, this time on the chest. “Yours is a fine choice as well. Purple suits you.”
“It’s violet, actually.”
“Why, yes, it is!”
Then, out of her coat’s deep pockets, she pulled handfuls of goodies. “I went foraging while you tried to gather your wits.” She laid out some favorites on the seat: Reese’s Pieces, Gummi Bears, Cracker Jack. And that was just dessert. Pia had found us a half-consumed tub of fries with two ketchup packets, the remains of a Domino’s pizza, a nearly full tray of nachos generously topped with cheese goop. She even had a handful of paper napkins, which she spread on the seat as place mats. To drink, we were to share a gigantic cherry slushy. In the presence of such abundance, warmed now by the van’s engine, it was easy to forget that out there on the freeways, our names were crackling through the airwaves.
“Well, are you going to eat or what?” she said.
“You first,” I offered.
“Too disgusting for you?” she sneered. “It’s all fresh leftovers.”
I ate happily. Candy, pizza rinds, nachos. I skipped the fries, which had grown cold and limp. All in all, it was a more successful Thanksgiving meal than what had been attempted at home.
Contented as we slurped the last of our slushy, Pia and I spread out, resting our backs at either end of the backseat, our legs stretched along the length of the cushion. I reached over the front seat and turned off the ignition. Once the mall closed, the blowing exhaust would attract attention. Unoccupied, the van was one more vehicle stranded in a parking lot. It could be days before anyone decided to investigate and call the tow truck. Meanwhile, I imagined the search continuing unabated on the roads. Our parents were not likely to give up on their vanished children. Or the ’Tute on its missing patients. Of course they would find us. The suspense was all about when. And how.
I scanned the radio for news until I hit KTOK. We got Fred Heller, but there was no mention of runaway kids. I never thought Fred knew much of anything.
“The sounds of home,” Pia said. “Dad’s a Heller kind of guy, and Mom’s a Martha Stewart gal. Can you believe that in this day and age they get their sense of the world from a wing nut? Heller parrots that shit all the time. Conspiracies, acts of treason, porn, teens amok, God endangered, gays ganging up, guns going going gone. If you’re really desperate over the state of the world, you make Christmas cookies in the shapes of angels and stars. And they think I’ve fallen in with the wrong crowd.”
“That would be me?”
“Nah, I am everybody else’s parents’ idea of bad company.”
“If your thoughts could be seen …”
“They’d put my head in a guillotine.” Pia was suddenly grave. “Can they read your mind?”
“At Loiseaux’s?”
“Yeah.”
“Nobody can see inside your head, Miss Entropia.”
“I thought they had some techniques that make you blurt things out.”
“They do,” I said. “But you can fool them. You can make stuff up. They look at your brain-wave patterns and they know something’s up. The squiggles and spikes show you’re disturbed. Then you get some fine pills.”
“You like it there.”
“You adjust,” I tried to reassure her. “You work the system. Special dietary considerations. Extra meds. Late-night parties in your room.”
“You’ll be expelled for stealing the van.”
“Probably not. Our little adventure makes us a fascinating challenge. Plus, they wouldn’t want to give up the fees.”
“We’re lucky our parents are rich.”
True. My only exposure to the misery of the world had been as a spectator.
“Have you ever thought you might be one happy kid if they died?” Pia’s voice had softened to a whisper.
“I love my parents.”
“I could probably kill mine.”
“For money?”
“For air.” She snapped her fingers. “Just like that, as soon as they stopped breathing the house would fill with oxygen. Whoosh. When they’re both around, I can hardly breathe. They watch my every move, listen in on my conversations, tap my phone, my computer, my closet. They took everything away when they called Loiseaux. I’m totally adrift. But at least I can breathe.” She opened a window and an icy blast swooshed into the van. “I