“Hell, no. You can drop me off and go see Randy.” He laughed, popped open the glove box. “Let’s see what other music you have.” He rummaged through a couple of CDs and, as if he’d known it would be there, grabbed the bag of pot. “Jackpot!”
She reached for his hand. “That’s my fiancé’s.”
“Right,” he said. “The bad shit we got always belongs to someone else.” He found the papers, started rolling. “I’d say we could use a little something to relax,” he said. “I knew you were into this. Smelled it the minute I got in your truck.” He reached in her purse, took her lighter, and lit up.
She felt a tear slip down her face, wiped it with the back of her hand.
“Ah, don’t worry, girl. It’s not what you think. We’ve just got a little thing to do here.”
She heard the hissing sound when he inhaled. She squeezed the steering wheel as they descended from the bridge. Back on solid ground she felt she’d left the world she knew behind. It was happening. Her mother had warned her: “You only think you’re in control, Katy. With every little reckless thing you do . . .” Katy couldn’t remember the rest of the warning. But somewhere inside she’d always known something like this would happen one day. She was Dorothy suddenly lifted by a furious wind spinning her to a terrifying new place where good really did battle evil, where a rebellious girl’s only desire was to go home.
When Katy was a girl, she believed in Oz. The first time she saw the movie, she was five years old. On the overstuffed green sofa she leaned into her daddy’s side, ate popcorn, and sipped Coke. She sat transfixed when the black tornado rolled across the prairie and snatched up Dorothy’s house, sent it spinning in a world flying by with cows mooing, chickens flapping, the mean old lady furiously pedaling her bicycle as if anyone could really outrun a storm.
During the commercial she asked her daddy if a tornado really could lift her off to another land. “Most definitely,” he said.
She asked, “Do we have tornadoes in Tennessee?”
“Sometimes,” he said, “but you don’t have to worry about that. Our house is made of brick. Remember the wolf? He huffed and puffed and couldn’t blow the brick house down.”
Katy glanced at the man beside her, now looking at the CDs she kept between the seats.
“Cool; this old truck’s got a player.”
“I had it installed. This was my daddy’s truck.”
But he wasn’t listening. “You got lots of Marley.” He turned on the accent. “You like da ganja, lady. I got good ganja for you.” He held the joint out to her.
“I don’t want any pot,” she said. “I just want to get home.”
He was studying a CD cover. “Yeah, Bob Marley, he’s cool. Black folks, white folks, all kinds of folks dig Bob.” He tossed the CD to the floor and looked out the window. She realized Randy’s shirt was down on the floor. But she didn’t say anything. He was watching her every move, and when he caught her eye, he just grinned. “You believe that Rasta shit ’bout Haile Selassie? I’ve got these black friends I do some dealing with. They talk about Selassie like he was some kind of a god.”
She’d heard that. Most people didn’t know about the Haile Selassie connection. Most thought Rasta was just a smoke-dope-grow-dreadlocks kind of thing. “I’m not sure they think he’s a god,” Katy said. “More like a messenger, I think. But don’t real Rastas see a little bit of God in everything?”
Jesse laughed, his shoulders rocking as he watched the land go by. “Yeah, a messenger. I’m a messenger. Them Rasta dudes get high enough, I bet they see a little bit of God in me.” He turned, gave her that soft grin she’d seen when he’d first slipped into her truck. “What I mean is, we can all be messengers. We all got something the world needs to hear.”
“Yes,” she said, looking at the clock. She’d be home by dinnertime. Positive, she thought, think positive. The Lord didn’t give us a spirit of fear, but one of power and love and soundness of mind. It was scripture. Her mother kept it framed by her bedside table. Nice calligraphy, with a rose drawn in one corner. It was a pretty thing to wake up to, Katy guessed.
She thought of Dorothy, closing her eyes, petting little Toto, whispering, There’s no place like home. Yes, positive. They would take her truck and leave her, and she’d find her way to Randy’s house. He was always trying to get her to do reckless things, like take a plane to Vegas with him, Cancun. He lived the good life, all right. He called her a coward, teased her about being a good wife, said if she really had the nerve she liked to think she did, she’d say to hell with the good-wife thing. Maybe this guy jumping in her truck and asking her to take him out by Lake Waccamaw was a sign that Lake Waccamaw was where she was supposed to be. But she couldn’t shake the feeling that this guy was dangerous. Anyone could be dangerous. She glanced at him, tried to sound casual. “How about we stop somewhere for a six-pack? I could use a cold beer. Make it like a road trip.”
He laughed. “Drinking and driving. Don’t you know that’s against the law?” He smiled and waved the joint toward her. “Nah, we got this. You take me where I’m going, we’ll burn this together. Just you and me. Let Mike go tend his granny. You and me, we’ll do some shit. Then like Marley says, ‘Every little thing is gonna be all right.’”
“Mike? Who’s Mike?”
He looked at her. “Ronald Mike,” he said. “That’s his name. He likes to be called Mike, but I call him Ronald just to give him shit.” He kept his eyes on her. “Relax, girl. You’re going to Lake Waccamaw. You like the land out there. You like Randy. Now, why is it you really drive out there? Oh, yeah, the land, the lake, the sky, that’s right.”
“I do,” she said. “I love the easy pace. Yeah, I do like the land and lake and sky. I like to get away from the tourists. I like it where people know how to sit back, have a drink without sinning, look at the land and relax.”
“Is that what you want? A drink without sinning and relax? You’re just like all those other tourists.”
“No, I’m not,” she said. “You don’t know me.”
“Yeah, I do,” he said.
He looked at her, grinning. A guy with that kind of smile couldn’t be too mean, could he? No, he was just a little scary. “So you from here?” she asked.
He shook his head and stared out at the Datsun ahead of them.
“So where are you from?” she said again.
“Where am I from?” he said. “Let’s just call it burned bridges. You can understand that.”
Billy believed in burned bridges, said that was the only way you moved forward. He told her, “You’ve got to burn the past, leave it all behind.” He was talking about her daddy. But what he was really talking about was Frank. Billy was teaching her how to leave the past behind. If she could just choose him. Poor Billy didn’t have a clue about Randy. Billy didn’t have any idea he’d probably be one more burned bridge she left behind in time. “Billy,” she said. “My fiancé—I can tell you don’t like that word, but he likes to leave burning bridges behind too.”
He yelled, “I don’t give a damn about Billy, or Randy, or you, lady. I just want you to stay close behind that car and drive.”
She braked and pulled to the side of the road. “I’m not going any farther,” she said. “This doesn’t feel right. I’ve got other things to do.”
Jesse mashed the joint out on the dashboard. His eyes went dark. He turned, reached behind his back, then raised a gun between them. “Damn right you got things to do.” He poked the barrel of the gun into her ribs, but his face was casual, almost smiling.