B.C. Johnson - Deadgirl

I shot between two more cars into another lane, then another, cutting across the parking lot in a way no car could compete with. I could hear the Lincoln far behind me on the other side of the lot, trying to navigate the twisting lanes at speed while at the same time trying to figure out which lane I was in.

I cut across the rest of the parking lot and rode down the driveway. The handlebars jumped in my hand as I came off the curb, and the front wheel tried to twist and buck me. I yanked one way, then the other, just barely maintaining my balance and only just preserving my skull from a high-speed fracture.

Hey, Ma, look at me. Regular BMX superstar.

I cut across every lane of traffic and flew up the driveway of a closed-down strip mall. The street was only lightly busy—a car every ten to twenty seconds, and I didn’t need any hair-raising, death defying stunts to get across. Which I was glad for, because any stunts of mine on a bike would only shortly thereafter be followed by epic failure and death.

I raced around the strip mall through back alleys and other places way too small for any car, much less a Lincoln. Had my would-be-murderer been rolling in a Smart Car, I might have had some work on my hands.

The man-in-white’s face floated through my mind, twisted and screaming and pouring smoke out of his eye, while I stashed the bike away in my dad’s shed and marched up the steps of the back door. I was hot, sweaty, and my hair probably looked equal-parts wind-blown and greasy. I went to the kitchen sink first to wash my hands and splash some water on my face.

When I turned around, Dad was walking into the kitchen. I glanced up at the clock—9:30. Oh crap.

“Lucy,” Dad said, and leaned against the wall. His white dress shirt was half-in half-out of his slacks, and he looked exhausted.

“Hey, Dad,” I said, trying to sound perky. It wasn’t hard with the adrenaline cranking my heart up to a thousand beats a minute. “Rough day?”

Dad smirked. “Why, thank you. You look pretty put-together yourself.”

I curtsied.

“Yeah,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. He was small-talking, it was obvious. He’d work his way somewhere soon though, I knew. “Just really behind. Damn internet shouldn’t even be connected to my work computer.”

“I dig that,” I said. “My Journalism class is the same way.”

Dad nodded. He’d been working from home for a good ten years now, and he knew the dangers inherent with it very well. Not being at work, having access to the fridge, the internet, video games, DVDs, books, and movies made actually working painfully difficult. Still, he provided for most of the income with his essays and his articles, so it was hard to be mad at him.

The other danger from working at home was more insidious, we’d all come to realize. When you liked your job, it was hard to keep the line between work time and home time less-than-blurry. Sometimes Dad would work late into the night because he enjoyed it, but that left us without what you might call quality time.

And he looked like he’d been working overtime.

“You missed dinner again.”

He didn’t look happy to bring it up. My dad could be a hard ass, but if he was exhausted, getting mad was too much of an effort.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I just had a great ride.”

“Dinner?” he asked.

I sighed.

“Sorry, Dad.”

He made a face. “No, I meant, want to get dinner? I missed it, too.”

A wide grin spread across my face—I couldn’t help it.

“Is that why you’re being so lenient? Cause Mom busted you?”

“Your mother and I are a unit,” he said. “We come to agreements as one entity, and aren’t subject to petty squabbles.”

“You must really be in trouble,” I said and set my hands on my hips.

Dad’s lips twisted, and he nodded. He ran both hands through his ruffled hair in a failed attempt to smooth it back into its Ronald Reagan shape. He glanced at the hallway mirror, sighed, and yanked the bottom of his shirt completely out of his pants. It made him look less dressed up, but it also made him less disheveled. It… sheveled him? Hmm. Something to think about.

“Chinese?”

Dad nodded. “Perfect.”

I ran to my bedroom while Dad went to start the car. We were just heading out to grab a quick bite, but I had to do something about my appearance. Rat’s nest hair, beet-red face, hands shaking from extreme adrenalin poisoning. I looked like the bride of Dracula.

My sweatshirt came off right away—I was burning. I dabbed my face with a towel, trying to take off some of the sheen both my bike ride and the warmth had caused. If ladies don’t sweat, then I was doing a pretty damn good impression of whatever did.

I tried to run a brush through my hair, which ended in tugging painfully at a number of thick snarls until my eyes watered. I growled, grabbed an old blue baseball cap, and shoved it over my head. I pulled the rest of my hair through the hole in the back of the hat, trying to look intentionally sporty. It wasn’t half-bad.

I glanced in the mirror on my way out of my room. I didn’t look like hell anymore, but I didn’t look great. I’d fit alongside my exhausted dad. Besides, anyone who looks great at a take-out Chinese food joint at ten o’clock at night isn’t a good person anyway.

My dad’s car idled in the driveway—I ran across the grass and hopped into the open door. I slammed it shut behind me, snapped the belt buckle, and slumped in the seat. Only when I got outside, into the cold night, did I think of the man-in-white again. That ugly Lincoln of his was probably still prowling the streets, looking for me. I slid even further toward the floor.

Apparently Dad noticed.

“Too embarrassed to be seen with Daddy?”

I glared up at him from underneath the brim of my baseball cap. He flashed a roguish grin, turned the car around, and pulled out of our street. Stupid fathers. One minute you wanted to strangle them for being a suffocating jerk, and the next minute you wanted to strangle them for being an insufferable… boy .

I breathed a little easier when we pulled into the brightly lit parking lot of the Ralphs. We crossed the parking lot, and I tried my best not to look over my shoulder every three to five seconds.

We made it to the Chinese food place unmolested, and I was surprised when, after my dad ordered my usual, and he ordered his food and told the lady at the counter that it was, “For here, thanks.” He handed me my little plate of food on a bright red plastic tray, took one just like it, and lead me to one of the booths up against the wall.

I glanced around now—I hadn’t really processed the place when we’d walked in. To be honest, I had kinda zombied-out. Now that we were staying, I took a second to look. Only two other people—an older couple, around forty, sitting in one of the tables close to the window.

I set my tray down and slid into the booth. Dad slid across from me.

“For here?”

Dad shrugged. “I guess I fear the wrath of Mom. You know how she is about my salt intake.”

I rolled my eyes. “Mom left us to fend for ourselves. We can eat what we want.”

“Hear hear,” he said, clinked his plastic cup of Pepsi against mine, and took a swig. I joined him.

We ate in silence for a while, trying to avoid any dangerous small talk. Dad had to go on and ruin it anyway.

“Since when do you bike-ride, Luce Armstrong?”

I shrugged. “Just…I just wanted to get out. Get breathing. Get thinking, I guess, too.”

“Mmm-hmm,” Dad said, unhelpfully. The look on his face made promises of probing questions to come.

“Mom already gave me the anorexia talk,” I said, and poked a finger into my stomach. I wasn’t anything like fat, but I wasn’t anything like skinny either. “Trust me, I’m okay.”