Infinity + One

“I apparently just scared you too,” Clyde muttered, lifting his feet back to his own side of the cab and pulling his hat back down over his forehead.

“Why am I scaring you?” I asked, and my voice cracked.

“You’re sitting there smiling at nothing. It’s creepy.”

“It wasn’t nothing. It was something.” I shrugged. “How long was I asleep?”

“A while. By the time I got off in Chelsea, turned around, and came back across the bridge into Boston, you were dead to the world. It took me almost an hour to get out of Boston—there was some big event getting out at the TD Garden, I guess. Traffic was horrible. I drove for another couple of hours, and I pulled off here about an hour ago to close my eyes.”

I tried not to wiggle in my seat. That traffic jam around the TD Garden was all my fault.

“Where’s here?” I asked.

“We’re just off the Mass Pike just about to cross into New York.”

“So we’re still in Massachusetts?”

“Yeah. But not for much farther.” He was silent, staring forward. And somehow I knew what he wasn’t saying. We were still in Massachusetts, so I could still turn back.

“I’ve never been outside of Massachusetts,” he volunteered suddenly, surprising me. “This will be a first for me.” He turned his head toward me slowly. “How ‘bout you?” And he waited, holding my gaze.

“A first for me too. I mean, first time in Massachusetts.”

“How long were you here?”

“What time is it?”

Clyde checked his watch, tipping the clock face this way and that to catch the paltry light from one of the street lamps rimming the rest area parking. Nobody wore watches anymore. But Clyde apparently did. “Four a.m.”

“Well, then I guess I’ve been in Massachusetts about twenty-four hours.” We had rolled into Boston early yesterday morning in our cavalcade—a bus for me and Gran and all the people necessary to make Bonnie Rae Shelby beautiful, a bus for the band and the sound crew, a bus for the back-up singers and dancers, and two semis filled with the sound equipment and all the staging. The Bonnie Rae Shelby Come Undone Tour was a huge undertaking. And I’d managed to come undone with just a sweatshirt, boots, and a pair of jeans. And Bear’s hat. Don’t forget that. I could have told my record label that we didn’t need all that other stuff.

Clyde swore long and low, making the one syllable word into several. “What in the hell happened in the space of twenty-four hours to make you want to take a plunge into the Mystic River?”

“Maybe I wouldn’t have jumped,” I said after a long silence, not knowing what else to say without spilling my whole life story.

“You did jump. But that wasn’t the question, Bonnie,” Clyde said softly.

“That’s the only answer I’ve got, Clyde.”

“Then you and I are gonna have to part ways.”

“Say that again.”

“You and I are gonna have to part ways,” Clyde repeated firmly, his gaze steely in the murky light.

“I like your accent. You don’t say part. You say pat. Say it again.”

“What the hell?” Clyde sighed, throwing his hands in the air.

“Now that, that didn’t sound very cool,” I said. “You say it just the way I say it. What the hell!” I yelled. “See? Exactly the same.”

“I don’t need this,” Clyde muttered under his breath and ran his big hand down his face. He wouldn’t look at me, and I knew I’d blown it. When would I learn to just shut up? I always tried to lighten things up and change the subject when things got uncomfortable or I was nervous. It was how I dealt. When Minnie got sick, I spent my days trying to make her laugh. Trying to make them all laugh. And when I couldn’t make them laugh anymore, I let Gran talk me into “helping out” in a different way, making money. Which reminded me. I held up Gran’s purse.

“I’ve got cash. I can pay you to take me to Vegas.” I pulled a wad of bills out of Gran’s wallet and waved it toward him, fanning his face, and his eyes widened.

“There’s no way you’re twenty-one,” he said, pushing my hand away. “What are you, twelve?”

“I was born on March 1, 1992,” I said, my voice rising with his. “There’s an answer for you. What other answers do you need?”

“Nobody who’s twenty-one years old would wave a stack of cash like that in front of a stranger’s face. You are completely vulnerable, you realize that, don’t you? I could take your money, push you out of my car, and drive away. And that isn’t the worst thing I could do! What you just did, there? Not smart, kid. Not smart!” He was flabbergasted, angry even. I knew he was right. I’d never been smart. Gran said so. That’s why I sang, because singers didn’t have to be smart.

“You’re right. I’m not smart. I’m as dumb as a fence post. And I need a ride.” My voice wobbled pathetically and that seemed to work much better than trying to distract him or make him laugh.

Clyde groaned and rubbed his hand down his face once more. “You have money—plenty of it from the looks of it. Why don’t you rent a car?”

“I don’t have my driver’s license with me or my credit cards.”

“So take a bus!”

“Someone might recognize me,” I answered immediately and then wished I hadn’t.