Page 53 of Catcher's Lock

“We don’t really care if he wants to crash for a while,” Geoff continues, ignoring me. “But if he keeps drinking all of our tequila, he’s gonna need to start coughing up some cash.”

Rachael sighs. “I’ve got a better idea.”

Which is how I find myself strapped in the passenger seat of her Honda Civic half an hour later, watching the space-station lights of the Bay Bridge strobe past overhead. She’s got the windows cracked, and cold, briny air whips through the small car, carrying the scent of her apple-flavored vape out into the night. Nineties hip-hop thumps from the stereo, the factory speakers buzzing in tinny protest.

Memory wraps its dark wings around me, and for a moment, I’m fifteen again, back in the Garrity trailer. It was one of those rare times when Josha’s dad was playing at getting sober, and he and Diane had gone out to dinner, leaving their four children—and me—to fend for ourselves. We’d pushed the coffee table and easy chair against the walls, clearing the living room to make an impromptu dance floor, and spent the night screaming at the top of our lungs about smokin’ indo, high on youth and freedom and the electric charm of our own importance.

“Where—” A rush of bile clogs my throat, and I hastily crank the window to hawk a sour glob down the outside of the Civic’s door. “Where are you taking me?”

“Are you gonna hurl?” Her eyes flick nervously to my face. “Because I can’t pull over in the middle of the bridge.”

“No.” Swallowing, I lean my head against the seat belt and struggle to corral my sluggish thoughts. We’d take the Golden Gate to get to Mendo, so this can’t be a misguided rescue attempt. “All my shit was back there.”

“You mean your duffel bag of dirty laundry? It’s in the back.”

“Rachael.” I fix her with a stern look. Or at least I try to. My head is fuzzy, and my eyes are having trouble focusing past the halogen smears assaulting them from all sides.

“Oh, calm down. I didn’t call your parents. We’re going to Nevada City. Hannah’s new boyfriend is loaded, and he rented us an Airbnb up by the Yuba River.”

“I thought Hannah was at some school in Oregon?”

“Seattle. And it’s spring break.” She gives me another one of those studying looks. “Isn’t that why you’re here?”

“I’m here because you kidnapped me.”

“Does Josha know?” she asks, brushing off my comment and going straight for the kill.

“What do you think?”

Cackling, she bounces in her seat, and the car swerves in a way that would probably concern me if I were sober.

“He’s gonna freak when he sees you.”

“Yeah.” Turning back to the window, I suck in another breath of cold air. “Got anything to drink?”

“There’s half a twelve-pack under the seat behind you. But wait until we’re out of the city.”

Fuck that. I twist around to fish a lukewarm can from the cardboard case and then pop the tab.

“Dick.”

“You want one?”

“Not till we’re out of the city.” She taps her nails on the steering wheel and takes another pull off her vape. “Did you hear about Candaceand the rent-a-cop in Golden Gate Park?”

For the next couple of hours, she fills the car with mindless gossip about old friends from high school, her classmates in the fashion program at SFCC, the professor who’s trying to fuck her, and some drama with Jeremy and his soccer coach.

When she starts going off about how Byrd Baardwijk—a friend of my parents and the Cirque du Soleil recruiter who wrote one of my ENC recommendations—followed his boyfriend Echo halfway around the world like some character from a romance novel, I shove my earbuds in and pretend to fall asleep.

“We’re here,” she says, an interminable time later. “Grab your shit.” Without waiting to see if I comply, she snags her purse from the floor at my feet and disappears up the steps into the house. I follow slowly, head tipped to the sky. Here in the foothills of the Sierras, without the ocean haze, the stars hang low enough to brush the treetops, and the Milky Way carves a blazing path through the dark.

The night breathes around me, the whispered rustlings of tall trees and small, furtive animals—country sounds I didn’t even realize I’d missed—and some of the dull tension unwinds inside me.

Maybe…

“Wait till you see who I found slumming around the city.” Rachael’s voice breaks my reverie, and I push open the door with a sigh.

Hannah and a blond guy with linebacker shoulders and a “Save the Redwoods” T-shirt are sitting on the couch, a deck of cards spilled across the coffee table in front of them. The older Garrity twin jumps to her feet at my entrance, a smile breaking over her face, but I only have eyes for the guy sprawled against the leather ottoman at her feet.