Between one thing and the other I didn’t sleep well until I finally found some peace in the wee hours of the morning. The result was that I overslept; by the time I woke up, the sun was slanting through the curtains and the birds weren’t just singing, they were carrying on an unholy racket in the trees and bushes outside my window. I dragged myself into the bathroom and stood under the needle-sharp spray of the shower until I felt prepared to face the day. Thank God for Derek; when I first moved in, there had been no shower in Aunt Inga’s house, just an old, footed bathtub, and for most of the summer, I’d had to be content with soaking my troubles away. It just wasn’t the same.
Feeling better, I dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved shirt of my own design, with a pattern of stylized black and white poodles against a pink background-my take on the traditional 1950s poodle skirts. Derek had said the truck would still be where I parked it yesterday, in the lot behind his apartment, so after eating a bowl of cereal and a banana, I headed down the hill again.
The truck was right where Derek had said it would be, and when I fished under the mat, there was the key, as well. The engine turned right over, and a minute later I was navigating my way down Main Street toward the inland road.
Waterfield sits right on the water, although not right on the ocean. Unlike the coast from New Jersey down to Florida, with its miles upon miles of sandy beaches, the New England coast is rocky and craggy, full of small islands, coves, and inlets. Waterfield is situated at the end of one of the latter, a sort of natural harbor surrounded by rocks and sheer drops. There are three main roads heading out of town. The Atlantic Highway runs northeast, up along the coast toward Wiscasset, Thomaston, and, ultimately, Rockland and Belfast. To the west, that same road eventually merges with I-295 toward Portland. That was the way to Barnham College and the house on Becklea. In addition, there’s also another, smaller road heading pretty much due north from downtown, past Augusta, until it peters out somewhere in the wilds of Canada. I’d never been up that way, and had no plans to go now. Instead I turned the nose of the truck due west, and stepped on the gas.
Living in Manhattan doesn’t give a person a whole lot of opportunity to practice one’s driving skills, what with the ready availability of subways, buses, and cabs. The cabbies are disinclined to share the wheel with their passengers, and my ex-boyfriend Philippe had been almost equally disinclined to lend me his beloved Porsche for practicing purposes. I knew how to drive, but I wouldn’t call myself a seasoned, or even particularly comfortable, driver. For the first few minutes of the drive, both yesterday and today, I kept a white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel and my eyes peeled for any sign of trouble. Once I left the more congested downtown area and turned west, away from the sun and ocean, I felt a little more comfortable: enough to relax until my back actually connected with the seat behind me.
It’s not a long drive out to Becklea. Derek had made it in ten minutes flat the other night, when we realized we’d forgotten the cats, and Brandon had probably matched that record yesterday morning, after he heard about the bones. Mostly, the road is a wide two-lane highway, the speed limit around forty once the major construction of the downtown area is left behind. I was moving along at a good clip, feeling more and more comfortable with every mile that passed. The radio was tuned to a local station, and I was singing along with Bruce Springsteen as I crested the hill above Devon Highlands.
The road dips right there; not much-no more than a three or four percent incline, maybe-but enough that I got uncomfortable with the way the heavy truck was picking up speed and felt a need to slow down. There was a big ditch off to my right, between the road and the construction zone, and down at the bottom of the hill, the road turned, just beyond the entrance to the new subdivision. Directly in front of me were the impressive brick gates I had noted the other day, beside the so-much-more-than-life-sized billboard of Melissa’s smiling face. Coming up the hill in the other lane was a yellow school bus. And when I stepped on the brakes, they didn’t respond.
11
It was a terrifying moment, pushing the brake pedal all the way to the floor of the truck and getting no response. If anything, the car went faster; picking up speed as it accelerated down the hill.
I had maybe a second to decide what to do, and that’s not much time. If I continued straight ahead, I wasn’t certain I’d be able to make the turn at the gates. The truck was a monster, and if something was wrong with the brakes, the power steering might be kaput, too. There was a chance, a good chance, that I’d get to the bottom of the hill and smash straight into those impressively laid bricks. If I did, I might survive, but it was by no means a sure thing. The truck had airbags, yes, but I doubted they were tested for a frontal collision with approximately a ton of bricks and mortar at high speed. There was also the chance that I’d lose control of the car before I reached the bottom of the hill, and careen over into the other lane and hit the school bus. That would be even worse. The third option was to get off the road now, before anything bad could happen. Or anything too bad. (Option four, which was to open the door and jump out into the middle of the road, I discarded. If the fall didn’t kill me, the school bus would.) So I did the only thing I could think of and started looking for a likely spot to turn the car off the road. Somewhere where the ditch wasn’t as deep as it was in other places. Somewhere where I might actually survive the accident I caused.
Fleetingly, Derek crossed my mind. Not because my life was flashing in front of my eyes-I was too busy keeping my eyes peeled to see anything but the ditch to my right-but because we’d discussed my driving the truck only yesterday. I could hear his voice saying, “It’s just a truck.” And then I could hear him say, “If you drive it off the road, you’ll have to walk here from Waterfield every morning.”
Dammit, I thought as I wrenched the wheel to the right with all the strength I could muster, here we go; if I survive this, I’ll have to hitchhike from now on!
The tires bumped over the gravel shoulder, then the truck dipped, nose first, into the ditch. The impact was horrific: from sixty to a dead stop in a matter of a second. The front end of the truck buried itself in loose dirt and mud. I fell forward with a shriek, held up by the seat belt stretched across my chest.
Blessed silence fell, mingled with my own painful breaths. After a few seconds, I fumbled the key around in the ignition and shut the engine off.
Behind me on the road, I heard the sound of squealing brakes and then rapid footsteps thudding across the blacktop. A round face, eyes enormous and mouth open in a horrified circle, appeared in my window.
“Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Are you OK? Oh, my God!”
It was the school bus driver, a middle-aged woman in jeans and a red sweatshirt, her brown hair standing out around her pale face. She wrenched at my door, yanking it open. I cleared my throat, painfully.