Stealing Candy Read online

  He makes what I hope is a conciliatory grunt.

  “Where are we going? An abandoned warehouse? A drafty barn?”

  He makes another noise, but I still can’t tell if he’s warming up to me or not.

  “Is it money you want? I don’t get all the royalties until I’m eighteen. That’s almost two years from now. Oh, and I was serious: Wade couldn’t care less about me. Once, when I was little and crying, he told one of his assistants to ‘turn that thing off.’ Touching, huh?”

  Half Smile still doesn’t say anything, but I feel like he’s listening. This must be about Wade.

  “That guy, Cancer Stick. He looks really cracked out.”

  “Shh,” Half Smile says, but not very forcefully.

  “Isn’t this where I try to flirt with you or scream or something?”

  This time I think I hear a chuckle.

  I shift a little and realize my HD mini handheld is in my back pocket.

  Even with my hands taped and my vision blocked, I manage to take it out and start filming my surroundings. Maybe it will be evidence. Half Smile doesn’t say anything, so he’s obviously not watching.

  The door jerks open, and it startles me. I put the camera away quickly, praying he didn’t see it. Cancer Stick is breathing weird through his nostrils. I know I shouldn’t talk, but I have to. It’s automatic, like someone slipped a quarter into my slot.

  “If you’re going south, I’d go west first to get into upstate New York.”

  Cancer Stick lunges over the seat and punches me in the stomach. My breath is taken away for an instant, and I see flickering stars in the corners of my vision. Then I throw up.

  “I said, Shut UP. Or I’ll put you in the trunk.”

  “Hey,” Half Smile says. “We need her in one piece. Stop.”

  Now I can barely breathe, there’s vomit inside my mask, and I can’t stop my tears, which make my mask itch even more. It’s hard to get me speechless, but now I am. My whole head feels numb.

  What did Half Smile mean by in one piece? Alive, right? They can’t kill me. Please don’t let them kill me…

  We start driving again, and I picture the yellow dashes coming and going, marking more and more distance from NRS. Thoughts ricochet back and forth in my addled brain.

  Cancer Stick wasn’t even gone long enough to go to the bathroom, or was he? Maybe he was making a phone call I couldn’t listen in on. Something is going on with him. His vibe is so different than the driver’s. And he’s much older. Which one is my actual kidnapper? Is one of them just hired help? These things can go massively wrong. I could end up just another young body dumped on the side of the road.

  Here comes my heart again, slamming like someone locked in a room and desperately trying to get out. Whatever I threw up is now dripping off my neck onto the floor of the car. I listen to the engine and try to un-freak myself out. They obviously need me alive. Although Cancer Stick seems really volatile. In addition to the bad tattoo and the shaking pupils, I saw a scar on his face the size of a large fingernail, between his left eye to his ear. I bet he’s killed someone, like, for sport. Ransom. Panic Room. Both kids, both made it. Keep breathing.

  The radio gets turned on again, and it’s some vacuous pop song. I can almost picture the video, a Barbie-like chick with caked-on makeup, touching her body and lip-syncing, pouting like a child. Even though the song sucks, it takes me out of my head and I am happy for the distraction. But it doesn’t last long. My body is aching. My head still hurts, my throat is sore, and the vomit has mixed with my tears, both drying on my neck. Several miles later, they pull over again after Cancer Stick says he needs to go “number two.”

  “Number two?” I whisper to Half Smile after Cancer Stick once again leaves. “What is he, five?”

  Half Smile chuckles this time.

  “Looks like we got a comedian in here,” he says under his breath like he’s talking to himself.

  “Listen, you think I can get a breath of air, just while Cancer Stick is having potty time? This mask is itchy, and I’ve got puke on me. Where’s the mask from, anyway? Kmart? You could’ve splurged for Patagonia.”

  “I don’t know…”

  “Look. ‘Keep your friends close but your enemies closer.’”

  “What the…” I hear a slight gasp. “You know The Godfather?”

  “All of them by heart.”

  “Hmm,” he says, reconsidering me.

  “I’ve already seen you,” I say, even though I’ve mostly seen the other one.

  “OK, just for a minute.”

  I feel his hands, which are soft, not callused, peel up the mask to just above my mouth. My breathing gets easier, and I resist the urge to talk more. I can feel a charge in the air, but I’m not sure what it is. Is he studying me?

  “Look, don’t provoke him,” Half Smile says, wiping my mouth and neck with a rag.

  I nod, and we sit there in screaming silence. I have no idea what is going to happen to me, but I know that the simple act of him moving my mask up and wiping me clean means something. When I hear Cancer Stick’s footsteps getting closer to the car, my whole body stiffens, as if instinctually preparing for him to hit me again.

  The driver reaches over and slides the mask back down.

  Now I’m actually smiling underneath it.

  The car merges back onto the highway. I hear a crack of thunder in the distance and some crows cawing.

  My mother once told me that the road is a chance. I didn’t know what she meant, but it sounded nice. She died when I was seven. She had long arms that swayed when she walked and the kind of face you wanted to trust. She was a Black Angel groupie who ended up sticking around after Wade got her pregnant. She raised me in tour buses, backstage green rooms, and hotel suites. I loved how everything was always changing—it didn’t bother me because I never had a stationary life to compare it to.

  After she died, I was sent to live with my grandmother Rena in Oakland. When I arrived there, Rena met me at the door, handed me a rake, and told me to start on the leaves that were scattered across the lawn in front of her old Tudor house that smelled like mothballs and stale coffee grounds. “Nice to see you too,” I had said. To this day, the woman has never hugged me. She’s the queen of tough love. I call her Meana. The only time I saw her show emotion was when we watched I Am Sam and a single tear cut down her cheek. She intercepted it halfway with her pinkie finger like it had never happened.

  Still, I can picture her face when someone from school calls her, which they’re probably doing right now. She may even drop the vintage coffee cup that’s always in her hand. Though she’s lame at showing it, she’s the only one who actually cares about me. After that day of leaf-raking, I started watching the trains behind her house. It was the only thing that settled the whirlwind of my thoughts. I wish I could watch trains right now—or watch anything. If I try to open my eyes, all I can see is a close-up mesh of black fabric, a big blur.

  The radio gets switched again, and this time it’s some band from England, probably with a one-word name. I can tell from the singer’s voice that he’s got a wave of retro hair and is wearing skinny jeans. Predictable, but I listen, trying to escape again, if only for three minutes.

  Four songs later, we pull over and Cancer Stick gets out.

  What is he doing that he can’t do in the car?

  Still, I’m glad to be alone with Half Smile again.

  “Do you think I could just ride in the back like a normal person?” There’s desperation in my voice that doesn’t even sound like me. “If anything happens, I’ll pretend to be your little sister or something. I don’t want to go back to boarding school anyway. Especially if wherever we’re staying has HBO.”

  He barks out a laugh that I hope is genuine and not mocking me.

  A few minutes later, he says, “Hang on,” and gets out of the car to tal
k to Cancer Stick, who has returned. I can hear their conversation. Half Smile’s telling him I should just be a regular passenger, that he doesn’t think I’ll do anything stupid.

  “It looks wrong. Someone will notice,” he says.

  Cancer Stick makes an agitated noise that sends a shudder through me.

  “Fine, but if anything happens, I’ll make sure it won’t matter that she saw us, understand?”

  I feel a dark wave of nausea in my stomach as images from my life flicker inside the lids of my eyes. My mother’s delicate hands, the roads of America, the backstage food, the roar of crowds, the never-ending plains on each side of the bus, Fin and his dog, the trains in Oakland, Rena’s coffee-stained lips.

  I think about what I would leave behind if I died. A music video and a few films? Some legacy. No, there’s a lot more I have to do. And the first thing is to not let Cancer Stick kill me.

  They both get back in the car, and Half Smile moves me up into the seat. He doesn’t jerk me around like Cancer Stick, but he’s not exactly gentle.

  My mask gets ripped off, and I blink against the bright world.

  Cancer Stick gives me a cold, surly stare. The scar near his eye seems to be pulsing, and his pupils are now tiny, sunken almost all the way into the black hole of his eyes.

  I look over at Half Smile, who looks surprised. But honestly, I’m the one who’s surprised. His black hair falls in curved lines, and his eyes are such a light green that they look lit from behind. We stare at each other as he attempts to rip the duct tape off my wrist. It’s not coming off, so he bites it with his teeth. The tiny hairs on my arms bristle, and I take an involuntary sharp intake of breath.

  “Don’t fucking try anything,” he says.

  I’m not sure what my face is doing, but I try to be as serious as possible and nod.

  The road is a chance.

  Chapter 4

  As we drive, I can’t stop looking at Half Smile. He’s kind of rugged for a teenager, but also strangely elegant. His forearms are sinewy, with a soft pattern of light-brown hair. His lips are full and resting in a position that could be boredom, anger, sadness, or all three. His fashion choices are wrong in the right way: checkered shirt that’s too preppy for him and one of those H&M wraparound leather cuff bracelets that freshman wear.

  Cancer Stick keeps looking at me through the side mirror, his mouth a frozen, rigid line, his eyes half-dead. I move to the middle of the backseat to get out of his mirror’s view. Looking in the broken rearview, I feebly try to fix my hair, which has become matted by the mask and still has some puke in it.

  I was right—we’re heading south, entering the Mass Pike in Hartford, the random city of drug addicts and insurance salesman. As we go through the toll, I think about trying to signal the attendant. But what happens when I’m rescued? Back to NRS with the Borings? It is better now that I’m not bound on the floor. But what if Cancer Stick has another freak-out? I’ve seen it a million times in the movies. I glance at the reflection of the blurred trees in the window and then close my eyes. Is it weird to see this as an adventure, a vacation of sorts?

  I’ve actually never been on a vacation. Rena’s idea of one is going to the dilapidated movie theater in Oakland. Movies are the one thing we do together as a family, if you can call it that. Bitter, War-Torn Grandmother Bonds with Rejected Daughter of Rock Star. She likes chick flicks, believe it or not, but I don’t know how much she really understands. In English, she speaks two-word sentences. In Russian, she’s like a windup toy, blabbering a mile a minute, whether it’s to the bald guy at the corner store or her cousin who lives in Ohio. She never gave Wade much love either, which is probably why he’s not exactly running for Father of the Year. These things are cyclical.

  My nerves are still shot but also fueled by the complete unknown. It’s a crazy thought, but maybe I needed something like this to wake me up.

  “This is going to sound crazy, but it is nice to be away from school.”

  Cancer Stick looks back and squints at me, like he can’t believe I’m still talking.

  “I’m sorry, it’s my nerves. Talking helps.”

  “Yeah? Well, you can’t talk if you’re dead.”

  He says it seriously but also like it’s nothing.

  I move completely behind Half Smile and start counting the white dashes on the road. I’m thinking Cancer Stick was just talking out of his ass, but I’m not willing to find out. They’ve already taken off my mask, so I really should shut up.

  The day I was dropped off in Oakland, I was actually glad Rena made me rake the leaves. I felt useful. It took me hours, and when I was done, I thought maybe she’d cook me a meal or at least offer me a soda, but all she did was inspect the lawn and motion for me to come inside. There were stale, tasteless crackers and a hideous orange ball of cheese with sad little nuts clinging to it. “Wow, super gourmet,” I told her, and she just stared back at me, her lips pursed. To this day, Rena doesn’t get sarcasm.

  Cancer Stick lights another smoke, and I can feel his black eyes on me through the rearview. I should be freaking out. Crying or shaking like before—or screaming for help. I’m being kidnapped. The wild thing is, my heart is not only pounding with fear but also with a twisted freedom.

  We pull off the highway and up to a Burger King drive-through window. The clerk is a slightly effeminate kid with red hair and pudgy hands. As we order, he gives me a peculiar glance, like he’s not sure what I’m doing in this beat-up car with these two guys. Or maybe he just knows that, like him, I have spots and stripes. Yes, I go to a posh boarding school and he probably lives in lower-income housing, but we will always be the same. We are outsiders. We exist on the periphery.

  He gives us our food, and we pull over to the corner of the parking lot.

  It’s clear that Cancer Stick wants to do something. He doesn’t touch his burger. He’s fidgeting, his face is twitching, and tiny drops of sweat form a razor-thin line above his upper lip. I hope he’s not planning on robbing the Burger King or drowning me in a river. Cabin by the Lake—many drowned girls.

  Half Smile and I both eat with fervor while Cancer Stick gets more and more agitated. I watch him dump a sugar packet onto his tongue, and all of sudden I’m not hungry anymore. I’m scared. This guy is not playing mean or crazy. He is exuding it. I can almost smell it. Still, it’s completely addicting, the waiting for what will happen next. I wanted something different, and here it is.

  “So,” I say, “please tell me you’re not going to feed me to alligators or cut off one of my fingers.”

  Cancer Stick turns and says, “Shh,” really loudly, like he’s about to slap me again.

  “Sorry,” I whisper.

  Half Smile actually smiles fully, and it changes his whole face. He’s still handsome, but it makes him seem more vulnerable and less cool.

  Cancer Stick turns, giving Half Smile a cold glare.

  “Outside. Now.”

  They get out and begin talking next to the car. I don’t look at them, but I overhear Cancer Stick spit out Half Smile’s name: Levon. It’s exactly the type of name I pictured he had. There’s no way he would’ve been a Brian—or a Tom, even. A name like Levon suits him.

  After a minute, Cancer Stick slams his hand down on the top of the car, which makes me jump up in my seat. Some kids who had been playing run back inside their minivan. The argument turns into shouting, and then they’re suddenly still for a moment. I look over, expecting Cancer Stick to punch out Levon, but Levon reaches in his pocket and counts out a wad of bills. He holds it out to Cancer Stick, who grabs the cash and storms away. I sit back slowly, praying he’s gone for good.

  Levon gets in, sighs, then looks out the window, distracted. At the end of the parking lot, I watch Cancer Stick hail a cab.

  “Was that a good-bye?” I ask.

  “No. He needed to go get something.”

 
“Wow. I don’t even want to know what that might be.”

  Cancer Stick looks back at us before he gets in the cab. His black eyes seem to be searing directly into me. I lower my head.

  A few seconds later, Levon starts the car.

  Then he turns and looks at me like he’s really noticing me for the first time.

  He’s not smiling, but his eyes are alive.

  Chapter 5

  We drive past the industrial wasteland of south Hartford. Low concrete buildings, abandoned cars, bits of trash swept up by the swirling wind. I wonder if we are going to New York City. One time, I stayed in a suite above Central Park, and from the vantage point of a super-high floor, the trees looked like bunches of broccoli a giant would eat, the black ponds reflecting white, puffy clouds. It seemed so pastoral and at odds with the putrid smells on the street, the loud sirens and trucks, and people yelling at each other. For some reason, it seemed like everyone in New York was having an argument. But maybe they were just really loud.

  I held my mother’s hand supertight as we walked to the venue where my father was playing. During the performance, we were backstage as usual, except for the last song, when she would usually leave me with a guy they called Wigger. I’m not sure what his job was, except for hanging out with the band. He always gave me lollipops, so I was fine with it. But I would anxiously wait for the final roar of applause, because I knew my mother would come back, and she always did.

  Until one day she didn’t.

  Levon and I don’t say anything for a while, but I sneak glances at the muscles on his forearm, tense from gripping the wheel. I’m not as scared now, more out of body, like I’m watching myself from above. I can’t seem to shake Cancer Stick’s crazed stare out of my brain—or the sound when his fist hit my head, where I can still feel a slight ache.

  As we head toward the smokestacks of New Haven, I decide to try to get some information out of Levon. At least I know he won’t punch me. Or would he?