Less Than Nothing Page 12

  “I’ll say.”

  “When are the tryouts?”

  “Next Monday. We already registered online.”

  “There must be thousands of people that want a shot at that.”

  I nod. “There are. They already had auditions on the West Coast and in Texas and Chicago. This is the last stop, and then there are six weeks of weekly shows. The last week’s the finals. Derek calls it the death match.”

  “How do they judge it?”

  “Typical format. Three celebrity judges on the first three elimination rounds. Then it’s a combination of them and the phone-in audience.”

  “How many acts make it into the contest?”

  “I think they cap it at fifty – ten per city. This show’s supposed to be different than the other ones, because it’s a super short season and it’s only singers. The judging’s supposed to be really stringent. That’s the whole hook. America’s Top Talent. Not America’s most clueless hams, which is what a lot of the other shows seem like.”

  “That’s exciting. Crossing the country to chase your dream. I wish I was young again.” Helen clears her throat and tilts her head at the sleeper cab. “What about him?”

  “Derek? He’s from Seattle.”

  “Right. But how about the two of you?” She hesitates. “How old are you, Sage?”

  I’m embarrassed, but I don’t know exactly why. “Old enough.”

  “Come on. Give.”

  “Seventeen. My birthday’s New Year’s Day.”

  “Wow. At least that’s not hard to remember.”

  “Yeah, I overheard my dad say it was the last New Year’s my mom was ever sober.” I have no idea why I’m confiding in a complete stranger. Maybe because it’s easier to tell someone you know you’ll never see again your dark secrets when you can’t keep them inside anymore. You can’t tell your friends, or you’ll always wonder whether they’re thinking about them when they look at you. Or if they’ll use them against you.

  Helen frowns slightly. “I’m sorry to hear that, Sage. Life can be too much for some people, and they take what they think’s going to be the easy way out.”

  “Tell me about it. I’ve seen it all living on the street.”

  Helen’s voice drops to a confidential level. “I have a brother. He’s homeless now. I haven’t heard from him for over a year. Don’t know if he’s even still alive. I saw it building for years, but he always seemed to have it under control…until one day I guess he didn’t.” She sighs. “But back to my question. What’s the deal with you and Derek?”

  I twist around to make sure he’s still asleep. His chest is rising and falling steadily. He’s out. Still, I lower my voice. “There’s no deal. We’re just working together.”

  “He’s…on the street, too?”

  I nod. “Yeah. But he copes with it a lot better than I do.” I hesitate. “Then again, he’s older, and he’s got a lot more practice.”

  “Listen, don’t take this the wrong way. I know I’m nosy. But when I saw you two together, and the way you look at him…are you sure there’s nothing more than singing going on?”

  When I answer, my voice is glum. “Positive.”

  Helen stays silent for a solid minute, which is a record since I met her. She turns to me and fixes me with a penetrating stare.

  “Is that how you want it?”

  What do I say now? How do I answer that? Do I tell her that I didn’t want anything to do with him when I met him a whole week ago, and now I’m having naked showering dreams? Or that there’s nothing I want more at the moment than to feel his lips on mine, but he runs hot and cold, and sends out enough confusing signals to jam my head up for a lifetime?

  I almost do, but then at the last second I deflect. “We’ve only been together for a little while. If something winds up happening, it’ll happen. I’m not going to try to force it.”

  Helen appraises me, clearly unconvinced. “That’s a very mature answer. I don’t know at seventeen if I’d have been able to say the same thing. Even now it would probably be as phony as a three-dollar bill.”

  I’m starting to get uncomfortable with the discussion, which she must sense. But she gives it one more try. “Maybe he’s not sure what you want, Sage. Sometimes women confuse the hell out of men.”

  Touché. I’m not even sure what I want.

  Helen continues. “When I was younger, I did the same kind of thing with the men in my life. I’d wait for one to make a move so I could be the one to react rather than risk being hurt – that way I could avoid being completely honest with myself until that exact moment, and then if I blew him off, it wasn’t me being rejected, it was him. It’s a head game. All about power.” She swallows hard, and her voice is so soft it’s almost drowned out by the engine noise. “But sometimes to get what you want, you have to risk it all. Just like you’re doing now. Nothing comes easy, and if you want to be safe your entire life, you can miss out on the things that make it worth living.”

  I don’t say anything. It’s obvious by her tone that she’s thinking about her past, where maybe there was a Derek that got away. The thought makes me unaccountably sad, and I don’t mind when she turns on the radio, even if it’s Willie Nelson, who I can’t stand.

  Every mile is leading me closer to the biggest risk I’ve ever taken, but it doesn’t feel that way at all. For me, the really high stakes are in the back of the truck cab, asleep. I listen to Willie croon about love gone wrong and the end of innocence, and it strikes me that I never bothered to listen to his lyrics before, because right now, he could be singing to an audience of one. I choke down the lump that’s rising in my throat and close my eyes, willing the tears away.

  If it’s meant to be with Derek and me, it’ll happen. I have to believe that, because the alternative feels like my heart’s being ripped out of my chest. It doesn’t seem possible that he’s had this powerful an effect in only a week, but there’s no denying the sensations that are overloading me. I silently pray that Helen will just leave it alone, or I’ll be bawling all the way to St. Louis.

  Chapter 17

  The cities we’ve passed through were just dots on a map when we started the trip, but as we arrive at the truck stop on the edge of St. Louis, there’s a blanket of lights spread out before me, stretching as far as I can see.

  Derek stirred awake as it was getting dark, and after a quick pit stop and a fast dinner, we serenaded Helen for a few hours, Derek on guitar, me with my harmonica. We quit a half hour ago, but not before it was obvious she was impressed, which gave me a swell of pride. I want Helen to see I’m not some clueless kid running off on a lark, and she looks convinced as she pulls into a stall next to a hundred other big rigs.

  Helen turns to me and shuts off the engine.

  “This is where I’m putting up for the night. It was a real pleasure meeting both of you, and I hope you win the contest. God knows you can both sing like nobody’s business.”

  Derek hands me our bags and guitars and hops out of the cab, stretching his legs, arms extended overhead. I don’t see how Helen does it – sitting for twelve hours, day after day. She mentioned at one point that she clocked over three hundred twenty-five days behind the wheel last year, and this year would beat it.

  She climbs down and rounds the front of the truck, and we say our good-byes. She gave me her cell number somewhere around the middle of Kansas, and reminds me for the fourth time: “If you get into a real jam and need a ride, call. I know truckers all over the country.” Helen hugs me for a long moment and, just before she lets go, murmurs in my ear, “Don’t be like me, honey. Go out and grab what you want and never let go. You don’t want to spend your life looking in the rearview mirror wondering about what could have been.”

  Derek gets a hug too, and then we’re walking into the restaurant while Helen locks herself into her rig for another night on the road. Compared to Bull’s, her cab’s a five-star hotel with room service, but that’s not saying much.

  It’s my turn to be tired,
but I pull out a sheaf of papers I printed out at the Internet café in San Francisco and study the map. Derek opts for a cup of coffee and a cinnamon roll while I order an orange juice and eye the network of roads stretching east.

  Our drinks come in a blink, and I’m trying to read the city names on the crappy printout when I pause. I look across the table at Derek, who’s attacking the pastry like it stole his wallet.

  “Where did you say your idol lived?”

  He looks at me quizzically. “My idol?”

  “You know. The King.”

  “Oh, Elvis. Graceland. It’s famous.”

  “Right. In Tennessee.”

  “Yup.”

  He doesn’t get it. I wouldn’t if I didn’t have the map in front of me. I wait for him to guess why I’m suddenly perky, but he’s returned to his systematic demolition of the roll. I lean forward and waggle my eyebrows.

  “We’re only a couple of hundred miles from Memphis.”

  I wait for the news to sink in. He pauses with a chunk of cinnamon roll speared on his fork. “That can’t be right. It’s in the South. We’re in the middle of the country.”

  I nod. “Correct on both counts. But St. Louis is only two hundred, maybe two-fifty, tops, from Memphis. From Graceland.”

  He pops the bite into his mouth and chews thoughtfully. “What are you thinking?”

  “We allowed eight days to get to New York. Tomorrow’s day three, and we’re more than halfway to the East Coast. If we don’t take forever there, we can probably afford a little detour to Memphis. It’s really not that far. Four hours. Maybe less.” I pause. “I just thought it might be nice, seeing as you’ve got Elvis inked on your arm for the rest of your life.”

  His face breaks into the trademark Derek smile, and I feel almost as happy as I am exhausted. The two sensations are battling for supremacy, and after putting up a good fight, happy bows out and tired takes over. As he takes another sip of coffee, I drain my OJ and close my eyes for a second.

  “We should find someplace you can crash for a while, Sage. Nobody’s going to pick up hitchhikers in the middle of the night. At least nobody we’d want to ride with.”

  I nod. It sounds like a splendid idea right now. “You need to sleep, too.”

  “I got enough in the truck. You can rest till dawn, and then we can trade off. I’ve already proven I can sleep through anything.”

  We pay the bill and go back into the warm night. The air smells like diesel exhaust, wet hay, and water from the nearby Mississippi River. Derek leads me to a small utility building, retrieves his sleeping bag from his rucksack, and lays it on the grass. “Here you go. It’ll be just like old times in the park.”

  I offer him an appreciative smile and set my backpack and Yam down. “Seriously? You’re just going to sit there and watch me sleep?”

  His half smirk plays at the edge of his mouth. “You’d do the same for me. And I’ll be keeping an eye out, not staring at you.” His tone says ‘get over yourself, already,’ and my urge to try to kiss him good night evaporates. I’m not at my most sociable when I’m running on empty, so instead of a lip-lock I shift my backpack under my head, pull my black knit cap over my eyes, and close them. The muted roar of long-range trucks moving down the freeway hums me a lullaby, the stars a roof over my head.

  “Sage, you dead?” Derek’s voice wakes me, and I lick my lips, push the cap up, and open my eyes. The truck stop’s on the southern outskirts of St. Louis, and I watch horsetails of neon pink and amber glow in the eastern sky as the sun rises over the muddy river. I sit up and look at Derek, still half asleep.

  “Don’t get your hopes up,” I say. My voice sounds hoarse.

  “You want to go use the bathroom before I do? Figure a couple of hours of sleep and I should be good, but all that coffee…”

  I yawn and feel my cheek and then shake my head disgustedly. “Tell me I don’t have backpack lines all over my face.”

  His expression goes dead serious, but he can’t hide the merriment dancing in his eyes. “You want the truth?”

  “Never mind. It was rhetorical.”

  “You’re still the most beautiful singer sleeping on the grass in St. Louis.”

  He definitely knows how to start my day with a bang. “You can’t possibly be sure of that unless you’ve seen all singers sleeping on the grass here. So you’re just blowing smoke,” I say, but I’m beaming ear to ear. I never get tired of Derek telling me I’m beautiful. Which stops me as I rise. I’ve never told him how handsome he is. And this is…this is twice he’s told me I’m beautiful. Which could be what he says to all his girls, an ugly little voice in my head taunts, but I shut it down. Let me have this. Don’t screw it up.

  I’m summoning up the courage to give him a morning peck on the cheek, and then realize that without any toothbrushing that might not play so well. Instead, I lift my backpack and slowly roll my head to loosen a kink in my neck.

  “I’ll be right back,” I mutter and turn before he can say anything more.

  The restroom is exactly what I expect, and I feel like I need to bathe in bleach after using it. I can only imagine what the men’s room is like, and my thoughts flit to Helen, whose life is filled with these little slices of heaven on a daily basis.

  I consider my reflection in the chipped mirror. I was expecting worse. I decide Derek’s just trying to be nice with the compliments – whatever beautiful looks like, it isn’t what’s staring back at me.

  I do my best to take a sink bath using liquid soap from the grimy dispenser and moist paper towels. After a final glance at myself, I return to where Derek’s waiting.

  “Want me to bring you back some coffee?” he asks as he shoulders his rucksack.

  “That would be awesome.” My mouth wants to say something more, but my brain’s still groggy and doesn’t comply. I curse silently as he turns and strides to the restrooms – yet another opportunity to dazzle him with my brilliance gone forever.

  He’s back in half the time I took, looking all kinds of great, a steaming cup of St. Louis’ finest in his fist. He hands the coffee to me and drops onto the sleeping bag with a loud sigh. “Tell the trucks to be quiet for a while, okay?” he says and then rolls over onto his right side.

  I text Melody about our progress and am quickly out of things to do – there’s no way she’s up yet with the time difference, and I don’t know anybody else to bug. As of now, my circle extends to the enigmatic hunk of dudeness sleeping a few feet away and Melody. I don’t know whether to be sad or relieved she’s not awake, because I really don’t want to have to explain why after two days on the road with Derek, nothing’s happened. I can imagine her disgusted expression as she reads it – she’d have closed the deal within a half hour, tops.

  The sun’s beginning its slow arc into the morning sky, pulling many of the trucks onto the highway for another relentless day’s drive.

  I open Yam’s case and busy myself changing the strings, but I’m restless, whether from the coffee or my inner dialogue and doubts, I’m not sure. I’ve perfected the fine art of driving myself slowly crazy with second guesses and recriminations, and I’m at my worst when I’m alone in my head.

  Two hours later it’s getting uncomfortably hot, and Derek stirs before rolling toward me. I peer at him over the top of my book.

  “Feeling better?” I ask.

  “Yeah. I kind of needed that.” He looks around at the lot, which is now ninety percent empty. “Let’s grab some food and then hit it. Memphis waits for no man.”

  Breakfast is interchangeable with the other truck stops we’ve been in, and by the time I’m done, I can feel grease coagulating in my veins. We start walking south along the frontage road and stop by the on-ramp, me with my thumb out. It’s almost an hour before a car stops – an eighties sedan that’s more rust than body. The driver’s a white guy with that weird bald ponytail thing that some old codgers try to pull off. Gray strands are carefully strung across his tanned bald spot like piano wire. He looks me
up and down and then switches to Derek, taking a long, appraising glance before he rolls down the passenger window.

  “Where you headed?” he asks, as stale nicotine wafts from the car.

  “Memphis,” I say.

  “Only headed to Sikeston. Get you ’bout halfway there,” he says.

  Derek approaches the car and gives the driver the once-over. He nods. “That would be great.”

  We toss our stuff onto the back seat, and I climb in. Derek takes the passenger seat. I check the side of the open door to make sure the child lock is turned off before I close it – I want to be able to get out quickly if I have to.

  The car smells like an ashtray. There’s a film of brown crud on everything from decades of smoking, and I do my best to ignore it – a ride’s a ride, and if the driver wants to poison himself, it’s not my problem.

  Derek strikes up a conversation. The man’s name is Ben, and he’s lived here all his life. He wants to know what we’re up to, so Derek tells him about the show. Unlike Helen and Gus, he seems only marginally interested in our story. Derek offers him twenty bucks toward gas, and ol’ Ben livens up. I can tell he’s happy because he stops chain-smoking long enough to take the money.

  When he drops us off near the intersection of the highway that veers off to Sikeston, I smell like I crawled in through a garbage dump and fought my way out through cigarette butts.

  “Tell me that wasn’t frigging gross,” I complain, and Derek nods.

  “Pretty evil.” He looks around. Not a lot of traffic, which isn’t promising. We’re still well over a hundred miles from Memphis, which will be a long walk if nobody picks us up.

  This is farm country, and for as far as we can see, there’s nothing but fields stretching to infinity on the flat plain. The sun’s blistering and it’s muggy. Within a half hour I can feel myself getting sunburned, but there’s not a lot I can do about it. The cars that do come by don’t even slow down, and by noon we’re both questioning the wisdom of our detour.

  “Maybe we should try down the road?” I venture, wiping sweat from my brow with the back of my arm.