Page 50 of Tate
“I don’t understand—did she do this a lot?”
“Unfortunately, yes. She was a California girl who had big dreams of being an actress, but she fell for all the wrong men. Mostly musicians, but a few hippies, and plenty of low-level criminals. She started using, although I’m lucky—she never used when she was pregnant. She was eighteen when she had me and followed my dad—a folk singer—around California until he dumped her. She was always trying out for bit parts, practicing her auditions in the living room. I think she was an extra in a couple movies. We lived in Vegas for a while, and she worked a couple small shows as a dancer. Then she hooked up with Terry, who took her up to Salt Lake City. I think the diner incident happened when they were together—I have a vague memory of them having a fight. Maybe him leaving her there and her trying to hitchhike to go after him. I don’t know. But we ended up in Salt Lake for a couple years. Then he kicked her out, and we lived in a Monte Carlo for a while?—”
“You lived in your car?”
“Mom got a job working second shift at a warehouse—I think it might have been a shipping company—so she’d lock me in the car in the parking lot. She tucked me in, and I felt safe enough.” But she looked out the window, her jaw tight.
He had a feeling she might be skimming over the truth.
He touched the brakes as they came up on a semi, pulled out, and passed it.
“We got our own apartment for a while there. It was a good time. Mom was in recovery and doing well, and she was auditioning again. We’d run lines together—she taught me how to do accents.”
“Like—?” Ford asked.
She affected a French accent. “‘Yes, well, life is not all shoot-shoot, bang-bang, you know.’”
He gave her a blank look.
“Really? Inspector Clouseau.The Pink Panther?”
“Sorry. We wereGunsmokeandBonanzapeople.”
“Sad. I don’t know if she ever got the part, but I loved that apartment. I remember this tiny Christmas tree my mother put up. It was the first real Christmas tree we’d ever had, and we made paper ornaments to decorate it. It even had lights. I begged her to let me sleep out under it, and I’d lie on the floor in my Little Mermaid sleeping bag, watching them glitter against the ceiling. It was perfect. We lived in this two-story walk-up with a pool, so during the summer, I’d lie out by the pool and pretend I was a movie star. That was when we met Gary.”
She drew in a breath.
And he tensed. “Gary?”
“There’s a truck stop,” she said.
He took the off-ramp and pulled up to a pump.
While she was gone, he found his morning rations and ate them out of his Thermos.
Gary. The name had lodged a fist into his gut.
When she got back in the truck—carrying a bag of mini donuts, a Diet Coke, and a bag of Cheetos—she didn’t bring it back up.
And really, although they’d talked before, it was mostly about football teams and local cuisine and even fellow teammates, so maybe he didn’t know her at all. But he wanted to.
He glanced at her, pained by a little girl in brown pigtails sitting at a diner table drinking a chocolate shake, hoping her mother would return. His stomach clenched, the oatmeal not quite sitting right.
“Want a donut?” She held out the open bag.
He hesitated, then, “Okay,” and reached in the bag.
That tasted pretty good.
They drove through Vegas, commented on a few of the buildings, and came out the other side, the road winding through desolation. Tumbleweeds littered the highway, the earth barren, dotted with scrub brush and cacti. Occasionally, a mobile home park would pop up, with rusty, small units hunkering down to survive what felt like the Apocalypse.
He’d been a little—no,a lot—spoiled growing up in Montana, with the rugged mountains, the lush valleys, the waterfalls, and big blue open sky.
They finally hit Zion National Park, the pink and orange sandstone cliffs rising to greet them as the sun climbed high.
“Want me to drive?” Scarlett said into the quiet. He hadn’t realized how long they’d driven without talking, hadn’t realized they’d found a comfortable silence.
“I’m okay.”
