Madeline
Jay entered the apartment in a hough. He slamed the door behind him, locked the dead bolt and secured the chain. He moved immediately to the blinds and separated them so that he could peer through.
“Did you talk to him?” Vanessa curled up comfortably on the couch, suddenly her attention away from The Real Housewives on the tv. Her Lululemon loungewear hugs her small body and her body hugs her tiny chihuahua, Mr. Snuggles.
Jay got a whiff of a mix of skunk, Vanessa’s Victoria’s Secret perfume, and stale beer. He really should clean up in case anyone came knocking on the door. This was not a good look.
“Yeah yeah,” Jay says, still looking out the blinds. He waves to Vanessa in a downward hushing motion.
“So you talked to him?” Vanessa asked again.
“I said yes! Are you stupid?” Jay shouts back at her. “Pack a bag.” He suddenly adds.
“A bag? Why do I need to pack a bag? What does that have to do with talking to him?”
“And pack up Mr. Snuggles too. We’re going on a road trip.” Jay snaps.
“Audry and I were talking about going to Jack’s tonight and….” Vanessa starts.
“Not anymore,” Jay adds. He turns to her, hands together, “Please pack a bag. I’ll explain in the car.”
—
**One Hour Later**
“Are you going to tell me what happened?” Vanessa asked from the passenger seat of the Ford Mustang.
“Yes, baby, yes,” Jay ran a hand through his short black hair. “Do I give you the bad news first or the good?”
“Always the bad first,” Vanessa answers. “My daddy always says learn the bad news first. That way it doesn’t feel so bad anymore when the good news comes.”
Jay ignores her, “The good news is we don’t need to worry about your father any more.”
“That’s fantastic, baby! So, you talked some sense into him,” Vanessa chews on the ends of her blonde hair and looks down at her phone.
“The bad news is he’s dead,” At that he grabs her phone and throws it out the window. “They could be tracking us.”
Silence filled the car for miles. Vanessa’s mouth is wide open. She had so many questions but wasn’t sure how to ask them. Jay on the other hand wanted to forget the whole thing happened.
Vanessa finally broke the silence, “He’s dead?”
Jay clinched his jaw and gave a single nod.
“Like how?”
“You know how!,” Jay thundnders. Then adds, “You know that statue your dad has of a cowboy riding a bucking bronco or some shit?”
“A wild stallion?” Vanessa corrected.
“Yeah, that one”
“What about it?” Vanessa could see where this story was going but she needed to hear it from Jay’s mouth.
“I knocked him in the head with it.”
“Jesus, Jay! Could you have some self restraint?”
“I had to. He was threatening to take you away. Move you to California or some shit. I couldn’t let him. I couldn’t let him take you away from me,” Jay gave Vanessa a gentle smile and then returned his eyes to the road.
More silence filled the car.
“So, now what?” Vanessa asked.
“I don’t know, V. I don’t fucking know!”
“I have a cousin in Miami. I always wanted to live in Miami. It seemed so glamorous.”
“Don’t you care that I killed your dad? I took a statue and bashed his brains in. Don’t you even fucking care?”
“Eh, he was kinda a prick anyways,” Vanessa looked at her hands and brought a cuticle to her mouth. “He never let me do anything I wanted.”
“No relatives. No friends. It’s got to just be me and you. It’s just you and me against the world, baby” he grabbed her hand, kissed her knuckles, and gave the biggest smile he could muster.
—
**Later that night**
Vanessa laid on her stomach flipping through channels on the box television in the cinderblock room, an itchy blanket below her. “What about Cancun?” She paused on MTV. It showed thousands of people watching a huge stage. On the stage stood a beautiful host and a handful of beautiful young people.
“I can’t take you out of the country. You know that. Besides, we don’t have passports.”
“You just need a passport to get into the United States, not out, dummy.”
“They have their own immigration laws, dummy,” Jay tapped her on the head with his forefinger. “Are you hungry? I’m heading to the vending machine.”
“I want some Flaming Hot Cheetos and a Mountain Dew.”
“Healthy,” Jay said sarcastically while counting the change in his hand, “You know we can’t run forever.” He looked at her.
“I know,” Vanessa looked up at him with a twinkle in his eye.
—
**The next morning**
“I have a plan,” Jay said, taking a sip of coffee from a Denny’s mug. Vanessa looked out the big window of the booth they sat in. She stroked the top of Mr. Snuggles head. She stared at the blue hotel they just came from. She had never stayed at a Hotel 6 until last night. “Is this my life now?” she wondered.
Jay leaned across the table and whispered, “We are going to go to California. I’ll get a job in a mechanic shop or at McDonalds or some shit. We’ll change our names. We’ll enroll you in school.”
“I don’t want to go to school anymore,” Vanessa cut him off, “I’ll go to work with you.”
“We will enroll you in the nearest school.”
“I’m so sick of school.” Vanessa rolled her head back and pouted.
“It’s only for two more years. Once you graduate high school you can work.” Jay pulled out his credit card and placed it on the table on top of the receipt the waitress had placed on the table minutes before.
“I thought you didn’t want to go to California. Isn’t this how this all started?” Vanessa whined, chewing on a piece of bacon.
Jay paused, “Yes, but that is back when I was building my teaching career in Virginia. I wanted to be a principal of a school. Do you know what you need to do to be a principal in California? I would need a Doctorate. I could have just become an actual doctor with that much schooling. Besides, now that we need to change our names, I’m not sure I can also fake teaching credentials. So, now that dream is over…” Jay looked annoyed, then shrugged and looked down at his plate, “Why not California?”
Vanessa shrugged and fed a small piece of the bacon she was chewing on to Mr. Snuggles.
Jay continued, “I want to get going, so go use the toilet. It may be awhile before we stop again.“
—
**Three Hours Later**
“I told you to go at the Denny’s,” Jay said sternly to Vanessa.
“I did. But I need to go again.” Vanessa complained.
“Can’t you hold it?”
Vanessa shook her head and bit her lip as she crossed her legs as close as she could. Mr. Snuggles purched on top the odd formation of her legs.
Jay steered the car off the next exit and parked next to a pump. Vanessa opened the door before it was properly placed in park. “Anything from the mini mart?” He called to her as she ran into the store.
“Flaming Hot Cheetos?” She called out as she ran.
“Of course,” Jay said under his breath. He stuck the pump into the Mustang and walked to the mini mart.
He found the chips section and hunched over sorting through the various kinds. “Potato chips? No.” He muttered to himself, “Corn chips? No. Cheetos? Flaming Hot must be here somewhere.”
That’s when he heard it. Sirens. He suddenly stopped looking for the Flaming Hot Cheetos. His body became erect and he took a deep breath before turning to look out the large windows at the front of the store. He saw exactly what he had feared, a couple dozen police officers with their weapons drawn at the door of the mini mart.
He glanced at the gas station attendant. There was pity in the young man’s face and above him, a television with Jay’s face plastered all over it.
“Dude,” the attendant started. “I want no part of this. You better just go out there.”
Jay gave a single nod. He set the contents in his arms on the ground and opened the cooler next to him. He pulled out a Colt 45 and took a big swig.
As he approached the glass doors, he could see Vanessa being held by the arms of a police officer. She kicked her feet and jolted her head back and forth in an effort to break loose. This was how it ended. He took a big breath and walked out the glass doors and heald his hands high for the officers to see.
