THE GREAT DEPRESSION
Bessie lay in the bathtub, sobbing into her hands as devastation washed over her more than water did. She felt like she could cry for the rest of her life. Her heart was in the most unbearable pain she had ever felt and she wanted nothing more than to just disappear from existence.
Her mind raced, one thought, one emotion, after the other. Her brain wouldn't stop and she continued to sob. She sobbed for the pain in her heart, she prayed for the relief of her mind. She couldn't get away. She couldn't escape it. Love held her prisoner.
She wished she'd never met Zac. If she hadn't met him, she'd have never fallen in love with him and she wouldn't be in the position she was in now. This thought, then, made her cry even harder because she thought of how wonderful and blessed her life had become since he'd been in it and she was ashamed of herself for making such a wish. She wouldn't trade a single second she'd spent with him, not for anything in the world.
He had wanted her to smile. That was what he'd asked of her before he escaped out of her window. He wanted her to smile, all day, every day. He wanted her to enjoy life and spend time with her family and friends. He wanted her to pick flowers and take Scout for walks and go to the free picture show every Thursday night and eat her weight in popcorn. He wanted her to do all the things that made her happy--except that she wouldn't share them with him. So how would she ever be happy without him? It wasn't possible. Nothing was possible without Zac. Nothing had meaning without him. Nothing at all.
Her throat was sore from the lumps that she continued to swallow. Her chest hurt from gasping for breath and her eyes burned from the tears. Her toes had grown wrinkled and the water had begun to cool and she hadn't been able to bring herself to get any bathing done. She didn't even care about the way her hair looked. She sat up and she quickly washed some soap over her body and then she got out of the bath and tied her hair up in a bun on top of her head. It was hideous and it was careless, but she didn't care. She had nobody to impress anymore. It didn't matter what she looked like.
Zac had only been gone for a couple of hours, but it already felt like a couple of years. She wasn't confident that she would survive a month without him. Not judging by the way she felt now. How did people get over these heartbreaks? How did they move on with their lives? Surely there was an answer somewhere in the madness, but Bessie just knew that it was impossible to find.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
Judge Harlow attempted with all his might to concentrate on the morning paper, haunted by the two knocks on the wall and the scraping against the wood flooring that came from his daughter's bedroom the night before. He'd made it one leg out of the bed, one foot on the floor, ready to commit cold-blooded murder, when his wife stopped him and demanded he stay in the bed. "She's probably having a bad dream," she said quietly. "Unless she screams, let's not wake her."
Except that the judge knew better and he knew his wife did, too. Bessie never screamed and he thanked the good lord above that he never heard their voices. But he knew better. He was furious with his wife for not allowing him to step in and stop the immoral sin that was happening down the hallway, right under his own roof. "The damage is done," Cathy had said. "There's nothing more you can do now but be traumatized by what you might walk in on. You don't want that on your mind." The judge didn't agree with her, but he understood her. It was better he didn't react now. He was already trying to remember how many rounds were left in the shotgun that hung in the case across the room.
Now Bessie entered the dining room, looking haggard, as if she hadn't slept in weeks. The judge, unable to look at her, put his nose back in his newspaper. "Good morning, Beatrice," he said to her from behind the newspaper.
He heard the chair slide from under the table as she muttered her reply.
And then he couldn't ignore her any longer. Lowering his newspaper, he looked at his daughter as his wife served their breakfasts of eggs and meat. "Do you recall the conversation that you and I had not so long ago about respect?"
"Yes, sir," she mumbled, staring down at her plate.
"And I'm to assume that your mother discussed with you the ways that nature takes its course, before and after adulthood?"
Bessie nodded.
"Then I expect that last night will not ever happen again. Do I make myself clear?"
"You don't have to worry about that," she said, her voice uncharacteristically raspy and monotone. "He's gone."
When she finally looked up at him, and he got a good look at her face, he was startled at the sight. She looked like she'd been hit by a train, her eyes bloodshot and dark from lack of sleep, the color gone from her cheeks, her mouth wrinkled from her permanent frown. He'd even noticed the way her hair was carelessly wrapped around the top of her head, looking less lustrous in color than usual.
Glancing over at his wife, raising an eyebrow, Catherine put her fork down and looked across the table at their daughter with remorse. "What does that mean, he's gone?" He asked.
"Just that. Gone. All three of them. Took the car and the trailer and everything. Gone."
"Well--well where did they go?"
"Up north. New York City and such. They got invited to perform in a couple of carnivals and a string of shows in a theatre in the big city. It was short notice, they left this morning."
"Oh, Bessie," his wife whispered.
"When is he expected back?" The judge asked.
Bessie swallowed and shook her head, her eyes never leaving the surface of the table. "He claims it will be no more than a month. But I don't think he's coming back."
"Why, of course he's coming back," he replied. "The carnivals can't go on forever. Where else is he going to go?"
She looked up at him again. "He's so talented, Daddy. They'd be crazy not to want to keep him and his brothers up there to continue doing shows. This is a big opportunity for them. And--and I can't be selfish. I just can't. This is his dream, he has to follow it. I just wish it didn't hurt so much."
His wife looked across the table and nodded at their daughter with reassurance. "He'll come back, sweetheart. He won't leave you behind."
"And if he doesn't come back?"
The judge glanced at his wife, his heart breaking for Bessie. "Sweetheart, are you and Zac...do you...do you ever talk about the future?"
Bessie nodded, wiping a stray tear from her cheek.
"What do you talk about?"
"We talk about being together. We already have a patch of land that's all our own that we want to build a house on. A house with a wraparound porch and rocking chairs. But he says I have to finish school first. And while I'm at school, he'll stay here and find work and save money. And then when I graduate, I'll be an art teacher and he'll be a businessman and we'll have babies and our lives will be perfect." This sent Bessie into a fit of heart-wrenching tears, but she continued to talk through them. "He says he'll write me every day. But he'll grow bored of that eventually when he's taken in by all the Broadway stars and the lights of the city--why would he want to come home to boring old me? I wouldn't want to come home to boring old me. Not after all of that!"
"Sweetie, you have to stop being so hard on yourself," his wife said, her tone soothing. "I think you're letting yourself believe the worst and it's not true. Zac loves you. I know he does, he says it with his eyes every time he looks at you. He's proud of you and he adores you. And if your relationship really is as strong as you say it is, then you have to remember, he's going to miss you just as much. You're not the only one hurting, darling. He's the one who had to leave you behind, remember? Imagine how that must make him feel."
Bessie was silent as her eyes darted around the table, sniffing back her tears. Finally, she asked, "May I please be excused? Thank you for breakfast, but I'm not very hungry."
The judge simply nodded and she made her way quickly out of the dining room and up the stairs again. Both adults jumped slightly when her door slammed above them.
Catherine looked at him with sadness in her eyes. "Her first broken heart," she said quietly. "Oh, I feel so badly for her."
"I'd hate him if I didn't suspect that he had a vested interest in her well-being."
"Well," she sighed, standing up to clear the table. "Time heals all wounds. She'll be her normal, sunny self by the time he comes home." Then she paused and looked at her husband. "Do you think he'll come home?"
The judge nodded. "He'll be back. All three of them. There's a lot of opportunity in New York City, but there isn't enough demand up there to keep them employed for very long. With the cost of living, they'll be more destitute up there than they are here. They'll be back."
"I sure hope so, for Bessie's sake. Oh, I hate that he's going to miss her birthday. He was supposed to be her escort at her ball. A lady can't go to a ball unescorted, especially if it's her own. I wonder if Joey Martin would be willing to step in..."
While his wife continued party planning to herself as she cleared the table, the judge found it difficult to focus on his newspaper now. He merely stared at it as it lay on the table, and rubbed his chin with his fingers. He always knew this day would come, the very first time a boy would break his daughter's heart. He just never knew he would hurt this much for her in the process.
He never wished that a poor gypsy would come home so much in his life.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Most of the roads out of Oklahoma were made of dirt and bumped along in a way that made Zac nearly nauseous. It was a rude reminder of just how long it had been since he'd traveled a distance as long as this and he prayed that he wouldn't have to make Isaac pull the car over so he could vomit. All he wanted to do was get where they were going as fast as they could so that he could come home just as fast.
He supposed he wasn't being fair to himself, which was likely what was partly to blame for his stomach ache. The truth was, he was excited to be on this trip. He was excited to see big cities again and perform in front of large crowds and be able to use their old name again. But felt ashamed to be excited. He felt like his excitement betrayed Bessie. He shouldn't be excited to be leaving her. Should he be allowed to feel any joy at all this month? She would want him to, but it didn't make him feel any less guilty about it.
They'd been on the road for a few hours now and, already, he missed her so much that the physical pain was bothersome. He glanced over at the rest of the backseat that took over the other half of the car and he looked at the luggage and the props that filled the seat beside him. He wished it was Bessie there instead. He wished he could have brought her along. He wished she would hold his hand and he longed to lay his head in her lap while she stroked his hair and eased his nausea away.
More than anything, though, he wanted to show her the cities. After all, strange as it seemed for a rich girl, she'd said she'd never been anywhere other than Oklahoma City. He wished he could see the wonder in her eyes as she took in the big city lights. He wanted to hold her hand on the city streets and take her to a show and climb with her to the very top of the highest skyscraper New York had to offer. He wanted to show her the world. He could have brought her along. What could her Daddy have done to him, anyway?
Sic the police on him and put him in jail. They wouldn't have made it out of Tulsa.
Zac had already grown tired of the miles and miles of farmland that lay on either side of the road they traveled on when his thoughts were interrupted by Taylor's voice in the passenger seat in front of him. "Jeez, Ike, are you trying to get us killed?"
"What are you talking about?" Isaac asked.
"Last I checked the speed limit here was forty. You're going, like...what, fifty? You're going to get us killed--or stopped by the police or something!"
Isaac scoffed and shook his head as he concentrated on the road. "Look around at where we are. I'm pretty sure that what goes on on this road is the least of the police's worries."
The brothers were silent for a few more minutes as Taylor continued to fiddle with something in his lap. He took off his cap, brushed his hair back, and then put it back on, pointing his finger out the windshield. "Watch out for the pothole. We hit one of those at these speeds and it's all over."
"I know what I'm doing," Isaac spat. "I've been driving this thing for years now. Stop being a backseat driver, for crying out loud."
"I'm not being a backseat driver!" Taylor protested. "First of all, I'm in the front seat. And second of all, this car is five years old, I don't want it to break down...or for us to die or anything like that. I want to make it there and back in one piece. Us and the car. I don't want to leave Aishe engaged to a corpse."
As Zac sat in the backseat and rolled his eyes at Taylor's dramatics, Isaac grew more agitated in the driver seat. "Do you want to drive this thing, then? I mean, if it'll make you more comfortable, I'll pull over right now and we can trade places. But I'll tell you right now, I won't tolerate a speed lower than forty. You think you're a backseat driver? Just wait until I get in that seat."
"You're the one who said I was a backseat driver, not me," Taylor murmured with a pout.
In response, Isaac nodded toward the dash. "Why don't you just check out that map and tell me how much longer we have on this road?"
As his brothers silenced themselves once more, Taylor busying himself by following his finger along the road map he had spread out in front of him, Zac turned his head toward the back of Isaac's. "Ike? Can we even afford to go on this trip?"
"Yeah," he answered confidently. "I have some poker money stashed away. We're camping out instead of finding lodging so we can afford to change the oil or in case the tires go flat--"
"Avoiding potholes will keep that from happening," Taylor murmured.
Isaac shook his head. "Anyway, yeah. Getting there will be no problem, we have just enough for that. We can set back some of the money we make to travel home, no big deal."
Taylor turned his head to look over his shoulder. "Are you back there thinking of excuses to turn around and go home?"
Zac blinked in thought for a moment. He actually hadn't been. But he supposed that his random question meant that deep down maybe he was. He knew that anything negative he might have to say might cause an argument among the three of them and he didn't really feel like getting into it right now. So he shook his head in response and answered, "No, I was just making sure."
Suddenly, Taylor turned his entire body around in his seat and draped his elbows over the back of the leather upholstery. With a gooney grin on his face, he raised his camera and said, "Zac, look!"
Zac only blinked at him as he snapped the photo and he grinned as he lowered his camera. "Excellent. First photograph of our trip. I'm gonna use this thing to document our entire tour. We've never done that before, it's gonna be great! And then when we come home, I can develop the film and we can show the girls everywhere we went and everything we did! Doesn't that sound like a neat idea?"
He looked at his overzealous brother in thought. It actually did sound like a good idea. Brilliant, in fact. Why hadn't he thought of it? Oh, right. Because he didn't own a camera. But Taylor did. And if Taylor was willing to take the photos...
"Hey, you think you could take some just for Bessie?"
Taylor looked at him, confused. "Well, I'm taking pictures of everything..."
"I know. But if there's something special I might want Bessie to see. You think you could...?"
"You buying the film?"
Zac was caught off guard by the question. "Uh--uh, I mean, yeah. Yeah, if that's what you need me to do."
Then Taylor grinned and waved a hand at him. "Nah, I'm just joshin' you. I'm happy to do it. Oh! That reminds me!" He turned around and leaned forward in his seat, fiddling with something in the floorboard, before he turned himself back around extending his arm over the seat toward Zac. "Here. I have this for you. I've been meaning to give it to you, but I haven't seen you much the past couple of days. I had two of them made, one for you and one for her."
Zac took the card from his hand and slumped back in his seat as he looked at the photograph Taylor had gifted him. Zac remembered this day. He would never forget it. It had rained and he and Bessie were all alone in the trailer because she couldn't ride her bicycle home in the weather. They'd had an argument over Romeo and Juliet, but he ended up winning her over in the end and by the time the story was over, they'd vowed to die for each other. He swallowed a lump in his throat at the memory and then he scowled when he remembered Taylor barging in on them with that damned camera right as he was about to get lucky. Bessie had been much too enthusiastic about the idea of having their photo taken and it showed in her smile in the photograph. Zac looked less than thrilled, which had reflected his mood at the moment. Looking back on it, he was disappointed. Why wouldn't he smile? The woman he loved most in the world was more than happy to be sitting right next to him, why wouldn't he be beaming as if he'd won the lottery? Because he was a stubborn, selfish idiot. That was why.
He appreciated the photograph. He needed it. It was now his most prized possession and he would guard it with his life. He looked up at Taylor and he smiled weakly, the first smile he'd cracked since leaving Bessie early that morning. "Thank you."
Taylor smiled back at him before he glanced out the window behind Zac, a glower replacing the smile. He turned around and fell back onto the seat and looked at Isaac. "If you don't slow down, that trailer is going to come right off that hitch."
"Tay, shut up! Okay? I have driven this very car with that very trailer all the way from California to fucking Virginia. In worse conditions! Just shut up!"
Zac shook his head and took solace in the photograph he still clutched between his fingers. He'd never been so happy and so full of heartache all at the same time like this in his life. Except for maybe last night when he made love to Bessie. Pulling a pillow from the floorboard next to him, he tucked the photo into his shirt pocket, propped the pillow against the suitcases next to him and made himself comfortable. At that moment, he made the solemn vow to force himself to sleep through this entire trip. "Wake me when we get to Philadelphia," he announced.
"Boston," Taylor corrected nonchalantly. "It's Boston first."
"Wherever," he murmured.
As he closed his eyes and tried to ignore the bumps in the dirt road, he hoped and he wished that he could stay asleep for most of this first day. There was a chance he might not sleep that night, but he didn't care. He would use that time to write Bessie her first letter. Sleep by day, write by night. Well, until it was his turn to drive. And then he was probably screwed.
As he miraculously found himself beginning to drift off, his stomach calming just a little, he heard Taylor observe curiously, "Are those...Okies walking down the side of the road, there? We're in the middle of Missouri..."
"Yep," Isaac answered knowingly. "We're in the middle of a depression. They're looking for work. Just like these three Okies are."
Bessie lay in the bathtub, sobbing into her hands as devastation washed over her more than water did. She felt like she could cry for the rest of her life. Her heart was in the most unbearable pain she had ever felt and she wanted nothing more than to just disappear from existence.
Her mind raced, one thought, one emotion, after the other. Her brain wouldn't stop and she continued to sob. She sobbed for the pain in her heart, she prayed for the relief of her mind. She couldn't get away. She couldn't escape it. Love held her prisoner.
She wished she'd never met Zac. If she hadn't met him, she'd have never fallen in love with him and she wouldn't be in the position she was in now. This thought, then, made her cry even harder because she thought of how wonderful and blessed her life had become since he'd been in it and she was ashamed of herself for making such a wish. She wouldn't trade a single second she'd spent with him, not for anything in the world.
He had wanted her to smile. That was what he'd asked of her before he escaped out of her window. He wanted her to smile, all day, every day. He wanted her to enjoy life and spend time with her family and friends. He wanted her to pick flowers and take Scout for walks and go to the free picture show every Thursday night and eat her weight in popcorn. He wanted her to do all the things that made her happy--except that she wouldn't share them with him. So how would she ever be happy without him? It wasn't possible. Nothing was possible without Zac. Nothing had meaning without him. Nothing at all.
Her throat was sore from the lumps that she continued to swallow. Her chest hurt from gasping for breath and her eyes burned from the tears. Her toes had grown wrinkled and the water had begun to cool and she hadn't been able to bring herself to get any bathing done. She didn't even care about the way her hair looked. She sat up and she quickly washed some soap over her body and then she got out of the bath and tied her hair up in a bun on top of her head. It was hideous and it was careless, but she didn't care. She had nobody to impress anymore. It didn't matter what she looked like.
Zac had only been gone for a couple of hours, but it already felt like a couple of years. She wasn't confident that she would survive a month without him. Not judging by the way she felt now. How did people get over these heartbreaks? How did they move on with their lives? Surely there was an answer somewhere in the madness, but Bessie just knew that it was impossible to find.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
Judge Harlow attempted with all his might to concentrate on the morning paper, haunted by the two knocks on the wall and the scraping against the wood flooring that came from his daughter's bedroom the night before. He'd made it one leg out of the bed, one foot on the floor, ready to commit cold-blooded murder, when his wife stopped him and demanded he stay in the bed. "She's probably having a bad dream," she said quietly. "Unless she screams, let's not wake her."
Except that the judge knew better and he knew his wife did, too. Bessie never screamed and he thanked the good lord above that he never heard their voices. But he knew better. He was furious with his wife for not allowing him to step in and stop the immoral sin that was happening down the hallway, right under his own roof. "The damage is done," Cathy had said. "There's nothing more you can do now but be traumatized by what you might walk in on. You don't want that on your mind." The judge didn't agree with her, but he understood her. It was better he didn't react now. He was already trying to remember how many rounds were left in the shotgun that hung in the case across the room.
Now Bessie entered the dining room, looking haggard, as if she hadn't slept in weeks. The judge, unable to look at her, put his nose back in his newspaper. "Good morning, Beatrice," he said to her from behind the newspaper.
He heard the chair slide from under the table as she muttered her reply.
And then he couldn't ignore her any longer. Lowering his newspaper, he looked at his daughter as his wife served their breakfasts of eggs and meat. "Do you recall the conversation that you and I had not so long ago about respect?"
"Yes, sir," she mumbled, staring down at her plate.
"And I'm to assume that your mother discussed with you the ways that nature takes its course, before and after adulthood?"
Bessie nodded.
"Then I expect that last night will not ever happen again. Do I make myself clear?"
"You don't have to worry about that," she said, her voice uncharacteristically raspy and monotone. "He's gone."
When she finally looked up at him, and he got a good look at her face, he was startled at the sight. She looked like she'd been hit by a train, her eyes bloodshot and dark from lack of sleep, the color gone from her cheeks, her mouth wrinkled from her permanent frown. He'd even noticed the way her hair was carelessly wrapped around the top of her head, looking less lustrous in color than usual.
Glancing over at his wife, raising an eyebrow, Catherine put her fork down and looked across the table at their daughter with remorse. "What does that mean, he's gone?" He asked.
"Just that. Gone. All three of them. Took the car and the trailer and everything. Gone."
"Well--well where did they go?"
"Up north. New York City and such. They got invited to perform in a couple of carnivals and a string of shows in a theatre in the big city. It was short notice, they left this morning."
"Oh, Bessie," his wife whispered.
"When is he expected back?" The judge asked.
Bessie swallowed and shook her head, her eyes never leaving the surface of the table. "He claims it will be no more than a month. But I don't think he's coming back."
"Why, of course he's coming back," he replied. "The carnivals can't go on forever. Where else is he going to go?"
She looked up at him again. "He's so talented, Daddy. They'd be crazy not to want to keep him and his brothers up there to continue doing shows. This is a big opportunity for them. And--and I can't be selfish. I just can't. This is his dream, he has to follow it. I just wish it didn't hurt so much."
His wife looked across the table and nodded at their daughter with reassurance. "He'll come back, sweetheart. He won't leave you behind."
"And if he doesn't come back?"
The judge glanced at his wife, his heart breaking for Bessie. "Sweetheart, are you and Zac...do you...do you ever talk about the future?"
Bessie nodded, wiping a stray tear from her cheek.
"What do you talk about?"
"We talk about being together. We already have a patch of land that's all our own that we want to build a house on. A house with a wraparound porch and rocking chairs. But he says I have to finish school first. And while I'm at school, he'll stay here and find work and save money. And then when I graduate, I'll be an art teacher and he'll be a businessman and we'll have babies and our lives will be perfect." This sent Bessie into a fit of heart-wrenching tears, but she continued to talk through them. "He says he'll write me every day. But he'll grow bored of that eventually when he's taken in by all the Broadway stars and the lights of the city--why would he want to come home to boring old me? I wouldn't want to come home to boring old me. Not after all of that!"
"Sweetie, you have to stop being so hard on yourself," his wife said, her tone soothing. "I think you're letting yourself believe the worst and it's not true. Zac loves you. I know he does, he says it with his eyes every time he looks at you. He's proud of you and he adores you. And if your relationship really is as strong as you say it is, then you have to remember, he's going to miss you just as much. You're not the only one hurting, darling. He's the one who had to leave you behind, remember? Imagine how that must make him feel."
Bessie was silent as her eyes darted around the table, sniffing back her tears. Finally, she asked, "May I please be excused? Thank you for breakfast, but I'm not very hungry."
The judge simply nodded and she made her way quickly out of the dining room and up the stairs again. Both adults jumped slightly when her door slammed above them.
Catherine looked at him with sadness in her eyes. "Her first broken heart," she said quietly. "Oh, I feel so badly for her."
"I'd hate him if I didn't suspect that he had a vested interest in her well-being."
"Well," she sighed, standing up to clear the table. "Time heals all wounds. She'll be her normal, sunny self by the time he comes home." Then she paused and looked at her husband. "Do you think he'll come home?"
The judge nodded. "He'll be back. All three of them. There's a lot of opportunity in New York City, but there isn't enough demand up there to keep them employed for very long. With the cost of living, they'll be more destitute up there than they are here. They'll be back."
"I sure hope so, for Bessie's sake. Oh, I hate that he's going to miss her birthday. He was supposed to be her escort at her ball. A lady can't go to a ball unescorted, especially if it's her own. I wonder if Joey Martin would be willing to step in..."
While his wife continued party planning to herself as she cleared the table, the judge found it difficult to focus on his newspaper now. He merely stared at it as it lay on the table, and rubbed his chin with his fingers. He always knew this day would come, the very first time a boy would break his daughter's heart. He just never knew he would hurt this much for her in the process.
He never wished that a poor gypsy would come home so much in his life.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Most of the roads out of Oklahoma were made of dirt and bumped along in a way that made Zac nearly nauseous. It was a rude reminder of just how long it had been since he'd traveled a distance as long as this and he prayed that he wouldn't have to make Isaac pull the car over so he could vomit. All he wanted to do was get where they were going as fast as they could so that he could come home just as fast.
He supposed he wasn't being fair to himself, which was likely what was partly to blame for his stomach ache. The truth was, he was excited to be on this trip. He was excited to see big cities again and perform in front of large crowds and be able to use their old name again. But felt ashamed to be excited. He felt like his excitement betrayed Bessie. He shouldn't be excited to be leaving her. Should he be allowed to feel any joy at all this month? She would want him to, but it didn't make him feel any less guilty about it.
They'd been on the road for a few hours now and, already, he missed her so much that the physical pain was bothersome. He glanced over at the rest of the backseat that took over the other half of the car and he looked at the luggage and the props that filled the seat beside him. He wished it was Bessie there instead. He wished he could have brought her along. He wished she would hold his hand and he longed to lay his head in her lap while she stroked his hair and eased his nausea away.
More than anything, though, he wanted to show her the cities. After all, strange as it seemed for a rich girl, she'd said she'd never been anywhere other than Oklahoma City. He wished he could see the wonder in her eyes as she took in the big city lights. He wanted to hold her hand on the city streets and take her to a show and climb with her to the very top of the highest skyscraper New York had to offer. He wanted to show her the world. He could have brought her along. What could her Daddy have done to him, anyway?
Sic the police on him and put him in jail. They wouldn't have made it out of Tulsa.
Zac had already grown tired of the miles and miles of farmland that lay on either side of the road they traveled on when his thoughts were interrupted by Taylor's voice in the passenger seat in front of him. "Jeez, Ike, are you trying to get us killed?"
"What are you talking about?" Isaac asked.
"Last I checked the speed limit here was forty. You're going, like...what, fifty? You're going to get us killed--or stopped by the police or something!"
Isaac scoffed and shook his head as he concentrated on the road. "Look around at where we are. I'm pretty sure that what goes on on this road is the least of the police's worries."
The brothers were silent for a few more minutes as Taylor continued to fiddle with something in his lap. He took off his cap, brushed his hair back, and then put it back on, pointing his finger out the windshield. "Watch out for the pothole. We hit one of those at these speeds and it's all over."
"I know what I'm doing," Isaac spat. "I've been driving this thing for years now. Stop being a backseat driver, for crying out loud."
"I'm not being a backseat driver!" Taylor protested. "First of all, I'm in the front seat. And second of all, this car is five years old, I don't want it to break down...or for us to die or anything like that. I want to make it there and back in one piece. Us and the car. I don't want to leave Aishe engaged to a corpse."
As Zac sat in the backseat and rolled his eyes at Taylor's dramatics, Isaac grew more agitated in the driver seat. "Do you want to drive this thing, then? I mean, if it'll make you more comfortable, I'll pull over right now and we can trade places. But I'll tell you right now, I won't tolerate a speed lower than forty. You think you're a backseat driver? Just wait until I get in that seat."
"You're the one who said I was a backseat driver, not me," Taylor murmured with a pout.
In response, Isaac nodded toward the dash. "Why don't you just check out that map and tell me how much longer we have on this road?"
As his brothers silenced themselves once more, Taylor busying himself by following his finger along the road map he had spread out in front of him, Zac turned his head toward the back of Isaac's. "Ike? Can we even afford to go on this trip?"
"Yeah," he answered confidently. "I have some poker money stashed away. We're camping out instead of finding lodging so we can afford to change the oil or in case the tires go flat--"
"Avoiding potholes will keep that from happening," Taylor murmured.
Isaac shook his head. "Anyway, yeah. Getting there will be no problem, we have just enough for that. We can set back some of the money we make to travel home, no big deal."
Taylor turned his head to look over his shoulder. "Are you back there thinking of excuses to turn around and go home?"
Zac blinked in thought for a moment. He actually hadn't been. But he supposed that his random question meant that deep down maybe he was. He knew that anything negative he might have to say might cause an argument among the three of them and he didn't really feel like getting into it right now. So he shook his head in response and answered, "No, I was just making sure."
Suddenly, Taylor turned his entire body around in his seat and draped his elbows over the back of the leather upholstery. With a gooney grin on his face, he raised his camera and said, "Zac, look!"
Zac only blinked at him as he snapped the photo and he grinned as he lowered his camera. "Excellent. First photograph of our trip. I'm gonna use this thing to document our entire tour. We've never done that before, it's gonna be great! And then when we come home, I can develop the film and we can show the girls everywhere we went and everything we did! Doesn't that sound like a neat idea?"
He looked at his overzealous brother in thought. It actually did sound like a good idea. Brilliant, in fact. Why hadn't he thought of it? Oh, right. Because he didn't own a camera. But Taylor did. And if Taylor was willing to take the photos...
"Hey, you think you could take some just for Bessie?"
Taylor looked at him, confused. "Well, I'm taking pictures of everything..."
"I know. But if there's something special I might want Bessie to see. You think you could...?"
"You buying the film?"
Zac was caught off guard by the question. "Uh--uh, I mean, yeah. Yeah, if that's what you need me to do."
Then Taylor grinned and waved a hand at him. "Nah, I'm just joshin' you. I'm happy to do it. Oh! That reminds me!" He turned around and leaned forward in his seat, fiddling with something in the floorboard, before he turned himself back around extending his arm over the seat toward Zac. "Here. I have this for you. I've been meaning to give it to you, but I haven't seen you much the past couple of days. I had two of them made, one for you and one for her."
Zac took the card from his hand and slumped back in his seat as he looked at the photograph Taylor had gifted him. Zac remembered this day. He would never forget it. It had rained and he and Bessie were all alone in the trailer because she couldn't ride her bicycle home in the weather. They'd had an argument over Romeo and Juliet, but he ended up winning her over in the end and by the time the story was over, they'd vowed to die for each other. He swallowed a lump in his throat at the memory and then he scowled when he remembered Taylor barging in on them with that damned camera right as he was about to get lucky. Bessie had been much too enthusiastic about the idea of having their photo taken and it showed in her smile in the photograph. Zac looked less than thrilled, which had reflected his mood at the moment. Looking back on it, he was disappointed. Why wouldn't he smile? The woman he loved most in the world was more than happy to be sitting right next to him, why wouldn't he be beaming as if he'd won the lottery? Because he was a stubborn, selfish idiot. That was why.
He appreciated the photograph. He needed it. It was now his most prized possession and he would guard it with his life. He looked up at Taylor and he smiled weakly, the first smile he'd cracked since leaving Bessie early that morning. "Thank you."
Taylor smiled back at him before he glanced out the window behind Zac, a glower replacing the smile. He turned around and fell back onto the seat and looked at Isaac. "If you don't slow down, that trailer is going to come right off that hitch."
"Tay, shut up! Okay? I have driven this very car with that very trailer all the way from California to fucking Virginia. In worse conditions! Just shut up!"
Zac shook his head and took solace in the photograph he still clutched between his fingers. He'd never been so happy and so full of heartache all at the same time like this in his life. Except for maybe last night when he made love to Bessie. Pulling a pillow from the floorboard next to him, he tucked the photo into his shirt pocket, propped the pillow against the suitcases next to him and made himself comfortable. At that moment, he made the solemn vow to force himself to sleep through this entire trip. "Wake me when we get to Philadelphia," he announced.
"Boston," Taylor corrected nonchalantly. "It's Boston first."
"Wherever," he murmured.
As he closed his eyes and tried to ignore the bumps in the dirt road, he hoped and he wished that he could stay asleep for most of this first day. There was a chance he might not sleep that night, but he didn't care. He would use that time to write Bessie her first letter. Sleep by day, write by night. Well, until it was his turn to drive. And then he was probably screwed.
As he miraculously found himself beginning to drift off, his stomach calming just a little, he heard Taylor observe curiously, "Are those...Okies walking down the side of the road, there? We're in the middle of Missouri..."
"Yep," Isaac answered knowingly. "We're in the middle of a depression. They're looking for work. Just like these three Okies are."