Wrong Highway Read online

  Your sister places her toe on the ridge of the fountain, draws back. “Rikki! I mean it.”

  To your ears, your sister’s pleas sound faint, disembodied. Drops pelt your eyes, and through the prism of the water, the sky glistens like shards of glass. In the cold spray of the fountain, you are all sparkles and energy. For a few blinding moments, you see nothing but liquid light.

  Your sister is your height but softer and broader, tottering on the edge of adult terrain you are years away from beginning to comprehend. Her rounded breasts and hips fill out her skirt and matching flowered shirt. Her pageboy hair is painstakingly sprayed and styled, frosted with blond streaks. Her eyelashes are curled and lined with mascara; there is a blot of blue shadow below both brows and glossy white lipstick on her mouth. She is wearing a silver locket, a leather pocketbook, and Daddy’s special watch with the fourteen-karat gold band. She fidgets, unable to take that first step into the fountain. All those expensive possessions she would damage. All those rules she would break. Her pale freckled face scrunches up, deepens into a frown. Tears trickle out. She wants so badly to please, to do the right thing.

  You see all this through the glaze of water. At almost nine years old, you still can’t disregard the belief that your sister, at thirteen, is privy to vital knowledge not yet revealed to you. You step out of the flow of water, and when you look up at the sky, it has turned a furry brownish-black, the moon slivery and ominous. You walk back across the stones, bidding good-bye to the flashes of color that streak across them. You step over the concrete ridge and take your sister’s grudging but relieved hand. Checking the map under a series of overhead lights, she navigates you along the strange darkened paths, then through the teak doors of the Scandinavian pavilion.

  You are met by your mother’s scratchy and fervid embrace and your father’s worried brown eyes and follow them to the sticky-stale comfort of your family’s Rambler Ambassador. You suffer through your mother’s inevitable sighing about your ruined clothes, but back home awaits your yellow chenille bedspread, your row of Barbies lined up on your dresser, and a whole box of Debbie’s old dolls you have yet to arrange. The next day at school you will get an A on a pop spelling quiz and be the only one in your class to do thirty pull-ups on the Presidential fitness tests. The following Saturday, a boy named Jim will call and ask to speak to your sister. You will answer, telling your mother (at Debbie’s request) that it is your sister’s friend Barbara instead. As a reward, your sister will let you listen to her new Kinks album on her plastic S and H Green Stamps record player, the two of you bouncing in the filtered magenta light of her canopy bed.

  Which makes it all the more unsettling when you hear on the six o’clock news that two ten-year-old boys—only one year older than you—lived off the coins in the fountains of the New York World’s Fair for three glorious days.

  CHAPTER ONE

  MARCH 1986

  Erica needed to buy milk and cheese sticks at the supermarket, though she couldn’t recall whether she’d remembered the coupon for the cheese sticks. She fumbled through her purse at a red light, finding the coupon safely wedged behind a wad of Kleenex. The red light was a long one, and Vince Volvo started shaking. A vibration came out of the gearshift. Erica held her breath until the light turned green. She accelerated, and Vince slid forward like he was supposed to.

  After picking up Jesse and Jake’s friend Michael in West Meadow Estates, she plunged into the surge of early-afternoon rush hour traffic. She’d been running all day in this disgusting pelting rain, starting with her hour at aerobics working off the fat from her pregnancy with Sophia, then dropping off some forms at West Meadow Elementary, buying diapers, returning books to the library, and driving all the way to Manhasset to the toy store, choosing a wooden beading set for Stacey. She’d left it, wrapped and with a card, on the hallway table when she’d finally gotten home, just in time for the twins’ return from preschool, but then the phone started ringing and didn’t stop. Nassau Auto Glass phoned, asking if she had any broken windows needing repair, as if you’d drive around with a shattered windshield waiting for someone to call. Her husband, Ethan, who spoke a numerical language that was as incomprehensible to her as ancient Phoenician, called and gave some excuse why he’d be working late. Something about linear output or n’s or m’s or x’s or p’s. Then, when she’d finally strapped all four kids into Vince Volvo, her mother called and she had to run into the kitchen, leaving the kids in the car. Her mother burbled excitedly about some crisis besetting her friend Arlene before announcing that she couldn’t talk long because she was late for a real estate meeting.

  Erica was certain she’d been holding Stacey’s gift while talking to her mother, but she reached over to the passenger seat to reassure herself she hadn’t left it on the hallway table. She ran her hand along the shiny wrapping paper, the curlicues of ribbon.

  Vince’s engine made a weird swishy sound. Maybe the Pakistani guy who worked at the gas station by aerobics had misunderstood her and put in regular instead of premium. The rain drummed down harder. She was always so tired, an exhaustion that coffee only glossed over. Whenever she lay down at the end of aerobics for a minute of yoga-inspired full relaxation, her head sunk into the mat. Her eyes closed, and she almost drifted off to sleep before her instructor, sexy Ari, rang the bell. She rolled to her side, wiggled her fingers and toes, and reentered the world where she always had to stay awake.

  In the shimmering halo of the oncoming headlights, she short-circuited. She forgot where she was. Too many details leaped about her brain like uncontrolled electrical signals. She didn’t recall whether she was driving on the Northern State or the LIE or the Meadowbrook, or whether she was driving Dylan to soccer, or Jake to T-ball, or Sophia to the doctor for her shots. She didn’t remember whether it was 1976 or 1986. Everything was darkness and light, black and white, random dots. She could make out the difference between the white lines and the black road and recognize the circles of light that represented cars in front of her, and she navigated her heavy metal vehicle laden with children by instinct.

  “Mommy, can you play the Talking Heads?” Jesse piped up from the backseat. With the sound of her son’s voice, a fuse reset in Erica’s brain, and all the dots coalesced. She remembered, yes, it was March 26, 1986 and she was driving Jesse and Jake and their friend Michael to Stacey Lincer’s ice skating party in Mineola. She slipped the Talking Heads into her tape deck. David Byrne spoke to her personally.

  “You may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile. . .”

  Yes, she thought. Her Volvo station wagon, with its two extra seats in the back, qualified.

  “And you may ask yourself. . . how did I get here?”

  “I took Glenvere Road to Hillside Avenue,” she answered David. “Beyond that, I can’t say.”

  Jake sang along in the backseat, in his clear, perfect-pitch voice. Talking Heads were his favorite band, but as usual, he made up his own words.

  “Wrong highway, Mommy. Wrong highway. Wrong highway.”

  “Is this the wrong highway?’ Erica asked David. “Give me direction.”

  “And you may ask yourself. My God, what have I done?” David said in response.

  “Wrong highway. Wrong highway,” sang Jake.

  “Jake, will you shut up, you stupid dork,” Jesse said.

  At the ice skating rink, the parking lot was full, and Erica could only squeeze in illegally in front of a BMW. There must have been ten birthday parties taking place simultaneously, but eventually she located Stacey’s and bid good-bye to the boys at the skate rental line.

  When she turned Vince’s ignition on again it hesitated—aruh, aruh, aruh—and all the warning lights lit up. The BMW she was blocking honked impatiently. On the next try, the car started up, but at each red light, which was many in the heavy traffic, the engine knocked, and she gritted her teeth until she could start moving again. If she could just fini
sh her errands and get home, she could call the dealer in the morning. The sun briefly reappeared before disappearing again, setting blearily behind a bank of clouds. There were spots of melted and refrozen snow left over from the surprise storm the prior week, and Erica slid and bumped over them, concentrating on the cars in front of her, terrified the whole time that she was going to lose it again and see nothing but dots and lines.

  At the supermarket, Sophia nestled against Erica in her front pack, making whimpering hungry noises. Erica bought the cheese sticks, milk, diapers, and wipes, plus ten boxes of fish sticks that were on sale, and loaded them into the trunk. Now all she needed to do was retrieve Dylan from tennis and shepherd ailing Vince safely home for the night. She could stick the breaded pork chops she’d defrosted for dinner into the oven and sink into her couch, nestled within its brown corduroy cushions which coordinated with the sunny peach tones of her recently repainted family room. She’d nurse Sophia, smelling the sweetness of the baby on her breast and the aroma of the pork chops browning in the oven.

  She turned his ignition key. Nothing. Not even aruh, aruh, aruh. Not even any warning lights. Nothing. The car was completely dead. She was already five minutes overdue to pick up Dylan at the club. He would be waiting for her in the parking lot, alone and anxious in the drizzly night. Zipping Sophia into the front pack again, she walked to the pay phone at the edge of the shopping center. She called her mother and got no answer. Of course, she’d forgotten: the sales meeting. Erica dropped another quarter in the phone and called Debbie. Debbie got home from work at four and could, in her better moments, be counted upon to be grudgingly helpful. After delivering a raft of guilt-inducing complaints—too busy, too tired, too stressed—she’d probably grant Erica this minor favor. Erica was hardly in the mood to endure Debbie’s inevitable kvetching, but she seemed the most logical choice, living as she did a block away from the West Meadow Pool and Tennis Club.

  But Debbie sounded vague rather than irritated. “Rikki?” she answered, like she couldn’t recognize her own sister’s voice after thirty years.

  “Yeah, listen, Debbie, can you pick up Dylan at the club?” Erica asked, her free hand wrapped around the denim of Sophia’s pack. “I’m at Pathmark, and the car won’t start, and Dylan was supposed to get picked up after tennis five minutes ago.”

  “I can’t,” Debbie said, all muffled and wavery.

  “Why not?” Erica asked, her breath coming in tight, short bursts. Debbie’s strange, weak tone made her nervous. “He’s all alone, out in the rain.”

  “Jared has a terrible stomachache,” Debbie said. Damn hypochondriac Debbie. This stomach business was a new one. Usually Debbie fretted about Jared’s asthma, or his food allergies, or his weight.

  “You can’t leave him alone for five minutes?” Erica pleaded. “He’s fifteen years old.”

  Once again, the familiar shapes of the world melted away, leaving Erica with only dots and lines, blots of color. To steady herself, she traced her fingers down the outline of Sophia’s small body tucked inside the cloth carrier, her knitted cap peeking out, her hungry lips nuzzling the padded area against Erica’s sternum. The rain beat down harder. She knew she should give up and think of somebody else to call, but Debbie was making her so disconcerted she couldn’t let go of the phone.

  “Please. The club is around the corner from your house.”

  “You don’t understand, Rikki,” Debbie said. “Jared is on medication.”

  “What kind of medication? Pepto-Bismol? Dylan is only nine years old, you know. He’s all alone in the parking lot.”

  “I’m not feeling so well myself,” Debbie continued. “I’m exhausted. And Ron doesn’t think I should leave Jared alone these days.”

  “Ron’s not home?”

  “It’s his bowling night.”

  “Well, thanks for nothing,” Erica said, slamming down the phone. She should have known Ron lay at the root of this. She bent her nose down inside the baby carrier, catching a whiff of Sophia’s yeasty breath, and called her best friend Lisa Schrabner, sweet, reliable Lisa, who of course agreed to pick up Dylan even though she’d just gotten a new puppy and had pick up her daughter Lyndsey from dance team in the opposite direction. She called Michael’s mother, hopefully referring to her by the correct name (she settled on Dorrie), catching her right as she was leaving for the ice skating rink, asking her to drop off the twins at Lisa’s. Then Erica called AAA, where a bored operator instructed her to wait by Vince Volvo for a minimum of forty-five minutes.

  She settled down in the driver’s seat to wait. Her hands felt stiff and cold. Sophia’s nuzzling noises transformed into a sustained wail. Erica removed her from the denim carrier, lifted up her shirt, and undid the top flap of her nursing bra. Her breasts were hard, leaking milk. Sophia latched on, sucking sharply and anxiously at first, then settling into a steady rhythm. Her intense and innocent need was settling: Erica found her own breath calming as well. She pondered with some satisfaction how much Debbie would disapprove of Erica exposing her breasts, albeit behind a rain-spattered windshield, in a busy parking lot.

  Ron wouldn’t mind, she was sure. He was one of those guys who always undressed you with his eyes. He was a DJ at WBEZ, an easy listening station based in Mineola, presiding over the morning show, dishing out news, traffic reports, and the kind of music Erica despised above all others. His greasy voice floated out over countless insurance agencies and dental offices. When Debbie met Ron, he was just home from Vietnam, and she was only nineteen, working her first job out of beauty school. She mowed his hair into his preferred sidewall style, week after week, until one day he asked Debbie to marry him, a proposal perhaps inspired by the fact that Jared arrived eight months later. Premature, their mother insisted, despite Jared’s hefty nine-pound birth weight.

  Erica never liked the scurried, tense-browed manner Debbie displayed around Ron, always catering to his whims, always looking to him for direction. “Should I serve chicken today, Ron?” “Do you think Jared should play tennis with his asthma, Ron?” “What brand of toilet paper should I buy, Ron?”

  But now, apparently, she’d sunk to a new level. “Should I leave the house, Ron? Should I help my sister and my nephew out even if it means leaving my fifteen-year-old son alone for a few minutes?” Despite the calming presence of Sophia, Erica’s blood pressure rose.

  Flashing red lights signaled the arrival of the tow truck.

  CHAPTER TWO

  When Erica walked into the kitchen, the pork chops were leaking blood all over the counter. A sullen tow truck driver had hauled Vince off to the Volvo dealers, to await diagnosis. She’d picked up the boys at Lisa’s. Sophia was fast asleep in her car seat. Ethan wasn’t home yet. Erica glanced at the oven’s digital clock. 7:30 p.m.

  “You guys hungry?” she asked.

  “Lisa gave us pizza,” Dylan answered. Pizza seemed to be the default meal at the Schrabner house. “I need help with my math homework.” Dylan extracted a crumpled sheet from his backpack.

  “In a few minutes,” Erica promised as she wiped down the thin trail of blood that led from the counter, down over the white Formica cabinets, onto the white floor. Jesse and Jake were battling with Lego weapons in the family room. As soon as she wiped the blood up, more flowed down the cabinet door, like it was streaming from a cut. The sight made Erica feel inexplicably nauseous; maybe she was just hungry. The last thing she’d eaten, she realized, was a bagel right after aerobics. She swept the meat into a Tupperware, stuck it in the refrigerator for the next day, and scrubbed the whole white area—counter, cabinet fronts, and floor—with Windex and paper towels. She heated up some leftover pasta in the microwave, poured herself a glass of Chianti, and sat down to eat.

  The wine settled Erica’s stomach. She grabbed a chocolate chip cookie and, gently disengaging Sophia from her car seat, managed to change her outfit and diaper without waking her up. She settled her in her cr
ib and then noticed Dylan standing quietly behind her, still waiting. “The math?” he prompted.

  Dylan, who was in the advanced math track, showed her a sheet of what, if Erica trusted her memory correctly, looked to be quadratic equations. “I’m not sure what to do here,” she said.

  “Well if X is sixteen and Y is eight,” Dylan said, “then I think n is two.”

  “Sounds like you got it,” Erica said. She had no idea.

  “Jesse threw a Transformer at my head!” squealed Jake, crashing into her hip.

  “Why don’t you finish the assignment, Dyl, and then I’ll look at it when you’re done?”

  Erica dragged the twins into the bath and then read them a story and lay with them until they fell asleep. She kissed them, all sprawly and sweet in their beds with their curly dark hair and long-lashed eyes, and picked up the stray toys lying around their room.

  “Do you need me to check your homework, Dyl ?”

  Dylan was already brushing his teeth, his notebook stuffed in his backpack.

  “Nah, I called Jason and compared answers with him.”

  Downstairs, she heard the garage door open and then the squeak of the door. “Hi, hon!” Ethan called out.

  He met her at the base of the stairs and kissed her. His face felt cold and wet. “What took you so long?” she asked.

  “I had to take a client out for drinks, and then the traffic was terrible. Some truck spilled mayonnaise on the LIE,” he said, opening the refrigerator door and prying open the Tupperware of bloody meat. “What’s for dinner?” he asked.

  “Not that,” Erica said. “I can heat you up some pasta. No. That’s all gone. I’ll make you a turkey sandwich.”

  “Throw in some lettuce and tomato and sunflower seeds, and that would be great.” Ethan pulled off his suit, leaving it crumpled on the family room carpet atop the Legos and Transformers. He settled onto the couch in his jockey shorts. By the time Erica brought in his sandwich, he’d flicked on one of his assortment of cop shows. They all seemed interchangeable to Erica. The only one she liked was Miami Vice, and only because of the gorgeous Don Johnson, whom she was actually going to meet, next week, at one of Ethan’s business functions. The rat a tat of machine guns filled the air, differing little in sound from Jesse and Jake’s play battles. Ethan bit sloppily into the sandwich and, wiping mustard from his mouth, asked Erica how her day was.