Take Me There by Carolee Dean Page B

sat on the edge of the futon. Baby Face curled up on the carpet and laid her head on Jess’s feet, looking up at her as if to make sure she was okay.
    I left the window and went to sit beside her. There was an afghan folded on the table next to a pair of pajamas. I unfolded it and wrapped it around her shoulders. It was cold on the beach after the sun went down. Farther inland the concrete soaked up the sun and never let it go, but here you could feel the temperature drop after the sun set.
    “My parents are never here.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “After a month of haze and gloom my mother decided she didn’t like the beach—or my father. They both have separate apartments in the city now, close to their jobs. They’re always taking separate vacations. As soon as I graduate they’re going to sell this place and probably get a divorce.”
    “Wow. Is that how the rich abandon their kids?”
    “Yeah, with a credit card. I don’t mind. It’s better than having them here fighting all the time. But last night I thought every sound was an intruder.”
    “So I’m filling in till Jason gets back.”
    “It’s not like that. He doesn’t know about my parents. God, if he did he’d be trying to move in with me.”
    I tried to wrap my mind around what she was saying. I wanted to ask her why she confided in me when she couldn’t talk to her boyfriend, but I didn’t.
    “No wonder you look so tired,” I said, touching the dark circles under her eyes. “Don’t worry. I know just what to do.” I got up to leave.
    “Where are you going?” she asked.
    “To my car. I’ll be right back.”
    I walked down to Hermosa Avenue, got the Mustang, and parked it behind Jess’s house. Then I found my copy of
Poetry Through the Ages
in the trunk. By the time I returned, Jess was already in her pajamas—a pair of shorts and a tank top. She didn’t seem to have any idea how sexy she looked.
    “I’ll read you to sleep,” I told her, looking hard at the book, trying to avoid looking at her body. “I do it for my mother all the time. She says my voice is a natural sedative.”
    “It may not be that easy. I’m an incurable insomniac.”
    “That’s okay. I know a lot of Yeats.”
    “You like Yeats?”
    “My mom used to read me a lot of poetry when I was little. What, I don’t strike you as the sensitive poetic type?”
    “Not really.”
    “I try to hide it.”
    “You do a good job.” She was smiling again. God, I loved the way her mouth twisted up at the corner, like we were sharing a secret joke.
    I had left my reading glasses at home, so I couldn’t keep up my old ruse, but I opened the book to page fourteen—to “The Mermaid”—another Yeats poem—and pretended to read anyway.
    “A mermaid found a swimming lad,
    Picked him for her own,
    Pressed her body to his body,
    Laughed; and plunging down,
    Forgot in cruel happiness,
    That even lovers drown.”
    “I thought mermaids were supposed to
save
men.”
    “They are,” I told her. “But sometimes a guy doesn’t mind drowning.”

19
    “W HAT DO YOU MEAN WE’RE L OST?” I ASK W ADE .
    “Lost. L-O-S-T, lost. It’s what happens when you take the wrong damn road and end up in the middle of some godforsaken place called
Rankin
.” He points out the window to the vast fields of dead grass and oil pumps.
    “You said to get on 87 headin’ out of Lubbock.”
    “I said to take 84, but it don’t matter, ’cause we ain’t on either one.”
    We had wound through an endless maze of country back roads, passing through nowhere towns with nowhere names like Needmore, Welch, and Punkin Center before Wade finally admitted he didn’t have any idea where we were.
    We’ve been driving around like that for two hours, and both of our tempers are flaring.
    “Can’t you find
Rankin
on the map and then figure out what road we’re on?” I ask.
    “There’s hundreds of little piss-ass towns on this map. Why don’t
you
try to find it?” he says, tossing the map on the