Panic

What if he tripped? His legs felt liquid and unstable—if he tried to walk, they would collapse, get tangled up. He pictured Nat’s hands, the way she’d tilted her face to his when he kissed her. He imagined Dayna’s stalk-legs, imagined her chair pushed next to the window, the sun flooding the room, her legs growing, thickening, sprouting again into strong, muscled calves.



The pounding in his ears receded. He could breathe again. And suddenly he realized it was quiet. No fizz of tires, no honking, no roar of an engine bearing down on him. A break.



He ran.



Pavement, and then a narrow strip of grass, which marked the space that divided the different sides of the highway. He should have stopped and listened again, just to be sure, but he couldn’t—if he stopped, he’d never go again. He had to keep moving. The wind was rushing in his ears and his blood was on fire. Suddenly he felt a searing pain in his shins and he jerked forward. He’d reached the divider on the other side.



He’d passed.



He ripped off the blindfold and turned around. He thought Nat and Heather were cheering, but he wasn’t sure—two cars went by him, a twin blur, and although he could tell they were shouting, he couldn’t hear what they said. Underneath the streetlamp, they looked like actors on a stage, or tiny figurines, set up for display—and the cars, shining as they passed through the light, like toy models of the real thing.



He still felt kind of dizzy. He waited for another break in the traffic, then crossed back at a slow jog. He wanted to move faster, but his legs resisted. He could barely lift them to climb over the divider.



Diggin patted him on the shoulder and Heather grabbed his arm. He was glad. Otherwise he might have collapsed.



“Nineteen seconds!” Diggin said.



And Heather kept saying, “Awesome. Awesome.”



Heather volunteered to go next. Something had happened to her in the past few days—something had changed. She’d always been pretty, Dodge thought—sturdy-looking and dependable, like someone in an advertisement about deodorant. A little awkward, too—always holding herself really carefully, like she was worried if she didn’t pay attention she’d knock someone or something over. He hadn’t gone to prom, but he’d seen pictures on Facebook, and Heather had stood out; slouching a little so she wouldn’t be too much taller than Matt, wearing some ruffled pink thing that didn’t suit her at all, and trying to smile through her discomfort.



But there was nothing awkward about her now. She was serious, straight-backed, focused. She barely hesitated at the edge of the road. As soon as there was a break, she ran. Nat gasped.



“There’s a car—,” she said. Her fingers tightened on Dodge’s arm.



There was a car—northbound traffic, speeding toward her. It must have caught her in its headlights just as she crossed into the lane, because the driver sounded his horn, three quick blasts.



“Jesus.” Bishop was frozen, white-faced.



“Heather!” Nat screamed.



But Heather kept moving, and she reached safety just as the car blew over the spot where she’d been standing only a few seconds earlier. The driver gave four more furious blasts on the horn. Heather whipped off the blindfold and stood, chest heaving, at the side of the road. For a while she was lost to view in a surge of sudden traffic: two trucks passing simultaneously from opposite directions, a stream of cars.



When Heather crossed back, Diggin threw an arm around her shoulders. “Seventeen seconds!” he crowed. “Fastest one yet. You’re safe.”



“Thanks,” she said. She was out of breath. As she passed under the streetlamp, she looked truly beautiful: hair long and tangled down her back, high cheekbones and glittering eyes.



“Good job,” Dodge said.



Heather nodded at him.



“Heathbar! I was so scared for you! That car.” Nat threw her arms around Heather’s neck. She had to stand on her tiptoes.



“It’s not that bad, Nat,” Heather said. For a second, she kept her eyes on Dodge. Something passed between them. He thought it was a warning.



Kim Hollister went next, and she was unlucky. As soon as she took her place blindfolded at the side of the road, there was a blast of traffic from both directions. But even after it cleared, she stayed where she was, hesitating, obviously afraid.



“Go!” Diggin shouted. “You’re fine! Go.”



“No fair,” Ray said. “No fair. That’s fucking cheating.”



They started to argue, but it didn’t matter anyway; Kim still hadn’t moved. Finally she screeched, “Be quiet! Please. I can’t hear anything. Please.”



It took a few more seconds before she shuffled onto the road, and almost immediately she backed up again.



“Did you hear that?” Her voice was shrill in the quiet. “Is that a car?”



By the time she made it across, fifty-two seconds had elapsed. The longest time by almost double.



It was Natalie’s turn next. Suddenly she turned to him, eyes shining. He realized she was on the verge of tears.



“Do you think he’s watching?” Nat whispered. Dodge thought she must be talking about God.



“Who?” he said.



“Bill Kelly.” A spasm passed over her face.



“There’s no one watching us,” Dodge said. “No one but the judges, anyway.”



His eyes met Bishop’s across the lot. And again, just for a minute, he wondered.



FRIDAY, JULY 29



dodge



DODGE HAD BEEN HOPING NAT’S BIRTHDAY PARTY would be small, and he was disappointed when he pulled his bike up to Bishop’s house and saw a dozen cars fitted together like Tetris pieces in the only part of the yard not dominated by junk. There was music playing from somewhere, and lanterns had been placed all around the yard, perched on various objects like metallic fireflies settling down to rest.



“You came!” Nat weaved toward him, holding a paper cup. Beer sloshed on his shoe, and he realized she was already drunk. She was wearing lots of makeup and a tiny dress, and she looked frighteningly beautiful, like someone much older. Her eyes were bright, almost like she was on something. He was aware that she had just been talking to a group of guys he didn’t know—they, too, looked older, and were now staring at him—and felt suddenly uncomfortable.



She saw him looking and waved a hand. “Don’t worry about them,” she said. Her words were slurring together. “Some guys I know from a bar in Kingston. I only invited them because they brought the booze. I’m so glad you’re here.”



Dodge had Nat’s present wrapped in tissue paper in his pocket. He wanted to give it to her but not here, while people were watching. He wanted to tell her, too, that he was sorry about Panic. Nat had frozen up at the side of the highway and taken more than a minute to cross. Just like that, the game was over for her.



Everyone else would move on to the next challenge.



On the way home from the highway challenge, Nat had barely said a word, just sat stiffly next to him with tears running down her face. No one had spoken. Dodge had been annoyed at Bishop and Heather. They were her best friends. They were supposed to know what to say to make her feel better.



He had felt helpless, as frightened as he had while standing on that highway with the blindfold.



But Nat was already hauling him off toward the back of the house. “Come get a drink, okay? And say hi to everyone.”



At the back of the house a large grill was letting off thick clouds of smoke that smelled like meat and charcoal. An old dude was pushing around some burgers on it, holding a beer in one hand. Dodge thought it might have been Bishop’s dad—they had the same nose, the same floppy hair, although the man’s was gray—and was surprised. In school he’d always thought of Bishop as kind of a dork, well-meaning but just too nice to be interesting. He’d imagined Bishop’s family would be of the mom-dad-sister-older-brother-picket-fence variety. Not some guy with a beer grilling in the middle of towers of rusting junk.



But that was another thing you learned when playing Panic: people would surprise you. They would knock you on your ass. It was practically the only thing you could count on.



Kids from school were standing around in little groups, or using some of the old furniture and gutted car frames as makeshift chairs. They were all staring at Dodge, some with curiosity and some with open hostility, and it wasn’t until then that he realized none of the other Panic players had been invited, except for Heather. That’s when it hit him that there really weren’t many Panic players left. Just five.



And he was one of them.



The two things—Nat’s hand, and the fact that he was getting so close—sent a thrill up his spine.



“The keg’s over there, behind the old motorcycle.” Nat giggled. She gestured with her cup, sending another bit of beer sloshing over the rim, and he remembered suddenly the time she’d called him Dave at homecoming last year. His stomach tightened. He hated parties, never felt comfortable at them. “I’ll be back, okay? I have to circulate. It’s kinda my party, after all.”



She kissed him—on the cheek, he noticed, and of course then again on the other cheek—and quickly disappeared, blending into a knot of people standing around the keg. Without Nat next to him, he felt like he was back in the halls at school, except this time, instead of everyone ignoring him, everyone was staring. When he spotted Heather, he could have run up and kissed her.



She saw him at the same time and waved him over. She was sitting on the hood of what Dodge could only imagine was one of Bishop’s projects: a Pinto junker, wheel-less and propped up on cinder blocks. He could count a half-dozen cars, in various states of construction and deconstruction, just from where he was standing.



“Hey.” Heather was drinking a Coke. She looked tired. “I didn’t know you would be here.”



Dodge shrugged. He wasn’t sure what that meant. Maybe Nat had only invited him at the last minute? “Didn’t want to miss the big birthday,” was all he said.



“Nat’s trashed already,” Heather said with a short laugh. She looked away, squinting. Again he was struck by the change that had come over her this summer. She was thinning out, sharpening, and her beauty was becoming more pronounced. Like she’d been wearing an invisibility cloak her whole life, and now it was coming off.



Dodge leaned against the hood and fumbled in his pocket for his cigarettes. He didn’t even feel like smoking—he just wanted something to do with his hands. “How’s Lily?” he asked.



She looked at him sharply. “She’s fine,” she said slowly. Then: “She’s inside, watching TV.”



Dodge nodded. The day before he’d been smoking a cigarette in Meth Row when he’d heard the sound of someone singing behind the shed where he usually kept his bike. Curious, he circled around to the back.



And there was Heather.



Butt-naked.



She’d shouted and he’d turned quickly away, but not before he noticed she was washing herself with the hose from Dot’s Diner, the one the kitchen boys used to spray down the alley in the evenings. He saw a car, her car, with clothes drying on its hood; and a girl who must have been Heather’s sister, sitting in the grass, reading.