Infinity + One Read online

  It occurred to me suddenly that Gran’s phone might be in her purse. I pulled it open again, shoving the cash out of the way and looking into the big zipper pocket where Gran kept Tic Tacs and lipstick. I found her phone laying at the bottom of the bag. It had been on vibrate, and there were thirty missed calls and twice that many new text messages. She’d obviously figured out I had taken her purse. I didn’t look at any of them. Instead, I swiped across the screen and set to work googling my name. I found a couple of good shots, close-ups of my face, and handed the phone to Clyde.

  “See?”

  He took the phone and looked down at the images. Then he reached up and turned on the dome light, illuminating my face for his perusal. He looked from me to the screen for several long seconds and then reached out and pulled off my stocking cap.

  “Why did you do that to your hair?”

  “You don’t like it?”

  A ghost of a grin flitted across his face. “No.”

  I snatched the phone from his hand and clicked through a few links until I found a biography on Bonnie Rae Shelby. My date of birth was listed right at the top, March 1, 1992.

  “And there’s everything you need to know about me, including my age. Totally reliable information off the internet. There might even be stuff there I don’t know.”

  Clyde took the phone again and read through the information I’d offered him. He read and read. And read. It was awkward, and I turned from him, strumming the guitar and hoping that there wasn’t anything too far-fetched in the so-called biography—like romances that had never happened and bad acts I hadn’t been fortunate enough to actually commit.

  “Clyde?”

  He looked up from the little screen in his hand.

  “You got enough dirt now? ’Cause I need food. And a shower. And I’m thinking I don’t like my hair much either.”

  THEY DIDN’T FIND a shower, but they did find a pancake house. Bonnie dug into her stack like she was starving, but she seemed to fill up before she’d eaten even half of her food. She looked at what was left of the teetering golden pile with regret. Clyde watched her as he finished every last bite on his own plate and drank three glasses of milk. She insisted on picking up the tab, and he decided he would let her this once—if she truly was Bonnie Rae Shelby, she could afford it—but he didn’t like letting her buy his food. It made him feel small in a way that his six feet two inch frame could never be. Small in a way that reminded him of the times he’d turned his head when he should have spoken up, or let someone get hurt because standing up would have made him a bigger target. He didn’t like feeling small, so he made a silent promise to himself that he wouldn’t let her pay for his meal again.

  After breakfast they found a Walmart, and she skipped down the aisles throwing things into the basket until he warned her that the cargo space was limited. She looked at her purchases the way she had looked at the pancakes—regretfully—then put several things back. She still left the store with her arms full of sacks—jeans and T’s, another stocking cap and a coat to match, underwear that he had studiously ignored, and all kinds of feminine things that made him truly grateful he was a man. She’d also purchased a couple of duffle bags to stuff it all in, and she’d made short work of organizing it, throwing her bags in the back seat with his. She seemed amazingly lighthearted and upbeat for a girl who had wanted to die less than twelve hours before. That worried him, more than the fact that she was apparently a pop-star on the run, more than the fact that she seemed to completely trust him.

  “Just one more stop,” she insisted, and looked at him as if she were sure he was going to refuse her. He sighed.

  “There’s a Quik Clips right there.” She pointed toward a strip mall across from the Walmart. “I need to fix this hair. I can’t wear a beanie forever.”

  It was nine o’clock in the morning. They had driven another two hours before they’d burned three hours on food and shopping, and Clyde had driven all night. He was growing irritable, and really wanted to get a few more miles down the road before he found a cheap hotel and crashed for a solid eight. But a quick nap would sure take the edge off.

  “Fine. You take care of the hair. I’ll sleep for an hour while you do.”

  Clyde pulled in front of the Quik Clips and turned off the engine. The parking lot was empty. Good. Then she wouldn’t be long.

  “You won’t drive away while I’m inside, will you?” Bonnie asked, her hand on the door handle.

  “I won’t leave.”

  “You swear?”

  “I swear.”

  Bonnie worried her lip with her teeth, her eyes boring into his, trying to determine whether she could take him at his word.

  “Can I have the keys?” Her voice was so soft Clyde wasn’t sure he had heard her right.

  He almost laughed. The girl was no pushover. He pulled the keys from the ignition and laid them in her palm. “Here. Now go. I’ll be here when you’re done. You paid for this tank of gas, so you paid for your ride. I won’t leave.”

  She flashed him a grateful smile, dropped the keys into her purse, and was out of the Blazer without another word. Clyde lowered his seat all the way back, folded his arms across his chest, and was asleep almost immediately.

  Clyde was awakened an hour later by the excited voices of a small group of women who had gathered on the sidewalk in front of the Quik Clips.

  “Brittany said she was here!”

  “Why would someone like her be getting her hair cut here, of all places?”

  “I don’t know, but Brittany is sure it’s her!”

  Four or five females were pressed up against the windows, trying to get a clearer view of what they obviously couldn’t see through the large doors of the establishment. Then a white van with Channel Four emblazoned across the side and a satellite attached to the roof pulled into a parking spot beside his Blazer.

  “Holy shit,” Clyde breathed, as the realization hit. This was all about her. Bonnie Rae. She had drawn a crowd. At ten o’clock in the morning, barely an hour since she’d set foot inside the little salon, she’d drawn a crowd and the gig was up.

  Clyde opened his door and, slouching down, stretched his long arm under the Blazer, feeling for the key box he kept for emergencies. He found it immediately and had the Blazer started and was backing away from the cheap hair joint without anyone in the growing crowd giving him a second glance. For a moment he thought about driving away. He didn’t want any part of that mess. But Bonnie’s bags were in the back seat, and she’d paid for the gas. And he’d told her he wouldn’t leave her.

  Clyde pounded on his steering wheel, frustrated by his damn conscience. So what? She could replace the Walmart clothing easily enough. It wasn’t like she needed him. Not really. She was trouble. And Finn Clyde had had enough trouble in the last seven years to last him a lifetime. But he’d said he wouldn’t leave.

  Clyde cursed again, but he swung around to the back of the strip mall, parking at the entrance to the alley that ran behind the line of businesses. There were no crowds or cameras back here yet, but there would be. People weren’t stupid, and if he drove down the alley, he might get boxed in by a television van or two. Plus, by parking his Blazer there, nobody else could drive down the alley either. He jumped out of the Chevy and started running, counting doors as he went, making an easy calculation as to which door was the back entrance for the hair joint. The door was locked, but he pounded on it, calling her name.

  “Bonnie!”

  The door swung open almost immediately, as if someone had been waiting for him to knock. A heavy-set girl with hair like a skunk and a phone stuck to her ear eyed him warily and then stuck her head out around the door to view the alley beyond him.

  “Are you from Channel Five?” she asked with a doubtful raise of her painted on eyebrows. “Where’s your camera? They told me they would interview me on television!”

  Clyde pushed past her and ran into the establishment, kicking a mop bucket out of the way as he burst through anoth
er door into a room lined with sinks and low, backless chairs on one side, and mirrored hair stations on the other. Bonnie sat at one of the stations, facing the mirror, apparently the only patron in the place. Her head boasted a new, shiny cap of dark hair, and her eyes widened as she caught his reflection in the mirror. A girl wielding a blow dryer was chattering above the din, making Clyde wonder if either of them were even aware of the crowd outside the salon. From where they stood, the front windows weren’t visible.

  “Clyde?” Bonnie’s mouth moved around his name as he strode forward, yanking the black apron from around her neck and pulling her from the chair.

  “I think someone called a few friends and told them a certain singer was getting a haircut,” he clipped, by way of explanation.

  Without a word, Bonnie snagged her purse, pulled out some bills, and tossed them toward the wide-eyed, stuttering, stylist who still held the bellowing blow dryer in her right hand.

  “It wasn’t me,” the girl squeaked, trying to gather the bills as they fluttered to the ground, but blowing them in all directions instead.

  “Let’s go out the back.” Clyde grabbed Bonnie’s hand as they ran into the back room toward the skunk who was now positioned in front of the exit door with her arms and legs spread wide, barring their escape.

  “You can’t go out this way!” she cried as they tried to push past her out the exit. “You’re trespassing,” she yelled desperately, and clung to Clyde’s arm as he barreled through the door. He shook her off while shoving Bonnie in front of him, pushing her out into the alley. The woman grabbed at him again, and he flung his arm wide to evade her. He heard a thwack as the back of his hand glanced off the side of her face. He spun in horror and she stumbled back, wobbling, her hand pressed to her cheek.

  “You hit me!” she shrieked.

  “Clyde! Come on!” Bonnie pulled at his hand. “Clyde!”

  The woman leaned down to pick up her phone, obviously not injured enough to miss an opportunity for a quick picture or another phone call, and Clyde turned and ran behind Bonnie down the alley toward the Blazer. The Channel Five van the woman had been anxiously awaiting rounded the corner just as Bonnie and Clyde threw themselves into the front seat. Bonnie hit the locks and buried her face in her lap as Clyde gunned the Blazer forward, taking an immediate hard right and flying down the street.

  “What the hell was that?” Clyde hissed, unable to believe that there were actual news stations that cared if a country singer was getting her hair done. Did Bonnie put up with this every time she set foot out of doors?

  “Just drive, Clyde. Go!” Bonnie’s voice was muffled against her lap, and he did as she asked, squealing around corners and taking side streets until he was a little carsick and more than a little lost. Bonnie eventually raised her head from her knees, but her eyes were wide and scared, and her hands shook when she ran her fingers through her newly-styled hair. She looked as lost as he felt, and he wanted to tell her he wouldn’t let anything happen to her. But he stayed silent, winding his way around the city until he found his way back to the freeway.

  “I’m so sorry, Clyde. I should have known better,” she said suddenly. “I thought I was bein’ so smart. I locked the door of the salon when I walked in, just in case. It was one of those little twisty locks. The girls didn’t see me do it. I figured I would leave a huge tip to compensate for the fact that nobody was gonna be gettin’ in for a haircut while I was there. And I didn’t think they would recognize me. I can’t believe they recognized me! It was probably this damn tour sweatshirt. I shoulda changed.”

  “If you hadn’t locked that front door, they would have been crawling all over you. Luckily, the other girl was out back, awaiting the news van that had promised her air time. Is it always like this, everywhere you go?”

  Bonnie shook her head. “No. Not like that. I don’t know what that was all about. I get swarmed when I show up at a place where people are expecting me, or in very public places, but mostly by fans, not by cameras, unless it’s an event or a high profile hang out.”

  Bonnie sat up straight, flipped down the visor above her head, and peered at her reflection in the little mirror. She quickly looked away, snapping the visor back into position. Her hair was boy short and chocolate brown, a neat little pixie cut framing her large, dark eyes. She didn’t look much like the girl he’d watched dance across the stage on the YouTube video, golden curls bouncing, one hand in the air, one hand clutching a microphone.

  “I don’t think that news van got any pictures. I think we got away just in time. They probably didn’t even realize I was inside your vehicle.” Her voice sounded hopeful, and she looked at him for the first time since they’d tumbled into the Blazer. He met her gaze, and the hope he saw there turned to trepidation as he asked softly, “What happened last night, Bonnie?”

  “DO YOU WANT to drop me somewhere, Clyde? I will understand if you do,” I said, suddenly resigned to the impossibility of the whole situation. I felt around in Gran’s purse for her phone, noting once more that the missed calls and incoming texts had risen to an alarming number. “I’ll call Bear and tell him where I am. He’ll come and get me, and you can just be on your way.”

  “Who’s Bear?”

  “Officially? My bodyguard. Unofficially? My friend.”

  “So why didn’t you just take off with Bear last night?”

  “He wouldn’t have let me go. Last night I was sad and tired and I wanted to die, remember? Today? Today I’m pissed and fed up and thinking maybe I want someone else to die.” I liked this phase much better. “Bear will come and get me if I call. But he won’t run with me. He’ll try to talk me out of it, try to cheer me up the way he always does, and he’ll tell me I just need time—”

  “Time for what?” Clyde pushed again, and I stepped away from the question. Again.

  “Time heals all wounds, right? Isn’t that the saying? An old woman in Grassley we called Appalachian Annie used to say, ‘Time may heal all wounds, but it ain’t no plastic surgeon.’”

  “What wounds, Bonnie?”

  “You want to hear the poor pop star complain, Clyde?”

  “Yeah. I do.”

  “I’ll show you my wounds if you show me yours, Clyde. Starting with your first name. I admit, Clyde’s growing on me, but I’d really like to know the rest of it so I can send you flowers and a thank you card for not leaving me at the Quik Clips with Skunk Woman even though you apparently had two sets of keys and coulda left me any time.” I pulled his keys from Gran’s purse and tossed them toward him. He swiped them out of the air with barely a glance and tossed them in the ashtray that served as a catch-all for wrappers, pennies, and the random bottle cap.

  “Finn. My name is Finn.”

  “As in Huck Finn?”

  “As in Infinity.”

  “Infinity? Your mama named you Infinity Clyde?” I was stunned. His mama definitely hated him. It was almost as bad as my own name.

  “No. It was my dad’s idea. Mom named my brother, so Dad got to name me, and for once Mom gave in. But they both just call me Finn.”

  “Why Infinity?”

  “I was born on August eighth. Eight eight. My dad is a mathematician. He thought those eights were a sign. An eight looks like the symbol for infinity, so . . .”

  “Whew! And I thought our names were bad! My oldest brother is Cash after Johnny Cash, next is my brother Hank after Hank Williams, and my sister was Minnie after the one and only Minnie Pearl.”

  “And Bonnie Rae. Where did that come from?”

  “I was named after both my grandmothers.” I heard the bitterness in my voice and shook my head, mentally shaking her off. I didn’t want to think about Gran. “Bonita and Raena. My birth certificate and my driver’s license say Bonita Rae Shelby. Luckily, no one has ever called me Bonita.”

  “All right. I gave you Finn. Now you give me something,” Finn demanded.

  “Well, Huckleberry.” I grinned at him cheekily, enjoying the fact that his name represented
so many possibilities for teasing, which is probably why he went by Clyde. “I am a Pisces, and I enjoy long walks on the beach, sunsets, and romantic dinners.” Clyde sighed and shook his head, clearly not enjoying my sarcasm.

  “You said your sister was Minnie. Isn’t she Minnie anymore?”

  I lost the cheeky grin. It was too much work to keep it in place. “She will always be Minnie, but she died last October.” I shrugged as if time had already stitched up that particular wound without leaving me uglier for it, the way Appalachian Annie said it would.

  “I see.” Clyde didn’t say he was sorry the way most people did. He just stared at the road, and I noticed for the first time that we were back on the freeway, the trees shooting up on either side, reducing our visibility of the world to the space between us, the road behind us, and the never-ending ribbon of black beyond us.

  “Are you still taking me with you?” I asked in surprise.

  “Is that what you want?”

  I looked at him again, wondering if there was something in his words I was missing, some warning signal that I should see, a detectable, cautionary bleeping urging me to get out while I still could.

  “Finn?” I liked the way his name sounded. It fit him in a very non-fitting way. Finn was a whimsical name, a name that would be right at home with Peter Pan and the Lost Boys. Finn Clyde was big, scruffy-jawed, and a little intimidating. Definitely not whimsical. But it worked all the same.

  “Yeah?” he answered.

  “I don’t really want to die.”

  Clyde’s eyes slid from the road to search my face before they slid back again.

  “I just don’t want to live very bad,” I said. “But maybe that will change if I can just get away for a while, figure out who I am and what I want. So yeah, I want you to take me with you.”

  Finn nodded, just a quick jerk of his head, and that was my only response for several minutes.

  “Your sister . . . was she older or younger?” Finn asked.