Reggie did. A peacock, he thought he was a peacock. Reggie snorted at the image, but in fact she felt rather fondly toward George at that moment. Despite his age he tried to maintain a certain standard of appearance. She was grateful for it, too, although she made fun of his passion for color coordination more often than she applauded it.
The woman had a number of outfits hanging on the motel’s unremovable hangers. Two wire hangers held freshly laundered garments still wrapped in see-through plastic. A single suitcase lay atop the motel’s collapsible canvas-ribbed stand. Reggie opened it and rummaged quickly through the collection of women’s underthings. Again, everything was Dee’s. Her husband seemed to live only with the clothes on his back.
Except for the spreading cosmetics, the belongings of the room’s occupants seemed surprisingly well contained. Things looked as if they could all be swept into the suit- case in less than a minute. Reggie resolved to not let them fall behind in their rent by so much as a day. They could bolt and be out of here before she could stop them if she so much as blinked in her vigilance.
She pulled the sheet back on the bed, then gasped as she heard the noise at the door.
Ash covered the boy like a shell, his great body hunched over the smaller one, concealing and protecting it both at once. Bobby could feel the man’s form against his but his weight did not crush him as it so easily could have. There was no sense of threat. He knew that Ash would not harm him, so he did not struggle against the bedspread that surrounded him, or the hovering presence of the big man himself. Bobby lay still, waiting for the moment to pass. He no longer questioned the things that happened to him but tried to flow with them, offering the least resistance possible.
Once they were well away from the motel Ash sat up in the backseat and took the bedspread off the boy, who rose slowly, blinking, at first not daring to believe he was seeing the real, familiar world flashing past the car windows.
Bobby looked at Ash for confirmation, and the big man smiled gleefully. The boy could sense Dee’s jubilation without even glancing at the front seat. Her excitement poured off of her in waves, as palpable as heat. She had twisted the rearview mirror so that she could watch his reaction. Bobby could see her eye, part of her nose. The arch of her eyebrow told him without question of her mood. She was exhilarated by their outing and Bobby knew she expected him to be the same.
“Well? What do you think?” Dee asked.
“This is great,” Bobby said. He looked out the window and tried to act as if all the passing scene of auto body shops and fast-food restaurants were brass rings on the merry-go-round. He was careful not to look directly into Dee’s eyes in the mirror. She was much too quick to tell when he was feigning interest. Ash was easier to fool and Bobby played him as a foil for his enthusiasm.
“Look,” he cried, tugging Ash’s arm. “Burger King!” Ash nodded approval.
“Do you like Burger King, Ash?”
“I like Burger King.”
“Can we eat there. Dee?”
“Is it a good one?” Dee asked.
“Yeah, it’s great. They have great french fries.”
“Let’s go somewhere new,” Dee said. Bobby noticed a change in her tone. A darker, more calculating note. He knew by now that she was never so excited that she stopped thinking. He had made a mistake in letting her know he had been there before. She would find a place where there was no chance that he would be recognized. They passed a billboard for mattresses that Bobby recognized, a shop selling wicker furniture where his mother sometimes made them stop, the state patrol building where Bobby’s father always slowed as he passed. They were going the wrong way. They were going away from home.
The sudden loss of hope infused his face despite his efforts, and Dee saw it immediately.
“You don’t like it,” she announced.
“What? Yes, I do. I like it,” Bobby was not certain what he was supposed to like.
“No, you don’t.” Her voice was flat, the excitement gone completely.
Ash gripped Bobby’s arm and squeezed, shaking his head in warning.
“I do like it!” Bobby said, hearing the desperation in his voice.
“You’re not having fun.”
“Yes, I am. I am.”
“We can just turn around right now and go home.”
“No, Dee, please…”
“If what I give you isn’t good enough for you, then we’ll just do without.”
“It is good enough. Honest, it really is.”
“I just thought you’d enjoy going out to eat for a change,” she said, her voice now full of self-pity. “Naturally I want to show you off, what’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing…”
“But I don’t want to show off an ungrateful little boy.”
“He wants to go,” Ash said.
“I do, I do.”
“Well… ”
“I think it’s great! It’s fun being out here. It’s fun being with you and Ash.”
“Well…”
“I don’t care what we eat. Whatever you want. You choose.”
“I did have someplace special in mind,” Dee said.
“Great!”
“Well… ”
She kept on driving and did not wheel the car around and head back to the motel as Bobby had feared, but her enthusiasm was gone entirely. The face that he could see in the mirror was now hurt, sullen, and wary. Disappointed.
They drove for half an hour and eventually Dee’s mood lightened and she began to talk again, but without the buoyancy of before. Ash seemed genuinely delighted by their outing and he studied the passing scene with interest. His face was close to the window, his nose nearly pressing against the glass. He reminded Bobby of a dog.
Bobby began to relax. He was out of the motel room. They had allowed him to wear his clothes for the first time since the kidnapping. They were not taking him home, but he was going out. Out meant a chance. Ash could not block every exit now that they were outside the room. There would be people around them if they ever stopped the car. He could yell for help, he could outwit Ash-he knew he could outsmart him-and run. Maybe a policeman would be there. Maybe someone who knew him. Maybe his parents.
Dee selected a large McDonald’s that featured a lighted outdoor playground. Despite the lateness of the hour there were a few young children running around the slides and seesaws. Harried mothers, taking a break from a long ride, stood nearby, watching their kids and hoping that this burst of energy would tire them sufficiently that they would sleep the rest of the way to their destinations.
Bobby and Ash ate in the car, consuming the food that Dee had brought them while she joined the mothers by the playground. Bobby devoured his dinner ravenously, deciding on the first scent of fried hamburger to postpone his plans until his hunger was assuaged.
“She’s talking about you,” Ash said.
Bobby looked up from his paper cup of french fries to see Dee chatting with two women. Her manner was very animated and she gesticulated frequently. He recognized the mood: it was the one that he feared most, the one in which she was the most unpredictable.
“How do you know?”
“She’s bragging about you,” Ash said. There was ketchup on Ash’s chin and Bobby involuntarily wiped his own face. “She’s very proud of you.”
Bobby saw Dee pointing toward the car. Her face was beaming. She seemed so happy. He had never
