Page 24 of Survive the Night

Then she can go home, try to put all this behind her.

Mind made up and armed with change, Charlie unfastens the seat belt, which retracts with a startling click. When she opens the passenger-side door, the car’s interior light flicks on, bathing her in a sickly yellow glow. She starts to slide out of the car but stops herself when another car pulls into the parking lot. A beige Dodge Omni packed with teenagers. Inside, music pulses, muffled by windows rattling to the beat. The car screeches to a stop two spaces away from Josh’s Grand Am, and a girl immediately pops out of the passenger side. Inside the car, someone shouts for her to grab a bag of Corn Nuts. The girl bows and says, “Yes, my darling dearest.”

She’s young—seventeen at most—but drunk. Charlie can tell by the way she shuffles to the curb on high-heeled boots, hampered further by her skintight minidress. Seeing her gives Charlie a painful twinge. Memories of Maddy, also drunk. The girl even looks a bit like her, with her blond hair and pretty face. And while her clothes aren’t remotely similar—Maddy would never have worn something so current—their attitudes seem to match. Bold and messy and loud.

Charlie supposes there’s a Maddy in every town, in every state.A whole army of brash blond girls who get drunk and do sweeping bows in parking lots and serve their best friends birthday breakfasts of champagne and cake, as Maddy used to do for Charlie each March. The thought pleases her—until she realizes there’s now a town without one.

Making it worse is the music spilling out the Omni’s still-open passenger door.

The Cure.

“Just Like Heaven.”

The same song that was thrumming inside the bar when Charlie spoke those horrible last words to Maddy.

You’re an awful friend. I hope you know that.

Followed by the final two, lobbed over her shoulder like a grenade.

Fuck off.

Charlie recoils back into the car and slams the door shut. All desire to return to Olyphant, even if just for the next ten days, is gone. If this was some kind of sign that she should continue moving forward, Charlie’s noticed it loud and clear. So loud that she covers her hands with her ears to muffle the music, removing them only after not-quite-Maddy gets back into the car with an ice-blue Slurpee, a pack of Marlboro Lights, and a bag of Corn Nuts for her friend.

Josh exits the 7-Eleven as the Omni pulls out of the parking lot. He pushes through the door balancing two jumbo coffees, one stacked atop the other. He uses his chin to steady them, his wallet a buffer between it and the plastic lid of the top cup. When he steps off the curb, the cups bobble and his wallet slides out from under his chin. It hits the asphalt with a splat.

This time, Charlie doesn’t need a cinematic example to understand she must get out of the car and help. So she does, chirping “I’ll get it” before Josh can kneel to pick up the wallet.

“Thanks,” he says. “Can you also get the door?”

“Sure.”

Charlie scoops up the wallet and stuffs it in her coat pocket before rushing back to the car and opening the driver’s-side door. Josh then hands her a coffee cup so big she has to hold it with both hands as she slides into the passenger seat. Back inside the car, both of them cradle their steaming cups. Charlie takes a few small, scalding sips to show her appreciation.

“Thank you for the coffee,” she says after another demonstrative sip.

“It was no problem.”

“And I’m sorry about earlier.”

“It’s fine,” Josh says. “We’re both dealing with shit right now. Emotions are a little raw. Everything’s cool. Ready to go?”

Charlie gives the pay phone outside the store a brief, disinterested glance and takes another sip of coffee. “Yeah. Let’s roll.”

It’s not until Josh has started the car and is backing it out of the parking spot that Charlie notices the lump in her coat pocket. Josh’s wallet, all but forgotten. She holds it up and says, “What do you want me to do with this?”

“Just set it on the dashboard for now.”

Charlie does, the wallet sliding a few inches as Josh turns the Grand Am onto the main road. It slides again a few seconds later when they veer to the right, hitting the entrance ramp to the interstate. It keeps on sliding as Josh shifts into second gear—a sudden jolt of speed. The wallet drops off the dashboard and into Charlie’s lap, flapping open like bat wings taking flight.

The first thing she sees are credit cards tucked into individual slats that obscure everything but the tops of Visa and American Express logos. On the other side of the wallet, snug behind a plastic sleeve, is Josh’s driver’s license.

His license photo is enviably good, the shitty DMV camera somehow managing to highlight his best assets. The jawline. Thesmile. The great hair. The picture on Charlie’s license makes her look like a stoned zombie—a secondary reason she chose not to get it renewed.

Charlie’s about to close the wallet when she notices something strange.

Josh’s driver’s license is issued by the state of Pennsylvania. Not Ohio, which would make sense, considering that’s where he’s from. Even more logical would be a New Jersey license, seeing how Josh told her he’s worked at Olyphant for the past four years.

But Pennsylvania? That just seems wrong. Even if he lived there before moving to Ohio with his father, it would have expired like her own.

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