None of This Would Have Happened If Prince Were Alive by Carolyn Prusa

Author:Carolyn Prusa [Prusa, Carolyn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-11-22T00:00:00+00:00

10

HELL OR HIGH WATER

11:29 A.M.

When I pull over to an Enmarket gas station somewhere between Augusta and Savannah, the Sienna shudders as it comes to a stop. My parking spot is neither near the convenience store nor the gas pump so we probably look suspicious. Like I am stopping to breastfeed or heat up a crack pipe. I flip open my laptop. I’ve got two bars—this should be awesome.

“What are we doing, Mommy?” asks Alex.

I unbuckle my seat belt so I can fully spin myself around, 180 degrees like an owl.

“Okay, superstars. Here’s the thing: I need to make a call for work. A video call. I bet it takes twenty minutes. The thing is I can’t have crazy noises in the background.”

Nanette: “You have wook?”

“During the hurricane?” Alex says.

“I do, sweethearts. It’s dumb but I want to keep my job.” I fumble for the package of powdered donuts I bought at the first gas station stashed in the valley of the passenger’s seat. “I need you guys to shift over to one side of the van. The right side.”

Alex frowns. “Your right or our right?”

My son’s concern with logistics is adorable because I’m pretty sure he doesn’t know his right from his left.

I point: “Over there.”

“Okay,” Alex says.

Bailey lowers his Beats from his ears to around his neck, looks at me, then at the seat next to him, slides from left to right, returns headphones to their original spot.

“I’m already over here,” Alex points out. “Mommy I think I have a wiggly tooth.”

“Where do I go?” Nanette asks me. “I want a donut.”

I reach across to unclick her seat belt.

“Maybe,” I suggest, “in the back-back near Bailey? Alex, that’s so exciting.”

Nanette clutches Minneapolis, grabs her sippy cup, piles them next to Bailey. She returns to her car seat for the iPad, her sticker book, a sparkly wand she finds in the pocket behind the driver’s seat. I glance at the clock: 11:33. Every snail in the history of mollusks can move faster than Nanette in this moment.

I’ve got to keep my breath steady and my voice neutral. If I reveal one ounce of the panic I feel under the surface my children will catch on to it the way sharks detect a drop of blood miles away and zoom in for the kill.

“I wonder if the Tooth Fairy comes during hurricanes,” says Alex. “She might get sucked up in the crazy wind.”

I open the package of donuts, hand it to Bailey: “It’s a risk that comes with the job. She probably has sophisticated storm tracker technology. Toothnology? All right. Twenty minutes. Please, help Mommy out, munchkins.”

By some miracle I’m dialed into the call—there’s a connection. In the window on the screen I’m speaking with Abigail and Jason, two turtleneck sweatered figures in a teal room. The image is mostly clear, though I can’t tell if Abigail has a nose ring or if that’s a big mole. And of course, there’s me in the upper right corner. I never noticed how rippled my forehead looks when I speak.

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