Page 3 of Drive
“Why don’t you just Uber?” Holi suggested, her voice softening insympathy.
Rainey’s response was immediate. “Because I’ve never done that,” she snapped, and then immediately regretted it. “Holi, I’m sorry. It’s just… you know how hard this is forme.”
She heard Holi’s sigh over the phone and then waited out the accompanying cough. “I know how hard this is for you, Rain,” she said, and Rainey could hear the hard-edged, deep rooted love in her voice, and she knew she was about to get a lecture from her sister. “But as I’ve been lying here all morning —not reading —I’ve been thinking that maybe it’s a good thing I’m sick. Withoutme—”
“Don’t say that.God—”
“Rainey,” she interrupted. “Listen. Without me there to drive you, maybe you’ll — I don’t know — start thinking about drivinga—”
“Fine. I’ll Uber,” Rainey bit out, stopping her sister’s words and pulling them away from the subject. “I’ll download the app, get a ride to the hospital, and bring you morebooks.”
“Rainey, I didn’tmean—”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” she said, cutting her off again. And because she felt bad about that, she added a quick “Love you” beforedisconnecting.
Rainey gripped the phone in her hand for a solid minute, petting Archie while she willed her breath to come slow. Then, pulling in a breath and releasing it evenly, she tapped the App Store, downloaded the Uber app, and filled in her profile and payment information. She opened the app and watched the little blue dot pulse over herneighborhood.
As she typed Lourdes Hospital into theWhere To?window, Rainey could feel her heart clutch without mercy. She hated being able to feel her own heartbeat. It seemed like a countdown. And the more she thought about that, the faster the damn thingwent.
Without completing the request, she scooted out from under Archie’s curly head, stuffed her phone in her back pocket, and sped across the hall from her sister’s room into her own. Rainey dropped down on her knees beside the giant wicker basket she kept in one corner of her room for future projects. Skeins of yarn filled the basket to such an extent that a yarn avalanche seemed imminent. But Rainey didn’t have to disturb the pile to find what shewanted.
The black cashmere was the softest yarn she’d ever handled. Rainey had no idea what she would do with it, but it was like feathers, buttery soft, and she hadn’t been able to resist it when she’d touched it months ago at Jo-Ann Fabrics. Though the name of it was Midnight, it reminded her of raven wings, and touching it made her heart slow and her breath come even without her having to tell itto.
Most of her yarns had the same effect in her hands, but the Midnight’s power was unrivaled when she was unraveled. Its softness reminded her of childhood Saturday morning breakfasts and her mother’s favorite robe. For the hundredth time, she wished her mom and Kendall hadn’t moved to Galveston lastNovember.
It wasn’t their fault. Rainey understood that. The oil industry had taken a hit, and Kendall was lucky to be transferred instead of laid off. Galveston wasn’t that far. Just a four-hour drive. And Rainey wasn’t a kid anymore. She was twenty-three. But that didn’t matter. Some days, she really just wanted hermom.
Shaking her head to banish the pathetic thought, Rainey plucked out her phone again and tapped RequestRide.
Chapter 3
“Mais, Jacques, you been playin’dat song two days, yeah,” Pal said as Jacques descended the stairs Monday afternoon. “Soun’ good, but I can’t hear dawords.”
“Soun’ sorrowful.” The second voice, high pitched and nasally, could only be one otherperson.
“Morning, Floyd.” Jacques nodded to their next-door neighbor and Pal’s closest friend before turning to his grandfather. Floyd usually popped in two or three times a day, but he rarely missed his after-lunch cup of coffee with Pal. “No words yet. I’ll play it for you when it’sready.”
Pal shrugged mutely at Floyd. Jacques ignored their silent conversation. “How’s Mrs.Netty?”
Floyd Cloutier pursed his lips. His face was a bed of wrinkles, but his eyes always shone. “Not too good. Better dan most. Dat hip’s abother.”
“Words for the day?” Jacques asked, moving to the refrigerator for a soda. He grabbed his favorite. Swamp Pop SatsumaFizz.
“For you? Books, bags, and blues.” Floyd tipped his chin toward Pal. “Albert didn’t like his wordsnone.”
Jacques had known Floyd and his wife Netty as long as he could remember. Floyd had a gift that defied understanding, but no one who knew him questioned or doubted it. For every person he’d meet on any given day, Floyd rattled off a list of three words that — as he explained it — just came to him. Those words were a kind of premonition for the day. Always alliterative, and often confusing, it usually gave people afrissonwhen the foretold words popped into theirlives.
It had happened to Jacques on countlessoccasions.
“Dollar, D, and Dalmatian”had been particularly grim. He had been a junior in high school at the time, and he’d lost the first in a stupid bet. He made the second in chemistry. And he’d killed the third in Emmie Hartfield’s driveway that afternoon. The bet, with his best friend Brady, was over if he could work up the courage to ask Emmie to Homecoming before lunch. He couldn’t. The D was scrawled in red ink across a test on covalent bonds and, disgusted with himself over his cowardice and his stupidity, Jacques had driven to Emmie’s house. The girl had been the object of his crush since the first day of school — and he’d shown his affections by hitting Tonks, Emmie’s Dalmatian puppy, who had darted from the bushes into the path his truck as he pulled into thedrive.
Needless to say, Emmie did not go with him toHomecoming.
Floyd’s three words usually weren’t so damning, but it was about a year before Jacques asked for his predictions again. But by then, he’d won Emmie’s heart. It had only taken six months and a purebred Cocker Spaniel Jacques had worked all winter at Subway topurchase.
Emmie had named the puppy Olive because she was Jacques’s peace offering. And then she’d dated him for threeyears.
Jacques shook the unbidden memory from his thoughts. “What were his three words?” he asked Floyd, grasping for anything to clear hishead.
