Synesthesia: Chapter Twenty-Two
serial fiction
Before I could formulate a word, Amber had grabbed Jacob and whispered something to Hoka guy that caused him to stand up and follow her.
I stood next to the table a little longer, too shocked to move. Amber didn’t look back.
I watched the plastic bag swing stiffly by Amber’s side as she hurried toward the door, remembering in awe and horror what I’d just seen inside it.
My legs finally cooperated, and I half-walked, half-ran to catch up to the craziest woman I’d ever known.
Jacob and Hokas were already in the back seat and Amber was preparing to sit down in the driver’s seat, keys in hand, when I reached the car.
I looked around nervously, expecting police cars to flood the parking lot at any moment.
“Get in, dummy,” called Amber from behind the wheel of the Mustang.
I got in.
I’d barely gotten my door closed when the car lurched backwards, then forward and to the left, slipping out of the parking lot and onto the frontage road before I could even find my seat belt.
The car was filled with an excited cinnamon scent that stung my eyes. But through the cinnamon, there was a faint undercurrent of orange blossom, too.
Was Amber afraid? She’d looked so fearless back at the restaurant. I looked over at her, but her face was unreadable.
She turned her head and met my gaze, and a smile erupted across her face. A blast of eucalyptus hit my nostrils.
“Alright, I know you wanna ask me,” she said faux-modestly, reeking of pride at her accomplishment. “‘Damn, Amber, how did you do it?’”
I didn’t care for the comically deep voice and swaggering movements she used in her impression of me.
But she was right. I wanted to know.
“Okay,” I said, now self-conscious about my voice. “How’d you do it?”
She grinned wide, and the eucalyptus and cinnamon swirled disgustingly in the air around us. Combined with Amber’s erratic, too-fast driving, it was making me feel sick to my stomach.
Amber glanced into the rearview mirror, then lowered her voice, as if to prevent Jacob from overhearing.
“You remember back at that bus? All those envelopes I found?”
I nodded, gripping the seat as Amber moved into the left lane without signaling.
“That’s stuff Gas Stove gets delivered to different places so he can keep his actual address private,” she explained as the Mustang rapidly approached a semi truck ahead of us. “His people put it there for him. Kind of like his own private postal service, you know?” She veered suddenly into the right lane and passed the truck from the right side.
My skin felt clammy and cold despite the heat. If Amber didn’t get us all killed on this highway, Gas Stove would definitely murder us for messing with his mail.
And I still hadn’t heard where the money had come from.
“Okay, but—” I fought down an urge to vomit as Amber swerved back into the left lane just ahead of the semi, which honked in annoyance— “but where did the money come from?”
The burning stench of gasoline bloomed and filled the car.
Amber laughed. No, not laughed. Cackled. Like an animatronic Halloween witch.
I shuddered and fought to keep the contents of my stomach down where they belonged.
“I knew we were nearby when we got to the restaurant,” Amber explained, her voice just a murmur now. I struggled to hear it over the sound of blood pumping in my ears.
“Nearby what?” I asked.
Amber jerked the car back into the right lane, anticipating the exit.
“Near one of the addresses from the letters,” she explained impatiently, rolling her eyes as if I were a dimwitted student being told, for the hundredth time, that two plus two equals four. “So once I had the keys in my hand I thought, hey, why the fuck not? I’ll give it a shot.”
We were exiting the highway. I could see the tired lights on the sign for the Magic Sunset Motel flickering from the other side of I-10.
“So I head over there. I was just gonna poke around, see if he had anything we could use. Sometimes he keeps little stashes, you know?” The car slowed, then stopped at the red light. We were in the left-turn lane, but Amber still hadn’t even touched the turn signals.
I reached an arm over and flicked it down. “Signal, will you?” I grunted. The turn signal began to emit a satisfying series of slow clicks.
As I pulled my hand away from the lever, Amber let off a puff of sulfur.
I rolled my eyes. The rotten-egg smell of annoyance has never really bothered me. Let her be annoyed, I thought. Her bad driving annoys me.
“Anyway,” Amber continued, still smelling of sulfur, “I go up to the house, right—it’s a house—and it’s all dark inside, so I figure no one’s home. I’m not dumb enough to try the front door, so I go around the back. And the back door’s open! So I take a few steps inside, and there, right there on the table, is just piles and piles of cash. Just sitting there! Door unlocked, nobody home!”
She was exultant now, letting off eucalyptus and the fish-market smell of fearlessness. The Mustang was just yards from the motel parking lot.
“And so of course, I take it!” she said, parking across two spots.
She sounded so thoroughly proud of herself, I couldn’t help but feel some reverence for her mixed in with my disbelief at her utter stupidity.
“I was gonna just take a few stacks,” she explained. “But then I saw that bag sitting there with some Cheetos and stuff in it. So I dumped out the Cheetos and threw in as much cash as would fit. And then I drove right back.”
I just sat and stared.
On the one hand, it was an action of pure idiocy. Stealing thousands, maybe tens of thousands of dollars of Gas Stove’s money? Walking straight into an unknown house, in the dark, completely on her own?
On the other hand, if Gas Stove didn’t kill us all, this could be our lucky break. This could change both of our lives.
“I don’t know what to say,” I said finally, staring at her. Under the street lamps of the parking lot, her green eyes seemed to have lights behind them, lights that danced in triumph, or maybe simply because she was, despite all odds, still alive, still making it through everything life had thrown at her.
She grinned again, then opened the driver’s-side door.
“You don’t have to say anything at all,” she said. “Just take us where you promised you would.”
Amber hopped out of the car and pulled the seat forward in one smooth movement. She kissed Jacob on his forehead, and I saw the lights behind her eyes dance again as she smiled at him.
“Now let’s get some sleep. I’m exhausted,” Amber said. “Jacob, bring the bag.”