Free Pretending to Be Erica by Michelle Painchaud Page B

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    “Piano is the ultimate instrument. To my dad. Everything else is inferior,” James finally says.
    “But you like guitar.”
    “I’m in a band. Sort of.” He shakes his head. “Dad doesn’t know that.”
    “Do you play gigs?”
    “A guy I met on the Internet and I do collaborations. I play the guitar and piano; he does the electronic stuff.”
    “Let me guess—your band name is James and the Giant Peach.”
    “Close.” He smirks.
    “Giant Fig?”
    “I lied. No name yet. But Giant Fig is pretty interesting.”
    “Have you told your dad?”
    James sighs. “And give him a coronary? I don’t want to kill the guy. Telling him what I really want will just hurt him. I’ve learned that now.”
    He sounds so despondent, so resigned to his fate. He doesn’t want to do what his dad wants him to. Violet always wanted to do what Sal said. Conning. She likes it. But she likes this life of normalcy also. Telling Sal that would just hurt him, too.
    “I know this is a dangerous subject,” he starts. “But what kinds of music do you like?”
    I have to think up something quick. Sal played lots of Elvis and old music in the car.
    “You’re going to laugh,” I murmur.
    “I won’t. Honest to God.”
    “And you won’t hate me?”
    “I’m not a music Nazi.”
    “The Ink Spots. Billie Holiday.” I sigh. “Elvis. Janis Joplin. Bob Dylan. My dad—the guy who used to be my dad—loved all those older bands.”
    “Whoa, you covered at least three separate decades there.”
    “They’re all old to me,” I say with a huff.
    He laughs and switches lanes. “All right. So, favorite song?”
    “Ever?”
    He nods. I bite my lip and watch the just-budding trees flash by outside.
    “I don’t think I’ve found it yet.”
    His mouth twists with a smile I’ve never seen before. And I’ve seen every smile.
    “That’s the right answer.”

6: Cheat It
    The desert stretches on forever, the lights of the Strip faded against the twilight sky. Bare fingertips of light hovering on the horizon are all that are left of the world’s luckiest place. The desert is pale sand, khaki and dry and spiny with the bones of dead things and cactuses—saviors of the thirsty and the masochistic.
    Ten-year-old Violet waits by the side of the road, her thumb out. Her braids are long and pale. It’s been two weeks since she slept in a real bed. Five days since she had a bath. Seven hours since she last ate. Sal paces the shoulder lane. Their stolen car is a smoking husk, having been driven until the gas ran out, over the sands and potholes of off-road Nevada until the police lost them. The bumps had been fun, but Violet’s tired now. She can’t show that though. Sal might get mad. She blinks back sleep and holds her thumb higher.
    “Let’s play the face game, Vi”—Sal looks to her—“on whoever picks us up.”
    She nods. The headlights of a truck cut the ribbon of cooling asphalt. At a distance they are two white fireflies, flickering in and out of the night. Embarrassed. Shy. They get more confident the closer they rumble, and Violet’s pupils shrink to pinpricks. The lights slow. Sal gathers Violet up and opens the truck’s door.
    “You headed to Dallas by any chance?”
    The driver smiles. “Yeah, hop on in. Car trouble?”
    “Damn thing just blew up. It’s been on its last legs for years now.” Sal sighs. “I’m George, by the way, and this here’s my daughter, Abigail.”
    The driver kicks the truck into gear. Sal is a natural at conversation—not distracting, and mildly stimulating. He asks what the trucker’s shipping (furniture), where he’s from (Salt Lake City), and what’s the longest he’s gone without sleep in this job (twenty-seven hours, though, legally, it’s supposed to be just fifteen).
    “We just got back from a funeral,” Sal says. Violet watches his face carefully, keeping an eye out for which muscles he uses to make his lies or truths convincing.
    “You twitched your corrugator