The police brought us back to the apartment complex so Keefer could get his boss’s truck. It was nearly two-thirty in the morning.
“You’d better keep your nose clean,” the policeman told him when we got out.
We watched the patrol car leave.
“Sorry about all this,” Keefer said. “Trouble just seems to enjoy my company.”
“It was my fault. If you didn’t have to rush me home, you wouldn’t have hit that car.”
He shrugged.
“I guess we’re both good and screwed up,” he said. “You were right. We’re a pair.”
We looked at each other and laughed. It was more a laugh of relief than anything else, but it felt good, and then we embraced and I started up to the apartment. I glanced at Kathy Ann’s apartment and saw the lights were all out. At least she wasn’t hovering at the front window this time, I thought.
As quickly as I could, I undressed and got into bed. Despite all the excitement, I was so exhausted, I fell into a deep sleep, almost a coma, moments after my head hit the pillow. I’ll worry about everything tomorrow, I told myself. I’ll be Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind.
But I wasn’t that lucky. My life was a totally different movie.
A little after four in the morning, Mother darling threw open my bedroom door and screamed my name so loud, she surely woke everyone in the entire apartment complex.
I groaned and reluctantly forced my eyes to open. She was at the foot of the bed.
“Tell me it’s a lie. Tell me it isn’t true. Tell me they made a mistake and thought you were someone else.”
“It’s a lie. It isn’t true. They made a mistake,” I said, and dropped my head back to the pillow.
“You ain’t gonna be able to do this, Kay,” Cory said from behind. “You can’t concentrate on making music, writing new songs, getting better and better if you have that lead weight around your neck.”
“I know,” she said sadly. I heard her sniff back some tears, but I kept my eyes closed and pretended I had fallen asleep again. “Let me think on it,” she told him. “You’re impossible, Robin Lyn,” she threw back at me, and then she left and closed the door.
I slept into the next day almost as long as they did. I had just made some coffee and was sitting and sipping it in the kitchen when Mother darling shuffled in, her hair wild, her eyes bloodshot.
“I didn’t sleep much last night, Robin.” She poured herself a cup of coffee and looked at me. I was staring down at my own coffee cup. “Talk,” she said. “Cory’s policeman friend told us you were brought to the station, that you were involved in a hit-and-run accident. How could you be? I spoke to you here, didn’t I? Well?”
“I went for a ride earlier,” I said, “and we hit a car and didn’t realize it was serious.”
“Who’s we? Who was drivin‘?”
“A friend of mine,” I said.
“How can you have so many friends so fast?” she asked.
I looked up.
“I guess I’m a naturally sociable person. Look, nothing happened. My friend is taking care of it all. No one was arrested. It was all settled.”
“But didn’t I tell you not to leave the apartment?”
“I can’t stay cooped up in here. It’s too small. The television set hardly gets anything. I hate it here!” I screamed.
“I really don’t know what to do with you,” she said.
“Trade me in for a new guitar,” I shot back.
“Sometimes, I wish I could,” she said.
“I always wish you could.”