1
SLOANE
The champagne was a mistake. The first two glasses were survival — you don't get through your cousin's wedding sober when your mother keeps making comments about how wonderful it is that someone in this family has their life together. The third was because I'd just watched my boyfriend of six months disappear behind the winery building with one of the bridesmaids, and when you see something like that, you have two choices. You either cry or you drink. I chose drink. The fourth was while I was waiting for them to come back, trying to decide whether I was going to make a scene or be dignified about it. They took their time. The fifth was when I'd stopped caring about being dignified.
That was two hours ago. Maybe three, I'm not entirely sure. Time works differently when you've just screamed at a man in front of three hundred people.
The I-5 is dead at this hour. Just me and the occasional truck and a road that goes on forever. I have the top down because the night air is warm and it keeps me awake. The Central Valley stretches out flat and dark on both sides and it smells like dust and manure.
I shouldn't be driving but I'm fine. I'm a good driver and the road is empty. I'll be home in three and a half hours, maybe less if I push it, and then I can wash this night off me and forget I ever went to Napa.
God, I should have listened. Every single person in my life warned me about Tyler. My sister said he was a walking red flag. My best friend said he had the moral compass of a timeshare salesman. Even my father, who never comments on anything that doesn't involve a balance sheet, took me aside at Christmas and said, "Sloane, I'm not sure about this one." And I told all of them that they didn't know him like I did. That he was different with me.
I press harder on the accelerator and the engine responds. This car is one of the few things in my life that has never let me down. A yellow Porsche 718 Boxster. Convertible. My father bought it for my twenty-third birthday, which he missed because he was in Singapore. It's a guilt car, but I've never held that against it.
The speedometer creeps past ninety and I ease off slightly. The smooth highway has given way to something rougher, and the headlights pick up cracks and patches in the asphalt. I passed through Coalinga a while back. Or maybe I went around it, I'm not sure. I've never paid attention to the Central Valley before. It's the part you fly over on your way to San Francisco, or the blur outside the window when you're scrolling on your phone and someone else is driving.
There's a sign on the right side of the road, green and reflective.
Welcome to Duster. Population 1,947
Despite my mood, I laugh. Duster. Who names a town Duster? Who lives in a town called Duster? I try to picture it — a main street with a gas station and a church and probably a diner where everybody knows everybody and nothing ever happens.Where Friday night is a big deal because someone got a new truck. The kind of place I would rather die than end up in.
The road narrows and there are no streetlights now, just my headlights cutting a path through the dark. Fields on one side, a farm on the other.
I reach for my phone on the passenger seat, curious to see if Tyler has had the decency to at least send me an apology. He hasn't. He's probably in bed with the bridesmaid by now, telling her the same things he told me.You're different. I've never felt this way. You make me want to be better.The complete Tyler Ashworth starter pack.
The pothole comes out of nowhere and my right front tire hits it so hard that the whole car lurches. The steering wheel yanks to the side and I grab it with both hands but I'm overcorrecting, pulling too far left, and then I'm off the road completely and there's a fence in the headlights, coming at me fast. I slam on the brakes but it's too late. The impact is loud and jarring as the airbag explodes in my face and everything goes white.
For a moment, I don't move. My ears are ringing. There's powder on my face from the airbag, my nose hurts, and I can taste blood. I'm shaking, breathing hard.
I'm not hurt, I think. I check — hands, arms, face, neck. Everything moves. Only a nosebleed. I take off my seatbelt and push the airbag aside. There's a strange noise.
I've driven through a fence and into the side of a wooden building. Some sort of shed or outbuilding. The left side of it is smashed open where my car went through, and the headlight — only one of them is still working — illuminates splintered wood and scattered debris.
And then the noises grow louder.
Snuffling, grunting. Shapes appear in the gap I've made —low, moving — escaping through the broken wall. They snort asthey go, and it takes me several seconds to understand what I'm looking at.
Pigs. I've just released an entire building full of pigs.
They're trotting across the dirt in front of my car, some heading for the farmhouse, others fanning out into the night. A big one stops right in front of my hood and looks at me before waddling off.
A security light snaps on, flooding the area with white light. And then another light comes on in the house at the end of the long driveway.
Fuck. Someone's woken up.
My heart is hammering. Someone is about to see me, and I've been drinking, and this is — this is very, very bad.
I try the engine. The car still works. It moves when I put it in reverse, slowly, scraping against something, and I pull back from the building and turn the wheel while the one remaining headlight sweeps across the damage.
It's bad. The whole side of the outbuilding is caved in. The fence is gone — just posts and splinters and a gap wide enough for livestock to walk through. Which they are doing, right now, freely and enthusiastically.
The front door opens and a figure steps out.
The right thing to do is to get out and say,I'm so sorry, I hit a pothole, I lost control. Are the animals okay? Let me help fix this.Take responsibility. But I already have a DUI to my name and I can't risk losing my license again.
Struggling to think straight, I put the car in drive. The Porsche limps back onto the road and I drive. This night was already the worst night of my life and I've just made it so much worse.
