by Nina LaCour
When I get back to the van to take my seat, I see that Alexa has taken all the strips of paper and grouped them by handwriting. There are Bev’s, about specific moments and events; Alexa’s, about experiences and life; Meg’s, about impulses and fantasies.
And then there are mine, glaring up at me. Saying, You don’t know anything about anyone. Not even yourself.
The Disenchantments’ only afternoon show is in a town called Weaverville, at this bright café on a block of Gold Rush–era buildings. Posters and pamphlets for upcoming events along with community announcements hang in the window: dog walker for hire, meeting about a new traffic light, a show from San Francisco band The Disenchanters.
“Hey,” I say. “Look—they got the name wrong.”
“Oh, no,” Alexa says. “The Disenchanters? That’s not what we are at all.”
“I kinda like it,” Meg says. “We sound like a heavy metal band or something. All the way from San Francisco, here to crush your hopes and spit on your dreams, I bring you, The Disenchanters! Let’s give them a hand!”
Bev just laughs. “That’s awesome,” she says. “We should make sure to get a poster to take home with us.”
Inside, the tables and chairs are mismatched and colorful amateur paintings hang on the brick walls. We introduce ourselves to the kids working there—a short round guy named Mark and a girl with a brown ponytail—and Alexa tells them what the band’s actual name is and they apologize over and over. Alexa borrows my Sharpie and crosses out the name on the poster in the window and rewrites it correctly, and then asks for a sheet of paper from my sketchbook so that she can make the set list even though they only know seven songs and they play them in the same order every time.
Mark and the girl give us free smoothies. They say hi to the customers, call them by their names. Everyone I see seems open and friendly.
Maybe I could live in a town like this.
I imagine myself waking up in a rented room in one of the oldest houses in California, riding my bike to this café, saying hey to the guy and girl working here, and talking about some random event from the night before—in a town this small everyone of a certain age must be friends with one another—and then moving to a table by the window and reading the newspaper. I try to think of what might come next, but I can’t think of anything beyond the morning.
“Colby,” Meg says. “You aren’t listening.”
As soon as I turn back to their faces, the illusion of life here vanishes.
“I was asking if you’d heard from Jasper yet,” Alexa says.
“Not since yesterday.”
“Maybe the tattooed guy is an old friend of your dad’s, or Pete’s,” Bev says.
“But wouldn’t they have known about it if the guy was their friend?” I ask.
“Yeah, that’s true.”
“I bet it has more to do with the image,” Alexa says. “Maybe someone just saw the bird on the tape cover and liked it.”
Meg says, “Maybe he’s a weatherman.”
“What?” I laugh. “A weatherman?”
“Yeah,” Meg says, as though this is an obvious possibility. “The rain cloud? Remember?”
“I remember,” I say. “But raindrops parting for a bluebird doesn’t exactly say ‘weatherman’ to me.”
“Well, I think it’s the most logical guess so far,” she says. “In fact, the mystery is solved as far as I’m concerned.”
She grins, stands up.
“Showtime?” she asks, and the rest of them get up with her.
I stay at the table for a little while and flip through Alexa’s notebook.
1. Mailman
46. Lawyer
79. Art director
The café fills up with locals and the girl working walks up onstage to introduce the band.
“Hi, everyone,” she says, a little shyly.
“Hey, Lily!” a few people say back to her.
“We’re really excited to have The Disenchantments here to play for us this afternoon. They’re touring from San Francisco to Portland. Let’s welcome them to Weaverville!”
Lily claps, her ponytail swinging side to side. The customers set down their mugs to join in, and then the music begins.
108. Secretary
212. Literary agent
289. Movie actor
305. Florist
Meg plucks a particularly off note and I glance up to see Lily and Mark exchange a look. She smiles and he widens his eyes, both of them amused.
523. Sociologist
682. Tightrope walker
Halfway into The Disenchantments’ set, I leave Alexa’s notebook and my calendar on the table and go up to the counter for water. As I’m pouring, trying hard to block out the amp feedback, Mark appears next to me with a rag to wipe off the stray sugar granules and puddles of spilled coffee.
“They make quite the band,” he says.
“That’s a nice way to put it.”
“At first I thought they might just need a minute to warm up.”
“No,” I say. “This is what they sound like.”
Mark turns to look at them. Meg is jumping around the stage, forgetting to even play her instrument.
“Last summer the house next to me was under construction,” Mark says. “It kinda sounded like this.”
I wander outside with my water and my phone and sit on the steps leading up to the café door, the air so dusty and hot that breathing requires effort.
I’ve been meaning to check in with my dad.
As I pull up his cell number, I can feel my mouth getting dry, my heart pounding harder, neither of which has ever happened to me before talking to one of my parents. Even when I told them that Bev and I were going to travel before going to college, I didn’t feel nervous. They sat side by side on the living room couch and I sat in the worn, green easy chair and they watched me closely and listened to the things that I said. I knew that they would understand, and they did.
But for some reason it’s harder to tell him that I’m not going. I’ve never kept anything this big from him, but I can’t tell him yet. First, I need to know what I’m doing instead.
So I lift the phone to my ear and tell myself that everything’s fine, that I’m not going to talk about Europe yet, and I don’t have to ask him anything about Mom if I don’t want to. This can be an easy conversation the way all of our conversations are.
“I’m glad you caught me,” he says when he answers. “I’ve been screening my calls. It’s hard to be this famous.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The tattoo!”
“Oh,” I laugh. “Right.”
“I talked to Pete about it. He found a business card from a show we played at a brewery in Ukiah. He says he remembers us having some real dedicated fans in the audience who drove from Fort Bragg to come to the show, but I’m not so sure. Between you and me, I think Pete might be manufacturing some memories.”
I tell my dad about Jasper and how he’s investigating for us, about the heat and the shows and the places we’ve gone so far. He laughs forever about Walt.
“Don’t tell your mother that story,” he says. “She’d never sleep again, knowing you walked into a strange man’s basement.”
“Yeah, I’ll leave out that part.” I pause for a moment, decide to keep going. “How’s Ma doing?”
“Great, I think. She’s learning fast.”
“When does her class end again?”
“There are different levels and different sessions,” he says. “As soon as one ends she’s evaluated and then the next session starts. She has the option to keep going until she’s finished with the highest level, but I don’t know how long it will take her to reach it, or if she’ll want to stay all the way through.”
“Sounds complicated,” I say.
“Yes, but it’s her dream.”
“Yeah,” I say. “I know.”
“She can’t wait to see you.”
My heart speeds up. I change the subject.
&nb
sp; After the show has finished and we’ve packed the bus, I consult my calendar and I climb into the driver’s seat.
“Off to the Unknown Motel,” I say. “Hopefully in Yreka.”
“Exactly.” Alexa nods and tells me to pull out and make a U-turn and get on Highway 3.
We drive past a lumberyard, full of a forest’s worth of felled trees. I slow as we pass it. It’s almost too big to comprehend.
But soon we are actually in the forest, in the shade, and I stop worrying about the bus overheating and decide we need some mellow music. Alexa scrolls through my choices, and soon Bon Iver is booming through the speakers—melodic, insistent, all about heartbreak—as I navigate winding, green roads.
About an hour later we reach an unmarked divide in the road. I stop. Alexa checks her directions. She frowns. She unfolds the map, turns it over, searching for a closer view.
Meg and Bev have been quiet in the back, sleeping or reading or just being still. Now I can hear them moving on the seats.
“Meg?” Alexa says. “I think we need your phone. I can’t figure this out.”
“Sure,” Meg murmurs, and hands her phone to Alexa in front.
Alexa stares at the screen. “No service,” she says.
I grab the map and take a look, but Alexa’s right: wherever we are, it is too remote to show up. I look at her. She looks back. And then, her face goes from puzzled to confident: “The Magic Eight Ball! Meg! Pass it up here.”
“I think we should go left,” I say.
“That would make sense.” Alexa nods. “Because we were going east and eventually we need to go north. But it’s also possible that we aren’t supposed to turn yet—the roads curve around so much—maybe our turn comes later.
“This way we can rely on a power greater than ourselves,” Alexa says, taking the black-and-white ball from Meg.
Bev’s laughter comes from the far back. It’s been days since I’ve heard her laugh like this.
Alexa takes a deep breath and asks her question loudly and clearly, slowly enough for the Magic 8 Ball gods to hear and understand her: “We are going to Yreka. Should we go straight at this divide in the road?”
We all watch as she shakes the ball, lean forward as the triangle floats up through the bubbles in the cloudy water.
IT IS DECIDEDLY SO.
“There,” she says, smiling. “It’s decided.”
“I think we should go left,” I say.
“The Magic Eight Ball has spoken.”
“The Magic Eight Ball is wrong.”
“It’s fifty-fifty anyway,” Meg says. “None of us knows for sure.”
“Lex?” I ask.
She points straight ahead.
I glance back at Bev. Amusement flashes across her face.
“Okay,” I say and, against my better judgment, go straight.
Everyone is wide awake now, looking out the window, waiting for a sign. The road narrows, curves to the right. The forest thickens. Branches reach over us and a million bright spots of light mark the road where the sun shines through the leaves. Once in a while: patches of brilliant purple flowers.
In my rearview mirror, I can see Bev’s hand where it rests on the windowpane, her long, slender fingers. It’s been too long since I’ve drawn her hands.
“This is so beautiful,” Alexa says.
Bev should be next to me. Her hand should rest on my body somewhere. We should be thinking some simultaneous thought, and I should be full of awe instead of aching.
“Yeah,” I say finally. “It’s pretty. But it doesn’t feel right.”
Alexa leans so close to me that her feather earring grazes my cheek.
“The Magic Eight Ball told us. Unequivocally.”
We drive two more hours down the same road before the trees open to a small town. When we get out at the tiny gas station and ask an old, mostly toothless man where we are, he points to a spot on the map that is considerably southwest of where we were this afternoon. I don’t react because I knew this would happen.
Alexa blushes, too embarrassed to say anything.
“Whatever,” I say. “It was pretty.”
Meg and the old man plan our route back north and I pump the gas, and Alexa asks, “Why would it lead us in the wrong direction?”
“Because it’s a toy,” I say. “It’s manufactured by, like, Mattel or something. It’s made out of plastic and water.”
Alexa sighs. Looking across the street at a fruit stand with hand-painted signs declaring DELICIOUS! PISTACHIOS! CHERRIES!, “I’ll go get us some snacks,” she says. “Who knows how long it will take us to get back on our route.”
She shuffles away, her feather earrings barely fluttering.
I lean against the bus and scan the station for Bev. Apparently we have cell service back. She’s out on the road, walking in slow, dreamy circles, probably talking to that red-haired girl who she reached at a number she will not erase from her phone anytime soon.
This is not good. Now we have to backtrack for over two hours, and Alexa is sad, and Bev doesn’t love me, and we will probably not make it to the Unknown Motel in Yreka. Not all of these are problems I can fix, so when Meg comes back to the van I tell her that something needs to be done about her sister.
She laughs. “It was for the best. Something had to snap her out of this fate bullshit.”
“People are allowed to believe in fate,” I say.
“Yeah,” Meg says. “But it’s stupid. And Lex doesn’t even believe in it. She’s organized and practical and always in control. She shouldn’t try to pretend she’s someone she’s not.”
Meg’s probably right, but I just shrug and say, “I don’t think it’s stupid.”
Because I understand why Alexa would want to believe in this stuff. What if all of the disappointments and letdowns aren’t meaningless or random? What if they’re something more than that? It’s better to think that fate is the reason my plans have been ruined—that it might be because there’s something better for me out there, or something that I’m meant to do—than how I’ve been thinking about it for the last couple days.
But I don’t get into that now. Instead, I devise a plan to make Alexa happy again, and Meg rolls her eyes but says “okay,” and when Bev hangs up and joins us again she smiles her amazing smile and says it’s a great idea.
I climb into the backseat and Meg takes the front, and we wait until Alexa shuffles to the bus.
“I need you to copilot,” Meg says.
Alexa stands outside the shut passenger door for a moment, and then climbs in. She eyes the Magic 8 Ball as if it’s betrayed her and then she moves it to the backseat.
Bev and I wait until we’ve turned onto the road, and then we shout, “One, two, three!” and Meg turns on the stereo, which is up full blast, and Heart pours out of the speakers. Bev and I have the lyrics held between the middle row where Bev’s sitting and the back row where I am, and we sing along together, loudly with the opening lines.
“You guys,” Alexa says, defensively, as though we’re still making fun of her.
But we keep singing, and the music builds to the chorus and Bev, Meg, and I all belt, “What about love!/Don’t you want someone to care about you? . . .” And soon Alexa is smiling, and by the time the next chorus comes she joins us and then the bus is full of Heart and of us, and we’re all hoarse and laughing by the time the song ends.
We drive a few more miles and everything seems to be going okay. Meg and Alexa are talking in the front with Heart still playing, softer now, and I lie down, ready to sleep through the next hundred miles. I close my eyes and I’m so tired that I’ve already started drifting off. In my black, near-sleep state, I smell Bev’s cigarette-scented clothes and feel my seat give as the smell becomes stronger. Then Bev’s breath is warm on my ear, whispering, “We should have listened to you.”
And this is not a fantasy. This is real.
I keep my eyes shut, hardly breathe. I’ve never had to treat Bev so gently before, but now I’m a
fraid that any wrong move will send her away from me again. I wait for the springs to bounce back as she gets up to move back to her row, but instead I only feel her shifting. I think she’s taking off her shoes now. And then I feel her against me, lowering her face onto my leg and settling there.
And I am wide awake now, motionless, for all of the miles and minutes that Bev sleeps.
Redding greets us with wide, newly paved suburban streets and a shiny, bright gas station. Bev and I sit up for the first time in hours.
She runs her hand over her hair. It’s sticking up on one side, all blond and messy. My body aches from holding one position for so long.
“What time is it?” Bev murmurs.
“Almost nine,” Meg says. Outside, the sky is darkening. Patches of bright blue light surround the streetlamps’ yellow glow.
I ask if we’re going to stay here tonight and they say yes, and soon Alexa returns from talking to the station attendant, and guides us to a part of the city where we should be able to find a room. Soon, ahead of us, motels line up, one after another, all advertising gloriously cheap nightly rates.
We choose the Starlight Motel for its name and its red, fifties-era sign.
“Sophie would love this,” Meg says, and I say, “Yeah, she would,” and Alexa says, “I think I might write my play about Sophie.”
“What about my dad and Uncle Pete?”
“I love the idea of musicians, but really my strongest actors are girls. That junior Gabe could have a leading role, but Sara’s really the best in the program, so I feel like I should write her a good part.”
“What would you do for a baby?” Bev asks from next to me.
“I don’t know,” Alexa says. “That might be tricky.”
As we pull into the parking lot, I remember a collage we studied in school of this almost-naked couple in their living room. I don’t remember much about it, except that it’s credited with starting Pop Art, and the ceiling in the couple’s house is not actually a ceiling but the moon.
“What was the name of that collage Ms. Jacobs taught us about,” I say, “the one with the moon for the ceiling?”
“Just What Is It That Makes Today’s Homes So Different, So Appealing?” Meg says. “I love that piece! With the ‘Young Romance’ poster and the wife doing some weird erotic swoon. So fabulous.”
