Which is really, really small.
And also, not a great picture of me.
I wake up as we pull into a gas station. “Where are we?” I ask, rubbing my eyes. I hear the back car door slam and see Zena running into the convenience store.
“Get her!” my mother almost screams, and several other people pumping gas look around to see who the lunatic is.
“Mom, it’s okay,” I insist as I climb out of the car. As soon as everyone stops looking at us, I rearrange my shirt and shorts, which luckily I am wearing, unlike in my dream, and run off to follow my sister. I do a lot of this, or I used to. She’s a bolter.
I find her browsing by the candy. Not that I can fault her for this. “You can’t do that,” I say.
“Do what? Buy M&M’s?” she asks. “Why, because they’re not Skittles?”
“Ha-ha. No, I meant take off, run into places by yourself,” I say. “You’re, you know. Vulnerable.” I look around the store, where various people of various ages are buying various road foods. There’s a giant case of knives over by the trucking supplies area that makes me wonder.
“I am not,” Zena insists.
“Please. You’re twelve. The ‘v’ in twelve is for vulnerable,” I say. “You’re twelvulnerable.”
“Am not,” she argues.
“Do you ever watch the news? Girls like you disappear every day.” I look around for Skittles and see an empty display box, which just figures. This trip is off on the wrong foot in every way.
Zena edges a little closer to me. “I know what I’m doing.”
“Fine.”
“Mom is driving like a bat out of hell,” Zena comments after we visit the restroom and buy some bottled water. “Why?”
“Um, because that’s how she is? Because she’s trying to be like Dad?” I suggest.
We sip our water and browse the postcard rack. Apparently we left Wisconsin while I was sleeping, and now we’re in Minnesota. I’m flipping through postcards on the metal spinning racks and get bored and think if I spin the rack faster and faster we will go past those places faster and faster.
Suddenly the rack stops spinning and I hear this “Ow. Geez.” And some other words I won’t bother repeating.
There’s a man standing on the other side of the postcard rack. He’s tall, oldish, and has a strange mustache with twirly yet droopy ends, as if it can’t make up its mind whether to stay on his face or not.
“Quit it,” he says, glowering at me.
“You quit it,” I say back.
We start wrestling with the postcard rack, which I can’t believe I’m doing, except I was here first and I did have my eye on a goofy loon postcard and I don’t think just anyone should be able to turn the rack when I’m already looking at it.
He sees Zena and all of a sudden he gets this gleam in his eyes. He smiles at her and says, “What’s your name?”
She doesn’t answer and I start to tell him it’s none of his business, but he repeats, “What’s your name? I want to buy you an ice cream.” And he smiles his creepy smile with his creepy mouth and his droopy mustache and it’s like I see his reflection in the knife case and suddenly know why it exists.
“Let’s get out of here,” I tell Zena. We run to the counter, I set down two quarters for the postcard, and we dash outside to meet Mom’s waiting arms, or at least the open doors of the car. We’re both laughing, and Mom wants to know why, because it’s probably strange to see us having fun together.
“What happened?” she asks.
“Oh, nothing,” Zena says.
Mom taps the top of the car. “Let’s go, girls. We have a schedule to keep.”
“We do? I thought we had a realoose itinerary,” I say.
“Well, we do. But because of our motel reservation, we’ve got to get to Sioux Falls by five,” Mom says.
“Sioux Falls. South Dakota. Why?” I ask.
She smiles as we all get into the car. “You’ll see.”
I hadn’t really been paying attention until now, but I notice the road signs. We’re heading west. Just like Dylan. “What do you mean, Mom? Where are we going?”
“To the starting point for our journey,” she says.
“But we already started. In Milwaukee,” Zena points out as she buckles her seat belt.
“Where we begin is not necessarily our starting point. Every journey has its mileposts,” Mom says.
I roll my eyes at her psychobabble, then stare out the window at a mile marker as we get onto the highway again, and wonder what it is supposed to mean.
Dad used to take us on cross-country tours like this, but it was always rushed. We’d have to see this place and that place, and we’d do it all in one week.
We should have been suspicious last summer when we drove out east to Atlantic City, but we weren’t. We enjoyed the ocean and the visit into New York City and we never once considered the reason he was so exhausted was because he didn’t sleep at night; he sneaked out to the casinos. Which is why I’ll be attending community college unless I can win a track scholarship.
“After South Dakota, then what?” Zena asks, leaning over the front seat.
“I have some surprises up my sleeve.” Mom’s sleeves being organic cotton and baggy, they’re bound to fall out soon. But it reminds me of something Dad always said about cards up his sleeve, and it must remind Mom too, because her nose wrinkles as if she’s just tasted the bottom of a bag of dill-pickle chips and gotten a mouthful of extra-sour pickle-chip powder.
The loon is the Minnesota state bird. Listen for its plaintive call.
Sarah,
Beware of strange men in truck stops offering free ice cream.
That’s all I’m saying.
Also, my mom is crazy. But we knew that.
Miss you and wish you were here instead.
Zena has already run off once and doesn’t believe she is a target.
Yours until I get abducted (not that it would happen because I’ll outrun them),
AF
Chapter Four
For dinner we head to a diner across the street from the motel where we’ve checked in for the night in Sioux Falls.
Mom seems very excited about dinner, which is odd, since we’re headed to a place called Matt’s Turkey Diner. Clearly she’s feeling the romance, the intrigue of being on the road. She hasn’t seemed “up” like this very much lately, and now she’s getting excited about turkey.
“Turkey dinner,” Zena says out loud. “Yum.”
“No, turkey diner,” I correct.
“Who ever heard of a turkey diner?” Zena says.
Mom loops her arm through Zena’s as we cross the street. “Isn’t that what we’re about to be, if we eat turkey?”
“You guys maybe,” I say. “I’m not dining on any turkey.”
“But it’s the specialty,” Mom insists. “The motel manager said it was the best food around.”
“If they told you wolverines would make good house pets, would you believe them?” I say, quoting my favorite line from the movie Planes, Trains and Automobiles.
My mother’s gullibility has been duly noted and recorded in county court transcripts. You’d think she’d become a little more suspicious with age.
Inside, the place reminds me of Luke’s diner on Gilmore Girls, but without the witty banter and the cuteness.
I order blueberry pancakes. “Hold the turkey,” I say. The waitress looks at me with narrowed eyes, as if the fact she has to serve breakfast all day is my fault.
Mom orders a piece of apple pie à la mode to start, which is her famous restaurant move, ordering dessert first and occasionally last as well, and then she has a turkey sandwich with potatoes, and a café mocha with whipped cream. The woman can put food away.
Zena puts ketchup on her open-face roast turkey sandwich. She covers everything with ketchup, as if she’s still six. She has a milk shake (ketchup-free), while I sip iced tea and take a bite of my pancakes. The door opens and in walks this incredibly
hot guy, Brad Pitt in his Thelma and Louise/Seven early years, pre-Brangelina. He looks like he’s maybe eighteen or so. He has a very tan face and spiky blond hair and he looks like he’s already been working outside all summer, though it’s only June. Not only does he have muscles, they’re tan muscles.
He gives me this long look before he sits down at the counter. Maple syrup drips down my arm because I’ve been holding my bite in midair for too long.
It’s the sexiest moment of my life.
So far.
But I shouldn’t be noticing him, even if he is staring at me. I shouldn’t be looking at any other guys. Counter Boy looks nice, sure. But he’s probably not half as nice or interesting as Dylan.
But then I remember Dylan’s phone call and him saying, “What happens on the road, stays on the road.” And this is as “on the road” as it gets.
Just as I’m about to get up and go talk to Counter Boy, trying to think of some pretext, Zena announces that she needs more ketchup and walks up to the counter, right beside him.
She is such a horrible flirt and she’s only twelve. It is really embarrassing—or impressive, depending on how you look at it. She has the body I’m supposed to have at sixteen, and vice versa.
Naturally, I drop my fork and jump up to follow her. It’s my job to rein her in, according to my mother. When I get to the counter, Zena is laughing and telling the guy that yes, turkey and ketchup do go together. “Tastes great,” she says.
“Less filling?” he replies with a sexy smile.
I wait for an opening, shuffling closer. “Excuse my crazy sister,” I say, but as I reach for the ketchup in Zena’s hand, I slip, and my syrup-covered hand ends up grabbing Brad Pitt Jr.’s arm. I try to pull it away, and there’s a sucking sound, and I think some of his arm hair is coming off. “Sorry,” I say, thinking it’s very embarrassing to be literally stuck to someone.
“It’s okay,” he says as he dips a napkin in his water glass and brushes his arm with it. “You guys are really into ketchup, huh?” he asks. When he smiles at me, I notice he has these crystal-clean white teeth and is even cuter up close. I don’t know how to make a move, but I know I should be making one. I could just kiss him right now and it would be totally random and exciting.
Before I can make a move of any kind, though, there’s someone tapping on my shoulder. I turn, expecting my mom. But it’s not her; it’s a man.
It takes a second to register who this person is. No, he’s not some random forty-year-old being too friendly in an invading-my-space kind of way.
It’s my uncle Jeff.
In the flesh. Lots and lots of flesh.
“Uncle Jeff? What are you . . .” I start to say as he smiles at me. As Counter Boy gets set to eat his turkey burger, Zena screams, “Hey!” and hugs Uncle Jeff.
“You guys look fantasterrific,” Uncle Jeff says as he smushes me in a group hug with Zena. It’s like being hugged by a friendly grizzly, not that those exist.
Mom rushes over and slips her arm through Uncle Jeff’s as he stands back to give us a breath. “Zena, Ariel? I have a surprise for you. We’re not driving across the country,” she says with a big grin.
“We’re not? Yes!” Zena high-fives me, with my syrupy, sticky hand that was once destined for and connected to Counter Boy.
“Are we having a family reunion?” I ask. “In Sioux Falls?” Is there something about our family history I don’t know, some unclaimed clan of cousins nearby?
“In a manner of speaking, it’s a reunion, yes. We’re not driving across the country, because we’re traveling by bus,” Mom says. “It’s a ten-day tour, with Uncle Jeff and Grandma and Grandpa Timmons!”
I cough. My throat is suddenly closing up. Either I’m allergic to Matt’s Turkey Diner’s maple syrup, or I’m allergic to bus trips. Either way, I can’t breathe. “What?” I gasp.
Grandma and Grandpa Timmons are already on their way over to us, big smiles on their faces.
I always used to call them “Tims-moms” when I was little, because I couldn’t pronounce it right. “Cinnamon,” Grandma T. would say, over and over. “It’s just like cinnamon.” Which, honestly, I still don’t get.
My grandmother kisses my cheek, and her silver-blond hair smells like permanent dye the way it always does, which makes my eyes water. It’s cut short and sleek, and goes with her velour du jour, as I call them. She’s famous for wearing the latest in trendy tracksuits, hoodies, and loungewear. She’s about a size four, tiny.
My grandfather, never a big hugger, stands back a little and claps me on the back, but seems as genuinely happy as anyone to be here. He retired recently, and although he isn’t wearing a starched business suit right now, he still seems like he is.
I haven’t seen them since Easter, when they came to help us move into our new, smaller house. It’s definitely a shock.
“Can you believe this? Isn’t this going to be fantasterrific?” Uncle Jeff, whom I call “Lord of the Necklaces,” asks. He insists on wearing this gold cross, plus a necklace with a gold boat propeller charm, and a necklace with a little gold envelope.
He was a mailman until he was attacked by a family of squirrels, who dropped out of a tree onto his head, probably because he was talking too long to the house’s resident and had bored the squirrels to death.
We had to drive up to St. Paul to visit him in the hospital where he was getting rabies shots. It was very traumatic, the whole squirrel attack and its aftermath, so now he’s on disability, which was when he gained fifty pounds, which is kind of a disability.
Uncle Jeff hands me a box of Dots. “You still love these, right?”
“No,” I say, “but thanks.”
He looks a bit wounded. “I thought you loved chewy fruit candies and things of that nature.”
“Skittles,” I say. “Those are the ones.”
“Oh. Well.” He shrugs. “If I were you, I’d keep them anyway. We’ve got lots of travel days coming up. Need some road food.” He smiles and sort of half punches my shoulder.
“Yes. We do.” I smile at him. “We sure . . . do.
“Mother. What were you thinking?” I ask in a harsh whisper as we reshuffle our seats and make room, finally sitting down in a larger booth.
“You need a positive male influence in your lives,” she says.
“Why do we need a male influence? We have Dad,” I argue.
“I said positive.”
I suppose Uncle Jeff is positive. In a very revolting, sickeningly sweet kind of way.
“That’s why we could only let you bring the bare minimum luggage,” my mother explains. “Because the bus has certain specifications; there are size restrictions for everyone’s bags.”
“You know, this sounds kind of exciting, if you ask me.” Zena shrugs.
“We didn’t.” I glare at her. What would she know about exciting? “Where are we going?”
“We’re going to see the Heartland,” Uncle Jeff says proudly, as if he devised the tour. If he did, we’re in more trouble than I thought. The man believes that birch trees are interesting. Birch. Trees.
“The Heartland,” I repeat. What exactly does that mean, anyway? As if one part of the country is better than another, is more central and more vital to keeping it going. Where is the Liverland? The Kidneyland?
“We start here in South Dakota, and spend several days exploring it,” Mom says. “Then we’re off to—”
“North Dakota?” I suggest.
“Well, I don’t know—that’s one of the hallmarks of this tour company. They keep a few things a surprise.”
“Up their sleeves,” I mutter.
“What’s the point of surprising us? You’d think they’d want us to know where we’re going,” my grandfather says.
“Exactly,” I chime in.
“Don’t be so rigid. This is going to be a totally new way to experience things,” Mom says. “We can look around more and enjoy the scenery.”
And I can enjoy the scenery of being trap
ped with fifty strangers, I think. “But, um, Mom?” I say, trying to be civil, trying not to scream about this.
“Yes, honey?”
“How am I going to keep up with my running?” I ask.
“Oh, we’ll have plenty of pit stops. Same as if we were driving. Whenever we stop for a tour, or a hotel—you know, you can fit it in.” She smiles.
I want to throttle her. She doesn’t understand that I plan on winning the state cross-country championship this year. She has completely forgotten all about how I was third last year and how I want to move up. She acts as if this is an afterthought.
“I’ll run with you, Ariel,” my grandfather offers, and it’s sweet, but ridiculous, because he’s sixty-five, so I just pat his shoulder and smile like a good granddaughter.
“Can’t we all just rent an RV or something?” I ask.
“Oh no,” says Uncle Jeff. “This will be much, much better. We’ll have a tour guide. We’ll meet new people. It’ll be great!” He stands up to snap our picture with a camera that looks decidedly undigital.
I slide out of the booth and go back over to the counter, where the cute guy is now eating an ice-cream sundae. “You’re not by any chance going on a bus tour tomorrow, are you?” I ask.
“A what?” he says.
“A bus tour?” I repeat.
He shakes his head.
“Yeah. I didn’t think so.” I look back at our oversize booth, at my oversize mom and uncle.
Suddenly I notice the diner is full of retired-looking people, turkey diners here for the last meal before they hit the road.
The last supper.
Our final meal before execution.
And I want to sob.
I turn back to the guy. “You don’t by any chance drive a bus?”
The Rainbow Lanes and Motor Lodge
Where every morning is a good morning! Sleep on our deluxe full-size mattresses. Enjoy in-room shower and iron.
The Summer of Everything Page 20
