“I’m just . . . well, see, my training. There’s a 10K race at Mount Rushmore on the, uh, twentieth,” I improvise.
“A race at the monument?” She laughs. “What do you do, scale the thing? Sounds more like rock climbing than running to me.”
Her sense of humor is right up there with her narrating skills.
“It’s a race in Rapid City, but it’s called the Mount Rushmore Race. So if we’re going to be there then, I could run it,” I say. Only a real runner will dispute this, and already Jenny’s spent time telling us that she’s a snorkeler, a volleyball player, and a kayaker. Not a runner. “And I need to run a certain number of races this summer to be, uh, eligible,” I tell her. “For a scholarship. Really big deal, this scholarship.”
“Really. Well, we’ll see. Find out a bit more about the race and we’ll let you know.”
“But eventually we are going more . . . west?” I ask. “We are going to continue going west?”
“Sure,” Jenny says. “We’ll see the big things and the small things. And that’s all I can tell you right now.” She winks at me as if this is amusing tour-guide humor, and then leaves the lobby.
Which is all right, because she was grating on my nerves, plus she ate all the cookies, and I’ve found out everything I need to. We’re heading west.
Which means, theoretically, Wyoming.
Which means I can meet up with Dylan and have this really romantic getaway for a day or two in the middle of this heinous trip. Or maybe I’ll get away and I won’t go back.
That’s what’s going to happen on the road: me and Dylan.
Well, not on the road, on the road. You know what I mean.
That night after dinner I write Dylan to tell him the good news. I bring his postcard down to the front desk to mail it even though I am in my pajamas, but then I see there’s a mailbox outside, on the edge of the parking lot. If I leave it at the front desk, they’ll read it; then they’ll tell my mom what’s on it or something.
How many days on a bus before you become a total raving paranoiac?
When I turn around after slipping the postcard into the mailbox, I see Andre sitting on his balcony. He’s listening to his iPod and drinking a soda, and waves to me. He slides off the headphones. “Hey.”
“Hey.” I wish I were wearing more than my PJs, which consist of a tank top and boxer shorts. “How’s that grape soda?” I call up in a whisper.
“It’s orange. Cheers,” he says as he lifts the can to show it to me.
“Isn’t it kind of late?”
“To drink orange soda? Oh gosh. Do you think it will keep me up? I’m sharing a room with my mother. Do you understand?”
I laugh. “So am I.”
“Yeah, but that’s different,” he says.
“Oh.” I think about it for a second. “I see what you’re saying.”
“Right.”
“Well, at least you have the dog.”
We stand there, me with one foot on the balcony steps, him leaning over the railing. I feel like we’re in a play. Not Romeo and Juliet, something American and Western that’s really, really tragic, but without gunplay.
Wait, maybe it would be an Alfred Hitchcock movie. Strangers on a Bus.
“I still have four quarters,” Andre says. “You want something from the vending machine?”
I’m about to say no when I realize that saying no means going back to my room, where Zena and Grandma are dyeing Mom’s hair to make her look younger. They won’t miss me for a while yet, and I won’t miss them.
“Sure.” He goes down the balcony to the machine, while I climb the steps, thankful for flip-flops. There are a couple of white plastic chairs, so I sit in one.
Andre comes back and holds out a can. “This is what they had.”
I get a Dr. Stepper, which is apparently a knockoff brand, with an image of someone doing aerobics.
“Hey, you could be drinking this. Scorange.” He holds it up and I see a giant soccer ball image on the can. “It’s like some sports drink gone berserk. Mad. Insane. Over the edge.”
“Quietly, leisurely crazy,” I add.
We sit there for a while. “So, you have other plans for the summer?” he asks.
“Oh yeah. Lots.” I sip the black-cherry soda, which is pretty far from being a sports drink.
“Me too.”
We stare at the steady line of eighteen-wheelers pulling into the truck stop across the road.
“I was thinking. We’re heading west, right?”
I smile. “Right.”
“Well, my dad lives in California. I’m going to go there instead.”
“Instead? How?”
He points across the divided highway at the truck stop. “They’d drive all night. Straight through, probably. Get us there in the morning.”
Us? I think. Does he mean me, or the trucker? “You wouldn’t actually do that. Would you?” Never mind the fact that I think his sense of time and distance is off.
“Catch a ride with a truck that’s headed there? Why not?”
“Because bad things happen in trucks. You’re too young.”
“Am not.”
“Only people who are too young say things like ‘am not,’” I point out.
He laughs. “So what about you? You going to stay on the bus?”
“I guess it depends where we go.”
“Yeah, I guess so. So why don’t we find out?” He gets to his feet and starts walking away toward the stairs.
“How?” I ask, getting up to follow him.
“The bus, how else?”
“We can’t break into the bus,” I say.
“Why not?” Andre glances over his shoulder as we walk around to where the bus is parked.
“Because!” I reach out and grab his arm. “Lenny and Jenny. They probably sleep on the bus.”
“Why would they do that?”
“I don’t know. They’re devoted to Leisure-Lee?”
“You’re crazy.”
“Not as crazy as you, obviously.”
Andre tries to pull open the bus door, but it doesn’t even give an inch. He grabs a stick from the ground and wedges it into the tiny opening, pushing and maneuvering until the stick breaks in two, flies off, and hits a nearby car.
Just then I see Lenny walking across the parking lot toward us. “Oops,” I whisper.
“Does he have a bus-cam hooked up to his room or something?” Andre asks under his breath.
“What’s going on, mates?” Lenny asks.
“Oh! I, uh, left something on the bus,” Andre says.
“What’s that then? Your ee-pod.” Lenny chuckles.
“Right. My ee-pod,” Andre says. “No, actually it’s a book. It must have slipped out of my backpack, and I need it in order to fall asleep, so I didn’t want to disturb anyone—”
“Say no more. Not a problem.” Lenny unlocks the door and Andre gets on, hunting around for something. I climb up the steps halfway and peer around the driver’s seat, looking for a map or any kind of clue, but the area is so cluttered with papers that I wouldn’t know where to start.
“How’s Chuckles?” Lenny calls from behind me.
“Cuddles, you mean?” Andre asks as he roots around underneath his seat.
“Fine. Sleeping soundly.”
“Did he like the steak scraps we sent up?” asks Lenny.
“Loved ’em,” Andre says, his voice muffled as he crawls around. “You know what? I can’t find it. It must be in my mom’s bag somewhere—she’s got so much stuff in there, you need a flashlight.”
When we step off the bus, Mom is wandering around the parking lot, calling my name. I call to her and wave.
Her hair is under plastic wrap, coated in white liquid. “There you are. You had us worried sick!” she says, hurrying over.
“I’d worry more about those chemicals on your head,” I say, backing up from the strong smell.
“I’m going Mysterious Auburn Brown. With blond highlights,” she a
dds.
“Those might be the only highlights on this trip,” I murmur as I follow her back to our room.
The Horizon Inn & Steak House.
Eat like a man, sleep like a baby. Convenient to interstate. Early check-in; late checkout available. Charges apply.
Dylan—
You won’t believe this, but I think we’re heading to Wyoming, or at least really close! Not sure when we’ll get there, but in a week or so maybe.
Can you believe it?
I’ll let you know details when we’re getting closer so we can hook up.
Can’t wait to see u!!!
Ariel
Chapter Nine
“You are a sweetheart. I can tell just by looking at you,” Andre’s mother says the next morning. She gives me a little hug as we stand in line to board the bus.
“I am?” I wonder out loud.
“For sure.” Mrs. O’Neill is wearing a sleek black wrap shirt and jeans, with stylish high-heeled black sandals. A large black-and-pink-striped handbag over her arm contains the infamous Cuddles, whose collar matches the bag. “Your hair looks great, Tamara. I can’t get over it. You look ten years younger.”
“Really? You think so, Lorraine?”
Mom’s hair is dark brown, with a few gray and blond streaks. I’m not sure what’s mysteriously auburn about it. She’s wearing a pair of gold corn earrings and a bright gold Corn Palace sweatshirt. That doesn’t help matters.
“Definitely. Isn’t this a great trip?” Andre’s mother asks me, and I smile.
“It’s not horrible,” I say, with a tight-lipped smile at my mother.
“Is that the best you can say, honey?” Mrs. O’Neill asks.
“For now. Pretty much.” I nod.
“Mm-hm. You sound just like Andre. You two need to get into the traveling mood, get your traveling shoes on.”
Andre glances down at my green-and-white-striped vintage running shoes. “I think she’s ready, Ma. See you.”
Mom puts her hand on my arm. “Actually—hold up. I was thinking we should sit together, Ariel.”
“Nonsense. You and I have lots more in common, Tamara,” says Lorraine. “I want to talk, not sit and listen to Andre’s music.”
Now I’m the one who wants to hug her.
Andre and I leave our moms to enjoy each other and sit down in the third row again, scrunching down in our seats together. I’ve decided to forgive his running insult. I can’t afford to antagonize the only peer I have on the bus, even if he already antagonized me. I think about our escapade the night before, wonder if Lenny is suspicious of us at all. I stretch out, recline the seat back a little bit.
Lenny finishes taking roll and climbs onto the bus. Jenny follows him, and soon we’re pulling out of the parking lot, back onto the highway. Lenny leads everyone in his so-called eye-opening routine, which is a goofy song. This morning it’s “If You’re Happy and You Know It.”
“Do you think Lenny caught on last night?” I ask Andre while everyone’s singing and clapping hands.
“No. Not at all,” Andre says.
“So should we try again?” I ask. “I’d really like to know where we’re going. I hate this crap about everything being a surprise. We do road trips like this every summer, but before now I always knew what the destination was, what the plan was,” I say.
His eyebrows shoot up. “Wow. No wonder.”
“No wonder what?”
“You don’t seem as traumatized as I do because you’ve done this before.”
I laugh. “No, but—see, I am. Because we usually do the traveling in our car, not on a bus, and usually our dad comes along, and it’s a lot more fun.” Of course, I didn’t always think so at the time, but in retrospect those trips were probably the most fun we ever had together as a family.
“Still. You don’t seem totally upset,” he comments.
“I hide things really well,” I say.
He nods. “So when you want to kill me, I won’t see it coming.”
“Not at all,” I promise.
“Damn. That’s going to be tough.” He opens his vocabulary book and starts highlighting. “So. Where’s your dad this summer?”
“He’s . . . uh . . . home,” I say with an awkward nod. I give a nervous laugh, feeling like I want to both tell him the entire sordid story and crawl under the seat and go sit with my grandmother for a while and not talk about it at all.
I’ve been going to a counselor ever since my dad developed this gambling “problem,” plus family therapy, and it helps some things, but it doesn’t help others. Like, I don’t really want to talk to other people and tell them what happened, even if it’s in the middle of nowhere and I’ll never see this person again after we get off this bus.
“My mom and dad split up over the holidays,” I explain. That’s nice and vague.
“So did mine,” Andre says.
“What a coincid—”
“Ten years ago,” he adds.
“Oh.” I give an embarrassed, shoot-me-now smile.
“It’s okay, I’m sort of over it,” he says. “He moved to California. He sends money, and I visit a couple times a year. It’s a ‘quality relationship.’” He makes quotation marks with his fingers.
“My mom’s the queen of ‘quality relationships,’” I say, echoing his quotes. “Not having one. Just talking about it.” I lean closer and whisper, “My uncle and grandfather are here to be positive male influences for me. Okay, so. My grandpa is totally miserable to be here—he didn’t want to come, he didn’t even want to retire, but my grandma insisted, because she wanted to take trips together. And the other one, my uncle Jeff, is so upbeat I don’t believe a word he says because it all sounds fake. You know?”
“Positive’s overrated.” He sighs. “But I’m pretty sure this positively sucks.”
I laugh, while he goes back to his vocabulary book, and I take out my stack of postcards, a few other things, and some art supplies I’ve collected. Lenny is talking about the geology of the area, and how we’re headed for a fascinating little corner of the world known as Wall and we’ll be there for a Leisure-Lee lunch. And every time I glance out the window I see a billboard for a place called Wall Drug.
I’ve picked up scraps from brochures, tickets, and receipts. I bought rubber cement at the last drugstore of choice (being a bus full of senior citizens we stop at a lot of drugstores) and I start pasting words and photos on top of the plain white prestamped postcards my grandmother gave me.
After I’ve done a few, Andre asks, “What are you, scrapbooking?”
“I guess,” I say. “But not exactly.”
“My mom does that. Or used to, anyway. I called it crapbooking. Yours looks cooler, though. When did you start doing that?” he asks.
“I don’t know,” I admit. “I guess about six months ago.”
Over Christmas break when everything came to light—that there were no presents, that Dad had spent everything in the bank and then some—Mom signed up me and Zena for about twelve thousand activities to keep us busy. Art classes like Painting and Creative Memories. Gymnastics. Swimming lessons. Diving lessons. At one point she even suggested synchronized swimming and diving as a way to get me and Zena to become better friends. Which was funny, because neither Zena nor I like to swim all that much, and we can’t stand each other half the time, so why would we dive together?
Anyway, all these classes were supposed to take our minds off the fact that they were getting the fastest “trial separation” in the history of Milwaukee, that Dad was moving back home with his parents, that Dad might be going on trial.
Pretty much the only thing I got out of it was the idea of making stuff by using found objects.
“Huh. It’s good. Who’s Gloves?” Andre asks a minute later.
I frown at him, because I thought he was busy writing something of his own. “Not that you’re reading what I’m writing or anything. But she’s my cat.”
He lowers his glasses and looks me in the eye
. “You’re writing to your cat. That’s pathetic. Desperate.”
“You forgot needy,” I add.
“That too,” he says. “Your cat is named Gloves?”
I shrug. “She was named Mittens until I found out that was really common, so I renamed her. She has white paws, but the rest of her is black, except for this white patch over her eyes.”
“That must get in the way of her reading your postcards,” Andre comments.
“Shut up,” I say, laughing. “Okay, so I guess basically this is for my grandmother. My other grandmother. The one who’s not in seat twelve-B.”
He laughs. “You’re funny. The thing is, uh, maybe we should get something out in the open. Being, you know, on the open road and all.”
“Okay,” I say slowly, wondering what this is about.
“I don’t really want to like you. Is that okay?”
I don’t know what to say to that, so I sit there waiting for him to make sense, to say it three different ways.
“I’m not looking for . . . you know. A girlfriend. A mate. A—”
“Okay, fine,” I interrupt. “I get it. Neither am I. I’m not looking for a mate or whatever. I’m already seeing someone, anyway.” Sort of.
“Oh, you are?”
“Well, yeah.”
“How come he’s not on the bus? Or wait. It’s not Dieter, is it?” he asks as he looks back at the German twins.
I just glare at him.
“Okay, so it’s not Dieter.” He pauses. “Is it Wolfgang?”
“His name’s Dylan,” I say.
“How uncommon,” he says dryly.
“Look, are you going to mock everything I say?”
“Probably,” he admits. “So where’s the infamous Dylan?”
“He’s at camp in Wyoming. Here.” I pull out our impromptu prom photo, the one Sarah took when she saw me and Dylan leaving prom together. I show it to Andre, feeling kind of stupid as I do, as if I have to offer up proof.
Andre narrows his eyes as he stares at the picture. “Isn’t he a little old for summer camp?” he asks.
“He’s a counselor. Obviously.” I try not to laugh, but it’s impossible. “Quit making fun of him, okay?” I say.
The Summer of Everything Page 24
