I look over at Zena as I’m brushing my teeth. Is she thinking what I’m thinking—about escaping? But she’s busy reading a fresh copy of Entertainment Weekly that she stole from the lobby earlier.
I go lie down beside her on the bed, which is fortunately a queen this time and big enough for both of us. I think about when we were little and Zena went through this stage on one trip when she couldn’t sleep, and the four of us would crowd into one bed and all roll up together.
“So, Zena,” I say, looking at her as I prop up on one elbow. “What’s been your favorite part so far?”
“Hanging out with Bethany and the guys.”
“The guys?”
“Dieter and Wolfgang,” she says. “Who else?”
“But what else?” asks Mom. “You two cannot make this entire trip about boys. I forbid you.”
Zena rolls her eyes at Mom and puts a pillow under her neck. “The antelopes, then.” She tosses another pillow into the air and catches it with her feet.
“You’re kidding,” I say. “I didn’t see them. You want to tell me about it?”
“Not really,” she says.
“You would have noticed them too, Ariel, if you weren’t spending so much time working on your postcards and hanging out with Andre,” Mom says.
I ignore her postcard comment, because if she can’t appreciate that I want to write them, then I can’t explain it to her. “It’s impossible not to spend so much time with anyone on the bus when you’re on a bus. Captive audience and all,” I point out.
“Yes, but this is a family trip,” she says. “It’s about the family. Spend time visiting with your grandparents, your uncle. In fact, starting tomorrow, you’ll be sitting with one of us.”
“Since when are you in charge of seating assignments?” I ask. “Did Jenny appoint you?”
“Ariel, don’t take that tone with me. I’m in charge. Period.”
“Oh, really. Were you in charge when Dad was taking our money and—”
“Why are you bringing this up now?”
I throw up my hands. “Why not?”
“We’ve gone over this. Your father always handled the bills, the banking, balancing the checking account, all of that. We never had a problem before, and there was no reason to suspect anything.” She brushes and rebrushes her unruly hair.
I think about it. I know what she’s saying is mostly true. It’s only when I look back that I can see all the omens, or warning signs, and maybe it’s the same for her.
“Anyway, back to tomorrow. You’ll sit with family. Both of you should get to know your uncle and grandparents better. I mean, what if we end up living closer to them? Wouldn’t that be nice?”
I feel like a trapdoor in the floor just opened and I’m about to fall into it. What is she talking about? “You want to move all the way to St. Paul? No,” I say. “No, you can move, but I’m not.”
“I didn’t say we would; I just said that it would be nice.”
Zena lifts her head from her pillow long enough to say, “That sounds sort of cool.”
I glare at her closed eyes. I can’t believe she’s siding with Mom, even if she’s half-asleep.
“Ariel? Forget your knee-jerk reaction and think about it. How would you really feel about that?” Mom asks.
“You know what? I don’t want to talk about it. I want to stay where I am. It’s junior year for me, Mom. It’s not the time to just . . . start over.”
“But can’t you understand . . . maybe getting a fresh start would be a good idea for all of us?”
“Fresh start. That’s like a breakfast cereal, right?” I turn off my light and snuggle under the covers, letting her know I am done for the night with this conversation.
“Ariel, Ariel, come on, let’s talk,” Mom urges as she slides into the other bed. “Nothing’s ever solved by not talking.”
“Maybe this will be the first time. Good night,” I say.
I desperately want to fall asleep and forget this conversation, but I don’t drift off into dreamland the way I’d like to. Zena falls asleep, and then Mom falls asleep, while I lie there and think. I wait until my mother is snoring, then get up.
“I can’t sit with you on the bus tomorrow.”
Andre sits down across from me in the lobby. He’s wearing shorts and a rumpled Marquette University T-shirt. “Is that why you called and woke me up? To tell me that?”
“No,” I say, feeling kind of miserable. “Well, yeah.”
“Okay.” Andre rubs his eyes underneath his glasses. “Why can’t you sit with me? Is it because your grandfather hates me?”
“What? No.” I shake my head. “Why would he hate you?”
“Because I’m black?”
“Oh, really? You are? Huh.”
“Shut up.”
“No, he doesn’t hate you, for that or anything else. He’s just . . . protective. So if we spend time together, he’s just . . . he wants to know you better. I guess. Anyway, my mom went on and on about how it’s a family trip and I’m supposed to sit with my family. And now my mom is talking about us moving to Minnesota.”
Andre yawns. “So what do you want to do? Should we sneak on the bus again?”
“I can’t believe we’d want to spend more time there. I feel like that seat fabric pattern is becoming one with my skin. Everywhere I look, I see mauve diamonds.”
“Stand up and let me see if it’s coming off on you,” Andre orders, nudging my leg with his foot.
“Shut up.” I look over and see the desk clerk staring at us. “Come on, let’s go outside.”
We go out by the pool, which is open until midnight, although there isn’t anyone actually in it. We pull two chairs close to each other and lie down.
Andre looks up at the stars and takes a deep breath. “This place is kind of awesome,” he says. “I mean, it’s way out here. I’ve never seen so many stars.”
I gaze upward, too, looking for some kind of constellation I can point out, but I don’t see anything. “Kind of awesome? That doesn’t sound like you. Give me three words.”
“Trance-inducing. Relaxing. Cool.” He sighs. “I’m really tired. My vocabulary is lame right now. Lame as in pathetic, useless.” He looks over at me. “So what’s the deal with moving and not sitting together?”
I groan. “Thanks for reminding me,” I say, but it’s not as though I’ve had time to forget.
“Sorry. But what’s going on?” he asks.
“It’s . . . She wants me to get to know her side of the family better, because she’s sick of my dad’s, I guess, or just my dad. So she wants us to maybe move all the way to St. Paul to get away from him.”
“Bad divorce?” Andre asks, adjusting the chair another notch so that he lies almost flat.
“You could say that. My dad . . . well, he kept going to work every morning, but it turned out he didn’t actually have a job anymore; he was going to the racetrack. And the casino. Which is where he spent all our college money. After he ran through all the money he embezzled from his work. He didn’t tell us any of this. We found out when he was arrested, and then it broke on TV, and it was all over school.”
I didn’t mean to say so much, but once I started I somehow couldn’t stop. So there it is, out in the open. Like a bag lunch on a picnic table waiting for someone to pick it up or toss it. Or trade it for turkey.
“That’s like . . . the longest sentence I’ve ever heard you say,” Andre says.
“This stupid trip. It’s getting to me,” I mutter.
“Road rage?”
“Something like that. My mom’s a counselor and she published some self-help books, but she’s kind of clueless about people. She sits in her office listening to people pour out their relationship troubles, while her own marriage is going up in flames. And scratch cards. And horses.” I pause. “Well, not that the horses are going up in flames; that sounds disgusting.”
Andre laughs. “So. Are you and your dad still in touch?”
“Oh yeah.
I’m just . . . Honestly? I’m still really blown away by what happened. He started acting really hyper and fidgety. Then he was never home. Then he was arrested. It’s like . . . all these little funny traits he had were exaggerated and they weren’t funny anymore. Like, we used to bet about things all the time, but I thought it was just a game to him. I guess whenever I’m around him, I feel nervous. Because I don’t know who he is. He’s a wild card. If he could do that to us once—over the course of, like, years—and he only stopped six months ago, when he had to . . .”
“Well, is he twelve-stepping it?” asks Andre.
I smile and nod in admiration. “That’s a good one,” I say.
“What?”
“Nothing. Zena and I just try to come up with new words and—”
“It’s not a new word.”
“Never mind.” I sigh. “Yeah, he’s making amends. Or claiming to.”
“Hey, it’s just your dad. You know?” Andre reaches over and puts his hand on my wrist, giving it a little squeeze. “It’s not you.”
“Right.” It doesn’t seem to matter that I know this, though. “So. What about you?” I ask, tired of telling and hearing my story. “Everything seems pretty good for you. So why do you want to run away?”
“I’m sick of being good. Good is overrated,” he says with a sigh.
“You tried to break into a tour bus. You call that being good?” I laugh.
“Living with my mom . . . She won’t let me visit my dad. She thinks he’s a bad influence, which he really isn’t, and anyway, I’m old enough to decide things on my own. If I think he’s a jerk, I’ll be okay. Right?”
“When did they get divorced?”
“When I was six.”
“Why?”
“Who knows?”
“You don’t?”
“A hundred reasons, I guess. No, wait. A hundred other women, I think it was. Yeah. Anyway, I wanted to spend the summer with him in L.A. He wanted me to. Mom said no. She had no really good reason, and she’s always urging us to get closer—but spend more than holidays together? No. Not an option.”
I wonder about my future and how things like that will shake out. Will I see Dad on Thanksgiving or Christmas? Who will decide? Is Mom even allowed to take us that far away?
“Then she comes up with this trip idea. You don’t know how many times we argued about this. ‘We’ll bond, Andre,’ she said. ‘No, you’ll have a good time; I’ll be bored to death,’ I said. I mean, if you weren’t here?” He pretends to hold a gun to his head.
“No way. You’d hang out with Ethel.”
“Yeah. Dentures are so sexy.”
“So that’s why you’d head to L.A. if you could. You and Ethel, I mean,” I say.
“I’m thinking about it,” he replies. “Well, not the Ethel part.”
“I’m thinking about meeting up with Dylan,” I tell him. Like, that’s pretty much all I think about—or did, until my encounter with Andre on the bus.
“You are? For real?”
“Sure. What’s stopping me?” I ask.
“Well, um, a car. A bus. A bunch of relatives. A plan.”
Not that he has a negative outlook or anything. “I have a plan,” I say. I think it over. “Not a good plan. But, uh, Dylan could meet me and then I’d leave with him.”
“And he’s working at this camp. So what would you do? Go back there with him and get hired on, too? Or be a really old camper?”
“No, of course not. We’d travel together,” I say.
“With no car,” Andre says. “And like, how much money?”
I glare at him. I don’t want to stay here. Or move to Dylan’s camp. Or follow through on any of my options.
“My plan’s better,” Andre says confidently. “We somehow get to Denver. Whether it’s on this bus or another bus.”
“Okay. Then what?”
Suddenly a flashlight beam bounces across the deck, coming to rest on my face. “Excuse me, but the pool is closed,” a man’s voice announces.
“Grandpa?” I ask, shielding my eyes from the flashlight. “What are those, extra-strength batteries?”
He walks over to us and looks down at the way we’re nearly sprawled on the concrete in our flat lounge chairs. “It’s past your bedtime, isn’t it?”
“We’re too old to have bedtimes,” I say.
“Hm. So am I,” Grandpa says, “and yet I have one.” He looks up at the sky and lets out a deep sigh. “On the other hand, it’s nice out here. Our A/C unit is broken and the breeze has yet to find its way into our room.”
He drags a chair over next to mine. Then he pulls his Nike headband out of his pocket. “Give me your hand,” he says.
I don’t know what’s going on, but I do it, and Grandpa wraps the headband around both of our wrists, locking them together.
“You’re cuffing me,” I say.
“Call it what you like. This way if I’m asleep and you try to leave, I’ll know about it.”
“Do you want me to leave?” asks Andre.
“I don’t care one way or the other, but if you do leave, don’t take her with you.”
“Yes, sir,” Andre says, sounding intimidated.
Grandpa leans back in his chair next to mine, our arms propped on the armrest together. “Now. Don’t let me interrupt. What were you two plotting just now when I walked in?” he asks.
“What else?” I say. “How to steal the Oklahoma! CD.”
“I’m in,” says Grandpa, and we all lie back, look up at the stars, and contemplate ways to get to Lenny and Jenny.
The Badlands: erosion in progress. Do not disturb.
Dylan,
Have you ever been to the Badlands?
They are a lot more interesting than I thought.
Except that we had to attend a chuckwagon supper, where they served buffalo burgers, baked beans, and blond brownies. And other things beginning with B, like beer.
I stuck to Skittles. Or actually, it was so hot out that the Skittles stuck to me.
Hope you’re having a good time.
XO
A
Chapter Fifteen
The next morning, I nearly lose my breakfast when the bus goes roaring past the turnoff for Rapid City.
A detour? Again?
I don’t just feel ill because I really wanted to go there, but also because Jenny takes this curve kind of too fast while I’m looking down at a postcard, and the fried-egg sandwich at the hot breakfast buffet seems like it wasn’t such a great idea after all. Which is what I thought, but Grandma kept insisting I eat more, especially if I was planning on running as much as I have been, and Grandpa and I had just come back from a nine-mile run. (He covered for me not being in my room in the morning, saying I went to their room early that morning for a visit, which made my mother smile, and my grandmother look confused.) “Wasting away” is what she called it. “It’s time for you to carb up,” she kept saying, as if “carb” were a verb, as she carried over more wheat toast from the burn-it-yourself toaster. So I caved and carbed, and now the carbs are coming back up.
“But I thought . . . Excuse me, aren’t we going to Rushmore?” I call up toward the front of the bus.
My voice is just one of the dozens asking the same question.
Lenny stands and faces us. “Yes, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, it’s this: You can’t rush Mount Rushmore.” He makes that annoying clicking noise with his tongue, and Jenny revs the engine, and I wonder if the two actions are connected, like she’s ticked at him. I wonder how many times each summer they do this tour, how often she’s had to listen to his presentations, how many times he’s had to help her fix the bus.
“You can’t?” someone asks.
“Nope. You cannot rush Mount Rushmore. You’ve got to anticipate. You’ve got to wait. Then you’ve absolutely got to see it from the right angle, from the right road. We’ll see some other interesting sites first, and then we’ll do a loop around and end up approaching fr
om another direction, with breathtaking views. Rushmore is something you approach slowly, deliberately.”
It sounds like a speech Lenny has crafted over the years, but that doesn’t make it any less annoying.
“Well, I guess we just have to take his word for it,” Uncle Jeff says to me.
We’re sitting next to each other, as ordered by my mother. I don’t even know if Uncle Jeff is happy about it. He’s made lots of friends on the trip—maybe he’d rather sit with one of them.
“Guess so,” I say.
“You know what, Ariel? All this running we’ve been doing over the past week?” He nods his head, and so do I. “It’s really helping me. Every morning when I wake up I feel like my muscles are really alive.”
“So you’re getting over the, um, injury and stuff?” I ask.
He nods again. “I think so. I mean, it could be a while yet. But I feel stronger. I feel like I could conquer the world.”
“That’s cool,” I comment. “I’m glad. But is it really the running?”
“You tell me,” he says.
“Tell you what?” I ask.
“Is it the running?” he says. “Is that why you run so far, so often?”
“Sure. I guess.”
“Because it makes sense I’d like it, genetically— Wait a second, hold on. There’s Sturgis. Sturgis! I haven’t been there in years. Why aren’t we stopping? Lenny!” he calls. “Why aren’t we getting off here?”
“Because this isn’t one of our stops,” Lenny replies.
“We’re not stopping in Sturgis?” Uncle Jeff sounds stunned. “But we’re going right through it.”
“Exactamundo!” Lenny makes that clicking noise with his tongue. “We’re going right past without stopping.”
“But if you can’t rush, uh, Mount Rushmore, then you can’t, uh, leave Sturgis in the lurch-is,” Uncle Jeff says.
“Work on it, mate, and get back to me,” Lenny says, sounding like Simon Cowell.
Uncle Jeff slumps in his seat, looking sort of like a kid who was just told he wasn’t getting his favorite toy for Christmas. I feel bad for him. This crazy bus trip might not have been his idea, either. “Do you want to ask for a bus vote?” I suggest. “Other people might want to see Sturgis.”
The Summer of Everything Page 28
