“I get anxious sometimes.”
Arden drops a heavy hand on my shoulder and steers me toward the SUV. I open my own door, but she stands behind me until I climb in. This thing is terrifying; I ain’t even lying. I’m sprawled in a leathery tomb; it’s dark and humid until Arden climbs in, cranks it up and turns on the AC. Everything’s too big. I feel like I found a Drink Me bottle, and now I’m rolling loose in this thing like a marble. A teeny, tiny flea. A grain of sand.
“I apologize for Kansas in advance,” I say. This tank glides onto the road—I hear the tires at a distance, but it’s nothing like the rattletrap the Civic was. It’s even quieter than the Mercedes, and that was the choicest ride I ever been in. We bump over something and I clutch the seat belt. “But Colorado will be worth it.”
As if to make sure that nobody should calm down too much, Arden’s phone rings. Her dad’s face springs up on the screen and I catch my breath. Shit. He knows. We got to St. Louis, but Arden went too far, breaking into the database. This was the smartest, stupidest plan in the world, and now we’re caught.
Arden, though, answers like nothing’s wrong at all—well, besides having to talk to her dad. She just punches the speaker button, because she’s marooned in that driver’s seat. Both of us are tiny in this thing, and it’s almost ridiculous; I almost wanna know how her feet reach the pedals. They’re reaching, though, because like clockwork, she rides the brakes and the Escalade shudders.
“Hey, David,” Concrete Blocks says. His voice fills the SUV; it makes him physical in this space. “Hope I didn’t wake you up.”
“No,” Arden replies. “I’ve been up awhile.”
Concrete Blocks sounds distracted. “Good, good. Just making sure you got in all right.”
And like before, Arden weaves a tale. She doesn’t get snagged; there are no knots. Maybe she worked it all out in her head at some point. The way she talks to him about this imaginary spring break trip to my imaginary lake house, it’s natural. She’s so smooth, I almost believe her, and I know exactly where we are and what we’re really doing.
“Hold on, I’m ordering,” Concrete Blocks says. And then, he does. Arden and I exchange a look while we listen to her dad roll out his order at Starbucks. Once his something-whatever-double-don’t-give-a-shit is getting made, he comes back. “David, are you still there?”
Arden presses two fingers to her temple, like she’s got a headache starting. “I’m still here, Dad.”
“Okay, good. I’m not gonna keep you. I just couldn’t remember if I told you to put everything on the Amex.”
“Because Mona’s saving the miles to go to Cabo, yeah, you did.”
Concrete Blocks starts talking to someone else—probably the cashier at his drive-thru now. It’s just for a second, irritated at them, and then he tells Arden, “Right. All right, good. Get back to your friends. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
“Never,” Arden says.
Then she hangs up, the dark all around her again for a minute. I used to wish my mom would give half a shit. I wished that she would be one of those moms who checks in, comes to my door at night and watches me when I sleep. Tucks me up if a hand gets loose, stops by the hospital every day. Jokes with me, pretends like she’s being cool when she’s not, she’s just not. I used to think if she was just there, I would feel better.
Arden’s dad has checked on her every single day, and I’m pretty fucking sure she doesn’t feel better.
(1720.05)
Kansas City is just a stop for gas and bottled water and a car wash. When Arden promised Mr. Elliot spotless, she seriously meant it. There’s a grey shell on the SUV. Soft, loose dust is crazy attracted to black paint, apparently. The car wash isn’t one of those drive-through-and-drive-off jobbies. We stand in a glass hallway, watching as guys in damp clothes scrub every inch of the body clean.
Slipping up behind Arden—I sorta feel like I should be careful with her now—I rest my hand between her shoulder blades. It fits perfectly there, my thumb tracing one side, my pinkie, the other. Because there are strangers standing around next to us, I keep my voice low. “Sorry about your dad.”
“Yeah, me too,” Arden says, looking back. When she bites off her words, she all but spits them out. “It’s like he knows when I’m happy. Or, even, when I just feel good. Comfortable. Whatever—it’s like he knows, and that’s exactly when he calls.”
“Is there anything I can do?”
Arden turns her attention to the car again. The muscles in her shoulders twitch. “Nobody can do anything, Dylan. It’s fine.”
Is this quest making anything better for her? I think it’s making things worse, actually. There’s been some objectively shitty moments the last couple days, and I can admit it. I have regrets, okay? Part of me still wishes I could have been a better person, just left her alone. I sort of wish I had gone home and dragged my mother off the couch. Made her register me for school, even if she left right after.
But mostly what I regret is everything I’ve done to Arden, and everything I haven’t. Maybe I should have kissed her in the cab. Maybe I should have kissed her in the morning; she wanted to. And I said no, because I had this idea. I said no, because quests are supposed to have destinations, and that felt like it should be one of them.
Only now, I’m thinking—maybe to her, it felt like rejection. I don’t know what’s rolling in her head right now; I know mine is full of back-and-forth, high-and-low. Mine’s a mess, and I sort of assumed hers was as smooth and calm and quiet as her outside. But smooth and calm is how she lies. Quiet is how she stays close. Words from her lips.
I don’t know how to do this. How to be close to her. To anybody. Since sixth grade, my life has been nothing but one side effect after another, one more step toward death, one more day closer to leaving everything behind. The news was never good. The bills were never paid. The end was never near enough.
They start to wish you’d die, and they do such a good job of covering it up and dressing it up and walking it around like it’s sympathy.
—Sometimes, Lynne. Sometimes I wish I would check on him and he’d be gone. Does that make me a monster?
—Girl, he’s suffering. Wishing God would set him free from that, that’s love, baby.
—I’m so damned tired.
—Who can blame you? I’m tired just watching you.
I don’t think they realized I could hear them through the vent in my room. But if they had, I wouldn’t be shocked. Passive-aggressive is an art form with them. My mother and Lynne could win awards. That’s what love was, for me. Listening to my mother and her best friend wishing I would just get on with it and die.
I’m doing this all wrong with Arden. And what’s worse, I don’t know how to do it right.
“You want me to leave you alone?” I ask Arden.
She stares through the glass, her reflection curved to meet her brow. For a long time, she doesn’t say anything. But when I start to walk away, she catches my hand. Anchoring me, she still doesn’t look over. “That number you called; they keep texting.”
A black, bitter seed opens in my stomach. “Just block it.”
“Is it your mom?” she asks. “It’s your mom, right?”
Voice weighted, Arden trails off. There’s a space there, I hear it. One where most people would say, maybe you should call her. But Arden lets silence say it, because probably I think it’s the last thing she wants to tell me.
Itty bitty Dylan wants to call. Itty bitty Dylan thinks that maybe this one time, Mom’ll be glad to hear from me. I’ve been gone five days; she has no idea where I am. But my mother is an actress. She sees drama; she dives into it. If she had the chance, she might have an affair with a really old guy, just to have the chance to throw herself on his casket in front of his legitimate family. Her whole life has been a performance.
It’s my turn to talk, so I say, “Yeah, but it’s not for me. She thinks your number is one of her boyfriends.”
“Oh,” Arden say
s.
“He owes her money,” I add. “Two hundred bucks.”
A shadow crosses Arden’s face. She doesn’t free my hand. As she moves down to watch the Escalade progress through the car wash, she tugs me along. “Who cares that much about two hundred dollars?”
“That’s a lot where I come from.”
Finally, she faces me. Pulls a little, so I’m in her orbit. Right there in the middle of a car wash, she asks, “What are we doing here, Dylan?”
It feels like she punched me. Dead center, cracking my bones and pressing all my air out. The pain radiates, a web that reaches the tips of my fingers, the curl of my toes. “We’re going on a quest. We’re finding the Pearl Ship.”
She pauses, then she looks at me. “Am I just your ride?”
Those words land with a sting, the whip-snap of a scorpion right through my chest. It’s my fault they land, my fault it hurts. I let myself love her—selfishly, fine. Badly, whatever, but I love her, and she thinks that about me.
And what’s worse is, she could be right. I’ve ruminated over every way I ruined her; made myself sick thinking about all the things I been taking from her; talked myself out of feeling guilty for the things I still want.
Even though her laugh makes me new, and the sound of her voice telling stories is the sweetest song I’ve ever heard—I could have been lying to us both all along. I don’t think so; I don’t believe that. I don’t . . . but now maybe Arden does.
So brittle, so breakable, I draw back, pulling my hand out of hers. I don’t know what to say; I don’t trust myself to get it right, so I back toward the door, far away from her. I say, “I need some air.”
Then I turn and push into the sunshine and let it burn me up.
(IT GETS DARK SOON)
Tense silence slows the road. I roll around loose in my oversized navigator’s seat. We’re into the nothing, now. Hand to god, just nothing. Road and road signs and empty fields. No, wait, there’s a couple of scrubby trees. Almost hills that rise and fall like waves. Don’t get too excited, a cell phone tower in the distance.
When we pass some cut stone on the side of the road, it’s stained dusty red and weak green. Red from clay I guess, green from the crap growing right off the side of it.
This landscape is lonely, and it hones the tension in the car. Even if I wanted to reach out to Arden, she’s all the way over on the other side. There’s two seats’ worth of space between us. Maybe that’s just how rich people roll. They want their own world, and nobody in it. Or maybe they’re worried that the rest of us just want to cut off a slice.
Either way, I can’t reach her. She doesn’t want to reach me.
This time, I don’t know if I owe her an apology, or if she owes me one. So I do what’s easy. I ball my hoodie up and use it for a pillow. I lean against the glass, and close my eyes and drift away.
(1465.77)
When I wake up, we’re on a highway instead of the interstate. It’s two-lane, the kind that slows through little towns, and heads into the heart of nowhere. Rubbing my face, I try to orient myself, but it’s impossible. I don’t know which way we’re headed—I don’t even know when we left 70.
Everywhere, I hurt. A different kind of pain. I knew how to be sick; I knew how to bitch about dead nerves and sick stomachs. The skull-splitting headaches, and the grinding of my bones, it was agony. It wasn’t something I got used to. But that kind of pain makes sense, so much more sense than this. This, right now, I’m empty in my own skin, like everything that mattered got gored out and thrown away. Finally, I lift my head in search of water. There’s a bottle in the console, and I reach for it.
“Morning, sunshine,” Arden says.
It’s not morning; it’s nowhere near. Uncapping the water, I take a swallow and try not to look at her. “Where are we?”
“Just a detour,” Arden says, “I already checked. If we stay on this, we’ll end up back on 70 in a couple hours.”
“Did we go way out of the way?” I ask.
“Not too far.”
This is just like hitching a ride to Columbus and ending up in Cincinnati instead. Maybe my plan wasn’t a good one, but it was all I had. From where we picked up the car, the Salton Sea is twenty-seven hours away. But that’s if we drive it strict. That’s if we find a car right away when we have to drop this one off in Grand Junction. That’s if Arden still wants to go.
I choke myself with another big swallow of water. Being hollow hurts enough; I don’t want to fill myself up with tears.
Arden says, “I need to stop soon. I’m getting road hypnosis.”
For a second, I think about asking her to let me drive, but I know she won’t. And she probably shouldn’t, seeing as how it’s her ass on the line with this car. The last time she let me drive, I got us pulled over, and I pushed a little knife beneath her skin. Maybe that was the day she started to doubt me. That’s a thought I can’t have, I can’t, I won’t. I pull my bag into my lap, but nothing in it rattles.
Steadying myself, I ask, “Is there even anywhere out here to stop?”
It’s a fair question. There are more trees now. And stick-and-plumb towns, too. (You stick your head out the window, you’re plumb outta town.) No hotels I’ve seen—to be fair, I’ve been asleep for a while and barely awake five minutes. Somehow, I have a feeling if we find somewhere to stay, it’s going to be Baytes-like. I don’t think Arden will trust this SUV to another motel like that.
Assured, Arden says, “We’ll find something.”
Looking into the back, I wonder out loud, “Do the seats lay out? If we can find a rest stop, we can just sleep in here.”
There’s nothing left in my bag, but I find the last of my Tic Tacs laying on the floor between my feet. Those, I pluck up. Just to feel the memory, I shake the bottle. A couple mints fall into my hand and I swallow them like pills. I turn to Arden; I offer the box. “You want one?”
She doesn’t; she just waves them away. I can’t make her out. I can’t tell what this serenity is. Has she made up her mind about me? Does she have a next step, and is she going to be like, smooth and practiced, until we get to the point where she leaves me behind? She said she might not go home; there’s no reason why she can’t keep going without me.
My face starts to get hot, so I turn the AC vents at me. Tucking my arms behind my head, I shiver but I don’t move. After a minute just looking at the road, I see why Arden needs a break.
The lines streak beneath our wheels, the shoulders blur to white. A low, soft hum surrounds us. It’s peaceful, and peaceful’s not really where you wanna be when you’re in charge of a couple tons of steel. And right now, Arden’s in charge, with lines elegantly sculpted into her brow.
It ruins the curve of her profile. I wonder if this trip has ruined her. If it’s breaking her—or pushing her to an edge she already saw coming.
“You aren’t just my ride,” I tell her.
Arden doesn’t say anything right away. Her body shapes around her thoughts, though. Her shoulders roll slightly; her lips part. “You know how you keep saying you’ve never done stuff? Never seen stuff?”
“Yeah.”
“I have,” she says. Shaking herself out, she realigns herself behind the wheel—proof she’s getting tired. “I’ve been to Europe. I’ve been to the Bahamas. LA and New York and Miami . . . Disneyland, King’s Island. Camped in the mountains. Stayed at a beach house, swum in the ocean . . .”
“Walked on Mars,” I say softly.
“Yeah.”
“So . . . what? Just adding a pin to your map?”
Dragging her lower lip through her teeth, Arden draws a breath. Holds it. Then she exhales and looks to me. “I don’t really remember any of it. I went because my parents went. My friends went. I went along. It didn’t matter if I did; the trip would have been the same with or without me.
“You said, let’s go. And I realized if I didn’t . . . you wouldn’t.” She smiles crookedly. “I don’t know what this is, exactly. It’s obviousl
y crazy. But it’s mine. And yours. It’s ours.”
“Yeah it is,” I say, and now my throat closes completely. It’s just like all those trips we took in the game. Didn’t make a difference to the world or the people around us if we walked from one end of the continent to the other. It only made a difference for us. Straightening myself out, I say, “You’re right.”
“About what?”
“This wouldn’t be happening if it weren’t for you. I don’t quest without you, you know that.”
“It’s dangerous to go alone,” she jokes. “Take Arden.”
The shadows start to fade. And then, Arden steps on the brakes again. The belt locks against my chest; that almost startles me more than anything. But when I look out, I realize we’ve driven into a town. Tired buildings spring up on either side of the road. With barely a nudge, Arden steers into a parallel parking spot and drops it out of gear. Plucking the keys from the ignition, she unlocks the doors. “Come on.”
Bathroom break? I can’t see where. Everything looks like it’s closed. Not because it’s after hours. It’s not even sunset yet. They just have handpainted signs in the windows: Closed, Closed, Closed.
There’s nothing here. It’s a broken-down bit of Middle America, nothing to recommend it.
She waits for me at the hood ornament, then slides an arm around my shoulders. Once I’m beside her, she turns. Her nose brushes my hair, her warm breath teasing my ear. To me, into me, she whispers, “I told you it was in Kansas.”
There, across the street, in a rust-roofed shelter, is the World’s Largest Ball of Twine.
It sits in a semi-vacant lot, a yellow brick building behind it. The Cawker City water tower shines in the background, a beacon above several half-demolished buildings. The sign on the brick wall says the ball was forty foot three inches in 1988, and fourteen thousand six hundred eighty-seven pounds.
And even though this ball of twine’s not exactly round, and it’s framed by concrete benches and pillars, and it’s standing on the dying Main Street of a dwindling town, it’s fucking beautiful. It’s golden and massive and perfect. My chin quivers and my throat tightens. This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen in my life, and I love it.
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