Thou Shalt Not Road Trip

by Antony John

  The officer looks up. She’s wearing sunglasses too, so I can’t read her expression. “Are you talking to me?”

  “Yes, officer.” Matt grabs my arm and pushes me forward. “This is Luke Dorsey, author of the acclaimed book Hallelujah, and this is his current mode of vehicular transportation. Give him a ticket and his vital work will be compromised.”

  I thought high school was humiliating, but Matt’s really raising the stakes. Uncertain travel plans and freaky silent families I can deal with, but I’ve always drawn the line at lying to police officers.

  I wait for her to chew us out, but instead she leans against the car for support and points a shaking finger toward herself. “You see this face?” she asks, voice trembling. “This is the face of someone who doesn’t give a crap.” She slaps the ticket on the windshield and busts out laughing.

  “So much for saving on parking.” Matt snatches the ticket from the windshield and hands it to me. “Here you go. Your first tour expense.”

  6:10 P.M.

  Somewhere in Los Angeles, California

  Matt stops at the nearest gas station. It’s kind of a relief when he turns off the engine, because his car is possibly the noisiest vehicle in Los Angeles, which is really saying something. “Where’s that credit card they gave you?” he asks.

  “What?”

  “Mom and Dad said your publicist gave you a credit card for tour expenses.”

  “Well, yeah, but…”

  “Gas is a legitimate expense, bro. Seeing as how it’s your tour and all.”

  He’s right. But this will be the third expense of the day, and the last thing I want to do is upset Colin, my publicist. Perhaps it’s time I straighten everything out.

  “Do you have a cell phone?” I ask.

  Matt pulls one from his jeans pocket and hands it to me. I take Colin’s business card from my wallet and dial the number.

  “Yes?” comes the voice, hidden behind a mask of static.

  “Colin, it’s Luke Dorsey.”

  “Luke, my boy. Are you at the store already?”

  “Uh, no. But we’re close,” I lie.

  “Great. How are you doing?”

  “I’m good. But I have a question about expenses. See, I had to pay an extra baggage fee for being over the weight limit. And then we got a parking ticket at the airport. And now we’re at a gas station—”

  “Luke, Luke! Sorry to interrupt, but I trust you, okay? Besides, the way this puppy’s selling, you could’ve gone a hundred pounds over the weight limit and we’d handle it. Did I tell you we’ve already begun a fifth printing? Fifth printing… and the book’s only been out a week. Amazon has twenty-two thousand copies on backorder. The indie bookstores in New York are putting crucifix bookmarks in each copy. And Barnes and Noble is giving away I’ve been touched by Luke and it was divine! decals with the purchase of three copies.”

  “Uh…”

  “I know. Amazing, huh? So give yourself a break. Oh, one more thing: Can I reach you on this phone during the tour?”

  “Hold on, it’s my brother’s phone. I’ll ask him.”

  Matt nods, because he’s been eavesdropping the whole time. “Yeah, but it’s a pay-as-you-go phone,” he stage-whispers, tapping my credit card helpfully. “You’ll need to add minutes.”

  “My brother says yes.”

  “Great. Tell him to keep it charged; it’s the only way I’ll be able to contact you while I’m out of town. Oh, and remember what I told you about these events: Arrive early, smile lots, talk to everyone. You have a story to tell, and people want to listen. Just be yourself, okay?”

  “Okay.” I hang up and hand Matt his phone, although I still hesitate before handing over the credit card.

  He rolls his eyes. “Luke, my last paycheck from the café will be waiting when we get back to St. Louis, but that’s not much help right now. So let’s get comfortable using this card, okay? Otherwise, what’s the point in having it?”

  I hand it over, and Matt gets out. He doesn’t rejoin me for five minutes. For a small car, this thing has a huge gas tank.

  When he restarts the engine, there’s a new clanging sound. He turns up the hip-hop on his stereo, but it can’t drown out the noise. We lurch to the edge of the forecourt and wait for a gap in the traffic. The car shudders in time with the clanging. I can feel my teeth vibrating in my skull.

  And then, suddenly, everything is quiet: no clanging; no booming bass. It’s such a dramatic change that I can even hear the gentle in and out of our breaths as we share the same polluted L.A. air.

  A car horn blares behind us. “Street’s clear,” I say.

  Matt nods as he turns the key over and over. Eventually the street fills with traffic again. “Ah, crap,” he groans. “That damned mechanic said this might happen.”

  “Said what might happen?”

  He grabs my backpack from the backseat and pats my shoulder. “Don’t sweat it, okay. It’s only two miles to the bookstore. We’ll make it easily if we run.”

  7:15 P.M.

  Born-Again Bookshop, Manhattan Beach, California

  It is not two miles. We do not make it easily. Matt’s knowledge of Manhattan Beach is significantly less encyclopedic than he thinks. And the whole way we don’t pass a single other pedestrian. In the city where everybody drives everywhere, St. Louis’s most out-of-shape kid is warming up for his first event with a half-marathon. Sheesh!

  When we finally arrive—fifteen minutes after the event should have started—the place is in disarray. A line streams out the door and people are arguing. Worse still, paramedics carrying a stretcher are attempting to fight their way through the mob, which isn’t moving one bit.

  “Let them through!” I cry.

  At first there’s silence, and then a faint murmuring. All eyes are on me, and it’s clear that even though I’m drenched in sweat, everyone knows who I am. To my surprise they move aside, allowing the stretcher to snake through at last.

  The poor person being carted off is an old lady in a brown wool suit. She wears an oxygen mask, but as she passes beside me I recognize her face. “Yvonne?”

  The lady on the stretcher shakes like she’s having a seizure.

  “Yvonne Thomas?” I say, jogging to keep up with the paramedics. “I saw your profile on the Born-Again Bookshop website. You’re a legend. W-what happened?”

  Yvonne opens her eyes. Studies me for a moment. Makes the connection… and sits bolt upright and rips off the oxygen mask in one smooth movement. “Thank you, gentlemen, that will be all,” she trills.

  The paramedics exchange glances. “Lie down, ma’am,” says the oldest. He has a kind face and a gravelly voice. “We’ve got you now.”

  Yvonne glances at the line around her bookstore. “The hell you have!” She swings her legs over the side of the moving stretcher, but when she tries to stand she has to lean against me for support. She’s shaking like a cartoon skeleton. “Luke Dorsey, you… you saved me!”

  The paramedics freeze and the crowd falls silent again. I wait for someone to cry gotcha! and for the hidden camera crew to emerge so we can all share a laugh. Meanwhile, I have an eighty-year-old lady hanging in my arms. If I hold her too tightly, I’m afraid she’ll break.

  She turns to face the crowd. “Did you see that?” she asks them. “Well, did you?”

  The murmuring resumes, a low-pitched hum that grows and grows until the crowd has whipped itself into a frenzy.

  She shouts over them: “Nothing this boy says could possibly speak louder than his actions. There will be no talk, no questions. We must simply be grateful we were here to witness this… this miracle.”

  I can’t believe she just said that—it’s obviously untrue. Even Yvonne hesitates like she knows she overstepped her mark and wants to take it back. I wait for someone to call her out, but the longer the silence goes on, the harder it is for anyone to break it. In the end, the word stands: miracle. It makes me queasy.

  Yvonne tries to let go of me, but her le
gs aren’t up to supporting her. “Please form an orderly line,” she continues. “We are Christians, after all. And don’t waste this opportunity to buy copies of Hallelujah for your friends, and your children, and your friends’ children, and… anyone you care about.” She leans heavily on the word care, which gives everyone a chance to count the bills in their wallets. Some of them sigh as they pull out credit cards.

  When she turns to face me, she sniffs the air. “You stink,” she hisses. “Even worse, you’re fifteen minutes late for your own signing. I swear… kids today!”

  She pulls herself up to her full five feet and tells me to escort her into the store.

  8:20 P.M.

  Born-Again Bookshop, Manhattan Beach, California

  My hand is cramping. Actually, my hand began cramping half an hour ago, and my signature isn’t just illegible now, it’s not even my signature. Not really. I just draw a line, add a circle, and finish with a wave-like squiggle that has a pleasingly artistic quality.

  Some of the customers stare at the squiggle for quite a long time. I think they’re trying to see how it correlates to my name. I feel kind of guilty, but not for long, because Yvonne drives away anyone who outstays their allotted ten seconds.

  It didn’t start out like this. I tried speaking to everyone in line, but I kept writing down things they said, instead of my inspiring line: It’s time to be moved! And then Yvonne literally began moving people. Sometimes forcibly. So I kept it to just a signature.

  Then the squiggle.

  Several people in line try to shake my hand, but it has cramped up badly, and I can’t seem to unclench the Sharpie. It’s like they’re fused together. I’m afraid the best I’ll be able to do is to make sure it’s firmly capped before I go to bed tonight.

  Little by little the line shortens, and finally there’s only one person left. For the first time in over an hour I feel my shoulders relaxing. My breathing slows along with my pulse. I’m suddenly aware that two time zones separate St. Louis from Los Angeles, and I’m exhausted.

  I summon a brave smile for the last customer of the day. Then I wonder if I’m daydreaming. It’s a girl: about my age, with long blond hair and perfect white teeth. She’s wearing a blouse with a high frilly collar, and the wooden cross hanging from a cord around her neck is just about the largest one I’ve ever seen on a human being. When she leans over the table it swings forward and bumps my nose.

  “Oh, my! Please forgive me,” she says. She looks at the cross apologetically, shakes her head, and turns to leave.

  “Don’t go,” I say, my voice cracking.

  She bites her lip, but stays. She presses the cross against her chest, like she’s instructing it to stay put. Her chest is not small.

  I force my eyes up to her face again. “I-I’m Luke,” I say.

  She offers her hand. “Teresa.” She has a gentle handshake: warm fingers like silk.

  “Like Mother Teresa.”

  “Exactly. Isn’t she extraordinary? I mean, dead now, I guess. Very dead. But still, a perfect role model.” Teresa is babbling, which makes me think she might actually be nervous. I know exactly how she feels. “My mother says good role models are vital. That’s why she gave me your book.”

  I can feel my face flushing red. “Oh. Well, I-I just write what the good Lord inspires me to write.”

  “That’s so wise.” She places her copy of Hallelujah on the table. “Would you write something inspirational for me?” she asks.

  “Absolutely. I mean, I’ll try.”

  I look at the title page at the front of the book. It’s very white and empty. It needs to be filled with something inspirational, but my hand is begging me not to write another word.

  Meanwhile, Teresa fingers her cross again. As she leans forward I catch a faint scent of peaches. She’s waiting to be inspired.

  Unfortunately, my brain has gone into lockdown.

  To Teresa—

  I hope that writing her name will create some momentum, but the pen just hovers an inch above the page. My hand is shaking, and I’m sweating again.

  Teresa places her hand on the table. Her skin is porcelain white, nails a soft pink color.

  I push the pen against the page and write: Seek and ye shall find me.

  When I look up, I can tell she’s disappointed.

  Keep the faith, I add hurriedly. For like your namesake, you are destined for beautification.

  Teresa stares at the page. “Beautification? Am I ugly?”

  She points to the word, and I can’t even breathe anymore. Before I can grovel an apology, she laughs gently, a tinkling sound that lets me know she’s kidding. “Beatification. I get it.… Hey, you want to get a coffee? It’d be so great to talk to you.”

  She’s lovely, and I did just mess up her book, and it has been a year since I even wanted to hang out with a girl, but still…

  I look to Yvonne for advice, but my bodyguard has gone now that the line has ended. I don’t know if it’s usual for authors to share coffee with beautiful girls who attend their signings. I mean, not that we’d be sharing the coffee, just that we’d both be drinking it. Separate cups of it. At the same time.

  Before I can mumble a response, I notice Matt standing across the room, watching me. When we make eye contact, he raises his thumbs, and I turn bright red.

  It’s a sign: I shouldn’t be thinking what I’m thinking.

  “I’m touched, Teresa, but… no, I can’t. I’m really tired, and I have another signing tomorrow.” The expression on her face just about kills me. She looks crushed. “I need to be at my freshest to, you know, do God’s work,” I add.

  This time she nods. “Yes, of course. Well, until tomorrow, then.”

  It’s not until she’s gone that I realize what she just said.

  9:50 P.M.

  Freshman Residence Hall, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California

  Matt doesn’t talk to me on the ride home. He doesn’t speak as he hands the taxi driver my credit card. I’m not even sure he knows I’m there until we arrive back at his residence hall and walk up two flights of stairs.

  “You’re not planning to become a monk, are you?” he asks.

  “What?”

  “It’s a fair question, ’cause that girl at the signing was totally into you. And underneath the weird stuff, she was actually pretty hot. Plus, you both have that born-again thing going.”

  He shoves the dorm room door with his shoulder and stumbles in. Somehow the university has managed to squeeze two beds inside, and it’s clear that Matt’s roommate isn’t around, so I’ll even have somewhere to sleep. Given our track record since leaving the airport, I’d half expected Matt to announce that we’d be camping out in cardboard boxes under the Santa Monica pier.

  When the door is closed behind us, Matt turns to face me. “All I’m saying is, it’s becoming a habit with you.”

  “A habit?”

  “You know what I’m talking about. Freshman year, you and Fran were this close to dating. Anyone could see how much you wanted her. But you completely blew her off.”

  I should have known that’s where this was headed. It’s the same thing he brought up every time we talked on the phone last fall. It’s the reason we’ve barely spoken since Christmas.

  “I didn’t blow her off, Matt. Fran was the one who got weird. If you saw the way she looks, you’d understand.”

  That silences him, but only for a moment. “So it’s okay to judge a book by its cover, huh? Is that one of the lessons in your book?”

  As soon as he says it, I feel ashamed and outwitted. Then again, he’s taken advantage of my greatest weakness: Frances Embree, formerly one-half of the St. Louis city debate championship pair, and one-half of the organizational committee for our church’s youth group, and one-half of… well, quite a lot of stuff actually.

  “Seriously, Luke, you two were best friends.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it. It’s none of your business.”

 
Matt nods. “In a way, no. But as long as I’m dating her sister, it’s hard for the two of us to switch it off. You know how close they are.”

  Unlike us, I guess he means. Although if it weren’t for Fran, Matt and I would still be close. It’s yet another reason I resent her.

  “How is Alexis?” I ask.

  “Alex is cool.”

  “That’s it? Your girlfriend is cool?”

  He flops onto his bed and studies his hands. “She’s always working. I think Caltech is kicking her butt. I figured we’d hang out most weekends, but she’s always in the lab or something. I got us tickets to the USC-UCLA football game, and she bailed on me. Can you believe it?”

  Truth is, yes, I can. Alex was always more interested in participating in sports than watching them, and everything came a distant second to schoolwork. Being at Caltech wouldn’t have changed that. Still, I don’t think Matt wants to hear it, so I pretend it was a rhetorical question and say nothing at all.

  “Look, I’m not trying to pressure you,” Matt continues, “but the situation with you and Fran hasn’t exactly helped things between me and Alex this year.”

  “So you kept telling me. But Fran never tried to stay friends with me either, remember?”

  “No, but it’s harder for her. Since she changed, I mean.”

  “Changed?” I almost laugh. “Have you seen her?”

  “Yeah. Photos, anyway. And I’m not saying the punk version of Fran is as hot as the original. I know you dug that whole prim-and-proper thing, with the cute bob and the matching sweater sets and color-coordinated hair bands. I get it, I really do.”

  Okay, so he’s right about that. She was a vision back then: pretty, with a smile that could melt me. But she was so much more. She had boundless energy and wasn’t afraid to laugh. She was the peaceful protestor, supporter of the oppressed. At lunch, she insisted we sit with the least popular kids—the ones who sat at mostly empty tables on the edges of the cafeteria. Now she has one of those tables to herself.