As the others scrambled from the van, eager for something to eat, Sierra fumbled for her backpack and, with another yawn, locked the van doors behind her. There was a line inside the restaurant. From the large menu over the register, it appeared that the place served only hamburgers, fries, shakes, and soft drinks.
“Do you want me to order for you?” Wes asked Sierra.
“Sure. I’m going to the restroom.”
“What do you want?”
Sierra twisted her dry mouth into a grin and said, “Fish sticks.”
“What?”
“Never mind. Surprise me.”
Wes shook his head. Sierra didn’t see Amy and Vicki in the food line, so she guessed they were already in the restroom.
“At least there’s not a line for the bathroom,” Sierra muttered as she pushed open the door and saw her friends standing in front of the long mirror.
“I look like roadkill,” Amy said flatly. “Look at my hair!”
Vicki wasn’t moaning. Instead, she had gone to work, pulling a few necessities from her backpack: a toothbrush, washcloth, hairbrush, and makeup bag. She even had a clean T-shirt, which she quickly slipped over her head after she had washed her face and the front part of her hair.
“That’s not fair,” Amy said, examining Vicki after her three-minute freshening-up routine produced impressive results. “You can get gorgeous with just a sink and a squirt of hair spritz. I need a hot shower and a minimum of an hour.”
“You guys want to borrow anything?” Vicki asked, holding out her stuffed backpack. Her complexion looked flawless, her eyes were bright and clear, and her silky, brown hair was pulled smoothly back with a clip. She even smelled sweet.
“Leave the whole bag,” Sierra said.
“Yeah, and go tell the guys we’ll be out in an hour,” Amy added. “I could sure use a change of clothes about now. All my stuff is tied up on the top of the van. I doubt Wesley would want to undo everything for a clean T-shirt.”
“I have another one you can wear,” Vicki said. “It’s at the very bottom. It’s white.”
“Only one?” Sierra asked disappointedly. Her jeans weren’t bothering her, but the light blue, short-sleeved shirt she had put on yesterday morning was a crumpled, less-than-fresh mess with dots of chocolate stains on it.
“Sorry. Only one,” Vicki said. She brushed past a woman with two little girls who were entering the restroom in a hurry. “I’ll tell the guys you’ll be right out.”
“Don’t hold your breath,” Amy said. She began to pull stuff from Vicki’s backpack and hand it to Sierra. “This is hopeless, really. We’ll never be able to pull off the same transformation trick Vicki just did.”
“I’ll settle for a clean face,” Sierra said. “And does she have any large hair clips in there? It’s hot here. I want to get my hair off my neck.”
Amy and Sierra made a noble attempt at freshening up. They encouraged each other all the way, saying how much better the other now looked. Only, Amy’s short, dark hair still bulged a little in the back, despite the way she doused it with warm water. And Sierra’s eyes remained bloodshot—evidence that she had strained them during her stint as the midnight road warrior.
“I give up,” Amy said.
She zipped shut Vicki’s backpack, slung it over her shoulder, and exited with Sierra.
Wes, Randy, and Vicki waved at them from one of the tables in the far left corner of the small eating area. Before them were five cardboard tray boxes, all stuffed with burgers and fries. The drinks were in large white cups with red stripes around them.
Sierra examined one of the cups. “Are these little palm trees between the stripes? How cute!”
“How California!” Amy added, enjoying the discovery.
“Look on the inside rim on the bottom,” Wes said.
All four of them lifted their cups and checked the underside, looking for a door prize.
“Hey!” Randy said, the first to find the treasure. “That’s cool.”
“It has John 3:16,” Sierra said, looking closely at hers. “That is so cool.”
“And did you see how fresh these are?” Randy asked, a handful of the thin, golden fries in his hand. “A guy is in the back shoving potatoes into a slicer and then dipping them in the fryer. You have to try these.”
“We’d better hurry,” Vicki said, grabbing a handful from the mound in front of them. “Before Randy eats them all.”
They agreed, after they had stuffed themselves, that Wes was right about enjoying the full California experience by stopping at In-N-Out Burger. The only problem was they all groaned when they got back in the van and were sure that the seat belts wouldn’t fit them anymore.
Sierra sat beside the window in the middle seat. Amy was next to her, Vicki was in the front, and Randy was happily stretched out in the snore zone. Within minutes they were back on the freeway with the windows open and the warm breezes swirling through the van.
“Mind if I try to find a good radio station?” Vicki asked.
“Wait a minute,” Sierra said. “First I have a few questions for you, brother dear. Where are we? Where are we going, and how long before we get there?”
“We’re south of Bakersfield. Our first stop is Valencia Hills Bible College, and we should be there in an hour or less, depending on how quickly we get over the Grapevine.”
“Now I have a question,” Amy said. “Will we have a chance to take a shower between now and then?”
Wes laughed.
“I’m serious,” Amy said.
Wes glanced over at Vicki, and after looking her over quickly, he said, “Why? You guys look fine. Am I starting to smell or something?”
“No,” Amy said, “but I think I am.”
“You’re fine,” Wes said. “Besides, the idea is for you to check them out. No one will be checking you out.”
“Oh, thanks a lot!” Amy said.
“No, I didn’t mean it that way,” Wes said, glancing at Amy in the mirror. “I meant you look fine. You look good just the way you are, really.”
Sierra tried to discern how Amy had taken Wes’s comment. His words had brought a subtle smile to her lips.
A red light on Sierra’s emotional control panel lit up as she thought, Did my brother just flirt with Amy?
eleven
“CAN I TRY FINDING A RADIO STATION NOW?” Vicki asked.
“Go ahead and try,” Wes said. “As soon as we start to climb the Grapevine, it’ll be hard to find anything. You’ll have more success once we drop down into the L.A. basin.”
“Is that the Grapevine?” Sierra said, noticing that the wide highway ahead led into an impressive bank of hills. It appeared even more impressive because of the long, flat, straight stretch of freeway they were traveling on. Sierra looked out the back window and thought the valley behind them was beautiful in a desolate sort of way. It seemed strange to think that all the flat farmland they had raced past was about the last undeveloped area of western Southern California. She knew that once they drove over the Grapevine into the San Fernando Valley, it would basically be one long stretch of developed civilization all the way to the Mexican border.
“Can you hand me the map?” Sierra asked. “I want to figure out where we are.” Locating the red line on the map that was marked as the 5 Freeway, Sierra said, “I don’t know why they call it the Grapevine. It’s a pretty straight-looking road.”
“Maybe the original highway had more twists and turns,” Wes suggested.
“We’re going to drive through the Los Padres National Forest,” Sierra remarked. “Fraiser Mountain on our right is 8,026 feet high, and Sawtooth on our left is more than 5,000 feet.” Then, because she realized she sounded like a tour guide, she added, “And postcards will be available at the end of our tour.”
“Are we going to Santa Barbara?” Amy asked.
“No,” Wes said. “That’s on the other side of the mountains on the coast.”
“Drake was the one who wanted to go to Sant
a Barbara,” Vicki said.
“That’s right. So, where are the colleges located that we’ll see?” Amy asked.
Sierra went over the list, and she and Amy tried to find the campuses on the map.
As the van climbed the steady incline of the Grapevine, Vicki searched for an agreeable sound on the radio. All she managed to come up with was a loud song in Spanish and lots of crackling static.
“I give up. Oh, you guys, look at the hills!”
Sierra looked up from the map and was amazed at the sight. As far as they could see, wild California poppies poured over the hillside, waving to them with their bright-orange petals raised high.
“It’s beautiful,” Sierra said.
Randy, who had been quiet back in the snore zone, perked up at the sight of the flowers. “Wow,” he said appreciatively. “It looks as if some giant devoured a huge bag of cheese-flavored chips and then wiped his hands on the hills.”
Sierra laughed. “You have such a way with words, Randy!”
“Yeah,” Amy teased, “as long as those words have to do with food.”
At the In-N-Out Burger, Randy had eaten half of Amy’s hamburger because she couldn’t finish it. He also had scarfed down everyone’s leftover fries.
“We all find our inspiration in different forms.” Having said that, Randy lay back down, quietly humming to himself.
He was still humming after they had toured the Valencia Hills Bible College campus. He gave Sierra the impression of an absentminded composer trying to get the melody just right for his new song.
The five of them were leaving the main part of the campus and returning to the parking lot when Sierra looked around one more time. She tried to picture herself going to school here. She decided she liked the campus. She liked the way the dorms were set up in suites with a common living room area. She liked the friendly students. Two of them even said hello to Sierra and her friends. She also liked the warm weather and wished she were wearing shorts instead of jeans.
What Amy liked the most was the student adviser who took them on tour. “Noah,” Amy repeated to Sierra as they walked ahead of the others back to the van. “Isn’t that a great name? Noah. It’s so strong. And did you see the tattoo on his thumb?”
“That was a birthmark,” Sierra said.
“It was not.”
“Then it was a weird tattoo because it was a big brown splotch.”
Amy shook her head. “It was a tattoo of a bear or something.”
She tugged at the front passenger door of the van, forgetting it was locked and Wes had the key. As she jiggled the door, the car alarm went off. Amy shrieked and jumped back. Sierra turned to see if Wes was still behind them. All he had to do was push a button on the keypad, and even from a distance, this terrible racket would stop. But Wes was nowhere in sight. Neither was Vicki or Randy.
“Where did they go?” Amy shouted with her hands over her ears.
“I don’t know. They were right behind us.”
Two college guys in a red compact car slowed down in the parking lot and looked out the driver’s window at Amy and Sierra. A collapsed windsurfing board and sail were strapped to the roof.
“You okay?” the driver asked.
He had short, bleached hair, a deep tan, and an engaging smile. From the look of the rippling muscle on his left arm when he stuck it out the window, he definitely knew how to use the equipment he was carrying.
Amy immediately dropped her hands away from her ears and went over to his car. “The alarm accidentally went off,” she called out, leaning over to see the driver. “Wes has the keys. He should be here any minute.”
Sierra was amazed at how Amy could start up a comfortable, friendly conversation with any guy anywhere.
“Wes Langerfield?” the guy asked.
“No, Wes Jensen. He doesn’t go here.”
“Oh,” the guy shouted back. “You go here, don’t you?”
“No.”
Sierra watched as Amy smiled, and she wondered if her cute friend with the little bump of wayward hair on the back of her head would admit she was still in high school.
“Do you want a ride back to the main campus to find Wes?” the driver offered.
“Sure,” Amy said.
“I think we’d better wait here.” Sierra quickly stepped in.
The guy in the passenger seat leaned over and smiled at Sierra. He was definitely another trophy-winning, lifeguard type.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
“Yes, I—” Before Sierra could finish her sentence, the screeching alarm stopped. Sierra looked over her shoulder to see Wes jogging toward them, still pointing the alarm pad toward the van.
“That must be Wes,” the driver said.
Amy smiled. She nodded.
Sierra smiled. She nodded.
They both stood there, smiling and nodding.
“We’ll see you around,” the driver said as he gave a wave and put his car in first gear. “Take it easy.” And off they went.
“You big flirt,” Sierra teased, giving Amy a swat on the arm.
“Flirt? Moi?” Amy’s dark eyes twinkled. “You were a little taken yourself, if I’m not mistaken.”
Sierra shared a giggle with her friend. “You have to admit, they were two gorgeous examples of God’s creation, weren’t they?”
Amy gave Sierra a perturbed look. Sierra guessed it was because she had brought God into the conversation. “Hey,” Sierra said quickly, “I’m only giving glory where glory is due.”
“What happened?” Vicki said, rushing up to join them. “Did someone try to break into the van? Here? At a Bible college?”
“No,” Sierra said with a wry grin. “Amy was demonstrating to me some of her techniques for meeting men on a college campus. And I do emphasize the word men!”
“And my techniques seemed to work quite well,” Amy added, sharing another laugh with Sierra.
“I missed something,” Vicki said.
“And how!” Sierra said.
“All I know,” Amy said as she climbed into the front passenger seat of the van, “is that we can turn around and go home now. I know where I’m going to college in September!”
Sierra laughed again. “September? I thought you would want to start this summer. I imagine they offer windsurfing during the summer. You do have a growing interest in that sport, don’t you?”
Amy laughed even harder. “I do now!”
“What is with you two?” Wes said.
He got in and closed the door. Rather than putting the keys in the ignition and driving off, he turned in his seat to face the group. Sierra slid in next to the window on the middle seat. It gave her a strange sense of comfort that Amy was talking so freely about the guys they had met in front of Wes. Or was that a subtle way of letting Wes know some guys had ended up “checking her out”?
“We need to make a choice now,” Wes said.
“There is no choice,” Amy said. “I get the driver!” Again she burst out laughing, and Sierra with her.
“I think sleep deprivation is catching up with us,” Vicki said. “Amy is going to lose it in about two seconds. You watch. When she starts laughing really hard, she snorts.”
“I do not!” Amy protested, pulling a straight face. Her shoulders shook slightly as she tried to contain her laughter.
“Yes, you do, Amy, and you know it,” Sierra agreed.
Wes gave Amy a sympathetic look. “Don’t feel bad. They accuse me of snoring.”
“You do snore!” Amy said. “I heard you last night sawing logs back there in the snore zone.”
“We all heard you, Wes,” Sierra said.
“Well, can you all hear this? We need to make a decision. Now, you guys, listen.”
Amy stifled her giggles.
“I told my friends we wouldn’t be at their place until late tonight because I thought we were going to spend more time here on campus. But you all said you checked out everything you needed to.”
Sierra nodded an
d noticed the others doing the same. It wasn’t a very large campus, and none of them had any interest in sitting in on one of the doctrine classes, as Noah had suggested. The catalogs they had picked up would give the specific information on classes and registration. They were all ready to move on.
Wes checked his watch. “It’s five after four now. We could do a couple of things. We could drive into Hollywood—”
“Yes!” Amy said.
“We would hit traffic all the way, and to be honest, Amy, I think you’re going to be painfully disappointed with the real Hollywood once you see it. There’s Grauman’s Chinese Theatre with the handprints of the stars in cement, but aside from that, it’s not much more than a crowded downtown strip of old buildings, junky souvenir shops, and lots of homeless people.”
“When were you there?” Sierra asked.
“About a year ago when I came down with Ryan. Let me finish what I was saying. We can go on into L.A., as I said, or we can go a short way down the freeway to Magic Mountain.” Wes ended his suggestion with a Cheshire cat grin, which meant the last suggestion was what he really wanted to do.
“Magic Mountain,” Randy called out from the backseat.
“Amy has coupons,” Vicki said.
“Sounds good to me,” Sierra said.
Everyone looked at Amy.
“Am I going to be the only one who doesn’t go on the roller coasters?” she asked.
“Yes!” they all answered in unison.
“Okay, fine. Let’s go to Magic Mountain. I can feed my rejected soul excessive amounts of cotton candy and sit on a bench waiting for you.”
“Or you can live a little and come with us,” Randy said.
In a scramble of searching for coupons and checking the map for directions, Amy, Sierra, Vicki, and Randy plotted their course while Wes drove.
“You can’t miss the off-ramp,” Sierra said. “This guidebook says you take the Magic Mountain Parkway exit, and it’s right there.”
“We’ll be able to see it from the freeway,” Wes said.
“You know what? This is great because these coupons are only good on weekdays,” Vicki said, examining Amy’s contribution. “We couldn’t use them if we came back on the weekend. This is going to be so much fun!”