“She won’t hurt you,” the driver had said, before disappearing. “She’s a sweetheart.”
Sure. A sweetheart with four-inch fangs.
At least our cell phone worked again. My mom called the Kaplan-Novaks and the Schwebers, who were twenty miles away at the rendezvous point. They piled into their cars and joined us at the garage, right around the time the tow truck returned with our sad, broken car.
“Good news!” my father said as he hopped out of the truck.
“The car’s fixed and we can get out of here?” I guessed.
The tow truck driver shook his head. He was a large man, towering over us with a thick salt-and-pepper beard and twinkling eyes. A little like Santa Claus, I thought. Except in this case, Rudolph is a Red-Nosed Doberman. “That radiator hose is toast,” he said. “It’ll be at least two days before I can install a replacement and get you folks on the road again.” He smiled and clapped a hand on my father’s back. “But you’re all welcome back to my place for an old-fashioned, home-cooked meal.”
“Isn’t that great?” My father beamed.
The tow truck driver unchained his growling guard dog and patted her shiny black coat. “Come on, pup,” he said. “Let’s go home.”
“Uh-huh,” I mumbled, backing away from the “pup.” “Great.”
The tow truck driver’s name was Ed. He lived with his wife, Myrna, on the outskirts of town in a small blue ranch-style house. It had shag carpeting and a stuffed antelope hanging over the dining room table. Myrna was a hugger, not to mention a cheek pincher. Sweetie Pie—the big black Doberman who spent the whole meal whimpering under the table, begging for scraps—turned out to be a real…sweetie pie. And I had to admit, the food was good.
Okay, not just good. Amazing. Fresh, juicy, roasted chicken. Real mashed potatoes loaded with butter and chives. Chunky, homemade applesauce, crunchy asparagus, brandied cranberries, and a loaf of soft, fluffy bread straight out of the oven. After a month and a half of greasy burgers, wilted salads, and stale burritos, it tasted like the best food I’d ever eaten.
After dinner, it was time for a tour of Ed and Myrna’s basement, also known as the Roseland Showcase of Historical Barbed Wire and Geological Curiosities. That meant four walls lined with hundreds of strands of barbed wire—and ten tables covered with rocks.
“This type of wire was invented in 1897,” Myrna said excitedly, pointing to a strand that looked exactly like every other strand of barbed wire I’d ever seen.
“Helvite rocks are very unusual in this region of New Mexico,” Ed was saying on the other side of the room. He held up a brown rock the size of a baseball. “We found this one in a construction site about twenty miles outside of town.”
Even Kirsten couldn’t force herself to act interested. And Jake, of course, was up in the living room, listening to a baseball game. Dillie was in too good a mood to care what was happening, because we were due to visit Roswell the next day. Caleb and I just nodded along, pretending to listen.
But our parents weren’t faking their oohs and ahs. I could tell by the way my parents trailed after Myrna like eager puppies, by the way Dillie’s mother actually stopped talking for five seconds and listened to someone else’s lecture, by the way the Schwebers…Well, Caleb’s parents looked pretty much the same as they always did. They weren’t very excitable.
“If they like this, just imagine what they’d think of Evelyn’s collection!” Myrna told Ed.
“Who’s Evelyn?” my father asked.
“Evelyn’s our local historian, of sorts,” Ed explained. “Our librarian, and archivist, and all-around collector. Rocks, bottles, old signs, restaurant menus, stories—you name it, Evelyn collects it.”
“You folks want to know the real story of this country out here, Evelyn’s the first, last, and only lady you need to see,” Myrna added. “She’s the voice of Route 66.”
Uh-oh. There was that word again. Real. I could almost see my parents’ ears perking up.
“Would this Evelyn be willing to talk to us?” Dillie’s mother asked eagerly.
“Can’t imagine why not,” Myrna said. “You could drive over tomorrow, if you can all fit into your two cars while Ed’s fixing the third. She’s about thirty miles down the road.”
Dillie stiffened. “Mom—”
“That would be wonderful!” Dillie’s mother said. “Thank you so much.”
“Mom!” Dillie said again, louder. “We’re supposed to go to Roswell tomorrow. Remember?”
“That’s right,” my father said. “I nearly forgot. No need for you all to be stuck here while our car gets fixed. You can ride over to Roswell and we’ll meet you in a couple days in Santa Rosa.”
“And miss the chance to meet the ‘Voice of Route 66’?” Professor Kaplan’s narrow eyebrows flew up her forehead. “Dillie, dear, I’m afraid we’re just going to have to skip Roswell this time around.”
“But can’t we just go the next day?” Dillie asked.
“You know we’re on a tight schedule,” her mother said. “Now, let’s just—”
“You promised!” Dillie shouted.
“Delia!” Professor Kaplan hissed, looking scandalized. “We’re guests in this house. Behave yourself!”
Caleb’s father cleared his throat. “Maybe we could pile the kids into our car, take them on their little side trip—”
“No.” Dillie’s mother shook her head. “Dillie’s mature enough to understand that sometimes she needs to compromise. After all, whole world doesn’t revolve around what she wants to do. Right, Dillie?”
Tears streamed down Dillie’s face. But she nodded.
I couldn’t stand it anymore. This was so unfair. After everything Dillie had done for me, there had to be something I could do for her.
“Why doesn’t Kirsten drive us?” The words were out of my mouth before I’d even thought them through. Caleb and Dillie turned to gape at me. Professor Kaplan looked even more surprised.
“Kirsten?” she asked.
“I have my license,” Kirsten said quickly. “And you did say I could get some driving practice on this trip.” She locked eyes with me and smiled. “I can do it.”
“I’m not sure we’re comfortable sending you off to a strange town, with three kids to keep an eye on,” Professor Novak said.
“We’re not kids,” I argued. “We’ll totally behave. This is the one thing Dillie has cared about on this entire trip. She should get to go.”
“I don’t know.” Professor Novak didn’t sound convinced. “Kirsten, this would be a big responsibility.”
“I can help,” Jake said, appearing on the staircase. “Keep an eye on everyone, you know?”
My eyes couldn’t bug out any wider. Caleb looked like he was about to fall over. Dillie had at least stopped crying.
Professor Kaplan sighed. “I wish I could say yes, I really do. But I just don’t see how it will work. Even if we could all fit in one car and give you the other, you’re not authorized to drive our rental car—and I’m sure Mr. Schweber doesn’t want you driving his new SUV.”
Mr. Schweber looked apologetic, but he didn’t disagree.
Ed and Myrna exchanged a glance. “That’s where I think we might be able to help you out,” Ed said. He smiled at Dillie. “Trust me, little lady. I don’t think you’re going to be disappointed.”
“It’s, um…wow,” Caleb said. His mouth opened again, but nothing came out.
I knew exactly how he felt. “Wow” pretty much said it all.
“It’s perfect!” Dillie squealed. She threw her arms around Ed and Myrna. Then she grabbed her mother and squeezed tight. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
“Just make sure you stay out of trouble,” Professor Kaplan said, disengaging herself.
“I have to drive that?” Kirsten mumbled under her breath.
“I have to ride in it?” Jake whispered.
“Isn’t it perfect?” Dillie exclaimed.
“It’s…” I glanced at Caleb, but h
is face was a total blank. “It’s definitely the perfect vehicle for a trip to alien central,” I said finally.
And that was one hundred percent the truth.
Ed’s old car—“Just something I like to fix up on weekends”—wasn’t a car at all. It was a van. Specifically, a snub-nosed Volkswagen bus. It was painted a faded grass green and slathered with pink and purple flowers and swirls. “Myrna painted it when we were kids,” he explained. “Can’t bear to paint over it.”
“You can never paint over it,” Dillie said in a hushed voice, running her fingers along one of the neon-purple blossoms. “It’s a work of art.”
Ed slapped a hand down on the hood. “You kids just take good care of her. Especially you, young lady,” he told Kirsten.
“I’m an excellent driver,” she said in her very best I’m-so-mature voice. “But…does it actually run?”
“You treat her well, she’ll get you where you need to go,” Ed said. “Just promise me one thing.”
I realized he was talking to me, like I was the one in charge. I guess this had all been my idea. So I nodded. “Anything.”
“If you meet any aliens up there in Roswell, you make sure to invite them back here for a nice, home-cooked dinner.”
Chapter Nine
Location: Roswell, New Mexico
Population: 45,293
Miles Driven: 2,147
Days of Torment: 47
“This is it!” Dillie exclaimed as we rolled slowly through streets crowded with aliens. Or, at least, earthlings dressed up in really elaborate alien costumes. Tourists swarmed around us, most decked out in UFO shirts and tin foil hats, but some looking just like our parents: baggy PTA T-shirts, khaki shorts pulled up too high, fanny packs, and mom-hair.
“This is it.” Kirsten carefully eased the van into a tight parallel parking space. “Out.”
“It’s amazing,” Dillie breathed.
I looked out at the Star Tours visitor information stand, the Alien Invasion arcade, and Unidentified Frying Objects, a stir-fry joint. “It’s something,” I agreed.
“So?” Jake said. “Where are the UFOs?”
Dillie shot him a poisonous glare. He glared right back. I wondered if he was thinking about the Night of the Skunk. I had to slap a hand over my mouth to cover a wicked smile.
It turned out we’d picked the right day to come to Roswell. A banner hanging across the main street announced the 2ND ANNUAL OUT-OF-THIS-WORLD FESTIVAL. A band (Arnie and the Aliens) was playing in the town square, green antennae sprouting from their heads. Marathon runners with three eyes and four arms and Star Wars masks loped down the streets. And then there was the Alien Pet Parade. Dillie dragged us to the front of the crowd, gaping and cooing at the fluffy terrier with his fur dyed green, the turtle with his shell papered in aluminum foil, the ferret with googly eyes strapped to his torso, and the Chihuahua. (That one didn’t need a costume; it looked like an alien all by itself.) Jake was still sulking, but he kept his mouth shut.
“Let’s check out the laser show!” Dillie urged us, once the grand prize went to a poodle wearing orange goggles and purple antennae. (I’d been rooting for the Chihuahua.)
“Look at you, you’re like a puppy,” Kirsten said to her sister, laughing. “You might as well be running around with your tongue hanging out and your tail wagging.”
Dillie blushed. “Don’t you think it’s cool?”
“I think it’s cool,” I assured her. Though mostly, I thought it was cool how excited she was. I’d never been that excited about anything. But you couldn’t make yourself be like that. You were either like Dillie, the kind of person who saw the world in this totally weird, wonderful, unique way…
Or you weren’t.
My whole life, I had spent so much time worrying that I might say or do something dumb, that people might figure out I was weird, that there was something different about me. It never occurred to me to worry that there wasn’t.
“You guys go ahead to the laser show,” I said, suddenly needing to be on my own. “I’m going to check out the town a little more.”
“You sure?” Caleb asked. “Everything okay?”
I gave him a big smile. “Everything’s awesome. I just don’t feel like sitting. Too much car time, you know?”
“I don’t know,” Kirsten said nervously. “I promised your parents—”
“She’ll be fine,” Dillie said. I gave her a grateful smile.
“One hour, then meet back here,” Kirsten told me. “Don’t be late.”
Once they were gone, I wandered through the crowds, feeling totally invisible. I started walking aimlessly, snapping a picture whenever I spotted a particularly good costume. After a few random turns, I found myself on a small, empty street, with only a single storefront: the Desert Sands Art Gallery.
The gallery was like something from a different planet. Outside, all I could see were aliens, and neon, and rhinestone-bedazzled ashtrays shaped like UFOs. But inside, it was SoHo and Paris and Rome all at once. People dressed all in black, talking in quiet voices about art and poetry and philosophy. Stark white walls, each featuring a single photograph.
I spun in place, trailing my eyes from one photo to the next. It was like the photographer had forced the desert itself down on the canvas. Somehow, the pictures were even more beautiful—more real—than the real thing. And that’s when I finally got it, what it meant to be real. Why it mattered. It was all in the photos.
As opposed to the desert photos I’d taken. The best of them were cheesy and generic, like something you’d hang in a motel bathroom. The worst—the ones where I’d tried to be artsy, tipping the camera on a diagonal or turning on the night flash in stark daylight—looked like something you’d flush down a motel toilet. Then there were the goofy ones, destined for the Journal of Torment, but they didn’t even count.
“You like?” a woman asked from behind me.
I turned around. She was probably about my mom’s age, but if you didn’t look closely, you’d figure she was a lot younger. Maybe it was the sleek black dress with a silver chain belt, and the dangly turquoise earrings that brushed her shoulders. Or maybe it was just the look on her face, like she was about to let you in on a secret joke.
“You look surprised,” she said.
“I just didn’t expect to find a place like this in…well, a place like this.”
The woman sighed. “I get that a lot. Roswell may be about aliens and UFOs, but trust me, it isn’t all we’re about. So what do you think of the pictures?”
“I love them. Especially that one.” I pointed to a black-and-white shot of a natural rock formation. It spurted out of the ground like a stone geyser. The dark shadow it cast on the bleached white sand looked like a hole through the center of the earth.
She smiled. “That’s my favorite, too. Took me all day to get the light just right.”
My eyes bugged out. “You took these?”
The woman nodded.
I swallowed the first question that popped into my head: Why would someone like you bother talking to someone like me?
“Are you a photographer?” she asked, after too many seconds had gone by without me saying anything.
“Me?” I shook my head.
“So what’s that?” she asked, her eyes darting to the camera hanging around my neck.
“Oh, that? I mean, it’s a camera. But it doesn’t—I take pictures, but that doesn’t make me. You know. A photographer.”
“Actually, that’s exactly what it does,” she said.
“I just mean…I don’t take pictures like that,” I told her, sweeping my arms out to include the whole gallery.
She laughed. “I should hope not! That’s the job of a photographer. To show people what the world looks like to you, and no one else.”
“I guess I never thought about it that way,” I admitted. “When I see stuff like this—the desert, or the mountains, or anything that’s so amazing you have to get it on film, I try. But in the picture, it alw
ays just looks…small. Like anyone could have taken it. I want to take pictures that only I could take.” I’d never really said it out loud before, never even thought it. But once the words were out, they felt true.
“Well, you’re definitely thinking like an artist,” the woman said. “That’s the first step. The rest will come with time.”
“Oh, I’m not an artist,” I said quickly. “My friend Mina, she’s the artist. I’m just…” I stopped.
I wanted to explain to her how it was, how Mina was the artsy one and Sam was the cool, stylish one, and I was—but that’s where I ran out of steam. I didn’t know what my thing was. According to Dillie and Caleb, I used to be the wild one, the fun one—but that was before. These days, I didn’t have a thing. I was just there. And that’s not something you want to admit to a stranger.
I shrugged. “I just like to take pictures,” I said finally. “It’s not art. It’s only a way to remember things.”
“There’s nothing ‘only’ about that,” the woman said. “Remembering, recording, retelling—it’s how we understand the world. It’s important.”
“Well…maybe your pictures are important,” I said. “But—”
“They’re important to me,” she said. “You want to be a photographer?” She held up a hand and shushed me before I could argue. “Take pictures that are important to you. Find a way to tell your story.”
“I don’t even know if I have a story,” I admitted.
She grinned, and the I-have-a-secret look was back. “Everyone has a story. Some people just take a while to figure that out.”
“You sure you have enough room?” I asked nervously as Kirsten backed the van up a few inches, careful not to hit the Buick bumper behind her. We were standing on the curb, waving her backward and forward, so she’d be sure not to knock into either of the cars pinning her in. I watched the narrow space between the cars and the van, trying to put it together in my head like a geometry problem. But every time, I kept coming around to the same solution—the van was trapped.