When I get back to the house, I hurry straight to the computer and research my plans. The distance between Brockport and San Antonio, using the route I want, is 1,850 miles. If I drive 370 miles every day, it will take about five days. So that means I could leave Brockport one morning and stay in a motel somewhere in Ohio that first night. Then I’d drive through Chicago and sleep over with Mara, before heading down to St. Louis, where I’d do another motel. Aimee has some friends in Springfield, Missouri, so I could see if they’d take me in for a night. Then a motel in Oklahoma and, from there, I’d head down through Texas. So that makes three or four motels and seven or eight tanks of gas and I guess food and tolls. I check my bank account. If I don’t spend money on anything stupid, I definitely have enough for the trip.
By the time I sit down with my grandparents that afternoon, I’ve prepared every answer under the sun. But when I announce that I’m driving to San Antonio, my grandpa leans back on the couch, crosses his arms over his chest, and says, “Absolutely not.”
My grandma shakes her head. “I really don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“It’s not just a bad idea,” my grandpa says. “It’s out of the question.”
“Can I at least tell you my plans?” I can feel the anger pulsing down my arms. At least they have to hear me out before they shoot me down. “I could divide up the trip enough so I’d only drive during the day. And I’d get a good map, so I wouldn’t have to ask strangers for directions. And I’d have my cell phone, so I could call —”
“This isn’t even worth talking about,” my grandpa says. “There’s no way you can handle almost two thousand miles of highway driving. You haven’t even had your license for a year.”
“But you let me drive to Syracuse for that show. That’s over a hundred miles on the highway. This is basically like going back and forth to Syracuse eighteen times.”
“Honey,” my grandma says, “this is a little different than driving to Syracuse . . .”
“Aimee really invited you to Texas?” my grandpa asks.
“Are you saying I’m lying?” I snap. By this point I’m not just angry. I’m furious. “Are you saying she doesn’t want me to visit her? Because as much as you might like that to be true, you’re wrong.”
“We just think after what happened at graduation . . .” My grandpa pauses. “Maybe these things would be better discussed in thera —”
Goddamn!
I storm up to my room and slam the door. But the fighting is far from over. We have another round on Tuesday morning before they leave for work. That night, when they still won’t listen, I finally inform them that they’re not my legal guardians, so they can’t actually tell me what to do. When I say that, my grandma turns pale and my grandpa says, “So we’ll call Aimee and ask her. I’m sure she’ll agree with us.”
He plucks up the phone and marches onto the side porch.
Aimee ends up giving me the green light. Later that night she recounts to me how she told my grandpa that when she was my age, she was practically a mother, so what’s a little cross-country drive? I tell her I’ll probably leave Sunday or Monday and arrive by the following weekend.
On Wednesday I give notice at Pizza Hut. On Thursday I bring my car in for an oil change and a tune-up. On Friday I go to Lift Bridge Book Shop and get a spiral-bound atlas. On Saturday I buy Pringles and pretzels and energy bars to eat on the road.
I e-mail Mara in Chicago and Aimee’s friends in Springfield. Every time I sit at the computer, I try not to obsess about how I still haven’t heard from Sam. Of course, I fail miserably and end up reading old conversations we had online until my eyes are bugging and I’m so depressed I want to die.
One afternoon my grandma goes to Dick’s Sporting Goods and comes home with supplies for my trip. As she presents me with a Swiss Army knife, a compass, a cooler, and a zero-degree sleeping bag, I have a hard time disguising my amusement. A zero-degree sleeping bag? Because the Midwest in July is so frigid? And a compass? I’m only taking major interstates, so it’s not like I’ll be bumping down dirt roads, searching for the magnetic North Pole.
“Sweetie,” my grandma says as she tucks everything back into the bag, “you’re coming home after this, right?”
“Yeah,” I say. I just don’t mention that I’ve recently realized I have no idea where my home actually is.
“And college is still on?”
“Of course.”
“This may sound like a strange question,” my grandma says after a minute, “but what are you looking for out there?”
I stare at her. For the first time in four days, I don’t have an answer. To be perfectly honest, I have no idea what I’m looking for out there. And I have a feeling my new compass won’t help me find it.
On my last night at Pizza Hut, Linda gives me all her tips.
“For your drive,” she says, her espresso-brown eyes filling with tears.
“No way.”
I try to hand back the envelope of cash, but she shakes her head. “I’ve also written down my cousin’s number for you. He and his wife live in Erie, right on the lake. Really nice people. They have two children, a little older than you. I called Darren this morning and told him about you. He said you’re welcome to sleep over at their house anytime.”
“You didn’t have to do that.”
Linda wipes her mascara smudges with the side of her finger. “I wish I knew people all the way across the country.”
I tuck the envelope into my bag and wrap my arms around Linda. “Thank you so much . . . seriously . . . thank you.”
Linda hugs me back and doesn’t let go for a long time. “I still can’t believe your grandparents are letting you do this drive.”
“Neither can they,” I say. “But my mom is my legal guardian, and she said it’s okay.”
“Well, I can’t believe your mom is letting you go. I’d never let my daughter drive to Texas by herself.”
“Sierra is only thirteen.”
“Even when she’s seventeen, she’s not getting in a car and driving two thousand miles.”
“I’ll be eighteen in September.”
“Well, then.” Linda pauses. “Will you take good care of yourself?”
“Yeah.”
“Does Sam know you’re going?”
Terrence, our shift manager, bursts into the kitchen.
“Ladies!” he shouts. “Time for V’s good-bye party!”
Linda links elbows with me, and we head out to the dining room, where the servers, the dishwashers, and three of our regular customers are standing around a long table filled with pan pizzas. I’ve spent the past four days working double shifts to save money for my drive, so I’m pizza-ed out. But I’m still touched by the party, especially since before today I never even realized these people cared if I showed up for work. As Terrence passes out soda, Russell sidles over to me.
“Want to hang out later? We could have a little good-bye party of our own.”
I tell Russell I’m leaving first thing tomorrow and need to pack tonight.
“Attention, everyone!” Terrence shouts, whacking a fork against a hard plastic cup. “Let’s all raise a glass for V.”
Terrence makes a speech about how I’ve been a dedicated employee of Pizza Hut for almost a year and everyone is going to miss me. When he’s done talking, he presents me with a Pizza Hut gift card.
“This baby is filled with enough cash for you to eat pizza at every intersection from here to Texas,” Terrence says.
“Just what V wants,” Linda murmurs.
One of the regulars gives me a book called Let’s Go USA. The other dishwasher unscrews a jug of cheap wine. Terrence launches into a lecture about how he doesn’t condone underage drinking and, if anyone asks, he didn’t see it. Then he passes out another round of cups, and everyone starts making toasts and telling road-trip stories and asking me to send them postcards from Texas.
When I wake up the next morning, my car is gone.
I was
planning to get up at eight and hit the road by nine, but I was up until two thirty in the morning, so when my alarm rang, I whacked it off and fell back asleep until ten. I hadn’t meant to stay up so late, but I was peeling photos off the walls and riffling through piles of clothes, tossing things into a suitcase for my trip, debating whether or not to bring makeup and padded bras and sexy tops. They went in and they came out and, finally, they went in again.
Around midnight I called Chastity down in Florida to tell her I probably wouldn’t be back until the end of the summer. Trinity grabbed the phone and started babbling about the party scene in Daytona Beach and how it makes Brockport look like the Vatican. I’d just hung up with the twins when Amos called. For a second I got a rush from hearing his voice. But as he began describing in intimate detail his camping trip and how he’d crossed rivers and fended off frostbite and caught trout, which he gutted and roasted over a bonfire, I remembered that Amos and I are only good when we’re going at it.
As soon as I notice that my car is missing, I rush down the stairs. There’s a note from my grandparents on the cutting board saying that they drove my car out to Albion for one more checkup and they’d be back by ten, eleven at the latest.
I crumple the paper in my fist. Damn. They know I got a tune-up last Thursday. They even offered to pay for it. I quickly call my grandpa’s cell phone, but it goes straight to voice mail. Five minutes later he calls back with this big story about how Kent is the only mechanic he trusts and it’s a good thing he brought my car in because they’ve discovered that my odometer has surpassed seventy thousand miles, which means the timing belt needs to be replaced and it’s no small job, but Kent is making it his top priority, so they should be home by one, two at the latest.
After we hang up, I stomp around the house. What the hell is a timing belt anyway? I drop some frozen waffles into the toaster and then douse them with syrup. I drink a Dr Pepper. I leave a message with Aimee. I take the padded bras out of my suitcase and then tuck them back in again.
My grandparents don’t get home until four thirty. By this time I have my luggage piled at the end of the driveway. My grandpa pops the hood and points out the cover of the timing belt, as if the inner workings of a Volkswagen mean anything to me. Then he rambles on about valves and pistons and how if the timing belt slipped, it could cause serious engine damage, leaving me stranded on the roadside.
Once he’s done I haul my suitcase into the trunk. I set my snacks on the passenger seat, along with my iPod, my phone, and my bag. I toss the wilderness supplies from my grandma into the backseat because she’d probably flip if I didn’t bring along the compass or the pocketknife. As I’m leaning into the back, I notice that my strappy graduation sandals are still on the floor.
“Do you know where you’re sleeping tonight?” my grandpa asks, staring down at my atlas.
“Probably Pennsylvania,” I say. “It depends on how far I can make it before dark.”
“Do you know how to get onto the thruway?”
“I take Nineteen through Bergen.”
“Right,” he says. “Head west, toward Buffalo.”
“Buffalo,” I repeat, tossing the atlas onto the backseat.
“That hockey puck you have on the dashboard,” my grandma says. “Is it the one that hit you?”
I glance into my car. “Yeah . . . that’s it.”
“Have you told Sam you’re going to Texas?” she asks.
I shake my head.
“Don’t you think that’s a good idea? He may stop by, and I’d hate for him to —”
“Sam’s in California,” I say.
“California?” my grandparents ask in unison.
I can see where this conversation is headed and I don’t like it, so I quickly say, “Okay . . . well . . . I’m going to go.”
They hug me really tight, and then I slide into my car and turn the key. I’m about to back down the driveway when my grandpa rushes to my window.
“We can still buy you a plane ticket,” he says. “It’s not too late to change your mind.”
“Thanks,” I say, honking twice and pressing my toe on the gas.
When I reach the end of Centennial, I take a right. I’m heading south on Route 19. In about nine seconds, I’ll be passing the entrance to Sweden Village, where you turn to get to Sam’s house. I consider doing a quick drive-by, but then I remind myself that’s not why I’m going on this trip, so I accelerate through the light, up the hill, and out of town.
I glance at Brockport in my rearview mirror. I can’t help but think about the day I arrived here. It was late afternoon, the middle of January, and the landscape was so barren. As my plane descended into Rochester, I stared at the graying snowdrifts and gnawed my nails and pictured Aimee frolicking on a tropical beach with some twenty-two-year-old surfer, downing piña coladas decorated with colorful paper umbrellas.
I could already tell it was going to be cold down there. Of course, I was only wearing jeans and a tank top because Aimee and I got into an argument on the cab ride to the San Diego Airport, where I was flying east and she was flying south. As I was checking in, I was so angry, I forgot to pull a sweatshirt out of my duffel bag. The flight attendants were bitches and wouldn’t give me a blanket and I was hungry because they didn’t have meal service and I forgot to bring anything to eat and the movie sucked and the guy next to me wouldn’t stop humming and I scrounged up a pen, but I didn’t have any paper, so I scrawled fuck onto all my fingers and everyone down my thumb.
I can still remember that fight with Aimee practically word for word. It started by me saying how she’d dragged me everywhere for sixteen years, so why dump me with my grandparents now? She kept insisting that the schools weren’t great where she was going, as if she’d given a damn about my education before. She even ventured to say that this was best for all of us.
“Best?” I asked. “So you can have all the sex you want without worrying about anyone else?”
The cabdriver whistled under his breath.
“Watch yourself,” Aimee hissed.
From there it lapsed into how I couldn’t believe she’d cheated on Michael and I hadn’t even gotten a chance to say good-bye to him and why couldn’t we wait until he got back from that movie set in Vancouver? Also, whenever I asked Aimee how Michael had reacted when she told him, she just said, “I don’t want to talk about it,” which only made me madder because after all she’d put me through, at least I deserved more information.
I’m slowing at the train tracks in Bergen when it suddenly hits me. I cheated on Sam just like Aimee cheated on Michael! It’s not like Sam and I were living together, and it’s not like I ran off to Costa Rica with Amos — thank God — but it’s not altogether different, either.
I’ve always imagined I’m the opposite of my mom, the way she moves in with her boyfriends and I prefer to keep my distance, but maybe I’m more like her than I thought. Or maybe Aimee had her reasons for leaving Michael and didn’t want to burden me with them, and I basically told her she was a horrible person when I never stopped to think about it from her perspective, and maybe if I hadn’t been so harsh, she would have taken me to Costa Rica with her.
I’m on the verge of feeling like complete crap when I tell myself, Stop. The Aimee-Michael thing was a year and a half ago. Now it’s warm and breezy, and the early-evening sky is a perfect blue. There are wildflowers all over the roadside. My hair is in a loose ponytail. I’m blasting music, and the best part is that I spent an hour last night selecting 732 songs that won’t remind me of Sam. I have a full tank of gas, a stash of snacks, and in less than a week, I’ll be with Aimee in Texas and everything, or at least most things, will be better.
I was supposed to get on the thruway a few miles after Bergen, but as I approach the entrance, there’s a blockade and a police officer is using her megaphone to wave cars along.
I slow down and lean out my window. “What’s going on?”
“Accident on the thruway!” she calls through her
megaphone. “Take Twenty instead!”
“Twenty?” I ask. I know I’m stalling traffic, but I can’t reach my atlas in the back and I haven’t exactly memorized the highway systems of western New York.
“Where’re you headed?” the police officer asks.
“Texas,” I say. When she gives me a funny look, I quickly add, “I’m going west.”
“Stay south until you hit Twenty. Of course, that’d bring you near Darien Lake and it’s gridlocked today, some big concert. So you could take Twenty A, or if you wanted to make better time, stay on Nineteen until you hit Eighty-six in the Southern Tier. Then again, Nineteen is slow, so you should probably do Three-ninety South for a while until —”
The silver pickup truck behind me starts honking, so the police officer lifts her megaphone again.
“Keep moving!” she shouts. Then she waves her arms in the direction of the entire southwestern United States. “Good luck!”
As I continue past the thruway ramp, I’m totally confused. Nineteen to 20? Nineteen to 20 A? Nineteen to the Southern Tier? I should pull over and glance at my map, except the silver pickup is on my butt and, judging by the driver’s splotchy face in my rearview, I’m guessing he’s skipped his anger-management class today. I gesture for him to pass, but he honks twice and sticks his middle finger out the window.
Oh, my God, I think, glancing at his thick plastic serial-killer glasses. He’s an escaped convict. I know there’s a federal prison around here, Attica or something. Just my luck. He tunneled out of his cell, hoisted a truck, and after twenty years in solitary confinement, I’m the first person to piss him off.
I press hard on the gas. I drive through Le Roy, past 20, past 20 A. I think the police officer said 86 is the fastest route, so I figure I’ll look for that, maybe swing onto 390 on the way down. As I’m driving, I’m listening to music and watching the road and trying not to think about the pickup truck behind me. Finally, the escaped convict switches on his signal, flips me one more bird, and turns onto a smaller road.