Road to Paradise

  Did she mean running from a fire? I thought it best not to ask. And didn’t she just say someone made it from New York to California in three days? Was that the tortoise or the hare?

  At no point did Gina say, Mom, we have to go. She just stood there, with her mother’s arms on her shoulders, listening and nodding. After Mrs. Reed appeared to be done by having fallen silent, Gina said she was going to make one last “potty” break and disappeared inside. I was left with the two Mrs. Reeds standing looking me up and down. There was nothing to me this morning. I was wearing jean shorts with silver studs on the pockets the shape of roses and a beige Aerosmith T-shirt. My hair was clean, so were my teeth. I barely had on any makeup. Really, nothing to see here, folks. Yet they examined me, perused me. Mulled, like I was an indecent painting they thought was overpriced. “Shelby, you’ll take good care of our Gina, right?” finally said the younger Mrs. Reed.

  I had no idea what that meant. I hadn’t taken care of anything my whole life. I couldn’t get a one-eyed frog to last through winter. Naturally I said, “Yes, of course, Mrs. Reed. But Gina and I are friends. We look out for each other.”

  “You’re her keeper now, Shelby,” Mrs. Reed continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “You know I’ve always thought of you as her older sister.”

  “Absolutely. Me too. Well, actually, she’s ten months older, but I know what you mean. And you know sisters, they take care of each other.”

  “She’s in good hands. I know you’ll watch out for her. I’ve always liked you. You really don’t mind taking the dogs to Baltimore, do you?” She offered me fifty dollars for my trouble. I have a hard time saying no when people offer me money (it happens so rarely) and I didn’t say no then.

  “And Molly promises she’ll be no trouble.”

  Dumbly I said, Molly? The time was nearing eleven. I was too afraid to look at my watch. I ripped it off my wrist and threw it in the backseat, as if removing the time counter from my person allowed me the illusion of control, as in, if I don’t know what time it is, then it’s not really that late, is it?

  Gina returned. Behind her trailed a grumpy, barely awoken, unbrushed young girl. Molly, Gina’s sister! I hadn’t seen her in two years, and since then, she’d sprung things on her body, like boobs and hips. Back when I knew Gina’s sister, she was a kid. Now she was twelve and unrecognizable. Cheerfully, to balance her sister’s sulky pre-teen face, Gina said, “My mom wanted my sister to come along, too.”

  “Gina, don’t lie,” said Molly. “You invited me.”

  Flushed, Gina glared at her sister and to me said, “I thought it’d be fun, don’t you think?”

  “Is she coming with you all the way to Bakersfield?” I asked, not so carefully.

  “Shh! Don’t be silly. No, no,” Gina quickly said, not looking at me.

  Molly, as it turned out, was even less prepared than Gina. She had gone to get her toothbrush, a book to read (though she didn’t look like the type that read books; that read period), her rather large cassette player, and her makeup. What else did a twelve-year-old bring to her aunt’s? What else was there? Miniature golf clubs? She said she had to sit in the front. “I get dizzy in the back.”

  Gina agreed! Gina was going to sit in the back?

  I shook my head. “Molly, do you know how to read a map?”

  “Yes,” she said defiantly.

  “Oh, good. Because I don’t know where your aunt lives, so you’ll have to direct me out of New York, all right?”

  “I can’t read in the car. It makes me dizzy,” said Molly.

  “I see.” I nodded. “Perhaps best to sit in the back, then.”

  “I can’t sit in the back. It makes me dizzy. Besides, backseat’s too small.”

  “Well, that’s perfect, because you’re small, too.”

  “No, I can’t.”

  “Moll, give Sloane a break, will you?” said Gina with hostility. I suddenly remembered that Gina hated Molly. They never got along. Gina said Molly was spoiled and selfish. Why in the world would she invite her with us to Baltimore? Like children, we stared at Molly, and then pleadingly at Molly’s mother, who pointed a finger at her daughter. “You’ve got one second to get in the back or march right upstairs, young lady.”

  Mrs. Reed’s words made no impression on Molly other than to cause a hysterical fit, during which she stormed off upstairs screaming she wasn’t going “Anywhere!” Mrs. Reed soothingly followed. I, for lack of anything to do, other than feel like a dumb ass, brushed my hair. My hair is thin and easy-care, and takes no time at all to brush out. I keep it fairly short for running. I brushed for fifteen minutes. Everyone by this time had left the lawn: the cane-carrying grandmother had gone inside, and Gina had forgotten “one more lipgloss.” Only me and the Pomeranians remained. They had stopped barking and were whimpering now. I knew how they felt.

  It was noon. Taking out my spiral notebook, I adjusted my schedule, wrote down the mileage from Larchmont to Glen Burnie (about 250 miles, measured by my pinpoint scientific thumb), noted the time, the starting mileage . . .

  By about twelve-thirty, when I had pulled out all of my thin, light, straight as a pin, easy-care-for hair and was debating picking up Gina’s eyelash-tearing habit, a wet-faced Molly reappeared on the grass, mollified. She would sit in the back, “like a good girl,” and would get a hundred dollars for her trouble.

  “Ready?” I said to Gina, through my teeth. Molly and the mutts were squeezed in the back. “How about if I drive this leg and you take the next?”

  “What do you mean, take the next?” said Mrs. Reed, leaning in to kiss her daughter goodbye. “Gina doesn’t know how to drive.”

  We were on the New England Thruway, and I was yelling. Me, yelling. “You don’t know how to drive? Gina, you told me you had your license! You told me you’d share the driving!”

  “I know, I know,” Gina said guiltily. “I’m sorry. I did have my permit, just like you.”

  “So what happened? You still have it?”

  “Well, no. You know how we’re not supposed to drive at night. In April, I had a little mishap. Drove at night, very slightly teeny bit buzzed. Got stopped. Hence, no license.”

  “Oh.” I brightened. “But you do know how to drive, then?”

  “No. This wasn’t this past April, but a year ago April. I hadn’t even started my driver’s ed. Sorry, Sloane.”

  “Unbelievable. But I kept saying how we would share the driving!”

  “I know. I thought you meant that metaphorically.”

  “Metaphorically? How do you mean something like that metaphorically?”

  From the back the twelve-year-old pulled off one of the headphones on the recently released and all-the-rage Sony Walkman. “Oh, shut up, already. I can’t hear Journey.”

  I lowered my voice. “Why didn’t you tell me this?”

  “I thought you wouldn’t let me come if I told you,” said Gina.

  She was right. I wouldn’t have. I had been hoping she’d drive in the afternoons so I could nap, and now that was out the window; I’d have to readjust my schedule that I’d so carefully written up. But she had disarmed me with her honesty, because I wasn’t used to it. I let it go. What choice did I have? Turn around and take her back home? After all, I had calculated my expenses for two.

  Besides, who was I to lecture Gina on honesty and forthrightness?

  We drove a little while in silence.

  Well, silence if by silence I mean two squabbling orange furballs and a snoring adolescent with earphones that blasted “Don’t Stop Believin’ ” to everyone in the car (how in the world could she sleep to that?).

  “So we’re off,” Gina said. “Are you excited?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  “I’m so excited! I like your car,” she added, as we approached New York City.

  “Goes fast, don’t it?” We were moving at a clip of about twelve miles per hour.

  It was two in the afternoon.

  By five, we were still in New Yo
rk City, having gone four miles in three hours (construction and two accidents), but on the plus side, it looked as if by sundown we might get to the Battery Tunnel (about forty miles from my house). Still more than 200 miles from our destination of Glen Burnie. And 3,200 miles from Mendocino. Gina suddenly seemed a little less excited. We had long eaten all the cannoli.

  Molly woke up and asked if we were there yet. I told her I didn’t know what she meant by there, but if she meant downtown New York, then yes, we were. After whining in disbelief for twenty minutes, she announced she was thirsty. Then she was hungry. She had to make a stop. “And the dogs certainly do. Gina, you’re supposed to be responsible for them.”

  “They’re fine.” She hadn’t even looked back at the dogs to check. She was wearing tight jean shorts and a blue-striped sleeveless tunic, and was humming along to the radio.

  The gas tank was half empty. But we were in the tunnel now. And in Brooklyn, I wasn’t about to get off anywhere. I’d never find my way back to the BQE. And now look. The Verrazano Bridge was rising up out of the water in front of me, and it was five-thirty at night! “I hope Aunt Flo isn’t going to get upset about our late arrival.”

  “She’s expecting us for dinner,” Molly said from the back. “And I’m thirsty.”

  “It’ll have to be a late dinner,” I shot right back. “Because it’s dinnertime now, and we’re 200 miles from her house.”

  Was this how I’d been planning my first day of freedom? My frustration tasted like metal in my mouth.

  “I know this is a little slower than we’d hoped, Sloane,” said Gina, “but it’s okay, it’s all part of it.”

  “Part of what?”

  “Did you girls know,” said Gina, “that there is one letter of the alphabet that does not appear in any of the states’ names. Which—”

  “Z!” yelled Molly from the back.

  “No, and don’t shout,” said Gina. “Sloane?”

  “I’m not playing,” I said. “Q?”

  “Yes, very good. Q is correct.”

  “Where does Z appear?”

  “The Ozarks,” said Molly.

  “The Ozarks are not a state, Molly.”

  “Missouri, then.”

  “Missouri has no Z.” Gina rolled her eyes.

  Molly mouthed it to herself a few times and then exclaimed, “Arizona!”

  “Very good. It wasn’t a question, but very good.”

  I glanced at Gina as we were pulling off on Victory Boulevard in Staten Island. “How do you know this?”

  She shrugged. “I know a few things.”

  “What letter doesn’t appear in any of the states? That’s knowing a few things?”

  She was philosophical. “And a few things more.”

  “When did you learn all this?”

  “Dad loves trivia. And he’s so competitive and critical, I had to read up on things.”

  “He’s supposed to be critical,” said Molly. “He’s Dad.”

  “No, he’s right,” said Gina. “I’m going to be a teacher. I have to be smart.” She adjusted the straps of her black bra.

  We got gas at a gunky rest-stop; I pumped while Gina walked the dogs; we were back on the road by six-thirty. As we were getting on the expressway, I noticed a young, barely clad lad with a guitar on his back standing by the side of the road with his thumb out. Gina rolled down the window, stuck her head out, and yelled, “Need a ride, cowboy?”

  “Gina!” I pulled her back in.

  She waved, blew him a kiss. “Maybe next time, huh?” she shouted.

  “What are you doing? We agreed!”

  “I’m just joking, Sloane,” she said pretend-solemnly. “Just having fun.” She smiled. “He was cute, though.”

  “He could be Robert Redford, we’re not picking anyone up, okay?”

  “Oh, come on, you wouldn’t pick up Robert Redford?”

  She was right, so I shut up until we got to Goethals Bridge forty-five minutes later and crossed into New Jersey when it was nearing seven o’clock. The sun was hazy in the sky, the noxious industry around us.

  One of the passing trucks beeped his jolting loud horn and gave me the thumbs-up, which I didn’t understand. We turned up the radio. BBBBennie and the Jets were plugging us kids into the faithless.

  “Are we almost there?” asked Molly again.

  “No.”

  “Are we almost there?”

  “No.”

  “Are we almost there?”

  “No.”

  We drove like this for two interminable New Jersey exits.

  “Gina, Molly wears a lot of makeup for a twelve-year-old.”

  “I’m gonna be thirteen soon,” said Molly, “and what’s it to you?”

  “I’m just saying,” I continued to Gina.

  Gina shrugged. “Who does it hurt?”

  “She is twelve.”

  “Thirteen soon!”

  “How soon?”

  “May.”

  “Thirteen in eleven months?” I shook my head. “Like I was saying.”

  “I’m thirsty.”

  “I’m really getting hungry.”

  “I think I need to make another stop.”

  “No way am I stopping again. No stopping till Aunt Flo’s.”

  “Are we there yet?”

  “Stop it!”

  “I think the dogs have to go again.”

  I glanced at Gina. “You sure you don’t want to take your sister and the dogs to California with us? Come on. It’ll be fun.”

  Gina snorted.

  “I’ll go with you guys to California,” Molly said brightly. “This is fun.”

  Now it was my turn to snort.

  “You should feed her, Sloane,” Gina said. “Did you know that if the stomach doesn’t produce a new layer of mucus every fourteen days, its digestive juices will cause it to digest itself?”

  From the back came Molly’s revolted screeching. “Hmm,” I said, stepping on the gas. “So the good news is, only thirteen days to go.”

  I watched Molly’s warpainted face in the rearview mirror when she wasn’t bent over the crate playing with the dogs. She was such a kid, yet the makeup made her look seven, eight years older. She wasn’t my sister, and I couldn’t quite articulate what I felt, but what I felt was this. Why did a twelve-year-old need to look older? Why did a twelve-year-old need cherry-red lipstick, the brightness of which Debbie from Dallas would shy away from? Come on, Sloane, I chided myself. Stop being so old.

  “The New Jersey Turnpike is arguably the dullest stretch of land in all of America,” I said.

  “Do you know that studies have shown,” Gina said, “that more accidents with people falling asleep at the wheel happen on the Jersey Turnpike than anywhere else in the country?”

  “Really?”

  Gina shrugged. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “But if it isn’t true, it should be.”

  Molly piped up once more. “Hey, Shelby, we haven’t seen you in a long time. Where you been?”

  “I’ve been around.”

  “Not around our house.”

  “No.” I trailed off. I didn’t really know what to say. And Gina interestingly didn’t say anything. What do you say? What did Gina say to her mother when her “sister” Shelby had disappeared as if vaporized? I didn’t like Gina’s silence on the subject. She was usually so chirpy. But both her mouth and hands had tensed. She seemed to be almost actively not responding to her sister’s question. We just stopped being friends, that’s all, I wanted to say, but didn’t. Things change, you know? You’ll find out soon enough, Molly. Don’t forget your extra layer of black eyeliner.

  Finally! Two hours later, Delaware Memorial Bridge and a wide rushing river; it was the first pretty we’d seen.

  “Did you know that the Hudson becomes the Delaware?” asked Gina. “It flows from St. Lawrence in Canada, and then turns into this river.”

  “Really?” She was so geographical, this Gina.

  “Are we there yet?”
/>
  We were there an hour and a half later, at almost eleven.

  Aunt Flo, hectored by Gina’s mother, had called the police, alerting them of a mysterious disappearance of a bright yellow Mustang, three “children” inside it (this is how a frantic Mrs. Reed described us to the police officer who came to retrieve us from the Maryland phone booth from which we called for directions) and two small, “very expensive” dogs. While Gina was on the phone with her mother (telling her to calm down or “the trip will be ruined for sure, Mom!”), Aunt Flo could not understand why it took me so long to go two hundred miles. The Maryland state trooper who helped us find the house was nonchalant. “Hit some traffic, did you?” he said.

  “Yes, and it hit back.” I poked Gina’s arm, still holding on to maternal telecommunication. “I hope it’s not a harbinger of things to come, going 200 miles in fourteen hours on the road.”

  Barely listening, she poked me back. “We weren’t on the road fourteen hours, and you know it damn well is a harbinger of things to come. Mom, I have to go.” Pause. “Yes, of course, we’ll be careful. No, of course, I haven’t pumped any gas. No, of course we haven’t picked up any hitchhikers.” She winked at me.

  Aunt Flo, who looked like a carbon copy of Gina’s grandmother Scottie, to whom she was not remotely related, kept berating before salutations. “There was nothing we could do,” Gina endlessly repeated. “We. Were. Stuck. In. Traffic. Remember Shelby, Aunt Flo? Say hello, Shelby.”

  “Hello, Shelby,” I said.

  Aunt Flo barely nodded my way. “Where are my cannoli, Shelby?” and then without a breath, “But why would you go through New York City? That’s your number one mistake right there.”

  So after eleven hours of driving, before being fed or shown our rooms, or given a drink, we parried another fifteen minutes of postmortem critique about all the wrong roads we took to get to Glen Burnie, Maryland.

  I lay in bed that night, my hands under my head, staring at the ceiling. If Marc were here, he wouldn’t stop taunting until Wyoming. He’d say it was definitely my fault. What was I doing in a car with a girl who made my hands anxious and my brain malfunction, a girl who brought her odd sister to be a buffer between us, a girl who could not drive? I hoped Gina could read a map. I missed my comfy pink-roses bed.