Blake never looked like the most confident driver, but his death grip on the steering wheel did loosen once we got past Dayton and out onto what country songs call “open road.” He didn’t have any more driving incidents either, except almost overshooting our exit onto I-70.
In fact, the whole day was fairly uneventful. After the first couple of hours, I might have even used the word boring. Jaz chattered away to me, mostly about track and school and other trips she’d taken and the volunteer work she did at her church, with a pause to cheer with undeserved enthusiasm when we crossed the state line into Indiana. I tried to be polite, but just listening to the way her thoughts endlessly unspooled stream-of-consciousness style was exhausting. In between my bland replies—her interest in the conversation wasn’t at all contingent upon mine—I was watching Kason. Twins were supposed to be alike, but so far, he seemed the opposite of Jaz—just leaning against the seat and watching the view out the window with a rapt attention. I found myself looking out the window, too, trying to follow his gaze to what must have been so absorbing, but all I saw were roaring semis and crowded gas stations and motels that needed new coats of paint.
Around one o’clock, Blake pulled into a Shell station right outside Terre Haute. While he fumbled with the pump, the rest of us headed inside. I found the restrooms first, but they were cramped single-stall affairs with cracking tile and a paint job too old to even be considered retro, and air freshener was trying—and failing—to substitute for deep cleaning. I grimaced at my reflection in the cloudy mirror, taking the smallest breaths I could, and promised myself I’d use the bathroom in the RV only from now on.
I came out of the restroom, my hands still smelling like that fake fruity soap, and found the others swarming around in a section of the station set up as a sort of convenience store/souvenir shop. (Although who wants souvenirs from a gas station, I have no idea.) In under two minutes, I’d seen all I needed to of cheap kids’ toys and tacky plastic keychains and every bag of greasy junk food known to man, but Blake was still pumping gas, and it seemed better to wait in a place that, whatever its other faults, at least had air conditioning. When Blake finally rushed in, the sweat shining on his forehead confirmed my decision.
“Dude, where’ve you been?” Adam was flipping through a limp back issue of some travel magazine. “Thought you said this was a five-minute stop.”
Blake gave him a look as scalding as the asphalt outside. “It takes a long time to pump gas with the small nozzle. I didn’t realize. Guy out there told me we should be going to truck stops. We’ll do that next time.” He waved his arm at us in an irritated circle. “Go ahead and load back up.”
“Not so fast.” Jaz snagged four bags—yeah, four—of Funyuns off a swivel rack. “I need sustenance for the journey. And I’ve never seen this new flavor. Chile Limón!”
The second leg of what Jaz so eloquently termed our journey was even more boring than the first as we slowly crawled across the rest of Indiana and then Illinois. In case you’re wondering, they both look the same—from the interstate, at least. Kason gingerly maneuvered his way to the back of the RV, where the luggage was, and came back with some dictionary-sized book with The New Complete Guide to Astronomy written in academic-looking print across the front. I guessed he’d managed to smuggle at least one book under Blake’s nose. He adjusted his glasses and hunched over the pages, and I swear he didn’t so much as blink the rest of the day.
The others’ conversation dwindled, the monotony of travel slowly subduing us all. Even Jaz was fairly quiet as she crunched her way through a bag of startlingly scarlet Funyuns, then fished a pen—the kind that writes in multiple colors—out of her backpack and started doodling on her hand and arm. It didn’t seem polite to look at what she was drawing, so I mainly stared out the window, watching the Indiana/Illinois countryside unroll and wondering about the families who lived in the residential areas we passed.
Did my dad live in a house like any of these? Had he ever married? Did he have kids of his own?
Did he ever think about me?
Or had he never known I even existed? He hadn’t mentioned me in the letter, and from what Mrs. Ingers had said, he and Mom hadn’t corresponded after that. So maybe she hadn’t known about me yet. Or maybe she knew and hadn’t told him.
Or maybe—a more sinister voice whispered in my ear—he knew about me and didn’t want me.
Every time my thoughts reached that dark hole, I’d jerk them away, but they always seemed to wander back, as if the worst-case scenario was magnetic. After two hours of letting the thoughts loop, I was realizing a couple of things.
First, even at sixty miles per hour, there are some things you can’t outrun.
Secondly, RV travel allows for way too much thinking time.
But around 3:30—Central Time, since we’d crossed time zones at the Illinois border—we could start to see a metropolitan area ahead of us, skyscrapers stacking like giant Lego sets against the horizon.
“St. Louis.” Blake nodded with satisfaction and glanced at the dashboard clock. “Only a little behind schedule.”
“St. Louis!” Jaz looked up from her arm drawing and bounced in her seat like a little kid. “Are we gonna see the zoo? The arch?”
“Never mind the zoo and the arch.” Brooklyn tossed her hair. “Haven’t you heard of the Plaza Frontenac?”
Jaz gave her an uncertain glance. “Uh—that’s a pizza place, right?”
“Goodness, no.” Brooklyn rolled her eyes elaborately. “It’s, like, the most incredible luxury shopping center. Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue—”
“We don’t have time for any of that.” Blake was concentrating on merging into the widening lanes of city traffic. “We’re just spending the night here. We have to be out early tomorrow in order to make it across Missouri.”
Brooklyn’s face pursed into a pout. “Please, Blake. Shopping?”
And where would she put any new purchases in this RV? But Blake sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Tell you what. We’re supposed to spend the night in Springfield tomorrow. If we left early enough, we could go to Branson and shop.”
Brooklyn’s sugary smile made me want to gag. So much for the two-bag rule, apparently. Couldn’t Blake see how she manipulated him? He was such a good guy. He deserved a girl who wasn’t as conniving as a cobra.
Because we’d managed, with our usual good planning, to hit rush hour traffic, Blake proposed we stop for the night on the east side of the city. He assigned Brooklyn to Google RV parks in the area, and about twenty minutes later, we found ourselves at the Gateway RV Park on a quiet, tree-lined street. Blake pulled into the driveway and parked in front of a sign that said ALL GUESTS MUST CHECK IN AT OFFICE. He scrambled out of the RV and headed through the doorway of a small building to our right.
“Nice place.” Jaz craned her neck to glance up the slope. “But busy.”
Sure enough, RVs slanted up a hill in front of us, each one positioned neatly in its parking area, and two more had pulled in behind us by the time Blake jogged back out of the office, looking even more harassed.
“So?” Brooklyn turned an expectant gaze on him as he swung back into the driver’s seat. “Where’s our site?”
Blake edged the RV into a keyhole at the end of the driveway, leaving room for the next RV to pull up. He sighed. “They’re full.”
“Full?” Adam glanced up the hill. “No way. I definitely see some vacant spots.”
“Yeah, well, those belong to people who are going to be checking in tonight.” Blake jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Like those guys behind us. Apparently you’re supposed to call ahead, make reservations.” He fumbled with something on the dash. “I didn’t know about that. I guess my dad never mentioned it.”
Jaz clicked her pen a couple of times. “To be such an RV pro, you seem to have missed a few details of planning.”
I frowned at her. Okay, so Blake had missed a couple of things, but couldn’t she see he already felt bad enough?
“So now what?” Adam narrowed his eyes at the RV behind us. “We fight these guys for a space?”
Blake didn’t even smile at the joke. “We find another RV park.”
It took a lot of Googling, and calling, and begging, but we finally did find one—only one—RV park with vacancies. When we pulled in, I could see why all the others had filled up first. It was a mile down from an asphalt plant, right off the interstate beside some seedy-looking motels that strung themselves down the road like beads on a cheap necklace. The picket fence had some rotting palings, and the sign out front was desperately pleading for a paint job.
“‘ST. LOUIS RV RESORT.’” Adam didn’t sound impressed.
Jaz raised her eyebrows. “A last resort, I’d say.”
Brooklyn had that I-smell-sour-laundry look again. “Do they have running water?”
“Of course. Full hookups, fifty-amp electric service.” Blake’s voice hardened into an edge. “Guys, it’s all we have. It’s one night, okay? We’ll plan better from here on out.”
Jaz tilted her head. “We?”
Before an out-and-out argument could erupt, a weathered-looking guy pulled up in an ATV and looked over his shoulder expectantly.
“That’s our cue.” Blake snapped his seatbelt. “He’s going to take us to our site.”
We inched along after Mr. ATV, who seemed to be leading us straight through the park and all the way to the empty fields beyond it. Finally, though, he came to a halt at what must have been the last site in the whole park—a narrow slot with more mud than gravel, backed up against a concrete retaining wall. From the height of the coach, I could see some kind of work area beyond the concrete blocks. Trackhoes and bulldozers waited patiently around a chaotic mound of dirt and rubble, and the ground had been chewed up by heavy tread marks.
One night. Just one night.
Getting the RV backed into that little place brought us interestingly close to the retaining wall several times. Mr. ATV lit a cigarette and tried to help, but his instructions to Blake seemed to always come about half a second too late. Finally Jaz actually got out and helped direct Blake, and between the three of them, the RV finally ended up in approximately the right place.
“Okay.” Blake turned off the ignition, and the engine shuddered out. “Now to hook up the utilities.” He glanced at Brooklyn and Adam. “Guys, there’s a pizza place two buildings down. Why don’t you run and grab some supper for us? I’ll have us hooked up when you get back.”
“Sounds good. Been trapped in here too long.” Adam bolted for the door, Brooklyn scampering out right behind me. Kason closed his book and rubbed the back of his neck, then blinked at me as if he were slowly detaching from the pages. “You going outside too?”
“Uh—” The place looked like what Gran had probably envisioned when she’d warned me about muggers and thieves, and we’d wasted enough time searching for an RV park that dusk was beginning to gather. “Probably not.”
Kason rotated his neck side to side. “I think I will. Might get my land legs back under me.” He gave me a crooked grin, and suddenly he looked more like Jaz than I’d thought.
It was true that I could almost still feel the momentum of the RV, the way you feel when you’re back on dry land after a boat ride, so I followed him, my shoes squishing on the damp ground as I stepped out of the RV. The air smelled like interstate traffic and sour mud, with undertones of the asphalt plant, but it was still welcome after breathing the same stale air in the coach all day. Traffic kept a muted roar in the background, and I could see the red taillights smearing along the interstate just half a mile away—the arteries of America through which the blood kept flowing, day and night.
Blake was still fumbling with something in the lower cargo compartment of the RV—the hookups, no doubt—but no one else was in sight. Jaz must have gone with the others. Kason stepped up beside me, his head tipped back, searching the sky expectantly. I glanced up, but all I could see were a few moths whirling around the streetlights. If Gran were here, she’d have the bug zappers out, stat.
“Light pollution.”
I blinked. “What?”
He lowered his head and quirked his lips in disappointment. “The lights.” He nodded at the metal poles. “Too much artificial light to see the stars from here.”
“Oh…yeah.” I’d never thought about that. Stargazing wasn’t something I’d ever been interested in. Probably because after only a few episodes of Dateline, I saw no need for hobbies that required me to creep around outside at night.
“To really see the stars well, you need to be away from—” his gesture took in the retaining wall and the RV park and the interstate beyond—“civilization.”
I listened to the sounds around us—the muffled roar of the interstate, the slam of car doors and voices in the RV park, faint music from one of the motels. All the things that crowded out Kason’s stars. “I never thought about that.”
“Yeah, you need to be outside the normal places. Somewhere—somewhere on the fringes of things.”
A cool wind brushed my face, with suddenly a sweeter, fresher scent. As if it had come from beyond the horizon, beckoning us toward the places Kason talked about, the places where—
“That’s why I’m excited to get to Albuquerque.” Again, that crooked smile, shaping his words. He tucked his hands into his jean pockets. “The place where we’ll be is a certified dark-sky area. I can’t wait to visit the observatory there.”
A needle of guilt popped the moment of peace. I was excited for Albuquerque too, but for a very different reason. “Uh—yeah. That will be cool.”
Voices behind me, and the tomato smell of pizza. The other kids—including Jaz—were back. “Hey, we bought—” Adam glanced over my shoulder and frowned. “Blake? We not hooked up yet?”
“No, I mean—” Blake grunted and leaned farther forward into the compartment. “I just can’t see very well. Anybody have a light?”
Brooklyn tapped her phone flashlight on, and we all circled around the open door. The tangle of hoses and wires and valves and buttons inside was a jumbled mess. No high school class had given me the know-how for this moment.
“Let me guess.” Jaz slid Blake a glance. “Your dad didn’t mention this either.”
Even in the dim light of the phone flashlight, I could see the irritation in Blake’s eyes. “Look, I’ve almost got it, okay? Water and sewer are done.” He flipped a switch on, then off—just to appear to be doing something, I had the feeling. “All I have to do is connect the electrical cable, but I can’t find where the adapter fits.”
“Mind if I take a look?” Kason stepped up behind me.
Blake’s expression was doubtful at best, but he shrugged and backed away from the compartment. “Be my guest.”
Kason adjusted his glasses and squatted by the open door, scrutinizing the wires with that piercing gaze of his. He ran his fingers lightly over the wires, as if he were sorting them by feel, then mumbled something to himself. Next, he flipped some switch, raised a panel, and connected two wires to a plug that had been hidden behind the flap. An orange light by the switch suddenly came to life. “There.” He straightened and dusted his hands on his jeans. “Should be good to go now.”
How had he known that? From the look on Blake’s face, he was as shocked as I was “Thanks, man.”
Kason just nodded and turned toward the RV door. Next to me, Jaz grinned. “That’s my bro. He knows things.”
Overhead, the sky was darkening to a heavy cobalt. Just as Kason had predicted, the streetlights were shutting out the stars.
For the first time, I wondered what else I couldn’t see—and hadn’t known to look for.
#
It wasn’t until we’d finished off the lukewarm pizza that Blake brought up sleeping arrangements.
“Us guys can take the foldout beds, I’m thinking.” He looked at Adam and Kason. “Two of us on the couch and one on the table and benches.”
“I can take the table.” Kason folded his empty paper plate with origami precision.
“Then Blake, you and Adam will have the couch.” Jaz tilted her head. “Who gets the real bed?”
“You girls can sort that out. Two of you can go back there, and the other one can have the bunk over the cab.”
Jaz asked the question I’d been wondering. “Which is where, again?”
Blake pointed up, and I noticed it for the first time—an alarmingly narrow shelf built into the roof of the coach, over the driver’s area. “Right there.”
Another sour-laundry look from Brooklyn. “I’ll fall off if I sleep up there. I have to be in the bed.”
The thought of sharing the bed with Brooklyn made my next words easy. “I’ll take the bunk.”
Jaz tossed me an uncertain glance. “Jenna, are you sure?”
“Definitely.” How did you get up there? Never mind. I’d figure that out. I’d scale the wall with my fingernails if it meant avoiding Brooklyn.
“Okay.” Jaz still looked uneasy. Whether that was because she was worried about me or reluctant to be paired with Brooklyn, I couldn’t say.
Brooklyn sniffed. “I still think you could fall off.”
“I won’t fall off.” I was not as confident about this as I tried to sound.
“You’ll be all by yourself up there, too.”
Which was the point. “I’ll be okay.”
The bunk was sort of a weird design. The shelf was wider at each end, but had a big hole cut in the middle—I guess so the ceiling wasn’t too low on the RV. Adam was the tallest, so he was the one who reached up there and folded the middle flap down, then unfurled the foldaway ladder and leaned it against the shelf. “There.” He glanced at me and shrugged. “Seriously, don’t fall off.”
When I was ready for bed—or the equivalent thereof—I slipped on an oversized T-shirt and shorts, then snagged a blanket and pillow from a stack Blake had stashed in the closet, climbed up the ladder, and squeezed onto the shelf. Falling off definitely seemed like a real possibility. The roof was tight overhead, sloping down toward the windshield so that the narrow space was almost a triangle. A big oblong window stretched along the slanted part.
“Will you be okay up there?” Jaz’s voice.
As long as I didn’t fall off, get claustrophobia, or become smashed by the low ceiling. “Yeah. I’m fine.”
“Okay. G’night.” She followed Brooklyn into the back of the RV. Not even the thought of a real bed could make her envy her.
Someone—probably Blake—turned out the lights in the coach. Below me, I could hear the guys talking in low voices as they unfolded the couch and table—those sounded even more uncomfortable than my setup.
I stretched my legs out in the darkness and was surprised to find that there was actually more room than I’d thought at first. And it felt sort of—safe. Like a secret hideout.
The stiff cushions crackled slightly under me. I shook out the blanket—some old one with a flamboyant Cleveland Cavaliers logo on it—and tucked it around my legs, then rolled onto my back. Outside the window, I could see a glow. The streetlights? No, the moon. And in front, close to me, a tree branch, its leaves fluttering softly, shaking shadow over the bunk.
I touched the meteorite, still around my neck like a piece of the moon itself. Then I reached under the blanket and pulled out the only other items I’d brought up to the bunk with me: a pen, and a little spiral-bound notebook I’d kept in my backpack. I’d used it to take notes during chemistry class, but I hadn’t filled more than half of it. Squinting in the moonlight, I flipped to the first blank page and poised my pen. How did I encapsulate the day?
Tuesday, June 11
Mount Victory, Ohio, to St. Louis, Missouri
423 miles
Notes:
Smelling Brooklyn’s perfume while trapped in an RV gives me a headache.
Interstates are boring.
RV parks are strange.
I thought for a moment and added one more line.
Kason is a mystery.
#
An incomplete list of noises at the St. Louis RV park:
1. The interstate, which roared with traffic all night.
2. The RV air conditioner unit, which rattles in the ceiling like a jet plane struggling to become airborne.
3. The toilet. Remember there are six of us in here. I’ll let you guess how many times that night I heard its tidal-wave flushing sound.
4. An argument that broke out between a couple tent-camping two sites over. RV walls are thin. Tent walls are thinner. I now know which of them forgot to bring the camp stove and which of them didn’t want to come on the trip anyway, spiced with some of the words that Gran always programs our TV to bleep out.
5. A train, even though I hadn’t noticed a railroad when we drove in. And not just any train, but one that blew its whistle with relentless magnificence the whole time it passed through, which was about every quarter of an hour.
6. A small-plane airfield. No, I didn’t notice that either. Yes, someone landed a plane in it right around three o’clock in the morning. And yes, I was awake to hear it.
So you can probably understand why, after this first night of sleeping—I mean, attempting to sleep—in the RV, I had forgotten every reason I’d once considered this trip a good idea. As we threaded through traffic, I sat in a fog of sleep-deprived pessimism.
“Did you sleep well?” On the other side of the table, Kason still had his book, but today he didn’t seem as absorbed by it.
“Uh—” I didn’t want to sound whiny. “There were a lot of noises.”
A smile tugged at his expression. “Gotta love the airfield, right?”
“You heard that?”
“And the train, and the interstate, and the tent campers.” He adjusted his glasses. “Quite a cacophony.”
See what I mean about Kason? Cacophony. What high-school guy uses words like that?
“Hey, the Arch!” Jaz sashayed in from the back of the RV and dropped onto the bench seat next to me. “Check it out!”
I glanced out the window. Sure enough, the silver parabola of the Arch glinted in the sunlight, on the other side of—“Is that the Mississippi?”
“Sure is.” Jaz bounced in her seat. “The ultimate border! The divider between east and west! The portal to the unknown worlds!” She laughed. “Okay, maybe too much, but you gotta admit it’s exciting.”
Border. Divider. Portal. None of those words seemed overblown to me. As we whizzed onto the bridge, I stared at the blue water beneath me. My own personal Rubicon. One side east, and home, and all the things I needed. One side west, and wild, and all the things I wanted.
And I had the sudden panicked urge to run home to Mount Victory and once more anesthetize myself with Gran’s sedate life. It might put me to sleep, but at least it was predictable. Far more than I could say for this trip or for anyone accompanying me on it. I could text Gran now, tell her I’d decided to—
“Wow, pretty big, right?” Jaz’s attention was still taken with the river. “It takes ninety days for a drop of water to travel the whole length of the Mississippi, you know. And the Arch? We really should have stopped there. I mean, how many times do you have a chance for an adventure like that?”
The RV bumped off the bridge and back onto firm ground. I blinked from the jolt—of the wheels and Jaz’s words.
How many times do you have a chance for an adventure…
Only once, if you were me. I couldn’t blow it. The water was disappearing behind us. I kept my face forward.
“Anyway.” Jaz leaned back and stretched her arms over her head. “What are you gonna do in Branson?”
I blinked at her. I knew Blake was taking Brooklyn shopping—because the girl obviously needed still more frilly skirts and high heels—but I’d assumed the rest of us would just stay behind at whatever RV park we found. Sleeping, hopefully. “Uh—”
“You wanna go with Kason and me?”
Sleep deprivation had slowed my response time to a snail’s pace.
Kason leaned forward. “Did you hear us talking this morning?”
I’d been trying to keep my eyes open while I downed a soggy bowl of the off-brand cereal in the kitchen cabinet. I shook my head.
“So, Blake and Brooklyn are going shopping, right? And Adam wants to check out some video game store.” Jaz paused to glance his way, but he was on the couch, like yesterday—still holding the box, which I’d yet to see him open.
So everyone had plans except me. Of course.
“But Kason and I are doing the only logical thing.”
“Which is?”
“Silver Dollar City.” Jaz fumbled in her backpack and pulled out one of those electrolyte drinks—today it was an electric green color—and downed half of it before looking expectantly at me. “Amazing theme park. Rollercoasters. We’re gonna hang out for a couple hours. You coming?”
Theme park. Images of tacky cartoon characters and rickety rides and overpriced carnival food filled my brain. “I, uh—”
Kason studied me. “Do you not like theme parks?”
My mom had taken me once, some little rundown place near one of the low-rent apartments we’d lived in. I’d played unsupervised on the swing set while she met her friends behind the ticket booth and came back smelling like a lot of things that an eight-year-old shouldn’t be able to identify.
I shrugged. “I’m not really a theme park person.”
Jaz stared at me as if I’d said I didn’t care for breathing. “You don’t like rollercoasters?”
I had never understood people who rode rollercoasters. Wasn’t life chaotic enough already?
“I don’t ride rollercoasters.” I hadn’t meant my words to sound so curt.
Jaz looked mildly disappointed. Almost as if my answer had let her down. But she shrugged. “Well, okay, but doesn’t a theme park sound better than clothes shopping and video stores?”
She had a point. What did I want to do? Play third wheel with Blake and Brooklyn? Watch Adam geek out in the video store?
I took a deep breath. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Okay, I’ll go.” Gran would tell me that was an ungracious way to accept an invitation. Gran was also not the one who’d spent the night in a noisy, unsettling place and now was being asked to visit another noisy, unsettling place.
“Awesome!” Jaz grinned. “We should get there around two o’clock. So we’ll have almost the whole afternoon.”
But the new fact about RV travel that we learned that day was to always hold the itinerary loosely. Construction near Rolla ground all the lanes to a thirty-minute halt, and then Blake missed the exit at Springfield and lost another half an hour getting back on track. Add in the travel time to the theme park itself, and it was past three thirty when Kason, Jaz, and I were finally receiving our tickets—for a price that was more than I’d expected—and pushing through the metal turnstile. As late as it was, the visit hardly seemed worth the cost of admission, but Jaz’s enthusiasm seemed to remain undampened.
“All right!” She rubbed her hands together and grinned. “We made it! I just love theme parks.”
I nodded vaguely as we walked farther into the park, pushing against the crowds—most people were heading out, not in, at this time. The place was much nicer than I expected, I had to admit. The streets were lined with quaint, Americana-style buildings—shops where artisans were blowing glass and throwing pottery bowls, restaurants from which home-cooked smells wafted out, shops with tie-dye SDC T-shirts in the windows. Even the rides had the same homespun themes—I saw a lot of log cabins and whimsical farm animals. But this late in the day, everything had a sort of stale feel. Weary-faced parents led cranky-looking kids along, ballasted by burgeoning shopping bags.
“Kettle corn.” Jaz sniffed appreciatively as we passed a food truck. “Wanna split a bag?”
I shook my head. I’d heard Gran’s rants about overpriced carnival food. Also, I was getting another headache. Maybe from the frying-food smell hovering in the heat that shimmered over the asphalt. Maybe from the crowding and jostling of so many blank-faced bodies around us.
Maybe from the memories.
A playground area appeared to our right, and I paused. It almost looked like the one from my memories—but then, most kids’ playgrounds looked the same, from the brightly colored metal jungle gyms to the ever-present tire swing to the faded wood chips on the ground. Two kids, maybe five or six years old, squealed as a guy pushed them on the swings. “Higher, Daddy! Higher!”
“You want to go higher?” The dad’s shirt was dark with sweat. No doubt he’d spent the whole hot day in here, yet he was still smiling. “Okay, then, hold on tight!”
Yes, I wanted to tell those kids. Hold on tight. Hold on tight to these moments and these memories and this dad who loves you. Because not all of us have—
“Jenna! You coming?”
I jerked out of my thoughts. Jaz and Kason had paused a little ahead and were staring at me expectantly. I hadn’t realized how far behind I’d fallen. “Yes!” I sidestepped a woman pushing a double stroller, ducked past an older couple, and trotted up. “Sorry.”
“No problem. There’s a lot to see here.”
Too much. I forced myself to refocus, forced myself not to be seven years old and alone on the playground while my mother made a deal with death on the shadowed sides of all these happy facades. “So, where are we going?”
“Here.” Jaz swept her arm toward an arched entrance as if she were Vanna White on Wheel of Fortune—one of Gran’s favorite shows. “Outlaw Run.”
You know, when Jaz said rollercoaster, I was picturing the creaking metal loop from the theme park Mom had taken me to. I should have anticipated that Jasmina Jones would be satisfied with nothing less than the granddaddy of all rollercoasters. Nevertheless, I was not prepared for the giant monstrosity behind her—some kind of psychotic pretzel tangle of loops and coils and twists and turns, like someone took a length of track and wrapped it around itself a dozen times. A tube of passengers was currently being hurtled along a section that tilted them at some crazy angle. They were all screaming. Just watching made me want to scream too.
“This is the one, don’t you think?” Jaz was looking at Kason.
He studied it with the same scientific contemplation he appeared to give everything, then nodded definitively. “Yes. Let’s do it.”
“Jenna?” Jaz was looking at me.
I stepped back, shook my head. “I don’t do rollercoasters.” I hated how sharp my voice sounded, but the headache and the memories and the crowds and the screams were all getting to me.
“Aww, come on.” Jaz spread her hands. “It’s fun. Promise.”
“No.”
“But this one has a double-barrel roll. And a 180-foot drop.”
Who cared?
“And it goes seventy miles per hour.”
I didn’t like going seventy miles per hour in a car, much less in an exposed metal tube.
Kason cocked his head. “Are you scared of rollercoasters?”
“I’m not scared. But they’re stupid.” The words shot out before I could stop them. “Rollercoasters are stupid, and theme parks are stupid.” My voice was trembling now, the image of the dad on the swings blurring into the image of my mom behind the ticket booth. “Go ahead. I’ll wait here.”
I turned before either of them could say anything and all but ran to a metal bench on the other side of the street. As I sat, blinking back the burning in my eyes, I saw Jaz start toward me, but Kason put a hand on her shoulder, and they both joined the line of people waiting for the entrance.
The reality of what I’d said sank in, and shame burned through me. Neither of them would ever talk to me again. Here they’d invited me on their personal adventure, and I’d done nothing but insult their choice. Well, what would Gran say? Water under the bridge. No retracting my words now. Anyway, I wasn’t on this trip to make friends.
Jaz and Kason were still at least fifteen deep from the gate, stuck in a queue of folks who were apparently as reckless as they were. I’d be waiting here forever.
I glanced around, noticing the little details I’d missed. Cigarette stubs were crushed into a flower pot beside me. Pigeons were picking at something smashed on the ground behind a food truck. A hard-faced woman lightly smacked a crying boy to my left and said, “Justin, I told you! If you start that one more time with me…”
The lengthening shadows from the Ozark hills threw long, dark fingers over the streets, the shops, the rollercoaster. So many shadows, even in this place that was supposed to be happy. Of course Jaz and Kason never noticed things like that. Why would they? They’d grown up in a safe world, a friendly world, a world that made room for them. But I knew who wasn’t coming for the crying children. I knew what might happen later tonight behind the ticket booths. I knew how the discarded ends of others’ bad choices were slowly poisoning the plants next to me.
And I was scared.
The realization hit with a startling sizzle of clarity, and Kason’s question floated up beside it.
Are you scared of rollercoasters?
Funny thing. Until then, I don’t think I’d asked myself the question. Whatever I avoided, I viewed with lofty indifference. But suddenly Kason’s innocent question stuck a big accusing finger in my face. All that I’d done throughout my life—all my choices—all my accomplishments—was it all because I was scared?
Scared of Gran. Scared of God. Scared of myself. Scared of being the forgotten child on the swings. Scared of what happened in the dark corners of life that muttered all around me. Scared of how quickly one wrong move might land me right back in the hungry shadows.
My gut clenched. My life had been like the theme park, hadn’t it? A polished, happy facade—with shadows just behind it.
Was that the way I wanted to live? Was that the mindset I wanted to carry with me as I did the first crazy thing I’d ever done, as I desperately chased the sun west to find what might just be the next chapter of my life?
The family in front of Jaz and Kason pushed through the turnstile. The ride attendant turned to the twins.
“Jaz!” I lurched to my feet, ducking desperately between the people, trotting across the street. “Kason! Jaz!”
Kason was holding up two fingers to the attendant, but Jaz glanced over her shoulder and poked his arm. He glanced at her and made it three fingers.
I ducked into line with them, breathless and unsure. As we pushed through the turnstile, I swallowed. What would I say? How would I explain—
“Glad you decided to come.” Jaz squeezed an arm around my shoulders and grinned. “You can sit next to Kason. I refuse to. He screams so much it’s embarrassing.”
That was it? No explanations needed? Some weight slipped off my shoulders. “Okay.”
My palms were already sweating as I settled into the seat next to Kason, as the padded bars—which didn’t look secure enough, by the way—lowered over our shoulders, as the carriage began inching up the incline. In front of Kason and me, Jaz tossed a grin over her shoulder. “Here we go!”
Kason took off his glasses and folded them into his pocket. I did the same with my meteorite—I couldn’t lose that. As I was wadding up the chain, Kason leaned toward me, his shoulder brushing mine. “So—Jenna.” I could barely hear his voice over the rattling of the coaster. “What I asked you earlier, about being scared—I didn’t mean to upset you.”
From this vantage point, it looked as if the coaster might be soaring straight into the sky. I kept my eyes straight ahead, watching the gold edges of the late-afternoon clouds. “You were right.”
He was silent for long enough that I wondered if he’d heard me. But then I felt his hand close around mine. His palm was a little sweaty too.
And somehow that made me feel all kinds of better.
We poised for a split second, hovering at the top. For a snapshot, the expanse of the view wrapped its arms around us. The theme park below, the wooded Ozark hills reaching off into the golden light—
And then we were rocketing down the slope, plummeting directly into the treetops, the track racing up to meet us. Wind scraped against my face, ripping away my scream. My stomach had been left behind on top of the hill.
Kason’s hand tightened on mine, hard enough to hurt, and suddenly I realized that he was screaming as loudly as I was.
Trees and track and buildings all blurred by, a crazy kaleidoscope of jumbled images that swirled together in a single disorienting disaster. Upside down, then sideways, then upright again in a way that still didn’t feel normal. The horizon spun, the world rolling like a rubber ball. This was it. This was how I’d die. This wild, chaotic, turbulent, utterly stupid thing.
Yet somehow, as we launched into another skidding spin and my hair whipped into my eyes, one thing rose to the top of my mind. Fear was pounding through me like a poison, but I was still here for the ride. And the ride was still on the tracks.
And we were still okay.
We tumbled through a crazy corkscrew, and then, suddenly, we were on a straight stretch, and the coaster was slowing as it approached a building. That was it? We were done? We’d lived?
“Well.” Kason released my hand and swiped his palms on his jeans, then gave me a shaky smile. His face still looked chalky under his dark skin. “We did it.”
We did.
In front of us, Jaz twisted in the seat to grin. “Jenna! You did great!”
“Yeah.” Kason extracted his glasses from his pocket and settled them back on his nose. “You really did.”
“Thanks.” My voice was still wobbly, but their praise felt surprisingly good.
The carriage stopped and the bars raised. After the wild ride, being still felt as crazy as any of the twists on the ride, but Jaz hopped up as nimbly as if her insides hadn’t just been scrambled. “Wasn’t that fun?”
Some feeling was growing inside me. Some warmth that I hadn’t felt in far too long. I’d ridden the rollercoaster. Me. Jenna Monroe. The timid kid. I’d ridden, and it had been crazy and scary and wild and terrifying and also—
“Yeah.” I grinned at Jaz as we headed through the exit line. “Yeah, it was fun.” My legs felt watery, but my steps were getting more sure. I pulled the meteorite out of my pocket and slipped it back around my neck. “Want to get some kettle corn on our way out?”
Wednesday, June 12
St. Louis, Missouri, to Branson, Missouri
304 miles
Notes:
Silver Dollar City is nice.
I sent Gran pictures of everything except the rollercoasters.
Also, kettle corn is pretty good.