The Princesses of Iowa (24 page)

Jeremy looked up from a computer near the front of the room, where he was sitting with Nikki, of all people. She sat with her back to me, staring intently at the screen, where a video of what looked like a car accident was playing. “What now, Kale?” Jeremy asked.

“I have to borrow your op-ed man,” Shanti announced.

Jeremy grinned. “You mean kidnap?”

“Toe-may-toes, toe-mah-toes,” she said, and poked Ethan in the back as he shut down his computer and grabbed his bag.

“Be careful, Paige,” Jeremy warned. “Them’s crazy folk.”

At my name, Nikki glanced up in surprise and caught my eye. I gave a stupid, sheepish half wave, embarrassed to be seen leaving with Shanti and Ethan — and hating myself for feeling that way.

“Anyway,” she said, turning back to Jeremy. “The bonfire’s Friday night and the dance is the next Saturday. Should we do the funeral on Friday morning? Or Saturday night?”

“Saturday night? Girl, you crazy.”

Shanti excused her way back through the tangle of legs and backpacks and reappeared at my side, flushed and smiling, with Ethan following behind. “We’re kidnapping him, too.”

We all piled into Ethan’s beat-up old Jeep, though Shanti insisted on driving. “I’m an excellent driver!”

Ethan laughed, teasing her. “I’m an excellent driver. I like to drive in the driveway. I’m an excellent driver.”

“Okay, Rain Man,” Shanti said, rolling her eyes. She pulled the seat all the way forward and adjusted the mirrors. Clearly, this was not the first time she’d driven the Jeep. Ethan offered me the front seat but I declined, preferring to observe from the back. Shanti flipped through a mess of jewel cases in Ethan’s glove box, then pulled a CD out and popped it in the CD player. “Do you like Dar Williams?” she asked, glancing at me in the rearview mirror.

“Yeah, sure,” I lied. I’d never heard of it. A voice filled the back speakers, soft and crooning and entirely unlike the music I usually listened to. It sounded like the singer was just singing the word “Iowa” over and over again.

I watched the silver-green corn flash by the window, the red barns somehow more striking standing against the deep-gray sky than they would be against summer blue. Telephone poles blinked by as steadily as the rain that Mr. Tremont had predicted.

The Iowa song ended, and the next song began with a simple guitar line. Ethan sang along, his voice matching the singer’s perfectly. Shanti harmonized on the chorus.

“So, where are we going?” I asked.

Ethan deepened his voice like a game show announcer. “Where are we going, Shanti?”

“Um, did you not hear me state quite clearly that you are being KIDNAPPED? And when you kidnap someone, you do not TELL them where you are going, because then they might call their rescuers to come find them, and then you do not get all the glorious lovely ransom money.” Downshifting, slowing the car, she waved through the window toward a broad bank of trees, a low valley among woodsy hills. “Obviously!”

Ethan stage-whispered, “She has no idea.”

“I do so!” Shanti protested. “I know exactly where we are going! And it’s going to be amazing!”

Ethan shook his head slowly, mouthing, “No. Idea.” I laughed.

Shanti merged onto the highway without signaling, sweeping in front of a giant semi before darting into the next lane while the truck flew by laying on the horn. I gasped loudly and was immediately embarrassed, dropping my head so my hair fell across my face. My fingers twisted around the middle seat belt, turning white.

Ethan glanced back at me and turned to Shanti, his voice light but serious. “Could I ask you a favor? Could you maybe
not
get us killed today?”

“I’m an excellent driver!” she yelled.

Ethan turned back to me and mouthed, “Sorry,” rolling his eyes. “I’ll drive on the way home . . . if we live that long,” he said aloud, and Shanti yelled, “Look at these hands! Ten and two!” but she eased off the pedal and kept her eyes on the road. “I am an excellent driver!” she said again.

I took a deep breath, forcing myself to relax and listen to Ethan and Shanti sing. Shanti seemed to be channeling the ghost of Ethel Merman, while Ethan crooned in an excessively twangy cowboy voice. It made for a strange duet, but they seemed to be enjoying themselves. It was strange: they both seemed to take each other as they were. I’d never heard either of them comment on what the other was wearing or doing, and when they teased each other it was always friendly, without a razor’s edge of warning underneath. I tried to remember the last time I’d allowed myself to say everything that was on my mind without worrying what someone would think.

The Jeep crested a hill and suddenly a whole field of gold rose in my vision, hill after hill of tangled sunflowers. They were so bright against the blue-slate clouds, raising their dark-brown faces to the sunless sky like hope. “Wow,” I whispered, and Ethan reached back and tapped the ashtray near my feet, a silent agreement.

The Merman/cowboy duet came to an earsplitting finale, and Ethan turned to me. “Hey, how was the homecoming committee meeting today?”

“What?” I asked. “How did you know about that?”

“I’m on student council.”

Shanti hooted. “Loser!”

“Shut up, Shan,” Ethan said easily. “I was drafted.”

“How did that happen?” I asked.

“I have drama lit first period,” Ethan said.

“Ohhhh.” The theater crowd wasn’t exactly known for its school spirit.

“Ila Grayson nominated me, and apparently everyone in that group does whatever she tells them to.”

“Lacey nominated me.”

Shanti’s eyes flicked up at me in the rearview mirror. “You sound less than enthused.”

I shrugged. “It seems kind of pointless.”

Ethan shifted so he could see us both, sitting sideways. “I don’t know,” he said. “My committee is working on this presentation that will actually be pretty good, I think.”

“Really,” I said.

“Yeah, actually. You know Nikki Rosellini?”

I laughed. “Yes. She’s — yes. I definitely know her.”

“She’s doing this thing,” he started.

“DIEDD,” Shanti interrupted. “With three
D
s.”

“I heard,” I said.

“That’s not even how you do acronyms,” Shanti said. “What does it stand for again? Dude, I Eat Dunkin’ Donuts? Doctor, I Examine Diseased Dogs?” She laughed.

“Don’t let friends drive drunk.” Ethan and I said it at the same time, and I shot him a grateful look. Nikki might be annoying sometimes, and maybe she wasn’t a superintellectual, but she meant well. And she was still my friend.

“It’s really going to be a cool thing,” Ethan said. “Nikki’s gotten the police and fire departments to come in, and there’s going to be this all-school assembly, and —”

“And it’s all a bunch of emotionally manipulative bullshit so she can parade her guilt in front of the whole school,” Shanti said. “It’s sick. And sad.”

I opened my mouth to disagree, but then closed it, thinking. Did everyone in the school feel the same way? The Jeep hung empty with quiet until Shanti finally asked, “What?” She sounded defensive.

“I mean, she’s trying to do something positive,” Ethan said. “She sees a problem and she’s doing something to try to fix it. So her solution’s a little weird — at least she’s doing something. It’s better than cynical hipsters who sit around complaining and making fun of everyone without ever doing anything to help make the world better.”

“Cynical hipsters?” Shanti asked, keeping her eyes straight ahead. “Speaking generally or specifically?”

I sat back, revising my theory about people who didn’t judge. Maybe it was a universal problem after all. Maybe no one lived up to the expectations of their friends.

“I’m just saying that it’s easier to criticize than it is to put yourself out there and try to do something,” Ethan said. “You know I’m right. We’re all guilty of it sometimes.”

“Do you disagree that spending hundreds of tax dollars on a
danse macabre
designed to manipulate the emotions of a bunch of stupid high schoolers while you reenact your own guilt complex on a public stage is a little fucked up?”

“All I’m saying is —”

“Do you disagree?” Shanti pressed.

“It’s better than doing nothing. I mean, it’s something.”

“But it
is
fucked up.”

Ethan caught me in the rearview mirror and rolled his eyes, but he was smiling. “Yes, it’s a little fucked up.”

“Thank you.”

“Do you
have
to have the final word? Is that, like, a remnant of your privileged childhood?”

Shanti grinned. “Hey, it’s not easy being right all the time, but I make it work.”

A minute later, they were singing to the radio again, this time with opera voices on an ’80s power ballad. I marveled at the jumps from banter to argument and back again, amazed that they could disagree so vehemently and still be friends.

Almost an hour after leaving Willow Grove, Shanti announced, “We’re here!”

“A truck stop?” I asked.

“A truck stop?
A
truck stop?” She cranked the wheel and we rumbled off the highway, turning from off-ramp to overpass almost without slowing.

Ethan and I braced ourselves against the doors. “Whoa, Shan,” Ethan said. “Go easy on my car; it has to last me the rest of the year, at least.”

“It’s fine,” Shanti said. “You worry too much.”

“Would you like to buy me a new one? Because in case you thought otherwise, I don’t actually work for the sheer pleasure of making lattes.”

She ignored him, angling the Jeep across two spaces. She pulled on the parking brake, dropping the clutch so the engine died with a jolt. “My dear Paige, this is not
a
truck stop. This is
the
truck stop! The Iowa 80! Glorious cathedral to Kitsch Americana!”

“The World’s Largest Truckstop in Walcott, Iowa,” Ethan read. “Does that mean it’s the largest truck stop in the world, which happens to be in Walcott, Iowa, or is it the largest truck stop of all the truck stops in Walcott, Iowa? And if so, just how many truck stops are there in Walcott?”

“I have never actually been here,” I said as we jumped from the Jeep. “I’ve driven past it a million times and never once stopped here.”

“Oooh, she’s an Iowa 80 virgin! Time for your deflowering!”

“Shanti!” Ethan said.

I giggled. He shook his head. “It’s happening more quickly than I feared. We’re corrupting her.”

Shanti ran ahead of us and turned back, beckoning me. “Great! Come toward the light, Paige! You can do it!” Ethan rolled his eyes, but I ran toward her in slow motion.

“You’re a bad influence, Shanti!” he called.

“Maybe I want to be influenced, Ethan,” I said. “Ever think of that?”

He quirked an eyebrow and I blushed.

Shanti paused at the front doors and turned to us. “Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to find the best, most stunning, most awesomely and hilariously and perfectly Iowan item in this vast kingdom of weird touristy crap.”

“What do we get if we win?” I asked.

She thought a moment. “If you win, I will purchase said item for you and you can wear it home.”

“That sounds more like a punishment than a prize.”

“Yeah,” Ethan agreed. “I think you should purchase said item and YOU can wear it home.”

“Okay, but if I win, then one of you has to wear it.”

“Deal.” He held out his hand, and they shook.

Shanti looked at me. “Paige?”

I hesitated for a moment and then nodded. “Deal.” I held out both hands, crossed in front of me like the Scarecrow giving directions, and shook both their hands at once. “But I have to warn you, I am a master shopper.”

“Oooh, she’s throwing down the gauntlet!”

“The gauntlet has definitely been thrown,” Ethan said. “Nice.”

I shrugged. “That’s how I roll.”

“Ready?” Shanti asked. “On your marks . . . get set . . .” And then she ran into the truck stop without us.

“What a dirty cheater,” Ethan said, pretending to be shocked.

“Actually,” I said, “I don’t know if you’ve heard this? But cheaters never win, and winners never cheat.” A little breeze picked up from the parking lot and stirred my hair, blowing strands across my face. Though we weren’t more than a quarter mile off it, the highway seemed strangely distant, and the breeze carried the quiet hum of cars flashing past the autumn green grass and yellow fields of soybeans.

Ethan reached over to brush the hair out of my face, slipping into a John Wayne drawl. “That’s some intense philosophizing there, little lady.”

I batted my eyes modestly. “I learned it from McGruff the Crime Dog.”

He laughed. “So basically, we have to kick her ass.”

“It’s a matter of honor.”

“Exactly,” he said, and held the door open for me. “After you, ma’am.”

“Thank you kindly, Sheriff.”

The Iowa 80 Truckstop was enormous. It had a food court and a sit-down restaurant, a trucking museum, truck washes, a movie theater, a laundry, a barbershop, and apparently a dentist.

“Really?” Ethan asked, studying the map. “Because I know when I’m driving across the country, I think, ‘You know, I have to pee. Maybe get a cup of coffee. And while I’m at it, maybe I’ll get a root canal.’”

I nodded seriously. “Oh, yeah. You know, truckers have the highest rates of gum disease of any profession.”

“Is that a fact?”

“I read it in
Periodontists Daily.
”

It took him a moment. “You are so lying. I can’t believe Paige Sheridan is lying to me. Do I have to call for a royal tribunal?”

“Your gums are very important,” I said.

He laughed. “God, we
have
corrupted you.”

Or maybe I’m just good at lying,
I thought as we ambled along, looking for the ultimate in Iowa trucker kitsch. He held up a Daniel Boone hat, complete with raccoon tail, and when I couldn’t stop laughing, he decided to wear it around the store, occasionally stopping to direct other customers to find their manifest destiny on the western side of the store. “It’s pretty good,” I told him.

“But good enough to beat Shanti? She needs to be put in her place once in a while, and we are just the people to do it.”