Thou Shalt Not Road Trip (16 page)

“Yeah. I wasn’t trying to embarrass him or anything.
And I swear I only did it on one of the photos, but that was the one they chose.” She’s practically slowed to a standstill. “Can we sit down?”

“Sure.”

There’s a café nearby with outdoor tables. We choose one on the perimeter and keep quiet as the waiter approaches. “Can I interest you in a drink this evening?” he asks.

“A Long Island iced tea,” says Fran.

He cocks an eyebrow. “Do you have ID?”

“I’ve got a library card that says I’m sixteen. Will that do?”

The waiter plants his hands on his waist, but he seems amused. “Tell you what, I’ll make you one without the gin, rum, tequila, vodka, and triple sec, okay?”

“What does that leave?” she asks.

“Coke.”

“Perfect. Make it diet, please.”

“Same,” I say. Which is when I realize that Fran hasn’t been drinking this evening. I can tell in her face and her speech and her attitude. I like her better this way.

“So, my father…” Fran selects a fingernail and picks at it. “After the competition, my parents took me out for dinner. Dad said he was proud of me for being so clever and hardworking. And Mom said I
was by far the prettiest girl in the competition; which wasn’t relevant, by the way, but she almost never said anything nice like that. She told me she’d made an appointment for me to see her hair stylist the next day, so I could get the highlights I’d been asking for. I was so excited, it took me two hours to go to sleep that night, and I spent every minute of it giving thanks to God.”

The drinks arrive. Fran takes several small sips, and I know right away the feel-good part of her story is over.

“Mom woke me early the next morning—hit me with the newspaper. She said Dad had left the house to cool off and by the time he got back I’d better have an explanation.” Another sip. “I didn’t know what she was talking about. I mean, I could see the photo, but who cares about my stupid little fingers behind his head, right?”

“Right. My parents thought it was funny.”

“Well, Dad didn’t. He said I’d humiliated him. Said he was pulling the new TV commercials, ’cause I’d ruined his reputation. Said he was embarrassed by me, and how could I be so stupid? And every time I thought he’d run out of steam, he’d come up with something else. Even when I started crying.”

I still remember the photo. It was tiny, black-and-white, and stuffed in the middle of the “local interest”
section, which no one ever reads. “I’m sorry, Fran. That’s awful.”

“Yeah. Worst of all, he went back on everything he’d said the day before. I wasn’t smart; I was stupid. I wasn’t hardworking; I just had a well-prepared partner. I was rude. I was a brat.” Fran takes a steadying breath. “After he left, Mom said he shouldn’t have been so hard on me. She was trying to be nice, but I told her to tell
him
that, not me, which made her mad too. After that, I didn’t even want to go to the salon anymore, but she practically dragged me there. So I decided to do something to piss them off.” She touches her hair. “I skipped the highlights and went with purple.”

I’m swigging my Coke every few seconds, but I can’t taste it.

“Mom picked me up afterward and completely freaked. She made the stylist promise to undo it all at another appointment the next day. And to be honest, I was
glad
she was angry. I wanted to have it out with her and Dad—tell them my life wasn’t just about making them proud. I didn’t want to be like Alex, counting down the days until college, and never looking back. I even practiced everything I wanted to say, like it was a debate competition. But when we got home, Dad just took one look at me and walked away. Then he told Mom not to talk to me either.”

I know Fran’s father, which is why I’m not surprised. Matt used to call him the iron fist in a velvet glove, but that’s being kind; the glove is almost nonexistent. Still, Fran must have known how he’d react.

“Mom took me back to the salon the next day—gave me a hundred dollars to ‘fix things.’” Fran uses air quotes to make her point. “But when she drove off, I just left. There was a tattoo parlor a few doors down, so I went in and got the cartilage at the top of my ears pierced—one for each parent.”

Her fingers drift up to her right ear, and she fingers the top hoop. There have been a lot of additions since that day.

“When Mom saw what I’d done, she stormed off. I waited an hour, but she never came back. So I walked home—six miles. They were both waiting for me. Said I’d made a decision and there were consequences. When I was ready to apologize and stop the nonsense, they were ready to forgive me.”

I’m so engrossed in her story that I just nod.

“Did you hear me?” demands Fran. “They said
they
would forgive
me
.” She downs the rest of her Coke.

“I’m sorry.”

“Are you?” She closes her eyes. “Don’t answer that. I’m just… they hurt me that day, you know? I thought nothing in the world could hurt so bad. I was wrong, but that’s what I thought. See, all I wanted was for
them to talk to me again. Instead, they cut me off.”

When she opens her eyes, she’s looking right at me. “Everything went wrong after that. On Sunday, Dad said he wouldn’t give me a ride to church, so I missed the service. Later in the week, I turned up to the church retreat and… I just couldn’t do it.” A tear appears suddenly, and she wipes it away. “I kind of lost it after that. I wanted to get away, but there was nowhere to go. Alex had already left for Caltech and my friends were at camp, so there was no one to talk to. When they got back from camp, they weren’t in the mood to listen. And when school started, it was like the teachers took a step back too. Coach Penny was the only one who said she wanted me.”

So the mystery of Frances Embree’s transformation has finally been solved. Or has it? After all, the Fran who showed up on the first day of sophomore year had tattoos on her arms and a whole lot more than one hoop in each ear. She practically dared the teachers to exclude her.

“Why didn’t you just go back to how you were?” I ask.

“What?” She seems puzzled by the question, though it must have occurred to her a million times. “How could I?”

“Just change your appearance.”

“Even my arms?”

“You could’ve covered them up.”

“Yeah. That would’ve made it easier for everyone, wouldn’t it? They could’ve welcomed me back, shown me I’m nothing but the sum of my looks.” She swirls the ice around her glass. “Remember the time in freshman year when we were trying to start a Christian fellowship at school, and those seniors made fun of us?”

“Yeah.”

“Remember what you told me?”

No, I don’t. All I remember is that I was standing beside Frances Embree, and she wore a soft rose-colored sweater, and she’d just had her hair cut in a bob, and her hair was lighter than usual because she’d spent so much of the summer outdoors. I remember being paralyzed by want.

I shake my head.

“You told me we couldn’t let them change us, or the things we stood for. You told me it’s what’s on the inside that matters, that being teased by seniors couldn’t touch who we really were. You said I was
godly,
which meant so much to me. I mean, it was the beginning of freshman year. I was so afraid people would think I was a freak. But you reminded me I wasn’t alone.”

She’s paying me a compliment, but I can see where this is going now, and it’s killing me.

“Even now, I haven’t changed on the
inside,
Luke. I’m still the same Fran; have been all year. Only, no one wants to know this version of me. And, well, if that’s how little everyone thinks of me, I guess I don’t really need them on my side anyway.”

I want to believe she’s playing devil’s advocate, but I can tell she means every word of this. And I’m the one who gave her the argument.

But she misunderstood me that day. I know what I said, but it wasn’t what I
meant
. What I meant was that no one could be allowed to change her, because she was already perfect. Perfectly beautiful. And the thought that someone might change a single thing about her was more than I could bear.

“I’m sorry, Fran.” I want to hit myself. I want to go back in time and tell the freshman me that every selfish word has consequences. “I’m so sorry.”

“Really? You mean that?” She’s not asking, she’s begging me to say it again, to assure her that it’s true. Behind the armor of jewelry and hair dye, Fran is as fragile as she was that day in freshman year. Perhaps even more so. I can’t be the one to let her down.

“Yes,” I say. “I mean it. I wish I’d known how you felt.”

She takes my hand then as a tear rolls down her face. In this moment, she’s beautiful again. She doesn’t even ask me why I never bothered to find out.

FRIDAY, JUNE 20

Mishaps 11: 3–7

3. Although the Mississippi was wide, yet the boy’s will was strong. And he cried, “I will cross thee, O Mississippi!” 4. But the Mississippi said nothing. 5. Again the boy cried, “Your currents will not deter me, nor your pollution ail me. For I am strong of will. And though I cannot swim, and wear a personal flotation device, nevertheless I will conquer thee, for I am—as I have already mentioned—strong of will.” 6. Still the Mississippi said nothing. 7. And so the boy stared down the barges and the flotsam and crossed the river, and with every stroke overcame the Mississippi’s silence.

Just outside Amarillo, Texas

We park beside a wheat field and follow a dirt path. A hundred yards ahead of us is a line of large, multicolored cars, all planted nose-first into the ground.

“Cadillac Ranch,” announces Matt. “Memorial to Route 66.”

I swallow a yawn. “Why on earth are we here, Matt?”

Matt keeps his eyes fixed ahead. “If you were one of those ancient pilgrims on the way to some big, important pilgrimage place, would you hurry to get there, or stop at the churches along the way?”

“I’d stop at the churches to get food and water.”

“But if you didn’t need food and water?”

“How would I not need food and water?”

“Just work with me here.”

“Okay.” I puff out my cheeks. “I guess it’d depend on whether I had a book signing that evening at the big, important pilgrimage place.”

Matt doesn’t respond to that, but picks up his pace toward this automobile Stonehenge.

The half-buried cars seem bigger because they’re sticking straight up. Well, not
straight
up, but leaning slightly. They’re perfectly spaced too, all ten of them. There’s no doubt that someone went to a lot of trouble to make this.

“Cadillac Ranch,” says Alex, flicking to the appropriate page in her ever-present guidebook. “Created in 1974. Moved to the present location in 1997.”

“Someone
moved
it?” I ask.

“That’s what it says here.”

“Who moves a bunch of half-sunken car wrecks?”

Matt huffs. “Just hurry up and add your graffiti.”

“What? Why would I want to do that?”

“Because this is a living, breathing installation. And you can give it life.” He stuffs a Sharpie into my hand. “Write. Now.”

The car in front of me looks as though it has been painted and repainted a thousand times. There’s only a tiny area of white where the pen would even show up, and there’s some rust there too. I could cut myself on that and get an infection—tetanus, or gangrene, or one of those flesh-eating ones that have Latin names. “I’d prefer not to.”

Fran steps forward. “It’s okay, Luke. You don’t have to do anything that makes you uncomfortable.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. Although I must say, if adding a
line of graffiti to a car in the middle of a wheat field gets you all freaked out, you could really do with loosening up. I mean, look at it—it’s already a wreck.”

She tilts her head and tries to hide a smile. This is a dare, I can tell. It’s peer pressure. Fran is trying to lure me to the Dark Side. So I uncap the pen and scrawl:
Luke was here
. I even add an exclamation point.

The others stare at what I’ve written.

“Luke was here,” Matt repeats slowly. “You graffiti the headstones of Route 66, and the best you can do is ‘Luke was here’?”

Fran and Alex don’t stop laughing all the way back to the car. I guess my initiation to the Dark Side has been put on hold.

I-40, somewhere in Oklahoma

We pass the world-famous leaning water tower of Groom; Texas’s first Phillips 66 service station in McLean; the U-Drop Inn in Shamrock. Roadside curiosities drift by to the accompaniment of Alex’s monologue, like illustrations from a coffee-table book come to life.

We stop at each one and take photos. Time passes, but the landscape changes less and less. It makes me long for the interstate and dangerously high speed limits.

We cross the border into Oklahoma, and though it’s nothing but a line on a map, it feels like progress. Oklahoma borders Missouri, and I live in Missouri. It’s a step closer to home.

Luckily, Route 66 has been consumed by I-40, so we move fast through dust bowl territory. Looking out at the sandblasted, sun-scorched land, it’s hard to imagine how anyone ever survived here.

Eventually the landscape includes some greenery. Matt pulls into the right lane and signals.

“Why are we getting off?” I ask.

“Because it’s lunchtime and I’m hungry. Plus I’m suffering Route 66 withdrawal.”

Sure enough, he’s found an old alignment of Route 66.

“Why do you keep doing this?” Alex groans. “Are you allergic to keeping things simple?”

“It’s not a big detour, Al. And we’ve got ages. I bet Oklahoma City’s only an hour or so away.”

“You don’t know that!” I snap. “Just for once, can we please stay on the interstate?”

The road veers left and the interstate disappears from view. My heart sinks. I-40 has become my security
blanket: Five seconds of separation and I want it back.

We cross an impossibly long iron bridge with more arches than I can count. Below us, the Canadian River meanders through a suddenly fertile area.