Thou Shalt Not Road Trip (21 page)

“What?”

“My feelings exactly. How do I explain to my boss that America’s Golden Boy paid for two kegs of beer despite being underage and in Los Angeles for just one evening?
One evening!
Don’t get me wrong—that kind of alcoholic tolerance would be welcomed by any frat house in the country, but in spite of your now-viral interview with Orkle, that’s still not our target market.”

“I don’t know anything about Egghead Kegs.”

Colin removes his designer glasses and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Come on now, Luke,” he says gently. “I’m on your side. But denial is one of the first signs of alcoholism.”

“I’m not an alco—”

“Come on! Everyone knows you raided the minibar in your first hotel room. I’ve got an itemized list,
for Pete’s sake. And so does the
National Enquirer
.”

“Oh, no.”

He puts his glasses back on. “Oh, yes.”

“I don’t even remember seeing a minibar.”

“Really? Because I called the Empress Pasadena myself, and they confirmed the room had one.”

“Hold on. Did you just say ‘Empress Pasadena’?”

“Yeah. Again, a pretty cheeky move to treat yourself to a hundred-and-fifty-dollar room.”

Suddenly the puzzle shifts before my eyes. Alex mentioned the Empress Pasadena, and Fran said that I wouldn’t have noticed the minibar in the first hotel. Well, of course I wouldn’t—
I wasn’t there!
While I was sleeping on a battered mattress, Alex and Fran were living it up in a fancy hotel, and Fran was helping herself to the contents of the minibar. If I didn’t adore her, I’d probably want to strangle her. Come to think of it: Why did Matt use Colin’s credit card to pay for it anyway?

Colin misreads my silence as a confession. “Listen—and here I’m speaking not just as your publicist, but also your friend—maybe when this tour is over you might want to get some help. I clearly underestimated how stressful this whole experience has been for you. But you have to believe me: Booze is not the answer.”

“But I—”

“No, Luke. Don’t say anything more. I value honesty
in all my relationships, and I’m sure you do too. Obviously there’s a lot we need to iron out—like how completely unacceptable it is to go radio silent for practically the entire tour—but for now your main priority is to give these people a good show.”

“Show?”

“Event. Signing. Whatever you want to call it.” He rubs the crop of fresh stubble on his chin. “Oh, and please tell me you heard about the change of venue tomorrow. I left three voicemails.”

I don’t even answer—my slumping shoulders speak for me.

“Geez. Your pastor—Andy—arranged with the bookstore to have the event at your church. Sounds like a big place. A thousand seats, he told me.”

I swallow hard. “It’s huge.”

“He reckons we’ll fill it too. Said we’d need a thousand copies of
Hallelujah
. Minimum. That’s the kind of talk Uncle Colin likes to hear. I’ve asked all the bookstores in St. Louis to send stock, so we have enough. It’s costing a fortune—enough to keep me up at night. And if the
National Enquirer
runs their story on the minibar, we’re completely…” His voice peters out. “You’ve gone very pale, Luke.”

“Yeah,” I croak.

He pats my leg. “Forget it. We’ll talk about it tomorrow morning on the way to St. Louis.”

“We will?”

“Sure. I’m going to ride with you. It’ll give us a few hours to chat.”

“But… but… the car—”

“Is a Hummer, right? By the way, that’s another thing we need to talk about.” He chuckles, like he’s kind of impressed that I’d dare to choose such an expensive vehicle.

“But we don’t have any room.”

“We’ll rearrange your bags. I’m sure you and your brother can squeeze me in. I’ll even take the backseat, if that’s what you’re worried about.” He clicks his fingers. “Hey, I’ve got it: I’ll sit beside your
cousin
.”

“Oh.”

“Yes,
oh!
You know, Luke, we have this thing called the Internet. It allows us to look up what people are saying about you. Including all the references to your
cousin
. Would that by any chance be the purple-haired decoy I met at the hotel?”

I nod apologetically.

“Good grief, Luke. We’re supposed to be on the same team!” He shakes his head. “Please tell me she’s not your girlfriend.”

“Yeah.”

“You’re touring with your
girlfriend
?” He grimaces. “Wait a minute—when you asked for an extra room… oh, no! You haven’t been sharing a room, have you?”

When I don’t reply, he seems to age ten years.

“You’re sixteen! Do your parents know?”

“They don’t know we’re dating.”

“Wow. We
do
have a lot to talk about, don’t we?” He glances at the cardboard cutout, and I can tell he’s thinking that I have almost nothing in common with that boy. He’s right too. “Well, rest assured that I
will
be traveling with you tomorrow morning, no matter what.” He forces a chuckle. “It’s not like you’re saving that fourth seat for a hitchhiker, right?”

I try to laugh too, and fail. I’m pretty sure Alex won’t see the funny side either.

Inspiration Bookstore, Springfield, Missouri

The signing should have started ten minutes ago, but apparently people are still fighting their way in, so I wait behind a panel.

I try to forget that my publicist thinks I’m an alcoholic; that no one has told him I’m traveling with not one, but
two
female companions; that tomorrow I’ll be doing my shtick in front of a thousand of my closest acquaintances; and that Fran—
persona non grata
—will
be by my side, sporting purple hair, tattoos, and enough stainless-steel earrings to short-circuit a metal detector.

I try to focus. I have to put on a good show.

Whatever that means.

Finally the audience quiets, and a woman in a flowing floral dress introduces me. She uses several superlatives to describe my book. Everyone applauds. By the time she finally calls my name, it’s with such an exaggerated tone that I imagine I’m a starter on an NBA team, skipping onto the court as the lights strobe and loud, raucous music rocks my ears. There must be at least four hundred people, all of them ready to witness something special. And for once I’m absolutely determined to give them that. I owe Colin at least that much.

As soon as I’m positioned behind the lectern, I scan the audience for Fran. She isn’t hard to find, and when our eyes meet, she turns her arm toward me slightly, showing me my words. I touch my own arm, and take comfort in knowing what’s written beneath the shirtsleeve.

I pepper my spiel with jokes, and everyone laughs. I make up anecdotes about what goes on backstage at
The Pastor Mike Show,
and the response is exhilarating. It has taken a week, but I’ve finally found my groove—what I’m saying matches the tone of what I
wrote. I wonder: Is this what I felt during those first few days of writing? Because this feels
real
. At last I glimpse
Hallelujah
as everyone else sees it. And it actually makes me proud.

For the next fifteen minutes I barely pause for breath, and the laughter rarely dies down. Even when I raise my hand and open up to questions, chuckles arise unexpectedly, aftershocks from a comedic earthquake. It’s so gratifying that I miss the first question and have to ask the old lady in the pink cardigan to repeat it.

She presses her hands together. “I read a blog that says there’s some confusion about which desert you’re talking about on page one hundred and twelve. May I ask: To which desert are you referring?”

The question sucks the energy from the room. I want to roll my eyes, but settle for a shrug instead. “It’s not any specific desert. It’s just… a desert,” I explain. “So let’s not get overheated about which one, okay?” It’s a good pun, given the circumstances.

No one laughs.

“I’m not getting overheated, Luke,” the lady continues. “I’m a big fan of your book. Bought copies for all my grandchildren. But you were there a month. You must remember which desert it was.”

I assume she’s kidding, but during the ensuing silence she doesn’t even twitch. She truly expects
an answer. Even worse, so does everyone else.

“You’re not serious, are you?” I ask.

“Yes,” she says indignantly. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Because… well, you know.” I narrow my eyes. “Obviously I didn’t go to any desert.”

I still manage a smile, but it’s hard work. I’m facing a wall of four hundred blank stares and frigid silence. There’s nothing amusing about this scene.

“You didn’t go to a desert?” she says, repeating my words slowly.

I try to say no, but my throat is dry. When I grab a cup, it shakes so violently that water spills over the side.

“But in that case your book is…”

The old lady’s hands cross at her throat. It looks like she’s reprising the international sign for choking, but instead her fingers curl around her pearl necklace as though it’s a rosary. She might even be praying. She can’t bring herself to say
fiction,
even though that’s what it is. Of
course
that’s what it is. I never claimed otherwise.

“Excuse me, but which desert did you
think
he’d gone to?” The question comes from Fran, and she’s looking at the old lady, not at me.

Her faith in me shattered, the old lady seems to be having trouble holding her head up. “I don’t know,” she mumbles. “I just thought… well, maybe Abyssinia. That’s biblical.”

“Whoa! You figured he spent a month alone in
Abyssinia
?” Fran knits her brows and runs a hand through her crazy messy hair. The overhead lights emphasize the uneven patches of purple dye. “It’s not even called that anymore, right? It’s Ethiopia. Would you let a high school kid go hang out alone in Ethiopia?”

Fran’s trying to be funny, but no one is laughing.

“Come on, people,” she continues. “Wake up. This is a parable. The desert is a metaphor for isolation, loneliness. The point is that faith gives you the strength to overcome even the harshest conditions.”

As it happens, she’s spot on. But the
people
are clearly having a hard time digesting this information.

“So he didn’t go
anywhere
?” asks a small boy. He doesn’t even bother to address me, just directs his question to Fran, like she’s been appointed my official spokesperson.

I’m not sure she’s ideally suited for the job.

“No,” says Fran.

“So it’s just a story. He made it all up.”

“It’s a
parable
. Remember those? They’re really useful teaching tools—totally Jesus-approved.” She groans. “Please don’t tell me you take everything so literally.”

The boy’s mother stands up. “Don’t talk to my son that way. He’s not the one who made stuff up. Luke is. So back off.”

But Fran doesn’t back off. Instead, she stands too, her baggy army surplus pants unable to hide the smears of Oklahoma dust, her tank top still dotted with dead grass from our make-out session. All the rings in her ears glint in the light, a warning that she’s not someone you mess with. Oh yes, and it looks like someone vomited black ink across her arm.

“Is your faith really so weak?” She’s addressing everyone now. “Is this all it takes for you to doubt what you believe?”

The sound of several hundred subdued voices rumbles across the room, and Fran smiles anxiously. She’s still hopeful, optimistic.

She shouldn’t be; wouldn’t be, if she could see their faces.

“And who are you?” shouts a man at the end of her row.

Fran locates the culprit and returns his glare with interest. “I’m a friend of Luke’s.”

I can see where this is heading. I can hear the venom in her voice, the way she’s folding her arms across her chest, tattoos facing outward for everyone to see. She wants them to know she’s the kind of girl who’ll hold her ground—intellectually, sure, but physically too, if it comes to that. But what will that prove?

“You?” The guy snorts. “No way.”

“Why the hell not?”

The guy flinches at
hell,
and shakes his head in disgust. “Fine. You’re best buds. I really don’t care. I’m not staying for this.”

He slides out of the row, and when he leaves he’s not alone. At least a dozen people exit with him, though it feels like so many more.

“Why shouldn’t we be friends, huh?” cries Fran. “Do you see him denying it?”

“You are
not
his friend!” Another woman’s voice, launched from the back of the room, high-pitched and desperate.

I crane my neck to see who dares to take on Fran, and my heart just about stops beating.

It’s
Teresa.
She’s reprising her Amish look, with high frilly collar and supersized cross. She commands the undivided attention of all men and the unconditional respect of all women. No one will interrupt her.

Teresa wallows in the silence, milks it for an eternity. Then she turns back to Fran and detonates her own bomb. “You’re his
girlfriend
!” she shouts.

Silence.

I look around, but I can’t focus. The audience is blending, merging into a single entity. Their energy converges, and spills out in waves of disapproving whispers that crescendo into something loud and hurt and threatening.

By the time my mind clears, I realize that not one of them is looking at me.

“You’ve gotta be kidding!” a woman cries.

“Why?” spits Fran, not just standing now, but leaning forward.
“Why?”

The woman stands too, leans forward too. “Because you’re rude.”

“Deal with it.”

“Just look at you!”

“What about me? What the hell does that mean?”

That word again. It has no place here—Fran must know that—and there’s another moment of silence while the crowd digests it. But only a moment, and then they’re growling, hurling their discontent at Fran in razor-sharp but oh-so-carefully-inoffensive language. The attacks grow louder and louder, until I can’t make out anyone’s voice but Fran’s as she struggles to hold her ground. They wonder who she is, this force of nature with the foul mouth and the
screw you
hair. They loathe her too—for being confrontational, for intruding when she wasn’t invited in the first place. She has gate-crashed the perfect party, and as their eyes shift back to me, I kind of sympathize with them.