Thou Shalt Not Road Trip (3 page)

When she turns to face me, she sniffs the air. “You stink,” she hisses. “Even worse, you’re fifteen minutes late for your own signing. I swear… kids today!”

She pulls herself up to her full five feet and tells me to escort her into the store.

Born-Again Bookshop, Manhattan Beach, California

My hand is cramping. Actually, my hand began cramping half an hour ago, and my signature isn’t just illegible now, it’s not even my signature. Not really. I just draw a line, add a circle, and finish with a wave-like squiggle that has a pleasingly artistic quality.

Some of the customers stare at the squiggle for quite a long time. I think they’re trying to see how it correlates to my name. I feel kind of guilty, but not for long, because Yvonne drives away anyone who outstays their allotted ten seconds.

It didn’t start out like this. I tried speaking to everyone in line, but I kept writing down things they said, instead of my inspiring line:
It’s time to be moved!
And then Yvonne literally began moving people. Sometimes forcibly. So I kept it to just a signature.

Then the squiggle.

Several people in line try to shake my hand, but it has cramped up badly, and I can’t seem to unclench the Sharpie. It’s like they’re fused together. I’m afraid
the best I’ll be able to do is to make sure it’s firmly capped before I go to bed tonight.

Little by little the line shortens, and finally there’s only one person left. For the first time in over an hour I feel my shoulders relaxing. My breathing slows along with my pulse. I’m suddenly aware that two time zones separate St. Louis from Los Angeles, and I’m exhausted.

I summon a brave smile for the last customer of the day. Then I wonder if I’m daydreaming. It’s a girl: about my age, with long blond hair and perfect white teeth. She’s wearing a blouse with a high frilly collar, and the wooden cross hanging from a cord around her neck is just about the largest one I’ve ever seen on a human being. When she leans over the table it swings forward and bumps my nose.

“Oh, my! Please forgive me,” she says. She looks at the cross apologetically, shakes her head, and turns to leave.

“Don’t go,” I say, my voice cracking.

She bites her lip, but stays. She presses the cross against her chest, like she’s instructing it to stay put. Her chest is not small.

I force my eyes up to her face again. “I-I’m Luke,” I say.

She offers her hand. “Teresa.” She has a gentle handshake: warm fingers like silk.

“Like Mother Teresa.”

“Exactly. Isn’t she extraordinary? I mean, dead now, I guess. Very dead. But still, a perfect role model.” Teresa is babbling, which makes me think she might actually be nervous. I know exactly how she feels. “My mother says good role models are vital. That’s why she gave me your book.”

I can feel my face flushing red. “Oh. Well, I-I just write what the good Lord inspires me to write.”

“That’s so wise.” She places her copy of
Hallelujah
on the table. “Would you write something inspirational for me?” she asks.

“Absolutely. I mean, I’ll
try
.”

I look at the title page at the front of the book. It’s very white and empty. It needs to be filled with something inspirational, but my hand is begging me not to write another word.

Meanwhile, Teresa fingers her cross again. As she leans forward I catch a faint scent of peaches. She’s waiting to be inspired.

Unfortunately, my brain has gone into lockdown.

To Teresa—

I hope that writing her name will create some momentum, but the pen just hovers an inch above the page. My hand is shaking, and I’m sweating again.

Teresa places her hand on the table. Her skin is porcelain white, nails a soft pink color.

I push the pen against the page and write:
Seek and ye shall find me
.

When I look up, I can tell she’s disappointed.

Keep the faith
, I add hurriedly.
For like your namesake, you are destined for beautification
.

Teresa stares at the page. “Beautification? Am I ugly?”

She points to the word, and I can’t even breathe anymore. Before I can grovel an apology, she laughs gently, a tinkling sound that lets me know she’s kidding. “Beatification. I get it.… Hey, you want to get a coffee? It’d be so great to talk to you.”

She’s lovely, and I did just mess up her book, and it has been a year since I even wanted to hang out with a girl, but still…

I look to Yvonne for advice, but my bodyguard has gone now that the line has ended. I don’t know if it’s usual for authors to share coffee with beautiful girls who attend their signings. I mean, not that we’d be
sharing
the coffee, just that we’d both be drinking it. Separate cups of it. At the same time.

Before I can mumble a response, I notice Matt standing across the room, watching me. When we make eye contact, he raises his thumbs, and I turn bright red.

It’s a sign: I shouldn’t be thinking what I’m thinking.

“I’m touched, Teresa, but… no, I can’t. I’m really tired, and I have another signing tomorrow.” The expression on her face just about kills me. She looks crushed. “I need to be at my freshest to, you know, do God’s work,” I add.

This time she nods. “Yes, of course. Well, until tomorrow, then.”

It’s not until she’s gone that I realize what she just said.

Freshman Residence Hall, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California

Matt doesn’t talk to me on the ride home. He doesn’t speak as he hands the taxi driver my credit card. I’m not even sure he knows I’m there until we arrive back at his residence hall and walk up two flights of stairs.

“You’re not planning to become a monk, are you?” he asks.

“What?”

“It’s a fair question, ’cause that girl at the signing was totally into you. And underneath the weird stuff,
she was actually pretty hot. Plus, you both have that born-again thing going.”

He shoves the dorm room door with his shoulder and stumbles in. Somehow the university has managed to squeeze two beds inside, and it’s clear that Matt’s roommate isn’t around, so I’ll even have somewhere to sleep. Given our track record since leaving the airport, I’d half expected Matt to announce that we’d be camping out in cardboard boxes under the Santa Monica pier.

When the door is closed behind us, Matt turns to face me. “All I’m saying is, it’s becoming a habit with you.”

“A
habit
?”

“You know what I’m talking about. Freshman year, you and Fran were
this
close to dating. Anyone could see how much you wanted her. But you completely blew her off.”

I should have known that’s where this was headed. It’s the same thing he brought up every time we talked on the phone last fall. It’s the reason we’ve barely spoken since Christmas.

“I didn’t blow her off, Matt. Fran was the one who got weird. If you saw the way she looks, you’d understand.”

That silences him, but only for a moment. “So it’s okay to judge a book by its cover, huh? Is that one of the lessons in
your
book?”

As soon as he says it, I feel ashamed and outwitted. Then again, he’s taken advantage of my greatest weakness: Frances Embree, formerly one-half of the St. Louis city debate championship pair, and one-half of the organizational committee for our church’s youth group, and one-half of… well, quite a lot of stuff actually.

“Seriously, Luke, you two were best friends.”

“I don’t want to talk about it. It’s none of your business.”

Matt nods. “In a way, no. But as long as I’m dating her sister, it’s hard for the two of us to switch it off. You know how close they are.”

Unlike us,
I guess he means. Although if it weren’t for Fran, Matt and I would still be close. It’s yet another reason I resent her.

“How is Alexis?” I ask.

“Alex is cool.”

“That’s it? Your girlfriend is
cool
?”

He flops onto his bed and studies his hands. “She’s always working. I think Caltech is kicking her butt. I figured we’d hang out most weekends, but she’s always in the lab or something. I got us tickets to the USC-UCLA football game, and she bailed on me. Can you believe it?”

Truth is, yes, I can. Alex was always more interested in participating in sports than watching them,
and everything came a distant second to schoolwork. Being at Caltech wouldn’t have changed that. Still, I don’t think Matt wants to hear it, so I pretend it was a rhetorical question and say nothing at all.

“Look, I’m not trying to pressure you,” Matt continues, “but the situation with you and Fran hasn’t exactly helped things between me and Alex this year.”

“So you kept telling me. But Fran never tried to stay friends with me either, remember?”

“No, but it’s harder for her. Since she changed, I mean.”

“Changed?” I almost laugh. “Have you
seen
her?”

“Yeah. Photos, anyway. And I’m not saying the punk version of Fran is as hot as the original. I know you dug that whole prim-and-proper thing, with the cute bob and the matching sweater sets and color-coordinated hair bands. I get it, I really do.”

Okay, so he’s right about that. She was a vision back then: pretty, with a smile that could melt me. But she was so much more. She had boundless energy and wasn’t afraid to laugh. She was the peaceful protestor, supporter of the oppressed. At lunch, she insisted we sit with the least popular kids—the ones who sat at mostly empty tables on the edges of the cafeteria. Now she has one of those tables to herself.

“You’re thinking about her right now, aren’t you?” Matt asks.

“No,” I say. It’s not even a lie, because that version of Fran doesn’t really exist anymore.

“I’m just saying, you of all people ought to be able to look past the hair—”

“The
purple
hair?”

“Yeah, the purple hair. And the piercings—”

“All of them?”

“Yeah, Luke, all of them.”

“Do you know how many there are?”

“No, I don’t.” Matt sighs, but then a smile creeps across his face. “But if you do, you might want to think about what that means.”

I ignore the challenge in his voice, and play my trump card: “What about the tattoos, huh? She made crazy lines along her forearms, Matt. Tell me: Who does that to herself?”

Matt shrugs. He looks tired. “I don’t know, Luke. But you would, if you’d ever bothered to ask.”

He doesn’t know what he’s talking about, but it’s late and I haven’t got the energy to argue anymore. So I brush my teeth and say my prayers—thanks that my parents love me; thanks that my plane arrived safely; thanks that I didn’t have a fatal heart attack running across Los Angeles—and try to find a position on the lumpy bed where the springs don’t dig into my ribs. Finally, exhausted, I recall this evening’s event, and everyone’s words of support and appreciation. For
some reason, though, my mind keeps returning to another image: a shy girl with long blond hair and an irresistible smile. And as I fall into sleep, my brain runs wild with thoughts you won’t find anywhere in
Hallelujah.

SUNDAY, JUNE 15

Mishaps 9: 15–17

15. But the boy barely recognized her, for though she was similar, yet did she appear strange, as though winged messengers had taken the ends of her hair and flown upwards and outwards with it. 16. And the girl responded not, even though he was staring at her with both his eyebrows furrowed tightly. 17. And though he was silent, the boy was wise, and wondered to himself if indeed she was not the same girl. But she was not.

Freshman Residence Hall, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California

“You snore.”

I hear the words, but my eyes won’t open. I don’t even know where I am; only that something is digging into my back.

“Seriously,” the voice continues, “you’re like a freakin’ foghorn or something.”

I stretch and my calf muscles cramp up. The pain is so sharp that my eyes snap open. Matt towers over me. He doesn’t look happy.

“We are so not sharing a room on this trip, understand?”

I nod vacantly.

“Fine. As long as we’re agreed on that.” He reaches into his pocket, pulls out his cell phone, and drops it next to my head. “You’d better call that Colin guy to let him know.”

That really gets my attention. I don’t want to ask Colin for more money already. Besides, it’s Sunday morning. He’s probably at church.

“Why didn’t you wake me?” I ask.

Matt narrows his eyes. “You’re the star of the show, Luke. I’m just the chauffeur. Plus…” His voice trails off.

“What?”

“I feel bad about my car breaking down. I called Mom and Dad earlier to say you got here okay, and they asked about the signing. I probably should’ve kept my mouth shut, but I told them we were late and… well, let’s just say they didn’t exactly see the funny side.”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“Maybe not. But the mechanic warned me my car was on life support. I just couldn’t afford to get it fixed. I should’ve gotten us a taxi.” He shrugs. “Anyway, it won’t happen again. This tour is a big deal, so we’ll get a rental car with the top AAA coverage and everything.”

“Thanks, Matt. That’s really… Hold on. Who’s paying for the rental car?”

Matt reaches down and presses a button on his cell phone. “Go ahead. I’ve already got Colin on speed dial.”

I grab the phone, and hear Colin’s husky voice: “Luke, is that you?” He doesn’t sound as patient as he did last night. I can even hear a voice in the background—probably his pastor giving the sermon. Or perhaps it’s more than one voice—a choir singing. “Luke?”

“Uh, yeah. Look, I’m really sorry to bother you, but my brother says he won’t sleep with me.”

There’s silence on the other end. I overhear Colin telling someone to go ahead without him. I can’t believe he might be missing Communion because of me.

“He won’t
sleep
with you?” repeats Colin slowly.