Finding Mr. Brightside

“The worst,” she says. “Easier to avoid surprises.”

I raise my eyebrows and point to myself, like, What about this surprise? She scrunches up her nose, still looking for a way to explain away the whole me-and-her phenomenon. I don’t think there’s a scientific explanation.

“Was he—your dad—better with everything this morning?”

“No. But he silently handed me some emergency hurricane supplies on my way out.” She removes several items from her enormous purse: a wind-up radio, water purification tablets, flashlights, a flame-retardant blanket, and a Nylon Paracord(?). “He even left the house to get it all,” she says, a slight uptick of pride sneaking into her voice.

“That’s awesome.”

She waves away the awesomeness. “We all have our milestones, I guess.”

I almost mention she’s reached one herself, by suggesting this trip in the first place, agreeing to get to know me out-of-state and hundreds of miles from her comfort zone. Instead, I say, “Possum chunks,” motioning to the dead animal on my side of the road. Juliette doesn’t get grossed out by the gory randomness of my icebreaker, just raises an amused corner of her mouth and continues staring out the window.

“Deer carcass,” she notes, a minute or two later.

“Where?”

“Up here on the—never mind, don’t look.” Grimacing, she uses her large purse to block off her section of the windshield from my view, but she’s too late … what the hell?

“Was its head completely detached?” I ask her.

“Yes, but trying not to think about it.”

“Sorry.”

A few minutes later, she puts her game face back on and says, “Squirrel remnants, on your left.”

“Good one.”

With all due respect to the roadkill, there’s a silver lining to be had here: Juliette’s playing my new game without me having to beg or poorly explain the rules (It’s just like spotting a padiddle and calling it out before someone else, only with animal guts). If she asks me, we’re officially on vacation. She won’t, though. That’s more my type of question. I’ll hold off till our feet touch the sand.

Juliette

ONLY FOUR HUNDRED miles to go. Whenever Abram makes a sharp turn, I hear the rattling of a pill or twenty against the plastic bottle stowed inside the front pocket of my purse. It gives me a sense of car-ride calm that I’m not proud of but otherwise couldn’t achieve. Not without making a drunk dial from Heidi’s cell-phone flask, which somehow found its way into my suitcase during her una

We’ve cruised by two police cars in the last five minutes, so I tell Abram about the flask, the second-most-responsible thing I can do after not bringing it in the first place. (So where’s the meth lab? the highway patrolman will ask after he finishes his search through my things.) Abram’s not fretting the legalities, if his jokey fist-pumping is any indication. I appreciate how he puts the same hand right back on the wheel before I start pressing my foot against the nonexistent passenger-side brake. There’s nothing less masculine than a guy who acts like he has too much testosterone for two-handed steering.

“Let’s stop at a gas station and get snacks soon,” I suggest.

Keeping his eyes on the road, he reaches over and pats my arm gently—I think he was looking for my hand (it’s underneath my leg). As he’s maneuvering the car around the exit ramp, I pat his arm back.

*   *   *

“Where are we?” I ask, handing Abram the bottle of coconut water I bought him, trying to keep him hydrated between caffeine spikes. It’s his job to keep the snack crumbs from accumulating in the crevices of his shorts, but apparently he’s trying to get fired.

“The interstate,” he says, scratching the back of his neck and shooting me a reassuring smile. “We’re on the right road, promise.”

I turn on the GPS, then spend the next five minutes trying to change the lady’s accent to British. I’m one of those people with too much time on her hands, letting the wind take me to unproductive places where I mess with the settings of electronics. Then I remember that’s the whole point. The underarching theme of the trip, even. To sit still long enough to find a part of my personality I enjoy being around more, or become a completely different person who doesn’t dissect her personality into parts.

“Wa

“Yes,” I say, as quickly as I’ve ever agreed to anything. I used to play the same game with my dad—on our way to getting office supplies and Starbucks, not a big bowl of disgusting ice cream.

“Mont—”

“Helena,” I answer, giving him a girlish fist-pump of my own. The maneuver is missing most of his humor when I do it, but he laughs anyway. I hide my embarrassment by getting more serious than the nothing we both have at stake warrants and saying, “Norway.”

He bites his lip, probably thinking we were quizzing each other on U.S. capitals only, and this is why I’m not someone people should root for.

“Never mind, let’s just do states,” I say. “Virginia.”

He shakes his head like everything’s under control and says, “Oslo?”

I’d be as shocked as the Norwegians if I didn’t already know Abram’s been sandbagging his potential around me. Which is why I put his big pile of unopened mail in my bag last night, after he fell asleep. Maybe I am that thing. The girl-thing who’s going to turn him into college material after all.

19

ABRAM

I DEFEATED JULIETTE in one out of the many capital games we played—thank you, Lithuania!—but we’re not allowed to talk about it until she’s had enough time to figure out what’s gone wrong with the world.

Good thing we’re almost to our destination, just crossed over the bridge and onto the island. Forgot how much friendlier people are down south—perfect example being the personable woman with the bright-red lipstick at the toll booth back there, who seems to be having one of her best days in years. I open the windows and slide back the sunroof, in case there’s an element in the air we can get in on. (There’s definitely some NaCl, Mr. Kerns, so does that make up for me skipping Chemistry today, tomorrow, and possibly Tuesday?)

“It’s nice here,” Juliette says. Then she coughs a couple of times and closes her eyes, enjoying the wind in her immovable bun. The relaxation lasts a minute or so before she’s removing one of her two jackets and turning her heated seat down from High to Low … and then back up to Medium. Sitting up straighter, she cranes her neck around toward her open window, trying to see as much of the ocean as possible. Makes me feel like we’ve made the right irresponsible decision.

We stop at the Piggly Wiggly to pick up a few groceries, and I only oink three or four times while we’re there. Juliette oinks once in the frozen-foods section, but softly enough to keep her dignity. Twenty minutes later, I’m creeping the car through the gates of our private neighborhood, holding up my permit to the Kindle-reading security guard, who grins and points to his device like he’s got a real page-turner in his hands. I glance in the direction of the country club as I roll the car over a speed bump, past the te

Our house is the last on the street. Looks a lot like the others—picturesque, manicured, surrounded by palm trees. On the front side, the sound of palm fronds rustling in the breeze is pretty much a constant. The back of the house sits up against the beach, protected from the tide by a sand dune. Juliette’s staring at her arm, and for a second I wish we could ride around town for the next four days instead of going inside—that way, I could guarantee we wouldn’t find some sort of immediate setback left behind by our parents. But suppose we did drive away from any potential difficulties inside … then what? We’d still be the same people regardless of our surroundings, and eventually our pasts would catch up and be like, Hey, guys, remember how shitty we were?