Road to Paradise (5 page)

“But what about the things you
have
to be doing?”

“Not so much for those, Sloane.”

We are quite uncertain about his future at college. He and I are both worried and frankly not optimistic. Fortunately he’s going to New Rochelle, just five miles away, and will commute, so if he flunks out, he’ll still be in his own bed.

Things don’t get away from me.

Guess what kind of person Gina is?

“Four hundred and seventy miles,” I said to Gina in the hall as we walked from Health to English. “From Bakersfield to Mendocino.”

“Well, how would I get there?”

I said nothing. I was providing the use of my outrageous wheels all the way across the country. I wanted to suggest the use of a Greyhound bus all the way across the country. Or perhaps an airplane ticket. I said nothing, hoping she would see reason all by herself, but she spent two or three minutes until the bell rang heartily complaining, after which I said, “Gina, you’ll have to get on a bus. It’s just a few hours.”

“If it’s a few hours, why can’t you drive me?”

“I’m being metaphorical about the few hours. It’s incredibly out of my way.”

“Just a few miles.”

“Four hundred and seventy few miles to be exact. And I don’t know why I have to point out the obvious, but you do realize I have to drive back to Mendocino? That’s two extra days for me. You’re staying in Bakersfield, but I’m actually driving back.”

“I’m not staying in Bakersfield,” she said, sounding defensive. “I’m coming back here. With him.”

“With who?”

“With Eddie, of course. Who do you think I’m going to Bakersfield for?”

I said nothing. Really, there are times in your life when it’s better to say nothing. This was one of them.

Gina’s blue eyes stared at me for a second longer than I was comfortable with, and then ran to class.

My hands itched all through English, I couldn’t hold a pen. What I wanted to say was, are you kidding me? I’m not bringing you and him back to New York. I’m not spending a week with him and you in my car. You might as well ask me to start speaking French or type sixty words a minute. It ain’t happenin’.
Mais non.
Jamais. Jamais
.

Instead of talking about this, the important thing, Gina and I had an arithmetic lesson. An elementary physics lesson. A time and distance lesson. We took minutes, divided them into hours and siphoned miles through time, and time through miles, taking 470 of them, which was almost 480, dividing them by 60 minutes, and concluding with 8 hours without stops,
each way
, but after 30 minutes of this, Gina still couldn’t grasp what 60 minutes had to do with how fast the car was traveling, as if time and distance were in no way related. She didn’t understand why my 350 horsepower Mustang, traveling at nearly 137 miles per hour, couldn’t get from Mendocino to Bakersfield and back in 55 minutes. While explaining it to her, I could barely understand it myself, and it certainly didn’t help me to understand the most important thing—
was she really expecting me to bring her and Eddie back to New York?
Jamais
!

The preparations were monumental. Maybe it was because I’d never been anywhere. Or because I was a planner and couldn’t plan for two weeks I couldn’t foresee in my pedestrian imagination. I didn’t want Emma to know I was having trouble because I didn’t want her to say, if you can’t pack and plan for a little trip, how are you going to pack for college? I wanted to reply to her unasked question that it’s a lot easier to pack
all
your stuff than to selectively pack some of it. Like, how am I supposed to know what I’m going to wear in Nevada, on an indefinite tomorrow? Is the temperature the same in Nevada as in Larchmont? “Probably a touch warmer,” said Emma.

Are there mosquitoes? “There are mosquitoes everywhere.”

“Really, everywhere? But there’s no water in Nevada. Aren’t mosquitoes swamp creatures?”

“Well, then, you’ve answered your own question.”

“No water?” said Gina when she heard. “What about Lake Tahoe?”

“What do you know about Lake Tahoe, Reed?” exclaimed Marc. He called all the girls by their last name. Took the sex right out of them. And mine stuck. This took place during lunch.

“Nothing,” Gina defended. “Except Fredo Corleone was killed on it, and it was in Nevada.”

“Oh,
Fredo
Corleone. Well, then, absolutely. Better bring repellant.”

Did it get cold at night? No one knew, not even Gina; that part wasn’t in “The Godfather.”

Was it windy? We decided it was. We packed some breakers.

Do I bring hairspray? Extra underwear? Warm socks?

“I don’t think it’s ever a bad idea to pack extra underwear and socks,” said Emma. “But you don’t wear hairspray here; why would you start there?”

Maybe I was going to be a different person there.

Challengingly I bought hairspray.

Are hotel rooms warm or cold? Do they give you towels? Extra blankets? Sometimes I get cold at night.

“In the summer?”

We circled the horses around to the original question. Did it get cold at night and are hotel rooms warm or cold?

“Does it get cold at night where?” said Marc. “In Nevada? You’ll blow through the state in four hours. What about South Dakota? Iowa? Utah? Wyoming? Why don’t you care if it gets cold there?”

What did Utah have to do with my business, and should I bring my favorite pillow?

Should I bring a camera, my Kodak Instamatic? Or will Emma lend me her Polaroid, and what’s better, the top-notch quality of my Instamatic, or the stick-it-in-the-darkroom-of-a-partially-closed-drawer quality of the Polaroid?

Should I bring books to read?

“Do you plan to be doing much reading while you’re driving?” Marc asked. He asked this slowly to convey what he really thought of my question.

“Aren’t you all Walden Pondy,” I said, shoving him. “Go sketch something while I do all the work.”

He was sitting in my room doing nothing. He sketched me packing.

“Perhaps a book for a rainy day?” I asked. Why did I always sound so defensive, even with my friends?

“You won’t be driving in the rain, then?”

Should I bring cash?

“Yes, Sloane,” said Marc even more slowly, the wretch. “You should bring some money. After all, you might need gas.”

I threw my pillow at him, knocking the coal pencils out of his hands.

“I
mean
,” I said, “cash or Travelers’ checks? And if I bring cash, where do I stash it? Do I hide it?”

“Hide it from who? Gina?”

“Well, I don’t know. Can I trust her?”

“Can she trust
you
?” said Marc, and I didn’t have a pillow left to throw.

“One more comment like this, and you’ll have to walk home.”

“Where are you going to hide your money from her in your little Shelby car? How hard would you have to hide it before she a, realizes what you’re doing and b, takes it personally?”

I sighed. “You’re exasperating.”

“
I’m
exasperating?” He went back to sketching.

“How much money will I need? Do I bring more than I need? Or just enough? And what if I run out? How will I get more? I have no credit card, and who’d give me one anyway? I have no job.”

Marc got up and handed me his drawing. “I’m going home,” he said, wearily. “I’m glad I’m broke, and can’t go, and don’t have your problems.”

After he left, I wished he could come with us. He’d drawn me like a brown flurry in the middle of a messy room, with greenbacks flying in the air. I taped it to my wall, as I figured things out.

By my estimation we would be gone fifteen days and fourteen nights. We needed gas for 6000 miles. But what if it was 6500? And what if on uphill slopes, the Mustang’s gas mileage dipped from twenty-three miles per gallon to twenty?

“So?” said Marc when I called to discuss the imponderables. “On downhill slopes, mileage will be twenty-six. You better hope it’ll all even out.”

But that’s the whole thing right there. What if it didn’t even out? What if Gina twisted my arm and I had to drive her 480 miles to Bakersfield, go north to Mendocino and then head back south again to pick her up?
Pas possible!
How did I calculate for that kind of unknown?

The hotel room. Fifteen nights. But what if it turned out to be sixteen? What if it took me a few extra days to locate the woman who gave birth to me? What if Gina wanted to spend a few extra days in Eddie’s stellar company?

“So? Sleep in the car,” Marc said, in a “Freebird” voice that said it would be the height of adventure to sleep in the car because you ran out of money.

I calculated fifty dollars a night for a motel for sixteen nights. But what if it was sixty dollars? And what about room tax?

“Yes, room tax is different in every state,” Marc said. “And parking? And what if you lose your room key and have to pay ten bucks for a new one? I don’t think you’re planning enough, Sloane.”

I agreed. Food. Did we
have
to eat three times a day? Plus water for the drive. Maybe an adult beverage, once, twice, in a bar somewhere?

“Yes, good, plan for a drunken binge,” said Marc. “But what about a cover charge?”

The car will need an oil change.

“Every 3000 miles. Your car, maybe more often. And incidentals?”

“I budgeted for them. Like what?”

“Well, I don’t know. That’s why they’re called incidentals.”

I thought about it. “You mean like nail polish?”

“Yes, that’s exactly what came to
my
mind. And acetone. And aspirin.”

“Forget it. I’ll live with a headache.” I bit my nails to eschew the incidentals.

“A flat tire?”

“Okay, I’ll bring an extra forty dollars.”

“What if you hit a deer and get another flat tire?”

“Why would I hit a deer?”

“Sloane, I don’t know why you do many of the things you do.”

“Shut up.”

I calculated. Hotel: seventeen days at sixty bucks a day. Gas: 7000 miles at twenty miles a gallon at a buck twenty-five. I factored in three cans of oil, another pair of windshield wipers, jumper cables, a tire jack, a poncho. Plus: enough cash for three daily squares, ice cream seven times, two daily Cokes, a daily coffee.
Also: six adult beverages, forty bucks for a flat tire, another fifty bucks for just in case, and twenty dollars for a gift for Emma. I added it up. I divided by me and Gina.

It came out to $1700. Each. Plus a gift for Emma, so my share was $1720!!!

Perhaps it was a blessing Gina was coming with me. When I told her how much her share was, she didn’t pause, didn’t blink. “That’s all? Hmm. I thought it was going to be more. But I’m going to bring an extra hundred for clothes, because I love clothes, and another hundred just to be on the safe side.” She sounded almost like a morning person. So clear-headed. I applauded her cautiousness and followed her example. Gina said she worked in a Dairy Barn for two years, saved a little. She was a saver, too! Was I wrong about her?

I took all my money out of the bank—or what was left of it after new running shoes and a prom dress and paying for a quarter of the prom limo I was sharing with my friends Marc, Cindy, and Jessica.

Emma offered me an extra $300.

“No, Em. You already did plenty.” I tried to think of what she’d done. “You got me a car!” I said brightly, hoping she’d notice.

She didn’t. “Take it,” she said sensibly, and then—nonsensically, “
Believe
me, you’ll need it.”

More? Less?

“No, no, I’ll be fine. I planned it all out.” Then I remembered. What about shampoo, conditioner?

“Hotels give you that.” Emma paused. “Maybe not conditioner.” She paused again. “Maybe not motels.”

“Maybe not motels what? Not give you shampoo or conditioner?”

“Either.”

“Oh.”

Hotels were going to be too expensive. Which led me back to my question: how much shampoo, how much conditioner? A bottle of “Gee Your Hair Smells Terrific” usually lasted a month. I decided
to bring two of each, just to be on the safe side. Emma paid for those.

Gina and I didn’t get together for an inventory before we left. We should have, and wanted to, but I was busy, and she was busy. I went to four parties, there was a graduation, a senior picnic, a prom, packing, planning. We didn’t have time. We didn’t make time.