C. Box: The Highway

Danielle was dark-haired, big-eyed, with a full figure and a wide mouth. She was everything Gracie wasn’t. Gracie was pencil-thin with reddish blond hair, freckles across her nose, and of course she wore glasses because contacts irritated her eyes.

“And you need to stop texting,” Gracie said.

“You are such an old lady,” Danielle replied. “You should have blue hair and a walker. And orthaconic shoes.”

“ Orthopedic. ”

“Whatever.”

“Look,” Gracie said, “I was up until two this morning getting all my homework done. I’m tired.”-Danielle rolled her eyes. She never did homework.-“and I want to get some sleep. But I can’t sleep with you speeding up and slowing down and weaving all over the road.”

Danielle didn’t respond and didn’t indicate she even heard her. She was looking at her phone.

“He won’t answer,” she said.

“Who, Justin?”

“Of course Justin. Who else?”

“Oh, stop it,” Gracie moaned.

“He always asks about you. He thinks of you as the dorky little sister he never had.”

“God!”

“I tell him how smart you are, how you got all of the brains while I got all of the rest. How all the teachers can’t believe we’re even related and blah-blah-blah.” She wriggled her fingers in the air while she talked because she knew how much the gesture annoyed Gracie and always had. “And he asks, ‘Is she still a flat little plain Jane?’”

“He did not!” Gracie whined. The fact was, Danielle was more than a little correct. Justin was a genuinely great guy, smart and athletic, always positive. He was a reader, too, and Gracie and Justin had discussed books while Danielle stood aside rolling her big blue eyes. Gracie and Justin probably had more in common than Danielle and Justin, Gracie thought. They had both read the entire Harry Potter series, for one thing. But Justin had moved with his mother to Helena, Montana, in the spring. Danielle hadn’t seen him since, although they were in constant contact via cell phone, Facebook, and Twitter.

“Well, no, maybe he didn’t exactly say it,” Danielle said, enjoying the torture of her sister, “but he was thinking it. I know this because the two of us, Justin and me, are like one. I’ll bet you never in a million years would have guessed we’d still be together two years later.”

“You’re right,” Gracie said. “How long before he figures out you’re dumber than a box of rocks?”

Danielle ignored that. She said, “We are, you know, like one being. Like we had a mind-meld. We can finish each other’s sentences. I bet you didn’t know that about us.”

Gracie said, “Anybody can finish your sentences. All they have to say is, ‘That’s, like, friggin’ awesome.’ See how easy it is?”

“You can be such a little bitch,” Danielle said, stung.

“I’m tired!”

“Then go to sleep,” Danielle said. “Leave me alone.”

Gracie sighed and sat back. She tried not to think about Danielle, or the fact that the moment she closed her eyes her sister stomped on the gas pedal and started texting on her phone.

* * *

Gracie slept hard, and when she awoke she sat up and rubbed her eyes. She was surprised to see that it was late afternoon and the sun was slanting shadows across the empty landscape.

“You snore,” Danielle said.

There were distant mountains to the west and it took her a moment to say, “Where are we? This doesn’t look like Nebraska.”

“Really?” Danielle smirked. “It doesn’t?”

“Danielle,” she said, alarmed, “where are we?”

Her sister flipped her hair back and said, “Somewhere between Casper and Sheridan, Wyoming.”

Gracie was suddenly wide-awake. “You missed the turnoff. We’re in Wyoming instead of Nebraska. We’re north instead of east. Turn around!”

“Calm down,” Danielle said. “I know what I’m doing.”

“What?”

“I’m going to Helena to see Justin. He won’t answer my texts and he won’t take my calls. There’s something wrong and I have to see him.”

It took a few seconds for Gracie to comprehend what she’d been told. When she did, she said, “Have you lost your friggin’ mind?”

“No, I’ve found it,” Danielle said theatrically. “Someone has gotten to Justin and I won’t let it happen.”

Gracie shook her head in disbelief. “Turn around or I’m calling Mom.”

Danielle snorted.

Gracie realized why when she reached into her bag on the floor of the car and her phone wasn’t there.

“Give it back,” Gracie said.

“I will when you calm down,” Danielle said. She refused to meet her sister’s eyes, and for once concentrated on the road ahead of her. Gracie had rarely seen Danielle so determined … or so irrational.

“I’ll clear it with Dad,” Danielle said. “If he’s okay with it, you should be okay with it. He’s the one making the call here. Mom will have Thanksgiving with Aunt Susan and it won’t matter where we are if Dad says it’s okay.”

“But he won’t ,” Gracie pleaded. “He’ll tell us to turn around and now we won’t get there until the middle of the night.”

Danielle said, “So you’ll agree that if he says it’s okay, you’ll calm the fuck down?”

Gracie balled up her hands and pounded them once, hard, on her knees. “This is so stupid I can’t believe it.”

“Hush,” Danielle said, “I’m calling.”

As soon as Gracie heard Danielle say, in her most girlish and syrupy voice, “Hi, Daddy, it’s Danny,” she knew how the conversation would turn out. And she hated her father for it.

Danielle activated the speaker on her cell phone and Gracie could hear both sides of the conversation.

Their dad was a pushover, especially for Danielle’s pleading, and especially since he still felt guilty about the disaster of their back-country trip to Yellowstone Park two years before. He was still trying to make up for it and the only way he knew how was to give in to anything Danielle asked of him and to try to get himself back into her good graces.

“Does your mom know?” Ted Sullivan asked. Gracie could hear the fear in his voice.

“Not yet,” Danielle said. “But don’t worry. I’ll tell her.”

Silence.

Finally, Ted said, “But if I know what you’re doing and I don’t tell her…”

“I’ll handle Mom,” Danielle said with confidence.

Ted obviously wasn’t convinced, though. He said, “She asked me to call her when you girls arrived. I can’t call her and lie. I just can’t.”

Danielle frowned for a moment, then grinned. “I’ve got it,” she said. “Just don’t call at all. Tell her tomorrow you forgot. That sounds like something you’d do. By then everything will be fine.”

“Boy, I don’t know,” Ted said with doubt in his voice.

“Daddy, we all know how scatterbrained you can be. This won’t be the first time you forgot something.”

“That’s true,” he said.

“Dad!” Gracie shouted. She couldn’t remain silent another second. “Did you forget you have two daughters?”

“Hi, Gracie,” he said sheepishly.

“Maybe I don’t want to go, did you think about that?” Gracie said. “Did you think maybe I don’t want to spend Thanksgiving with Danielle’s boyfriend?”

Before Ted could respond, Danielle switched off her speaker and pulled the phone up to her ear. “Daddy, you really like Justin, don’t you? Remember when you told me that?”

Gracie was so angry she could barely hear the rest of the conversation. It went on for another five minutes before Danielle said, “Goodbye. I love you, Daddy,” and dropped the phone into her lap.