Алан Дин Фостер - To the Vanishing Point

Wendy didn’t whine. She just ignored him, as she ignored the barren landscape flashing past the windows while slipping fresh tapes in and out of her player as efficiently as any late-night DJ. Frank no longer tried to point out ocotillo or cholla, jumping cactus or paloverde. He could have counted on more response from a stone.

"You never thought much of this trip either, did you?"

Alicia Sonderberg tried to frame a tactful reply. Truth to tell, she’d been startled when her husband had first broached the idea. It wasn’t like him. One of the traits she most loved him for was his predictability. She’d found him a welcome change from her own unsettled adolescence. Frank made her feel safe and secure right from the start, even during the early days when they’d lived in a cramped studio apartment in a run-down section of Santa Monica while he’d tried to start his business. He was dependable, reliable.

Then out of nowhere came his declared intention to deviate from their vacation plans, from the pattern they’d followed for years. Instead of flying to Vegas, let’s rent a motor home and drive, he’d announced brightly.

She smiled to herself. It wasn’t as if he’d proposed chartering a plane to fly to the North Pole so they could watch polar bears and walrus. Nevertheless, she’d quietly tried to change his mind, arguing that Steven wasn’t old enough to appreciate whatever they might encounter and that Wendy wouldn’t care. That she’d been proven correct so far was small comfort. She derived no pleasure from her husband’s disappointment.

It was no way to begin a vacation. He’d always expected the truth from her and she’d always given it to him, but it was going to be hard to reply honestly. Oh sure, one or two things they’d seen had been of interest, but they had to consider the children. Frankly, Wendy and Steven were bored to tears. Wendy wanted boys to admire her new swimsuits and Steven wanted his snacks. Their idea of a vacation was not slowing down to watch a real, live rattlesnake cross the road. It wasn’t Alicia’s, either. The closest she wanted to get to creepy-crawlies was watching them on PBS. She was even more of a city person than Frank. Thank God they could afford a gardener.

Seeing how genuinely distraught her husband was, she tried to work around the question. "Frank, you know how I always like to look my best for you."

He frowned. "What’s that got to do with anything?"

"Cosmetics don’t hold up too well in this kind of climate. That’s why I don’t go outside when we’re in Vegas, except to go to the pool."

"You’re being evasive, hon."

She smiled gently. "Maybe a little. Frank, you’ve got to admit this hasn’t been very exciting so far."

"Did I promise excitement? Did I ever say it was going to be exciting? We’re going to spend a week in Vegas, for chrissake. Isn’t that excitement enough? Can’t we take a few days away from that to have an educational experience?"

She looked toward the middle of the motor home. "I’m afraid the kids have had all the education they can take."

He grunted and leaned over the wheel. "The kids! My kids. The zombie and the human garbage disposal. The Jacksons they ain’t."

"Frank, their summer vacation just started. They’ve been nine months in school. The last thing in the world they’re interested in is an educational experience. Don’t you remember what it was like when you were their age?"

"It should be fun for them, too." He was losing ground and knew it. "I mean, seeing that big diamondback cross the road. You know how many kids never get that close to a real, live rattler?"

"Every kid in L.A. gets to the zoo."

"That’s not the same thing as seeing it in its natural habitat," he protested.

"I’m not sure I-40 qualifies as a natural habitat, Frank."

He nodded to himself. "You’re gonna fight me on this one, aren’t you?" He swerved slightly to avoid a piece of broken crate littering the pavement, pulling into the fast lane to go around it. He barely bothered to glance at the sideview mirror. There’d been so little traffic since they’d left the outskirts of San Bernardino he felt they had the highway to themselves. In a sense they did.

The Sonderberg children attended private school. The public schools didn’t let out for another two weeks. That was another reason why they always vacationed this time of year. The usual tourist destinations were still devoid of high school and college students and families traveling with kids. Only Wendy was upset, bemoaning the lack of boys her own age to chat with.

Frank worried about his daughter’s preoccupation with members of the opposite sex, only to have Alicia reassure him that it was nothing but another phase. Wendy was no worse than any other pretty girl that age, and better than some. It was all part of growing up. Like her son’s admittedly regrettable overeating problem.

Alicia had to admit that her son’s junk food binge was lasting longer than was healthy. His continued inactivity wouldn’t be so bad if he was, say, a computer genius or something. But he was quite average, well-meaning enough but in no way exceptional. In that regard he was much like his parents. Frank Sonderberg had risen above his station through sheer determination and hard work. Maybe when Steven was older he would begin to show some skill, or at least a little of his father’s drive. To date, however, the boy had proved himself relentlessly ordinary.

Nobody appreciated what he was trying to do for them with this trip, Frank mused. Not Wendy and Steven, not even Alicia. They knew only city life, the big house, the private schools, vacations, and shopping sprees. It wasn’t right. He enjoyed all those things himself, having worked hard to gain them. But there ought to be some balance in a person’s life. Frank was big on balance.

If you lived in the city then you should spend some time in the country, and if you were a country person you needed to experience the sophistication of the city. Balance. Television couldn’t compensate. Watching the creatures of the desert on Nova or Disney or Nature wasn’t the same as encountering them in the wild.

Their brief sight of a family of javelinas in a gully just the other side of Barstow had been instructive. Alicia couldn’t get over how "cute" the two babies were. Wendy wondered why all the fuss over a bunch of hairy pigs, and Steven spent the whole evening at the RV park whining about bacon and pork chops. While there was something to be said for reducing an experience to its essential elements, his family had a way of doing it that transformed the extraordinary into the mundane.

Maybe he was expecting too much of them. Especially the kids. He doubted they were all that different from their friends. Everything had been given to them. Alicia knew better, but his decision to drive instead of fly to Vegas was clearly baffling to her as well.

Indifference and muted hostility. Those were his rewards for trying to act the responsible father. For trying to show his family something of the world beyond Los Angeles. Side trips to San Diego, San Francisco, and New York didn’t count. He’d sired an urban family, pure and simple. To Wendy and Steven a wildlife expedition consisted of going to the beach and fighting to avoid anything organic while playing in the surf.

He looked up at the map secured by magnetic clips to the bare metal dash above the radio/cassette player. Fifty miles to go to Baker, the minuscule outpost of civilization that lay between Barstow and Vegas. This was one of the emptiest spots in California. Nothing to the south, Death Valley to the north.

In point of fact, he reluctantly confessed to himself, it was pretty boring. Not like the Pacific Northwest or the bayous of the Deep South. Not that he was intimate with those regions, either. He was an armchair explorer, letting someone else’s camera be his eyes. Until this trip.