Paullina Simons - Road to Paradise

I had no idea what that meant. I hadn’t taken care of anything my whole life. I couldn’t get a one-eyed frog to last through winter. Naturally I said, “Yes, of course, Mrs. Reed. But Gina and I are friends. We look out for each other.”

“You’re her keeper now, Shelby,” Mrs. Reed continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “You know I’ve always thought of you as her older sister.”

“Absolutely. Me, too. Well, actually, she’s ten months older, but I know what you mean. And you know sisters, they take care of each other.”

“She’s in good hands. I know you’ll watch out for her. I’ve always liked you. You really don’t mind taking the dogs to Baltimore, do you?” She offered me fifty dollars for my trouble. I have a hard time saying no when people offer me money (it happens so rarely) and I didn’t say no then.

“And Molly promises she’ll be no trouble.”

Dumbly I said, Molly ? The time was nearing eleven. I was too afraid to look at my watch. I ripped it off my wrist and threw it in the backseat, as if removing the time counter from my person allowed me the illusion of control, as in, if I don’t know what time it is, then it’s not really that late, is it?

Gina returned. Behind her trailed a grumpy, barely awoken, unbrushed young girl. Molly , Gina’s sister! I hadn’t seen her in two years, and since then, she’d sprung things on her body, like boobs and hips. Back when I knew Gina’s sister, she was a kid. Now she was twelve and unrecognizable. Cheerfully, to balance her sister’s sulky pre-teen face, Gina said, “My mom wanted my sister to come along, too.”

“Gina, don’t lie,” said Molly. “You invited me.”

Flushed, Gina glared at her sister and to me said, “I thought it’d be fun, don’t you think?”

“Is she coming with you all the way to Bakersfield?” I asked, not so carefully.

“Shh! Don’t be silly. No, no,” Gina quickly said, not looking at me.

Molly, as it turned out, was even less prepared than Gina. She had gone to get her toothbrush, a book to read (though she didn’t look like the type that read books; that read period ), her rather large cassette player, and her makeup. What else did a twelve-year-old bring to her aunt’s? What else was there? Miniature golf clubs? She said she had to sit in the front. “I get dizzy in the back.”

Gina agreed! Gina was going to sit in the back?

I shook my head. “Molly, do you know how to read a map?”

“Yes,” she said defiantly.

“Oh, good. Because I don’t know where your aunt lives, so you’ll have to direct me out of New York, all right?”

“I can’t read in the car. It makes me dizzy,” said Molly.

“I see.” I nodded. “Perhaps best to sit in the back, then.”

“I can’t sit in the back. It makes me dizzy. Besides, backseat’s too small.”

“Well, that’s perfect, because you’re small, too.”

“No, I can’t.”

“Moll, give Sloane a break, will you?” said Gina with hostility. I suddenly remembered that Gina hated Molly. They never got along. Gina said Molly was spoiled and selfish. Why in the world would she invite her with us to Baltimore? Like children, we stared at Molly, and then pleadingly at Molly’s mother, who pointed a finger at her daughter. “You’ve got one second to get in the back or march right upstairs, young lady.”

Mrs. Reed’s words made no impression on Molly other than to cause a hysterical fit, during which she stormed off upstairs screaming she wasn’t going “Anywhere!” Mrs. Reed soothingly followed. I, for lack of anything to do, other than feel like a dumb ass, brushed my hair. My hair is thin and easy-care, and takes no time at all to brush out. I keep it fairly short for running. I brushed for fifteen minutes. Everyone by this time had left the lawn: the cane-carrying grandmother had gone inside, and Gina had forgotten “one more lipgloss.” Only me and the Pomeranians remained. They had stopped barking and were whimpering now. I knew how they felt.

It was noon. Taking out my spiral notebook, I adjusted my schedule, wrote down the mileage from Larchmont to Glen Burnie (about 250 miles, measured by my pin-point scientific thumb), noted the time, the starting mileage …

By about twelve-thirty, when I had pulled out all of my thin, light, straight as a pin, easy-care-for hair and was debating picking up Gina’s eyelash-tearing habit, a wet-faced Molly reappeared on the grass, mollified. She would sit in the back, “like a good girl,” and would get a hundred dollars for her trouble.

“Ready?” I said to Gina, through my teeth. Molly and the mutts were squeezed in the back. “How about if I drive this leg, and you take the next?”

“What do you mean, take the next?” said Mrs. Reed, leaning in to kiss her daughter goodbye. “Gina doesn’t know how to drive.”

We were on the New England Thruway, and I was yelling. Me, yelling. “You don’t know how to drive? Gina, you told me you had your license! You told me you’d share the driving!”

“I know, I know,” Gina said guiltily. “I’m sorry. I did have my permit, just like you.”

“So what happened? You still have it?”

“Well, no. You know how we’re not supposed to drive at night. In April, I had a little mishap. Drove at night, very slightly teeny bit buzzed. Got stopped. Hence, no license.”

“Oh.” I brightened. “But you do know how to drive, then?”

“No. This wasn’t this past April, but a year ago April. I hadn’t even started my driver’s ed. Sorry, Sloane.”

“Unbelievable. But I kept saying how we would share the driving!”

“I know. I thought you meant that metaphorically.”

“ Metaphorically ? How do you mean something like that metaphorically?”

From the back the twelve-year-old pulled off one of the headphones on the recently released and all the rage Sony Walkman. “Oh, shut up, already. I can’t hear Journey.”

I lowered my voice. “Why didn’t you tell me this?”

“I thought you wouldn’t let me come if I told you,” said Gina.

She was right. I wouldn’t have. I had been hoping she’d drive in the afternoons so I could nap, and now that was out the window; I’d have to readjust my schedule that I’d so carefully written up. But she had disarmed me with her honesty, because I wasn’t used to it. I let it go. What choice did I have? Turn around and bring her back home? After all, I had calculated my expenses for two.

Besides, who was I to lecture Gina on honesty and forthrightness?

We drove a little while in silence.

Well, silence if by silence I mean two squabbling orange furballs and a snoring adolescent with earphones that blasted “Don’t Stop Believin”’ to everyone in the car (how in the world could she sleep to that?).

“So we’re off,” Gina said. “Are you excited?”

“Sure,” I said.

“I’m so excited! I like your car,” she added, as we approached New York City.

“Goes fast, don’t it?” We were moving at a clip of about twelve miles per hour.

It was two in the afternoon.

By five, we were still in New York City, having gone four miles in three hours (construction and two accidents), but on the plus side, it looked as if by sundown we might get to the Battery Tunnel (about forty miles from my house). Still more than 200 miles from our destination of Glen Burnie. And 3200 miles from Mendocino. Gina suddenly seemed a little less excited. We had long eaten all the cannolis.

Molly woke up and asked if we were there yet. I told her I didn’t know what she meant by there, but if she meant downtown New York, then yes, we were. After whining in disbelief for twenty minutes, she announced she was thirsty. Then she was hungry. She had to make a stop. “And the dogs certainly do. Gina, you’re supposed to be responsible for them.”