Paullina Simons - Road to Paradise

“They’re fine.” She hadn’t even looked back at the dogs to check. She was wearing tight jean shorts and a blue-striped sleeveless tunic, and was humming along to the radio.

The gas tank was half empty. But we were in the tunnel now. And in Brooklyn, I wasn’t about to get off anywhere. I’d never find my way back to the BQE. And now look. The Verrazano Bridge was rising up out of the water in front of me, and it was five-thirty at night! “I hope Aunt Flo isn’t going to get upset about our late arrival.”

“She’s expecting us for dinner,” Molly said from the back. “And I’m thirsty.”

“It’ll have to be a late dinner,” I shot right back. “Because it’s dinnertime now, and we’re 200 miles from her house.”

Was this how I’d been planning my first day of freedom? My frustration tasted like metal in my mouth.

“I know this is a little slower than we’d hoped, Sloane,” said Gina, “but it’s okay, it’s all part of it.”

“Part of what?”

“Did you girls know,” said Gina, “that there is one letter of the alphabet that does not appear in any of the states’ names. Which—”

“Z!” yelled Molly from the back.

“No, and don’t shout,” said Gina. “Sloane?”

“I’m not playing,” I said. “Q?”

“Yes, very good. Q is correct.”

“Where does Z appear?”

“The Ozarks,” said Molly.

“The Ozarks are not a state, Molly.”

“Missouri, then.”

“Missouri has no Z.” Gina rolled her eyes.

Molly mouthed it to herself a few times and then exclaimed, “Arizona!”

“Very good. It wasn’t a question, but very good.”

I glanced at Gina as we were pulling off on Victory Boulevard in Staten Island. “How do you know this?”

She shrugged. “I know a few things.”

“What letter doesn’t appear in any of the states? That’s knowing a few things?”

She was philosophical. “And a few things more.”

“When did you learn all this?”

“Dad loves trivia. And he’s so competitive and critical, I had to read up on things.”

“He’s supposed to be critical,” said Molly. “He’s Dad.”

“No, he’s right,” said Gina. “I’m going to be a teacher. I have to be smart.” She adjusted the straps of her black bra.

We got gas at a gunky rest-stop; I pumped while Gina walked the dogs; we were back on the road by six-thirty. As we were getting on the expressway, I noticed a young, barely clad lad with a guitar on his back standing by the side of the road with his thumb out. Gina rolled down the window, stuck her head out, and yelled, “Need a ride, cowboy?”

“Gina!” I pulled her back in.

She waved, blew him a kiss. “Maybe next time, huh?” she shouted.

“What are you doing? We agreed!”

“I’m just joking, Sloane,” she said pretend-solemnly. “Just having fun.” She smiled. “He was cute, though.”

“He could be Robert Redford, we’re not picking anyone up, okay?”

“Oh, come on, you wouldn’t pick up Robert Redford?”

She was right, so I shut up until we got to Goethals Bridge forty-five minutes later and crossed into New Jersey when it was nearing seven o’clock. The sun was hazy in the sky, the noxious industry around us.

One of the passing trucks beeped his jolting loud horn and gave me the thumbs up, which I didn’t understand. We turned up the radio. BBBBBennie and the Jets were plugging us kids into the faithless.

“Are we almost there?” asked Molly again.

“No.”

“Are we almost there?”

“No.”

“Are we almost there?”

“No.”

We drove like this for two interminable New Jersey exits.

“Gina, Molly wears a lot of makeup for a twelve-year-old.”

“I’m gonna be thirteen soon,” said Molly, “and what’s it to you?”

“I’m just saying,” I continued to Gina.

Gina shrugged. “Who does it hurt?”

“She is twelve.”

“Thirteen soon!”

“How soon?”

“May.”

“Thirteen in eleven months?” I shook my head. “Like I was saying.”

“I’m thirsty.”

“I’m really getting hungry.”

“I think I need to make another stop.”

“No way am I stopping again. No stopping till Aunt Flo’s.”

“Are we there yet?”

“Stop it!”

“I think the dogs have to go again.”

I glanced at Gina. “You sure you don’t want to take your sister and the dogs to California with us? Come on. It’ll be fun.”

Gina snorted.

“I’ll go with you guys to California,” Molly said brightly. “This is fun.”

Now it was my turn to snort.

“You should feed her, Sloane,” Gina said. “Did you know that if the stomach doesn’t produce a new layer of mucus every fourteen days, its digestive juices will cause it to digest itself?”

From the back came Molly’s revolted screeching. “Hmm,” I said, stepping on the gas. “So the good news is, only thirteen days to go.”

I watched Molly’s warpainted face in the rearview mirror when she wasn’t bent over the crate playing with the dogs. She was such a kid, yet the makeup made her look seven, eight years older. She wasn’t my sister, and I couldn’t quite articulate what I felt, but what I felt was this. Why did a twelve-year-old need to look older? Why did a twelve-year-old need cherry-red lipstick, the brightness of which Debbie from Dallas would shy away from? Come on, Sloane, I chided myself. Stop being so old.

“The New Jersey Turnpike is arguably the dullest stretch of land in all of America,” I said.

“Do you know that studies have shown,” Gina said, “that more accidents with people falling asleep at the wheel happen on the Jersey Turnpike than anywhere else in the country?”

“Really?”

Gina shrugged. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “But if it isn’t true, it should be.”

Molly piped up once more. “Hey, Shelby, we haven’t seen you in a long time. Where you been?”

“I’ve been around.”

“Not around our house.”

“No.” I trailed off. I didn’t really know what to say. And Gina interestingly didn’t say anything. What do you say? What did Gina say to her mother when her “sister” Shelby had disappeared as if vaporized? I didn’t like Gina’s silence on the subject. She was usually so chirpy. But both her mouth and hands had tensed. She seemed to be almost actively not responding to her sister’s question. We just stopped being friends, that’s all, I wanted to say, but didn’t. Things change, you know? You’ll find out soon enough, Molly. Don’t forget your extra layer of black eyeliner.

Finally! Two hours later, Delaware Memorial Bridge and a wide rushing river; it was the first pretty we’d seen.

“Did you know that the Hudson becomes the Delaware?” asked Gina. “It flows from St. Lawrence in Canada, and then turns into this river.”

“Really?” She was so geographical, this Gina.

“Are we there yet?”

We were there an hour and a half later, at almost eleven.

Aunt Flo, hectored by Gina’s mother, had called the police, alerting them of a mysterious disappearance of a bright yellow Mustang, three “children” inside it (this is how a frantic Mrs. Reed described us to the police officer who came to retrieve us from the Maryland phone booth from which we called for directions) and two small, “ very expensive” dogs. While Gina was on the phone with her mother (telling her to calm down or “the trip will be ruined for sure, Mom!”), Aunt Flo could not understand why it took me so long to go two hundred miles. The Maryland state trooper who helped us find the house was nonchalant. “Hit some traffic, did you?” he said.