Paullina Simons - Road to Paradise

But it was impotent rage. I couldn’t go back to Aunt Betty’s, and I knew it.

Gina looked composed and unconcerned; she rubbed my arm, said shh, tried to use a soothing voice, as if she were now the mumsie, and I was the unreasonable tot demanding a pony. “It’s fine,” she said. “We’ll be okay. So we’ll go to St. Louis? What’s a couple of days in the scheme of things? I’ve never been to St. Louis. Don’t you want to see the Arch? We can go all the way to the top. Did you know it’s the world’s tallest man-made monument, at 630 feet?”

I was so tired. I wished Gina, all perky and bubbly, could drive so I could sleep. If horses were wishes.

We got back on the road around five. It was time to start thinking about dinner, and we hadn’t gone but ten miles from Aunt Betty’s house, our sum total for the day. I couldn’t believe I told Emma I’d be back in two and a half weeks. I must’ve been delusional.

“Hey, you want a Blue Jay pumpkin? Look, they’re only a quarter.”

“No.”

“Look at the name of the town.” Gina laughed. “Valparaiso. Isn’t that funny?”

I didn’t know what was so funny.

“We’re in Indiana . You’ve got Joe’s Bar and Grill, and you’ve got Tony’s Car Repair next to Pump’s On Restaurant, next to Tasty Taco, in Valparaiso ?”

“So?”

“You don’t think Tasty Taco is a little too hoi-polloi for Valparaiso?”

“No. I just think the people who named the town came from Chile.”

“I think, Miss Literal,” Gina said, “somebody’s lost her funny bone.”

“Completely,” I agreed. “I’m cranky like a child.”

I glanced over at Gina sitting there, whistling a tune, a smile on her face. And then he’ll settle down … Eddie was planning to marry someone else and she was whistling. In some quiet little town … If my boyfriend were planning to marry someone else, I sure wouldn’t be whistling. Perhaps she didn’t care. But then why was she riding shotgun across the continent and the Great Divide to stop him? Either you care or you don’t, but what’s with the whistling? I pulled her hair. “You’re not worried?” I asked.

“’Bout what?”

“Anything.”

“I’m not worried ’bout nothin’,” said Gina, wiping her head and humming. You know he’ll always keep moving …

We passed a little brown sign that said “Picnic Area at Great Marsh State Park.” That made me laugh.

“Oh, now she’s amused.” You know he’s never gonna stop moving …

“Because it’s funny. First of all, why in the world would anyone have a state park in a marsh ? That’s first. And second, why would you want to have a picnic there?”

“Not as funny as Valparaiso.”

“Funnier.”

“Don’t think so.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

Suddenly we fell mute as if the power had just gone out. Up ahead on Dunes Highway near Fremont, at the traffic light, on the right-hand side of the road across from the Great Marsh Picnic Grounds, with her thumb in the air was the girl from the black truck in Maryland. She must’ve recognized our car because she smiled at us and waved happily.

Gina and I blinked, not believing our eyes.

“Oh my God,” I said. “Is that the same—”

“Holy shit. Shh. Think so.”

“Why are you saying shh? It can’t be.”

“Well, look!”

“It can’t be!” I exclaimed.

“It most certainly is.”

“God, what do we do?”

“I don’t know. Holy shit. Can you turn somewhere?”

“Turn where!” We were on U.S. 12, with the lake on the right and the marsh picnic grounds on the left, and nowhere to turn. The railroad yards and the steel mills were up ahead. The headquarters of U.S. Steel were up ahead. And so was she. I don’t know what loomed larger. The light was turning red; I was forced to slow down and come to a stop. Right next to her. Her thumb still out, she came closer, staring expectantly into our passenger window.

“What do we do!” That was me, in a deathly whisper. I was flabbergasted, blinking furiously, as if hoping that she, like the haunting by Ned, would evaporate. I mean, it couldn’t be her. Not here, it just couldn’t be. We weren’t meant to be here; why was she? We had passed her in another life, days ago on a local road four states away; what wind blew her here? What wind blew us here? “What do we do, Gina …”

“Nothing.” Gina turned to me. “What are you talking about? Nothing. Look straight ahead, like when the homeless in the city come to wash our windshield. Look away. Ignore her. The light’s gonna change soon.”

“Gina …” I couldn’t look away. I was staring at the girl outside the window. Her smile was broad, like me she was chewing gum, smiling like Gina (who was no longer even faintly smiling). She looked so young, and she opened her hands at us, as if to say, “ Well ?” standing in her little blue skirt, skinny, her hair all weird. In her hands she held a shopping bag. What I was seeing was a cataclysmic coincidence, against all probabilities, impossible in a rational world, in a statistical world, in a world ruled by my plan.

“It’s fate, Gina Reed,” I said.

“Are you kidding me?”

“No.” I looked at the girl again. “It’s a supernatural event.”

“You know what we do when the gods show us what they have in store for us?” Gina said. “We snub our noses at them, and do something else, just to shake things up, to make it less boring.”

“You’re not curious?”

“No! I’m non-curious. I’m the anti-curious. I’m negatively curious.”

“Come on. We’re giving the stupid rats a ride. Why do the dogs rate a Shelby, but not the girl? Open your door.”

“No! Are you out of your mind?”

“You know she isn’t headed to St. Louis.”

“How do you know where she’s headed?” Gina exclaimed. “ We’re not supposed to be headed to St. Louis.”

“True. Look, we’ll give her a ride to I-80, drop her off at the first rest stop, no harm, no foul. It’s just a few miles. I’m dying to find out how she got here. Look at her. She’s a kid. She could be your sister. That’s Molly out there.”

“No.”

I got some energy back. The light was still red, and she was outside our car with her hands open. “Gina, it’s a miracle.”

“No, it isn’t. A miracle is a good thing.”

“It’s like magic!”

“Yes, black magic.”

“We forgot all about her, and yet here she is, hitching on Route 12 on the Great Lake. At our red traffic light. She is the extraordinary. She is the unexpected. Let’s give her a ride.” The light finally turned green. The sedan behind honked to speed us on.

“Please, no,” said Gina. “Sloane, keep going. We’re doing well, we’re friends again, don’t ruin it, don’t spoil it.”

My heart squeezed. I almost sped up, if only the pull of the unknown weren’t so great, the pull of something I didn’t understand, but wanted to. This wasn’t in my spiral notebook. It could never be. This was no random event. And if this wasn’t, then the black truck wasn’t. And if the black truck wasn’t random, then nothing in the world was random. I had felt so bad back then for being such a chicken, for not letting her in. How often did you get a second chance? “I’m not going to spoil it. Come on. I traipsed around the country for your aunts and your dogs. What’s the big deal? You said so yourself. It’s just for a few miles. To the Interstate. Let’s help her out. Or some horrible guy in a black truck is going to pick her up. Is that what you want?”