Mary Miller - The Last Days of California

“We don’t need a rug where we’re going,” our father said.

“Then I don’t see what the problem is with getting one,” she said, which didn’t make sense, but I knew what she was saying. Buy a rug or don’t. Drive across the country or stay home. None of it really mattered.

“Anybody hungry?” he asked. “We’ve got choices here, we should probably take them.” He pulled off at an exit and we were faced with the usual selection of fast-food restaurants.

“Burger King,” Elise said.

“Taco Bell,” I said.

Our mother also voted for Taco Bell. She liked the regular, crunchy-shell tacos, the kind of thing nobody ordered unless they were getting a dozen in a box. Our father agreed to go through the drive-thrus at both if we ate in the car. I didn’t like to eat in the car because he might wreck and kill us all, but I didn’t want Burger King, either. The only thing I really liked there was the chicken sandwich, and it was good, but I could get more at Taco Bell without looking like a pig.

I ordered some onion rings at Burger King, seven in the box, and a bean burrito, a chicken quesadilla, and a Frutista Freeze at Taco Bell.

“Let me have a sip of that,” Elise said, and I passed my drink to her—strawberry on top and mango on bottom.

“You know this probably has like five hundred calories in it,” she said, stirring it, messing the flavors up.

“Leave me alone,” I said.

Our father pulled into a parking space and bowed his head. He said the standard prayer followed by a long-winded, rambling one in which he asked for guidance and courage. You’re going to need it , I thought, popping an onion ring into my mouth and chewing quietly.

Elise slopped the condiments off her veggie burger with a napkin. She took a bite and said she thought it was MorningStar Farms. It hadn’t occurred to her before but she was pretty sure it was MorningStar, the regular veggie patty, cooked to within an inch of its life. My mother unwrapped my father’s double cheeseburger and secured a napkin around it, and he ate while reaching his other hand into the bag for fries. He steered with his elbows and knees, and when the car began to veer off the road, she reached over and took the wheel. I wondered what she thought of him now, if she still saw him as the man she’d married or if he was so different he was like a stranger. She’d told me once that she’d married him because he was ambitious and honest, which weren’t qualities I’d have used to describe him at all. He had been handsome once, though, tall and slim with a full head of hair. Sometimes I got out their wedding album and flipped through the pictures. There was one in particular I liked: the two of them about to leave for their honeymoon. They stood in front of my father’s sports car, and my mother wore an outfit she had bought special for the occasion, had had her hair and makeup done. They were about to fly to Hawaii, first-class. I knew my mother’s suitcase had been lost, but the airline had given her the money to buy a whole new wardrobe, which she’d spent on beach hats, strappy sandals, and overly revealing dresses that she’d probably never worn again. My father hated to fly, and I couldn’t imagine him agreeing to take her somewhere so far-off and exotic. I couldn’t imagine them snorkeling and exploring the beaches, driving around in a rented jeep with the top down. It made me love them more because I knew the day would come when I would also be unrecognizable to myself.

New Mexico was going by quickly, dull and flat but otherworldly. There were strange flat shrubs and bunches of small trees I’d never seen before. In the distance, mountains loomed low and jagged. The Jesus billboards had been replaced by billboards telling us not to drink and drive, which our father said was due to all of the Indians. Their bodies didn’t process sugar like ours did, so they were more susceptible to diabetes and alcoholism.

“You have diabetes,” Elise said. “And they’re called Native Americans, not Indians. Indians are from India.”

Our father said he’d never met an Indian or a Native American that he liked.

“Hey,” Elise said, and we looked out her window at some dust kicking up.

“Thrilling,” I said, but I kept watching it and it was pretty mesmerizing, the way it moved. I’d never seen dirt act so purposefully. I fingered a tiny scrape on my knee from the bottom of the pool—reassurance that I hadn’t dreamed Gabe. I thought about how he’d looked at me, the things he’d said. I thought about his body and his face and the smell of gas in his van. I was going to replay our time together so often I’d have it memorized forever. I was going to replay it so many times I’d never remember any new details.

After that we watched YouTube videos of people driving on I-10 in New Mexico, same as us; most of the videos were shot by a guy who went around the country filming sections of interstate. He’d added various facts and notes at the bottom—when certain projects would be completed, crime rates, the longest and tallest and biggest. The videos were strangely riveting. The speed was doubled or tripled and fast music played. When we ran out of interstate videos, we watched others: kids recording a dust storm they called a white devil, a couple in a motorhome driving across the country. The man kept saying things like “Confidence is high” in a cheerful voice while the woman talked to the dog in her lap. Elise and I speculated about the nature of their troubles, but her phone died and she had to pass it up front to charge it.

In Arizona, everything looked different again. I felt like all of the people who were always talking about the homogenization of America were wrong—each place really was different. There were McDonald’s and Targets, but every town was full of different-looking people who had different accents and manners. In some places, the people said “Good morning” and “It’s nice to see you,” as if it wouldn’t be the first and last time they’d be seeing you, but twenty minutes down the road, the people might be cow-faced and unfriendly.

We were charmed by the cactuses, like giant hands reaching into the sky, and the camel at the dollar store where we stopped to buy Pepto-Bismol and toothpaste.

While our parents went inside, Elise and I stood in the parking lot watching a man give camel rides on the little stretch of dirt. I’d never seen a camel before. It was ugly and the humps were closer together than I’d imagined. A young girl, wedged between them, held up a hand and her mother took a picture. Elise took a picture of her mother taking a picture. And then Elise took a picture of me standing in front of the camel with my own hand raised, squinting below the enormously blue and cloudless sky.

We didn’t make it to California. At two o’clock, our father stopped at a casino resort somewhere near Phoenix. He pulled the car into the circular drive and waved the valet driver off.

“Why are we stopping?” I asked. “It’s early.”

“I’m going to check the rates,” he said, getting out and taking the keys with him. There was a bounce in his step I hadn’t seen in days. We were quiet as we watched him walk through the door.

“This place looks nice,” I said.

“If you’re into big, generic casino resorts,” Elise said. “Which I am, don’t get me wrong. They’re a heck of a lot better than the places we’ve been staying.”

“What’s the deal?” I asked.

“The deal with what?” our mother said.

“She means last night we stayed at a ghetto motel and now we’re at this luxury resort,” Elise said.

“No, I mean why are we stopping so early. I thought he wanted to make it to California.”