“Why don’t you let me drive for a while so you can rest?”
“No one drives my car but me.”
“You have control issues.”
“No, I have very low insurance premiums. I’d like to keep it that way. Give me fifteen minutes and we’ll get moving again.”
“No,” I say.
Hollis opens his eyes to give me a death stare. “No?”
“Sorry. No. Unacceptable. We don’t have time to dilly-dally. Every minute counts, and we’ve wasted too many already.”
“Jesus. What’s the big hurry? Mrs. Nash isn’t going anywhere.”
“Elsie is dying!” The volume of my voice is too loud for the enclosed space, and it makes Hollis sit up straight in his seat. Hugging my backpack to my chest, I take a deep breath. “She’s at a nursing facility, in hospice. They couldn’t give me details because I’m not family, but the receptionist I talked to when I called yesterday morning said she doesn’t have long at all. That’s why I immediately booked a flight to head down there, even though traveling over Memorial Day weekend is a complete nightmare.”
What Rhoda, the woman on the phone, actually said was,I’m not supposed to say anything. HIPAA, you know? But if you’re really determined to see her, the sooner the better. Should I tell her to expect you? Maybe having a visitor to look forward to will help her hang in there.
She doesn’t know me, I responded.But um, you can tell her... Oh. Tell her that Rose is sending her a pigeon. Hopefully she’ll remember what that means.
Her mind’s still sharp, Rhoda said.I’m sure she will.
Ugh, all the time we’ve already wasted. That extra half hour or so at the airport, all the crawling along in holiday weekend rush-hour traffic, the almost-hour we spent at José Napoleoni’s. God, I stopped to put my hand in that bear’s mouth. What was Ithinking? How could I have so easily lost sight of how urgent it is that I get Mrs. Nash to Key West as soon as possible so Elsie can confirm that their love story has a happy ending?
Hollis. Hollis is how. I’ve been too distracted by the shiny bits of himself he keeps hidden for whatever reason. They keep teasing me through the cracks in his facade, making me want to chisel away at him to see if he might secretly be all shine under there. And also I’m distracted by his great arms, and his interesting eyes, and his mouth that is frowning at me again.
“So, sorry,” I say, “but fifteen minutes might be the difference between getting to Elsie in time or being too late. You aren’t sleeping unless you do it in the passenger seat. And if you think I’m not serious, that you can close your eyes right now and ignore me, well, I seem to remember you reacting pretty strongly to the threat of tickling before.” My fingers become clawlike in demonstration of my willingness to inflict maximum discomfort.
“Okay,” Hollis says to punctuate an exasperated sigh.
“Okay what?”
“You can drive for a while. But if anything happens to my car, Millicent, I swear—”
“Yeah, yeah,” I say, practically leaping out the door to come around to the driver’s side. I adjust the seat and mirrors to accommodate my shorter stature, plug the aux cord back into my phone, and wiggle a little as I back out of the parking space to the smooth sounds of Atlanta Rhythm Section’s “So in to You.”
Hollis groans. “Do we really have to keep listening to this?”
“Yes. Deal with it,” I say.
And I guess he does, because he’s snoring softly by the time the song ends.
7
•••••
Owning a car in DC is too much to bother with when I work primarily from the efficiency apartment in Cathedral Heights I’m now subletting, or from libraries and archives downtown that don’t have parking for less than twenty dollars an hour anyway. So I’ve forgotten over the eight years since I moved from LA how much I enjoy driving. It’s meditative to listen to my music and get lost in thought as the road stretches out in front of me. We’re solidly in North Carolina—Virginia finally ending a short while after I took over—and even in the dark, I can tell that the pine trees lining the highway aren’t the same kind I’m used to up north; these are, I don’t know, fluffier? I wonder if Mike’s made it home to Carla and the pugs yet.
Hollis is still snoozing beside me. The moonlight streams through the window and coats his messy hair and coin-worthy profile in this really beautiful way that makes me wish I could take more than fraction-of-a-second glances. His phone is next to mine in the center console’s alcove, the navigation reminding me everyonce in a while that we’re on I-95 for the next bajillion miles. Otherwise, it’s buzzing almost constantly, probably with Instagram notifications. I guess I understood on a theoretical level that when people posted selfies with me on social media they likely got some attention for it, but experiencing it in real time is something else. It’s still baffling to me why anyone would care.
Mrs. Nash didn’t get it either when I tried to explain why Josh created the Instagram account.While I am furious on your behalf, I must admit I don’t understand why the internet would need so many photos of you, says my memory of her the night of the book release party, when I showed up at her door with an overnight bag and a plea to sleep in her spare bedroom until I found a new place to live.You’re a lovely girl, Millie, but you’re no Carol Burnett. Which, harsh. But fair.
It’s been almost three hours since the rest stop, and my bladder is starting to curse me out again for filling it with so much ginger ale and grenadine. But at close to eleven at night, there aren’t many options for a pit stop. Finally, I spot a billboard for a McDonald’s with a twenty-four-hour dining room right off the next exit. Thank the bathroom gods I won’t need to squat in a bush on the side of the highway.
When I take the keys out of the ignition, Hollis shifts a little in his seat but doesn’t wake up. Which is good, because I think I might be staring at him. Okay, I’m definitely staring at him. I can’t help it! He might be kind of a jerk, but he’s a total snack. And that conversation about “eating” we had back at the restaurant reminded me that I’m an increasingly hungry woman.
His phone yells at me to make a legal U-turn, then to turn left, then to take the on-ramp back onto the highway. This bathroom detour is distressing the lady who lives inside the map app. I grab the phone to pause the trip, but a notification pops up as soon asmy finger touches the screen. Everything shifts. And Hollis, the dummy, must not have a lock on his phone because instead of pausing the navigation, a text exchange with someone named Yeva Markarian opens up without asking anything further of me.
