“Hi!” I say, barely audible, because she seems so strange to me. I wince. It worked. When I’m alone, it’s not so difficult for me, I guess. I raise my hand, and the girl waves to me. That’s bizarre. Still, my heart beats excitedly in my chest.
“You don’t look like you’re okay,” I hear River say suddenly. For a moment, I think about our first day. There he was, standing in the doorway behind me in the gas station bathroom minutes after I’d received the video from Chester. “Do you know what hotel your mom checked into in Vegas?” I look at him through the mirror and shake my head. He leans casually against the doorframe. “Are you still thinking of your three sentences?”
I hate it when someone waits for me to speak. I immediately tense up.
“Whoa, it was just a question!”
I inhale deeply.
“I don’t need you to talk.” He winks at me. “Why talk at all when you can kiss?”
I smile shyly.
He smiles back. “By the way, your mom was seen at the Venetian. It was on some crazy fan site online.”
How does he always figure everything out so quickly?
“An advantage if you don’t sleep much. You have more time. The motel owner kindly let me use his cell phone to surf... I just want to turn airplane mode off to make calls. You never know.” He nods at my phone. “Are you still in airplane mode?”
I nod.Only I forgot it briefly last night, I type.
“Okay. We’ll continue on our way anyway.”
If Dad has someone monitoring my cell phone—or if he’s monitoring it himself—he could track us whenever I turn it on to check messages or to text. However, we’re never in the same place for long, and the GPS is off. It would be a guessing game between the few radio towers here. Besides, he would have to be right there to catch me.
River looks at me. “It might be better if you meet your mom at the Venetian rather than at the opening.”
“Mom,” I repeat softly. The word sounds so empty.
“A one-word sentence. I’ll accept that.” River winks at me and leaves me alone.
Suddenly, everything seems unreal to me. The wordmomseems unreal to me.
Say it fifteen times in a row, and you’re sure it doesn’t exist, I hear Arizona whisper.Put it on the Strange page, Kans! Come on!
Come on!River whispers.
Mom. Mom. Mom.
“None of it exists,” I whisper to the girl in the mirror, confused but tonelessly, and she nods her head in agreement with me. “Bizarre!” I hear her whisper.
Now, I have to giggle at my own silliness.
“I heard that, Tucks,” River calls from outside.
And I don’t care, I think with a warm feeling in my stomach.
Chapter 22
That day, we start toward Las Vegas, but when the Yamaha shuts off several times, we go slacklining off a narrow strip of grass on the edge of the steppe, somewhere between Littlerock and Ely.
“You’ll be ready soon,” River says lightly as I balance on the line. He sits at the other end, smoking and watching me like a hawk.
For what?I jump down and hold out my phone to him.
He raises his eyebrows. “For the highline, baby.”
I don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing that I’ve reached this point.
