Hey Dylan—
We are at a really awful motel in South Dakota tonight. Wish you were here.
And then I look at the postcard and realize I have to rip it up, because you can’t tell a guy you want him to be in a motel room with you.
Not even if you sort of do.
The postcard is so old and outdated that after one rip, it crumbles onto the floor.
Matt’s Turkey Diner: because you should never be too far from a hot turkey sandwich and some real mashed potatoes. Twenty-five years of talking turkey. Eat in or take out. Buses welcome.
Dylan,
You won’t believe this. We’re busing it.
My uncle Jeff and grandparents are here, too.
It’s a Family Re-Union. On Wheels. The wheels on the bus go round and round. Etc.
I regret that I have but one bus ride to give for my country.
And this will be it.
Your favorite patriot,
Ariel
P.S. Wish you were here, or I was there.
Chapter Five
The next morning we meet at the world headquarters of Leisure-Lee Tours, which is a sentence I never thought I’d write.
It’s not exactly world headquarters; it’s a small white stucco building with two buses parked out front—one old and one new.
There’s a parking lot for everyone to leave their cars, and as we walk away from ours, I cast a longing glance over my shoulder at the old Jetta. What once seemed so horrible, those long family car trips, now seems like the Good Old Days. No, the Great Old Days.
The two buses bear the image of a guy wearing a leisure suit and lying sideways, and the name “Leisure-Lee” is written in script with big loopy Ls that kind of trail off like exhaust. “See the U.S. at your pace!” it says underneath him.
My pace? That would be really, really quickly. Let’s pause in each state, see the highlights, then move on and get home. I like the sound of this. But I don’t think that’s what they mean. I think they mean that this is a bus for people who don’t want to move all that quickly from place to place.
There are mostly senior citizens, but it isn’t all older people. Just ninety-nine percent. There are one or two other families like us. There’s a girl who looks like she could be Zena’s age, and not-quite-identical-but-very-close twin boys who look like they’re maybe in high school. They have short, bright blond hair and identical gold-frame glasses and Adidas soccer shirts.
I walk over to them to introduce myself, but then I hear them talking to their parents and realize they may be the only people my age on the bus, but English is not their first language. Poor, pitiful souls like me being dragged by their parents who are attempting to save gas money. In another country.
“Hi,” I say, feeling really stupid and American.
“Hello,” they say in unison, while their parents vigorously shake Mom’s hand and say they are from Germany and can’t wait to see more of our country.
Meanwhile, Zena and the other girl are chatting like they’re long-lost sisters, instead of us.
That’s it. The rest of the passengers are older people. Significantly older. I’m dying. Or I will die of boredom on this trip. And when I do, I’ll probably have company.
We’re standing there semi-cluelessly, wondering where to go next, when the newer bus’s door opens, and two insanely cheerful people step down onto the pavement in front of us.
“Welcome, welcome, tourists!” the man says. He has pants and a shirt with many pockets, an Australian accent, and a hat with flaps. “My name’s Lenny; I’m here to entertain you, tell you folks about the stops, keep things moving—”
“And I’m Jenny,” the woman next to him says, no accent, but similar getup, as if she shops at REI and she’s going hiking soon. “I’ll be keeping things moving because I’ll be driving the bus! Hello, hello, everyone!” She raises her hands over her head as if she’s just won a heavyweight bout, as if she’s Million-Dollar Baby. “We were just doing a final safety inspection of the bus; you’ll be glad to know it passed with flying colors.”
“We’ve vacuumed every seat. We’ve dusted every armrest. If this is not the cleanest bus in America, you can call me a koala,” Lenny says.
My grandfather frowns. “Koala?” he says.
“I thought that was New Zealand,” my grandmother comments.
“Australia has the best stamps. Don’t you think?” my uncle asks. “Especially the Sydney Olympics special edition. Those were keepers. I might have one on here.” He takes off his floppy khaki hat, which is covered with pins he had made out of laminated stamps, and turns it around, searching.
Lenny and Jenny walk around to meet us personally. Jenny can’t quite get over Zena’s name, she loves it so much. “Xena: Warrior Princess was my favorite show!”
We have no idea who or what she’s talking about, but we nod and smile and make nice, because this is what we’ve been trained to do, like circus seals.
“Well, how’s everyone doing over here?” Lenny asks. He makes the rounds, introducing himself, and I can’t help noticing his handshake is sort of an insincere clasp, a little on the dead-fish side.
“Pleased to meet you, Lenny. I have a question. Did you know Steve Irwin?” my uncle asks, referring to the famed crocodile hunter.
Lenny looks at Uncle Jeff as if he can’t quite believe his ears. “No. I did not have the good fortune. Australia is a very large country, you know.”
“I just thought, you’re both in the media-slash-entertainment profession,” Uncle Jeff says. “Maybe you’d met.”
Lenny shakes his head. “No.”
“Huh. Well, it’s a small world sometimes, but then sometimes it’s a big world. Take my postal route, for example.” He starts telling people how much he loves delivering mail because it, and I quote, “brings sunshine to lonely people.” He has this knack for engaging everyone in conversation. Whether they want him to or not. He likes to know his neighbors and his postees, as he calls them. “There’s nothing like the feeling of delivering a birthday card. You just know you’re making someone’s day.”
“You always say that, but what if it’s a condolence card?” Grandpa Timmons asks. “A sympathy card? How can you tell what it is?”
“After a while you just know. It’s the way people’s handwriting looks. And, of course, glitter,” Uncle Jeff says. “Sometimes it falls out.”
“People put glitter in sympathy cards?” someone else wonders out loud, not quite getting it.
Jenny hands us luggage tags and “Hello My Name Is” tags. I fill out the first, but leave the name tag blank. I can’t—and don’t—see anyone else wearing the name badges, not even the older folks. Besides, do I really want to hear forty-five people ask me if I was named after the Little Mermaid?
A car pulls up in the little circular drive in front of the building, and an African American woman gets out of one side, while a tall guy who looks like her teenage son, maybe, gets out of the other. They’re the last people to show up, so we all can’t help noticing them, because we’ve been hanging around for a while, listening to the Lenny and Jenny Show.
The guy opens the trunk of the car and starts hauling out suitcases. He has light brown skin and cool rectangular glasses that make him look intellectual. He looks like he’s my age, or maybe a little older. He’s wearing a T-shirt with the message, WHOSE AUTHORITY?, long shorts, and low-cut sneakers with no socks.
He looks cool. I can’t believe it. He’s here to save me, to save this trip from being the death of me.
Then I think: Maybe he’s not actually getting on the bus; maybe he’s just dropping off his mom. That would not be cool. That would be one of the universe’s many cruel jokes.
His mom stands there and supervises, lifting only a small bag out herself. She and my mom could wear the same size, somewhere around XL, except this woman is too well dressed to trade clothes with my mom. Let me put it this way: She has Outfits. Mom has Stay-In-fits.
“Excuse me, Jeff
rey,” Lenny says to my uncle as he walks past us and heads for the newly arrived passengers. “Hello, there! You must be the O’Neills. A pleasure to meet you. I’m Lenny.”
My ears perk up. He said O’Neills. Plural.
“Hi, Lenny. Yes, I’m Lorraine, and this is my son, Andre.”
“That’s terrific. We’re so glad you’re here.” Lenny clasps his hands together. “Now for the bad news. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to scuttle a few of those bags.”
“Scuttle?” she repeats.
“Compact. Compress. Discard,” her son says.
“Oh no.” She shakes her head. “I couldn’t.”
“I’m sorry, madam, but you’ll have to. This trip is all about personal growth, except in this case, where it’s about personal reduction.”
“What are you implying?” she says, hands on her hips.
“Your luggage. That’s all I meant.” Lenny holds up four fingers, like he’s used to dealing with people who don’t speak English and has to use body language to communicate. “Because some people underpacked, I can give you room for four bags, maximum.”
“That’s not fair,” someone else chimes in. “It was one per person.”
“One large per person,” someone else says.
“Not one per large person?” someone else adds, and everyone laughs.
This is bus humor. Or elder humor. Apparently.
“No, it’s one large suitcase per traveler, one small,” Jenny explains, again with the counting-on-fingers method.
“Define small,” Mrs. O’Neill says, her eyes narrowed at Jenny.
“Forty-five linear inches.” Lenny pulls a measuring tape out of his khaki pants pocket, which seems to carry a plethora of assorted supplies. They’re the kind of pants with multiple pockets and zippers. So far I’ve seen him extract a Swiss Army knife, a screwdriver, a ball of twine, and a flashlight. “Let’s have a look,” he says, and starts to measure the suitcases.
“Well, this is just plain ridiculous,” Mrs. O’Neill complains. “Are we supposed to dress like slobs just because we’re on a bus?”
“Ma, I told you about the luggage limit, okay? So don’t act surprised. Here, I’ll get rid of one of my bags,” her son offers. Then he smiles. “No, wait—I know. I won’t go! Then you can use my seat for all your luggage.”
I smile, biting my lip.
“Very funny, Andre,” his mother says. “Just repack.”
“Seriously, Ma. If there’s not enough room—”
“Andre? Don’t start with me.”
“Fine.” He starts randomly tearing clothes out of his large bag and jamming them into a smaller suitcase. He shows his mother an empty large suitcase. “I’ll stick this back in the car, which means we can bring another bag of yours. My clothes are completely smashed and wrinkled, but as long as you’re happy.”
“I am. Thanks, sweetheart.”
“Whatever,” he says. After Lenny measures and approves the remaining bags, Andre carries them over to the bus, while his mom goes to park the car in the lot. I try to make eye contact, thinking I could introduce myself, let him know I feel his pain, but he’s not looking at me—or at any of us.
“All right!” Lenny says once Mrs. O’Neill is back. “Everyone’s here now; everyone’s bagged and tagged. Wonderful. Come on now, gather ’round,” he says, like we’re not all standing beside the bus, waiting to get onto it. “Are you ready for the adventure of a lifetime?” Lenny asks. He waits for our response, but there isn’t one. “I said, are you ready for the adventure of a lifetime?” He cocks his head to the side, holding his hand behind his ear.
“Yes!” everyone over sixty cries. Well, everyone except my grandparents.
“Great, that’s great, but you’re going to have to work on your cheers, all right? If you want Lee to come out here, he’s going to need a big welcome. One, two, three, say it with me . . . are you ready for the adventure of a lifetime?”
“YES!” everyone screams, just as an elderly man totters out of the Leisure-Lee office. He looks frightened to death by our voices, and he walks a little unsteadily down a ramp to the parking lot. “Folks. Nice to see you,” he says. He’s wearing a cowboy hat and aviator sunglasses. I glance at the illustration on the bus, and then at him. Yes, it’s the same guy.
“So you’re retired now?” Uncle Jeff asks him.
“Oh no. Never retire!” Leisure-Lee says, waving his cane in the air. “Once you retire, you don’t get vacation.”
“Hm. An interesting perspective,” Uncle Jeff comments.
Leisure-Lee starts to wobble a little, and Jenny quickly fetches a chair from inside the office. He sits down. The years on the road have clearly taken a toll.
“Now, our name Leisure-Lee Tours says it all. Most tour bus companies rush you from place to place.” Lenny shakes his head. “Not us. Never have done, never will.”
“Oh, great.” I sigh.
“Shh,” Zena says.
“You want to see something? We see it. We don’t believe in rushing you through your vacation. Why? Because when life gives you a vacation, what do you do?” He waits for a second. “You take it! By the horns.
“Now, we’ll see all the notable sites, but without the hustle, without the bustle. We want you to enjoy your vacation. Put your feet up. Relax. Have a little time for some introspection. In fact, we’re the only bus tour out there committed to your personal growth.”
My mother looks over at me and smiles, like a bit of a know-it-all. Of course, personal growth is one of her buzzwords, like “realsimple,” and it’s also “realconnected” to Mom’s line of work, so of course she found a bus company that espouses it.
In reality, though, my mother the counselor, the expert on women’s personal health and growth issues, was living with an addictive personality. For years. That chapter in her book called Talk It Out, Work It Out about healthy relationships? Pure fiction.
“Our founder, Lee, believes that life is all about seeing the small stuff,” Lenny says.
Leisure-Lee nods. “Damn right.”
Life is also all about eating the small stuff. I take out a handful of Skittles. If it would be possible for a meteor to hurtle from the sky right now and hit the bus as we head out on the open road? I’d be all for that. As long as it took out the bus, but missed the people. And our car.
Jenny then makes us introduce ourselves, and it starts to feel like a new season of The Amazing Race, and everyone will have little captions floating under them like:
GARY & BETTY, MARRIED
KRISTY & ROGER, RETIRED
LENNY & JENNY, MARRIED BUS HOSTS
and
THE FLACK FAMILY, SLIGHTLY INSANE
or
THE FLACKS, NO OUR DAD ISN’T HERE, DOING JUST FINE, THANKS
There may not be enough Skittles in South Dakota to get me through this trip.
“Find your own friend, A,” Zena says when I get on the bus ten minutes later, expecting to sit with her.
Like I said, my little sister is not exactly supportive. “Z, there’s nowhere else to sit,” I say out of the corner of my mouth, feeling like I’ve landed in junior high all of a sudden and I should be holding a lunch tray. Mom is sitting with Uncle Jeff, while Grandma and Grandpa are sitting together. It’s all in the family. Except for me.
“Right here, young lady!” Lenny points to a seat toward the front. “Right this way.”
I pick up my backpack of Minimum Daily Requirements—pens, postcards, Skittles, lip balm, and a book—and head to the front of the bus. I see Mrs. O’Neill sitting with a gray-haired woman with a name tag that says “ETHEL” in giant letters, and across the aisle from them is an empty seat next to her son.
He glances up at Lenny and then over at me. “I have to sit up front. I get carsick,” he explains. “Bus-sick, I mean.”
“Great,” I say, perching on the edge of the empty seat.
“Not sick sick, just kind of woozy. Hey, you want the window?” he offers.
; “Sure,” I say.
“That way if I do hurl, it’ll be into the aisle,” he says.
I wish he hadn’t given me that image to worry about. “Thanks.”
“Joking. Joshing. Not serious. Hey, have you heard the new Beck?” he asks, bobbing his head slightly and pulling out an iPod. He has a vintage baseball cap on, and the brim is starting to slide down over his face. “It’s fantastic. Amazing. Incredible,” he adds, I guess in case I don’t know what “fantastic” means. He flips down the tray on the seat back, the kind they have on airplanes. He gets out this vocabulary book and a highlighter and starts reading, or skimming, or memorizing.
Highlighters make a very annoying sound if you’re not the one wearing earbuds. Which I’m not. So it pretty much sucks. I stare out the window and wish I knew more about where we were going, so I could start counting down the mile markers, or counting them up, or something.
I excuse myself and go two rows up to Lenny, who’s sitting in the seat right behind Jenny, who’s driving. “Excuse me. Is there a bus postcard?” I ask Lenny.
“Please?” he replies.
I can’t believe he’s going to insist on manners. “Is there a bus postcard, please?” I ask.
“No, mate, I didn’t hear you, that’s all,” Lenny says with a chuckle. “You want a postcard?”
I nod. “Something that’s, you know, promotional or something. About the bus.”
“No problem.” Lenny reaches into a small compartment behind the driver’s seat and rummages around. Finally he pulls out a faded, dated postcard that looks as if it were made when color cameras were still new, when bus tours were still cool. It shows Lee, about fifty years ago, sitting in the driver’s seat, beckoning people aboard a silver bus.
“I’ve only got the one,” Lenny says as he hands it to me.
“One is perfect,” I say. I go back to my seat and slide past iPod vocab guy. He gives me a questioning look and I hold up the postcard, as if to justify myself and my journey down the aisle and back.
In case he’s wondering if I went up to ask for something embarrassing like a tampon. Not that I’d ask Lenny. Of course I’d ask Jenny.
The Summer of Everything Page 21