You Are Here

by Jennifer E. Smith

  They were well into Maryland when Emma took charge of the music, switching off the jazz station Peter had found and popping in a CD instead. After listening to the same song four times in a row, Peter leaned forward and jabbed at the stop button.

  “Hey,” Emma said, reaching to turn it back on.

  “How can you listen to the same thing over and over again?”

  She shrugged. “I’ll probably listen to it a thousand times in a row, then never play it again.”

  He shook his head. “You’re nuts.”

  “Nuts is a relative term in my family.”

  Peter turned off the expressway, and the road quickly tapered off into a single lane, which wound through great swaths of farmland, the fields quartered off into neat slices of brown and green.

  “Are we lost?” Emma asked, reaching for one of the many maps that wallpapered the back of the car. The dog was sitting squarely on top of the pile and looked greatly put out when forced to scoot over.

  “We’re fine,” Peter said. “It’s just nice to get off the highway now and then.”

  Emma frowned over the tangle of squiggles and lines on the map, trying to locate their whereabouts amid an alphabet soup of stars and dots and unfamiliar names. “How do you know where you’re going?”

  “I just do,” Peter said, obviously pleased with himself as they left behind the billboards and gas stations for a series of small towns with white churches and general stores and vegetable stands.

  “Okay then, Columbus,” Emma said, tossing the map behind her again.

  “Columbus got lost, actually,” Peter said. “So not the best example.”

  “And you think I’m nuts.”

  “You are,” he told her. “But it’s not such a bad thing. Some of the most interesting people I know are a little bit nuts.”

  “Like my family?”

  Peter rubbed a hand over his jaw and gave a little laugh. “They’re not as strange as you think they are,” he said. “They’re interesting. There’s a difference.”

  Emma shrugged. “Whatever.”

  “Maybe you’re not looking hard enough,” he said. “Besides, have you ever thought maybe you’re just as interesting as they are?”

  “I’m not,” she told him flatly.

  “I don’t know,” Peter said. “I think maybe it’s too soon to tell.”

  They stopped for lunch at a seafood stand with checkered tablecloths and menus shaped like giant lobster claws. They were far enough from the coast, but the air still smelled salty, and the other customers were all laughing over their lunches. Emma leaned forward with her elbows on the table and smiled.

  “What?” Peter said, looking at her suspiciously. She didn’t blame him. Only this morning she’d been about ready to leave him in Gettysburg, but now the heat of the day had burned off and the dust had drifted away. In the past twenty-four hours the car had broken down and she’d somehow managed to pick up a stowaway dog and an unlikely partner in crime. But here they were, sitting in Maryland with the sun on their faces and the smell of seafood thick in the air; they’d made it this far, and suddenly that was all that seemed to matter.

  “Nothing,” Emma said, still grinning from behind her menu.

  After they ordered, they watched the other customers cracking the tough shells of the lobsters and letting the juice run down their bare arms as they ate. Peter pulled a map from his back pocket and spread it out on the table between them, smoothing the creases along the wooden slats.

  “So, I found a map of the town where Nate lives,” he said. “The one where you were born. And where I assume we’re headed.”

  “Where?”

  He looked up at her blankly. “In North Carolina.”

  “No, I mean where’d you manage to find a map of it?”

  “Oh,” he said. “In the trunk. Anyway, did you know there are three different cemeteries there?”

  Emma shook her head.

  “Do you know which one it is?”

  She bit her lip, but said nothing. She simply hadn’t thought that far ahead yet.

  “That’s okay, I’m sure Nate will know,” he said. Emma must have looked stricken at this—the thought of having to explain herself to her family—because Peter reached over and quickly spun the map so it was facing her. “Or you can just close your eyes and point, and we’ll go to whichever’s closest.”

  She smiled at him gratefully, clapped a hand over her eyes, and jabbed a finger at the map. When she looked up again, Peter was marking the spot with a pen, humming over the grids in cheerful concentration.

  “Okay, then,” he said after a moment. “At least we know where we’re headed now.”

  The dog began to squirm beneath the table, eyeing a little boy who was picking at a piece of corn bread. There was a small grocery store beside the restaurant, and Peter walked over to see whether they carried dog food. He came back a few minutes later carrying a small bag of kibble, which he poured onto a paper plate and set on the ground. But the dog only sniffed at it, then went back to eyeing the bread, and when their corn bread came, Emma passed her portion underneath the table.

  “He’s gotten spoiled,” Peter said, kicking at the bag of dog food. “Or else he has no clue what it is.”

  Emma licked the crumbs from her hand. “Maybe he’s just got good taste. We’ll try again at Annie’s house.”

  “Will she be okay with us bringing him?”

  “I don’t know if she’ll even be okay with us,” Emma said, forcing a laugh.

  “Right,” said Peter, but he looked nervous.

  “It’ll be fine,” she told him, though she wasn’t really sure. She hadn’t seen Annie since Christmas, when she’d brought home her boyfriend, Charles, a political analyst for the Washington Post. He’d seemed mildly horrified by the chaos that reigned in the Healy household, which only grew worse during the holidays. He’d since moved into Annie’s apartment, and Emma wasn’t all that certain he’d appreciate his girlfriend’s kid sister dropping by with her buddy the Civil War aficionado and the three-legged mutt they’d picked up at a Jersey rest stop.

  “Have you ever been before?” Emma asked him, leaning back as the waiter set down their plates and trying not to meet the eye of the lobster on hers.

  “To DC?” he asked, grabbing the butter. “Nope.”

  “Where have you been?”

  “New York City.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it,” he said.

  Emma studied his face as he bent over his lobster, working his fork to split the shell with the expertise of a chef. There was so much she didn’t know about him. They’d grown up next door to each other, but she’d never even been inside his house. He’d come over to hers, of course, but then so had the whole town. Their front door was always open, and there was a constant stream of people filtering inside to join them, whether for a family dinner or a fireside discussion about the plight of polar bears in the Arctic Circle.

  But Peter had a tendency to hang back, always unnervingly quiet when she was around. Her parents seemed to think he was talkative and engaging, but Emma thought it was possible that she’d heard him speak more in the last twenty-four hours than in all the previous years she’d known him. It wasn’t that he was shy, necessarily. He just seemed to be always measuring out his words, thinking before he spoke in a way that Emma couldn’t ever manage.

  Growing up, he’d always been nothing more than the kid from next door, the one who wore glasses and had a funny haircut and whose pants were always a couple of inches too short. But Emma was realizing now that Peter was the kind of person who tended to get overlooked. He was unfailingly patient and genuinely polite, but he was also surprisingly confident, capable and dependable and utterly sure of himself, and she was suddenly grateful to have him along with her. Because it’s exactly these sorts of people—the ones who everyone’s always underestimating—that you want at your side when you’re running away from home, or driving the length of the country, or fe
eling somewhat confused as to your own illogical intentions.

  “My dad was never big on family vacations,” Peter was saying now, half hidden by the tablecloth as he smuggled his share of corn bread to the hungry dog.

  Emma tilted her head. “My parents weren’t either.”

  “But you’ve been everywhere.”

  “I’ve been to lots of colleges,” she corrected him. “Lots of universities and lecture halls and conference rooms.”

  “I can’t wait to get to places like those.”

  “We live in a place like that.”

  “Yeah, but it’s different. I mean, don’t you want to go away for school?”

  She shrugged. “My parents get free tuition there. And it’s not like I’d get in anywhere better, you know?”

  “But don’t you want a choice? It’s a great school if you’re into history or literature or sociology. But what if you wanted to be a doctor or something?”

  “I’m sorry,” Emma said, laughing. “Have we met?”

  “You could be a doctor if you wanted.”

  “Well, it’s lucky I don’t, then,” she said, glancing down at the dog beneath the table. She thought of her family and their books, the way everything came so naturally to them. “I’m awful at science.”

  Peter set down his fork. “All I’m saying is that you shouldn’t limit yourself.”

  “What about you, then?” she asked, eager to shift the focus from her and her academic failings. “Off to see the world? College in London? Masters in Paris?”

  Peter smiled. “Wouldn’t that be nice.”

  “And more trips to Gettysburg, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  “I can’t believe your dad never took you there before.”

  “Yeah, well, he’s not such a big fan of reenactments either,” he said, and she noticed that he looked over—almost unconsciously—at a phone booth set just off the parking lot. “It’s not like we never did anything, though. He used to take me fishing sometimes. We never caught much, so I’d always bring a book, and he’d get annoyed at me for reading. Great father-son bonding time, those trips.”

  “Well, you do read a lot,” Emma teased, and he threw his napkin at her.

  “It’s not like it would kill you to pick up a book every once in a while.”

  “You sound exactly like my parents,” she said, wrinkling her nose at him. But Peter only smiled, his ears turning as red as the half-eaten lobster on his plate.

  chapter fourteen

  They’d barely gotten back on the highway when Emma began to tease him for driving like an old woman. There had been a faint hint of rain in the air after lunch, and so the top of the convertible was now up, and Peter felt hunched and slightly claustrophobic beneath it, his eyes trained on the road.

  “What happened to the guy who tore into the rest stop?” she asked, propping her feet up on the dashboard and reaching over her shoulder to hand the dog a potato chip. “You were a maniac yesterday. Now I’ll bet we get pulled over for going too slow.”

  Peter raised his foot with the intention of hitting the gas, but then saw yet another police car—this one tucked in the entrance of a fast-food restaurant just off the highway—and instead jammed down on the brake, causing the car to balk and both him and Emma to lurch forward in their seats. Behind them a truck driver leaned hard on his horn before swinging into the left lane and blowing past them in a haze of exhaust.

  As they crawled past the dust-coated police car—a Maryland state trooper whose head was tipped back against the seat as he slept, his mouth propped open so that he looked a bit like a baby bird—Peter breathed out and loosened his grip on the steering wheel. It was nearly impossible to stop his heart from pounding each time they passed one, not necessarily because he was speeding or driving any more erratically than usual, or even because one of the taillights was cracked and refused to light up—though that last was also true. Mostly it was because Peter had started to see the face of his dad behind every shadowy windshield of every single emergency vehicle they passed.

  Peter knew it wouldn’t have been terribly hard for him to put out some kind of alert, the kind of thing that would come over every crackling radio in every worn-down cop car from upstate New York straight down to the very tip of Florida, a warning to every fellow man in uniform that the son of a sheriff had stolen an impounded car and was now fleeing to who-knew-where. Peter guessed it wouldn’t take a whole lot of effort for his dad to call in a few favors, have someone fetch the blue convertible and reel them back home like a couple of squirmy fish on a hook.

  But even so, a part of him wasn’t surprised they’d gotten this far. That would have been like being surprised that Emma’s parents were still calling every hour. It was simply their nature. Just as this—this long, stubborn silence—was Dad’s.

  Peter remembered the first time he’d ever gotten beat up, sucker punched (not for the last time) by a bully of a kid named James McWalter as they walked home from school in third grade. Dad must have been patrolling the neighborhood in his squad car, because even as Peter staggered to his feet—a hand cupped over his eye, blinking back tears as he felt the side of his face begin to throb—Dad had the kid by the shoulders, steering him calmly over to the car, where he must have given him a good scare, because after a moment James grabbed his backpack, mumbled an apology, and darted off in the direction of his house, white-faced and trembling.

  Afterward, Dad had taken Peter by the shoulder in a similar manner, half shoving him toward the squad car. His left eye was twitching, and his thumb was pressed hard against the back of Peter’s neck, as if Peter had done something wrong. When they got home, Dad pulled a bag of peas from the freezer and jerked his chin toward the couch, all without a word.

  Later, while Peter stood on his tiptoes in the bathroom, examining the pink-tinged bruise that had bloomed below his eye, Dad appeared in the doorway.

  “You were holding your books with both hands.”

  Peter stared at him, not quite sure how to respond.

  “If these kids are gonna keep bothering you, make sure to put your books in your backpack,” he said. “Keep your hands ready and your eyes open. Don’t be such an easy target. You have to be able to take care of yourself.”

  Peter nodded feebly. It wasn’t until later that he realized this meant Dad must have seen him before he was punched, before his books went tumbling to the ground. Which meant he hadn’t come to the rescue just in time. He’d seen what was happening and had chosen to wait.

  And so when Peter finally did spot a flashing red light in the rearview mirror—accompanied by a whirring siren so loud it made him feel sure the whole interstate was in on it, hitchhikers and semi trucks and roadkill alike—it didn’t come as much of a surprise. In fact it was almost a relief. And even as Emma began to speak fast—outlining such a litany of possible excuses and explanations that even Peter had the presence of mind to be impressed—he was still half thinking it would be easier to simply stick out his arms and wait for the officer to clap on the handcuffs, bringing this whole mismanaged expedition to a fitting end.

  By the time he pulled the car onto the shoulder of the highway, he was feeling like he might very well throw up. The top was up, and suddenly the inside felt crowded and close, with Emma looking amused and the dog’s tail thumping steadily against the back of his seat, making everything seem too small and impossibly stuffy. Peter sat frozen, staring straight ahead at a pink billboard for a nightclub, and so he failed to notice the policeman stepping up to the car.

  “Put down the window,” Emma said, looking at him with alarm when the cop knocked on the glass and Peter still didn’t make a move. He was so focused on imagining what his dad might do to him once he was returned home that he didn’t even flinch.

  There was a second knock, this time a bit louder.

  “Put. Down. The. Window.” Emma’s face was very close to his now, and Peter blinked at her, a bit stunned by the proximity.

  “Jee
z, Peter,” she said, once it was clear that he wasn’t in the state of mind to follow even the simplest of instructions. She launched herself across him, straining against her seat belt, and rolled the window down herself.

  “Afternoon,” said the cop, a balding man whose name tag, perhaps ominously, read officer hurt, and whose uniform strained against a belly that made it look like he was hiding a bowling ball under his shirt. He lowered his face so that it was level with Peter’s, glancing at him and then at Emma as if puzzled by how the two of them had ended up here together.

  “You were doing a fair amount of weaving back there, son,” he said, turning a suspicious eye back to Peter, who hitched his glasses up farther on his nose and attempted a smile that seemed to go sorely wrong. “I’m gonna need to see your license.”

  As Peter fumbled through the glove compartment for his wallet, the dog took the opportunity to dart forward between the seats—eager to greet this visitor to his new home—and let out a bark so loud it rang against the sides of the car. Startled, Peter jerked away, managing to bump the back of his head hard against the cop’s chin.

  “What the hell?” the officer said, drawing back from the window and clapping a hand over his jaw. He narrowed his eyes at Peter. “Out of the car.”

  “Both of us?” Peter asked, shooting Emma a desperate look.

  “Just you’ll be fine.”

  Officer Hurt swiped the driver’s license from Peter’s hand before he was even fully out of the car, then stood examining it for what seemed like far too long. Peter shifted from foot to foot and tried not to look too guilty, following the flight of two crows circling overhead in the glassy sky. A guy in an old green Chevy gave them all the finger as he drove past.

  “Have you been drinking, Mr. Finnegan?” the officer asked, and even as he shook his head and croaked out a feeble “no,” Peter could feel his face turn an incriminating shade of pink. The cop looked at the picture on his license and then back up at him several times, and Peter felt sure that at any minute he’d realize who he’d found, would recognize in him the same jawline and freckles and thin brown hair as his father. As the seconds wound past and neither of them spoke, it seemed impossible that he couldn’t have made the connection, and it seemed that in only a moment he’d reach for his walkie-talkie to send out a nationwide bulletin, listening back as thousands of sighs of relief came in from all over the country— That damn Finnegan kid’s finally been caught in Maryland —and the one faint whoosh of air that would be his dad shaking his head in a mixture of anger and relief.