While Mimi shrieked out the lyrics to songs like “Chattanooga Choo Choo” and “Boogie-Woogie Bugle Boy,” Gram, who didn’t know all the words, blew air through her lips to make what she thought sounded like trumpet and trombone music.
It made me wish Gram had left the top down on the Mustang. At least then some of the sound would’ve been lost in the wind. (But Gram was afraid we’d get sunburned, so she said the top would stay up for the duration of the road trip. I was trying to look on the bright side, at least without the top down, there was no need for Gram to wear her leopard-print babushka.)
Gram and Mimi sat in the front seat—Gram with her wrap-around prescription driving glasses and Mimi with her flip-up sunglass lenses attached to her regular glasses. Brandon and I sat in the back.
I felt like I was in a zany Hallmark Channel original movie about two middle schoolers being kidnapped in a sports car by two elderly women who had just escaped from a high-security retirement home.
The front-seat concert kept getting louder and louder, so finally Brandon and I had put in our earbuds. But the most expensive noise-canceling earbuds ever invented could not entirely muffle Gram and Mimi’s singing. So, at least for the time being, it looked like we were stuck with the senior citizen duet concerto. Our only hope was that they might get laryngitis and lose their voices from singing too much.
Brandon kept looking over at me and rolling his eyes as if to say, “We’re both in this together, and isn’t it funny?”
But, that dimpled smile of his, which would’ve made all the girls in my school both drool and melt at the same time, only reminded me that people like me were never in anything with people like Brando.
When we had first gotten into the car, Brandon and I talked a little, or I should say tried to talk. But I wouldn’t have described our conversation as, “getting along like clams,” as Mimi predicted.
“So, you’re gonna be in seventh next year?” Brandon asked.
“Yeah.”
“Cool.”
“What about you?”
“Eighth.”
(Long, silent pause except for Gram and Mimi’s singing soundtrack in the background.)
“Ever been to Florida before?” Brandon asked.
“No.”
“Where do you live?”
“Illinois.”
(Car sing-along interlude.)
“Do you have any brothers and sisters?”
“Two sisters.”
“Older or younger?”
“Older.”
“What about you?”
“One brother. Older.”
As you can see, our conversation wasn’t exactly what you would call sparkling, which is why, eventually, even if there hadn’t been all that singing going on, we both would’ve put our earbuds in anyway.
Later, when Gram and Mimi put in the CD of Greatest Hymns of Our Faith, I actually thought about jumping out of the car. We were only doing about forty miles per hour on some back road near the edge of the Everglades. I figured I could just dive and roll into the swamp grass at the side of the road. So how bad could it be?
But you know me well enough to know that I’m just kidding and that I’d never do something like that. I talk big, but, in actuality, I’m pretty much a chicken at heart.
Instead, I tried to think of ways to get back at Mom for leaving me in such a predicament, but all that holy music filling up Gram’s Mustang made it hard to focus on revenge.
I wished I could at least call Mom to whine and complain about everything, but the Make It, Take It emergency she’d gone home for had left her virtually unreachable. I’d barely heard from her since she left. And I knew if I called Dad and complained, it better really be an actual emergency, or I’d wish my cell phone service hadn’t been working. But when Mimi popped in her CD of old television theme songs and “Happy Days” began to play, and Brando joined the car sing-along, it came really close to being an actual emergency.
The whole thing was just so cringe-worthy and awkward.
Gram and Mimi sounding so bad.
Me being in the back seat with a strange boy.
And now Brandon singing along.
You probably won’t be surprised when I tell you that, even though it was hard to hear over the appallingly, horrendous sounds coming from the front seat, it seemed like Brandon actually might have a pretty good voice.
But why wouldn’t he?
He seemed like one of those multitalented people who would’ve found his name on the roster of just about anything he tried out for no matter what it was. And even if he didn’t make a team or get a part, he seemed so confident, he would’ve laughed it off like it was entertainingly amusing.
It took all my willpower to resist the urge to lunge over the front seat and eject that CD. I wanted that thing to shoot out of the CD player like a flying saucer, crash against the rear window, and shatter into a thousand pieces.
But instead I just fake-smiled at Brando when he turned to me and said, “C’mon, Sam, sing along! Ya gotta know this one!”
And then he clapped to the beat and rocked back and forth.
That was the problem with guys like Brando.
They were so cool.
No matter what they did, it never tarnished their coolness.
You of all people know I’m the exact opposite. No matter what I did, I somehow only end up enhancing my awkwardness.
Even so, you might be wondering why it mattered so much what Brandon thought of me. After all, he didn’t go to my school, we didn’t live in the same state, and after this week I’m sure I’d never see him again. But if you don’t get why it mattered, you must be so old that you don’t remember what it was like to be a middle schooler.
With the memory of the Spring Fine Arts Festival audition so fresh in my mind, the last thing I wanted to do was add my voice to this kooky car choir. What if Brandon thought I sounded worse than Gram and Mimi?
So, I mouthed the lyrics to “Happy Days,” pretending to sing.
And as I stared out the side window of the car and pretend-sang, I thought about how thankful I was for the garbage bag full of old clothes that sat wedged between Brandon and me in the back seat.
Mimi had decided to bring the bag along at the last minute. Apparently while collecting all that money for the Bibles we’d be delivering, she also collected old clothes from people at Sunny Sandy Shores.
“You never know the people in need, put in our path, who might be blessed by these clothes,” Mimi had said.
And even though Mimi overflowed with enthusiasm at the thought of being able to “bless” people “in our path,” Gram told Mimi the trunk was full, and we couldn’t take the clothes.
But ever since Brandon had walked into Gram’s condo, I’d been thinking about how intensely self-conscious I’d feel sitting right next to him in Gram’s tiny car for the entire road trip. So, I suggested putting that big garbage bag full of clothes in the back seat between the two of us.
And, even though we were a little squished and my leg was sticky with sweat because it was plastered up against that bulging plastic trash bag, it turns out Mimi was right. The clothes were already blessing a person in need…me.
Love,
Me
Dear Me,
I wonder if maybe, with all the derogatory things I’ve written about Brandon, that you might be thinking I’m a little stuck-up. But that’s not it at all.
(Actually, if there was an exact antonym for stuck-up, it would be me.)
The thing is that Brando is like both of my sisters and all the popular kids at school rolled up into one too-cute, too-talented person.
My reason for surmising this—besides his good looks and semi-melodic singing voice—is because when Mimi introduced him to Gram and me, she went on and on about all his achievements and awards as
a pitcher on his traveling baseball team.
Apparently, he has the staggering ability to throw fastballs, knuckleballs, and sliders, whatever those are. As a result, he has clinched tournaments from one end of the state to the other. The way Mimi talked, you’d think the kid had single-handedly won the World Series or something. I was surprised he didn’t come walking into Gram’s condo pushing a cart full of trophies.
Anyway, the only reason he wasn’t off pitching no-hitter after no-hitter this summer was because he had some wrist injury he was recovering from. The wrist splint he wore on his right wrist meant he couldn’t play baseball for at least another month.
So, when his dad (Mimi’s son Johnny) found out about Gram and Mimi’s road trip, he and Mimi made plans for Brandon to come along.
I know it isn’t his fault he’s on this trip. And I’m sure he’s a nice enough kid. But the pressure of “hanging out” with Brando 24–7 for the next week overwhelms me with a combination of anxiety, exhaustion, and trepidation, leaving me in a constant state of nausea.
Love,
Me
Dear Me,
When school starts in the fall, I’m going to tell Mrs. Brackman that I wish she’d taught us more vocab words, because then I wouldn’t have to start every letter by writing, “You’re never going to believe what happened next.”
If I knew more words, I’d have lots more ways to say, “What you’re about to read is remarkably unbelievable.”
Anyway, I won’t keep telling you, “You’re never going to believe” stuff, I’ll just get right into telling you what happened next, but just know that the likelihood from here on out of things being highly inconceivable is immensely overwhelming.
I’ll just preface this letter by saying that I’m actually writing it while sitting on the blacktop outside Gram’s car while the four of us are stranded on the side of the road.
Who knew when I was contemplating jumping out of the car, that I wouldn’t even have to jump in order to find myself practically sitting in swamp grass?
Here’s what happened:
Once the three-person mini-choir finished the last TV theme song (in case you were wondering, their finale was whistling the Andy Griffith Show theme song, which I only recognized because Dad watches reruns of it all the time, and I guess Mimi used to watch it with Brandy when he was little), we all decided it was time to stop somewhere to get gas/go to the restroom/maybe get a snack.
Gram told us she was happy to stop, but she seemed sort of proud of herself in that she didn’t need to use the restroom just yet. I’m not sure why she was so proud of that, but maybe when you’re old, even little things like that are a big accomplishment.
Anyway, Mimi shuffled through the directions Toe-Fungus Harold had printed out for her from his computer, but she couldn’t quite figure out exactly where we were.
Brando, who obviously is used to being a hero without even trying, pulled out his cell phone and said, “I’ll just figure out where we are on my phone.”
But as soon as he looked at his phone screen, he realized he had no cell service way out wherever the heck we were, so I guess, even for him, saving the day isn’t always as easy as it looks.
“That’s why we’ve got these,” Mimi said holding up the crumpled mess of papers she had in her hands. “Harold told me there wouldn’t be any Global Positioning System access way out here.”
It took me a minute to realize Mimi was talking about GPS.
(I’d never actually heard anyone say what GPS stood for out loud.)
While Mimi continued to flip through Harold’s printed directions, Gram mumbled something about maybe if we’d stayed on the main roads, we’d still have cell service, to which Mimi said, “And miss all this nature?”
I didn’t know what Mimi was talking about since, so far, swamp grass was the only nature we’d seen.
That is, until Mimi shrieked, “MAAAADGE! STOOOOOP!!!”
Gram jammed on the brakes.
We all lurched forward, only to be slammed back against the seats again.
The tires squealed louder than they had back at Sunny Sandy Shores in front of condo building number two.
The car skidded into a spin.
We all got smushed up against the right side of the car as the Mustang spun in a circle in the middle of the road.
When the car finally stopped, we faced sideways on the road with the back end of the Mustang leaning toward the shallow ditch on the other side of the shoulder.
Thankfully we were on a rural road, and there wasn’t any traffic. If there had been, Gram’s Mustang would’ve bounced off who knows what like a pinball in a pinball machine.
Once the car stopped, it rolled backward until we landed in the swampy mire of the ditch with a splat. The thick, wet mud sucked at the car tires like super gravity.
That’s when Gram yelled:
“WHAT
IN
THE
SAM
HILL
IS WRONG WITH YOU?!”
Brandon and I looked at each other, and then we looked at Mimi.
That’s when in a small, quiet voice she said, “It was a turtle. In the road. You were about to run over a turtle.”
We all looked out the window to see a turtle, as big as an extra-large pizza, lumbering across the deserted road.
“You mean to tell me…”
Gram began in the calm, steady voice she had used when battling Mom back at the condo, but then she finished in a rush.
“You almost killed the four of us because of a TURTLE?”
“Well, I didn’t want you to run over it,” Mimi said meekly.
“It’s a TURTLE!” Gram shrieked.
I totally agreed with Gram, but she yelled so loud and looked so mad, I felt really bad for Mimi.
Just an hour earlier Mimi had been singing, “We’re Marching to Zion.” At the moment, she probably wished she was in Zion instead of in the front seat with Gram.
“Well, I’m sorry, Madge,” Mimi said. “You know how I don’t like to see harm befall one of God’s creatures.”
It surprised me that Mimi defended herself when Gram had yelled as loud as she did.
But Mimi’s defense didn’t mean anything to Gram, because Gram looked at Brandon and me in the back seat and said sternly, “We’re responsible for those two, you know.”
And that’s what did it.
Mimi lost it.
She buried her head in her hands and sobbed, and it didn’t take long before the sobs turned into wails.
Gram opened the car door and got out. But, since the car was halfway in the ditch, Gram getting out made the front end of the car lighter than the back end. So, the swampy mud of the ditch sucked even harder, and we all felt the car sink deeper in the muck.
Gram pounded on the hood of her Mustang with her fists, and Mimi’s sobs turned into something which I would need a new vocab word to describe.
Love,
Me
P.S. I began this letter by saying I was writing it while sitting on the side of the road. This postscript is to let you know that I had to finish the letter while sitting in the car. Here’s the reason why:
After Gram got out of the car, we all did. And, after a little more yelling from Gram, and a lot more sobbing from Mimi, we came up with a plan. We’d wait for a passing car, flag them down, and go for help. To tell you the truth, it wasn’t much of a plan. It was kind of our only option, and it would’ve actually been an okay plan except for one, small thing. We were on such a deserted, rural road there was literally NO traffic of any kind.
I finally sat down at the edge of the ditch to wait, and Mimi did too, but not before putting the stack of Harold’s directions underneath her so she wouldn’t have to sit directly on the ground. Gram leaned against the side of the Mustang.
N
one of our phones were working, but even so, while we waited, Brandon paced back and forth in front of the car holding his phone up to the sky. It was undeniably evident that none of our phones were going to work way out in the boondocks, so I’ll never understand why he kept thinking his would.
Anyway, just as it was becoming clear to all of us that we were going to have to come up with a different plan if we didn’t want to live on the side of the road for the rest of our lives, Brandon yelled at the top of his lungs, “ALLIGATOR!!!!!!”
“Good heavens!” Gram exclaimed.
“Lord have mercy!” Mimi shrieked.
“Yikes!” I yelled.
Brandon ran toward the Mustang and flung open the door. I scrambled to my feet and grabbed Gram and Mimi by their wrists. I dragged/pulled/pushed them toward the car.
Brandon dove between the two front seats to get into the back.
Gram climbed and clawed her way over the center console to the driver’s side.
Mimi clambered in after her, and before she could even sit down, I shoved her so I could get inside too.
Then I slammed the door shut like our lives depended on it because for all I knew, they did. (It was a good thing Mimi was so skinny or I might not have made it.)
The only thing we left behind was Harold’s directions that were pressed into the damp ground where Mimi had been sitting on them.
While we panted and caught our breath, we watched an alligator lumber across the road from one swampy ditch to the other just like the turtle had done. And I don’t know what everyone else was thinking, but what I was thinking was, “Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst” was the worst motto ever. Preparing for the worst meant I should start thinking about what else might come out of the swamp that surrounded us. I sure didn’t see how thinking about that was going to be any kind of help at all.
Dear Me,
Sorry about the mud splatters on these pages. There was no way to avoid them, and honestly, a few mud splatters in comparison to the crisis we’re currently in is really quite minor.
When I Hit the Road Page 6