Road to Paradise

by Paullina Simons

  Eddie was pretty funny.

  Then Agnes wasn’t grounded anymore, and Gina cold-turkey stopped asking me to go places with her. Nearly the entire senior year had cruised by and we had barely spoken till the afternoon in the locker room.

  Gina and I weren’t strangers, but there is something so personal about traveling in a car with someone. So intimate. Sharing the minutes of your day, your every minute for days, maybe weeks, with another human being. I couldn’t understand why in the world she’d want to come with me. But the thought of traveling alone was not entirely pleasant. Tension was inherent in both scenarios. On the one hand, Gina, but on the other, terror and alone! It was like that Valentine’s Day Hallmark card for fools: “BEING WITH YOU IS ALMOST LIKE BEING WITH SOMEONE.” Now that was sentiment I responded to. What was better: Gina or violent dread?

  “I’m thinking, I’m thinking,” I told her when she accosted me again in the hall.

  “Well, I have to know soon.”

  “Why?”

  “What do you mean why? I have to pack, no? I have to tell my mother. I have to get ready, too.”

  “Look, if I agree to do this, you have to agree to take a bus the last leg of your trip. I’m not driving to Bakersfield.”

  “You sure about that?” Gina said, and before I could respond, quickly added, “How close is Bakersfield to Mendocino?” a wide smile on her not really Italian face.

  About me. First, all the things I’m not. I am not objectively beautiful. I have found very few people who are; is that fair to say? On the bell curve, I fall somewhere near the top of the downward creep toward homeliness, though perhaps more like a drop than a creep first thing in the morning when I don’t wear mascara or lipgloss, but I bet not even Christy Worsoe, the homecoming queen, looks good then. I can be thought of as plain in my unadorned state, but Emma, who has no obligation to make me feel better about myself, says I look cute when I crawl out for Saturday morning French toast with ricotta cheese before track, all sleepy and punk-haired, and because she says this, I don’t feel as homely as I might. There is nothing wrong with my face, but there is nothing extra right with it, either.

  Other things about me. I don’t function well at night. I’m a morning person. I deeply believe that in that two-word, sea-like panoply of “morning person” are veiled a thousand tributaries, big and small, which comprise the essence of a human being. I have tested this divide on my friends Marc and Debbie and Tracy, on Emma too, and found it to be true. I get up and function best early in the day. I clean my room, get my work and schoolbooks together, make sure my sneakers are dry and my clothes ready for track. I take a shower, I eat breakfast. I have a list of things to do before the bus comes, and I do them all. My brain works. I get things out of the freezer for dinner, I make coffee for Emma, I check the boiler to make sure the pilot light is on so that the Lambiels have hot water. We once had a big problem with that, and it became my responsibility to check, and I never forget. I go to school. My library books are returned on time, I don’t indulge in compulsive behavior when I have things to do. I don’t leave my schoolwork until the last minute. I don’t put down my library books and then forget where I put them. I don’t squander the little money I have. I help out. When Emma and I are working an evening for the diplomats, I stay until the work is done. I always say, is there anything else I can do? and, what can I do to help?

  If Emma wants me to iron, I iron. I don’t like ironing, and once I burned a silk shirt and the top of my hand and still have the scar to prove it (the blouse needed to be thrown out), but I iron anyway.

  I don’t cut corners. If I am told to run seven miles to prepare for tomorrow’s 440-meter race, I run seven miles, even if I think it’s excessive. I don’t get so obsessed in watching TV/reading/knitting/washing the car/cleaning that I forget what time it is. That’s the major part of it, I think—I, as a morning person, always keep track of time. I know when it’s time to go to school, and when it’s time to clean, and when it’s time to read, and to rest, and to ask Emma why she has taken care of me for thirteen years (though there’s never been a good time to ask that, so I haven’t). We sometimes stay up and watch a late movie on a Saturday night, but rarely. Once, in 1978, we stayed up for Towering Inferno because I wanted to see how it ended. It ended at two, and I’ve never forgotten the feeling of having to drag my sorry ass out of bed four hours later. I sometimes read late, in my bed, but when I see it’s eleven-thirty, I put the book down and go to sleep so I won’t feel like a zombie the next day. I hate feeling like a zombie. I hate that feeling, because it’s not me. It’s not who I am, zombie-like on Sundays because I couldn’t put down The Reincarnation of Peter Proud. I don’t like myself when I lose track of time, so to like myself more, I put down the book and go to sleep.

  Now take my friend Marc. Marc doesn’t know the definition of the word time. He does stay up till two, three, sometimes all night, and then I don’t see him in school the next day. He is constantly on the verge of failing, making up work, being late with assignments, copying my notes between classes, rushing, dropping things, forgetting things. Oh, does he forget things. Even things that are important to him. He likes to paint; you’d think he’d remember to bring along the tools of his craft, like his brushes and oils. But no. I can’t tell you how many times he doesn’t have his notebooks, or his chalks, or his special coal pencil. He is ridiculous and knows it, doesn’t like himself but can’t help it. His mind is on a thousand things at once, and he can’t remember where he has to be, or what he has to do. Things fall away. And when he’s up, he wants to stay up. And when he’s asleep, he wants to stay asleep. He says: “Whatever I’m doing, I want to continue doing.”

  “But what about the things you have to be doing?”

  “Not so much for those, Sloane.”

  We are quite uncertain about his future at college. He and I are both worried and frankly not optimistic. Fortunately he’s going to New Rochelle, just five miles away, and will commute, so if he flunks out, he’ll still be in his own bed.

  Things don’t get away from me.

  Guess what kind of person Gina is?

  “Four hundred and seventy miles,” I said to Gina in the hall as we walked from Health to English. “From Bakersfield to Mendocino.”

  “Well, how would I get there?”

  I said nothing. I was providing the use of my outrageous wheels all the way across the country. I wanted to suggest the use of a Greyhound bus all the way across the country. Or perhaps an airplane ticket. I said nothing, hoping she would see reason all by herself, but she spent two or three minutes until the bell rang heartily complaining, after which I said, “Gina, you’ll have to get on a bus. It’s just a few hours.”

  “If it’s a few hours, why can’t you drive me?”

  “I’m being metaphorical about the few hours. It’s incredibly out of my way.”

  “Just a few miles.”

  “Four hundred and seventy few miles to be exact. And I don’t know why I have to point out the obvious, but you do realize I have to drive back to Mendocino? That’s two extra days for me. You’re staying in Bakersfield, but I’m actually driving back.”

  “I’m not staying in Bakersfield,” she said, sounding defensive. “I’m coming back here. With him.”

  “With who?”

  “With Eddie, of course. Who do you think I’m going to Bakersfield for?”

  I said nothing. Really, there are times in your life when it’s better to say nothing. This was one of them.

  Gina’s blue eyes stared at me for a second longer than I was comfortable with, and then she ran to class.

  My hands itched all through English. I couldn’t hold a pen. What I had wanted to say was, are you kidding me? I’m not bringing you and him back to New York. I’m not spending a week with him and you in my car. You might as well ask me to start speaking French or type sixty words a minute. It ain’t happenin’. Mais non. Jamais. Jamais.

  Instead of talking about this—the impor
tant thing—Gina and I had an arithmetic lesson. An elementary physics lesson. A time and distance lesson. We took minutes, divided them into hours and siphoned miles through time, and time through miles, taking 470 of them, which was almost 480, dividing them by 60 minutes, and concluding with 8 hours without stops, each way. After 30 minutes of this, Gina still couldn’t grasp what 60 minutes had to do with how fast the car was traveling, as if time and distance were in no way related. She didn’t understand why my 350 horsepower Mustang, traveling at nearly 137 miles per hour, couldn’t get from Mendocino to Bakersfield and back in 55 minutes. While explaining it to her, I could barely understand it myself, and it certainly didn’t help me to understand the most important thing—was she really expecting me to bring her and Eddie back to New York? Jamais!

  The preparations were monumental. Maybe it was because I’d never been anywhere. Or maybe because I was a planner and couldn’t plan for two weeks I couldn’t foresee in my pedestrian imagination. I didn’t want Emma to know I was having trouble because I didn’t want her to say, if you can’t pack and plan for a little trip, how are you going to pack for college? I wanted to reply to her unasked question that it’s a lot easier to pack all your stuff than to selectively pack some of it. Like, how am I supposed to know what I’m going to wear in Nevada, on an indefinite tomorrow? Is the temperature the same in Nevada as in Larchmont? “Probably a touch warmer,” said Emma.

  Are there mosquitoes? “There are mosquitoes everywhere.”

  “Really, everywhere? But there’s no water in Nevada. Aren’t mosquitoes swamp creatures?”

  “Well, then, you’ve answered your own question.”

  “No water?” said Gina when she heard. “What about Lake Tahoe?”

  “What do you know about Lake Tahoe, Reed?” exclaimed Marc. He called all the girls by their last name. Took the sex right out of them. And mine stuck. This took place during lunch.

  “Nothing,” Gina defended. “Except Fredo Corleone was killed on it, and it was in Nevada.”

  “Oh, Fredo Corleone. Well, then, absolutely. Better bring repellant.”

  Did it get cold at night? No one knew, not even Gina; that part wasn’t in The Godfather.

  Was it windy? We decided it was. We packed some breakers.

  Do I bring hairspray? Extra underwear? Warm socks?

  “I don’t think it’s ever a bad idea to pack extra underwear and socks,” said Emma. “But you don’t wear hairspray here; why would you start there?”

  Maybe I was going to be a different person there.

  Challengingly I bought hairspray.

  Are hotel rooms warm or cold? Do they give you towels? Extra blankets? Sometimes I get cold at night.

  “In the summer?”

  We circled the horses around to the original question. Did it get cold at night and are hotel rooms warm or cold?

  “Does it get cold at night where?” said Marc. “In Nevada? You’ll blow through the state in four hours. What about South Dakota? Iowa? Utah? Wyoming? Why don’t you care if it gets cold there?”

  What did Utah have to do with my business, and should I bring my favorite pillow?

  Should I bring a camera, my Kodak Instamatic? Or will Emma lend me her Polaroid, and what’s better, the top-notch quality of my Instamatic, or the stick-it-in-the-darkroom-of-a-partially-closed-drawer quality of the Polaroid?

  Should I bring books to read?

  “Do you plan to be doing much reading while you’re driving?” Marc asked. He asked this slowly to convey what he really thought of my question.

  “Aren’t you all Walden Pondy,” I said, shoving him. “Go sketch something while I do all the work.”

  He was sitting in my room doing nothing. He sketched me packing.

  “Perhaps a book for a rainy day?” I asked. Why did I always sound so defensive, even with my friends?

  “You won’t be driving in the rain, then?”

  Should I bring cash?

  “Yes, Sloane,” said Marc even more slowly, the wretch. “You should bring some money. After all, you might need gas.”

  I threw my pillow at him, knocking the coal pencils out of his hands.

  “I mean,” I said, “cash or Travelers’ checks? And if I bring cash, where do I stash it? Do I hide it?”

  “Hide it from who? Gina?”

  “Well, I don’t know. Can I trust her?”

  “Can she trust you?” said Marc, and I didn’t have a pillow left to throw.

  “One more comment like this, and you’ll have to walk home.”

  “Where are you going to hide your money from her in your little Shelby car? How hard would you have to hide it before she a, realizes what you’re doing and b, takes it personally?”

  I sighed. “You’re exasperating.”

  “I’m exasperating?” He went back to sketching.

  “How much money will I need? Do I bring more than I need? Or just enough? And what if I run out? How will I get more? I have no credit card, and who’d give me one anyway? I have no job.”

  Marc got up and handed me his drawing. “I’m going home,” he said wearily. “I’m glad I’m broke and can’t go and don’t have your problems.”

  After he left, I wished he could come with us. He’d drawn me like a brown flurry in the middle of a messy room, with greenbacks flying in the air. I taped it to my wall as I figured things out.

  By my estimation we would be gone fifteen days and fourteen nights. We needed gas for 6,000 miles. But what if it was 6,500? And what if on uphill slopes, the Mustang’s gas mileage dipped from twenty-three miles per gallon to twenty?

  “So?” said Marc when I called to discuss the imponderables. “On downhill slopes, mileage will be twenty-six. You better hope it’ll all even out.”

  But that’s the whole thing right there. What if it didn’t even out? What if Gina twisted my arm and I had to drive her 480 miles to Bakersfield, go north to Mendocino and then head back south again to pick her up? Pas possible! How did I calculate for that kind of unknown?

  The hotel room. Fifteen nights. But what if it turned out to be sixteen? What if it took me a few extra days to locate the woman who gave birth to me? What if Gina wanted to spend a few extra days in Eddie’s stellar company?

  “So? Sleep in the car,” Marc said, in a “Freebird” voice that said it would be the height of adventure to sleep in the car because you ran out of money.

  I calculated fifty dollars a night for a motel for sixteen nights. But what if it was sixty dollars? And what about room tax?

  “Yes, room tax is different in every state,” Marc said. “And parking? And what if you lose your room key and have to pay ten bucks for a new one? I don’t think you’re planning enough, Sloane.”

  I agreed. Food. Did we have to eat three times a day? Plus water for the drive. Maybe an adult beverage, once, twice, in a bar somewhere?

  “Yes, good, plan for a drunken binge,” said Marc. “But what about a cover charge?”

  The car will need an oil change.

  “Every 3,000 miles. Your car, maybe more often. And incidentals?”

  “I budgeted for them. Like what?”

  “Well, I don’t know. That’s why they’re called incidentals.”

  I thought about it. “You mean like nail polish?”

  “Yes, that’s exactly what came to my mind. And acetone. And aspirin.”

  “Forget it. I’ll live with a headache.” I bit my nails to eschew the incidentals.

  “A flat tire?”

  “Okay, I’ll bring an extra forty dollars.”

  “What if you hit a deer and get another flat tire?”

  “Why would I hit a deer?”

  “Sloane, I don’t know why you do many of the things you do.”

  “Shut up.”

  I calculated. Hotel: seventeen days at sixty bucks a day. Gas: 7,000 miles at twenty miles a gallon at a buck twenty-five. I factored in three cans of oil, another pair of windshield wipers, jumper cables, a tire jack, a poncho. Plus:
enough cash for three daily squares, ice cream seven times, two daily Cokes, a daily coffee. Also: six adult beverages, forty bucks for a flat tire, another fifty bucks for just in case, and twenty dollars for a gift for Emma. I added it up. I divided by me and Gina.

  It came out to $1,700. Each. Plus a gift for Emma, so my share was $1,720!!!

  Perhaps it was a blessing Gina was coming with me. When I told her how much her share was, she didn’t pause, didn’t blink. “That’s all? Hmm. I thought it was going to be more. But I’m going to bring an extra hundred for clothes, because I love clothes, and another hundred just to be on the safe side.” She sounded almost like a morning person. So clear-headed. I applauded her cautiousness and followed her example. Gina said she worked in a Dairy Barn for two years, saved a little. She was a saver, too! Was I wrong about her?

  I took all my money out of the bank—or what was left of it after new running shoes and a prom dress and paying for a quarter of the prom limo I was sharing with my friends Marc, Cindy, and Jessica.

  Emma offered me an extra $300.

  “No, Em. You already did plenty.” I tried to think of what she’d done. “You got me a car!” I said brightly, hoping she’d notice.

  She didn’t. “Take it,” she said sensibly, and then—non-sensically, “Believe me, you’ll need it.”

  More? Less?

  “No, no, I’ll be fine. I planned it all out.” Then I remembered. What about shampoo, conditioner?

  “Hotels give you that.” Emma paused. “Maybe not conditioner.” She paused again. “Maybe not motels.”

  “Maybe not motels what? Not give you shampoo or conditioner?”

  “Either.”

  “Oh.”

  Hotels were going to be too expensive. Which led me back to my question: how much shampoo, how much conditioner? A bottle of Gee Your Hair Smells Terrific usually lasted a month. I decided to bring two of each. Emma paid for those.

  Gina and I didn’t get together for an inventory before we left. We should have, and wanted to, but I was busy, and she was busy. I went to four parties, there was a graduation, a senior picnic, a prom, packing, planning. We didn’t have time. We didn’t make time.