The Desert Sky Before Us

by Anne Valente

  I’ve never been to Moab, Rhiannon says. How far away are we?

  Billie sighs. Nine hours.

  Any cities between here and there? Or should we just eat here?

  I’m still not that hungry. Albuquerque is the next biggest city. Another three hours, if you can wait. It’s still early. I know it’s a long drive ahead, but we can be in Moab by dusk if you want to set up camp.

  We don’t have to camp. I know you’d prefer a hotel.

  Last night wasn’t that bad. I can handle another night outside.

  The mechanic resurfaces from beneath the car and Rhiannon glances past him to the sky through the tunnel of the garage. A milked film of dust, far less clear than the night before, so many crystalline constellations above the tent. Her stomach roils and she fishes in the backseat for trail mix, still three hours until lunch. As she turns she catches sight of a small television in the corner of the garage, antenna-fuzzed but still clear enough that Rhiannon sees the news: continued coverage of the last downed plane, continued reopening of airports around the country, what she let herself forget for one night out of range beneath a swirl of bats and stars.

  ALBUQUERQUE IS LATTICED with cars, the sun slicked across a gridlock of metal. Rhiannon turns the air-conditioning on full blast, the Mustang trapped between a semi and a truck as they circle the city’s beltway and curve around downtown. She looks for a quick lunch turnoff. She’s kept the radio off and let Billie control the music selection, her choice an entire playlist of Heart. Little Queen once one of their father’s favorites. Rhiannon remembers the album blasting through their garage in Urbana when she first learned how to manage a stick shift. She doesn’t know if Billie associates the songs with their father but doesn’t ask.

  I’d say pull off anywhere, Billie says. Before we leave the city limits. Any stop will push us beyond the lunch rush by the time we’re back on the road.

  Rhiannon is surprised by the number of cars on a Wednesday at noon, Albuquerque larger than she anticipated. Roswell’s flattened desert has given rise to peaks off to the east, jagged mountains that in the high sun are hazed with dust. In the creep of traffic, Rhiannon spots a blue sign listing the next exit’s restaurant choices. FOOD: Waffle House. Taco Bell. Blake’s Lotaburger. Nothing Rhiannon wants but an indication that other restaurants can’t be far.

  Any requests?

  Maybe not diner food this time, Billie says. Something with vegetables.

  Rhiannon pulls off the beltway and drives a grid of streets, traffic backed up at every stoplight, until she spots a Vietnamese restaurant at the corner of a strip mall. She pulls in and Billie gets out of the car as soon as Rhiannon cuts the engine.

  Jesus, Billie says, stretching her arms above her head. The blunt edges of her bruise still visible but lighter than they were the day before. She leans her back against the car and touches her toes. I wish you’d parked farther away. I could use a walk.

  I’m sure we’re hiking, Rhiannon says. As soon as we get to Moab.

  Fine with me. Billie heads toward the strip mall. I’m getting soft out here.

  Rhiannon eyes her sister’s muscles as she walks ahead, the sinewed lines of her legs. There is nothing soft at all about her sister, only the brief flood of emotion Billie let her see beneath Carlsbad’s stars. When they enter the restaurant, Rhiannon chooses a booth in the corner and Billie orders a tofu-vegetable stir fry and iced Vietnamese coffee, Rhiannon a bowl of pho even though it’s nearly a hundred degrees outside.

  How far is Moab from here? Rhiannon asks once the server walks away. And what does the route look like?

  Six hours. Looks like mostly two-lane highways.

  Rhiannon nods. Lower speed limit. But hopefully fewer cars.

  The server brings Billie’s coffee and Rhiannon’s water and Billie takes a sip and extends the glass across the table. You want to try this?

  I’m good with water.

  Billie takes in half the pint glass through a pink straw, cold coffee mixed with condensed milk. This is amazing, she says. We barely had sugar at all in Decatur.

  What about care packages? Mom sent those chewy SweeTARTS you always liked.

  Yeah, I liked them in grade school. But they rationed our packages. We weren’t exactly living high on the hog out there.

  Rhiannon unfurls the silverware from her rolled paper napkin and all at once Beth crowds her brain again. The last time Rhiannon went out for Vietnamese, with Beth just before moving out. The place on the corner near Beth’s apartment. A Friday night standard where they went for spring rolls and pho.

  I wish you could’ve met Beth, Rhiannon says before she can think better.

  Billie looks up.

  I could’ve brought her to Decatur. I never did.

  Ashamed of the family felon?

  I’m serious, Billie.

  You could’ve brought her anytime. Why didn’t you?

  The server arrives with their food and Rhiannon all at once wants to stop this conversation. Billie unsheathes a pair of wooden chopsticks and picks a piece of tofu from her plate and waits for her sister to respond.

  I said I never thought of Beth as permanent, Rhiannon says. If she wasn’t, there was never any reason for you to meet her.

  Across more than four years of living with her?

  It never seemed that long.

  Maybe not to you. Billie prods a mushroom with the chopsticks. I can tell you that four years is a long fucking time.

  Well, I didn’t want to introduce you to someone who wouldn’t stay.

  You moved out three months ago and you’re still talking about her. She seems like someone who’s stayed.

  Breakups are hard, Rhiannon says. Her words ring dumb in her ears.

  Maybe it’s not really a breakup.

  I moved out, Billie. I’ve been living with Mom’s things for two months.

  You moved out. But you still talk. I heard you on the phone in Illinois.

  The metal spoon scalds Rhiannon’s tongue. She rips up basil and mint from the plate beside her bowl and throws them in with a squirt of lime to diminish the soup’s heat. Two months. Two months beyond moving only clothing and linens from Beth’s apartment, everything she owned except the racing gear that stayed hidden in her mother’s garage for four years. Almost everything in the apartment belonging to Beth, two wide couches and a dining table and a flat-screen television and all of Beth’s art supplies. Rhiannon could fit what she owned in the Mustang, everything she’d accumulated across four years that amounted to nothing more than always having been prepared to leave.

  It’s a breakup, Rhiannon says. I don’t see much sense in going back.

  Then why is she still listed as the number one contact in your phone?

  Rhiannon looks up. How do you know that?

  I didn’t think it was a secret. You’ve let me use your phone to map every single place we’ve traveled.

  Rhiannon stirs her soup. I had a dream about her last night.

  What kind of dream?

  Whatever it was, it felt real. She feels more real to me now out here than she ever has these last few months in Urbana.

  Do you think things could be different now? Would things change between you if you were doing something different?

  Like not selling textbooks? I don’t know.

  That’s not what I mean.

  Rhiannon sets down her spoon. Then what?

  I mean doing something different with how you communicate. Rhee, you shut people out. You’ve always been impossible.

  Like you have room to talk.

  You said you never even talked to her about your racing. I’m guessing that’s just the tip of the iceberg. How well did you ever really let her know you?

  Rhiannon keeps her eyes down so she won’t have to look at her sister, won’t throw back in her face the first impulse she has: that they’re both impermeable. That Billie shut herself away for six fucking years, a can of gasoline she must have known would keep her separated from everyone she loved.
And Rhiannon, six years of doing nothing but keeping secrets from her sister and from Beth. Two people she should have kept closer than anyone else. Beyond the failure of leaving the racetrack: the failure of failing them both.

  RHIANNON STOPS AT a BP station near the restaurant, the gas gauge already low. So many miles. As much distance as she can put between herself and Champaign. You shut people out, Rhee. Six years of nothing but strained monthly visits, six years of secrets and omissions and walls and still Billie knew. That Rhiannon could keep things hidden. Because what did it matter. Even if Beth knew how good she’d been out on the road, even if she knew the oval tracks and the crowds that grew to know her name, the outcome would have been the same. College textbooks, college town. Urbana her life’s plan as soon as Billie burned down the library, Rhiannon’s concentration broken of everything. Beth’s apartment. Beth’s lithographs and silkscreens. Beth beside her on the couch. Beth’s mouth on her skin. Rhiannon lifts the fuel pump’s lever, Billie still inside the car, and feels the weight of the past five years fall heavy all around her. Beyond not letting Beth know the heat of the asphalt or how the interior of a stock car blistered at two hundred miles per hour, she recognizes all at once the two-way street of distance: that she never took the time to know Beth’s world either. The specific mission statements of each gallery show. The particular media she used for each one. The books on their coffee table. What the fuck the Spiral Jetty really even was.

  Rhiannon leans against the Mustang’s window where Billie sits in the passenger seat. I’m going inside for a minute. Want anything?

  I’m good, Billie says. Already peed in the restaurant.

  Keep an eye on the fuel gauge. I’ll be back in a second.

  Billie nods and Rhiannon crosses the parking lot to the BP’s food mart, the sun blaring down, the sky a dome of clouds trapping heat. She lingers by the salted snacks, peanuts or Chex mix or potato chips for the long drive ahead. She steals inside the single stall of the women’s restroom and pulls out her phone before she can stop herself.

  The tone rings. Three times, four. Midday on a Wednesday. Enough time to think better and hang up but Beth answers.

  Just breaking for lunch, Beth says. Where are you?

  At a gas station in Albuquerque.

  New Mexico? What are you doing way down there?

  Long story. We’re on our way up to the quarry now.

  Still scheduled to be back next week?

  Still on track. I just wanted to call. We might be out of range the next few days.

  Beth is silent and Rhiannon wonders why it matters to tell her they’ll be out of range. Neither of them beholden to the other. What she forgets again and again every time she loses her will and rips the Band-Aid open and calls.

  How’s Billie doing?

  She’s fine. We’re both doing fine.

  Rhee, why Albuquerque?

  I’ll tell you more when we get back, Rhiannon says and regrets it immediately. Making plans as if plans are hers to make. She leans against the bathroom counter, the scent of oversweet air freshener choking the windowless room.

  Is it sunny out there? Beth asks.

  Sunny and dry. Nothing like Illinois.

  Rain here. Every day. As if you couldn’t guess.

  A thin shell of hurt lines Beth’s voice and Rhiannon tries not to read into her words. What kind of rain she means, literal or figurative. She knows Beth dated far more women before her, Rhiannon’s dating history a paltry list of relationships she can count on one hand. She knows Beth could move on fast if she wanted. Rhiannon rests against the sink and closes her eyes against the harsh fluorescence of the overhead lights.

  I miss you, she whispers.

  I’d fly there if I could, Beth says. The first words she’s said in months that reveal anything at all of how she’s felt since Rhiannon moved out.

  Airport still closed?

  Our little Champaign airport is. Peoria too. Chicago might be opening back up. Saw it on the news this morning. You doing okay?

  Rhiannon wonders what kind of okay Beth means. The news. Her mother. The trip itself. Shuttling toward Utah just to attend another funeral without Beth beside her, not anymore. The wide sweep of an unfamiliar desert. Nothing like the cornfields of Illinois. Nothing like the warm pressure of Beth’s hand on her hand.

  I’m fine, Rhiannon says.

  I wish you’d tell me if you weren’t.

  I’m fine. Really. How about you? How’s everything there?

  Not bad. Preparing a few prints.

  What kind of prints?

  A meditation on rain. So much of it. If I’m focusing on Illinois land, it has to account for this. The prints are for a show in Detroit this September.

  You never told me that.

  You never asked. And I didn’t know if it mattered anymore.

  Between the lines of Beth’s words: if Rhiannon matters anymore, if their relationship is something to be saved. In the thick bright of the gas-station bathroom, a curtain of loneliness falls dark around her.

  I’m proud of you, Rhiannon whispers.

  I’m proud of you, too.

  For what, Rhiannon wants to say. For crossing four states, for pulling her sister from prison and driving all the way out to Utah just to escape packed boxes and the echo of an empty house.

  I’m so sorry I left, Rhiannon says. Her voice breaking across the words.

  Beth is silent. The line an ocean.

  I’ll see you when you get back, she says before she hangs up.

  THE BRICKED TRAFFIC of Albuquerque thins out, three lanes of highway winnowed down to two as the Mustang veers northwest toward the Four Corners, the cross of the American West. They pass signs for the Santa Ana Pueblo, the Zia Pueblo. The rightful residents of this landscape, Rhiannon can’t help but think, and not the names of explorers on every western monument. She purges the ghost of Beth’s voice from the attic of her head. The flatness of her tone. A blank book, unreadable. Billie naps in the passenger seat, mouth open, the map on Rhiannon’s phone charting their progress offline as they travel out of cell range. The sky thickens overhead the farther north they travel and Rhiannon turns on the radio, scans the dial until she finds the local news.

  She finds Beth was right. Between news of a monsoon squall in Papua New Guinea and a worsening drought across the Sahara are reports of airports opening back up. Los Angeles. London. Tokyo. Chicago, just like Beth said. The cost of shutting down too great a risk for declining airline sales worldwide. The news station reels sound bites from press conferences with the FAA, with the United States president. America’s take on ensuring that travel remains safe, that airlines maintain business without fear. Then smaller snippets of interviews with climatologists and radio commentators, whether it’s known for certain if the clear-air turbulence that brought down four of the planes where black boxes were recovered can be attributed to climate change and disordered weather patterns. Rhiannon glances at the wide sky beyond the windshield. She can’t recall any planes streaking the sky since she and Billie left Illinois. The sheared sun splits thin through a heavy haze as they travel north toward Colorado’s border.

  Rhiannon shuts off the radio and lets silence fill the car. I’d fly there if I could. She wonders if Beth will fly to Detroit for her show. If she’ll be forced to drive. What the sky will be like by then, if Beth’s voice will still feel as familiar in September as it does now. If there will be any words at all between them when she and Billie return. Rhiannon feels the Mustang’s machinery humming beneath her, a familiarity she once knew. Shuttling with her father from one raceway to the next, both of them accustomed to the silence of a race car. No music or idle talk, only the flatlands of the Midwest, only cornfields rippling out into plains and then mesas and then canyons. Billie continues sleeping. The mountains disappear to the east. New Mexico ripples out into badlands, a tent-rocked terrain so much like the Dakotas. Uninhabited wilderness, nothing but junipers and piñon trees and unseen coyotes bedding down in the dus
t. Rhiannon sees signs for Mesa Verde National Park, 116 miles, just past the New Mexico border into southern Colorado. The clouds keep thickening as they travel north and a heavy wind picks up.

  Rhiannon drives through the afternoon’s quiet haze. The Mustang approaches and crosses the Colorado border along Highway 491. The wind throws itself against the side of the car, battering the highway from both sides, and Billie remains asleep beside her until the Rockies appear in the northern distance, a far-off range coming into view through a thick line of smog.

  Are we already in Colorado? Billie says, sitting up.

  Passed the border an hour ago.

  Why is it so cloudy?

  Probably the same haze we saw from Cañon City. All of Colorado has been hit with drought and dust this summer.

  The gas lever leans low and Rhiannon watches for signs of approaching towns.

  We should fill up again soon, she says. Colorado mountain towns are small but at least they have tourists. The road ahead into Utah may be pretty desolate. You hungry?

  Not for a full-on meal. But I could use something small.

  Rhiannon drives until she spots an old Sinclair station, just past a sign that lists the next town as Cortez. The last outpost before the highway curves through the jagged wall of the Rockies ahead, as if Highway 491 will run straight into the mountains and end. Rhiannon pulls into the station and Billie hops out, the wind lurching the passenger door open behind her.

  Jesus, Billie says. I’ll watch the car if you want to take a break first.