Page 111 of Side Trip

“Joy,” she sympathizes. She touches Joy’s hair, smooths it behind her shoulder. Her gaze lands on the Polaroids. “Is this the guy?”

“Dylan? Yes.” Joy spreads the photos out and air whooshes from her lungs. He was so good looking, and good to her. Hegother.

Taryn admires the photo of her and Dylan in bed, smiling up at the camera. “He’s a hottie.”

Yes, he is.

Joy scoops up the photos and adds them to her purse.

“Think you’ll ever see him again?”

“I hope so.” Joy recalls their last deal.Same day, same time, ten years from now.He’s most likely moved on from her, but she still wants to see him. She’ll honor their deal, she promised. And if he shows, which she hopes he does, they’ll take it from there.

Meanwhile, she needs to get her own life together.

She picks up Judy’s stack of lists and drops them into the hatbox. She then drops the box into the plastic garbage bag.

“Are you sure you want to get rid of those?” Taryn asks.

“I am.” She ties up the bag and picks it up. She shoulders her purse and takes a last look around the small one-bedroom apartment. The purple couch she’d been sleeping on for months has been loaded onto the truck. So have her clothes and Taryn’s dishes and everything else they’d brought with them and collected since they’ve lived in the city.

“Are you sad to leave this place?” she asks Taryn.

Taryn shakes her head. “Leaving is easy when you’ve got someplace else to be.”

“Yes, it is.” New York treated her well while she was here, but it’s lost its luster. She is past ready for some California sunshine and sand. She might even take up surfing again.

She follows Taryn out of the apartment and dumps the bag into the building’s recycling below the stoop. “As soon as we get to California, I’m going to write my own goal list.”

Taryn throws her arm around her. They look up at the redbrick building with the columns of kitchen windows, four rows high. Taryn grins at her. “Jo-Jo’s Goals. Best idea yet.”

“I think so, too.” Joy leans her head against her best friend and sighs. “So long, New York. You were good to us, but we have sunsets to chase.”

CHAPTER 32

AFTER

Joy

At almost the exact time, same day, she did ten years previous, Joy maneuvers her Mini Cooper into the same parking space at Rob’s Diner in Ludlow, California. She scans the parking lot for a familiar car, even though she doesn’t know what type of car he drives. She doesn’t even know if he’ll show. But she doesn’t want to miss the chance to “take it from there,” as Dylan had proposed all those years ago.

Hard to believe it’s been ten years since they made that deal. Only three years since she divorced Mark, returned to California, and launched Surfari Soaps & Salves.

Joy takes a calming breath and peels her clammy hands from the steering wheel, then gathers her phone, keys, and purse. Inside is theJoyrideCD, the Polaroid photos of them in Chicago, and Judy’s unfinished Route 66 Bucket List.Do something spontaneousremains unchecked. A burst of hot desert wind cuts across the parking lot as she unfolds from the car and a wave of nostalgia rolls over her. She can see Dylan bent over the hood of his dad’s Pontiac, trying to repair whatever was wrong. She can see him cleaning the trash from the car and gathering his duffel and guitar. She can see him striding across the parking lot to her car with a mischievous yet grateful grin. He wasn’t going to be stuck at a diner in the desert. He didn’t have to deal with his dad’s crappy car because he’d just met Joy. An incredible sense of longing burns in her chest at the memory of him.

She shuts the door and locks and arms the car. Another wave of heat blows through, flipping tumbleweeds in the dirt field across the National Trails Highway. Route 66. Her light-blue maxi skirt flaps around her ankles like a flag. Her sun-bleached hair falls in disarray around her face. She makes her way to the diner and waits to be seated until a family of three vacates her table by the window. She orders the same meal: cheeseburger, fries, and a Cherry Coke. And then she waits again, this time for Dylan.

Her gaze remains fixed on the world outside the diner’s window. She watches the occasional car pass on Route 66 and the steady flow of traffic on Interstate 40 visible in the distance. Cars enter and exit the parking lot. Roadtrippers eat their meals, then leave. An hour passes, then two. Joy finishes her lunch and orders dessert, a plated slice of peach pie that sits untouched beside her third refill of Cherry Coke. She’s gone to the restroom twice, only to hurry back out of fear she missed him.

Three hours pass, well past the time Dylan had sat at her table and borrowed her phone, and Joy has no choice but to accept the truth. His life has gone as planned.He isn’t going to show.

She dips her chin, dabs at the moisture collecting in her eyes with the paper napkin on her lap, then looks back out the window. After studying his emotionally charged lyrics toJoyridemore times than she cares to count the last few years, she convinced herself this meetup would be inevitable.

She should request her check. She should pay for her meal and leave. But she can’t make herself get up from the table. She can’t peel her eyes from the window. Where is he? Why hasn’t he shown?

She stares harder at the highway, willing him to drive into the parking lot, to pull into the same space he had before. She imagines him getting out of the car and turning to the window to see if she’s there. She is. She waves. He smiles, his gorgeous, heart-stopping smile.

“Anything else I can get you, miss?”

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