Page 51 of The Fire Walker
If I were Georgie, I would get them on the festival circuit at the same time. Coachella would be their thing a billion timesover.
“What?” I asked when he was still staring at it after five minutes. “Don’t you likeit?”
“No,” he murmured. “It’sgreat.”
“But?” What he said next made perfect sense, but it still surprisedme.
“I missthem.”
“They’re your family,” Iwhispered.
He glanced up at me, and even though I couldn’t see his eyes through his dark sunglasses, I knew they were sad. His lips twitched into a half-smile, and he handed the magazine back to me. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” I said, curling my fingers around the paper like it was a lifeline. “Didn’t anyone show youyet?”
He shook his head. “I haven’t looked at my phone for a whilenow.”
“Oh.” I was entirely sure that was myfault.
Without another word, he turned the engine on and backed out of thespace.
I wondered how much longer this could go on for. I was slowly chipping away at the edges, trying to get to know him again, but was it enough? I’d stalled him for another day, but in another, we could be back in Brooklyn, and that would beit.
I was so caught up in my thoughts that I jumped when Dee let out asnort.
“What?” I asked, looking up at the billboard that was coming towards us. Big Al’s ShrimpShack.
“We’re in Kentucky,” he frowned, nodding toward thesign.
“So?”
“Doesn’t seem the place for a shrimpshack.”
“There’s a lot of random stuff once you get out of the big cities,” I said. “Isn’t there stuff like that inAustralia?”
“Sure.”
“Likewhat?”
He shrugged. “There’s a lot of bigthings.”
“What do youmean?”
“There’s a big banana, a big pineapple, a big koala, a bigprawn…”
“No way.” I twisted in my seat a little so I could watchhim.
“It’s just tacky shit,” he said, looking at me out the corner of his eye. “Crap built on the side of thehighway.”
“So? I love tacky. What else isthere?”
He sighed and began rattling off the ones he knew. “There’s a big sheep, a big crab, a big rocking horse, a big macadamianut.”
“A macadamia nut? Wouldn’t that just be a big roundball?”
“Prettymuch.”
I’d finally gotten him talking, and my heart began to swell with hope. The Dee that had hung out with me at Venice Beach was starting to surface again, and I would do anything to keep him there. “Is there a website with all of these? I would love to do a road trip oneday.”
