Page 25 of Here We Go Again
“People are honking.”
“Probably because I am driving an enormous blue van with the words ‘The Queer Cuddler’ painted on the side.”
“I think it’s because you’re driving dangerously slow on a freeway. My yiayia drives faster than this, and she’s eighty.”
Rosemary grips the steering wheel tighter. “If you think your constant taunts will convince me to speed, you will be sorely disappointed.”
They’ve barely started down I-84 East through Oregon, and Rosemary’s ready to admit this is the worst idea she’s ever had. All the laminated maps and first aid training couldn’t adequately prepare her for spending five days trapped in a car with Logan Maletis. Not to mention the toddler horse masquerading as a dog stinking up the back seat, who barks at every single car they pass like he’s protecting his territory.
Getting Joe into the car had been a feat of herculean strength and saintlike patience. Even with the wheelchair ramp and the assist strap above the sliding side door, it was a ten-minute ordeal of seesawinghis body onto the reclined back seat. Joe screamed about his pride the entire time, and Odysseus drooled on her Saint Laurent heels.
Rosemary tries to focus on the beautiful view out the driver’s-side window, the Columbia River Gorge, dappled in the sunlight of early summer. She tries to focus on her deep breathing and on her perfectly structured itinerary.
But Logan is like a mosquito bite you know you shouldn’t scratch but can’t ignore. She chomps loudly on a Funyun, and Rosemary feels the sound in the back of her teeth. “Can you please desist with that abominable crunching?”
“Calm your tits,” Logan says, masticating with her mouth wide open. Bits of chip spray onto the dashboard in front of her. “It’s breakfast time. I have to eat.”
“Fascinating.” Joe whistles from the back seat. “Absolutely fascinating.”
Rosemary has to push herself up off the seat to look at him in the rearview mirror. The back seat is reclined to a forty-five-degree angle, with pillows propped behind Joe’s head, and his legs stretched out in front of him. With his Pendleton blanket and his dog curled up beside him, he looks almost cozy, but Rosemary sees the sadistic twinkle in his eye. “What’s fascinating?”
“This. The two of you. Two adult women reverting back to who they were at fourteen due to their unresolved conflict from that time.”
Logan crumples up her Funyun bag and chucks it in Joe’s face. “Don’t psychoanalyze us, old man. We’re taking you on your death trip. Please allow us to repress in peace.”
“It’s not a death trip,” Rosemary insists. “And I’m not repressed.”
Logan kicks up her long, tan legs and props them on the dashboard. “I, for one, am happy to let my past trauma resurface at unexpected times. It’s like a never-ending game of emotional Whac-a-Mole.”
In the rearview mirror, Rosemary sees Joe smile. “I spent thirtyyears of my life with teenagers, and while I’m grateful for every minute of my career as a teacher, I would rather not spend this trip with bickering children.”
Rosemary bites down on her jaw until she feels the pain radiate back to her ears. She doesn’t want to behave like a child. She doesn’t want to fight with Logan at all. The truth is, she would give anything totalkto Logan. She’s the only other person who might understand what it means to Rosemary to lose Joe.
But Logan is hell-bent on not understanding her at all.
“I’m sorry, Joe.”
“Thank you, Rosie dear. Now please take this exit.”
Rosemary glances to the right to see the upcoming green sign for Exit 22. “What?”
“Get off the freeway. Right here.”
Joe says this so casually, as if he’s not impulsively derailing everything. “But we’re already six minutes behind schedule.”
“Rosemary,” Joe says, less casually. “Pull over the damn car!”
“Pull over the damn car!” Logan echoes, and Rosemary panics, jerks the wheel to the right. The van pitches sideways as the wheels crunch over white lines and slide into the exit lane at the last possible second. Thankfully, no other cars exited I-84 at that precise moment. She slams on the brakes when they reach the stop sign at the end of the off-ramp.
“What the hell?” Rosemary bleats. Her heart is skittering in her chest and her palms are damp around the steering wheel.
“Are you okay?” Logan flips around in her seat and there is nothing impassive about the expression of terror on her face. “Are you in pain? Do you need to get out of the car?”
Rosemary presses a hand to her chest to feel her heartbeat against her ribs and stares at the concerned crinkle of Logan’s bushy eyebrows, the first sign that she truly cares.
“What I need,” Joe says, casual again, “is for us to take a brief detour.”
Rosemary puts on the hazard lights and turns to face Joe, too. “A detour? No. Absolutely not,” she says as Joe nods his head in confirmation. “You have a copy of the itinerary. We’ll stop to use the bathroom in seventy-five minutes and not before.”
