Page 148 of Road Trip to Forever
“For this big secret you’re hiding?”
“I am not hiding anything.”
“Yes, you are. Your voice got all high and squeaky in the car.”
“I had a frog in my throat.”
“You’re a terrible liar, Patrick. The last time you blindfolded me we went to Disney World. What do you have up your sleeve this time?”
“Sorry to disappoint, but it’s not an amusement park. Do you have the paper I asked you to bring?”
She waves the crisp sheet in the air. I smile at her handwriting, the loopy letters and the swoops of y’s and g’s. That piece of paper is crucial to my plan.
I lead her into the field, dandelions and unmowed grass coming up to our shins. It’s beautiful out here, secluded away from noisy roads and towering skyscrapers. There are lines of blueberry bushes to our right and pine trees to our left, nothing but quiet air and a sense of peace surrounding us. It reminds me of the night we went camping in North Carolina where we felt like the only two people in the world.
When we reach the blanket, I tug Lola to the ground and pull off her blindfold.
“Should I know where we are?” she asks, plucking a flower from out of the earth and tucking it behind her ear.
“No.” I reach over and squeeze her thigh, just under the hem of her dress. The green one she’s been wearing all morning, a torturous outfit choice as I tried to make us eggs and bacon for breakfast. I burnt a piece of toast when she leaned over the counter to crack the kitchen window open, a smirk on her lips. “It’s new.”
“What’s the occasion?”
“Our twenty-seventh anniversary.”
“Patrick.” She props herself up on her knees and her hands curl around my shirt collar. She tugs me close, lips almost pressed to mine. “I’ve told you this a hundred times. You can’t count the years when our relationship was platonic.”
“Doesn’t matter.” I kiss the tip of her nose. “You were always mine.”
“Your former girlfriends would be appalled to hear that.”
“So would Liam the bartender. I’m sure he misses you.”
“Oh, I hope he graduated from college. I’ll have to ask Henry what he’s up to nowadays.” Lola giggles when I narrow my eyes. She looks over my shoulder and brightens, visibly excited by what she sees. “More books?”
“More books.”
She reaches past me for the one on the far left. “Does this have to do with the sheet of paper?”
“Yup,” I say. “You know the drill.”
“It’s like Where’s Waldo? I love it.”
It’s taken months to get to this point, handing over a book to her every day. Hidden somewhere in the pages of each one is a single word I’ve highlighted and underlined. I’ve asked Lola to find it and jot it down on the paper, sentences and paragraphs forming. I made her promise she wouldn’t read ahead, waiting to put it together until the very end.
Which is today.
Lola kicks off her sandals and stretches out her legs. She flips through the pages of the book on the far left, a dark cover with flowers along the edges. Her eyes scan the lines until she grins. “Found it. The first word is will.”
“Here. I’ll help. You find, I’ll write.”
“You’re too kind.”
I addwillto the bottom of the paper. “Next.”
“Oh, I’ve been eying this one,” she says, picking up the next book in the lineup. “Apparently there’s a scene in it we need to try. At least that’s what Jo told me.”
“Yes, and Jack and Jo are also the people who defiled our newly remodeled bathroom a month ago because they couldn’t keep their hands to themselves during game night. I’m taking what she says with a grain of salt.”
