“I’ve tried it twice,” she said, sliding the card across the counter at me, touching it with only one finger. “It’s not good. Do you have another card?”
“Well,” I said, looking through my wallet, as though there would magically be another credit card in there. “Um …” I didn’t understand how this could be happening. The card wasn’t even attached to my bank account; it was linked to my mother’s credit card. As soon as I thought this, I knew what had happened. I felt my stomach drop as I realized what my mother had meant when she told me I was now on my own. “Oh God, Roger,” I said, turning to him. “There’s something I should probably tell you.”
Roger pushed our shared side of bacon toward me, and I took a piece. It was extra crispy, extra greasy, and really good. But that wasn’t doing much to help the churning in my stomach. I wasn’t sure we were going to be able to pull this off.
I had the atlas next to me on the table, open to the map of the country. The thought of facing all that road between Missouri and Connecticut—without the safety net of an emergency credit card—was making me feel a little sick. We’d pooled our funds, which left us with $440 to get to the East Coast. I’d provided the lion’s share, thanks to my mother’s drawer egg. When Roger had raised his eyebrows at my cash, I’d mumbled something about my mother giving it to me in case places didn’t accept cards.
“What do you think?” I asked, looking down at the pile of money on the table between us. Our waiter, passing by, must have thought that we were assembling his tip, as he stopped and gave us both water refills, accompanied by a big smile.
Roger rubbed his hand over his forehead, which I now recognized was something he did when he was worried. “I think it might be enough,” he said. “Hopefully.” He pulled the plate of bacon back to him, took a piece, and crunched down on it. Then he looked out the window, which provided a beautiful view of the parking lot, for a long moment. “I guess I’m just surprised,” he finally said. “When your mother told you to come back, you said no.” He looked across the table at me and raised his eyebrows.
“I know,” I said. I still couldn’t believe that I’d done it—that we were now cut loose, and on our own in the middle of America. That my mother had basically washed her hands of me. I looked away from his direct gaze and down at the scratched surface of the table. Someone had etched into it RYAN LOVES MEGAN ALWAYS.
“Why?” Roger asked simply.
I glanced up at him. I hadn’t asked myself this yet. Saying no had just been my first response. “Because …” I looked out the window as well, beyond the parking lot to the interstate, where the cars were rushing by, heading home, running away, all of them off to somewhere else. I suddenly had the most overwhelming urge to get into the Liberty and join them. “Because we’re not done yet, right?”
Roger smiled but didn’t say anything, choosing instead to eat a piece of bacon pensively, something I wouldn’t have thought possible without seeing the proof.
“I mean,” I said, watching his face closely, “you haven’t seen Hadley yet.” When he still didn’t respond, I felt a sense of dread creep over me. I suddenly felt chilled in Bronwyn’s tank top, even though sunlight was hitting the table and I had been too warm a moment ago. What if he wanted to end it? I had just assumed Roger would want to keep going. But maybe he didn’t. Maybe we were going to change the route and head directly to Connecticut. The thought of being there, of having to begin my life there with my now furious mother, made me feel panicky. I wasn’t ready to do that yet. “But if you want to stop it,” I said, trying to keep my voice level, like saying this wasn’t completely terrifying, “we can.”
“No, it’s not that,” he said, looking across at me. He ran his hands through his hair, bringing it from its post-shower neatness to its normal messiness, and sighed. “I’m supposed to be the responsible one here. My mother is not going to be happy about this either. And I don’t want to get you into trouble.”
“You’re not,” I said quickly. “I did that on my own, believe me.”
“I just feel guilty about this.”
“Don’t,” I said. “Really.” I looked at him closely. “Do you want to stop?” I held my breath, hoping for the sake of my health that he wouldn’t take long to answer.
Roger looked across the table at me for a long moment, then shook his head. “I don’t,” he said, sounding a little surprised by the answer. I let out a long breath and felt my stomach unclench a little.
Our waiter passed by then, dropping our check and a handful of cellophane-wrapped mints on the table.
Roger took out his phone. “I should make some calls,” he said. “I still haven’t been able to talk to Hadley. And I should probably call my mother before yours does.”
“I’ll take care of this,” I said, counting out money for the check.
“You want to hold on to that?” Roger asked, nodding at the rest of the money. “I’d be worried I’d lose it.”
“Sure,” I said, folding the bills and tucking them in my wallet.
“Meet you at the car,” he said, grabbing one of the mints off the table and heading out the door, the bell above signaling his exit.
I looked down at the map and traced the route we’d take to Kentucky. We’d estimated about eight hours to get there, so we should be there by early evening, six or seven. I looked below Kentucky and saw Tennessee. And in the corner of the state, almost to Arkansas, was Memphis. I let my finger rest on the bolded name for a moment, thinking about the trip I was supposed to be on this summer—the trip that would have taken me there. To Memphis, but specifically to Graceland. It was strange to think how close we were going to be to it once we got to Louisville. Probably only a few hours away. But it would be backtracking. And I didn’t want to go without my father. Which meant, then, that I never would.
I closed the atlas, trying to push this unsettling thought away. I paid the bill, placing the money on the check and securing the waiter’s tip under my water glass. I figured I’d given Roger enough time to make his calls in private and got up to leave. As I did, my eyes caught the graffiti again. I wondered who Ryan and Megan were. And if, wherever they were, they’d made it. I wondered how anyone could have been so sure about a concept so tenuous and impossible as always that they’d be willing to carve it into a tabletop.