THEY NAME ALL the state capitals. The states themselves, alphabetically. The Seven Dwarves. The Seven Deadly Sins. Aida wonders if he will kiss her. Or even hold her hand. Bill Henderson is a tragic hero. She knows that loving a tragic hero is morally right. He tells her his middle name is Warren. In her mind she says his name over and over: William Warren Henderson.
At night, he lets her put her head on his shoulder, his own windbreaker rolled up beneath it as a pillow. Aida whispers, “I’m running away.” She expects him to say it too. This can be their private ritual. But he is already asleep.
Sometime in the middle of the night, the bus pulls into St. Louis. She is too tired to get up and walk around and he promises to bring her one of the vending machine cheese sandwiches if they have them. Aida watches through half-open eyes as he goes into the bus station and walks directly to a bank of pay phones. She sits up straight. Is he calling Beth? An image of the cover of Cherry Ames: Student Nurse comes to her. Does Beth look like that? Does she have adventures? Bill feeds change into the phone and wraps the cord around his hand as he talks. He looks pained, she thinks. Maybe he’s telling Beth that he has already met someone new.
After he hangs up, he disappears into the station. Aida holds her breath. What if he is getting on a bus back? But soon enough he appears again, and walks outside, straight to the bus. When he sees her watching him, he holds a cheese sandwich up for her to see. Aida exhales. This is what it is like to have a boyfriend, she thinks, wondering when they will kiss and what it will feel like.
THEY ARE DRIVING through Kansas, which is flat and long. This is the west, Aida tells herself. She is out west now.
“Middle name,” he says.
“Don’t have one,” Aida tells him. “My sister is Teresa Josephine. The Josephine is after our great-grandmother. But I’m just Aida. Like the opera,” she adds.
“Date of birth,” he says.
“I’m a Cancer,” she tells him.
“Whatever that means.” He laughs.
“I have the same birthday as Ringo Starr.”
He elbows her lightly in the ribs. “Come on,” he says.
Is she imagining it, or is his arm pressed closer to her than it was? Maybe she should hold his hand.
“July seventh,” Aida says, and wiggles a bit so that everything of hers is just a little closer to all of him. He doesn’t move away.
“I’m October ninth,” he says.
“What? That’s John Lennon’s birthday!” Aida says. They are like half the Beatles, she and Bill Henderson. Surely this is a sign.
“That makes me a . . .”
“Libra,” she says. She wishes she had brought her copy of Linda Goodman’s Sun Signs with her. Then she could read it out loud to him, read all about Libras and how well Cancer and Libra got along together.
“That’s right,” he says. “The Scales. Indecisive, right?” He laughs sarcastically. “Beth would agree with that, I guess.”
At the sound of Beth’s name, Aida’s stomach hurts.
“All she did was yell at me last night when I called. Yelled that I woke her up. Yelled that I walked out. Yelled about all the electric can openers and fondue pots and yogurt makers she has to return if I don’t get my ass back to Pittsburgh.”
“Well,” Aida says, her mouth suddenly so dry she can hear her tongue smacking as she talks, “did you tell her you’re not going back to Pittsburgh? That you’re on your way to San Francisco?”
Bill shakes his head. “Boy, can she yell,” he says. He says it like it’s not a bad thing, but something marvelous.
THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS are snowcapped and purple in the distance. Aida can’t stop looking at them. She slept the night with her head on his windbreaker again, the windbreaker rolled up against his shoulder. Sometime during the night Bill had reached for her hand and held it lightly. Now, as the bus pulls into Denver, where they would have to change to a new bus, he is still holding on. Aida turns from the mountains and looks right into his eyes. She puts a spell on him; the spell will make him kiss her in Denver. If they see three particular things, the spell will work. She chooses the things: a man in a cowboy hat, a pregnant woman, and someone asking for change. Satisfied, she lets Bill tug her to her feet. He doesn’t let go of her hand as he guides her down the aisle and off the bus.
She expects Denver to be cold with those mountains so close. But instead it is hot and humid. Aida worries that her hand will start to sweat and Bill will get grossed out and get on a bus going east. But he drops her hand altogether in order to open the door for her to step inside. The bus station is bustling, and crowded. To her delight, there are lots of men in cowboy hats. Lots of them. She is one-third on her way to her first kiss.
As she stands beneath the departure board, peering up, Bill comes behind her and casually puts his hands on her shoulders and massages her sore muscles. Aida thinks that she can stand there like that forever. She doesn’t ever want him to stop.
But he does. He points to the board and says, “Gate Eleven.”
Aida turns to follow him and almost walks into a hugely pregnant woman.