“Huh.” It's not a question. I'm not sure what it was, but she doesn't say anything else.
I'm not sure how to proceed. I already apologized, but I don't want to hang up yet either. So I don't do anything.
After a few long minutes, she breaks the silence. Thankfully. “Hey, can you do me a favor?”
“Is it that thing with my tongue again?”
She giggles, and my guilt eases a little.
“That too,” she says. “But while you're in Virginia, can you pick me up a golden ginger?”
I give a low whistle. “Damn, Syd, is it my birthday already?”
“It's an apple, you perv,” she says. “They're from the east coast. Always wanted to try one.”
“Is that a euphemism? I'm not following, but it sounds hot.”
She laughs. “No, Dimitri, it's an actual apple.”
I say, “I gotta admit, I'm not really thinking about apples anymore.”
“Please,” she says in a cute little begging tone that makes me want to invite her over and have her beg for something else. “Just swing by a grocery store and grab me a golden ginger, okay?”
“You're a very strange person,” I say, even though we both know I like it. “I can bring you back an apple, if you really want one, but I gotta get rolling. See ya in a few days.”
“Thanks, sweetie,” she says and then hangs up.
I stare at my phone. An apple? I haven't yet figured out what goes on in her brain, but I wouldn't mind appeasing it for the rest of my life.
***
I pull the Civic into the mansion and call Silvia.
“I just finished packing,” she says, breathless.
“You mean, having your stuff packed,” I reply. “Why do you sound like you've been jogging?”
“Whatever.”
I can picture her fluttering her eyes.
“Are you coming inside?”
“Rather not,” I say.
“Why?”
“I don't want to deal with Karl.”
I probably should make sure he's good with this plan, but Silvia has no reason to get me in trouble with him. It would be like framing the family dog.
“It's almost midnight. He's asleep,” she says, then speaks to someone else in the room, her voice muffled.
“He's never asleep. Just quit making me wait.” I hang up the phone.
Within minutes, she bustles out one set of front doors. A maid follows right behind, carrying her luggage. Silvia is a toy dog away from her own reality show.
When she approaches the car, I roll down my window.
“Hey, Silv?” I gesture at the maid. “You know we can't bring them with us, right?”
Silvia shrugs and rounds to the passenger side.
I glance at her as she climbs in. She lights up a cigarette, takes a puff, and throws it out the window. Then she gives me that unsettling look.
This trip is going to be a disaster.
Chapter 7
The only way Silvia and I are going to survive this trip is if we don't talk. I blast the radio, and she smokes. We're good until we pass through Phoenix.
Then she turns down the radio. “Where are the hotels?”
I glance at her. “Which hotels?”
“That you reserved.” She taps ashes out the window.
I grin, because I know where this conversation is headed. “I didn't reserve anything. We'll find places as we need.”
She wrinkles her nose as she tosses out the cigarette. “That's … barbaric.”
“You've forgotten who you're traveling with.” I resume blaring the speakers.
She turns the radio down. Again. “Do you at least know which city?”
“I'm not a travel agent. And the next time you touch that dial, I'm taking it as a sign you want to go home.”
I crank the volume back up. She scowls at me, then lights another cigarette and turns away.
***
We drive for nearly two hours, heading north. The landscape is desert brush, something Silvia has spent her whole life among, yet she continues to stare at it. I'm pretty sure she's ignoring me. With any luck, she won't do more than blink until we reach the first stop.
The trip just starts to become optimistic when there's a break between songs.
“I want to shower and change my clothes,” she says.
And here we go.
I turn down the radio. “We're not even out of Arizona yet.”
“How much longer?”
“'Til New Mexico?” I focus on the road. “About five or six hours.”
“I mean to Virginia.”
“Like, three days. Once we cross the New Mexico border, I'm not turning around. You have 'til then to decide if you really want to do this.”
“I do,” she replies, without hesitation.
“Yeah, we'll see.” I glance at the road sign. “We're heading into Winslow now.” Then I start singing, “I'm standing on the corner in Winslow, Arizona—”
She taps her hand to my mouth. “Stop. Please.”
“Told you,” I say with a laugh. “I'm not that kind of genie.”
She rolls her eyes.
“Well, I'm not. Hey, look, a stop up here has showers.”
She sits forward. “Let's go there.”
“It's a truck stop, Silv.”
She glances at me with a concerned look.
“Not the Hilton,” I say.
“Is it gross?”
“Yeah, kinda gross.”