Chapter Fourteen
“OKAY, I’VE GOT IT THIS TIME,” TIERNAN SAID AS THE PEA POD made a rasping sound, then stalled out. Again. Tiernan glanced at the clock. She’d been trying to make her “quick getaway” for the last three minutes. Not that getting the Pea Pod into gear was easy under normal conditions, let alone with an angry Southern Baptist giving her the stink-eye.
“Do you need me to drive?” Summer asked.
On the front porch, Mrs. Oldham scowled at them, sunlight glinting ominously off the gold cross at her neck.
“Look at her, glaring at us like we’re a bunch of Yankee hussies,” Tiernan whispered as she restarted the van. “It was just Alice!” she pretended to shout to Mrs. Oldham. Then she ever-so-gently hit the gas, and the van conked out with a spasmic sigh.
“Could you skip the commentary and just get us out of here?” Alice hissed from her hiding spot in the back. Only ten minutes had passed since she’d burst into the guest bedroom babbling incoherently and yanked Tiernan and Summer out of bed.
“All I’m saying is that the woman has anger management issues.” Tiernan paused to restart the van. “I can see the headline now: Tennessee Mother Kills Three over Hickey.”
“We’re in Kentucky, bonehead,” Summer pointed out.
“And it wasn’t a hickey,” Alice chimed in.
Without knowing exactly how it happened, Tiernan realized she was moving, so she seized the momentum, gunning the Pea Pod turbo-speed down the Oldhams’ driveway and whipping it onto the road Dukes of Hazzard style.
“Thanks for your hospitality!” She waved liked Miss America out the window as the Pea Pod bucked and lurched down the street.
“Oh. My. God!” Alice screamed. “That was the most embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to me!”
“Think of how Quentin must feel,” Summer offered. “She’s his mother.”
Tiernan cringed. “Can you imagine getting caught with a boner in front of your own mom?”
“Not really,” Summer said.
Then all three of them busted out in silent hysterics. Tiernan was laughing so hard, she had to wipe her eyes to see the road.
“Do you even know where you’re going?” Alice asked, gasping for air.
Tiernan looked at the unfamiliar landscape, suddenly aware that she was driving. If Alice and Summer were in their usual moods, they probably would have yelled at her. But this morning, her cluelessness just triggered another round of laughter.
“I may not know where I’m going,” Tiernan began, her words coming out in snorts, “but I know where you’re going, Alice Miller—straight to hay-ell!”
“Ay-a-may-en,” Summer said in a bad Southern accent.
“Turn around when possible,” Coach Quigley offered.
Eventually they made it to civilization—or in this case, a Waffle House, which was about as close to civilization as things got in these parts. Over weak coffee and soggy bacon, they charted their course for the day. The plan was to drive until they made it to Nashville, Tennessee, and then chill out in the nicest hotel they could find. For under one hundred fifty dollars. With a pool.
“What about this one?” Summer asked, holding up her phone. “It has a spa, a fitness center, three swimming pools, and an indoor waterfall. . . .”
Since Alice seemed to be stuck in a permanent state of la-la land (at the moment, smiling at her French toast like she was about to French kiss it) Tiernan looked at the website first.
“You wanna stay at the Gaywether?” Tiernan blurted out, louder than she’d intended. “Summer . . . is there something you’d like to tell us?”
“Oh, calm down.” Summer snatched her phone back. “We don’t have to stay here. I’m just saying it looks pretty nice, and it’s not that expensive, considering.”
“What?” Alice looked up from her breakfast as though she’d just arrived on Planet Earth.
“This hotel Summer wants to stay at.” Tiernan raised her eyebrows. “It’s called the Gaywether.”
Summer handed her phone to Alice. “Check it out—they have this whole indoor garden area with a waterfall and a river.”
“Hotel, or Epcot? You be the judge,” Tiernan said.
“What’s wrong with Epcot?” Summer asked.
“Nothing, if you like that kind of sanitized, generic family entertainment.”
In Tiernan’s opinion, real fun didn’t happen by going to places like Disney World. Real fun was something you stumbled into, by accident.
Alice scrolled through the website. “I think this looks nice. I mean, why not splurge a little? Maybe we’ll even be able to get a little R and R for once.”
“Okay. I’ll make the reservation right now,” Summer said, taking her phone back.
Alice turned her attention to Tiernan. “Hey, I meant to ask you . . . how did the conversation with your mom go?”
Tiernan pushed a bite of waffle around her plate, mopping up the leftover syrup. Could Alice just give it a rest already? It wasn’t like she was in any hurry to dial up her mom and give her the play-by-play of last night’s spit-swapping session.
“She wasn’t around,” Tiernan lied, licking syrup off her fork. No need to ruin the girl’s post-make-out euphoria.
“So, did you leave her a message?”
Tiernan shook her head in what she hoped was a remorseful way. “I’ll try her again today, okay?”
Three hundred and twelve miles later, Alice was zonked out in the back (drooling all over the upholstery) and Tiernan still hadn’t made the call. Although as penance for not making it (a habit from the Catholic side of her family) she’d kept Alice’s cell phone in her front pocket so that it dug uncomfortably into her hip bone.
The weird thing was, Tiernan wasn’t sure why she wasn’t calling. Yeah, Judy was going to be tweaked. But a watered-down phone version of Judy’s bitch-slap was better than facing the real thing. And unless Judy was planning to track her down bounty-hunter style, Tiernan had another week before she had to face whatever punishment Judy was cooking up (though the heaping side order of guilt trip could probably be delivered via telephone).
“Okay, I have a good one for you,” Summer said. They’d been talking in stops and starts like this for the last five hours. At first, Tiernan figured it was just a way to pass the time while Alice slept, but somewhere in southern Kentucky, she’d actually started to enjoy their little trips down memory lane.
“Remember the time we ran away?”
“Of course.” Tiernan smiled. “We were such rebels back then.”
Their infamous running-away episode had happened at Tiernan’s house at a play date. (That’s how young they were—their hangouts were still called play dates.) Something her mother had done set her off; Tiernan couldn’t remember what. Maybe they’d been caught watching an R-rated movie on Showtime, or maybe she’d decided to lead a revolt against Judy’s tyrannical two-Popsicle limit. Whatever the nature of the injustice du jour, nine-year-old Tiernan had the solution: running away.
Naturally, Alice and Summer had joined her in solidarity, loading up Tiernan’s little red wagon with canned goods (for nourishment), blankets (for warmth), and a dictionary (so they could continue their education on the road). Then, the three fourth-graders set out into the cold, cruel world. Cut to one hour later when Tiernan’s dad spotted them while mowing the lawn. They had made it as far as the next-door neighbor’s azalea bush.
“I love how we even remembered to bring a can opener,” Summer said.
Tiernan laughed. “As I recall, we actually ate an entire can of green beans.”
“With our hands,” Summer added.
The whole thing seemed pretty pathetic in retrospect. Then again, was it really any less pathetic than what Tiernan was doing right now?
She stuck her hand out the window, cupping the air with her palm so that it rose and fell with the wind. She was more than one thousand miles from home—her most successful runaway attempt to date.
“I’m just so happy for Alice,” Summer said. “She and Quentin were so cute together.”
“I know.” Tiernan nodded. “She totally deserves it.”
“It was total love at first sight,” Summer went on.
Tiernan shrugged. “If you believe in things like that.”
“And you don’t?”
“I just think that most people do such a bad job making themselves happy, it’s completely ridiculous to think anyone else can do it for you.”
“So, you’re saying that you don’t believe in love?”
“Oh, I believe in love, all right,” Tiernan clarified. “But only as a temporary condition. Like insanity.”
Summer laughed. “Wow. That’s optimistic.”
“I think being in love’s the best feeling in the world. But that feeling never lasts.”
“Sometimes it does,” Summer said defensively.
“I guess it depends how much you’re willing to delude yourself,” Tiernan said, sounding harsher than she’d intended.
Tiernan wished she could take back that last part, but it was too late. She could already see Summer slipping into that distant mood she got in every time her cell phone rang, like a black-and-white print left in the developer too long—its details fading away until the entire sheet went dark. And once a photo was overexposed, it was too late to get it back.
Suddenly Tiernan was hit with this crazy urge to spill her guts to Summer right here and now. To finally tell her the truth about that night at the winter dance and just deal with the consequences. But the funny thing was, you needed guts to be able to spill your guts.
Anyway, Tiernan had missed her big chance. Coach Quigley was already barking instructions to turn off the highway, which had woken Alice up. And before Alice had fully opened her eyes, she was busy adjusting the stereo, cranking up the Level3 tune “Dinosaur,” the song that had brought them to Nashville.
. . . IF THERE’S ONE THING WE LEARNED FROM
JURASSIC PARK
IT’S THAT THE PAST CAN EAT YOU ALIVE
BUT I SWEAR,
JEFF GOLDBLUM’S ALIVE AND WELL
AND LIVING IN NASHVILLE . . .
Tiernan had been so quick to write off this album back when it first came out, but once you got beyond the catchy melody and poppy beat, there was actually something much darker underneath. Pain, longing, regret. Jeff Goldblum. Her shoulders wiggled from an involuntary shiver when she thought about seeing Level3 play Friday night.
“Can you believe they actually got back together and we’re seeing them play in two nights?” Summer asked.
“Crazy,” Alice said.
Tiernan nodded. “I was just thinking the exact same thing.”
They valeted the Pea Pod at the Gaywether’s grand entrance. Ah, the Gaywether. The name alone was worth the $163 a night.
The woman at reception told them they had an hour to kill before check-in, so they wandered off to explore “Li’l Miss,” one of the Gaywether’s two enormous glass-covered atriums.
Other than the fact that it smelled like her cousin’s iguana cage, Tiernan thought the Li’l Miss lived up to its name—a mini replica of the Mississippi River delta, complete with flowing river—yet at the same time offering all the comforts of air-conditioning. The place was crawling with fat Southern tourists strolling about in families or pairs—window shopping in Li’l Miss’s tacky stores, grazing like cattle at the all-you-can-eat buffet, cruising along the indoor river on actual miniature river-boats.
“I know there are already Seven Wonders of the World but I vote this place as number eight,” Tiernan said, snapping a photo of a portly middle-aged couple, their matching Dollywood T-shirts stretched taut over their matching beer guts.
“At least it’s cool in here,” Summer said.
“Seriously,” Tiernan said. “I say we cover the entire southern half of the country in a giant glass bubble.”
“What about the ozone layer?” Alice asked.
“Slap that baby in a bubble, too.”
Summer watched as a boat cruised by. “Oooh! Let’s take a riverboat ride!”
“Sweet.” Tiernan high-fived Summer. “I’m in.”
“I don’t know.” Alice shook her head. “It’s probably expensive.”
“Oh, pleeease, Alice. We have to. Those boat rides are the pièce de résistance of this whole craptacular place!”
“I’m being serious,” Summer said. “I think it looks like fun.”
“And I’m agreeing with you,” Tiernan shot back.
“Not really.” Summer sighed. “You want to have air-quotes fun. I just want to have regular fun.”
“Is there a difference?” Tiernan asked. Summer rolled her eyes.
“Girls.” Alice’s voice sounded worn, like an exasperated mother disciplining two cranky toddlers. “You both want to go on the boat ride, right?”
Summer and Tiernan nodded.
“Then shut the hey-yell up!” Alice yelled in a bad Southern accent, silencing them for a beat before Tiernan and Summer both had to laugh.
Except for one elderly couple, they were the only non-family and non-obese people on the boat. The faux Mississippi smelled even swampier up close.
“Instead of a flat boat, they should have called it a fat boat,” Tiernan whispered.
“Be nice, T-Bird,” Summer scolded, even though she was laughing.
“If it makes you happy, Sunny-D,” Tiernan shot back. Then she pretended to take a picture of the river, when she was really taking a shot of the elderly couple, or more specifically, the tube socks they’d pulled up over their flabby spider-veined calves. She showed the back of the camera to Alice.
“Look. That could be you and Quentin, sixty years from now.”
Alice pursed her lips, pretending to act grumpy.
“Come on, A-Plus. You know you want to have his grandchildren,” Tiernan taunted.
Alice let out a yelp. “Don’t call me that.”
“Sorry, but Sunny’s the one who started it,” Tiernan countered.
Alice giggled. “Those nicknames were dorky even back in middle school.”
“Embrace your inner dork, A-Plus!” Tiernan said, snapping a picture of Alice, then immediately looking at the shot. “Nope, not enough dorkitude,” she said, shaking her head, disappointed.
“Take one of me.” Summer straightened her posture and placed an index finger under her chin, letting her gaze defocus somewhere in the middle distance, as if she were deep in thought.
“Now that’s what I’m talking about!” Tiernan crowed, as she snapped the shot. “This belongs on the back of your book jacket.” She showed the picture to Summer.
“Did I write a book?” Summer asked.
“The Dork’s Guide to Cheesy Tourist Destinations. Volume One.”
“Look, pulled-pork sandwiches!” Alice pointed to a sign at a “riverside” smokehouse. “Can we get those for dinner?”
“Speaking of pork sandwiches . . .” Tiernan shot Alice a lascivious smile. “You never told us about last night.”
Alice nearly spit out the sip of water she’d just taken. “Ew! There were no ‘pork sandwiches,’ thank you very much.”
Summer leaned in, her voice dropping to that low register people use for talking about sex. “Well . . . how was it?”
Alice took another drink of water, then let out a dreamy sigh. “It was . . . thirst quenching,” she said dramatically.
Summer squealed and clapped her hands, causing the people sitting in front of them to turn around and sneer.
“You guys . . .” Alice kept her voice low, so Tiernan and Summer huddled in close. “I think Quentin might be the coolest guy I’ve ever met.”
Tiernan laughed, wondering exactly how many guys Alice had actually “met” other than the nerdlingers from yearbook. But she enjoyed listening to Alice gush about Quentin’s intelligence and creativity, his likes (collecting vinyl) and dislikes (fondue restaurants). Alice was only halfway through a detailed description of Quentin’s hair when Summer wrinkled her nose and pulled herself away from their powwow.
“Did someone forget to brush their teeth today?” she asked, staring at Tiernan accusingly.
Tiernan cupped her hands over her mouth and nose and breathed into the enclosed space. “Holy halitosis, Batgirl! Sorry ’bout that.”
“I thought that was you.” Summer smiled apologetically. “I’d remember that bad breath anywhere.”
“Still gives me nightmares.” Alice nodded in consensus.
“We were in a rush this morning,” Tiernan whined. “Who had time to brush?”
“I did!” Summer and Alice said simultaneously, and they all laughed.
“For your information, ladies, my stank mouth is very sought after.” Tiernan held up her index finger like a teacher giving an important lecture. “They might even make it into a body spray.”
“I can see it now,” Alice said. “Bad Hygiene by Calvin Klein.”
“Or how about Morning Breath?” Summer chimed in. “By the makers of Poison.”
Tiernan never minded a good laugh at her own expense, and in a strange way it felt kind of comforting to know that after all these years, a detail they were probably dying to forget had snagged a place in Alice’s and Summer’s memories.
It was like when Tiernan had noticed Alice’s fingernails—or lack thereof—while they were yanking weeds back at Gert’s. It wasn’t as though she was glad Alice was still a pathological nail biter, but something about it was oddly reassuring, like no matter how much time had passed, she was still an expert on Alice’s and Summer’s meaningless details, and they were still experts on hers.
They continued with the bad-breath jokes way past the point they were funny anymore, laughing twice as hard at the stinkers (ha!) as they did at the witty ones. Tiernan wasn’t exactly sure when the boat ride had changed from “fun” to fun. But, for once in her life, she could actually tell the difference.
“SAD SONGS”
WHY ARE ALL THE SONGS I SING THE SAD SONGS?
WHY ARE ALL THE GIRLS I LOVE THE MAD ONES?
I SAID I WALK LIKE THIS
BECAUSE I SHOT MYSELF
IN THE FOOT
AND I LIVE IN MY HEAD
BECAUSE THE REAL WORLD
ISN’T SO GOOD
—from Level3’s third CD, Natural Causes