'Please don't,' Shar said. It sounded like she was saying it to herself.
'Was it school? Were you having a hard time at school? Come on. Just tell me. We're all friends now, right?' The neediness in her voice annoyed her and in frustration she slid across the back seat, putting the soles of her bare feet up against the window. The sun felt like a blowtorch on her skin and she yanked them away. When he maintained his stony silence she sat up on the warm seat and stared out at the mountainous land that flew by, its folds and creases etched into the side of a barren, unfinished planet. 'Were you just bored?'
'Shar,' he said, but she knew he was speaking to her, not his girlfriend.
'Huh?' she asked. 'What does that mean?'
'Shut up! Oh my God don't you say it!' Shar scrunched down in her seat and buried her face in her hands.
'Her name'' Charles began, keeping his eyes on the yellow line running down the middle of the road.
'My fucking name is Sharona, okay? Is that what you wanted to know?' The girl whirled around in her seat, her eyes huge and sharp. 'You know. Like 'M-m-m-my Sharona,' like in that stupid song! That should tell you a little about my parents. You know the song.'
Nilla had no idea what the girl was talking about.
'They thought it was funny. I would come home from school and I would be crying, bawling my eyes out for fuck's sake. And they would laugh at me. Then they would sing that stupid song, over and over again.'
'I don't understand. You came along with Charles when he ran away because of a song?' Nilla fanned her face with one hand. Had it gotten hotter in the car?
'No! I'm the one who's running away! They don't care about me. I called my Mom from that hotel and you know what? She was so fucking stoned she didn't even ask if I was okay. I tried, I tried so hard but when they closed the school because of this Epidemic I just could not face them anymore. I used to go to school to get some peace, can you believe that? I used to love school and the government took that away from me. So I went to Charles and I talked him into this. Into running away with me. He cares about me. He loves me.'
Nilla couldn't process the girl's outburst. 'I don't understand,' she said. 'You ran away because of a song?'
'Holy shit,' Charles shouted. 'Holy shit!' He pointed through the windshield as he stepped on the brakes, throwing Shar forward against her seat belt. The sign read DEATH VALLEY NATIONAL PARK, 2 MILES.
He pulled the car to a stop just at the top of a ridge and got out of the car, letting a wave of overheated air rush through the car. Nilla could taste how dry the air was as it buffeted her face and hands.
Nilla grabbed the map and rolled out of the car to join him. Together the two of them looked down the slope of craggy rocks at a depression in the landscape that seemed to go down forever. The view shimmered in a blast of heat that burst up at them, not so much like a hot wind as the shockwave of some terrible fiery cataclysm.
'I knew it was getting hotter,' Charles said.
'We have to keep going,' Nilla said. He laughed at her. She jabbed at the torn map with one clumsy finger. 'No, seriously. We have to keep going east. Look, look here. It's not as wide as it looks and on the other side we'll be in Nevada. We'll be safe there.'
'It's called 'Death Valley',' Charles told her. ''Death Valley,'' he repeated as if that alone would change her mind. 'It's the hottest place on earth, I think. We learned about it in Geography class. People who go there get lost and they die. You don't go in there without water. We don't have any water, in case you didn't notice.'