“Oh, no. But that’s what they compare it to.”
The woman finished her crackers and laid her head back against the seat. After a while, she hummed a tune intermittently; Claire smiled, and then leaned forward, as if this would get them into Utah faster. She would have liked to call Jack and ask him what he thought of her new companion. Years running a motel had made him less wholesome, but he still had the farm-boy honesty that wouldn’t allow him to take a cent without returning it sometime. He’d get irate when a towel came up missing after a guest had checked out. “Like no one has enough towels at home, especially the raggedy ones we give ’em at this place? That’s stealing just to steal.”
Genevieve was right about the view from the road as they moved through Nevada. These desolate landscapes could be beautiful, but not at the peak of the day. She looked over at her. Genevieve’s eyes were closed, and she seemed to be dozing lightly. The sunburn had started to show on her high cheekbones. A strong face, she thought, but fair eyelashes that looked much longer now that she was asleep. A few beads of sweat showed on her upper lip. Her mouth was full, kissable like a starlet’s, and it didn’t fit her other features.
She may have felt her looking at her, and she opened her eyes and sat up quickly.
“Sorry. Must have been more tired than I thought.”
“No rule against taking a nap.”
“I’m supposed to be your shotgun.”
“Out here, there’s not much to be afraid of. Maybe an animal crossing the road.”
Genevieve nodded, and rested her head and squinted into the bright light that poured through the windshield when they took a curve. She pulled the scarf back out of her pocket and wrapped it around her eyes.
“Better than sunglasses,” she said, and Claire smiled. After a minute, she started humming a song quietly, the notes bounced around by the wind.
“The radio’s broken, or I’d turn it on,” Claire told her.
“That’s okay.” Genevieve licked her lips, and, as if in response, started humming again.
“What song is that?” Claire asked.
“It’s an old Joni Mitchell tune. I mean, maybe sixty years old now.”
“‘Circle Game’?”
“That’s right!” Genevieve said. “My mother used to play that song on the CD player when I was little. I’d sing it sometimes when we were alone on the playground. It was perfect for the merry-go-round. I think she thought I knew what the lyrics meant, but I was just singing the words.”
“It’s funny.”
It was odd to talk with her with the scarf wrapped around her eyes.
“What?”
“I learned that song at a campground when I was maybe sixteen years old.”
“Why’s that funny?”
Claire laughed uneasily and ran her hand through her damp hair. “I was at that camp because I stole something.”
“Really? So they sent you to sing-along camp when you did something wrong?”
Claire laughed at this. “Yeah, something like that. I was stealing things because I was angry at the way the world operates. Useless things like a cheap bracelet or a hair ribbon. Stuff made in China because of the kids working in factories over there. But it’s weird that you’d sing that song right after you took the money.”
Genevieve pulled off the scarf and stared at her.
“I’m going to return it.”
“I know. I know.”
“So what was it? A Christian camp? Did they talk about the Ten Commandments?”
“Ha. No, nothing like that. My father wouldn’t have gone in for that. It was one of those team-building camps. For kids who were troubled. We canoed down a river in Northern Michigan. It was so cold it snowed that night when we were sitting around the fire. I loved that little campground. And being on the river with those other kids.”
“It sounds so nice.”
“It was just the one weekend. Then back to real life.”
Genevieve nodded and then asked, “Mind if I ask you a question?”
“What, are you kidding? You already know more about me than almost anyone I’ve met since Jack and I moved out here.”
“Not this place, though, right? You never told me where you were driving from.”
“No, California. Not far from the eastern border.”
Genevieve nodded again, and seemed to be thinking about this. It struck Claire that what she’d said was true: for three years they’d been running the motel, and they were on a first-name basis with half the population of the small town. But maybe because it mostly lay on either side of a highway where almost everyone was passing through, no one asked about anything other than what was happening in the present. “That little Lucy,” Joan, the woman who stocked the produce section at the grocery store, would say. “Look how she’s motoring around. She’s got her dad’s sturdy legs.” Or Larry, the manager at the Shell station, would stop by and say, “Noticed the r was out on your Shadyrest sign. Now it says Shadyest. Might want to get Jack up a ladder to fix that.” But after the first few months, no one asked about where they came from or why they were there.