“Nice sales pitch,” says Stan. “You trying to get rid of it?”
“Ha, no, man, you’re funny. I just mean that if things are feeling a bit crowded in your car, you guys could always ride with me. Since we’re heading in the same direction and all. Plus, I don’t know what your situation is, man, and I don’t mean to presume, but I do know that I’m not a teenager driving a car in my parents’ name, so no one’s looking out for me in that kind of way. You know?” I can’t tell if what Bobby’s saying sounds more ominous or practical—though it’s definitely a little pushy, I know that, and I have a feeling Stan does too.
“Nah,” says Stan. “Even if our parents freaked, and on that possibility we’re mostly covered, I think, when it comes down to it, the government’s been keeping tabs on the Icelings their whole lives. Once they figure out what’s happening, if they haven’t figured it out already, they’ll be tracking us anyway. So if it’s cool with you, let’s just do this convoy-style?”
“Hey, fair point,” says Bobby, holding his hands up in mock surrender. “I’ll see you out there on the road!”
We exchange numbers, get in our cars, and wave to one another as we start our engines and roll out. It’s my turn to drive, and I wink at Callie as I turn around to back us out, and then Callie reaches forward and points us north again. It’s fifteen minutes before I realize we missed the sunset.
FIFTEEN
BOBBY’S LEADING THE way, mostly because Stan likes the idea of keeping him in front of us rather than behind us. As the traffic builds on this weirdly busy stretch of highway, I start imagining that I’m seeing all these cars pulling into and out of traffic gaps from way up above, their swerves and swoops making up the shapes of their drivers’ names. Cars keep passing us, we keep passing cars. Stan nudges me softly and points to a car just ahead of us on the right: a junky Mitsubishi Montero with a Montana license plate that says CORVET. Stan and I started keeping track of particularly strange vanity plates during a particularly boring stretch of New Jersey. So basically when we got to New Jersey. My favorites so far:
CYCLOPATH
9-KIDS (There were only two in the car. What did they do with the other seven?)
1W0JMA
T00TT00T
B33PB33P
F4RTS
I give a small smile to the Mitsubishi CORVET, and Stan adds it to the list in his phone. We picked up some cigarette-lighter-thingy-compatible USB cables for our phones way back when we started this trip, and I’m surprised by how much comfort I get from knowing my phone—and its scary-good GPS capabilities—will never die. I’ve been wrestling with the idea of shutting off my phone, but I feel weird just cutting my whole world off like that—and I know that Dave and Mimi would completely freak out if I explained to them why I thought it best that I shut off my phone. It’s been easy to dodge calls from Mom and Dad, and if worse comes to worst, I can always shut it off and chuck it out the window.