The drive to Missoula took three hours, and the trees and the rivers looked just like the trees and rivers in Quinn, but there seemed to be more sunlight in the air. His ears popped as they left the lower elevation and ascended in her little red truck. The road followed rocky cliffs, carved out of the mountains.
When Rachel reached the turnoff and entered the interstate, Jake had to take a deep breath. The field trips he took at school were always just hour-long drives into more of the same wilderness, but today he was destined for a city of seventy thousand people.
Low-slung cars zipped around Rachel’s truck, not the giant trucks and beaten-up Jeeps he was accustomed to. A gargantuan casino covered an acre of land, and the electronic reader boards flashed out promises of upcoming concerts and theme nights. Jake noticed every single exit ramp, all flanked by enormous advertisements for multiplex movie theaters and tourist traps—a museum devoted entirely to agates, an exhibition of dinosaur bones at the university, an amusement park that offered up a zero-gravity experience.
In the distance, he saw streets weaving through, tucking under the interstate. He observed streetlights, actual traffic signals. The billboards were everywhere, including one that advertised a shopping mall. He clapped his hands together delightedly.
“What is it?” Rachel turned the volume down on a particularly raucous song by the B-52s. “What’s got you so excited, little dude?”
“The mall!” He screamed the words, and Rachel grimaced.
“That place is a nightmare,” said Rachel. “I thought you had better taste than that.”
“I never get to buy new things,” said Jake. “Unless I get them through the mail.”
“Maybe we can stop there,” said Rachel. “Every stylish person deserves new things. But we are not going to Wal-Mart. That place is a fucking black hole.” She turned on her blinker. “Sorry for swearing.”
“I love it!” Jake clapped again as they turned onto the exit ramp.
Rachel drove into the city of Missoula, and Jake’s head turned in all directions. A record store. A dog-grooming business. A real estate office with three floors. A park that was built on purpose. In Quinn, the parks were uninhabitable tracts of land the city had repossessed. Jake saw a post office that was built with actual stone columns and had a grand entrance of cement steps. A courthouse with gothic-looking architecture, built around an impossibly tall clock tower. And then, on the front curb of the courthouse, sat the first black person he had ever seen in real life. They had stopped at a red light. The black person looked normal enough, drinking something steaming from a Styrofoam cup. He did not appear to be dangerous, although Jake did not approve of the giant, baggy muscle pants, the legacy of MC Hammer. Jake took pride in the fact that he did not lock his car door.
“My first black person,” declared Jake.
“You poor thing,” said Rachel. “We’re eating Chinese food tonight. I hope you don’t have a stroke from all the multiculturalism.”
“This is the best day of my life,” said Jake as the light turned green, and they drove farther into the city.
They continued driving, past a parking garage, a Taco Bell and a Kentucky Fried Chicken, restaurants Jake had only ever seen commercials for.
Rachel took a sharp left and came to rest in the parking lot of a Red Lion.
“Have you ever stayed in a hotel before?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Maybe this really is the best day of your life,” said Rachel. She reached over and removed his hat to ruffle his hair, and he could not stop smiling.
* * *
Rachel changed in the bathroom and emerged wearing a man’s blazer over a pink bodysuit, sleeves rolled up. A tiny and tight black miniskirt, and her legs tucked in tights of shiny pink. Purple wool socks, giant Doc Martens. Jake sat on the hotel bed and watched as she put on her makeup: lip liner, the color of plums. Lipstick, the color of pink carnations. Silver eye shadow and blue mascara. Her hair looked the same as it did in Quinn, but she added mousse to the hay-colored tangles.
Jake had packed a black suit and a pink dress shirt. It was a wedding suit, he was sure of it, especially since it had been accompanied by a tiny cummerbund. Rachel assisted him with his bow tie, took his hand, and led him out to the truck.
“Athena is a very large woman,” said Rachel, as she turned out into traffic. “She’s also very loud. I wanted to warn you ahead of time.”
“I like large and loud,” said Jake.
“She’s the best teacher I ever had,” Rachel said, and continued downtown, across a giant, well-kept bridge, so unlike the rickety one lanes in Quinn.
A row of women, all in black, stood like crows, holding hands. All eleven silently watched the traffic crossing over the bridge.
“Those women are famous around here,” said Rachel. “They come to the bridge to protest the war. Every single week.”
“Are we in a war?”
“These women have been coming here for the last twenty years.”