“How are we on time?” Palmer asked, glancing over at me.
“We should be there in forty-five,” I said, looking down at the map on my phone.
“Will that be enough?”
I nodded. “It should be.” I twisted my hair up into a knot, pulling it through on itself. “I know it goes against your belief system, but do you think we could turn the AC on just for a bit?”
Palmer sighed and nodded, then put up both our windows as I cranked the air-conditioning as high as it would go. “Every now and then you have to concede defeat,” she said, angling her driver’s-side vent so that it was pointing right toward her. “So what about Clark?” Palmer asked, after we’d been driving in silence for the amount of time it took to pass two rest stops.
I looked over at her. I’d already told her about my revelation at the party and given her the bare outline of my mom’s note. That one still felt a little too raw for me to go into much detail about it, but I knew I’d tell her everything soon. “What do you mean?”
“I mean what now?” she asked, looking over at me for just a second before focusing back on the highway. I wasn’t worried like I would have been if Toby were driving—Palmer was the best driver out of all of us, by far. “What’s the plan?”
I opened my mouth, then closed it when I realized I didn’t have an answer. For the first time in a long time, I didn’t have a plan. And I didn’t want one. “I’m going to play it by ear, I think,” I said. I just wanted to tell Clark how I felt, without practicing or preparing anything.
Palmer looked at me, a smile spreading over her face. “Hi. I’m sorry, have we met?” she asked. “I’m looking for Andie Walker.”
“Ha,” I said, smiling back at her. “I’m not going to plan anything out. I’m just going to talk to him tonight and see how it goes. When he’s back from his signing.”
“Or,” Palmer said, looking significantly over at me.
“Or what?”
“Or just go to New Hampshire and tell him at his book thing.”
“New Jersey,” I corrected. “And I’m not going to do that.”
“Why not?” she asked, changing lanes smoothly and speeding up slightly.
“Because,” I said, shaking my head, “it’s a work thing for him. And it’s in public. I don’t want to tell him in front of a ton of people. . . .” My voice trailed off as I remembered the argument Clark and I had had about Karl and Marjorie and the declaration of love in the crowded tavern. I closed my eyes for just a moment, remembering how seriously Clark had seemed to take it, how he’d fought for it. “Oh god,” I said hollowly, as I opened my eyes, realizing what I had to do. “I think I have to go to Clark’s reading.”
Palmer grinned at me. “Okay, so we’ll go tell your dad, and then we’ll head to . . .”
“New Jersey,” I filled in for her. “Do you have a mental block about this state, or something?”
“New Jersey,” Palmer said, talking over me like I hadn’t said anything.
“You don’t have to come.”
“You think I’d miss this?” She looked at me incredulously. “Not a chance.”
“Thank you.”
She nodded, and I watched as she tapped her fingers on the closed driver’s-side window, then brought her hands back to ten and two, then moved them again. “What is it?” I asked.
She glanced over at me before looking back at the road. “Bri and Toby,” she said, shaking her head. “We have to fix it.”
I nodded. From the way she said it, though, I could tell that she had about as much of an idea for how to do this as I did. “Yeah,” I agreed. “But how?” The question hung between us in the car for a moment before I reached over and turned on the radio, sensing that both of us needed a break from our thoughts.
When we were ten minutes away from the fairground where the event was being held, something started happening to the car. The engine was making a groaning sound, and though Palmer had started driving more slowly, it didn’t seem to be helping. “What is this?” I asked, leaning over to try and see the dash. “Why are you breaking my car?”
“Do you think it knew you got another one?” she asked, “and so it’s mad or something?”
“It’s probably nothing,” I said, hoping that if I said it out loud, it would turn out to be true. “Right?”
Palmer frowned as she looked down at the dash, tapping it once. “This is moving over toward the H,” she said. “It’s the temperature thing. I have a feeling that’s not good.”