Charles shrugged. “You go to party school. They think everything funny funny, everything party party.”
“I’m not saying I’m like Steve Martin or, uh, Bob Newhart or anything yet,” said Andrew, trying to think of a comedian his father might respect, “but I can be good. You come watch me, you’ll see. So, can we do it? We can get to Austin by Sunday. I called a club there already, and they said that they’d let amateurs go on if I came in and signed up early enough. Okay?”
Andrew could see his father’s reflection pursing its mouth and glancing towards Barbra. She would never say anything. He tried again.
“I mean, if I’m not going to go to college, I have to do something, right?”
His father’s head jerked back. “Ben dan ya? Ni yi ding yao huei xue.”
“I know, I will, but I’m not right now, right? So what’s wrong with comedy? You’re proud that Saina’s an artist, aren’t you?”
But that was different, Andrew knew. More right, somehow. Less embarrassing. The sort of thing a girl could do. Also, she was crazy successful pretty much immediately, so that made a difference, too. Well, he’d let it drop for now, but when they were near a club, he’d just go. They couldn’t stop him. Grace would help create a diversion, and they’d leave the parents at the hotel or motel or wherever they were going to start sleeping now that they were on the road.
二十一
El Paso, TX
1,038 Miles
GRACE POINTED her foot and dipped a toe in the acid-green pool. The water was hot. The night air smelled like gasoline and burnt sagebrush. All around them the flat desert streets lay still; just out of reach, a cicada spun itself in circles, drowning.
“We should rescue it,” said Andrew, not moving.
“It’ll just die later.”
“Still.”
“‘Someone has to die in order that the rest of us should value life more.’”
“What?”
“It’s Virginia Woolf.” She tipped the little airplane bottle of Jack Daniel’s to her lips, waiting for the last drops to drain out as she stared at the striped roof of the Whataburger across the street. The layered Ws of the sign looked like a Missoni-ish chevron pattern. Maybe she could start a website that found fashion influences in fast food places. She’d name it Couture Road Trip. Or Couture by Car. And then some designer would call her his muse and make a pattern out of Whataburger signs and then she’d be famous and could do a shoe collaboration and wouldn’t need to inherit any money anyway.
Because she probably wasn’t going to. Somewhere between driving away from Kathy’s house in Ama’s car like a family of thieves—her stolen laptop banging against her knees in the backseat, the U-Haul filled with lifted merchandise rumbling along behind them—and walking in on Andrew playing with himself, Grace had admitted that she was lying to herself. There was no show, no party. Instead, this was the end. It couldn’t be, but maybe it was.
Checking into this crappy Texas motel had somehow clinched it. They had gone up to the room, the four of them, standing still as the hollow door creaked shut. Barbra had taken out a handkerchief and used it to pull aside the plastic-backed drapes and then their father had looked at the two queen beds, and said, “One for boys, one for girls?” She and Andrew had been horrified. What did he think would happen if they shared a bed? Grace had looked at Andrew, who nodded at her, and said, “You guys take your own bed. We’re going to go out to the pool.” Andrew grabbed his backpack and one of the key cards, and they ran out, leaving the grown-ups to figure it out for themselves. A narrow escape.
“Gracie, do you think they’re asleep yet?”
“What if they’re having sex?”
“Oh god, why would you say that? Brain! Burning!”
“Does it really gross you out that much? It’s just sex.”
“Yeah, but it’s Dad and Babs! I don’t want to picture them all naked and saggy on a motel bed!”
“I don’t know . . . it kind of doesn’t gross me out. I can picture pretty much anyone doing it without getting grossed out.”
“But your own father!”
“I know! Logically, it’s gross, but when I picture it, it’s like picturing someone eating or something. You know, just like a normal, everyday thing.”
“That you do with someone else. Naked.”
“Yeah . . .”
“And sweaty.”
“Eew! Okay, now it’s gross!”
“Thank god, I was starting to think you were some kind of perv.”
Grace waggled her eyebrows at him. “I could picture you and some lovely young coed.”
“Grace, stop it! Seriously! Maybe I’m too innocent to share a bed with you after all!”
“Oh, I blur out all the private parts in my mind.”
“God, I can’t even picture me having sex.”
“What do you mean?”
“I just can’t. I mean I can, I do picture it, but then I kind of can’t, you know?”
“Wait, have you not?”
“You have?”
“Well, yeah. But what about you and Eunice? I just thought for sure . . .”
“You know how religious she was.”
Grace shrugged. “I haven’t seen that matter much with other people.”