On the night of Deva’s birthday Alo honked his car in my driveway. I ran out with a perfect plan and a pounding heart. He was supposed to have picked Deva up already and we were to head out to the desert together. I had not seen her in weeks and now she would be here, in my house. My brother was playing street hockey with Creedence and his brothers in pajamas, and though it was January, a light warm breeze blew on my bare shoulders. Even my street seemed beautiful to me, like a self-contained universe that said life brimmed with possibilities. I skimmed over Alo’s truck—dusty and banged-up like I remembered—over his face and his smile and his outstretched hands, looking for Deva, but she wasn’t there.
“Where is she?” I asked without saying hello.
Alo smiled at me, bursting out of a new leather jacket. This one had silver studs. He had a red silk scarf wrapped around his neck. Someone else got out of the passenger side. A guy in an oversize flannel shirt with a red bandanna covering his bald head. Both of them had goatees. I glanced at my bright pink raver dress, sparkling knee-highs, and fuzzy white fur coat. My fingers were covered with the glitter I’d smeared on my eyelids. The three of us looked like a car crash.
“Man, your girlfriend is nuts,” Alo announced as he stretched out his legs. “We drove all the way into Topanga. She came down the driveway and told us she wasn’t ready. She said to tell you she’d be coming with some friends and see you in the desert.”
“Yeah, that’ll be easy!” His friend smirked.
I couldn’t hide my disappointment. “What do you mean ‘the desert’? We’ll never find her there.”
Alo shrugged his shoulders.
“I’m just as disappointed as you. Actually Ben here is,” he said, patting his friend’s shoulder with a giggle.
Alo’s voice was gone. He spoke in a raspy wheeze, like a loud, strangled whisper, and he’d grown a patchy beard around his long goatee.
“Did she say why?”
“Nope.”
“But you’re better off, man. Her friends looked like freaks!” Ben cackled. “Weird alien dudes in gas masks.”
They looked at each other and started laughing.
I felt a pang in my heart.
I embraced Alo briefly—a rush of stale cigarettes and the memory of his ashtray car the day of our adventure. I introduced myself to his friend. He had a sticky hand and must have been thirty. I looked back at Alo. Their presence in my driveway seemed suddenly inappropriate. I saw what I hadn’t fully deciphered in South Dakota. Neither he nor Ben could ever be good enough for Deva. They were rejects. She probably saw those goatees and right there in the driveway decided to ditch them.
The back of Alo’s truck was decked out with scattered blankets, dirty sleeping bags, and flannel pajamas.
“That’s your spot, girl. We can’t fit three people in the front.”
Ben got in the passenger seat and for a brief moment I wondered if it was a good idea to ride alone in the back of a truck with two guys I barely knew. But it was Deva’s birthday and she was in the desert and they were the only people who were going to take me there, so I hopped inside. Alo tucked me in. I looked at him and my eyes said don’t kill me and he must have read my thoughts because his face softened and he caressed my cheek.
“It’s really good to see you. I thought you’d never call me.”
“It’s good to see you too,” I lied.
He leaned in closer and looked at me with a vulnerability I didn’t know he had.
“I’ve wanted to talk to you so many times. Remember how I had cancer?” he asked.
I told him I did and asked him if he was okay.
He removed the silk scarf from his neck. There was a hole in his throat now. It was covered by a rubber cap. He tapped it.
“Took out my vocal cords. Laryngectomy.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said and stared at the cavity.
“My voice box is gone. Not gonna use a voice box either. Notice how I don’t have a voice?”
I had, yes. When he spoke it was like he had to catch his breath, as if the air was getting sucked out of some invisible place.
“You can relax,” he said. “People with holes in their throats don’t hurt young girls in the back of their trucks.”
Timoteo saw us. He skated over and asked me if I was going to be okay taking off with two guys. He gave Alo a suspicious scowl and leaned over the pile of flannel pajamas and blankets where I was stationed.
“Are you sure you want to go?”
“Of course. Just don’t tell Mom and Dad you saw me in the back of a truck, okay?”
Alo gave him a pat on the shoulder. “Your sister’s a big girl.” He winked and got into the driver’s seat.
“I don’t think this is a good idea,” my brother whispered.
Maybe he saw what I was trying not to see, that postcard of what things were supposed to look like, and he compared it to what was actually there. Pickup trucks in California were meant to be loaded with surfboards and girls in bikinis, not dirty blankets and flannel pajamas. But every time doubt rose to the surface, I shifted my thoughts back to the desert and waited for the anxiety to settle into visions of sand and Deva. I was on my way to see her and that was all that mattered. I hugged my brother tight and kissed his cheek.
“Thanks for caring,” I said.
He kissed me, then pulled away abruptly, and skated away with his hockey stick waving from side to side. I sprawled on my makeshift mobile bed and knocked on the cab window to signal I was ready to go. Heavy metal came blasting from the inside speakers. The sleeping bag was warm enough. I looked at the stars, lulled by the movement of the car.
We rode to Hollywood to the sneaker shop where we were to pick up the secret directions. A woman in bright green body paint sat at the counter. She told me she was a leaf and that leaves were not to be confused with aliens. The rest of the store was crowded with ravers in extra-large pants, makeup, and fluorescent Super Mario suits.
“Take the 101 to the 10 East to the 605 North to the 210 East to the 58 until you are somewhere in the middle of the desert on a road called Grandview. Drive for miles until you see a boulder next to a Shell gas station. From there you will pull in to a dirt road and go straight.” A mysterious recorded voice gave the vague directions on the information line we’d dialed. Trance music played in the background. Alo and his friend seemed impatient. They didn’t want to go that far. They felt out of place.
We drove for hours into the night, crossing four freeways that felt like continents. Around two in the morning we reached a smaller dirt road in the middle of the dark desert. The pickup pulled over.
Alo stuck his head out the window. “Took a little detour, girl. Hope that’s all right.”
We were alone—just us and the desert. The two guys came out of the truck with their backpacks and proposed we get fucked up.