Chapter Nine

 

Just when I was starting to think we'd never get out of Texas, we crossed the state line. Relieved, I read the Welcome to Louisiana sign out loud.

"Yeah, welcome." Eve was driving. I sat in the front and Koji dozed in the back seat. The box was on the floor between my feet because Eve insisted on always having it in sight.

"What's that all about?" I asked, noting her sarcastic tone.

"I got mugged in the French Quarter in New Orleans, so I have a bad feeling about the place."

"You got mugged in the French Quarter?"

"I'd never been mugged before. It was traumatic!" When Eve talked, she had a tendency to look at the person she was talking to more than the road. This made me reluctant to start conversations with her when it was her turn to drive.

"What happened?"

"Well, it wasn't really a mugging."

"It sounds to me like you're changing your story," I teased. Eve was known to exaggerate. "What was it really then?"

"I was walking around the French Quarter. This was when I came to San Diego for the first time from Alabama."

"I always forget you're from Alabama."

"That's because I don't have an accent."

"Maybe we should stop off and visit your family on the way to Florida."

"I'd rather not." Eve seemed annoyed at the suggestion.

"I just thought ... since we're going that way anyway."

"Naw." Eve didn't look at me that time when she spoke. Instead, she stared straight ahead, concentrating on driving. Her hands gripped the steering wheel firmly at the two o'clock and ten o'clock positions. "Anyway," she said, regaining her usual animation and lack of concentration on the road. "I was walking around the French Quarter--you know, just doing the sightseeing thing--when these two guys come up to me and one says that he will shine my shoes. I was wearing my Birks so there was nothing to shine. So I tell him no, but they won't go away. Next thing I know, this guy is wiping a dirty rag across my feet and I'm just standing there, shocked. Then the other guy starts telling me I owe them twenty bucks for the shoeshine."

"Unbelievable," I said.

"Yeah, I know. So I say that I don't owe them anything and try to walk away, but they won't let me by them. This is the middle of the day with lots of people around! I didn't know what to do. I ended up just giving them the twenty bucks so they'd leave me alone. I left after that. I didn't really want to sight-see if that's what it was going be like."

"I don't blame you." I was looking more at the road than listening to her story. Eve let the car drift a bit onto the shoulder a couple of times while she was talking, but we mostly stayed in our lane.

"Yeah, so I wasn't really mugged, but it felt like it. If I stayed much longer, I would've been mugged. I just know it." When she finished her story she turned her attention back to driving.

We didn't say anything for a while. I could hear Koji's deep breathing in the back seat. I longed for the radio. I just wanted some noise--music, news, anything. My tape deck was broken too. It had chewed up my Prince's Greatest Hits tape. I was listening to Little Red Corvette and the tape suddenly started flipping from side A to side B over and over again. When I tried to eject it a stream of brown shiny tape came out along with the cassette, and some of it was still stuck in the player. I pulled it hard and the tape just snapped. It hadn't worked since. Who has a cassette player anymore anyway? That's why I was going to get it replaced with a CD player. I wished I had included that in the car repair costs for the trip. I could've gotten Tom to pay for that too.

"What's that sound?" Eve said.

I strained my ears and could hear faint chimes. "I think it's my phone." I put my purse on my lap and started searching through it. When I found it, I answered it without looking at the screen to see who it was. I just wanted to answer it before the person hung up. "Hello."

"Hey, it's just me." It was Tom.

"What's up?"

"I was just calling to make sure you didn't open the box."

"Oh."

"So did you?"

"No." I said softly.

"Good. Don't, okay? It will be best for everyone if you don't."

"What does that mean, best for everyone?"

"Just don't, Indy. Just don't."

I didn't say anything. I could hear Tom breathing on the other end of the phone.

"Where are you now?"

"Crossing Louisiana."

"Okay. You're on schedule then."

"I didn't know there was a schedule. We're probably going to get there a day later than I anticipated. I hope that's okay."

"Why?"

I knew that Eve was not going to like what I was going to say next, but something gave me the feeling that it would be for her own good. "One of my friends that came with me, Eve, I think you met her once before in the hallway."

"I don't remember," Tom said.

"Anyway, her family is in Alabama and we were thinking about stopping there. Maybe we'll spend the night. We can't just leave first thing in the morning. We'll have to visit for a while, you know."

Eve was grimacing at me and not looking at the road again. I motioned toward the road, but she ignored me.

"That's fine. I don't care if it takes a little longer. Just don't open the box," Tom said.

"Yeah, I know."

"Sorry if I was rude to you on the phone earlier. It's just that this is important. It's really important to me."

"I know it is."

"Have a safe trip."

"Thanks, I will."

"Call after you've delivered the box."

"I will."

"Bye." He hung up.

"I can't believe you said that," Eve said as soon as I took the phone away from my ear.

"Said what?" Koji asked groggily from the back seat.

"I said that we were going to spend the night at Eve's parents' house in Alabama."

"Sounds like a good idea," Koji said. "I could use some southern home cooking."

"We are not going to my parents' house."

"Why not? Are you ashamed of them?" Koji asked.

"No."

"Then you're ashamed of us," I said.

"No. I just haven't talked to them in a while."

"Why not?" Koji asked.

"I don't know. Time ... difference."

"The time difference between Alabama and California isn't very big," I remarked.

"That's not what I meant," Eve said.

"I think you should call them," Koji said.

"I don't have anything in common with them."

Koji sighed. "They're your parents. Who has anything in common with their parents? My mother quilts and watches the Home Shopping Network all day. My father collects electric trains."

"Hey, I think that's cool," I said. When I was little I loved electric trains. I always wanted an electric train set. We used to go to this restaurant with a model train that ran along the ceiling. My brother and I would always point it out when it went by us. We never tired of it.

"You know what I mean," Koji continued. "They're your parents. You don't stop calling them because you don't read the same books or like the same movies."

"You should call them," I said.

"Okay, I will," Eve said.

I spotted a blue and white rest area sign on the right side of the road. "You should call them now. Pull off at that rest stop. Besides I really need to pee."

 

**

 

Eve was leaning against the side of the car when I came back from the bathroom. "Did you call them?" I asked straight away.

"Yeah, they'd love for us to stay with them. My mother said that we're more than welcome."

"They were happy to hear from you, weren't they?"

"Thrilled." Eve rolled her eyes.

I spotted Koji coming from the vending machines, soda and bag of chips in hand. "Well?" he called out. Some other people in the parking lot turned to look at him.

"They said we could stay," Eve yelled back.

"I knew they would," Koji said.

"Where do they live?" I asked Eve.