“I heard this place is great,” Grandpa Ed says. The restaurant is called Big Chuck’s, and there’s a wagon wheel on the roof. The freeway whizzes out front. Grandpa Ed pretends that it’s just the two of them going out for a big birthday dinner, and Annabelle pretends not to see Gina’s car in the lot. Actually, she can’t wait to get in there. She’s starving. Honestly, she could eat three or four steaks.
It makes her think of Sierra Kincaid and some girls at school, who’d eat two bites of yogurt and a carrot stick and say they were full. Sometimes, Annabelle did it, too, because you were supposed to be thin and delicate and feminine, even if your body was never those things, even if you were hungry. From the time she was in kindergarten, she heard the encouraging rah-rah about how girls can do anything, yet still there were the yogurt bites and the carrot sticks and girls looking at each other’s bodies, and boys looking, too, judging. It’s hard to be all that you can be on carrot sticks and criticism.
It’s weird because, since her run began, Annabelle feels something different about her body and food. She was already “in shape,” but she is starting to understand that if she wants to be strong, she needs to feed the strength. Energy and power in, energy and power out.
“Surprise!” Gina and Malcolm and Carl Walter shout when she and Grandpa walk in. Actually, Carl Walter just smiles uncomfortably. He’s not the sort for loud displays in restaurants. He’s the kind of guy who’s quiet unless he’s watching sports on TV.
“Surprise!” Angie Morelli O’Brien, Gina’s oldest friend, and her husband, Patrick, also shout.
“Oh my gosh! You guys! Aunt Angie, Uncle Pat! What are you doing here?”
“Anne Lazzarini’s daughter is getting married in Wenatchee, so we thought we’d drop in for dinner on the way. We’re not staying.” She smooches Annabelle’s cheek. “Happy birthday, sweetheart.”
“We are staying,” Malcolm warns.
“Come here, my love. Give me a hug,” Gina says. “Happy eighteenth, baby.”
“Mom! I’m so happy to see you guys. What a long drive, just for this! What do you mean, staying?”
“Do you think we’d miss your birthday? We’re staying the night! We got a couple of rooms at the Sleepy Inn. We thought you’d like a real bed for once. A splurge.”
“I don’t want no real bed. I’ve got a real bed,” Grandpa Ed says. “Money doesn’t grow on trees.”
“You told me already,” Gina says. “I didn’t get you a room, okay? I heard you loud and clear. You’re cheap, Pop.”
“I’m not cheap, I’m thrifty.” He’s a little cheap. He hoards fast-food ketchup packets and steals the small containers of jam from restaurant tables.
“Look at all this great food!” Angie Morelli O’Brien shoves a couple of menus in front of Gina and Grandpa Ed to shut them up.
“How about some beers?” Patrick O’Brien says.
“Beers? What family did you marry into, O’Brien? Vino, vino!” Grandpa Ed is all dressed up again. He smells like the Acqua di Parma factory exploded.
“Mom and Carl are paying for their own room, but the GoFundMe is doing ours,” Malcolm tells Annabelle.
“Wow, that’s awesome, Malc.”
There is steak, and there are baked potatoes tucked into foil sleeping bags. There is corn glistening with butter, and salads made from iceberg lettuce and tomatoes. There are presents: new shoes and a stack of moisture-wicking shirts from Aunt Angie and Uncle Pat, a new hydration belt from Mom, sunglasses and SPF 45 from Carl Walter, a pile of socks from Grandpa Ed, and a box of PowerBars, Clif Shot Bloks, and Cytomax Energy Drops from Malcolm. Three sticks of Body Glide from Zach and Olivia.
“Wait,” Mom says.
There’s one more gift. Annabelle opens the lid of the small box. It’s her own medal of Saint Christopher—protector of travelers, guardian against storms, holy death, and toothaches. Saint Christopher is in his flowing robes and carries a child on his back. St. Christopher Protect Us, it says, and it’s beautiful, really. “Oh, Mom. Thank you. Thank you, everyone.”
It’s everything she could need for now. Her family is here, and today she kicked the butt of the Iron Horse Trail. And, in spite of the dread for this day, she feels lucky. So lucky. Annabelle knows you should never forget that part.
• • •
After she blows out the candle in the large sundae, Grandpa Ed starts waving his arms.
“Over here!”
Maybe Grandpa Ed has arranged another birthday surprise. Annabelle tries to see who he’s waving to, but it’s hard from where she’s sitting. The servers are taking dessert orders, and Uncle Pat is walking around, insisting that everyone get what they want, since he’s picking up the tab.
An older woman with a long gray braid and a flowing gypsy dress is coming their way, and behind her is a guy about Annabelle’s age. He’s every Portland-Seattle hippie cliché: his brown hair is a mess of curls, and he wears a Value Village–ish striped jacket, a looped scarf, and a cross-body bag.
It’s a birthday surprise, all right.
She’s going to kill Grandpa Ed. She doesn’t care how good he’s been to her since the day she was born. Sure, she brought him to kindergarten for show-and-tell. Sure, he wore a paper hat with a painful elastic strap under his chin for every kiddie birthday party they ever had, and sent them cards with five bucks inside on every Valentine’s Day no matter where he was in the country. But she’s going to beat him with his own bag of Caputo flour.
Grandpa Ed is suddenly the life of the party. His cheeks are flushed, though maybe it’s the wine. “Dawn Celeste, everyone!” he says, like she’s a Vegas lounge singer entering the stage. They should maybe all applaud. She hands Annabelle a pan of cinnamon rolls covered with plastic wrap. Another pan of cinnamon rolls! God, how many does a person need, even if they’re delicious? Really, really delicious! As delicious as the ones at Essential Baking Company, where she used to work. Annabelle feels sorry for the guy, the grandson, following behind Dawn Celeste in her Age of Aquarius dress. He must feel so awkward and humiliated.
But he doesn’t seem awkward and humiliated. He’s as mellow as a country road, and, shit, what is he doing? He’s handing her something and smiling. A present?
“Hey.”
“Hey,” she says.
“I’m Luke Messenger.”
“Annabelle.”
“I know. I heard about what you’re doing. It’s awesome. This is for you.”
It’s a cassette tape, the kind you don’t even see anymore, tied with a shoelace to a small cassette player. The player can hook to your waistband. There are earbuds. The wire is crinkly, like they’ve been used for years.
Luke grins. Shit, shit, shit! It’s one of those grins that causes your heart to bump around, a grin that says you both share a secret.
Malcolm wiggles his eyebrows up and down. She’s going to kill him, too. He’s going to get it tonight, smothered with his own pillow from the Sleepy Inn.
Grandpa relays the story of how they met at the campground. Dawn Celeste tells everyone that she’s a retired social worker and perpetual wanderer, and Luke is a college student on hiatus. They took off from Portland a few weeks ago, and are going to go wherever their mood takes them. Grandpa says stuff that makes Dawn Celeste laugh. She seems to be laughing a lot. Her toenails in those sandals are painted the color of a tangerine. It’s too cold for sandals. Gina smiles the tight smile of an Italian countess in a Renaissance painting. Luke Messenger just sits back in one of the red padded chairs of Big Chuck’s with his hands folded across his chest, calm as the setting sun.
After a while, Aunt Angie and Uncle Pat have to go, and the party breaks up. There are thank-yous and hugs and Happy birthday, sweeties and Be careful out theres and good-byes.
“Hey, thanks again,” Annabelle says to Luke Messenger. She can at least be polite.
“No problem. Hope you like it.”
“Where are you and your grandma going next?”
“Oh, great! Have a great time.”
Great, great. Just great! Idaho! Their Idaho. She is going to kill, kill, kill Grandpa Ed.
• • •
It turns out, she doesn’t have to. After everyone leaves, Gina yanks Grandpa Ed’s sleeve. “Pop, I need a word with you.”
They are over by the defunct cigarette machine. Gina gestures like a street-corner mattress sale guy, and Grandpa Ed looks pissed. There are words like family celebration and stranger and Annabelle and You know how she feels and Ease up, Gina, Christ. Also Idaho and liar and You can’t stop her, Gina, Jesus.
Malcolm slurps the last of his Coke, now mostly melted ice. Carl Walter sits at the table with them. He’s dropping liquid onto the curled straw wrappers to make the snakes squirm.
“Long day,” he says.
“Thanks for coming all the way out here,” Annabelle says.
“Hey, my pleasure.” He seems to mean it.
• • •
In their room at the Sleepy Inn, Malcolm is bugging the hell out of Annabelle, who is sprawled on the bed in her monkey pajamas. She loves these pj’s best, because the monkeys float in blue flannel space. They are monkey astronauts, adrift in the endless universe, and the best thing about them is their faces. They look nervous. Their mouths are set in straight, worried lines, which is how you feel when you are out too far, away from your planet, doing something that feels way too big. It has been an exhausting day, and she needs to get her rest for tomorrow, but Malcolm keeps asking her questions from the other bed and filming her on his phone. Now he’s got it right in her face.
“What is the hardest part of running sixteen miles a day?”
“Back off, Tarantino.”
“I’d rather be Wes Anderson. Answer the question.”
“The hardest part of running sixteen miles a day is dealing with your annoying brother after running sixteen miles a day.”
“Be serious, Annabelle.”
She makes a face.
“What do you hope to accomplish with your mission?”
“I hope to discover a new planet with evidence of life. Go to bed.”
“Annabelle. Come on.”
“What? I’m exhausted. Go brush your teeth.”
“After everything that’s, um, happened, why are you running from Seattle to Washington, DC, Annabelle Agnelli?”
“I have to do something.”
He clicks off the video recorder. “I’m going to bed.”
She hears him in there, the bathroom of the Sleepy Inn, shoosh-shooshing his teeth with his brush. He is a serious and devoted tooth-brusher. He takes on all the parental tasks for himself that Gina’s a little sloppy about. He even flosses. On school nights, he’s in bed by nine thirty exactly, and allows himself a half hour to read, lights out by ten. He eats his broccoli without complaint. He writes Multivitamin on the shopping list that’s attached with a magnet to their fridge.
When they turn out the lights on this night, though, Annabelle can feel her brother lying awake, and he must feel her lying awake, too, because now there’s his voice in the dark room. Dark, anyway, save for the red smoke-detector button and the occasional swoop of headlights from the road outside.
“Happy birthday, Annabelle,” he says.
“Thanks, butthead.”
“Sorry Mom and Grandpa fought.”
“No worries.”
“Sorry Grandpa brought that guy.”
“It’s okay. He didn’t mean anything by it.”
“Sorry about . . .” It’s quiet. Outside their room and down the hall, there is the rumble of the ice machine. “Everything.”
“Me too.” She doesn’t bother to tell him that he should not be sorry, that he is not responsible for any of those things. She doesn’t bother because they are both chronic apologizers, and chronic apologizers know that sorry is also just sorrow for the general state of the world. Annabelle and Malcolm lie there for a long while. She is so exhausted, but far from sleep. “Hey, butthead?”
“Yeah?”
“How have things been at school? Has that kid Derek been giving you any more trouble?”
“Not Derek, but this other guy, Sean.”
“I’m so sorry, Malc.”
“He doesn’t try to hurt you or anything, though, like Derek?”
“Nah. He’s just a moron. Some people are always going to be stupid and mean.”
This is true, so true, but this is still her last thought of her eighteenth birthday: She has wrecked so much for so many people.