When I stumble out my front door Monday morning, to start our road trip to Salt Lake City, the last thing I expect to see is Mari, bright-eyed and wide awake, standing on a step stool and cleaning Bernadette’s windshield.
I don’t want to startle her, so I don’t call out. Instead I approach slowly, and when she turns and smiles at me, I say, “Are you sure that’s safe?”
“I’m being super careful, I promise,” she says.
“You’re—awake.”
“I know, right? I get so excited for trips. I couldn’t sleep anymore.”
She hops off the ladder like a little bird, beaming. Despite days of evidence that she’s not a morning person, she’s dressed, bouncing on her toes, and obviously raring to go—at 6 a.m.
“Breakfast is donuts today,” I say, opening the box I procured the night before, and handing her one.
“Boston cream,” she breathes, and all of a sudden I’m wide awake, too, six a.m. or no.
“It’s not really Boston cream,” I warn. “It’s weak fake custard.”
“Oh, now he’s all I make real Boston cream,” she teases. “Feeling pretty good about yourself, Mr. Baker, huh?”
“I’m just saying. That donut is not the real thing.”
She dips her tongue into the dimple on the side of the donut and swipes up the cream. “Mmm.” Her eyes meet mine, and mine betray me, telling her exactly what I think about all of that—dimple, cream, tongue, and humming sound I can feel the whole length of my cock.
A mischievous smile spreads over her face, and that—I don’t know what to do with that. I don’t know what to do with that Mari at all—all pixie and excitement and tease, just like she was the first night we met, when I was helpless.
I turn away, quickly making myself busy loading my stuff. Bernadette is pulling a trailer that will eventually contain the red range Mari spec’d for Christian Grey’s Airstream. Right now it contains my duffle and a few camping supplies. As long as we make good time, we’ll camp only one night, near Salt Lake.
Out of deference to Mari, and because I trust myself exactly as far as I can throw Clark, I have my own tent, sleeping bag, and sleeping pad.
The donut dimple only reconfirms this decision.
When I sidle up to Bernadette’s driver’s side door, Mari slides between me and her RV. “I’ll take first shift,” she says. “I’m gonna have to stop to pee every thirty seconds, anyway, so we can do shortish shifts.”
Her logic makes sense. I don’t fight her.
She swings herself up into the driver’s seat, agile still for someone who’s closing in on eight months pregnant.
As soon as I climb up next to her she starts Bernadette, lets her warm up a sec, and maneuvers her out of my driveway with surprising ease.
“Want me to map the route?” I ask, pulling out my phone.
“No need,” she says, with a little shrug. “I know how to get there. We’ll do 20 to 84 to 21.”
“When you say you know how to get there—did you Google Maps that?”
She shakes her head.
“So are you sure?”
She rolls her eyes in my direction. “Of course, I’m sure. If there’s one thing I know, it’s the roads in this country.”
“Wait a second,” I say. “You’re doing all that out of your head?”
She nods. “Yeah. My mom used to have me navigate. I spent my whole childhood studying maps and looking at route apps. I know how many hours it takes to drive between pretty much all U.S. cities and most landmarks that anyone cares about.”
“Wall Drug to the north entrance of Yellowstone.”
She shrugs. “About eight. That’s not even tough.”
I pull out my phone, and… she’s right. I think for a moment. “Canyon de Chelly to Iowa City.”
“Twenty hours?” she hazards, with a tilt of her head.
Google confirms her guess to within an hour. “Wow. That’s impressive.”
She scrunches up her nose. “Nah,” she says. “That’s not even a hard one. Trying to think of one that would really be a challenge. Like… Disney World to Glacier. No one ever puts those two on the same trip, and there’s no really straightforward way to do it. It’s like, 75, 24, 57—oh what the hell is the one that gets you from 57 to 70. 64? And a few after that but I get foggy. I’m thinking forty hours.”
“That’s amazing,” I say, pulling up the route.
“Nah. You get good at whatever you do over and over again, right? I’ve got way more than ten thousand hours of navigating the U.S. on my mom’s whims, and my own.”
For shits and giggles, I Google our route anyway.
“Wait,” I say. ”The route you just said, the one you’re taking us on, that doesn’t take us to Salt Lake City. It takes us to Idaho City. Not the same thing at all.”
“Yeah, no, I know,” she says. “It’s a little detour. I want you to see a couple of things I think you’ll appreciate.”
“What things?”
“Things.” She’s beaming again, bouncing in her seat, full of life and waking my body up like her blood is rushing through my veins. Or maybe that’s just the sight of her gorgeous tits jiggling under her cute top—pale pink, clinging to the soft globes of her breasts, and flowing out over her belly.
“C’mon, you can tell me.”
She shakes her head. “Nope. I want it to be a surprise.” Another little bounce on the seat, another surge of blood into my groin. At least tonight I’ll be sleeping alone in a tent, where, if quiet, I can do what needs to be done.
“How out of our way are we going?”
She shrugs. “A little.”
“But then we won’t make it to Salt Lake today.”
Her smile gets bigger. “Is that a problem?”
I told Gabe I’d be back late tomorrow, ready to pick up work again on Wednesday morning. I’m feeling extra guilty because I never turned over my new snow adventure plan to him, the one Hanna and I were supposed to develop before I left on this trip. He gave me some Gabe-glare about it, but he didn’t lower the boom. I think he was trying to cut me some well-deserved slack. Unlike my brothers—especially Brody and Easton—I never have to be hounded or ridden or reminded—and I never flake out on being where I’m supposed to be.
Of course, that was before, before I picked up a woman in a Vegas bar, had sex with her, and got her pregnant. It was before I signed up to be a dad, before I decided that everything I’d ever had paled in comparison to what I wanted.
And what I want right now? Doesn’t include hurrying back to Rush Creek to be Gabe’s easy-going little brother and most reliable worker.
I take a deep breath. “No,” I say. “Whatever you want to show me, I want to see it.”
I even manage to not make it sound dirty.
“A cowboy really might amble into the street for a showdown here,” I observe.
It’s early afternoon and after several bathroom breaks and sandwiches eaten on the go, we’ve just turned onto Idaho City’s main drag.
“There!” she says. “Pull in over there.”
I ease Bernadette into the lot she’s pointing out, then into a space that’s really not big enough for us—but beggars can’t be choosers. When I cut the engine and finally look up, I see—
“Holy shit!”
“Right?” she says, bouncing in her seat with excitement.
“That’s—”
Actually I’m not sure what the right adjective is. On one hand, the business in front of me most closely resembles a trash heap. It looks like it should have been condemned years ago. A big plank out front has been spray-painted with the business name. The Sluice Box. Most of the front door is covered with a giant stop sign. In fact, the whole property is plastered with signs. Budweiser. Blatz. Idaho City. There are gas pumps out front. A section of weathered picket fence. A wagon wheel, an old-fashioned plow, an ancient table, a broken-down bench. Up top, the store’s original architecture has been embellished with an ancient windmill and a garret that doesn’t belong—among a host of other things.
It’s—ugly and beautiful.
“It’s fantastic.” My voice is surprisingly husky—because I’m weirdly, oddly, moved that she knew exactly how much I would love this. I look over at her, and she’s smiling back, a small, secret, victorious smile. My hand almost goes out to stroke a few wild strands of hair off her forehead, but I pull back at the last minute.
I dig in my bag for my camera instead.
Kicking up dust as we walk, we exit Bernadette and head for the monstrosity.
“Get me some good photos,” she says, gesturing at my Nikon. “I’m going to get us coffees. Decaf for me,” she clarifies, even though I didn’t ask.
I raise my camera. I can’t get enough. The signs with their old paint, the cracked wood, and the broken things that someone cared enough about to gather. I could stay here for hours.
She comes back out with two coffees, but doesn’t try to hand me mine. She holds onto it while I snap off shot after shot. It’s a small thing, but I feel absurdly grateful, and even more so when she unloops my camera bag from over my shoulder and takes that too, leaving my hands and upper body free.
Once I’ve gotten all the photos I want of the building, I capture incoming visitors, their faces when they first see the Sluice Box, the way they turn to each other, trying to find the right words to express how they feel when they see this collection of things that aren’t quite worth saving.
For every photo I take of people, I ask permission and collect names and emails, telling them I make a practice of deleting any people shots I don’t have permission for.
“You want me to—?” Mari asks, and when I look at her, she’s holding up her phone to ask if I want her to track the names and emails.
“Thank you.”
“Of course!”
I don’t think she knows what a big deal it is to me, though. I’ve spent a lifetime grabbing photos in a rush as my family hurried on ahead, eager to get to the big adventure. But not only is she not rushing me, she’s encouraging me to take my time. To get what I need.
“Thank you,” I say again, and I think she gets it this time, because her gaze stops on me for a long moment, and then she gives me that same secret pleased smile.
After a while, I stop and drink some of my coffee, surprised to discover it’s a latte. “How did you know I drink lattes?”
“You ordered one at the coffee shop. The day we were in town,” she says, shrugging.
It’s totally foreign to me, this feeling of being seen. Of being…
No, it can’t be.
Of being wooed.
But she isn’t. She wouldn’t. I’m the one who wants this. She… wants the road.
She points, and I capture the shot—a purple-haired woman and her Hawaiian-shirted husband, arms full of gilt-edged china cups. They want a copy of the photo, so I air drop it to them once they’ve set their haul down on the register counter.
“You should look around, too,” I tell Mari.
She does, and I grab a string of photos of that, too. She picks objects up and sets them down, expressions flickering so fast over her face that I can’t capture them fast enough: puzzlement, wonder, delight. I can feel my face mirroring hers, like it’s the only way I can get enough of her.
I take more photos of her than of everyone else combined, and I still don’t feel like I've really captured that energy that her skin can’t contain.
Mari finds a copy of Seventeen magazine from the 1980s, and as we check out, I grab a quick photo of the mustached man explaining to the bored teenager behind the counter why the incomprehensible piece of electronic music equipment in his husband’s arms is the answer to, if not prayers, then at least months of searching.
My coffee’s almost cold when we get back in the Airstream.
“Show me,” she says, gesturing at the Nikon.
I do, paging through the photos, holding the camera out so we can both see the screen. My attention roams between the photos and her face—a smile, eyes widening, mouth opening. She bites her lip at a photo of her, touching a doll’s cheek.
“You made me look so pretty,” she says.
My chest hurts.
“You are so pretty,” I say. “You’re fucking beautiful. If our baby is half as beautiful as you are—”
I stop. I went too far, and when my eyes find her, she’s frozen.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“No,” she says quietly. “It’s—it’s all right.”
She hands me back the camera, and I take it, my throat tight.
“Those are really fucking amazing,” she says. “You’re—really fucking amazing.”
The tightness spreads into my chest, and it has sharp edges that are part pleasure, part pain.
The moment stretches. Then she puts her hands on the wheel, like she’s decided something, and her whole energy shifts, like she’s put on a different skin.
“You ready?” she asks. “Ready for our next adventure?” She turns and smiles at me, just a little too big to be real. Even so, the smile loosens the tightness in my throat.
“Definitely,” I tell her.