Boys, Bears, and a Serious Pair of Hiking Boots(22)
Author: Abby McDonald

“Here, Jenna, snacks for the road.” Susie hands me a Tupperware container of sensible-looking carrot muffins. She’s been beaming ear-to-ear ever since I suggested Fiona and I go into the city, and for some reason, I don’t think it’s because she’s happy to get her out of the house. Susie wants us to be BFFs.

“We’ll be fine,” I reassure her, but she hugs me good-bye as if we’re about to embark on an epic voyage cross-country. Fiona is already in the driver’s seat, so I check my bag for essentials — iPod jack, earplugs, the wilderness manual — and climb into the car. I barely have time to slam my door and promise to call Susie at every major arrival/departure before Fiona guns the engine, leaving a cloud of dust in our wake.

“We should stop at the gas station, like your dad said,” I suggest, shoveling tools and old candy wrappers into the backseat. “Pick up some more snacks. I’m going to need a ton of caffeine for my driving shifts.”

“Who said you were driving?”

“What?” I laugh. “Come on, Fiona, it’s like two hours each way!”

But evidently Fiona’s a seasoned road hog, because she ignores me — driving the winding back road like it’s a NASCAR track and pulling up by the gas pumps with a lurch. Never mind splitting driving duties out of fairness and equality; I’m going to need to take the wheel just to avoid whiplash.

“You can fill it up,” she offers generously, handing me the credit card. “And get Doritos, the cheesy ones.”

“Sure thing.” I leap down and head into the air-conditioned building, making sure to pick up her junk food of choice before browsing the sodas. As my new guru says, when you find yourself stranded in a storm, it’s best to take shelter and wait it out rather than make things worse by fighting it. Fiona is nothing if not a force of nature.

I’ve got an armful of Diet Cokes, Red Bulls, and Snapple when I bump into somebody by the register. “Sorry,” I say, but since I’m hanging onto the bag of chips with my teeth, it comes out more as a mangled noise.

“Hey, no problem.” The person laughs, helping me unload everything onto the counter until I can actually see who it is.

“Oh, hi, Ethan.” My greeting comes out more hesitant than happy. I haven’t seen him since that kayak disaster, so I brace myself for a crack about my fear of the dark/terrible balance/girly weakness, but he just nods at my haul of junk food.

“Hungry?” His sports sunglasses are propped on the top of his head, pushing his dark fringe back up into messy spikes, and he’s wearing a navy T-shirt with a small rip in the shoulder.

I smile, relieved. He’s talking to me! “No, these are just supplies for the road — Fiona and I are driving down to the city.”

“Good luck.” He casually tosses a bag of chips from one hand to the other. “Last time I caught a ride with her, I managed about twenty minutes of that music, then I got out and walked. It was like, three miles.”

I laugh. “I hid all her CDs during breakfast,” I confide, “so it’ll be my iPod or the radio.”

“Nice move!” He pauses, looking around the empty store before turning back to me. “So . . . have you got room for one more?” Ethan’s expression becomes hopeful. “I need to pick up some stuff. It’s been ages since I made the trip.”

“Umm, sure.” I blink. “But we’re heading out right now . . .”

“Give me two minutes?” I nod slowly. “Cool, I’ll be right out.” He abandons the chips and takes off, sprinting out of the building and disappearing across the street. I watch him go, wondering why he’d want to come along for —

“You getting those?” The gravelly voice of the old store clerk brings me back; she’s already bagging my snacks.

“Oh, sorry.” I pay quickly and walk back to the car, where Fiona is (surprise, surprise) waiting with a scowl, scuffing her Doc Martens in the dirt.

“Took you long enough.” Today, she seems to be making a bold new fashion statement, ditching the black and adding a green T-shirt to her usual dark jeans, with a baggy dirt-colored cardigan that looks like something a grandfather would wear. A color-blind grandfather.

“Here, Doritos.” I toss her the bag. “And you’ll have to wait some more. Ethan is coming, too.”

“Great.”

“I think so.” I ignore her sarcasm. I’m still not sure why Ethan wants to spend hours locked up with us but it’s something: a chance for me to try to get to know him away from the other guys.

Plus, he’s another vote against Fiona should she manage to find a stray copy of Misery Anthems, Volume 5 somewhere in the glove compartment. . . .

“I don’t know — ever since he went solo, I haven’t liked the music so much.”

“Come on — it’s way better than the Alarm stuff!”

“Yes, but he’s such a skeeze — hitting on that girl from 5th Avenue? I mean, she’s fifteen!”

“Lucky guy.”

“You would say that!”

“God, would you both just SHUT UP!” Fiona yells, sitting up from the backseat where she’s been sprawled, ignoring us, for the last hundred miles. “I don’t care about some washed-up rock star and those stupid reality-TV bimbos!”

I shoot Ethan a look. He’s trying not to laugh.

“Relax.” I glance in the rearview mirror. She’s slumped back down, eyes closed in despair. “We’re nearly there.”

“Thank God.”

I flip the radio to another station as the wide expanse of trees and mountains gives way to the strip-mall outskirts of the city. Fiona vetoed my iPod on principle, so we’ve been stuck with the best of the Canadian airwaves for the whole trip; in other words, country and butt rock. Ethan has been the only one happy, humming along with the manly relationship angst, while I grit my teeth and wonder how many times they can play Nickelback in a single hour.

Answer? Too many.

“What things do you need to get?” I ask him, drumming my fingers on the steering wheel as we begin to hit traffic. “Susie says there are a couple of malls, and then I thought I would wander downtown for a while, but it really depends on what you want.” He doesn’t answer, so I continue. “Music? Clothes? Books?”

Ethan looks embarrassed. “Uh, to be honest, I don’t really need to buy anything.”