I Was Here(45)
Author: Gayle Forman

“Touring code. Someone always has to stay up with the driver.”

“That makes sense if there’s a bunch of you, but there’s only two of us, and you’re tired.”

He looks at me, considering.

“Look,” I go on. “We can just make up a new code.”

He continues to look at me. But then he gives in. He turns his face toward the window and falls asleep, staying that way for the next three hours.

There’s something nourishing about seeing him sleep. Maybe it’s the sun, or maybe my imagination, but the bluish tinge from underneath his eyes seems to fade a bit. He sleeps until the highway ends and I pull into a gas station to fill up the tank. Inside the station there’s a big map with a red circle denoting where we are: the junction of Highway 93 and Interstate 80. To get to Laughlin, we jog east on 80 until we go south on Interstate 15 near Salt Lake City. But if we were to go west, the interstate would take us into California, dipping above Lake Tahoe.

After Harry had gotten back to me with the address, I’d looked at the lake for hours. Though the town where he lived wasn’t on the lake, it was near it. The lake looked so pretty, the water so clear and blue.

“How far is Truckee, California, from here?” I ask the guy behind the counter.

He shrugs. But a trucker in a Peterbilt hat tells me it’s about three hundred miles.

“Do you know how far it is from Truckee to Laughlin, Nevada? I mean, how far of a detour is it?”

The trucker rubs his beard. “You’re probably adding three hundred miles to the trip. It’s about five or six hundred miles from Truckee, and about five hundred miles from here. Either way, you got a ways to go.”

I thank the trucker, buy $40 worth of gas, a California map, a couple of burritos, and a liter of Dr Pepper. Then I go back to the car, where Ben is digging around for his sunglasses.

“Think we’ll make Laughlin tonight?” he asks me.

“We’d be pushing it. We got off to a late start, so we wouldn’t get there till midnight.” I start to pump the gas.

Ben gets out of the car and starts squegeeing the windows. “We might as well push through. I’m all caught up on my sleep now. How long was I out for?”

“Two hundred and fifty miles.”

“So we can make it by tonight. I’ll take over.”

I stop squeezing. The pump goes silent.

“What?” Ben asks. He glances at the California map in my other hand. “Did you change your mind?”

I shake my head. I didn’t. I haven’t. I still need to do this. To see it through. But we’re close. I mean, we’re not that close. We’re three hundred miles away. And this might not be the right address, or the current one. Harry said he’d moved around a lot. But three hundred miles away is as close as I’ve been in a long time.

“When do you have to be back by?” I ask.

Ben scrapes a moth off the windshield, then shrugs.

“I might want to take a detour.”

“Detour? Where to?”

“Truckee. It’s in California, near Reno.”

“What’s in Truckee?”

If anyone will understand, it will be Ben. “My father.”

34

By ten o’clock, we are climbing high up into the Sierra Nevada mountains, getting stuck behind motor homes and pickup trucks hauling huge motorboats. Ben’s been driving for six hours straight. The car needs gas again, and we need to figure out a place to stay, but I want to push forward, to get there.

“We probably should stop sooner rather than later,” Ben says.

“But we’re not there yet.”

“Truckee is right outside of Lake Tahoe. It’s summer. Places will be full. We’re better off in Reno. Also, if we stay at a casino hotel, it’s gonna be cheaper.”

“Oh, right.” Hotels. Last night I didn’t have to think about that.

Downtown Reno is garish. Once we pass through the center, with all the big casinos, their marquees advertising bands that were huge in Tricia’s day, it turns depressing: dilapidated motels advertising nickel slots and $3.99 steak breakfasts.

We choose one of the crummy motels. “How much for the room?” Ben asks.

The rheumy-eyed guy behind the counter reminds me of Mr. Purdue. “Sixty dollars. Checkout’s at eleven.”

“I’ll give you eighty bucks for two rooms and we’ll be out by nine.” I plunk down the twenties on the counter. The guy looks at my chest. Ben frowns. The guy crumples the money in his spidery hands, slides over two keys.

Ben pulls out his wallet and starts to hand me some cash, but I wave it away. “It’s on me.”

We walk back to the Jetta in silence, its engine still ticking from the long drive today. It has a bigger one tomorrow. I grab my bag and point toward my room at the opposite end of the complex from his. “I’ll meet you back at the car at nine.”

“Tomorrow’s Monday,” Ben points out. “Maybe earlier’s better. In case he goes to work. You don’t want to lose the day.”

I hadn’t thought of that. I’ve lost all track of time. We’ve already been gone two days. “Eight?” I say.

“Seven. Truckee’s still a half hour away”

“Okay. Seven.”

We stand there, looking at each other. Behind us a pickup truck screeches into the parking lot. “Good night, Cody,” Ben says.

“Good night.”

Once in the room, I contemplate a bath, but when I see the dingy tub and the ring of dead skin, I shower instead, soaking under the weak stream. I get out, dry myself on napkin towels, and look around the room.

Death is the ultimate rite of passage, and it can be a most sacred ritual. Sometimes, in order to make it personal, you must make it anonymous. This was the advice I found in Meg’s decrypted files. Did Bradford himself write that? It sounds like something he might say. I look around the room. This is exactly the kind of place where Meg did it.

I imagine it all, locking the door, putting on the DO NOT DISTURB sign, leaving the note and tip for the maid. Going into the bathroom to mix the chemistry, fan on so as not to alert other motel guests with the fumes.

I sit down on the bed. I picture Meg, waiting for the poison to take effect. Did she lie down right away, or wait for the tingling to start? Did she throw up? Was she scared? Relieved? Was there a moment when she knew she’d passed the point of no return?

I lie down on the scratchy bedspread and imagine Meg’s last minutes. The burning, the tingling, the numbness. I hear Bradford’s voice whispering encouragement. We are born alone, we die alone. I start to see black spots; I start to feel it happening. Really happening.