You Are Here(22)
Author: Jennifer E. Smith

“So,” Emma said finally, more like a sigh than a word. It was the first time either of them had spoken since they’d ordered, and they both seemed slightly unhinged by the sound of it.

“So,” Peter said back. He was aware this was perhaps not the world’s most brilliant response, but he wasn’t sure exactly what the moment called for; it wasn’t like Emma to look this way, weary and overwhelmed and just a little bit sad, sitting in the orange light of the diner in front of her half-eaten plate of dessert.

She looked up at him, her eyes wide and serious. “Do you think this was a mistake?”

“The apple strudel?”

“No,” she said, but he was pleased to see a hint of a smile. “The trip.”

He shook his head.

“You’re not ready to turn back then?”

“Not unless you are.”

“Okay, then,” she said with a nod, though she still looked a bit uncertain, and Peter could understand why: After all, they had nowhere to sleep tonight and were no doubt in a world of trouble with their parents. They were somewhere in the middle of Pennsylvania, and in many ways it had all stopped seeming like a game.

It had all started in the cemetery, of course, when she’d turned to him as if expecting someone else, her eyes widening just slightly, her face going abruptly pale. Gettysburg was supposedly one of the most haunted places in the world, with frequent sightings of ghosts in the trees, cameras inexplicably jamming when people tried to take photographs, glimpses of women in white and all manner of wandering spirits. But Peter knew that not all ghosts wore white sheets and roamed through cemeteries; there were other ways of being surprised by the past, and he suspected Emma had been thinking about the brother she’d never had the chance to know, and this was something he could understand too.

But she wasn’t the only one who was unsettled by the evening. Peter also found himself troubled by the thought of the dead brother they were chasing down the coast, though he knew his reasons were somewhat more selfish.

All these years he’d taken such pride in his acceptance by the Healys, who seemed to find him endlessly interesting, engaging in a way his own father never recognized. But now he was wondering whether there’d been more to it than that. He couldn’t help thinking that maybe he reminded them of the son they’d never had the chance to know, that maybe that was the only reason they ever asked him over, or set an extra place for him at the dinner table. And this gave him a funny feeling, a wobbling in his stomach, like a joke that had gone over his head.

He glanced up at Emma, who was still intent on her food, and he thought of her family, of the way Mr. Healy collected certain books for when he knew Peter was coming over, and how Mrs. Healy always made him a mug of hot chocolate to sip while they discussed the famine ships or the Boer War or the Indian removal. He thought of the way he felt so at home there, the way he seemed to belong, as welcome as if he’d been a part of the family himself.

And it occurred to him that maybe, just maybe, he’d been using them for the exact same reason they’d been using him.

When they finished eating and filed back outside, they were pleased to find that the dog was still there to greet them, apparently having nowhere better to go either. He wiggled from head to toe when Emma spilled the contents of a napkin—half her apple strudel and the crust of Peter’s pie—onto the ground for him. The air was thick with fireflies making lazy circles, dipping in and out of the pools of light from the diner, which transformed them from floating lights back into winged, black insects.

Emma hoisted herself up onto the trunk with an expectant look in his direction, but Peter had noticed a phone booth just outside the diner and was already walking back over. It took him a few tries to jimmy open the door, which was rusted along the top, and the inside smelled like a litter box. Aware that Emma was watching from just outside, he dug in his pocket for a few coins and then dialed his number at home.

He let the phone ring twice, his heart skipping around, but before his dad could pick up, Peter slammed the receiver into its cradle and walked back outside.

Emma raised her eyebrows at him, but he only shrugged.

“So what now?” she asked, letting her legs dangle against the bumper of the car. Maybe it was the darkness, or the heaviness of the food in their stomachs, or the chill that had crept into the air without them noticing. But the trip now had a fragile feel to it, gone from sunglasses and milk shakes and the wind on their faces to this: the two of them staring at each other in the back lot of an old diner, unsure of their next move and uneasy about all the ones that had come before this.

“Are you gonna want to see more of this stuff in the morning?” Emma asked, and Peter tightened his jaw, trying to ignore the tiniest bubble of irritation that had risen up in his throat. Just an hour ago she’d been interested and engaged, asking questions about the history of the place, genuinely fascinated by his knowledge of it. But now she’d once again grown tired of it all, and Peter was mad at himself more than anything for feeling wrong-footed and surprised, when he should have known better by now.

He wondered if there was a rule that you had to love all of someone, or whether you could pick out only the best parts, like piling your plate full of desserts at a buffet table and leaving the vegetables to go cold in their little metal bins.

He frowned at her. “This stuff?”

“Gettysburg,” Emma said, waving a hand in the general direction from which they’d come. “Have you seen enough, or are we doing round two in the morning?”

“I wouldn’t mind seeing the reenactments tomorrow,” he said. “But we wouldn’t have to stay long.”

“What should we do about tonight, then?” she asked, sliding down off the trunk. The dog was rolling in the grass at the edge of the parking lot, and as they stood there, the bell on the door of the diner rang out, and the two men emerged. They passed by the blue convertible with a nod, then drove off in the pickup truck, the tires spraying gravel at their feet. A moment later the waitress followed, locking up the door without acknowledging them and then taking off down the shadowy road on foot.

Peter and Emma exchanged a look.

“We could stay here,” he said.

“In the car?”

He shrugged. “Got any better ideas?”

Emma regarded the convertible with some degree of doubt, but she climbed in anyway, and Peter followed, starting the engine and pulling it around to the back of the barn, where he eased the top up, the stars above disappearing bit by bit until there was only canvas left overhead. They didn’t bother with pajamas or toothbrushes, instead eating the mints they’d taken on the way out of the diner and rummaging through the trunk for articles of clothing that might double as pillows. Neither said much as Peter wedged himself uncomfortably between the steering wheel and the gearshift up front and Emma curled up in the backseat with a map of Florida for a blanket.