All Over the Map

31. Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-One

After midnight, my eyes get heavy and we pull into a gas station for Mia to switch with me and to refuel.

I need to sleep, but it doesn’t come easily. I shift and turn until I find the position that sucks the least, but even then, my mind keeps me awake.

What will happen when I see David Lombard? What will I ask him? What if he doesn’t talk to me? Will he be angry that I found him?

I get a couple of hours of fitful sleep before Mia, yawning, wakes me to take over. It’s almost 5 AM, but the freeway north of Los Angeles is beginning to thicken with cars. Not crowded, but far more than we’ve seen for what feels like days.

By the time we cross LA, soft rays of sun unfurl over the city. We leave as rush hour chokes the inbound traffic to a crawl. It’s anticlimactic after seeing LA in movies for years. Just tall buildings and lots of billboards. Soon we pass a sign announcing the Orange County line, and it’s like a genie snapped his fingers and transformed the scenery. The bits of trash clinging to the weedy roadside suddenly disappears, replaced with manicured landscape and concrete relief sculptures and bright pink plants dripping over the high cement walls lining the freeways.

Gabe stirs in the back and his tousled reflection appears in my mirror. He blinks at me a few times and smiles. “You good?”

No. I’m not good. I’m less than two hours from the conference center where I will basically walk up to a stranger and introduce myself as the daughter he never wanted to meet.

But Gabe leans forward now, waiting for an answer. “I’m good,” I say.

“Beach Boulevard,” he reads on a freeway sign in Huntington Beach. “Can we make a pit stop, grab some breakfast?”

We do, and then I get us back on the interstate toward San Diego.

Halfway into the drive, the ocean appears on the right.

“It exists,” Mia says. “I was beginning to wonder.”

It’s dark and blue, massive and beautiful.

“This is more how I imagined California,” Gabe says.

“Me too,” I say, “but I guess the one thing we’ve learned for sure on this trip is that California is a lot of things and only a little bit of it is beaches and palm trees.”

“Wait,” Mia says, leaning forward. “Is that . . . am I seeing what I think I’m seeing?”

She points ahead and I do a double take. Rising up between the road and the water are two giant . . .

“Why are there two huge boobs by the freeway?” she asks. “Are you seeing this, Gabe?”

“Hard to miss.”

A pair of undeniably boob-shaped beige domes loom larger by the second, and no lie, each one is topped with a blinking red light.

“Somebody google,” I order.

“It’s a decommissioned nuclear plant,” Gabe says. “San Onofre. I think I’ve seen these in an episode of The Simpsons before.”

“I can’t believe no one said anything in the planning meeting,” Mia says. “Who sees the blueprints for this plant and doesn’t ask the hard questions, like, ‘Maybe we need something besides a giant rack on the beach?’”

“It makes perfect sense on the beach,” Gabe says. “Beaches are sort of boob magnets.”

I flick a glance at him in the mirror. “Every time I think you’re not so bad, you make a sixth-grade boy joke.”

“I didn’t build the boobs,” he said. “Don’t blame me. Besides, it was obviously a woman who designed this.”

“Bull,” Mia says.

“No, really. Think about it. It’s kind of the perfect joke. Like, ‘world’s largest boobs, but also, they can kill you.’”

Mia nods. “You make a good point.”

“Maybe it’s a sign from Dolly, telling us she’s blessing this mission,” I say.

“Definitely,” Mia says.

We pass the weird buildings, then it’s ocean for miles before the interstate begins to wind through towns again. Exits spring up for hotels. Signs for Legoland, SeaWorld, and beaches invite us off the road. More signs declare we’ve reached San Diego. Finally, after a freeway change, a sign announces our exit to Ocean Boulevard.

The conference is in one of a dozen hotels built along the oceanfront. As we pass packed parking lots, I wonder if it’s always like this, or if it’s because of spring break.

Finally, I see the Royal Palms Hotel sign ahead.

“There it is.” David Lombard’s presentation starts in fifteen minutes. I made it.

But this doesn’t feel like relief.

Mia reaches over to squeeze my arm, and Gabe rests his hands on my shoulders. “You got this,” he says.

“Pull into guest check-in and I’ll park,” Mia says.

I rumble beneath the portico where families are loading, unloading, or waiting for cars. A valet uniformed in a Hawaiian shirt and khaki shorts heads our way. Mia hops out and waves him off, then opens my door so I can climb out.

Gabe climbs out too, and they stand there, staring at me. Mia is excited. Gabe smiles, but there’s worry in it.

“I’ll text you when I’m done,” I promise. I hurry toward the hotel.

“You got this,” Mia calls after me. “He’s going to love you!”

That seems like a stretch. I’m not sure he’s even going to talk to me.

I walk into the hotel and try to wear my most confident, calm expression.

Then I go to find David Lombard.