Chapter 21
Danni
Chance drives up in a van. A freaking van. Not that I care what we drive. I’m just feeling punchy. At least it’s not a 1970s Volkswagen Bus. It’s a make and model that I don’t recognize because no vans are recognizable.
I’m actually doing this. I’m going on a road trip with Chance, the serial dater. Chance, the player. And I’m earning lots of overtime for doing it. I’ve already thought of ways to spend the money, including buying pink paint for my living room walls and black paint for my bookshelves.
Chance exits the van and heads to the stairs. I hurry out of my apartment wearing breathable linen shorts and a Hello Kitty T-shirt, rolling my suitcase behind me, carrying a small bag on my shoulder that includes my snacks and earbuds and toiletries.
We meet halfway, him going up, me going down.
He’s wearing jeans despite the ninety-degree temperature, leather sandals that somehow make his feet look attractive, and a black T-shirt that matches his smoldering stare. Even though I’m not interested in him or his lips anymore, not in the slightest, I feel a little something when our eyes meet. More like a Batman-style Kapow! that implodes my insides. I cannot do this. Not for my boss. Not for time and a half.
“Do you want me to carry that?” Chance says, motioning to my suitcase.
I’m very disappointed in myself, because I say yes, like a Chanceling. I’m no better than bedhead Becky in the tight red dress that barely covered her booty.
The call of time and a half is really strong, though. It is. That’s my defense.
When I reach for the sliding door, Chance says, “Drew’s back there and he has gas.” He opens the rear hatch and stuffs my suitcase inside.
I do a quick sidestep and reach for the passenger side handle instead. “Of course he has gas,” I mutter. That’s what he gets for drinking all that whey powder. People should eat their protein, not drink it. Unless they’re drinking milk. Which also has lactose, which would probably give Drew gas.
“I am so looking forward to this,” I say as I slide into the front seat next to Chance whose hand is already on the shifter.
“Me too,” Chance says.
He doesn’t catch my sarcasm. Also, he’s staring at me. Is he going to do that the whole trip? If so, we might not make it to Atlanta.
After I strap in, Chance puts the van into drive. He maneuvers with one hand on the wheel and one hand on his phone. We’re still in the apartment complex, so I don’t complain. I just watch a little closer for rogue alligators and children on bikes.
We reach the main road and Chance’s attention is still divided. He hits the brake, checks the mirror to make sure no one is behind us, and keeps scrolling on his phone.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Looking for something to listen to. I hooked my phone up to the Bluetooth.”
“Can it not be–”
She Left Me for My Pickup Truck by The Rodeo Rascals cuts me off. The title and band name show up on the console touchscreen. That’s the only way I know.
Again, I keep my mouth shut, because music means Chance and I don’t have to talk. We head to Morgan’s, bathed in hillbilly music and Drew’s occasional farts. He’s true to his promise, though, napping lightly behind Chance.
Ten minutes later…
“No. Huh uh,” I say, referring to the next song, Love at the Cow-Tip Bingo , by the Prairie Dog Pranksters.
“Huh uh, what?”
“This isn’t even normal country. This is like Kidz Bop sings country on steroids. Who wrote these songs? Middle schoolers?”
“These are legitimate, popular country songs.”
“There is no way these are popular.” I lower my window a crack to diffuse the odor that just came from Drew’s butt crack, and then crane my neck to look at him. “Did you eat pork and beans for lunch?”
Drew opens one eye and then narrows it at me.
“You keep farting,” I say to make sure he knows he’s doing it.
“It is unhealthy to hold in flatulence,” he says.
“Did your protein drink contain lactose?”
“Yes. And I drank it with full-fat milk, per usual. My intestinal bacteria will settle down in exactly one hour and forty-five minutes.”
Hand in hand by the pasture fence,
We laughed and loved, it all made sense.
In the moo-light, our hearts were aglow.
We found love at Cow-Tip Bingo.
I grab Chance’s phone and hit the pause button on his Spotify widget. “I’m sorry. I can’t.”
Chance starts singing the chorus in a spot-on southern twang, with a surprisingly rich bass that threatens to topple my resolve to dislike him.
“No, that’s worse,” I say.
His voice makes me want to listen for days, but the lyrics are atrocious and I can’t handle them coming from someone as handsome as Chance.
“You pick something,” he says.
“We’re almost at Morgan’s.”
“We have ten minutes.”
“Okay, then.” He rattles off his PIN and I open Spotify, trying to think of something we both might like. “Young the Giant?”
“Because the lead singer is Indian?”
“No. Because I like them.”
“I don’t. Next.”
After much consideration, I give Chance three more options and receive “Next” in response to all of them. When we hit one we agree on, Drew says, “Next.” And then we turn into Morgan’s apartment complex.
Morgan is out the door with her suitcase before Chance pulls to a complete stop. Her yellow babydoll blouse flutters in the breeze as she frowns at the van, probably hoping for a Dodge Charger or something faster. She’ll change her tune when she realizes there’s a fold-down screen that we can stream movies to.
I watch Chance’s back as he steps out to wrangle Morgan’s suitcase. She lets him do the honors and climbs in behind me while Drew messes with the controls under his seat.
“What are you doing?” Morgan asks over the soft whir of the chair’s motor.
“A system’s check,” he replies, curtly.
A loud clack sends the chair backward so fast that Drew bounces in his seat and my suitcase torpedoes out of the van. We stare at Drew while he blinks at the ceiling.
Morgan twists up her eyebrows. “You broke the chair.”
“I did not break the chair,” Drew says calmly, faceup, blinking.
I hop out to check on my cheap, plastic suitcase. It landed right side up on the casters and rolled down the street, coming to rest in front of a tandem bike. The riders are peering down at it in confusion. When I tell them my annoying coworker shot it out of the van, they peer at me in confusion. “Sorry,” I mumble as I grab the handle. A quick tug tells me everything is in working order.
In the meantime, Chance has climbed into the back of the van. He’s exerting maximum effort to right Drew’s chair. Unfortunately, Drew’s repeated claims of, “It will not move. It will not move,” prove accurate.
Chance climbs out and runs his hand through his hair. A breeze picks up and rustles the hydrangeas in front of Morgan’s apartment. “Drew busted the chair.”
“I did not,” Drew says loudly. “The motor broke.”
“When Drew was messing with it,” Chance says.
Drew sits up and twists around. He pushes his glasses up his nose. “Where am I supposed to sit now?”
Chance glances into the van which will soon be packed with suitcases, making the back row unusable. He eyeballs the extra second-row, middle seat. It lacks arm rests and is designed to attach firmly to the floor, seatbelt and all.
Morgan is backward in her seat, propped up on her knees, staring at us. “No.”
“Yes,” Chance replies.
“Can we go back to the rental car place and request a different vehicle?” I ask.
“This was the last one on the lot.”
“Of course it was.” I cross my arms.
Morgan rears back and scrunches her nose. “What is that smell?”
“Drew has the toots,” Chance says.
I walk to the front of the van and climb in, leaving my door open for the cross breeze while Chance attaches the middle seat.
“I changed my mind,” Morgan says.
I whip around to confront her. “Time and a half.” Morgan holds my gaze, her glossy lips pouting as I repeat, “Time. And. A. Half.”
The words are like magic. Morgan’s mouth returns to neutral and her demeanor softens. She looks over at Drew who is still lying back and rubbing his neck like he just had a knockdown drag-out fight.
“You said you wanted to nap the whole way,” she says.
“I cannot ride in this van while lying down. In the event of a crash, I would slide forward and strangle myself with the lap belt while simultaneously beheading Chance with my feet.”
Morgan snickers.
“It is not funny. And I think I have whiplash.”
“It’s a little funny.” She folds up her armrest to give Drew more room. After he hoists himself into the middle seat, she rubs the back of his neck asking him where it hurts.
“There. There. Yes. Like that.”
And we’re off.
30 minutes later…
Sunday evening traffic is light as we head toward Orangeburg. This stretch of I-26 is still coastal, mostly flat and tree-lined, sparsely populated and bucolic as the bright evening sun shines down, but also mind-numbing, especially in the silence between Chance and me that is growing more uncomfortable as the minutes pass. After we left Morgan’s, Chance and I couldn’t agree on anything to listen to. Morgan settled in for a nap, and Drew wrapped a pair of sweatpants around his neck for his “whiplash,” and then he popped on a headset that’s fit for a helicopter pilot, with bulky earphones and a telescopic antenna. Couple that with his dark prescription sunglasses the size of dinner plates and he’s ready for take off. Thankfully, his intestinal bacteria calmed down quicker than he forecasted, so we’ve been breathing nothing but Morgan’s flowery perfume and new-car smell, both with alpine hints.
I can’t take another minute of Chance grasping and releasing the steering wheel, over and over like he’s bracing himself for a doozy of a comment. I think I know what’s going through his mind. Something like, Hey, remember our kiss on Friday? Let’s talk about that. I don’t want him to say it anywhere near Morgan’s ears because she’ll give me heck for not telling her Chance and I locked lips.
I grab my bag that’s stashed by my feet and dig for my earbuds. After sticking them in my ears, Chance says, “What are you doing?”
“I’m listening to something.”
“What?”
“I don’t know. Music that you hate. Or a podcast that would annoy you.” I pull up my Spotify and scroll through the live podcasts. Unsatisfied with the offerings, I search for Joe Rogan’s podcast and scroll through his recent guests to find the weirdest one, click on Synthia, the latest and greatest chatbot that can supposedly detect human thoughts and emotions through language patterns and inflections. Should be interesting.
“What if I get bored?” Chance asks.
I glance at him and shrug.
“I can’t drive long distances without company,” he adds.
I point at the digital clock. “We haven’t said a word to each other in thirty minutes.”
“I’m still trying to come up with something to say. And when I figure it out, I want someone to hear me.”
Chance passes a gray compact car the size of a plastic Easter egg. Three people occupy the second row, with two additional people in front, leaving barely enough room to twitch a finger. It could be worse. We could be stuffed in that tiny thing.
“The van has internet,” I say, pointing to the console display. “You could pull up a chatbot and talk to it.”
He purses his resistable lips and grips the steering wheel again. “Danni–”
“Drew gets to wear his headphones. Why does Drew get to wear his headphones?” I recognize Chance’s tone, and I won’t fall victim to it again.
“Because if Drew wasn’t distracted, he’d be busy annoying us,” Chance answers.
“I thought you liked Drew.”
“I do. That’s why it’s better that he’s wearing headphones.”
A sound erupts from Drew’s throat, part yodel, part I’m-constipated-and-I-refuse-to-give up. It goes up and down a musical scale that only exists in Drew’s head and should stay there for all eternity. Based on the lyrics, I think he’s going for Justin Timberlake’s “Cry Me a River,” but it makes me want to cry an ocean because I’m stuck listening to it in this seventy-mile-an-hour metal prison.
I lock eyes with Chance. “I gotta put these in. Sorry.”
Chance doubles his grip on the steering wheel and mouths, pleadingly, Help me .
An hour and a half later…
“I have to urinate and defecate,” Drew says.
He took his headphones off ten minutes ago, and Chance was right. We’re all better off when he’s singing discordant duets with J.T.
“I have to urinate and defecate,” Drew repeats.
“Drew is a poet and he doesn’t know it,” Morgan says groggily.
She’s been blessedly asleep for most of the ride. I tried to hide behind my earbuds, but the Joe Rogan podcast with Synthia got boring. She kept asking him if he needed to lie down and rest.
“I am not a poet,” Drew answers. “I am a biological machine that must unload its waste so that more fuel can be processed.”
“Can you just say you have to go to the bathroom?” I ask.
“That would be imprecise.”
“Yet it would be so much more appreciated,” I say.
“This is not about your emotions. It is about my biological needs.”
“All right. All right.” Chance waves his hand in the air. “I’ll pull off at the next exit.”
Fifteen minutes later…
Traffic on I-20 comes to a dead stop, two lanes of traffic, parked on an incline.
“I need to urinate and defecate!”
“Dude. You have to wait.” Chance throws the car into park.
“Waiting is not an option. An object in perpetual motion must move.”
“Ew! Drew!” Morgan swats Drew’s arm.
He throws off his seatbelt and dives over her lap, lunging for the door. Which is locked.
“Unlock it!” he hollers while bodysurfing on Morgan.
“It’s hilly. You can’t wander around on the side of the road,” Chance says.
“I can, and I will,” Drew snaps back with deadly determination.
“Fine.” Chance unlocks the doors. “Don’t fall into a ravine!” he yells as Drew scrambles to the shoulder.
Morgan looks pained.
“Did he hurt you?” I ask.
“He made me have to go. Drew made me have to go! How long are we going to be stuck here?”
Chance grabs his phone and pulls up Google Maps, but not fast enough for Morgan.
“That’s it,” she says. She jumps out of the van and follows Drew’s path to a break in the underbrush, disappearing among the towering weeds.
I gaze out at the rolling, forested hills that offer no human settlements for miles. The road ahead is eclipsed by the hill’s apex and behind, cars wait in an idling line. “Are they going to die?”
“I hope not.”
“What’s out there? Bears? Mountain lions?”
“I’d worry about Sasquatches before I’d worry about bears.” He crosses his arms and settles in for the wait.
“Or time-traveling werewolf space cowboys.”
Chance smirks. “I’m pretty sure those don’t exist.”
“But Sasquatches do?”
He turns to me and props his elbow on the armrest behind him. “You never watch the History Channel, do you?”
“I spend my evenings and weekends reading books.”
“That’s admirable.” He’s doing the thing where he softens his face and pretends not to be arrogant. His well-drawn features look kind instead. Thoughtful even. Bollywood really missed out. “Danni…”
There he goes again saying my name. My kryptonite. I throw up my shield. “Can you not say my name like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like we’re well acquainted.”
He slumps against the door, his fake-softness and fake-thoughtfulness oozing out of him like Sweet Orbit Mint flavored toothpaste from a tube. “I thought we were getting to know each other.”
“Like work buddies.”
“Work buddies don’t kiss.”
My muscles clench. “High levels of chlorine cause confusion and disorientation. I’m sure that’s what was going on.”
Chance leans toward me and rests his forearm on the center console, almost like he wants another kiss, right here, right now. The back of my head finds the window. “That’s not what happened.”
The door is unlocked. I could fling it open and follow Morgan and Drew into the forest. Because I don’t like this. My body does, but I reserve the right to call it stupid. “It was just one kiss.” One amazing, knee-buckling kiss. “It was nothing.”
Chance, the player.
Why do the good-looking ones have to be so, so bad?
Oh, look. Chance is good at faking dejection too.
The cars ahead of us start moving. I zap out of Chance’s spell and look frantically at the underbrush. “They’re not back.”
“What’s taking them so long?”
“He had to urinate and defecate.”
“But all Morgan had to do was squat.” Chance drops the car out of park and inches forward.
“We can’t leave them!”
“We’re going less than five miles an hour.”
“Yeah, but…”
We creep ahead several yards. Still no sign of Morgan and Drew. “Maybe you should pull over,” I say, a minute later.
Chance sighs heavily as he clicks on his right turn signal, but the brake lights in front of us flash, necessitating a change of plans. He holds his foot on the brake for another minute. We’re parked again.
Finally, bodies appear in my side mirror. I twist around to get a better look. Drew and Morgan are walking along the shoulder, drivers honking and passengers making catcalls as they pass. When they come into focus, I realize Morgan is doing most of the walking. Drew is holding on to her for balance as he walks gingerly, favoring one foot. He still has his sweatpants wrapped around his neck.
Morgan tugs on the door looking sweaty and bedraggled, her blonde hair frizzed up like she just slept on it for twelve hours and her arms covered in small scratches. Drew has dirt on his cheek, a huge scratch on his forehead, and burrs all over his hair and clothing. She helps him into the car, both of them grunting and sighing.
“Turn up the AC,” Morgan gasps.
Chance obliges and then gapes at our injured passengers.
“What happened?” I ask.
“Drew fell into a ravine.” Morgan is still panting.
“Called it,” Chance says.
“I slid,” Drew corrects. He wipes his nose with his palm, which transfers more dirt onto his face.
“Was that before or after you wiped your butt with poison ivy?” I ask.
Drew’s eyes reduce to slits. “I did not wipe.”
A chorus of ew’s erupts in the car.
“Two tablespoons of chia seeds a day keep the TP away,” Drew says. He rests his head back to catch his breath.
“I finished my business and then I heard thrashing in the underbrush. It was Drew sliding down into a dry creek bed.”
“Why did you do that?” I ask Drew.
He narrows his eyes at me again. “I was trying to walk back to the car and I could not see where I was going.”
“Were your bangs in your eyes?” I ask. I can’t help it.
Morgan rolls her eyes at me. My cue to stop teasing him. She swivels in her seat and begins picking the burrs off of Drew’s shirt. When she has a palmful, she lowers her window and tosses them out. “He hurt his ankle and couldn’t climb out on his own, so I helped him.”
“Which is why you look like you wrestled with a bull in a pig pen,” Chance says.
Morgan’s lips flatten into a line.
“I have baby wipes,” Chance says as an olive branch.
“Why do you have baby wipes?” I ask.
He flips open the console and pulls out an unopened package of soothing aloe baby wipes for sensitive skin. Before handing it back, he says matter-of-factly, his challenging gaze fixed on mine, “Why wouldn’t I?”
Morgan grabs the package eagerly and starts cleaning her face. She hands a few wipes to Drew. He gives himself a wipe-down, including his armpits. Unfortunately, I’m watching, so I notice Morgan’s jaw drop when she gets an eyeful of Drew’s abs. Feeling slightly sick, I turn back around.
“Why aren’t we moving yet?” Morgan asks.
Chance grabs his phone and pulls up Google Maps. “I have no idea because this says traffic is moving.”
“Maybe the Russians are shooting down our satellites,” Drew says.
“Because that’s the most likely explanation,” I mutter to myself. I grab the phone from Chance to verify. True to his word, I-20 is blue for miles beyond our dot.
“I’m freezing,” Morgan says, her voice wobbly.
“You told me to crank the AC,” Chance says.
“Well, now I’m cold.”
“I am hot,” Drew says.
“Take the sweatpants off your neck,” I offer.
“No,” he says. “They are helping.”
The brake lights in front of us extinguish and traffic starts to creep.
“I-20 just turned red,” I say, still looking at Google Maps.
Soon, we’re trundling along at fifteen miles an hour, the lane next to us stopping when we start and vice versa.
“I’m freeee-z-z-z-ing,” Morgan says five minutes later.
Chance raises the AC a notch, but Morgan has other ideas. She presses the button beside the skylight and it whirs open. When it’s fully retracted, she straddles Drew and stands, half her body inside, the other half out. Drew grabs her legs.
“What…are you doing?” Drew says, fully articulating the final ‘t,’ which necessitates the pause. “Do you want to decapitate yourself?”
“Weeee!” Morgan says as our speed increases to twenty-five miles an hour.
“I do not want…to be holding half a dead body.” Drew grabs Morgan’s waist and pulls her onto his lap. She lands with a little bounce and says, “Weee.” Much softer this time with her eyes glued to Drew’s eyes.
Chance and I trade looks.
Instead of hopping off of Drew, which would be the less icky thing to do, she starts picking burrs out of his hair. They remain that way until we pass the cause of the traffic jam: a couple of SUVs with mangled front ends. When the road is wide open, Chance jams his foot on the gas, and Drew throws Morgan off his lap while hollering, “Seat belts!”
We’re moving.