7. Lock Haven Yellow #5
"It's going to get scary," Helen continued, her voice steady but her eyes bright.
"I won't lie to you about that. The world is not kind to people who are honest about who they are.
Not yet." She squeezed their hands. "And Katie," she said, turning her attention to the younger Wickett daughter.
"You surprise me more and more every day, my girl.
" Katie's eyes were bright, but her smile reminded them all that this was a good moment, not a sad one.
"Standing by Charlie like that, defying Ed and Diane, all in one swift move?
" Helen actually whistled, causing both girls to laugh.
"That took true strength, boss." Helen winked at Katie, and Charlie watched as the nickname settled over Katie like warmth in the middle of winter.
Frank's name for Katie had stuck since the first day they'd arrived on the driveway, and to hear Helen keeping it up, she knew it meant the world to Katie. To both of them.
"The important thing is, you have each other. And you have me. And I am always a phone call away. You hear me?" Both girls nodded their understanding. "Always."
Charlie heard the echo. The same words she'd said to Katie in the driveway the night she left for Caltech.
I'm a phone call away, Kit-Kat. Always. Helen didn't even know she was uttering the same words that brought Katie comfort all those years ago.
It laid before them as the first step to their new lives together. And Helen was there in the foundation.
That night, both girls slept at Helen's. Charlie took the sofa. Katie took the guest room.
Sometime after midnight, Charlie woke up gasping, the blankets twisted around her legs and her heart pounding in her teeth.
The nightmares had come back.
She pressed the couch pillow over her face and waited for the shaking to stop, the way she'd done when she was a child, the way she'd done before California took them away. She thought she was alone.
Then she felt the sofa dip, and a blanket pulled over her. Then Katie's back pressed against her chest, and a small hand pulled Charlie's arm around her like a seatbelt.
And Charlie breathed.
? PASADENA, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES ?
Charlie and Katie went to California together as planned. They drove Charlie's Plymouth across the country with the windows down and Katie's mixtapes in the deck. Katie picked the order, and Charlie let her, which was a first.
But it would not be the last.
Charlie also used the trip to reintroduce Katie to Rumours, officially, and Katie was back in fan mode by the end of the trip. Charlie reveled in the fact that, this time, driving to California, Katie was in the passenger seat instead of the rearview mirror as a shrinking reflection.
They stopped at a diner somewhere in the Texas panhandle because Katie declared she would "cease to function as a human being" if she didn't get pancakes in the next fifteen minutes.
Charlie pointed out that it was two in the afternoon, to which Katie replied that pancakes don't run on a schedule.
Charlie couldn't argue with that straightforward logic.
While they waited for their food, Katie got up to use the restroom and came back with an armful of pamphlets she'd grabbed from the wire rack by the door. She dropped them on the table between the ketchup and the napkin dispenser with a heavier than expected thunk.
"What are those?" Charlie stared at the amass of papers piled surprisingly high on their table.
"These," Katie said, spreading them across the table like a deck of cards, "are our options."
"Options for...?"
Katie smiled brightly and nodded towards the pile.
Charlie followed her gaze. She picked up one of the pamphlets and began to read.
"'Cadillac Ranch: Ten Cadillacs Buried Nose-First in the Texas Dirt.
' The 'World's Largest Belt Buckle: Found OUTSIDE of Texas.
'" She looked up at her sister. "Kit, why would I want to see—"
"Nope." Katie held up her hand. "You don't get to choose. That's not how this works."
"I haven't a clue what you're trying to tell me. How what works exactly?"
Katie covered her eyes with one hand. She raised her other hand above the table and began spinning it in slow circles, like a lasso winding up. Charlie watched with growing suspicion.
"The rules of road trips," Katie announced, eyes still covered, hand still spinning, "depend entirely on fate."
"Fate?"
Katie's hand slammed down on the table. The silverware jumped. A trucker at the counter looked over.
Katie lifted her hand and peered at the pamphlet underneath. Her eyes went wide. She flipped it around to show Charlie.
"THE THING?" it read, in enormous letters, with a question mark that looked personally offended. Below it: "Mystery of the Desert! Exit 322, Willcox, Arizona."
"No," Charlie said.
"Yes."
"Kit, that is literally over a hundred miles out of our way to see something that won't even tell you what it is."
"That's what makes it exciting!"
"That's what makes it a waste of gas."
"Charlie Wickett, we are going to see The Thing."
"We are absolutely not going to see The Thing."
"The 'fate of the road trip' has spoken."
"What is this 'fate of the road trip' you keep saying? What is that?"
"It's what makes road trips road trips. It's the fun part, the getting there part. You have a destination, sure. You may have a timeline, that's fine, too. But how you get to that destination on your timeline? That's where fate intervenes."
Charlie laughed, but not unkindly. "So, we're figuring out how to get to Pasadena through... hand spins and table slaps?"
"In this case, yes!" Katie replied, crossing her arms over her chest, silently daring Charlie to argue.
But the problem was, Charlie did have a timeline and, to be honest, she wasn't entirely sure she was up for an adventure after the week she and Katie both had had.
It seemed Katie read her face before Charlie even had a chance to turn her down.
"Come on, Charlie," Katie pleaded. "You can't upset the road trip gods!"
Charlie pfft'd. "I'll take my chances with the road trip gods."
At that exact moment, a crack of thunder split the sky outside the diner. Lightning forked across the flat Texas horizon, bright enough to light up the entire parking lot. The lights in the diner flickered once.
They both froze.
Katie's face began to change. It started as a twitch at the corner of her mouth. Then a slow curl. Before long, the full, teeth-baring, unmistakable grin of a woman who had just been handed divine intervention on a silver platter smiled directly at Charlie.
"It seems the gods have spoken, my dear sister."
Charlie stared at Katie. She looked out the window at the sky, which had been cloudless thirty seconds ago, before looking back at Katie. The grin on her face had somehow gotten even wider, which shouldn't have been physically possible.
But maybe this was a sign for them to have one adventure, even after the week they'd had.
"Fine," Charlie said, pointing her fork at Katie. "But if The Thing turns out to be a rock, you're buying my gas for the rest of the trip."
"Deal!" Katie squealed, moving off her seat across the booth and falling into Charlie's arms in a hug that squeezed Charlie so tight.
"It's going to be so fun," Katie murmured against her.
Charlie laughed, hugging Katie back. If it made Katie this happy, then, road gods pissed or not, it was worth it.
The Thing turned out to be what was allegedly a mummified creature in a glass case.
To Charlie, it looked like it had been assembled by someone who had never seen what a mummy looked like and, instead, was provided a misleading description over a bad phone line.
Charlie stood in front of the case with her arms crossed and her head tilted, trying to reverse-engineer how it had been constructed.
But Katie was enthralled. And that mattered more to Charlie, but that didn't stop her from teasing her sister.
"This is held together with papier-maché and spite," Charlie said.
"It's mysterious," Katie corrected.
"It's mysterious papier-maché, then."
"You have no sense of wonder."
"Oh, I have an excellent sense of wonder.
I just also have eyes." Katie scoffed but Charlie saw the hint of her grin twitch against her lips before turning away and walking into the gift shop.
Charlie's heart warmed, reminded again that Katie was with her, here, heading back to California. Katie had chosen her.
Katie bought a bumper sticker that said "I SAW THE THING?" and stuck it on the Plymouth's rear bumper before Charlie could stop her. Charlie protested but Katie reminded her about the road trip gods. Charlie let the bumper sticker stay.
Charlie never took it off. Some things, once chosen by fate, deserve to stay.
Somewhere in the middle of New Mexico, Katie pulled a small bundle of embroidery thread from her bag. She'd packed quietly and without explanation, because Katie always knew what she'd need before the need arrived. She sat cross-legged in the passenger seat and started knotting.
"What colors?" Katie asked.
Charlie glanced over. "For what?"
"For your bracelet. I'm making you a new one." Katie held up two strands. "Blue or green?"
"Both."
Katie smiled. "Good answer."
She worked on it through New Mexico and into Arizona, choosing the colors together.
Blue and green for Charlie, a strand of gold because Katie said it reminded her of Charlie's hair, and a thin thread of red because Katie liked it and Charlie wasn't going to argue.
Katie tied it onto Charlie's wrist at a gas station outside Flagstaff, double-knotting it the way Helen had taught her years ago, pulling it tight enough to hold but loose enough to be comfortable.
"Don't take it off," Katie said.
"I won't."
She never did.