Road to Paradise. Paullina Simons

know how to drive, then?”

      “No. This wasn’t this past April, but a year ago April. I hadn’t even started my driver’s ed. Sorry, Sloane.”

      “Unbelievable. But I kept saying how we would share the driving!”

      “I know. I thought you meant that metaphorically.”

      “Metaphorically? How do you mean something like that metaphorically?”

      From the back the twelve-year-old pulled off one of the headphones on the recently released and all the rage Sony Walkman. “Oh, shut up, already. I can’t hear Journey.”

      I lowered my voice. “Why didn’t you tell me this?”

      “I thought you wouldn’t let me come if I told you,” said Gina.

      She was right. I wouldn’t have. I had been hoping she’d drive in the afternoons so I could nap, and now that was out the window; I’d have to readjust my schedule that I’d so carefully written up. But she had disarmed me with her honesty, because I wasn’t used to it. I let it go. What choice did I have? Turn around and bring her back home? After all, I had calculated my expenses for two.

      Besides, who was I to lecture Gina on honesty and forthrightness?

      We drove a little while in silence.

      Well, silence if by silence I mean two squabbling orange furballs and a snoring adolescent with earphones that blasted “Don’t Stop Believin”’ to everyone in the car (how in the world could she sleep to that?).

      “So we’re off,” Gina said. “Are you excited?”

      “Sure,” I said.

      “I’m so excited! I like your car,” she added, as we approached New York City.

      “Goes fast, don’t it?” We were moving at a clip of about twelve miles per hour.

      It was two in the afternoon.

      By five, we were still in New York City, having gone four miles in three hours (construction and two accidents), but on the plus side, it looked as if by sundown we might get to the Battery Tunnel (about forty miles from my house). Still more than 200 miles from our destination of Glen Burnie. And 3200 miles from Mendocino. Gina suddenly seemed a little less excited. We had long eaten all the cannolis.

      Molly woke up and asked if we were there yet. I told her I didn’t know what she meant by there, but if she meant downtown New York, then yes, we were. After whining in disbelief for twenty minutes, she announced she was thirsty. Then she was hungry. She had to make a stop. “And the dogs certainly do. Gina, you’re supposed to be responsible for them.”

      “They’re fine.” She hadn’t even looked back at the dogs to check. She was wearing tight jean shorts and a blue-striped sleeveless tunic, and was humming along to the radio.

      The gas tank was half empty. But we were in the tunnel now. And in Brooklyn, I wasn’t about to get off anywhere. I’d never find my way back to the BQE. And now look. The Verrazano Bridge was rising up out of the water in front of me, and it was five-thirty at night! “I hope Aunt Flo isn’t going to get upset about our late arrival.”

      “She’s expecting us for dinner,” Molly said from the back. “And I’m thirsty.”

      “It’ll have to be a late dinner,” I shot right back. “Because it’s dinnertime now, and we’re 200 miles from her house.”

      Was this how I’d been planning my first day of freedom? My frustration tasted like metal in my mouth.

      “I know this is a little slower than we’d hoped, Sloane,” said Gina, “but it’s okay, it’s all part of it.”

      “Part of what?”

      “Did you girls know,” said Gina, “that there is one letter of the alphabet that does not appear in any of the states’ names. Which—”

      “Z!” yelled Molly from the back.

      “No, and don’t shout,” said Gina. “Sloane?”

      “I’m not playing,” I said. “Q?”

      “Yes, very good. Q is correct.”

      “Where does Z appear?”

      “The Ozarks,” said Molly.

      “The Ozarks are not a state, Molly.”

      “Missouri, then.”

      “Missouri has no Z.” Gina rolled her eyes.

      Molly mouthed it to herself a few times and then exclaimed, “Arizona!”

      “Very good. It wasn’t a question, but very good.”

      I glanced at Gina as we were pulling off on Victory Boulevard in Staten Island. “How do you know this?”

      She shrugged. “I know a few things.”

      “What letter doesn’t appear in any of the states? That’s knowing a few things?”

      She was philosophical. “And a few things more.”

      “When did you learn all this?”

      “Dad loves trivia. And he’s so competitive and critical, I had to read up on things.”

      “He’s supposed to be critical,” said Molly. “He’s Dad.”

      “No, he’s right,” said Gina. “I’m going to be a teacher. I have to be smart.” She adjusted the straps of her black bra.

      We got gas at a gunky rest-stop; I pumped while Gina walked the dogs; we were back on the road by six-thirty. As we were getting on the expressway, I noticed a young, barely clad lad with a guitar on his back standing by the side of the road with his thumb out. Gina rolled down the window, stuck her head out, and yelled, “Need a ride, cowboy?”

      “Gina!” I pulled her back in.

      She waved, blew him a kiss. “Maybe next time, huh?” she shouted.

      “What are you doing? We agreed!”

      “I’m just joking, Sloane,” she said pretend-solemnly. “Just having fun.” She smiled. “He was cute, though.”

      “He could be Robert Redford, we’re not picking anyone up, okay?”

      “Oh, come on, you wouldn’t pick up Robert Redford?”

      She was right, so I shut up until we got to Goethals Bridge forty-five minutes later and crossed into New Jersey when it was nearing seven o’clock. The sun was hazy in the sky, the noxious industry around us.

      One of the passing trucks beeped his jolting loud horn and gave me the thumbs up, which I didn’t understand. We turned up the radio. BBBBBennie and the Jets were plugging us kids into the faithless.

      “Are we almost there?” asked Molly again.

      “No.”

      “Are we almost there?”

      “No.”

      “Are we almost there?”

      “No.”

      We drove like this for two interminable New Jersey exits.

      “Gina, Molly wears a lot of makeup for a twelve-year-old.”

      “I’m gonna be thirteen soon,” said Molly, “and what’s it to you?”

      “I’m just saying,” I continued to Gina.

      Gina shrugged. “Who does it hurt?”

      “She is twelve.”

      “Thirteen soon!”

      “How soon?”

      “May.”

      “Thirteen