Notes from the Backseat. Jody Gehrman

and that’s why my presence is making us all so nervous. It’s like they’re perched on opposite ends of their teeter-totter and I’m the new kid, demanding they make space.

      Anyway, there we were, cruising through Big Sur, then Monterey, then Santa Cruz to San Francisco. With Coop driving, I found I could relax and the afternoon took on a dreamy quality as the road lulled us all deeper and deeper into our private worlds. The windy roar of the convertible made it difficult to talk much, so we didn’t try, and after Dannika’s Wilco tape CD ended nobody bothered to put in another one. The fog dissipated, and the sky turned a deep, pensive late-afternoon blue.

      I found myself remembering, for some reason, a night when my father didn’t come home. I was seven, and my mom was cooking meatloaf. I remember that, because when she took it out of the oven, she burned the inside of her wrist on the loaf pan. She was standing there by the freezer with a piece of ice pressed to the blue veins on the inside of her wrist and I was crowding her, going, “Let me see, Mom. Let me see.” I was sort of a morbid kid, fascinated by injuries, especially burns—I spent hours with my father’s book on Hiroshima—but she wasn’t in any mood for my dark curiosity and I remember her saying, “Jesus, Gwen, just get back. Fuck.” Hearing that edge in her voice, hearing her swear, which she never did, made me feel suddenly cold. There’d been something in the air all night, but in that moment it went from an amorphous sadness that might dissipate with a joke or a really good episode of Murder, She Wrote to a black force that had to be reckoned with.

      Wow, that was weird. Don’t know where that came from. I guess that’s why I never come back here. The farther north I get, the more memories assail me. By the time I hit Sonoma County, they’re coming at me like bloodthirsty bats.

      Anyway, as I was saying, we were driving along in silence for hours. I’d been scribbling furiously, trying to keep you updated, and every once in a while Coop would glance over his shoulder, saying, “What you got going there, kitten, the great American novel?” to which I’d reply, “Just notes.” Once Dannika said, “At this rate, she’s going to have War and Peace by the time we hit Mendocino.” I guess she thought that was funny. I speculated about whether I could “accidentally” dig my kitten heels into her surfboard. At least she’d have something to remember me by.

      When we finally crossed the Golden Gate Bridge, the sun was sagging toward the water, soaking the ocean and the cars and even our skin in tangerine light. Coop and Dannika looked like movie stars with their sunglasses on and the red, curving lines of the bridge swooping past them. The left-out feeling that had haunted me most of the day started to creep back in. They just looked so perfect together up there—so natural and salty and wild. It was hard not to imagine how photogenic their little surfer children would be. Everyone driving past us must have wondered what I was doing in that picture. They probably assumed I was the wacky cousin visiting from some obscure Eastern European country that hadn’t yet discovered denim or Lycra.

      When we got across the bridge and were getting closer to the turnoff for Highway 1, I was astounded when Dannika said, “Let’s take the coast again.” I mean, God, the sun was halfway down and we still had a couple hundred miles to go. Even if we took 101 and headed northwest at Cloverdale, we were still looking at four, maybe five more hours in the car, depending on traffic. Taking the coast would mean five or six, at least, most of it in the dark on hellish-curvy roads.

      I couldn’t help it; I leaned forward and said, “Why don’t we just take 101?”

      She looked at me with disdain. “I don’t believe in freeways.”

      “You live in San Diego and you don’t believe in freeways?” I punctuated the remark with one raised eyebrow. There were things she could learn from me.

      “I don’t,” she said. “They’re evil. Coop, don’t you think we should take the coast?”

      We both looked at him.

      “If it were up to me, I’d go for 101. It’s twice as fast.” He shot Dannika his don’t-be-mad-I’m-only-being-honest look.

      She shook her head and laughed. “You’re just siding with her.”

      “It’s only logical,” I said. “Why take the scenic route in the dark?”

      “Well, sorry, folks, but it’s my car and my car doesn’t take freeways. End of story. Here’s the turnoff.” Her tone was brusque, but underneath it you could hear the warning: my way or the highway—which in this case turned out to be the same thing.

      When Coop turned off obediently I wasn’t surprised. I mean yeah, it was a little wimpy, but we all knew if he didn’t we’d have a major tantrum on our hands and I don’t think any of us were up for it.

      Of course, the gods of Highway 1 had a few surprises in store for us, so if we were looking to get off easy, we could forget it.

      We were just passing Point Reyes Station, getting close to Tomales Bay. The sun was long gone but there was still a fiery pink clinging to the underside of a few smudgy clouds—the leftovers of a messy sunset. The air was turning a harsh, coastal-cold against our faces. I’d been debating for the past twenty minutes about asking if we could put the top up, but I hated to be the hothouse flower amongst tough native shrubs. The irony here was that I was the native. I’m the one who comes from apple country; Coop’s from Philadelphia and Dannika spent most her life in Ventura—what do they know about the strange, hostile territories north of the Golden Gate Bridge?

      As I sat there freezing my ass off in my wool chemise suit and my yummy little leopard-print car coat, I kept dreaming about the full-length mink I’d almost run back to grab this morning. If I had that, I could bury my face in its silky depths until the numbness in my nose and ears went away. Again, it was Dannika who had kept me from following my instincts. All day we’d been bending to her will—why? Because she had a perfect, perky little nose, gleaming blond hair, a supple, pinup girl body? And what part of all that wasn’t store bought? Even if it wasn’t—even if she was as all-natural as that gag-inducing juice I’d choked down earlier—what right did that give her to call every shot?

      Suddenly, I didn’t care if it was her car or if they thought I was a total city girl. I was going to ask them to put the damn top up. What was this, some kind of naturalists’ boot camp?

      I was just leaning forward to make my request when two things happened at once. Coop turned his head slightly and said, “You cold, kitten?” The words weren’t even out of his mouth when the engine coughed a few times, sputtered briefly and died.

      Coop guided it onto the crumbling, almost nonexistent shoulder and stared at the dash. “That’s weird,” he said. “Sounded like we ran out of gas, but the gauge says we’re still half full.”

      There was a pause.

      Dannika broke the silence. “Actually, the gauge is sort of…broken.”

      I leaned back and sighed.

      Coop just looked at her. “You’re kidding me.”

      “No,” she said. “It’s busted. It hasn’t worked for months.”

      He ran a hand through his hair. “Why didn’t you mention this before we got all the way out here?”

      “I thought you knew!”

      His voice turned incredulous. “How would I know this, Danni?” I didn’t like the nickname, but I relished the tone of their conversation. They were bickering and if they kept it up the exchange would escalate into a proper fight. Usually I hate violence, but in this case, I thought I could make an exception.

      “Jesus, I’m sorry, okay?” Her voice didn’t sound very apologetic. “I forgot you haven’t driven my car in a while.” The subtext was complicated but clear: I forgot you’ve been so wrapped up with the little bitch in the backseat that you’ve neglected me and my precious car for months.

      Coop backed off. “Never mind, it doesn’t matter. Who’s got a cell phone?” We all looked at each other blankly. “Dammit,” he said, slapping the steering wheel,