Road to Paradise. Paullina Simons

gasses up, you run to the bathroom, okay?”

      “Okay, Mom.”

      “Don’t stay near the pumps. Don’t inhale.” She turned to me. “And remember, she’s allergic to peanuts. So no peanuts.”

      “No peanuts, got it. What about peanut butter?” When I saw her face, I said, all teeth, “Just kidding?”

      She calmly continued. “Shelby, she’s also allergic to bees and wasps. She’ll swell up something awful if she’s stung. Don’t drive around country roads with the windows open. Just stay on the Interstate. We have such a good system of highways in this country. I heard someone made it from New York to California in three days!”

      “Probably without diverting to Baltimore,” I muttered, almost inaudibly.

      “Be safe,” she said firmly, after a sideways glance. “Don’t speed. Keep to the speed limit. It’s fifty-five. I don’t care what kind of car you have. And don’t pass trucks on the right. Let the trucks pass. They win all ties. And avoid aggressive drivers. Shelby, okay?”

      “Okay, Mrs. Reed.”

      “How long have you had your license?”

      “My student license for a year. My full license just since this month.”

      “Okay. You’ll do well to be careful on the road. You’re a new driver. Don’t drive at night. When it starts to get dark, stop. Have dinner, then stop for the night. No reason to keep going like maniacs. You’re not running to a fire. Better safe than sorry. Remember the story of the tortoise and the hare?”

      Did she mean running from a fire? I thought it best not to ask. And didn’t she just say someone made it from New York to California in three days? Was that the tortoise or the hare?

      At no point did Gina say, Mom, we have to go. She just stood there, with her mother’s arms on her shoulders, listening and nodding. After Mrs. Reed appeared to be done by having fallen silent, Gina said she was going to make one last “potty” break and disappeared inside. I was left with the two Mrs. Reeds standing looking me up and down. There was nothing to me this morning. I was wearing jean shorts with silver studs on the pockets the shape of roses and a beige Aerosmith T-shirt. My hair was clean, so were my teeth. I barely had on any makeup. Really, nothing to see here, folks. Yet they examined me, perused me. Mulled, like I was an indecent painting they thought was overpriced. “Shelby, you’ll take good care of our Gina, right?” finally said the younger Mrs. Reed.

      I had no idea what that meant. I hadn’t taken care of anything my whole life. I couldn’t get a one-eyed frog to last through winter. Naturally I said, “Yes, of course, Mrs. Reed. But Gina and I are friends. We look out for each other.”

      “You’re her keeper now, Shelby,” Mrs. Reed continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “You know I’ve always thought of you as her older sister.”

      “Absolutely. Me, too. Well, actually, she’s ten months older, but I know what you mean. And you know sisters, they take care of each other.”

      “She’s in good hands. I know you’ll watch out for her. I’ve always liked you. You really don’t mind taking the dogs to Baltimore, do you?” She offered me fifty dollars for my trouble. I have a hard time saying no when people offer me money (it happens so rarely) and I didn’t say no then.

      “And Molly promises she’ll be no trouble.”

      Dumbly I said, Molly? The time was nearing eleven. I was too afraid to look at my watch. I ripped it off my wrist and threw it in the backseat, as if removing the time counter from my person allowed me the illusion of control, as in, if I don’t know what time it is, then it’s not really that late, is it?

      Gina returned. Behind her trailed a grumpy, barely awoken, unbrushed young girl. Molly, Gina’s sister! I hadn’t seen her in two years, and since then, she’d sprung things on her body, like boobs and hips. Back when I knew Gina’s sister, she was a kid. Now she was twelve and unrecognizable. Cheerfully, to balance her sister’s sulky pre-teen face, Gina said, “My mom wanted my sister to come along, too.”

      “Gina, don’t lie,” said Molly. “You invited me.”

      Flushed, Gina glared at her sister and to me said, “I thought it’d be fun, don’t you think?”

      “Is she coming with you all the way to Bakersfield?” I asked, not so carefully.

      “Shh! Don’t be silly. No, no,” Gina quickly said, not looking at me.

      Molly, as it turned out, was even less prepared than Gina. She had gone to get her toothbrush, a book to read (though she didn’t look like the type that read books; that read period), her rather large cassette player, and her makeup. What else did a twelve-year-old bring to her aunt’s? What else was there? Miniature golf clubs? She said she had to sit in the front. “I get dizzy in the back.”

      Gina agreed! Gina was going to sit in the back?

      I shook my head. “Molly, do you know how to read a map?”

      “Yes,” she said defiantly.

      “Oh, good. Because I don’t know where your aunt lives, so you’ll have to direct me out of New York, all right?”

      “I can’t read in the car. It makes me dizzy,” said Molly.

      “I see.” I nodded. “Perhaps best to sit in the back, then.”

      “I can’t sit in the back. It makes me dizzy. Besides, backseat’s too small.”

      “Well, that’s perfect, because you’re small, too.”

      “No, I can’t.”

      “Moll, give Sloane a break, will you?” said Gina with hostility. I suddenly remembered that Gina hated Molly. They never got along. Gina said Molly was spoiled and selfish. Why in the world would she invite her with us to Baltimore? Like children, we stared at Molly, and then pleadingly at Molly’s mother, who pointed a finger at her daughter. “You’ve got one second to get in the back or march right upstairs, young lady.”

      Mrs. Reed’s words made no impression on Molly other than to cause a hysterical fit, during which she stormed off upstairs screaming she wasn’t going “Anywhere!” Mrs. Reed soothingly followed. I, for lack of anything to do, other than feel like a dumb ass, brushed my hair. My hair is thin and easy-care, and takes no time at all to brush out. I keep it fairly short for running. I brushed for fifteen minutes. Everyone by this time had left the lawn: the cane-carrying grandmother had gone inside, and Gina had forgotten “one more lipgloss.” Only me and the Pomeranians remained. They had stopped barking and were whimpering now. I knew how they felt.

      It was noon. Taking out my spiral notebook, I adjusted my schedule, wrote down the mileage from Larchmont to Glen Burnie (about 250 miles, measured by my pin-point scientific thumb), noted the time, the starting mileage …

      By about twelve-thirty, when I had pulled out all of my thin, light, straight as a pin, easy-care-for hair and was debating picking up Gina’s eyelash-tearing habit, a wet-faced Molly reappeared on the grass, mollified. She would sit in the back, “like a good girl,” and would get a hundred dollars for her trouble.

      “Ready?” I said to Gina, through my teeth. Molly and the mutts were squeezed in the back. “How about if I drive this leg, and you take the next?”

      “What do you mean, take the next?” said Mrs. Reed, leaning in to kiss her daughter goodbye. “Gina doesn’t know how to drive.”

      We were on the New England Thruway, and I was yelling. Me, yelling. “You don’t know how to drive? Gina, you told me you had your license! You told me you’d share the driving!”

      “I know, I know,” Gina said guiltily. “I’m sorry. I did have my permit, just