Road to Paradise. Paullina Simons

suggest her clear, and the earth sure.

      I had been hoping he was talking about Ethel, beautiful for an aunt, and said nothing, embarrassed under his gaze. I was relieved when I didn’t see him at Easter.

      How gravely Gina and I had grown apart, that not a rumor, a rustle had blown my way, not even from scandalous Agnes. “When did your aunt die?” We used to talk about everything. Every day. Not a day would go by without Gina knowing every minute of my life and me knowing every minute of hers.

      “A year this November.”

      This made me sad, made me think about things I didn’t want to think about—reminders of the past I wanted put away. Here I was, leaving home for parts unknown and still couldn’t leave them behind. Gina and I used to babysit for Jules and Jim, Aunt Ethel’s kids. Ethel would feed us dinner, and then she and her husband would go out to the movies. They had a beautiful house on the water in Rye. They had a boat, their own slip, eighty feet of private beach, a membership to the yacht club, and both the elementary school and Rye Playland were within walking distance. To Gina and me they had seemed to live an enchanted life, but I guess it was more like enchanter’s nightshade. Beautiful on the outside, poison underneath.

      “My mom couldn’t forgive the Vedantists for not bringing my aunt any peace or comfort,” said Gina, “when she needed peace and comfort most. See what I mean about religion?”

      I didn’t see what she meant, but I did finally begin to notice that nearly every road we crossed was named Divine Way, Mary’s Way, Cross Way, Holy Road, Holy Family Road, Trinity Drive, Spirit Way. And on every corner rose a church, sandwiched between tattoo parlors and a Jack in the Box. Or were the tattoo parlors sandwiched between the churches? The only thing I noticed about the one church remotely near us in Larchmont was that on Monday each week, the bulletin board in the front would change its inspirational message. “JESUS IS THE ANSWER.” “JESUS IS THE ANSWER TO EVERY QUESTION.”

      “Gina, look at all the churches. I’ve never seen anything like it. Have you?”

      “Well, there aren’t any churches on the Jersey Turnpike. So no. But I wouldn’t have noticed even these had you not mentioned them. I don’t notice things like that.”

      “Hmm. Hard to miss.”

      Gina must have been thinking troubling things, difficult things—her eyes were unseeing. “What a weird life it must be around here,” she finally said, coming out of her reverie. “What do you think these people do all the time?”

      “Well, judging from the road, get tattoos and go to church.”

      She laughed. “I’d die if I lived here. Absolutely die.”

      I stopped at a light. The road was called St. John’s Path. A white church on one corner, a white church on the other. We waited. There were no more strip malls or Burger Kings. Now, beyond the white spires were rolling fields of green, shivering trees, and sunshine.

      “Did you know,” Gina said, “that 57 percent of all people who get tattoos regret them later in life? And that number goes up to 71 percent for women. More men get them, but more women regret them. And tattoos for females are on the rise. Like smoking. Apparently it’s the next trend. Women getting tattooed. Interesting, eh?”

      “Yeah, very.” I was only half-listening, trying to figure out a mathematical riddle on the white board.

      1 Cross

      + 3 Nails

      _________

      = 4 Given

      I was stuck on the numbers. One plus three did equal four, but what did it have to do with Given? I couldn’t decipher the meaning. Gina glanced at it and instantly said, oh how stupid. It took me another shameful mile to figure it out. Then I felt stupid. And resented her, like it was her fault. But numbers sometimes confuse me. I can’t see past them. RUL8? Master’s Ministry proclaimed I was, but they were praying I wasn’t 2L8.

      “I’m a good person, I have nothing to be forgiven for,” Gina said. “I’m so beyond that.”

      Didn’t Emma once tell me, when I was preening, that just as you’re about to put yourself on a pedestal for being good, the devil knocks you down with pride right back where you belong. I kept quiet.

      Chapel View, Chapel Lane, Chapel Hill. Freedom.

3

       The Black Truck

      The road wound through the fields. We rolled down the windows, turned up the music, the wind blowing through our hair. The Climax Blues Band yelled that we couldn’t get it right, and Kiki Dee croaked that she had the music in her. It was on Liberty Road, past Freedom, when the Blockheads were hitting us with their rhythm stick and I was flying, showing off my Shelby GT 350 to the blue skies, that I suddenly had to slam on the brakes for a black truck ahead of us.

      “God, it’s crawling,” I said. In reality, though, it was probably doing forty. Gina groaned, I groaned. We continued singing, but it was one thing to sing and speed but another to sing at the top of your lungs, slam on your brakes, then dawdle along almost at walking pace.

      The medium-sized, four-wheel utility truck in front of us was from the coal mines. Not painted black, but dirty black, covered with tar-like nicotine, its two smokestacks emitting black plumes. What was happening inside that it needed two smokestacks? Not only was it dilly-dallying as if on the way to execution, but it couldn’t stay in its lane. It kept rolling out to oncoming traffic. There was no traffic, but that was beside the point. It was a menace. We stopped singing.

      “What’s wrong with him?” I asked.

      “Maybe he’s drunk.”

      “It’s Wednesday morning.”

      “What, people can’t get drunk on a Wednesday? And it’s not Wednesday morning. It’s Tuesday afternoon.”

      We passed a billboard, huge black letters on white board. “WILL THE ROAD YOU’RE ON LEAD YOU TO ME?”

      “Did you know that reading billboards is responsible for eleven percent of all vehicular accidents?” stated Gina.

      “Is that so?” But I wasn’t paying much attention to her or the billboards. I was entirely focused on the increasingly erratic truck. The driver could’ve fallen asleep at the wheel. I gave him plenty of room. No reason to tailgate; a good safe distance is what he obviously needed. We were two car lengths behind.

      He had a bumper sticker on the back tail—everyone was so clever in this neck of the woods with their little aphorisms—I speeded up so I could read it: “I DO ME … YOU DO YOU.”

      “Oh, ain’t he the comedian.” Gina laughed. “It’s supposed to be I do you, you do me.”

      “He frightens me.”

      “Ha,” she said. “I like him better already. He says leave me the hell alone and let me tend to my business. That’s priceless.”

      “Yes, but what business could he possibly have that he’s weaving all over the road like that?”

      “So slow down. Give him some room.”

      “Any more room, and I’ll be in another state.”

      “Maybe he’ll turn soon.”

      “Turn where?” The empty country road stretched between fields and forests.

      “Wait, what’s he doing?” Gina said.

      At first it looked like he was turning, but he wasn’t. He was stopping. Suddenly and without preamble, his coal-tar vehicle zigzagged to a halt in the middle of the road right in front of us. We had no choice but to stop, too. Like