You Are Here(16)

Somewhere along the way her family seemed to have come unglued; when, Emma wasn’t exactly sure. But she was beginning to wonder whether it had more to do with her forgotten brother than the natural forces of distance and time.

When her cell phone began to ring—dancing along the planks of the rest stop picnic table—Emma looked up in surprise. A few feet away the dog was lying on the grass, looking hopeful about the appearance of more fries, and he pricked his ears forward and eyed the phone. Emma could see on the screen that it was her parents calling, and she suspected that Patrick had now spoken to them. He was probably furious with her, and though she knew she should pick up, she couldn’t bring herself to do it, instead watching the phone until it fell silent again.

They’d be nearly frantic by now, she was sure, but she had no intention of turning back, so what good would it do anyway? It would only be a few more hours until she reached DC, and she could call them when she got to Annie’s. By then she’d be nearly halfway to North Carolina, too far for them to object to her continuing on.

She stood to toss her garbage in one of the bins, giving the dog one more pat as she headed back over to the little blue car, which was now sandwiched between two campers in the parking lot. As she squeezed by the one wallpapered with Texas-themed bumper stickers, she was surprised to find the dog at her side. He sat back and thumped his tail against the pavement, his bad leg tucked up close to him, his head cocked first to one side, then the other.

“You trying to hitch a ride?” she asked, stepping around him. He sat there and watched as she closed the door, then jammed the keys into the ignition, turning them once, twice, and then again. But the engine refused to catch, and she sat in the quiet car and leaned her head back on the seat, telling herself not to panic. After a moment she tried again, and a thin trail of smoke rose from the seams of the hood. Emma stared at it, and then beyond, to where the dog was still watching her, his mouth hanging open in a great doggy smile, looking like he was very much amused by her current predicament.

“It’s not funny,” she said as she strode past him and back toward the building. He trotted after her, a white shadow beneath the high ball of the sun.

In her pocket the phone began to ring again, and Emma was about to hit ignore when she changed her mind. She waited until it had stopped—until her parents gave up for at least another few minutes—then scrolled down until she found a different number.

If she were to call Patrick, he would only yell at her about the car and demand that she turn back. Her parents would want to come pick her up, and Annie would wonder why she thought it was okay to show up unannounced in the first place. If she were to call a tow truck, they would only charge her far too much and then put her back out onto the road, where the car would probably break down again in another fifty miles or so.

But Emma was on her way, and she knew for sure that she couldn’t stop now. And so she sat down at a picnic table and called the only person she could think to call.

Peter picked up on the first ring. “Hello?”

“Hi, it’s Emma.”

“Hey,” he said, unable to hide his surprise. “How’s the trip?”

“Okay so far,” she said, and beside her the dog tilted his head as if to make the obvious point that the trip was not, in fact, okay so far.

“Good,” he said. “Are you still in the city?”

“Not exactly.”

“Where are you then?”

“In Jersey,” she said, biting her lip. “Not far from Philly. You wouldn’t still want to come along, would you?”

There was a long pause on the other end of the line, and Emma could almost hear Peter’s mind at work. He had a way about him that might seem a bit odd to other people, but she’d grown used to it over the years. They’d known each other since her family first moved here when she was eight. Like her, Peter didn’t have many friends at school. He seemed mostly to prefer his own company, though he’d always been different around Emma. She didn’t think this could be called a friendship exactly, but she didn’t necessarily mind having him around either. He spent nearly as much time at her house as she did, and it didn’t escape her notice that, in many ways, he fit into her family far better. He knew everything there was to know about the Civil War, and had a tendency of bringing any subject around to it in the same way the rest of her family couldn’t help letting their own specialties creep into everyday conversation. But he could also remain quiet for impressively long periods of time without feeling the need to say anything, and this suited Emma just fine.

“My car sort of died,” she admitted. “But I’m not quite ready to turn back yet.”

“Well, where are you planning on going?”

“North Carolina.”

Emma held her breath as she waited for Peter to ask all the logical questions— why? and where exactly? and for how long? —but was surprised when he asked her something entirely different.

“Could we make a detour?”

“Where to?”

“Gettysburg.”

“The battlefield?” She lifted her eyes to the sky, wondering if she’d made a mistake in calling Peter after all. Gettysburg? “That’s got to be at least a few hours out of the way.”

“I could always go on my own, then pick you up afterward,” he suggested, and Emma looked around at the trucks rumbling in off the highway, the men with tall hats and heavy boots, the families eating French fries by the handful.