The drive to Oakland from L.A., even without traffic, is a good five hours. We told security to take the morning off and to stick with Merry, who’d probably need them more, counting on the unexpected nature of our visit to be anonymous enough.

The car was so new, it smelled like sweet leather and there were no fingerprints or smudges on any of the glass or mirrors. The California state map tucked in the glove compartment had never been unfolded. Rose hadn’t had time to personalize the car in any way—load the six-disc changer with CDs, find any dangly rearview mirror tokens, stuff a blanket in the back seat—so there was nothing to listen to except the radio, which we kept switched off. The day was just beginning; sunlight slanted in an unnaturally crisp and white way across the passenger-side window as we headed north, bathing Rose and her rose-tinted chapped nostrils and rose-rimmed raw eyes in a light that made her almost translucent. She was quiet, grasping her phone in two tight hands, looking between it and the view out the window every few moments, as if she were afraid she would miss an important call.

We’d been on the road for several hours when I glanced over at her, this petite girl with her arms crossed over her chest, though she insisted she wasn’t cold. In the year and a half that I’d known Rose, she had never shown much of herself to me. Behind her narrow face and large, unmatching eyes, I had the sense that she was always calculating her next move—our next move. She was the leader of the group, the mouthpiece, even though we had said over and over again that we were all equal members. We’d never seen her with a guy, and she’d never expressed interest in one. But somewhere underneath her thin breastbone, a heart beat there.

She gave me a sharp look. “Why are you slowing down?”

“Hmm? Oh.” I’d decelerated without realizing it. I mashed the pedal down again with new resolve. The 5 rolled beneath us, a smooth curve. We were quiet for another long stretch, and Rose flipped on the radio, which played a countdown of the Top 40. “Wake Up Morning” had slipped to number six, but “What Did U Say” was still number one. I asked, “Do you think you’ll be moving soon?”

“Maybe. I found a really cool spot right above the Sunset Strip.”

“What’s it like?”

“Big. Six bedrooms, a pool, lots of glass. It’s gorgeous.” A small, excited huff that could have been a laugh. “It’s a little much, but I fell in love with it. And the location is perfection.”

“A little much? How much?”

“A few mil.”

The idea that a house could be anything but a particular number of “mil” was astonishing. I mustered a “wow” as I followed signs for 580 toward San Francisco. My hips hurt from sitting so long and it’d been hours since we’d eaten anything.

“What about you? You think you’ll move out? Well, obviously you will, but any idea where? Hold on.” Her phone was ringing. “Yeah? Okay.” She listened quietly, then said, “Okay, see you tomorrow.” She clicked the phone shut. “Cassy. There’s been a change in plans.”

“What do you mean? We aren’t going to Oakland anymore?”

“Oakland? Well . . . About that.” A note of hesitation crept into her voice.

“I’m going to pull over.” I pulled the humming BMW over to the shoulder and set it in park without cutting the engine. I asked, “Where are we going?”

“We’re not going to Oakland.”

“What?” I took my hands off the wheel and turned in my seat to look at her. She was fidgeting with a ring on her right hand, hair draped over her eye like a shiny brown curtain.

“We can’t actually go to the hospital to see Viv right now; only family is allowed and I don’t want to be mobbed if we’re recognized in the waiting room. Let’s go to my mom’s until we get the okay. It’s been a while; it’ll be good to see her . . .” Her voice drifted off, as if uncertain.

I reached over without thinking, pushed a lock of her hair off of her forehead with two gentle fingers. It wasn’t what I expected to do—it seemed too personal, and I could feel her soft exhale on my inner arm as I held her gaze for a moment, before quickly withdrawing my hand and placing it on the wheel. How had I never noticed how absolutely beautiful she was? How had I thought she had a gerbil-like face when we first met?

The flicker I’d seen in her eyes convinced me that this was a topic that I shouldn’t pry into. I swallowed.

“Okay, let’s go.” I shifted back into drive and we eased back out onto the road.

WE STOPPED FOR gas, protein bars, and a bathroom in a town called Lacy, taking a short stint on a gravel-paved highway back to the 5, past Stockton. “Would you mind telling me how much longer we’ll be driving?” I asked softly, as the afternoon got even brighter.

“A little longer.”

It seemed like a little longer was a continuous refrain, but finally Rose said, “Turn off here.” There wasn’t even a sign for the town, just an exit number. We rolled past a population sign that was skewed to one side, having been broadsided by a car at some point. We sped past a gas station and a dry-goods store, taking straight roads toward a residential street. “Stop at the second on the left.” We parked in front of a modest house with an older 1980s Ford sedan sitting in the short driveway. The silence after I turned off the car made me rub my ear in surprise.

Rose was already stepping out of the passenger side, tugging at the back pockets of her jeans to keep them from riding up. I stretched and folded the state map, jamming it into my bag as I plodded up a dirt drive behind Rose. She stopped in front of the door, hesitating, then pulled it open.

The front door led directly into the living room, which was lit by only one lamp, and filled with large, overstuffed furniture. One wall was completely covered in crosses of different sizes and materials, some of them lumpy like they’d been shaped by a child. I shifted my gaze to a woman in a fluffy couch, sipping from a straw in a convenience-store Styrofoam cup. Her hair was dyed red but her light brown roots were showing.

“Hi, Mom,” Rose said, reaching down to give her a hug. Her mother glanced over Rose’s shoulder at me. “This is Cassidy. She drove me.”

“You can’t drive yourself?”

“It’s a new car.”

Her mother seemed perturbed by this comment. “And you still couldn’t drive yourself? Drove my Ford all over Northern California, but you can’t even make it out of L.A. on your own.” Rose didn’t respond. Her mother reached out a hand to me. “I’m Clara. To what do I owe this pleasure?”

“It’s nice to meet you,” I said, clasping her damp hand. “We’re just here because . . .” I faltered, not sure if it was my place to say.

“Just here to visit,” Rose said.

“You girls hungry?”

We shook our heads and Clara took a long pull from her straw. We watched the muted television screen, which was playing Judge Judy. “I suppose you’ll want to stay the night,” Clara said, eyes still on the TV. “It’s a long drive. Your room is still as it ever was. You know where the spare blankets are.”

Rose turned toward the depths of the house. “Cassy, let me show you where you’ll be.”

She took me around the corner to a small bedroom with only enough space for a bureau and tiny desk that butted up against the bed, so one could potentially do homework while sitting cross-legged on a twin mattress. All four walls and the ceiling were covered in posters and magazine clippings of celebrities a tween-aged Rose would have idolized. A mirror over the bureau doubled as a scrapbook: glossy photos of Rose posing with friends, arms slung around each other, graying Calvin and Hobbes comics trimmed from the newspaper, and inspirational quotes written directly onto the silver surface in dry-erase marker made it difficult to see a reflection. The room seemed too juvenile for the taste of the Rose I knew; a pink ruffled bedspread adorned the bed and her pillows were covered in eyelet fabric. She twirled around in the gap between door and bed frame. “Ta-da.”

“I don’t understand,” I said. “What about Oakland?”

Rose blew out a long breath. “We’re only a couple of hours from Oakland. If I said I was from Bumfuck, California, no one would know what I was talking about. And it’s almost true. The other girls in the group are sort of from there. Our talent competitions were in the Bay Area. It just made sense to say Oakland.”

“What’s the point, though?”

“The point,” she said emphatically, “is that we’re selling sophisticated, savvy, sexy women from a big city. What if we did a profile in a magazine and they said we were from Podunk, Nowhere? I bet you if Rolling Stone said that I was from a town of twenty thousand people we wouldn’t have had our big rise.”

I rubbed behind one ear. “But you are. And we have.”

“Doesn’t matter. And now that we’ve said Oakland for so long, there’s no point in clearing the air now.”