The idea of a road trip had conjured up images of quirky truck stops, singing along to Johnny Cash, and driving with the wind in my hair. Reality is that the first hour of our trip is just a quiet drive down Interstate 45 where the land is flat, green and dull on both sides of the road. The only sights are cow pastures but it’s too dark to see the cows, and we pass a ton of gas stations, but none of them are particularly quirky.
Cece hangs out in the kitchen area, busily writing in her notebook. I sit up front with Ezra in a faded gray bucket seat that’s seen better days. Wood paneling lines the interior of the Winnebago and at some point, someone reupholstered the bench seats and bedding with sunflower print polyester that also matches the tiny curtains over each window. The appliances are older than I am, and the flooring has been replaced with laminate wood paneling that Ezra says he got for half off at the Home Depot. The whole thing smells like an old garage. Not bad, exactly, but not very good either.
“It’s still a work in progress,” he says when he sees me examining the duct tape that holds the glove box closed. “My dad bought this thing when he married my mom. He was twenty and she was eighteen and they were broke as hell.”
“That sucks,” I say as I lean forward and press down a piece of the duct tape that’s wiggled itself loose.
“I think it’s cool,” he says with a little grin. “My mom’s parents were immigrants who lived in California, and they hated my dad. I don’t know why. He’s Filipino too, but he was born here so I guess there was some animosity, plus I think he was probably kind of an asshole back then. They thought their daughter could do better, you know? But my parents were in love and they snuck off to get married the day after Mom turned eighteen. My dad always said he could either afford a car or a house, but not both. So, they got this thing.”
“Are they still in love?” I ask, unable to stop myself from wanting to know such a personal thing.
His face darkens. “Mom passed away two years ago. Ovarian cancer. But yeah, they were still in love before then.”
“Ezra, I’m so sorry.” I reach out and touch his arm, then pull back quickly. We’re not exactly touch-each-other-on-the-arm friends.
“It is what it is,” he says, his eyes on the road. “Not trying to be rude, I just don’t want to talk about it.”
“Okay,” I say brightly, hoping to make a smooth transition to another topic. My heart still aches for him, but I know a life of loss, and I know it’s sometimes easier not to talk about it. “Tell me more about the Winnebago.”
He grins and taps the dashboard. “It’s been a fixture in our back yard since I was born. Dad refuses to get rid of it, but he also didn’t care to make it drivable again. I’ve put more money into this thing than my dad has, and I’m hoping he’ll let me keep it for my birthday in August. He hasn’t had money to buy me anything for the last few years, so this should make up for it.”
“And what exactly would you do with a seventies model Winnebago?” I ask. I imagine Ezra sweeping his girlfriend off into the sunset in this old thing, setting off to live a life together like his parents did before him. It makes my stomach hurt, and I don’t even know if Ezra’s relationship is that serious, but the brain thinks what it wants.
Ezra’s expression darkens. He keeps his eyes on the road. “I’d bring it to that trailer park off Garden Street. It’s only two hundred dollars a month rent with utilities included, so I could have my own place and still save money.”
I study him carefully, wondering why his demeanor has a sudden shadow over it. “You wouldn’t miss living in a real house?”
“I wouldn’t miss my house,” he says quickly. “Not for one second.”
An awkwardness settles over us. He doesn’t volunteer any more information and we’re not close enough friends for me to ask for details. I’m not even sure we’re friends at all. He was only Thomas’s friend back in the day and he was always kind of mean to me. That we’re traveling together now is only for Cece’s benefit.
I shift in my seat and turn to see what she’s doing, but she hasn’t changed since we pulled out of the driveway. She’s sitting at the little kitchen table, on the sunflower foam bench seat that folds out into a bed. Her notebook is open and she’s alternating between writing stuff and looking out the window.
“You doing okay?” I ask her.
She nods. “Two hours and twenty-eight minutes until we’re there,” she says, checking the GPS route on her phone.
“Add ten minutes because we’ll have to stop for gas soon,” Ezra says.
“Noted.” Cece goes back to her notebook, her hand flying across the page in her messy cursive.
The sky is a dull blue, rimmed with a lighter sapphire blue on the horizon. There’s mostly eighteen wheelers on the road at six in the morning, but as we head south toward College Station, the road fills up with people heading to work. We settle into a comfortable silence. I tell myself it’s because we’re all a little tired that we’re not talking. It’s easier to accept than the truth, which is that none of us are really friends.
After two and a half hours of driving, Ezra suggests we stop for gas and breakfast. We find a Buccee’s, which is like the Walmart of convenient stores. Seriously, the place has fifty gas pumps outside and everything you could imagine inside including the cleanest bathrooms known to mankind.
Cece and I head inside while Ezra pumps gas and we stock up on drinks, breakfast burritos, and random snacks for the road. There’s something weird about Cece, but I’m not sure what. Instead of her usual bubbly self, she’s focused on the task at hand, counting out how hungry we’ll likely get in the two hours we have left to drive, and wondering aloud if Ezra still likes Hot Tamales candy like he used to. I think the weirdest part of this pit stop is that Cece is acting…normal. She’s no longer bouncing around ecstatically freaking out about finding her brother. Unlike all of the therapy advice, letting her take the reins on a crazy idea is actually calming her. Too bad I can never tell Mom about this.
Once we’re back on the road, Cece settles into her kitchen nook and goes back to writing. I set the disposable cups of coffee for me and Ezra in each cup holder in the center console of the RV. “Do you like cream and sugar? I brought a bunch of each,” I say, holding up handfuls of sugar packets and French vanilla creamer.
“Sure,” he says as we lurch out of the parking lot.
“How much of each?” I ask.
He shrugs. “Just whatever you do to yours is fine.”
I put two sugars and two creamers in each of our coffees and hand him one. He takes a sip and nods. “That’s pretty good.”
“How often do you drink coffee?” I ask, cupping mine in my hands, letting the warmth take the morning chill out of my fingers.
“Never,” he says, giving me a quick sideways glance. “But you offered, so I wanted to look cool.”
I roll my eyes. “You are such a nerd.”
He smirks. “So my attempt to be cool didn’t work?”
I shake my head, choosing to look at the road ahead because his one-dimpled smile is just too cute to deal with. “Not even a little.”
From behind us, Cece says, “One hour and fifty-seven minutes if the traffic says light.”
“You excited?” Ezra calls back to her. He watches her from the big bus driver mirror that’s mounted from the ceiling. I see her shrug in the reflection, her head tilted slightly while she doodles something in the margins of her paper. Her braid falls on the page and she just draws around it. “What do you think he’s been doing all these years?”
“Well, there’s your amnesia theory,” I say because everything is calm and peaceful and I don’t need to ruin the moment by telling her Thomas is kicking it in heaven, chilling with millions of other dead people.
“Nah,” Ezra says. “I mean, it’s a decent theory, but if a sixteen-year-old showed up somewhere with no memory of who he was, it would have been on the news. Plus, it’s not like he could have gone very far, and everyone in the country probably saw some kind of media exposure when your parents died. Someone would recognize him.”
“I never even thought of it like that,” Cece says, frowning while she makes soft circles on her paper.
I peel off the foil from a breakfast burrito and hand it to Ezra. “Thanks,” he says, taking a bite. Then he looks back in the mirror. “So if Thomas didn’t lose his memory, then he left for a reason. Which is kind of what I always thought he might have done. I don’t know why, though.”
“Neither do I,” Cece says. “But he was your best friend so he might have told you things he wouldn’t tell me. You don’t remember anything?”
“Nothing. Thomas had a decent life. He didn’t like the media attention, but who would?” Ezra finishes his burrito in a couple more bites and then crumples the foil, tossing it in a little trashcan on the floor by our feet. “We played a lot of video games back in those days. Maybe he met some girl on Xbox Live and ran off to be with her.”
Cece scoffs. “There’s no way. He wouldn’t do that.”
“Yeah, Thomas was obsessed with Xbox but not to that extent,” I chime in even though it makes me feel dirty, like I’m talking to a kid about Santa Claus when I should be telling them the truth about this harsh world and how magic doesn’t actually exist.
Cece folds her notebook shut and clips her pen onto the spiral edge. “I wonder why he’d just leave me like that,” she says. She’s facing me, but her attention is on her own thoughts. “Ezra? Can I go lay down back there?”
“Sure, just be careful walking.”
She scoops up her notebook and clings it to her chest as she makes her way down the narrow aisle past the bathroom and to the bedroom at the back of the RV. I watch her lay down and pull a crocheted blanket over her legs. I know she hasn’t slept in a while so maybe that’s catching up with her now.
The road noise is loud and this old clunker bangs around like crazy, so I lower my voice and lean a little closer to Ezra. “Do you really think Thomas is alive?”
The hesitant look he gives me sets my mind at ease. His eyes dart to the rearview mirror and then he takes a long sip of his coffee. “I like the idea that he could be alive,” he says, choosing his words carefully.
I really need him to agree with me on this one, to validate that of the three people in this vehicle, I’m not the crazy one. I’ve spent my entire life being the reasonable child in the family. Surely if my cousin had really cheated death, I’d know it. But there is no mystical sensation in my gut telling me Thomas is still alive. The very idea is a fantasy concocted wholly in Cece’s traumatized mind. I’m not the bad guy here. I just want her to be okay and to stop following delusions that will only get her heart broken.
I turn until my legs are filling the aisle between our seats. “But do you really, seriously think there’s a chance he’s still alive?”
Ezra glances in his side mirror and switches to the slow lane. “There’s always a possibility,” he says, flashing me a grin. I exhale sharply and turn back to face the front. Maybe I am the odd one out in this equation.
“Listen,” Ezra says quietly. He glances in the rear-view mirror, his teeth wearing at his bottom lip. When he turns to me, there’s a seriousness I haven’t yet seen in his expression. “Thomas was my best friend. And when his sister comes to me asking for help, I’m going to help her. Hands down, no matter what, I’ll be there. He would have done the same for me.”
A screeching sound comes from the back of the RV. I spin around to find that Cece has closed the curtain that separates the bedroom from the rest of the vehicle. My blood runs cold. “Do you think she heard us?” I whisper.
Ezra shakes his head. “You can’t hear anything back there when the engine is running.”
“Are you sure?” I’m still whispering despite his assurance. He nods.
Still, I glance back there, wondering if she’s okay. I think about going to comfort her, but I’m not sure there’s a point in saying reassuring words that she won’t even listen to. I decide to leave her alone for now.
Besides, if my gut instinct is right, there will be plenty of time to comfort her on the drive back home.