Road to Paradise by Paullina Simons Read Free Book Online

hours. What about South Dakota? Iowa? Utah? Wyoming? Why don’t you care if it gets cold there?”
    What did Utah have to do with my business, and should I bring my favorite pillow?
    Should I bring a camera, my Kodak Instamatic? Or will Emma lend me her Polaroid, and what’s better, the top-notch quality of my Instamatic, or the stick-it-in-the-darkroom-of-a-partially-closed-drawer quality of the Polaroid?
    Should I bring books to read?
    “Do you plan to be doing much reading while you’re driving?” Marc asked. He asked this slowly to convey what he really thought of my question.
    “Aren’t you all Walden Pondy,” I said, shoving him. “Go sketch something while I do all the work.”
    He was sitting in my room doing nothing. He sketched me packing.
    “Perhaps a book for a rainy day?” I asked. Why did I always sound so defensive, even with my friends?
    “You won’t be driving in the rain, then?”
    Should I bring cash?
    “Yes, Sloane,” said Marc even more slowly, the wretch. “You should bring some money. After all, you might need gas.”
    I threw my pillow at him, knocking the coal pencils out of his hands.
    “I mean ,” I said, “cash or Travelers’ checks? And if I bring cash, where do I stash it? Do I hide it?”
    “Hide it from who? Gina?”
    “Well, I don’t know. Can I trust her?”
    “Can she trust you ?” said Marc, and I didn’t have a pillow left to throw.
    “One more comment like this, and you’ll have to walk home.”
    “Where are you going to hide your money from her in your little Shelby car? How hard would you have to hide it before she a, realizes what you’re doing and b, takes it personally?”
    I sighed. “You’re exasperating.”
    “ I’m exasperating?” He went back to sketching.
    “How much money will I need? Do I bring more than I need? Or just enough? And what if I run out? How will I get more? I have no credit card, and who’d give me one anyway? I have no job.”
    Marc got up and handed me his drawing. “I’m going home,” he said, wearily. “I’m glad I’m broke, and can’t go, and don’t have your problems.”
    After he left, I wished he could come with us. He’d drawn me like a brown flurry in the middle of a messy room, with greenbacks flying in the air. I taped it to my wall, as I figured things out.
    By my estimation we would be gone fifteen days and fourteen nights. We needed gas for 6000 miles. But what if it was 6500? And what if on uphill slopes, the Mustang’s gas mileage dipped from twenty-three miles per gallon to twenty?
    “So?” said Marc when I called to discuss the imponderables. “On downhill slopes, mileage will be twenty-six. You better hope it’ll all even out.”
    But that’s the whole thing right there. What if it didn’t even out? What if Gina twisted my arm and I had to drive her 480 miles to Bakersfield, go north to Mendocino and then head back south again to pick her up? Pas possible! How did I calculate for that kind of unknown?
    The hotel room. Fifteen nights. But what if it turned out to be sixteen? What if it took me a few extra days to locate the woman who gave birth to me? What if Gina wanted to spend a few extra days in Eddie’s stellar company?
    “So? Sleep in the car,” Marc said, in a “Freebird” voice that said it would be the height of adventure to sleep in the car because you ran out of money.
    I calculated fifty dollars a night for a motel for sixteen nights. But what if it was sixty dollars? And what about room tax?
    “Yes, room tax is different in every state,” Marc said. “And parking? And what if you lose your room key and have to pay ten bucks for a new one? I don’t think you’re planning enough, Sloane.”
    I agreed. Food. Did we have to eat three times a day? Plus water for the drive. Maybe an adult beverage, once, twice, in a bar somewhere?
    “Yes, good, plan for a drunken binge,” said Marc. “But what about a cover charge?”
    The car will need an oil change.
    “Every 3000 miles.