Free The Way Life Should Be by Christina Baker Kline Page A

rises out of the earth. From a distance, as the road winds toward it, the bridge looks like a mirage. My spirits soar. This is it—the narrow band of river on my MapQuest printout that separates New Hampshire from Maine. I’m here!
    The road is wide, four lanes in each direction, sloping toward the midpoint of the bridge. Halfway across the river a small sign says WELCOME TO MAINE. This is not like the border of any other state I’ve been to, where you pass a road sign and things stay pretty much the same. When you enter Maine, you are crossing over water into new territory.
    On the other side of the bridge, now, I drive past two white water towers with twenty-foot red lobsters painted on the sides, signs for outlet malls, acres of evergreens. After about forty-five minutes I feel like a little kid who has stayed up too late. My high is wearing off. Consulting my directions, it becomes clear that I won’t actually be “here” for quite some time. It’s more than four hours from the border to where I’m going.
    I put in a Lucinda Williams CD, roll my neck, and arch myback against the seat, like a cat. I need to pee, and the car could use some gas, but I’m determined not to stop until I absolutely have to.
     
    I’m singing along to Lucinda — I am waiting in my car, I am waiting at this bar, I am waiting on your back steps —going about seventy in a sixty-five-mile zone, when the car starts losing power. What the hell is going on? I press the gas pedal to the floor and the car goes from 40 to 30 to 20. Fuck. As the car rolls to a stop, I steer onto the shoulder.
    I check all the warning lights—oil, brakes, battery. (I wouldn’t know what to do even if I could identify the problem, but that doesn’t stop me from checking the warning lights as if I might be able to solve this.) The gas gauge doesn’t work; the needle hasn’t moved from Empty in at least a year. But this car has always been fuel efficient; I thought that a tank of gas would get me at least as far as—
    Oh.
    As far as right about here, I guess.
    Where in the world am I? Looking around, I see only trees. About a hundred yards back is an entrance ramp sloping down to the road, but no signs are visible anywhere. Looking at the map, I deduce that I passed Portland a while ago, but I haven’t—or at least I think I haven’t—passed Augusta.
    “I haven’t dated anybody south of Augusta in ten years.”
    Every now and then a car whizzes past.
    So, huh, this is why people join Triple A.
    The only thing I can think to do—and really, to even call it thinking is an overstatement, it’s more like blind panic—is call Rich. I punch his number into my cell phone.
    “Hey,” he says. “You’re here already?”

    That “already” gives me pause. I talked to him yesterday. He knew I was coming today. “You knew I was coming today.”
    “Ah, yeah.” He sounds distracted, as if I’ve interrupted him in the middle of something. “I just didn’t know you’d be so fast. How close are you?”
    “Not that close,” I snap. “That’s why I’m calling. I don’t know what happened. My car just—stopped.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “I mean…” I feel foolish and needy. “I think maybe I ran out of gas.”
    “No way.”
    “Yeah, I think so.”
    “No way, ” he says again.
    This is his response? “Yeah.”
    At first I think he’s catching his breath, but then I realize he’s laughing. “I don’t believe you,” he says.
    Now that I’m actually talking to him, I’m not sure why I called. For moral support? Practical advice? So far he’s giving me neither. “I’m not kidding.”
    “No—I mean, I believe you, I just can’t believe you ran out of gas. Who runs out of gas in this day and age?”
    Who says “day and age” in this day and age? “Look, I live in New York. I’m not used to driving. And my car is really old and the gas gauge is broken. Anyway—I don’t need to make excuses for running out of gas. Whatever. It