Free You Are Here by Jennifer E. Smith Page B

the Appalachian Trail and the Washington Monument, the Liberty Bell and the Smithsonian. In Pennsylvania alone there was the Hershey Museum (with its unimaginable amounts of chocolate) and the National Aviary (with its unending varieties of birds) and the town of Punxsutawney (home to the world’s most famous groundhog). In Virginia he’d visit Colonial Williamsburg and Jamestown; South Carolina had the world’s largest peach (an astounding one hundred and thirty-five feet tall and seventy-three feet wide), and Georgia had America’s Smallest Church (which held only thirteen people). There was Disney World and Cape Canaveral, the wetlands and the Outer Banks, South of the Border and the Kennedy Space Center, and that was all just the East Coast.
    But when he pulled into the rest area, a solitary patch of ugly concrete in northern New Jersey, and saw Emma sitting there—hunched on a picnic table beside a large white dog, her legs pulled up so that her chin rested on her bare knees, somehow managing to look bored and worried and excited all at once—Peter realized that this was even better.

chapter nine
     
    Emma wasn’t exactly sure what she’d been expecting—something more Peter , perhaps a minivan or a Volvo, something blocky and safe, a low-slung, sensible car with good mileage. So when the blue convertible came lurching up alongside the curb, she couldn’t help laughing.
    It was nearly the same as the other one—the one parked lifelessly across the lot—and Peter looked so comically out of place in it, his usually combed hair ruffled by the wind, his glasses speckled with bits of dirt, his arm slung over the passenger seat in a display of forced casualness.
    “Hi,” she said, and he grinned back at her somewhat less certainly, then looked down in surprise when the car gave a little jerk forward.
    “Uh, let me just go park,” he said, twisting his mouth in concentration as he fiddled with the gearshift. “I’ll be right back.”
    Emma slid off the picnic table, and beside her the dog leaped to his feet too. They eyed each other until Peter reappeared a few moments later, clutching the keys and looking somewhat sheepish.
    “I didn’t have much of a selection, and it seemed to run okay …,” he started to explain, throwing a hand in the general direction of the parking lot. The collar of his shirt was twisted and crumpled, and his shorts were too baggy for his skinny legs, and he was shifting from one foot to the other, clearly nervous about her or the car or the situation in general.
    Emma attempted a reassuring smile. “It’s perfect,” she told him, because after nearly four hours here she would have been happy if he’d shown up driving a lawn mower. “Did you have any trouble getting it?”
    “No,” Peter said a bit too quickly. “None.”
    She nodded, and they stood for a moment in an uncomfortable silence, Emma only now really absorbing the idea of it: that she and Peter Finnegan were about to embark on a road trip together. She cleared her throat—to say what, she wasn’t exactly sure—but before she could think of something, the dog limped over and bumped at the back of her leg, causing her knee to buckle. She swung her head around as he backed up a few steps, looking pleased with himself.
    “Whose dog?” Peter asked, raising his eyebrows.
    “Nobody’s,” she said. “He’s been keeping me company.”
    Peter accepted this information the same way he did most everything else, without comment or judgment, only a thoughtful and unreadable nod of his head.
    “Can we grab some food before we get going?” he asked, glancing over toward the hulking lodge of a building, and though Emma would have been just as happy to never set foot there again, she nodded and led the way.
    “So what are you gonna do about your brother’s car?” he asked, once they’d ordered and carried their trays back outside again. They were joined by the dog, who gazed expectantly at the food, following each