Free Finding Mr. Brightside by Jay Clark Page A

later.
    “Where?”
    “Up here on the—never mind, don’t look.” Grimacing, she uses her large purse to block off her section of the windshield from my view, but she’s too late … what the hell?
    “Was its head completely detached?” I ask her.
    “Yes, but trying not to think about it.”
    “Sorry.”
    A few minutes later, she puts her game face back on and says, “Squirrel remnants, on your left.”
    “Good one.”
    With all due respect to the roadkill, there’s a silver lining to be had here: Juliette’s playing my new game without me having to beg or poorly explain the rules ( It’s just like spotting a padiddle and calling it out before someone else, only with animal guts ). If she asks me, we’re officially on vacation. She won’t, though. That’s more my type of question. I’ll hold off till our feet touch the sand.
    Juliette
    O NLY FOUR HUNDRED miles to go. Whenever Abram makes a sharp turn, I hear the rattling of a pill or twenty against the plastic bottle stowed inside the front pocket of my purse. It gives me a sense of car-ride calm that I’m not proud of but otherwise couldn’t achieve. Not without making a drunk dial from Heidi’s cell-phone flask, which somehow found its way into my suitcase during her unannounced but ultimately enjoyable visit to my house last night. I regret not putting the flask, a leak waiting to happen, in a freezer bag. (Hopefully she gets a replacement when her contract renews.)
    We’ve cruised by two police cars in the last five minutes, so I tell Abram about the flask, the second-most-responsible thing I can do after not bringing it in the first place. ( So where’s the meth lab? the highway patrolman will ask after he finishes his search through my things.) Abram’s not fretting the legalities, if his jokey fist-pumping is any indication. I appreciate how he puts the same hand right back on the wheel before I start pressing my foot against the nonexistent passenger-side brake. There’s nothing less masculine than a guy who acts like he has too much testosterone for two-handed steering.
    “Let’s stop at a gas station and get snacks soon,” I suggest.
    Keeping his eyes on the road, he reaches over and pats my arm gently—I think he was looking for my hand (it’s underneath my leg). As he’s maneuvering the car around the exit ramp, I pat his arm back.
    *   *   *
    “Where are we?” I ask, handing Abram the bottle of coconut water I bought him, trying to keep him hydrated between caffeine spikes. It’s his job to keep the snack crumbs from accumulating in the crevices of his shorts, but apparently he’s trying to get fired.
    “The interstate,” he says, scratching the back of his neck and shooting me a reassuring smile. “We’re on the right road, promise.”
    I turn on the GPS, then spend the next five minutes trying to change the lady’s accent to British. I’m one of those people with too much time on her hands, letting the wind take me to unproductive places where I mess with the settings of electronics. Then I remember that’s the whole point. The underarching theme of the trip, even. To sit still long enough to find a part of my personality I enjoy being around more, or become a completely different person who doesn’t dissect her personality into parts.
    “Wanna play the capital game?” Abram asks.
    “Yes,” I say, as quickly as I’ve ever agreed to anything. I used to play the same game with my dad—on our way to getting office supplies and Starbucks, not a big bowl of disgusting ice cream.
    “Mont—”
    “Helena,” I answer, giving him a girlish fist-pump of my own. The maneuver is missing most of his humor when I do it, but he laughs anyway. I hide my embarrassment by getting more serious than the nothing we both have at stake warrants and saying, “Norway.”
    He bites his lip, probably thinking we were quizzing each other on U.S. capitals only, and this is why I’m not someone people should root for.
    “Never