Indigo Road (3 page)

I threw my
arms around both my parents at the same time, not wanting them to
see the sheen in my eyes as I whispered my thanks. They’d done so
much for
me and Alex
already, and I was grateful I’d won the parent
lottery.

We watched TV
before heading to bed, the mood a little mixed. Dad was excited for
me, but Mom was sad I was leaving. I sensed Julie was too and I
wasn’t looking forward to saying goodbye in the morning. We said
our goodnights and Mom hugged me twice as hard and twice as long as
normal before I headed for my room.

After a quick
shower and packing the cash into my duffel, I laid on my bed for
hours, staring at the ceiling. I was
nervous,
but my skin tingled with
a sense of adventure and eagerness to be underway, the whole
spectrum of emotions running through my veins making it impossible
to sleep.

I was still staring at my ceiling when my
phone beeped with a text. Alex.

Alex:
You awake?

Me:
Yeah, can’t sleep.

Alex:
Wanna hit the road?

Me:
You serious?

Alex:
Yeah, goodbyes suck
anyway.

Me:
I’ll be ready in ten.

It was unlike
Alex
to leave without saying anything,
but saying goodbye to his parents would be pretty tough on all of
them. I quickly dressed in my traveling clothes—shorts and a
T-shirt—and wrote a note to Mom and Dad. They’d understand. I asked
them to check on the Mayburys, just to make sure they understood
why we left early.

I dropped my
bag by the front door, then went back down the hall and slipped
into Julie’s room.

Crouching by
her bed, I shook her shoulder gently. “Hey, Jules,” I whispered.
“Jules.”

“Hmm… what?” she slurred.

“
I’m leaving
now.”

Julie opened
her eyes and looked at the clock. Four a.m. “Now?” she asked,
rubbing her eyes and sitting up.

“
Alex says
goodbyes suck so we’re making a break for it, but I wanted to see
you before I left. Look after yourself, okay, and don’t give Mom
and Dad too hard a time. They’re the best parents in the
world.”

Julie threw
her arms around me and sobbed softly into my shoulder. Her long
hair smelled of her familiar strawberry shampoo. I hugged her hard
and stroked her back. I’d miss the little Buttface.

Her voice was
soft
when she spoke
against
my shoulder. “While
you’re finding yourself, can I have your room?”

ALEX
PICKED me up on the side of the road with a wide
grin and a travel mug of coffee.

“
Hey,” I
said, climbing
in
the passenger side and throwing my duffel in the back of
Maude. I couldn’t see Alex’s bag and I wondered briefly where he’d
stashed it.

“Horse. Buckle up.”

Alex headed
down my unlit street. The neighbors’ houses were shrouded in
darkness, too early for anyone to be awake. In the dim light of the
van, I could see Alex’s smile becoming wider as he
drove.

“Hey, I won the coin toss. I thought I was
supposed to be driving,” I said, my voice full of mock
annoyance.

“
You can
drive after breakfast. That will still be a full day, considering
it’s only four thirty a.m. Do you care where we stop?”

“
Nope, as
long as it’s on the way out of here.” I smiled, thinking of the
possibilities the open road had in store for us.

We traveled
in comfortable silence, the smile on my face refusing to go away,
but Alex’s diminished over the next few miles and I could tell he
was worrying about something. I glanced at him a few times, hoping
he’d snap out of it, but all I got was a forced grin in
return.

“What’s wrong?” I asked when it became clear
he wasn’t going to tell me.

“Nothing really. Just thinking that maybe we
did the wrong thing by not saying goodbye. Mom’s going to be
upset.”

After
clearing the city of Fort Wayne, we were driving along on US 30
West, heading toward the Illinois state line.

“
Did you talk
to them much? My folks said goodbye last night and I was worried
this morning would be awkward waiting to say goodbye again. It was
a good decision to leave without having to go through that… for
everyone.”

Alex’s
parents were a little
“stifling,” Alex’s
word, not mine. He was their only child, and while they wanted only
the best for him, it was hard for them to let go. I suspected that
they agreed to this road trip only because he was an adult and
could legally do what he liked anyway. My parents’ influence would
have played a big part in their decision too.

Alex and I
had been best buds since junior high
. It
wasn’t an instant friendship. Alex was tall and geeky. He stood out
for all the wrong reasons, and
school
could be a nasty place,
especially for the new kid who towered above everyone else. I was
the typical jock, playing sports and dating the cheerleaders. It
wasn’t until one day after school when were put in detention
together that we started talking and discovered a mutual dislike
for our science teacher, Mr. Ellam. We also realized Alex lived
around the corner from me and we walked home together that
afternoon, chatting the whole time. Because of Alex’s six foot four
height, he was encouraged to try out for the basketball team, but
he kept putting it off because he’d never played and had the
coordination of a doped-up lab rat. I had a hoop attached to the
front of the garage and I invited him over to practice. I
discovered the geeky new kid in school was actually pretty
sarcastic and really funny. After a few weeks of hanging out with
each other, we became inseparable.

“
Did you see
Julie this morning?” Alex’s question brought me out of my
memories.

“
Yeah, I woke
her up; I had to say
goodbye,
otherwise
she’d track me down and follow
us across the country. The last thing I want is my little sister
tagging along.” My words might have been said in jest, but Alex
knew how much I would miss her.

Alex’s eyebrows drew together.

“
If it
helps,” I continued, “I wrote Mom and Dad a letter, asking them to
check on your folks this morning. I’m sure your
mom will be fine. Maybe after breakfast you can call
her.”

The
stress lines in his forehead smoothed out as he
looked at me, appreciation shining in his light blue eyes. “Thanks.
I’ll call them when we’ve stopped and make sure Mom’s
okay.”

BREAKFAST
TURNED out to be about three hours later in the resort town of
Cedar Lake, Indiana, an hour’s drive southeast of Chicago. From
here we’d head north, bypassing Illinois’s most popular city. Alex
made a bakery run while I grabbed the coffees from Starbucks. Once
we were stocked up with food, Alex drove to the lake the town was
named after and parked Maude in the shade of the trees. He backed
in so we could sit in the back of the van with the doors open and
we looked over the flat stretch of glassy water as we ate. There
were a few fishing boats about, and numerous houses could be seen
on the other side of the massive expanse of natural lake. Almost
silent on this side, the only sounds were the odd cry of a green
heron or whooping crane as it dove into the water to catch a fish,
and the wind rustling softly through the reeds on the bank. Any
noises from the boat engines were too far away to be
heard.

I was dozing
in the back of Maude, my legs dangling over the rear bumper, my
stomach full of croissant and coffee when Alex’s voice woke me.
“Get up, I want to show you what Dad and I did over the last couple
of days.”

I moaned, wanting to sleep a bit longer.

“
C’mon, move
your ass,” Alex ordered, slapping my thigh. After Alex had
spoken
to his folks, his enthusiastic
mood had returned and I was glad his parents were okay with him
leaving early. A little disappointed that they missed their goodbye
maybe, but they reassured him they understood and wished him safe
travels.

Placing my
feet on the grassy ground, I stood and yawned, stretching my arms
up high over my head. Alex’s eyes followed the lift of my T-shirt
that exposed a line of my skin, and his lips parted, letting out a
small breath.

Was he
checking me out? No, I shook my head at the absurdity of the
thought.

Alex rolled
his shoulders and set about undoing some latches at the base of the
mattress.

“
Here, check
this out. It’s super cool.” With a flick of his wrist, a long
wooden box rolled out from underneath the bed. It ran the length of
the mattress and was just as wide, with hinged compartments and
finger holes for lifting the lids placed strategically and covering
the entire platform. Once it reached its full length, extending out
the back of the van, two metal legs folded down, hitting the dirt
and keeping the drawer from toppling out.

Then, to my
surprise, Alex reached under the storage box and pulled out two
flat folding chairs. After unfolding them, he placed one on either
side like a dining table.

I picked my jaw up. “That’s fucking
awesome.”

“I know. Not only do we have a bedroom, but
we have a dining room too.”

Aware of
Alex’s eyes on me, I lifted various
lids
and I looked through the
compartments. Some held food: cans, dry goods, nonperishables.
There was a small compartment that held toilet paper and Alex’s
shaving kit, and another with a couple of towels and spare linens.
Still others held Alex’s clothes and shoes. That’s why I didn’t see
his bag when I first climbed into the van:
he’d
already packed his stuff
away. There were a few empty compartments, so I grabbed my bag and
started to unpack.

“
You made
this with your dad?” I was still a little awestruck after storing
my belongings. Everything worked so easily, even lifting the legs
and rolling it back under the mattress. No one would suspect it was
even there.

Alex smiled
proudly. “Yeah. It took us a couple of days to get the measurements
right and to make the box frame, but after that it was only a
matter of screwing on some hinges. The chairs we had in the storage
shed. Mom cleaned them up and Dad made sure there was a space to
store them too. But that’s not all…”

Alex climbed
into the back, to the wooden box that fit neatly behind the front
seats and in front the mattress. I crawled in beside him, wondering
what he was going to show me next. I’d seen the wide box before and
thought it was for storage, not bothering to look inside. It
was
a
storage chest, two-thirds of it anyway, but when Alex lifted the
lid on the last part, a small puff of cold air hit me in the
face.

“It’s a fridge?” I couldn’t believe my
eyes.

I peered
inside and saw a six-pack of beer, a block of cheese, bacon, a
dozen eggs, a half-gallon of milk, and a small loaf of bread. It
was insane. “It’s a fucking fridge!”

“
Awesome,
right?” Alex’s excited grin was firmly in place.

My heart
hammered with just
how
awesome it was. This was going to be the best
road trip ever. “You and your dad did this too?”

Alex shook
his head. “It came with the van, same with the overhead cupboards.
We only put the
underbed
storage in.”

“
If it
wasn’t
eight o’clock
in the morning, I’d suggest a beer to celebrate, but we can
celebrate later when we stop for the night,” I told him, closing
the lid of the fridge.

We lay on the
mattress side by side, staring at Maude’s roof as we talked
excitedly about the months to come. After a while a large yawn
drowned my buzz; the early morning start and lack of sleep were
definitely catching up with me.

“
You want to
stay for a while, get a couple hours’ sleep before hitting the road
again?” Alex asked, turning on his side to face me. Our eyes locked
and my breath caught in my throat.

I yawned once
more. “Probably a good idea.” I paused and listened to the noises,
or lack thereof, coming from outside. “It’s quiet here, can we
leave the door open for the breeze?”

Alex sat up and looked out the small
curtained window. “There’s no one around, I can’t see why not.” He
lay back down next to me.

I fluffed the
pillow under my head and turned on my side, facing my best friend
and the person who would be my yearlong travel partner. “We don’t
need anything, do we? I mean, we could live here and want for
nothing.”

Alex looked back at me, his sleepy blue eyes
filled with warmth. “I have everything I want right here.”

I was thinking the exact same thing as sleep
took me.

WE DIDN’T
travel much farther after our
midmorning
nap, and although I
couldn’t say exactly where we were, I knew we’d crossed the state
line into Illinois. I knew this only because while I was driving,
Alex ordered me to pull over so he could take a photo of the
Welcome to Illinois
sign. I asked why he wanted the photo. “So I can
put it on the
blog.
” He said this like I knew what he was talking about.
Apparently kitting out Maude wasn’t the only thing he’d been doing
in the week before we left. We were now the proud owners of a
travel blog, which Alex intended to update whenever we hit a spot
with free WiFi. I saw an awful lot of Starbucks in my near
future.