“What do you mean?”
Oliver got up from the booth—thank God, Red was free—and walked the four strides to the front, nudging Simon out of his way.
“Let me see,” he said to Arthur, holding his hand out for the phone with the directions.
Red was free and she wasn’t about to sit at this table any longer. She sidled along and out, moving toward the congregation at the front, perching on the corner of the sofa bed. Oh yes, now she remembered.
“Maddy, which side—”
“—No, it’s fine.” Oliver spoke across her, swiping his finger on the screen. “It’s redirected us. Just keep going down this road, it takes us past a small town called Ruby. Then it should be a left turn and we go south for a bit, toward the Carolina Sandhills National Wildlife Refuge,” he read from the screen. “Campsite is right around there. We should be just over ten minutes, everyone.”
“Perfect,” Reyna said, taking one hand off the wheel to rub at her eyes. “You getting tired?” Oliver asked her. “I can take over?” His voice was
different when he spoke to Reyna. Softer at the edges.
“No, I’m good,” she said, shooting him a quick smile over her shoulder, stretching wide across her light brown skin. It seemed almost a waste, that a smile that nice was meant for Oliver. That was a mean thought. He meant well. Everyone always meant well.
“You okay?” Arthur asked Red, vacating the passenger seat so Oliver could take it and coming to stand beside her.
She nodded. “RV feels smaller when you’ve been in it for ten-plus hours.” “I hear that,” he agreed. “We’ll be there soon. Or we could both get shit-
faced like Simon and we won’t care anymore.”
“I’m not shit-faced,” Simon said from behind Arthur. “I’m a very comfortable-amount drunk.”
“I’m not so sure Tomorrow Morning Simon will agree,” Red said.
“I’m not sure Now Maddy agrees either,” Maddy said, turning around and perching on her booth so she could see them all. “You don’t want to peak too soon. We have a whole week ahead of us.”
Simon finished off his beer in one large gulp, eyeballing Maddy as he did
so.
“Is it this left turn here?” Reyna asked, slowing down. “Oliver?”
“Sorry, um…” He stared down at the phone in his hands. “The GPS has
gone weird. I think I’ve lost service. I’m not sure where we are.”
“I need an answer,” Reyna said, idling to a stop just ahead of the intersection, hand hesitating over the turn signal.
A car horn sounded behind them. And again.
“Oliver?” Reyna said, her voice rising, the knuckles bursting out of her skin like bony hilltops as she held the wheel too hard.
“Um, yes, I think so. Left here,” he said, uncertainly.
But it was all Reyna needed; she pushed off and took the turn, the car behind screaming its displeasure as it zipped off across the intersection.
“Asshole,” she said under her breath.
“Sorry,” Oliver said. “Your phone isn’t working.” “Not you, the car,” Reyna clarified.
“I can’t get the map to work,” Oliver said, swiping furiously at the screen, closing the map app and reopening it. It was blank; a yellow background and
empty grid lines and nothing else. “It doesn’t know where we are. Zero bars. Hey, does anyone have any service?”
Red had left her phone over there on the table. But if she had zero bars, it could mean she had no signal, or it could mean that AT&T finally cut off her service after the last unpaid bill.
“I’ve got a bar,” Arthur said, his phone cupped in his hand. “Who’s your provider?” Oliver looked up at him.
“Verizon,” he said. “Hold on, I’ll get the route up.” He tapped at his screen. “Already had it loaded from when I was directing Red. Okay, so yeah we took the correct turn. You keep on this road for two miles, then it’s a right down Bo Melton Loop.”
“My phone is struggling too,” Maddy said, holding it up and shaking it, like that might spark some life back into it.
“We’re deep in the country now, folks,” Simon said, leaning on his words in an atrocious Southern accent, spliced with a touch of crazy old man. Sober Simon was normally quite good at accents. He prided himself on them, in fact, always guaranteed a part in the school play. You should hear his upper-class English gentleman.
Red watched out the wide windshield, a panoramic view of darkness, the two headlights carving up the night, bringing it into existence. There was no world anymore, only this RV and the six of them, and whatever the dark brought them.
Arthur made a small noise: a groan in the back of his throat as he stared down at his screen. Red stood up, looking over his shoulder to see what it was. He glanced back at her and cleared his throat. Maybe she was standing too close.
“Looks like I just lost service too,” he said, right as Red’s eyes registered the zero bars at the top of the screen.
“Shit,” Oliver hissed, tapping Reyna’s phone again, like he could make it work through sheer force of will. If anyone could, a Lavoy could.
“It’s okay,” Arthur said to him, “I still have the route up, just can’t see where we are on it. We’ll have to look for road signs.”
“Old-school navigation,” Reyna commented.
“Let me help,” Simon said, shuffling over to Arthur and Red, crowding them. “I’m good at maps.”
“You say you’re good at everything,” Red said.
“I am good at everything,” Simon answered. “Except being humble.”
There was no one else on the road. No passing headlights, no red glow of brake lights up ahead. Red stared out the windshield, concentrated.
“When’s the turn?” Reyna asked.
“Not yet,” Red answered, her eyes now following the highlighted road on Arthur’s screen, no blue dot to guide them, trying to match it with the darkness outside.
“Wouldn’t trust Red with directions,” Maddy said. “Hey.”
“Well, I mean, it’s not like you’re ever on time, is it?”
Red leaned back to look at Maddy perching on the booth, head resting on the bed of her knuckles. “I’ll have you know,” she said, “that everyone else was later than me this morning. I was first by like ten whole minutes.”
Maddy looked sheepish, biting one lip. “What?”
“Nothing.”
Red knew it wasn’t nothing. “Maddy, what?”
“I, um, I told you we were meeting at our house at nine. But I told everyone else we were meeting at ten.”
“You told me a whole hour earlier?” Red said, and why did it sting that she had? It was a lie, yes, but it was a considerate lie. Maddy knew Red would be late: she didn’t know all the reasons why, but she knew the end result and that was the same, wasn’t it?
“So technically, you were fifty minutes late and everyone else was on time.”
“I missed the bus,” Red said, which wasn’t true: she spent the last of her change on her dad’s favorite cereal and then walked the whole way, bag wheeling behind her.
“Ha, look, that road’s called Wagon Wheel Road,” Simon snorted, pointing at the screen.
“Is that the right I make?” Reyna asked, hand darting to the turn signal, though there was no one to signal for.
No, it wasn’t here.
“No, no, no,” Arthur said quickly. “It’s the next one. I think.” Reyna sped up again, following the road as it curved around. “Wagon Wheel.” Simon was still chuckling to himself. “Here, this right,” Oliver said, taking charge. “Turn, Reyna.”
“I’m turning,” she said, the faintest trace of irritation in her voice. Too many cooks. Which made Reyna, what? A spoon? The Lavoys had fancy spoons at their house: pearly handles and no stains.
There was a new sound, joining with the wind as it rushed against the sides of the RV: a rasping noise beneath them. The road was growing rougher, gravelly, the RV lurching as it rolled down. There were no more yellow markings, no more my lane and your lane, and from the light of the high beams Red could see rows and rows of trees standing either side, silent sentinels on the dead-of-night road.
She felt watched, which was stupid; trees didn’t have eyes. But neither did doors, yet her mom used to stick googly ones on Red’s so she felt safe in her bed in the dar— No, stop, she needed to concentrate on where they were going.
“Looks like we’re in the middle of nowhere,” Maddy commented from her perch, cupping her hands around her eyes so she could look out the side window.
“As is the campsite, so we’re good,” Oliver replied. The RV staggered as it hit a pothole.
Arthur was chewing his lip, eyes narrowed behind his glasses. “I think it’s left here,” he said, not sure, not loud enough to reach Reyna.
“Left, left here!” Simon didn’t have the same problem. But Reyna didn’t listen, didn’t trust the drunk one.
“It’s left,” Red said.
“You sure?” Oliver asked her, but Reyna had already pulled the RV into it, and the road wasn’t even paved anymore, just dirt and rocks, dust kicking up into the headlights. “This can’t be right, let me look at the map.” He snapped his fingers for Arthur to pass his phone over. “Reyna, turn around.”
“I can’t turn around!” she said, more than a hint of irritation in her voice now: a full underlayer. “This road is way too narrow and this RV is way too big.”
“Where are we?” Red asked Arthur, leaning across to see, like it made any difference.
“I think we’re here somewhere.” He pointed at the screen. “McNair Cemetery Road. Maybe.”
“That’s definitely wrong,” Oliver said. “We have to turn ba—” “—I can’t!” Reyna shot him a look.
“Is there a turn?” Red nudged Arthur.
“Wait, I think there’s a left soon,” he said, zooming in to the mouth of the small road on his phone. “Might circle us back to that other road.” He glanced at Red and she nodded.
“For fuck’s sake,” Oliver said, one of his knees rattling against the dashboard. “We wouldn’t have gone the wrong way if I was directing.”
“This is stressful,” Maddy said, her hands buried in her loose hair. “We should have just flown and rented a condo like everyone else from school is.”
A flush in Maddy’s cheeks as she realized what she’d said, their eyes meeting for half a second. Red was the reason they didn’t fly and rent a condo like everyone else. That was why Maddy came up with the RV idea. Way cheaper—just gas and spending money. Come on, it will be fun. It was all Red’s fault.
“Just keep going,” Red said to Reyna, blocking everyone else out.
“I don’t see a left turn.” Reyna leaned closer to the wheel, straining to see. As they followed the corner around, the headlights got lost in the woods, recoiling as they bounded off some body of water: a creek hiding somewhere
behind the trees.
“Where’s the left turn?” Reyna pushed forward.
“There!” Simon pointed out the windshield. “It’s here. Go left.”
“Sure?”
Red glanced down at the map in Arthur’s hands. This was it. “Yes,” she said. “Down there.”
“Doesn’t even look like a real road,” Oliver said as they peeled down it, dirt and gravel loud against the wheels.
It was narrower, tighter, the trees pressing in on them, barring the way with low-hanging branches that scraped the top of the RV.
“Keep going,” Red said. Her fault that the others were here and not on a nice plane tomorrow instead, with all their other friends.
“I’ve lost the map,” Arthur said, blank grid lines taking over his screen. “Keep going,” she said.
“Not like we have a choice,” Oliver retorted.
The trees broke away from the road, cutting their losses, giving way to low-lying scrubland and long grass on either side.
“Is it a dead end?” Oliver asked, staring out the front. “Keep going,” Red said.
“Pretty sure it’s a dead end,” Oliver decided, though none of them could see. “Reyna, it’s wide enough here, you can turn around and head back.”
“Okay.” Reyna gave in, pushing her foot against the brake. The RV slowed, rattling against the barely-there road.
A sharper sound, like a crack, splitting the night in half. “What was that?” Simon asked.
The RV hitched, drooping down at the front left side, Red stumbling into Arthur as it did.
“Fuck,” Oliver said, staring at Reyna over there on the sunken side, slamming his fist into the dashboard. “I think we just punctured a tire.”
