86 Days Until Tour June 18th
THE CAR BLINKS and beeps and I stare at the dashboard like it’s the operating system of a spaceship. The last car I drove myself was the beat-up truck my grandfather gave me when I left Wisconsin for LA There were no tricks to getting it to start, aside from revving the engine and praying a lot until it caught. The Prius has an On/Off button that should be fairly self-explanatory but somehow isn’t.
Finally, with my foot on the brake, the keys in the ignition, a press of the button, and a whispered prayer, the Pree purrs to life. I glance quickly at the upstairs windows as I slowly back out of the driveway. I left a note for Tess and Sam on the fridge, but they were out late, and I doubt they’ll be rallying anytime soon.
I woke up craving eggs and bacon. And pancakes. So far, Sammy and Tess have gotten all the groceries at a market in town, and I’m hoping I’ll be able to find it on my own. The car bumps and lurches along the winding dirt road, feathery branches scraping at the window.
I expected to feel worse this morning. Last night, after the girls went out, I sat on the back deck for hours, watching the stars blink on and thinking more about my album. I was getting nowhere and gave up around midnight, stumbling upstairs to my room and collapsing onto the creaky twin bed. I slept hard and woke up seven hours later, in the same position, fresh and rested and ready to go. Even my body felt different, as if my bones had been shifted, my muscles stretched and realigned until all the usual touring-and-traveling aches and pains were gone.
The dirt road forks off and I turn onto pavement. The trees are thicker here and the houses closer to one another and the road. There’s a small schoolhouse, and a church, and a convenience store with a single red gas pump out back. Across from the harbor is a long, low building with a swinging sign, MCCONNELL’S FOOD AND SUNDRIES.
I park and collect my bags from the front seat. There was a stash of canvas totes in the hallway closet, branded with logos from farms, the library, a bank. I grabbed a handful, along with a baseball cap I found hanging on a hook—faded blue with the red outline of a lobster. Now I pull my hair through the back of the cap and settle the hat low on my forehead. I dig around for my favorite comically oversize sunglasses and ease them on. The hat-and-shades routine hardly ever works anymore, but I still try.
I decide to make a list and I reach into my pocket for my phone, only to remember that I chucked it into the ocean. This morning, in a frenzied panic, I had snuck into Tess’s room and sent a quick text to Terry asking him to FedEx me a new one. Now that I’ve seen the tabloids, I feel disarmingly disconnected. It was a jarring reminder that even though Lily Ross the person is on vacation, Lily Ross the business is still chugging along. On a typical day, by the time I’ve been awake for an hour, I’ve grown numb to the endless beeping of alerts, texts, and e-mails. I’ve also talked to Terry ten times, my parents twice. No wonder I feel so clearheaded, I realize. I haven’t spent this much time alone in years.
In the market, I settle on a quick list of ingredients and begin to make my rounds. At the deli counter is a pair of girls in denim shorts, maybe nine or ten years old. They’re daring each other to do something, their eyes glancing furtively at the ice cream freezers. I stand behind them, knowing what will happen when they turn around. I brace myself for squeals, iPhones, maybe even questions about the magazines and Jed.
But the strangest thing happens. The girls look up at me and I smile. They freeze. Before I can say hello, they’re gone, giggling and scampering down the aisles and out through the chiming front door. I’m not sure if they recognized me or were simply scared that they’d been caught.
At the register, I wait behind a handsome young dad, his three little kids clamoring for more treats and hanging off the cart. He’s so preoccupied with them that he doesn’t glance in my direction. Then the middle-aged woman behind the counter swipes my card without noticing my name. I leave the store laughing, lugging the bags over my shoulder, and when my sunglasses slip off my nose, I don’t even put them back on.
“What the hell were you thinking?”
The screech of tires is still ringing in my ears as I gingerly climb from the front seat. There’s a puff of steam coming from underneath the hood of the Prius and my fingers are trembling. One minute, I was cruising through an intersection, almost home, windows down with the smell of the ocean filling up the car. The next, I was careening toward the passenger door of a pickup truck, slamming on the brakes too late and whipping against the steering wheel.
Tess is going to actually kill me. Her precious Pree, practically her third best friend, is wedged beneath the bed of a rusty old truck. The truck’s driver is angrily prying open his door and also appears ready to actually kill me. So at least when Tess finds me, I’ll already be dead.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m so sorry.” I walk around to the front of the car, squinting to see and not-see at the same time. The car and the truck are locked together like pieces of a life-size puzzle, and there’s some kind of ominous-looking fluid pooling between them on the ground. “I didn’t see you.”
“Well, that’s a relief, I guess.” The driver, a guy around my age in dirty shorts and a pale blue T-shirt, walks to the back of his truck, surveying the wreckage. “If you’d seen me or that stop sign you just blew through, I’d say you might need more than a new prescription.”
It takes me a long moment to realize he’s talking about my sunglasses, which I’d stashed on the top of my hat. “Oh.” I pull off the glasses and wave them. “These? They’re not prescription.”
We’re in the middle of an intersection, which, I now see, is a four-way stop. Another car, some kind of old-model Subaru, creeps up behind us, and the guy waves the driver on. Then he crouches between our cars, peering up at the underside of his truck, before glancing down at the puddle.
“They’re actually just sunglasses,” I explain, now wiping my lenses on the front pocket of my overalls, as if that might help. “For the sun? I got them from a street vendor in Rome.”
I hear myself still talking and want to climb under the smoking hood and stay there until he drives away or I melt, whichever happens fastest. Sunglasses? For the sun? It’s embarrassing to admit, but there are times when it’s easier to be recognized. Times like these, for example, when it would give me an excuse to stop talking, or at least start talking about something else.
“You don’t say,” the guy grumbles from the other side of the hood. He stands and scratches his upper arm, revealing a hint of one tanned tricep. I feel my face going red, which is annoying—I’m not in the mood for muscles and blushing. I glance away from him and up at the bed of his truck. It’s stacked high with long wire crates, tangles of mesh nets, and a pile of oblong buoys. Tucked between two empty traps is a long yellow surfboard, its rounded nose jutting out over the tailgate.
“You surf?” I ask as he stands, waving off the steam and lightly pressing on the bumper. “I mean, obviously. I took a lesson once. My friend wants to learn this summer. It’s on her summer bucket list. Not that she’s dying. She just … it’s something she wants to do.”
The guy is still carefully inspecting the hood of my car, which has finally stopped smoking. There’s a gnarly looking dent in the bumper and a pattern of scratches near the front, and I’m reminded of Tess and the whole killing-me scenario, which, given the way this conversation is going, now seems like a welcome alternative.
He holds out his hand and it takes me a minute to understand that he’s asking for my keys.
“Are you a mechanic?” I ask. I realize there’s little chance he’s going to
