Chapter 2

The next major event that led to our grand road trip took place the day after graduation. The whole campus was celebrating, but I was only an onlooker. I stormed to the side of the boy’s dorm and pounded on a familiar window. “Benny, open this stupid window.”

The window unlatched and the blinds were pulled up, but instead of Benny, his roommate, Dan, faced me. “Ro? What are you doing here this late?”

“I need to talk to Benny… is he there?”

“He just went to the shower ten minutes ago… you can wait if you’d like.”

“Thanks,” I growled as I leaped over the ledge and perched myself on Benny’s bed. Technically, we weren’t allowed to mix genders in dorm rooms… but technically they can’t do anything- I’ve graduated. Five minutes of awkward silence and fake busyness passed before Benny burst through the door, clad in matching, plaid pajamas. “Ro!” He exclaimed, grabbing a towel and trying to cover his already clothed body.

“Chill, it’s just me,” I rolled my eyes and snatched the towel away from him, seeing it was unnecessary. “Matching pajamas?”

“Shut up,” he muttered.

“It’s even better because they’re plaid…”

“Alright, that’s it!” he swung a punch at me, which I easily dodged.

“Oh, it’s on, pretty boy!” I stood up and held up my fists at ready positions, circling him.

“Ok, ok break it up, you two,” Dan butted in, getting in between us. “I don’t want to see my little roommate beaten to a pulp by some girl.”

“Excuse me?”

I high-fived his roommate, thinking this Dan wasn’t so bad after all.

“Alright, enough of this. Why are you here, Ro?” Benny asked, rubbing his arm even though I never landed a punch on him. He was probably just trying to comfort his ego.

“To beat you up,” I smirked.

He gave me a famous Benny look, which translated as, “I don’t believe you for one second, now fess up.” I felt like a guilty child and Benny was my scolding mother. The comparison was disturbingly accurate.

“Can we go outside?” I asked, nodding towards the window. He nodded and saluted Dan before hopping over the ledge with me.

“Ready to talk now?” He asked me.

I hugged myself. “I’m ready.”

“Good, go ahead.”

“No, I mean I’m ready… Let’s go. I’m ready to run away.”

Benny lost his balance slightly. “Wait, what?”

“C’mon. We have everything planned, I have my bus. So let’s go!”

“Whoa, hold on there, Rose.” He paused and cocked his head, as if fully studying me for the first time that night. “What happened?”

“What do you mean?” I asked, suddenly finding my shoeless feet fascinating.

He grasped me by the shoulders and forced me to look up at him. “Tell me.”

Despite myself, I felt tears sting the back of my eyes. “It’s nothing.”

Benny jostled my shoulders and squeezed. It hurt. “Bull crap. What happened?”

I shook myself free and pushed him back, feeling this overwhelming sense of anger bubble up inside me, coursing violently through each vein. “They didn’t come, ok?”

“What are you talking about?”

I forced myself to swallow, although the task burned. “They didn’t show… They didn’t take the effort to see their own daughter graduate college.”

That shut Benny up. “And to top it all off, ready to hear the icing on the cake? My parents have separated. Yup, just like that… They’re not living with each other anymore, and they don’t even bother to tell me.”
            “Ro, I’m so-” Benny tried to pull me into a hug, but I wasn’t ready to be comforted just yet.

I pushed him back again, maybe a bit too forcefully, and ran my fingers through my hair. “How can they do this to me? How can they…. It’s so selfish…” I leaned against the dorm building and dragged my hand down my face. “I’m so selfish.” I sank to the ground and hugged my knees to my chest. Benny followed and sat next to me. “I’m so selfish… and they don’t consider the consequences.” I sniffed and leaned my head against the wall, turning towards Benny. “I called, after the ceremony, after we all threw our caps in the air. I called my mom, but she didn’t pick up. She called back today and I asked where she was. She told me she honestly had no idea what the date was and completely forgot. But she never bought tickets in the first place… So, I was just never a priority. Then I asked about dad and she said… she said,” I paused and swallowed again, hoping that would get rid of the urge to cry. It only made the pain in my throat worse. “She said they split three months ago because my dad was feeling held back from his full potential. It’s always been his dream to work on Wall Street… I guess, he’ll be living that dream now.”

Benny pulled me into his shoulder. “Go ahead and cry. Even college graduates can cry.”

“I won’t, Benny, I refuse,” I whispered. My words said one thing, but my body said another. Soon Benny’s shoulder was soaked with salty tears and my eyes and throat felt raw.

“Life sucks,” he stated simply. It was the perfect thing to say.

I looked up from his shoulder. “So can we go?”

He bit his lip in concentration. “But the money… It’s going to cost a lot.”

“I have a stash hidden.”

“Ha, whatever! You’re just as poor as me.”

I shook my head. “No, I’m serious. Occasionally I would ask my dad for money- for gas, or groceries, or nonexistent field trips. He always sends a couple hundred more than needed so I’ve been saving up.”

“You’re joking.”

I laughed a little, a weak and pathetic laugh but a laugh nonetheless. “I’m completely serious. I’ve been doing this for four years so I think we have a good starting point.”

“I would say!”

 

And thus we began planning thoroughly our route, food necessities, sleeping conditions, anything we could think of. We were not satisfied until four in the morning, when we departed for the night. The leaving date was in three days- after we’ve checked out of our dorms and finished our jobs, etc. My Volkswagen bus model T2 was the most crucial player in our design. She was originally my grandparents’- when my grandma passed away two years after my grandpa, she bequeathed the bus to me. The old piece of junk seemed beyond repair and my parents had a good laugh, reassuring me that they would get rid of “that pile of rubbish” and buy me a proper car. I refused.

Looking back I don’t know why I didn’t let them sell it. Maybe out of sentiment for my grandparents, maybe because it was a unique and pretty awesome car. Most likely just out of spite. Whatever the reason, I’m glad I kept it and got it in working condition again. Her name is Jerry. Why? Another mystery, but that’s what my grandma called her so that’s what I call her. And why not, right?

The day following that night outside the dorms, I gave Jerry a good wash, inside and out. I finally got her pale, yellow color looking like it used to. Gradually, we packed our belongings inside, for example our bedding, clothing, nonperishable foods, coolers for the perishable ones, toiletries, books. A lot of what I listed were roped to the top of the bus and covered with a tarp, in case it rained and to keep the car uncluttered inside.

Benny kept the option of staying back open. “You don’t have to run, Ro,” he would say. Or, “Are you sure you want to go? Maybe you should talk it through with your mom.” If I didn’t know any better, I would say he was losing his nerve. Benny didn’t really have a need to run away, his home situation wasn’t perfect, but it was better than mine. He had a complete family, maybe a little too complete, with a mom and dad, five older brothers and two twin younger sisters. He has told me in the past that plenty of times he felt overlooked and forgotten, which is why he planned so many social events and poured all of his time and energy into friendships. “It’s hard to compete with them all,” he told me once, “so I don’t even try anymore.” It wasn’t exactly a reason to escape them, but I would never think he would particularly want to go back.

“Ok, let’s see if we have everything,” Benny said, standing in the middle of the bus the day before we were going to leave. “Clothes, check. Granola bars, check. Water, check. Phone chargers, check.” The list went on and I rolled my eyes.

“You’re so lame.”

“I’m making sure we’re prepared!” He continued the list but stopped halfway through, dropping the clipboard to his side. “Rose, are you sure you want to do this?”

“Yes!” I shouted, getting flustered. “Why do you keep asking?”

He shrugged. “There are plenty of ways to escape something like this… Getting a job, getting an apartment… You know, grown up stuff.”

I grimaced. “Ew, grown ups.”

He chucked. “It’s appalling, I know. But we’re college graduates. Don’t you think there are other, mature ways to handle this?”

“We’re viewing this trip differently,” I commented, sitting down on one of the benches inside of the bus. “You think I’m running away and trying to never see anything I don’t want to see ever again.” 

“Is that not what you’re doing?” He asked.

This time I laughed. “No… Sure, the trip came at a good time, but now that we are free from college obligations, I want to go out and see the world! I guess it’ll have to start in the US… but I just want to get out. See new things, be immersed in new cultures. Try to figure out what to do next.” I paused and studied him, “Why do you not want to go?”

“I do want to go!” Benny replied hastily. He shrugged and fiddled with his clipboard. “I’m just worried about you.”

“Don’t worry about me. I’m a strong girl… I could beat you up any day!”

Frowning, he squinted at his clipboard and muttered, “Sometimes I really hate you.” I laughed and let him concentrate on his lists.

 

Finally we hit the road. Waking up at 7 in the morning, we got an early start and said goodbye to the campus we called our home for the past four years. I drove, Benny sat in the passenger seat mindlessly strumming his guitar. I’m not one to properly critique since I can’t play the instrument, but he’s quite terrible at it. Although, Benny would get snappy if I called it, ‘it.’ The guitar’s name is Deirdre, named after the Irish myth of a beautiful woman with a love story more tragic than Juliet’s. Benny apparently really enjoyed the story and thought that his guitar was the most beautiful and glorious thing he has ever seen, thus he dubbed it Deirdre. I called him a dork when he told me that.

“Let me know when you want me to drive,” Benny finally spoke up.

I scoffed. “There’s no way I’m letting you drive Jerry.”

“You’re too protective over your car.”

“And you’re too protective over that,” I shot back, nodding to his guitar.

“Her name is Deirdre!” he retorted. I laughed to myself, deciding that I knew Benny too well. I’ve had Jerry since I was a Junior in high school, and in those six years, Benny has driven her once. And I vowed I would never let him behind the wheel ever again. Benny pulled out a map of the United States. “Ok,” he started. “We’ll be out of Florida in about four hours. Any place you want to stop inside the Sunshine State?”

“I think I’ve had enough of Florida… Although I wouldn’t mind seeing Tallahassee.”

Benny marked the city with his highlighter. “From there we decided to hit Atlanta, Georgia, yes?”

I shrugged. “Sure, but if anything looks cool on the way we should make a pit stop.”

“And then we’ll head up the east coast to Maine.”

I scoffed. “Maine? Why the heck do you want to go to Maine?”

“Apparently it’s a beautiful state!” Benny defended hurriedly. “Plus it has great lobster.”

“Ok fine, we can go to Maine.”

“And then we’ll go along the northern border states. Niagara Falls?”

“Niagara Falls,” I consented.

“The question is, should we head down the west coast or try to see some of the land locked states. Y’know, the bread basket and all?”

“To be honest Washington state and Oregon and Montana don’t really thrill me. Maybe after like Michigan we can head south a bit and drive across to California.”

“I’ll pencil in our route so we can erase it if anything changes,” he mumbled to himself.

I snorted. “You need to be spontaneous sometimes… enough with the checklists and the maps and the routes. Let’s just see where the road takes us!”

Benny shot me a glare. “I am very spontaneous…. I came up with this trip, didn’t I? Plus we gotta make sure we’re on the right roads…. We don’t want to accidentally head back to school do we?”

“Fine… keep your precious maps. Point taken.”

He smirked at me and continued strumming Deirdre. After about an hour of listening to him practice We Are Young over and over again, we turned on the radio- to my absolute relief. “If we’re going to be living with each other in such close quarters for the next three months, let’s make some ground rules,” I finally said.

“What kind of ground rules?”

“For starters, you need to learn more songs on Deirdre.”

Benny nodded. “Rule accepted.”

“No smacking gum.”

“Or making those gross popping noises.” Benny thought for a minute. “No passing gas.”

I rolled my eyes. “You’re so immature.”

“That includes burping.”

My response was belching loudly. One of my many talents was being able to burp on command. It also happened to be one of Benny’s fetishes.

“I hate you.” We lapsed into silence again, nodding along to the radio. “This could get boring…” Benny noted. He hated being idle.

“Find something to do then.”

“We could play the alphabet game!”

“Mm… Maybe later.”

“Maybe later,” he repeated in a whisper. “We should get a book to read aloud to the driver.”

I shrugged. “Which book?”

Benny grew silent again, the question being too difficult. “Want me to drive?”

“No, I’m good for now,” I replied, promising to myself that I would put off Benny driving for as long as I could. He sat staring out the window for a few more minutes before sighing loudly, giving me a pained look, and finally moving to the back. I left him to do what he pleased. Two hours later I called him back up. “We’re almost to Tallahassee, can you read me some directions?”

“Check out the back when you get a chance,” Benny smirked at me. I groaned, envisioning the mess he left behind. Usually, he’s the one that’s paranoid and I’m throwing my junk to leave wherever it lands. But in Jerry, it’s different. Benny read me the directions and I followed until we arrived at our state’s capital. It was about eleven in the morning. Parking in a hotel’s parking lot, we threw our backpacks over our shoulders and left to explore the city. The mess I thought Benny created was actually remodeling. He turned the last bench into a makeshift bed with his pillow propped up against one window and mine propped against the other. This meant, when we slept, my head would also be where his feet would be resting. But hey, it was better than nothing. The next row, the seats behind the driver and passenger chairs, was the “free time station,” as he dubbed it. He stacked books, coloring/sketch books, and our laptops on the floor, his guitar resting on the bench, and boxes of granola bars, the coolers, and card boxes underneath the seat. He also had a bit of fun decorating. He took my Indian print, thin tapestry and pinned it to the ceiling, adding a bit of character to the place. He also took the string of lights I had in my dorm room and strung it around the tapestry. We wouldn’t plug it into our power source very often, just to save battery, but it was a nice look. I was impressed with his work.

“Alright,” Benny announced, taking a camcorder out of his pack and putting it up to his eye. The camera made a beeping noise and the light turned on. “Adventure numbero uno. Where are we, Ro?”

“You dork,” I laughed to myself.

“Answer the question.”

“We are in Tallahassee!” I threw my hands up in the air and did a little jig.

He flipped the camera around so it was facing him. “Two best friends on a little trip around the glorious USA.”

“The land of the free!” I chimed in.

“Let’s see what’s in store,” he turned off the camera and put it back in his pack. “Just thought I’d videotape what goes on.”

“Brilliant idea!”