Here We Go Again, page 13
And when Logan asked her if she would consider ditching the binder in favor of more spontaneous detours, she had said yes.
But now it’s six in the morning, and they’re saying goodbye to the Grand Canyon, and Rosemary isn’t sure she can let go.
“I know you worked really hard on this binder,” Logan says in her new, gentle, trying-not-to-be-an-asshole voice. “And I’m honestly in awe of your ability to craft a perfect travel itinerary.”
Logan takes a cautious step closer to her. “How about this…? You’re still in charge of our daily schedule. You’re good at planning stops for gas and meals and diaper changes—”
“Hey!” Joe interjects indignantly.
“And you’ll have final approval over any and all detours. You just have to trust me a little. Can you do that?”
If Logan had asked for her trust a week ago, Rosemary would’ve laughed in her face, but now. She thinks about the Logan who tried to smooth her anxiety and the Logan who took care of her when she was sick. The Logan who apologized and owned her insecurities. The Logan who listened when she opened up about her dad and her mental health.
The Logan standing in front of her right now, trying to meet her halfway.
“I trust you,” Rosemary says.
Logan’s smile is wild and uncontained. “I knew she was still in there.”
“Who?”
“The girl who carried around a list of places she wanted to see someday.” Logan throws an arm around her shoulder. Rosemary takes in the view for a moment. The golden sweep of the Grand Canyon to the west, sun rising in the east, the pattern on Logan’s tropical shirt. It’s neon pink with yellow dinosaurs and orange palm trees, and it reminds her of the version of Logan who craved adventure, too.
“Fine!” Rosemary concedes. “We can throw out the itinerary for a few days. But then, it’s the fastest route to Maine.”
“Deal!”
“Maybe,” Joe adds.
“Throw that thing into the Grand Canyon and let’s roll!”
Rosemary takes a deep breath and holds the binder out in front of her. She turns toward the edge of the canyon.
“Whoa there!” Logan holds up both hands. “Throwing it into the Grand Canyon is a metaphor. This is a national park. You can’t litter. Just stick the binder under your seat or something.”
Joe hoots excitedly as they walk back to the van. Rosemary puts the binder under the passenger seat and Logan puts on her sunglasses with a smile. “Let’s go see some cool shit.”
* * *
They do see some cool shit.
Joe wants to see Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado, which is approximately a four-hour drive if they go straight there. But going straight there isn’t the plan.
With Logan behind the wheel as they leave the national park, they pull over three more times on the side of the road to take photos of the gorgeous sunrise, then drive north to Horseshoe Bend to see a U-shaped red rock in the middle of aquamarine water.
They start to head east, and Logan asks to stop at every roadside attraction, because who doesn’t want to see a giant stuffed buffalo? Rosemary agrees to most of the stops, and Logan buys her an iced coffee for her troubles.
They stop in the middle of nowhere to take a photo of real-life tumbleweed. They stop on the side of the road so Odie can bark at some majestic horses. They stop at a van with a cardboard stand that says, “Authentic Fry Bread $5.”
Here, Rosemary protests. “We are not eating food served out of a sketchy van!”
“Trust me?” Logan pouts. In the sunlight, her hazel eyes look almost golden. She smiles, and Rosemary feels something lift in her chest. It’s the same sensation she gets when airplanes take off: her own body, defying the laws of gravity.
And she does, so they do. It’s the best fry bread she’s ever tasted.
LOGAN
Hale is smiling at her from the passenger seat. They’re basically crushing this whole friendship truce.
She rolls down the windows and watches Hale’s braid get whipped around in the wind. Odie then climbs on top of Hale so he can stick his head out the window. “No, you dumb dog!” she squeals. “We’re the same size! You can’t sit on me!”
But he does sit on her, and eventually Hale stops fighting it. She even gives him the chin scritches he likes best. For the rest of the drive to Mesa Verde, Logan blasts her Gay Shit playlist, and Joe belts out every song, his face turned happily toward the fresh air.
“Come on, Hale. Sing with us!”
“I don’t sing,” Hale snaps. But then she starts bouncing her feet inside their heels, and Logan swears she hears her hum a little bit of Elton John.
* * *
It’s dinnertime when they arrive in Cortez, Colorado, so they go straight to a hole-in-the-wall family Mexican restaurant with a small outdoor patio for Odie. It’s the kind of place where the burritos are huge, and the margaritas are even huger.
As soon as they walk in the door, the hostess sees Joe and greets him in Spanish. Joe responds fluently, and it dawns on Logan that even though they’ve been in the diverse Southwest for a few days, this is the first time they’ve been somewhere that isn’t predominantly white. Joe probably noticed this days ago. Hale, too.
Joe and the hostess chat amiably as she slowly guides them to the patio. As she sets down their menus, Logan catches the word margarita being tossed around in conversation.
Logan wants to order the biggest margarita to celebrate a successful day of detours, but she pauses when she notices Hale cautiously fingering the menu. She leans across the table so the waitress won’t overhear. “Does it bother you?” she whispers. “When people drink alcohol around you?”
Hale looks perplexed by the question.
“I was going to order a marg, but I can abstain if that’s easier for you,” she clarifies. “Sober solidarity.”
Hale’s eyes go wide. “No one has ever asked me that before. But, uh, no. It doesn’t bother me.”
“Perfect! Then I’m getting the Muy Grande margarita. On the rocks, please.”
Joe holds up two fingers to indicate he wants the same thing.
“It does bother me when Joe drinks.” Hale raises her voice. “Because he knows it’s against doctor’s orders. It doesn’t mix well with his meds!”
Logan adopts Joe’s dramatic, pleading tone. “Rosemary, I’m dying whether I’m drunk or sober for it. Are you really going to deny a dying man this one small pleasure?”
“I don’t sound like that.” Joe frowns, and at the sight of his offended face wrinkles, Hale throws her head back and laughs, and Logan almost falls out of her chair in shock. It’s a real laugh, one that shakes her shoulders and makes her blue eyes water in the corners—the kind of laugh that can only happen when you feel safe with the people around you. The thought makes Logan feel warm inside, even before she starts drinking her fishbowl-sized margarita.
“Joe…?” Logan tries when he’s halfway through his drink and tortas. “There’s something I’ve been wondering…”
Joe’s expression is soft and open. “Ask me anything,” he invites with a huge margarita glass sloshing in his hand.
Logan leans forward. “Looking back at your life, do you have any regrets?”
She’s not entirely sure where this question comes from, but in her happily buzzed state, she’s suddenly desperate for an answer.
Joe burps. He’s a true lightweight these days. “I try not to dwell on the past too much.”
Logan pretends to study him through a monocle made up of her thumb and index finger. “Bullshit.”
He burps again.
“You don’t regret living in a crap town like Vista Summit for thirty years?” she presses.
“Or working sixty hours a week as a teacher?” Hale adds.
Joe contemplates this with a drunk man’s seriousness. “I only have one regret in my life, and it’s not teaching or living in Vista Summit.”
Logan slams down her drink. “One regret! What is it?”
Joe tries to look dignified in his wheelchair at the head of the table, but the salsa on his chin diminishes the effect. “That’s… personal.”
Thankfully, Hale looks equally outraged by this evasiveness. “You never told us you have a regret! What is it?”
He shakes his head.
“I threw out the binder, and Logan is trying not to be an asshole,” Rosemary argues like the debate champ she once was. “We’re all making compromises here, Joe. Tell us!”
“I think I’ll take this one to the grave, if it’s okay with you.”
“It’s not okay with me!” Logan and Hale shout in perfect harmony. They turn to look at each other. And even though Hale is perfectly sober, she still bursts out laughing again.
They spend the rest of dinner speculating wildly about Joe’s one regret. When they leave the restaurant, Logan feels warm and loose and floaty in a way that extends beyond the power of tequila.
The parking lot is dark as they walk to the Gay Mobile, and the sky above Colorado is speckled with stars. “The universe feels infinite tonight,” she whispers as she looks up.
“Okay, no more margaritas for you,” Hale teases. But for the first time in forever, Logan doesn’t feel like she got drunk to outrun her busy brain. She feels at peace with her thoughts tonight.
Hale guides Logan into the passenger seat, helps Joe into the van, and drives them to Best Western, where the only available room has two queens. But when they get upstairs with all their things, Hale wordlessly puts her pillow on the bed next to Logan.
They share the bed, and Logan falls asleep to the sound of Hale’s restless legs against the starchy sheets. Everything feels infinite tonight.
* * *
“Enough is enough!”
Hale glances up from where she’s fiddling with the straps on her absurd gladiator-style wedges the next morning. “What?” she asks innocently, as if she’s not performing bondage on her ankles.
“You cannot keep wearing heels in National Parks! I won’t allow it!”
She scowls. “I don’t recall you having any authority over what I wear.”
“I’m seizing authority. This is a footwear coup.” Logan stomps over to the two massive suitcases Hale packed and begins rummaging around for a different pair of shoes. “Shit biscuits, why did you pack so many pairs of heels?”
“Asshole violation!” Hale hops up from the bed and teeters over to her. “Please get your greasy sausage fingers off my things.” She nudges Logan in the stomach with her elbow to shove her aside. “I like wearing heels!”
“Ew. Why?”
“Because I’m short, and when I don’t wear heels, random strangers assume I’m a child.” Hale bristles. “Besides, I like the way they look.”
Logan considers this. “Okay, fair. But be honest. Were you comfortable wearing heels at the Grand Canyon?”
She makes her cat’s asshole face before she finally admits. “No.”
Logan continues rummaging through her things until she finally pulls out a pair of white sneakers that look like they’ve never been worn. “Ah-ha!”
Hale crosses her arms. “Those don’t match my dress.”
“Put them on.” Logan insists, making the shoes tap dance in the air. “Put them on, put them on, put them on.”
“Fine!” She snatches the shoes out of Logan’s hands.
Hale spends the whole day in Mesa Verde three-inches shorter than normal and far more comfortable.
* * *
“What are you doing?” Hale asks after a long, sweaty day exploring the stunning Pueblo communities built into rocks.
“Taking my Adderall.”
“But it’s four in the afternoon…”
“I know, but I forgot to take it this morning, and if I don’t take it now, I won’t be able to go eat dinner or brush my teeth or follow very basic instructions.”
Hale clicks her tongue. “Do you often forget to take your meds in the morning?”
“Hale, I often forget what I am doing when I am actively in the middle of doing it.”
“You could put a reminder on your phone. That’s what I do.”
“Yeah, I’ve thought about trying that.”
“Then why haven’t you?”
“Because I have ADHD! Follow-through is not my jam.”
The next morning, while Logan’s loading their luggage back into the van, her phone chirps with an unfamiliar notification. She pulls it out of her pocket to find a push notification for a reminder on her lock screen. TAKE YOUR MEDS, BOZO.
“Why are you grinning at your phone like a dope?” Joe asks.
She shoves her phone back into her pocket. “Nothing. I wasn’t. It was nothing.”
Joe scrunches his face. “Was it porn?”
“Yes, Joe. I was watching porn at seven in the morning in front of my former English teacher while packing a car.”
“Was it a text from a foxy lady?”
“Definitely not.”
Hale emerges from around the corner of the hotel with Odie’s leash in one hand and a full poop bag in the other. Today’s dress is some pink, frilly disaster, but she’s backlit by the early morning sun and the frills almost look like angel’s wings.
“Whoever she is,” Joe says in his wise and all-knowing voice, “be gentle with her.”
Logan looks away from Hale’s glow and reaches for her Adderall bottle. “There is no she.”
* * *
“Okay, Joseph. Where to next?” Logan asks when the car is loaded and she’s in the driver’s seat, properly medicated and ready to take the first shift.
When her question is met with silence, she swivels in her seat to find Joe nervously pulling apart bits of a stale muffin from the continental breakfast. “Joe? What do you want to see next?”
“Bar Harbor?” Hale tries.
Joe throws the muffin at her.
“Don’t hit me with cheap breakfast foods! I don’t do spontaneous, and you hesitated!”
“I think we should go to… Santa Fe?” His voice lilts like this is a question.
“Are you sure?”
He looks like Hale the day she got heat exhaustion, but he nods slowly. “I’m… I’m sure.”
Logan has never heard Joseph Delgado sound less sure of anything.
“Why Santa Fe?” Hale asks.
Joe stares out the window at the Best Western parking lot. “Because I’ve never been. And I… I should probably go.” His tone is almost defeated.
Logan shoots Hale a look, but she shrugs in similar confusion. Hale’s braid is looser today with a few strands already falling down around her face. Logan could easily tuck them behind Hale’s ear if she wanted to.
She pushes on her sunglasses. “Then Santa Fe it is.”
Cortez, Colorado to Santa Fe, New Mexico
Chapter Fifteen
LOGAN
The drive is breathtaking. She fell in love with red rocks in southern Utah, but heading south into New Mexico is even more beautiful somehow. It has never occurred to her that there were mountains in the desert, but these ones are even more magnificent than the ones back home. These craggy red mountains look molded out of sculpting clay and stretch their peaks up into an endless blue sky. There are trees—not as magnificent as the ones back home, but still—and they look lovely, dotted across the brown expanse of valley.
She drives, and the road seems to stretch out forever in front of her. The windows are down, and she’s completely sober and still entirely free.
This is summer. This is what she needed. Wind in her hair and fresh air in her lungs and something new to look at. She keeps glancing over at Hale, whose braid is royally fucked now. Huge chunks of hair have fallen out in the wind, and they whip across her face. But Hale, being Hale, fights the wind, holding up her hands and batting away every rogue chunk of hair out of her face.
Hair keeps flying and Hale keeps fighting. Logan laughs wildly, and the sound drifts through the open window. “Just surrender to the chaos already!”
She makes a stubborn face, and in that expression, Logan sees the little girl who could never turn down a dare to jump off the tallest rock, to jump into the coldest lake. “Never!” Hale shouts. She cranks her window back up and manages to smooth her hair back down. “Driver’s choice. What do you want to listen to?”
She smiles at Joe in the rearview mirror. “Let the dead man choose.”
Joe has been weird all morning, sulking as they get closer and closer to Santa Fe. Hale stretches the extra-long aux cord into the back seat so Joe can plug in his phone. He cues up Van for the van. “Tupelo Honey.”
Hale kicks off her heels and puts her feet up on the dashboard. Her toes jiggle in tune with the song. Logan swears she can hear her humming along.
She’s as sweet as Tupelo Honey.
“Apt,” Logan says to Joe in the rearview mirror.
Hale turns her head so Logan can see the smile on her pink lips. “Very apt.”
“You can sing the song, you know,” Logan tells her. “You don’t have to just hum it.”
Hale’s smile falters. “I don’t sing.”
“We’ll see about that.”
ROSEMARY
For the last hour of the drive, Logan takes control of the music, and she oscillates between singing “Santa Fe” from Rent and “Santa Fe” from Newsies. At some point, Joe joins in, and Rosemary reaches for her AirPods.
“Come on, Hale,” Logan goads. “Don’t pretend like you don’t know all the words.” The 1992 film soundtrack version of “Santa Fe” starts playing, and Logan thrusts her hips against the seat belt like a young Christian Bale.
“Come on. Dance with me, Hale.”
“I don’t dance.”
But she might if Logan asks again. Logan could always convince her to be brave, and with the wind whipping through her hair, she feels some of that recklessness. Rosemary feels fourteen years old again in the best kind of way.
Logan smirks. “We’ll see about that.”
