“Yes. That’s what my GPS said before I lost satellite reception.”
They stopped at the second traffic light and as if to rub it in his face, the GPS dinged. “Turn left.”
“Well, thank you, GPS. Thank you for finally doing theonlything you were designed to do,” Jasmin said and then gave him a smug smile. “See? I-90 West.”
Kevin rolled his eyes and turned to look out of the window, not really wanting to talk to her anymore. Yet even though he was facing the other way and his arms were crossed over his chest, she didn’t take the hint that he wanted to be left alone.
“So how come you’re not in college? Aren’t American semesters running right now?”
Explaining why he wasn’t in college would inevitably lead to Perry and it was none of her business. “Off limits,” he replied, still looking out the window.
“Okay. Why are you going to Florida?”
“Off limits.”
“Ooh! The strong, silent type. So mysterious. You must be Scorpio.”
He groaned inwardly. Another person with a star-sign obsession. His mother was the same and he hated it.
“I’m a Virgo.”
For a brief second, he thought there might actually be some truth to star signs. His brother, Shane, was a Virgo and he also didn’t know when to shut the hell up.
She cleared her throat like she was getting ready to tell a really long story. “Okay, I’ll start then. It will be like a trust exercise. Once you see that I’m willing to share my secrets, you might be more inclined to share yours, so I’m going to tell you why I’m going to Georgia.”
“I didn’t ask and…I don’t care.”
She ignored him and carried on. “I’m going to meet my mother…for the first time. I don’t really know anything about her, because my dad doesn’t like talking about her and he gets really defensive when I bring her up. I don’t even have a picture of her. My aunt is the only one who ever spoke to me about her. She said my mom left my dad and me, but in actual fact we left her. We moved to anothercountry. So…I want to meet her and…maybe find out what really happened. Maybe she didn’t abandon me at all and we can put the past behind us and build a relationship. The only real mother figure I’ve ever had was my gran. I mean, I’ve had lots of nannies, but none of them ever stayed longer than a few months. My dad’s hardly around and I think a lot of them left because having a twenty-four-seven job hampered their social lives. So, yeah, it was just my gran. Sheused to live with my cousins, but I still saw her all the time. She died last year and I guess I’m just…I’m just yearning for that motherly type of love.”
Kevin let out a loaded breath. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but…I still don’t care.”
Somehow she still didn’t get the hint and on and on she went.
First hour: Jasmin talking about her entire childhood, recalling every detail of her upbringing in South Africa. After discovering the root of her thick, muddled accent, nothing else she said really mattered, but she didn’t stop. No. She told him all about her home-schooling and her escorted trips to the mall. She told him that she never really had any friends and she still didn’t, except for Rachel. She spoke about the two years she’d gone to a traditional school and how it was thebesttwo years of her life.
Second hour: Jasmin talking about every single person she knew. It shouldn’t have taken long. She only knew about eight people, but she still didn’t let up. For someone who had such a sheltered life with such limited life experiences, she certainly had a fuck load to say about all of it. He heard so much about Prenisha and Pratisksha and Rachel and Jitesh he felt like he knew them. And he didn’t want to know them!
“Do. You. Ever. Stop. Talking?” Kevin said, hitting his head on the window with every word as an attempt to numb his brain to the sound of her voice.
“When I sleep,” she responded. “Though, Nish has told me that I talk in my sleep, so that may not be entirely true.”
Right now he’d rather have an elephant fucking him in the ear than listen to her for one more second. A big, ol’ elephant dick trying to squeeze into his tiny ear canal…Yeah, that seemed less painful. He tried using the outside landscape as a distraction, but all he saw was the great openness of Montana. Just trees and land and more trees and more land. Nothing riveting enough to keep his interest. She was like a goddamn mosquito. No matterhow many times you fan it away, it’s always just there, zinging annoyingly in your ear until eventually you just want to smash it! But you can’t, because then you’d have to find another way of getting to Georgia.
Third hour: Jasmin talking about Rachel’s party, the only party she’d ever been to. This one got her really excited, because she’d tricked her nanny and snuck out of the house to go to it. What a rebel. Half an hour into the story and she was still explaining what she’d decided to wear.
“So generally, as you can see, I’m a track pants and T-shirts kinda girl. I don’t like wearing dresses. They don’t suit me, because I’m built like an ostrich. You know, skinny at the top, skinny at the bottom, but gigantically huge in the middle. But this dress looked surprisingly good on me. And I had makeup and heels and everything. I’m not a pretty girl, but that night I kinda pulled it off. So we get there and as soon as we walk in, this guy shoves a drink in my hand. It smelled awful and I guess a part of me wanted to try it, but if my dad found out that I drank alcohol, he’d kill me, so I just left it in the kitchen, and do you know that if I were a guy, I’d have a super huge penis?”
Kevin’s head snapped sideways so fast, he felt like he sprained his neck. “What?”
“Just checking to make sure you were listening.”
“Fucking crazy,” he muttered to himself.
“Anyway, as I was saying, I walked outside to the patio and everyone was dancing and I was there, you know, getting my groove on and this guy comes up to me and asks me to dance. He was so cute, so I knew it had to be some kind of prank. There were some girls in my class and they always used to play these silly pranks on me. Like this one time, they were leaving these cute little love notes on my desk each morning and they signed it from this guy, Dylan, who was uber-hot. And then they told me to speak to him and tell him that I liked him too. I workedup my courage and did just that and well…you can guess how that ended. So I assumed this was just another prank, but I went along with it. We danced and we spoke for hours and that’s when I knew for sure. I mean, the few people I do know don’t really like being around me for too long.”
“I can’t imagine why,” Kevin said with fake shock.
“But then he went overboard and started telling me how pretty I am. He said I look likePriyanka Chopra. He could have at least come up with something believable. I was just like pfffft! Whatever. I’m notthatdumb. And then all of a sudden, he tries to kiss me. I had to shove him off me.” She snorted her irritation. “I mean, I know he wasn’t interested in me. It’s just disgusting how far some kids will go to make a fool out of someone.”
