“Why? You worried about me, Nads?” I ask, winking at her.
In a totally unexpected move from the invulnerable youngest Kablukov sibling, she nods.
I cut the teasing and go for sincerity. “She nearly quits on me every day, but I like to think of that as her way of flirting.” I push down on the gearshift so it doesn’t pop out of place, and attempt to shift the van from park into drive as Nadia braces herself with one hand on the grip handle above the door and the other on the dash.
“Flirting with death, maybe.” She turns toward me as the engine purrs, and we begin rolling backward slowly, toward the sunken edge of the parking lot. “Your attachment to this van will get you killed,” she says, looking anxiously at the back windshield.
I fight to get Bertha out of neutral, and then put my foot on the pedal, driving us away from the small station. “Nah, that’s not the way I plan to go.”
She sighs. “Dare I ask?”
“I’m going out in a blaze of glory on my sixty-ninth birthday. My vision is a crowd of naked people cheering me on as I attempt to jump a motorcycle between cliffs, but instead, I plummet to the shark-infested waters below.”
“Sounds about right.” She pauses to pinch her temples. “I’m happy to hear that you’ve got life goals, I guess”—her head tilts sharply—“or would that bedeathgoals?” she whispers.
I ignore her. “I, of course, survive the fall and fight off the sharks,” I add, making a right turn onto the main strip of road that connects most of the small towns around here.
“Naturally.” Nadia pokes at a button for the radio, clearly trying to shut me up, but nothing plays. Joke’s on her—the radio hasn’t worked for at least three years now. Thereisa tape stuck inthere that plays only one song, and you have to hit all the buttons in a certain sequence to get it to work. I will not be teaching her. She will have to endure the ramblings of her favorite brother instead.
“I’m taken to the hospital, naturally, for myminorinjuries….”
“Sure.” She turns the volume dial, then hits the cassette slot with the heel of her palm. “At what point in this story do youactuallydie?”
“Give me a second!” I slap her hand away from the buttons on the dash. “Eventually, one of the nurses hears the tale of my heroism and, tragically, he or they or she rides me so hard in my hospital bed that my heart gives out.”
She recoils, putting space between us as she leans toward the passenger door and shoots daggers at me with her eyes.
“No?” I ask. “I thought that was the perfect plan.”
“What is—and please feel free toreallydig deep here before you answer—wrong with you?”
“Fuck, sorry for having aspirations!” I take my eyes off the road for only a second to smile at her. Nadia’s arms are crossed as she leans back in her seat, enraptured by the view out the window of the storm clouds gathering above us. I allow the silence for a minute, maybe even two, before I can no longer stand it. “So…” I drum my thumbs on the steering wheel. “Want to catch me up?”
“On?”
“Your life.”
“Do I have to?”
Yes.“Do you have a boyfriend?”
Her jaw tightens, but she still answers through gritted teeth. “No.”
“Girlfriend?”
She chuckles,kind of—it’s more like a scoff. “No; still straight.”
“God, you and Nik are so boring! Bisexuality is the way of the future….”
“Youare the agenda that Fox News is always blathering on about.”
That makes us both smile, which sends a rush of relief through my veins. “Which part of the city are you living in? Do you like it?”
“A shitty month-to-month apartment with the aforementioned haunted lamp in Moss Park. I gave up my lease to come here, though.”
“Career?”
She laughs dryly.
