“It would be better if we didn’t,” he replied. I shifted to face him, crossing my arms.
“Sounds like something a murderer would say.”
“I just think it would be easier on everyone if we kept it simple.”
“No offense, but that’s stupid,” Phoebe said. “Nothing about this is simple.”
“It could be, if we let it.”
“What’s so complicated about family history and favorite foods?”
Dex bristled, his shoulders nearly reaching his ears. “I don’t see the point in small talk.”
“The point is we’re here, together, and we shouldn’t be strangers,” I said, wondering what it would take to pry open his head and take a look inside. No one wasthisclosed off. Especially not someone who wrote a letter like the one that put us on this journey in the first place. “We know nothing about you, other than your name and that you work for a sketchy nonprofit—”
He scowled. “Sketchy?”
“—and you were on board to let me and my fourteen-year-old sister tag along on this trip. That’s weird. You’reweird.”
“As opposed to you, the normal woman who reads strangers’ mail and stalks them.”
I glared at the side of his face until he sent a fleeting glance my way, our eyes meeting for a fraction of a second before he turned back to the road. His jaw ticked.
“This is fun,” Phoebe said, grinning. “Also, I have to pee.”
Dex swiveled to look at her. “We haven’t even made it to the highway.”
She shrugged. “I had a lot of coffee.”
He sighed, looking as if he regretted every decision he’d made that led to this moment, the first hint that we were on the same side. Part of me wanted to reach for him, commiserate somehow. But maybe the act of merely existing beside him in the absurdity was enough. Maybe it had to be, for now.
Coney Island turned out to be the sort of place that looked, in real life, like it had popped out of my head. I’d never been, onlyheard stories from my dad, but as we made our way down the boardwalk with the scent of fried dough and salt in the air, the rush of rides overhead, overflowing garbage cans, throngs of people with huge smiles on their faces—it was exactly right. And from the grin on Phoebe’s face, she thought so too.
She talked the whole way there. Yammering about everything from the cows in a pasture on the side of the highway to her reasoning for including a Carly Rae Jepson song on her road trip playlist. It was the most I’d heard my sister’s voice in so long. Every once in a while, she’d look at me, eyes alight, and it would transport me to a time before our world shattered, when she adored me and confided in me and our dad would’ve been the one in the driver’s seat.
“Oh my god,” Phoebe repeated for the twentieth time in as many seconds. She clapped her hands to her cheeks, eyes wide as she took it all in. Sand crunched underfoot, the quiet rush of rides and patrons’ squeals filling the air. “What do we do first? I want a corn dog. But I want to ride something. I want to win a Squirtle, one of the big ones. Oh my god, do yousmellthat?”
“Take a breath, Bee,” I said, stifling a laugh. She inhaled sharply, and then took a deeper, slower breath. “We’ll do it all.”
Her face split into a bright smile. She was happy, overflowing with it. I couldn’t break down in the middle of the boardwalk, so I’d hold it in until later, when I could lock myself away in a bathroom and cry in the shower like normal. Only this time, the tears would be joyful. Mostly.
“What first?” She spun to Dex, whose expression remained stony and distant, making no secret of his disapproval. “Rides? Food? Games?”
“This is your stop, not mine.”
“But you’re here.”
“So is she.” He jerked his chin in my direction.
“I’m not asking Vi because I know what she’ll say.” She put on a mildly insulting Valley Girl accent: “?‘Rides first, otherwise you’ll throw up.’ She always says things like ‘otherwise.’?”
“A normal word,” I said, looking to Dex for support. He offered none. “And it’s true. You can’t eat before you ride that.”
I pointed to the terrifying ride composed of metal orbs slingshotting people around. My stomach soured just looking at it. If Phoebe rode that one, I’d have a panic attack, but I couldn’t ask her not to because then she would out of spite.
“I think you’d puke regardless,” Dex replied, eyeing the ride uneasily.
“You guys are so boring.” Phoebe lifted our dad’s Polaroid camera, hung securely around her neck, and snapped a photo of us. Dex swore loud enough for several nearby mothers to shoot him dirty looks. “Oh my god, Vi. I found your unphotogenic soulmate.”
