Chapter Six
"Hurry up," Chloe complained. "You know we're coming back, right?"
"Hold on – just – got it!" Max slammed shut the lid of her suitcase. She lugged it to the car's trunk, already crammed full, tried to shove it in, failed, then just tossed it in the back seat.
"I'm ready," Max panted.
They drove out of a silent Caledon. Classes – and even finals – were canceled for the semester, segueing into an extended winter break. The rest of Lakeport, too, had canceled. Closed signs hung at every storefront. No cars on the road. It wasn't so much a town as still life. The exodus out of Lakeport had yet to reverse even after the asteroid had passed. In cosmologic terms, the asteroid had been the equivalent of a baseball flying so close to you it grazed the hairs along your skin.
Its trail of fire still split the sky in two.
Nobody would ever know how close they had come to annihilation, Max thought as she stared at the bloody wound in the clouds. For once she had saved them.
"We'll stop by Hartford," Chloe said, thigh bouncing to the music. Behind the wheel, she was someone else. "Pick up supplies, eat at that hipster place you like so much. From there, it's a straight shot to New York."
"We have to visit Yossi Milo."
"Is that, uh, a friend of yours?"
"It's a photo gallery! One of the most famous ones in the world!"
Chloe laughed so hard the car swerved. Max yelped, hanging onto the armrests.
There was something about the road. Your whole life packed into a suitcase. Go someplace where nobody knows you. Stop by a local bar. Order a drink you've never tried. Order two. Chat with someone you have nothing in common with. That was life, wasn't it? How else do you grow?
Chloe had spun a compass like they were playing spin the bottle. South, the compass proclaimed. We go where the gods dictate us.
"That other Max," Chloe said. "What do you think she's doing now?"
…past gas stations and corner stores and a Motel 6. A dog barks; someone yells to get out of the way. The town is pristine, untouched. She's been here before. The distant silhouette of American Rust looms like a mountain.
She opens the faded wooden door of Two Whales.
"Max!" Joyce calls from the counter. She bustles Max to the corner booth and dollops out an enormous cup of coffee, steaming hot. She's older than the intervening years, but her smile's the same and she still smells like waffles and syrup. Beaming, she hugs Max tight.
"Should've told me you were coming. How long are you staying?"
Not long, Max wants to say, but she can't choke out the words. This place looks out of time. Still $5.25 for a burger. The same yellowed fishing photos hang on the walls. Even the people look the same. If you don't know better, it's easy to believe this place is immortal.
Soon she's served a plate of waffles, two hash browns, four rashers of bacon, and a breakfast sandwich. You're still a growing girl, Joyce says, even though Max hasn't grown an inch since age fourteen.
"It's delicious," Max says, wiping her eyes. She sees her reflection in the window, but it isn't quite her. "I had a dream about Chloe. She said she loves you."
"I think she's living with it," Max said. And that's the most you can do, isn't it? They were the same fucking person and she couldn't imagine what she went through. Some choices you didn't know you would make until you actually made it.
"She told you something," Chloe said. "I saw it. What'd she say?"
Max bent down to her ear and whispered –
"In the cabinet, behind the plates. There's a box with a ring inside."
Max turned away. "It was nothing. Max-stuff. No Chloes allowed."
Chloe groaned.
Max warmed her hands by the vent. The car hummed beneath her, music cranked up loud enough to burst your ear drums. Chloe sang (horribly), drumming her fingers along the steering wheel. They had a full tank of gas. The road was straight and empty. There was nowhere they couldn't go.