He lowered the blinds on their broken slant and picked through his hurricane-aftermath bedroom until he located the camouflage duffel he’d packed using his patented method of scooping boxers and socks one-handed from the drawer into the bag. Atop that clump he’d carefully laid the going-out clothes Melissa had helped him pick out on a shopping trip to Plattsburgh: unstained jeans and a shirt with an actual collar.
William was determined to take his friends to a real club on this trip. There weren’t any clubs in Fremont Hills, unless you counted the Odyssey Gentlemen’s Parlor next to the U-Turn Bar & Grill, which was not the kind of club William had in mind.
He wanted bottle service and gut-rattling EDM drops and a VIP table on a raised platform. He wanted to sit back and gaze at his three best friends, drunkenly mesmerized by the confetti flecks of light twirling across their faces, secure in the knowledge that he’d given them the time of their lives.
Daniel was handling the fake-ID situation. He knew a guy from the basketball team who could get perfect fakes made, as long as they didn’t mind being residents of Maine.
William’s second piece of luggage was a backpack stuffed with things that had come to him in random bursts of inspiration: phone and laptop chargers, floss, first-aid kit, half a pack of Parliament Lights stolen from his mother, shot glasses, condoms, wintergreen gum, safety pins, four matching dollar-store friendship bracelets, and his brother’s old Zippo lighter. The front pocket held his travel-size armory: brass knuckles, pepper spray, and the antique bowie knife his father had given him before his parents split up, its fearsome blade sharpened on a genuine whetstone.
William figured they’d attract a lot of attention in some parts of the country, not all of it good.
He put on a pair of shorts and a Toy Machine T-shirt, slung the two bags across his shoulders, wedged his skateboard snugly into his armpit, and crept down the hall past his mother’s room, stepping lightly.
Downstairs he grabbed the old Ovation acoustic from its stand in the corner by the hutch where his mother let the mail pile up. He hadn’t planned to take the guitar until this very moment, but it didn’t seem right to leave it behind. In the movies, people always brought guitars on road trips. He gripped it by the neck and stepped out into a day unscarred by the dumb shit that made life a pale imitation of what it should be.
At the edge of his driveway, William lifted the guitar in a rock-and-roll greeting. Christina trooped past the gnarled oak at the edge of her yard, bending forward to compensate for the massive frame camping pack she wore on her back.
“There she is!” he called out. “Miss Upstate New York herself! You got your varmint-catchin’ snares in there?”
“I found it Upstairs,” she called back, diverting course to intercept William. “It was either this or a bunch of garbage bags.”
She was almost upon him before William noticed that she’d shaved her head.
“Damn, girl, did you just enlist?”
Her hair was as short as you could go without a Bic. William was struck by the symmetry of her head, the weird poetry to the way her cheekbones swept up to her temples to form the ridge of her skull. There was a stylish fierceness to the look that made her seem older.
It made her seem like a college girl.
“Yeah, buddy,” she said. “Marines. Semper Fi.”
“Space Marines, I would believe.”
“I didn’t want to deal with my hair on the trip, so I decided fuck it. I’m just gonna let it all go.”
William extended his free hand in a vaguely religious gesture. “Permission to rub your head for luck, Sergeant Hernandez?”
She stepped forward, placing her head beneath his open palm. “Granted, Lieutenant Ballsack.”
William moved his hand back and forth. “Fuzzy.”
Christina ducked out of reach. “What’s with the ax?”
William shrugged. “It’s a road trip. You’re supposed to have a guitar on a road trip.”
“Says who?”
“Says a million movies.”
“Name one.”
“Uh…On the Road?”
“First of all, not a movie.”
“I’m pretty sure it is.”
“Second of all, nobody plays guitar in On the Road.”
“Cool, well…” He turned to the car. “Your chariot awaits.”
Christina regarded Autonomous in real life, lips curling slowly into a smile. It was impossible not to be drawn to its aura, even if you weren’t a car person and couldn’t tell a Corvette from a Camaro.
Christina angled her chin toward the drone, which had maintained its silent hover. “Who’s this little fella?”
“Oh, right, you guys haven’t met. That’s my other best friend, Victor. He’s an exchange student. Really into Paramore and Chinese food.”
“Ugh.” Christina spun on her heel to hide behind her absurd backpack. “That thing’s filming me, isn’t it?”
William stepped into the shade of her camping bag and placed his hands gently on her shoulders. “Listen, I know you don’t like being on camera, but you’re gonna have to get used it. Melissa’s gonna be posting a million pictures, and you can’t hide for a whole week.”
“It’s not something I can get used to. Pictures of me make me feel like my skin doesn’t fit right.”
“Your skin’s good.”
“It’s actually a suit.” She mimed unzipping the center of her face. “I guess I’m just not super-psyched to be spending a week on the road with people I don’t know very well.”
“You know Daniel and Melissa!”
“William.”
“Okay, I know Daniel and Melissa. They’re awesome.”
“Do you?” Her eyes glazed over with a faraway look. “Are they?”
“Just pointing out that we haven’t even left my driveway yet.”
“Sorry.” She snapped back to reality. “I’ll be fine. But I do sort of wish it was just you and me.”
William didn’t know what to say to that, so instead he gave her a salute. “Semper Fi.”
When the door slid shut behind them, an uptick in excitement stirred his heart.
“This is my car,” he said, once again testing the words. He breathed deep, and the interior conjured up fragments of the Derby,
