“Sure. I’m aching to get some mid-’90s twelve-at-a-time playlists into my life for this next ten days of driving.” Scarlett felt a wave of sickness, which might have been either anxiety or too much caffeine. “Let’s get on the road before I change my mind.”
Driving at night was miserable in the way that it kept you up all night, but way better than driving during the day because there was less traffic. Scarlett didn’t mind the night. She was a night owl anyway. And if Megan was going to just keep her mouth shut and stare out the window like she was currently doing, that was fine by her.
“You do this a lot?” Megan asked after a long stretch of silence, after they pulled out onto the highway and started zipping north through the desolate darkness.
So much for silence.
Conversation was probably better than silence, anyway. Silence got her thinking, and she tried to avoid too much of that lately. Scarlett adjusted her grip on the steering wheel. “Do I do what a lot? Go on road trips in the middle of winter?”
“Go on road trips in general.” Megan didn’t look away from the window, but in her reflection, she glanced up at Scarlett. Scarlett pretended not to notice.
“Not a lot,” Scarlett said. “I did one back when—” She stopped herself, not wanting to bring up anything about college. “Back a few years ago. When I moved to New York.”
“When did you move to New York?” Megan shifted in her seat. “I didn’t know you lived there.”
“A bit after I turned twenty-three, so three years ago. I only lived there a couple of months. It’s an expensive city.” She didn’t want to share more about that time in her life. It wasn’t a pleasant time, a time when she felt like she had to run away from everything familiar and start over. But you couldn’t ever run from the past, not really.
Megan didn’t say anything for a minute, and they drove on in silence. “Why’d you come back?” Megan asked after a few moments.
“I told you. It was expensive.” That wasn’t the whole story. She’d been too out of her league, up against all her insecurities, unable to hold down a job and frustrated by her own incompetence. She’d come home to lick her wounds. Like hell she’d ever admit that to Megan, though. Megan may not have lived a very adventurous life, but she was always together in a way that Scarlett was scattered. Even in high school, Megan was acing her classes while Scarlett was trying to get away with a C-minus average and lying about it.
Megan made a thoughtful noise and didn’t ask her to elaborate. Either she knew Scarlett was lying and didn’t want to push, or she thought Scarlett was telling the truth. Or, maybe, she just didn’t care.
Better turn the attention to Megan. “So what about you?” Scarlett asked. “You never thought about leaving the diner?”
Megan snorted. “Never crossed my mind. Each time the alarm went off at four, I thought, ‘Yes, perfect, I’m living my dreams.’ I never considered there was more to life than waiting tables.”
“Hey, hey, I’m not criticizing being a waitress.” Scarlett had done that herself, and she’d been shit at it. “I’m just asking. You want to do something else with your life, I thought maybe you’d have done it.”
“I didn’t do anything. You already know that.” Megan’s voice was a low mumble. She was apparently touchy about this subject. Scarlett was a lot of kinds of bitches, but not the kind who poked at somebody who was down. Not even someone who’d been previously untouchable, like Megan.
But Megan wasn’t untouchable now. Megan wasn’t as prim and proper and frustratingly immune to human failings the way Scarlett seemed instead to be entirely comprised of human failings. Megan was a person, and she lost her job and she was going on this road trip for probably a bunch of personal reasons. And the wedding or whatever. But along the way, she wanted to see some of the country, and Scarlett could help.
Maybe this was a terrible plan overall. But they were in it. They were headed for the Florida border in this tiny, mediocre car from 2008 or whatever, and that was that.
This Toyota Camry. Scarlett scanned its nondescript interior with all its boringness and its beige decor, matching Megan’s beige house. Everything was the worst color, and Scarlett could not deal with it any longer.
“Why do you still have this boring-ass car, Meg?” Scarlett waved a hand around at it.
That got Megan’s attention. “What?” She sat up straighter. “What’s wrong with my car? It’s a convertible.”
“It’s old.”
Megan seemed to be grasping for how to respond. “Well...it’s red.”
“Red? Yeah, it’s red, but the whole inside is beige. Everything is beige! Why do you live such a beige life?”
Megan shifted even more over toward her, an incredulous expression on her face. “I don’t live a beige life.”
“Yes you do. Your life is so fucking beige it’s killing me.” It wasn’t what Scarlett wanted to say. She wanted to say, You’re so much more interesting than this, or You’re the most capable person I ever knew, but those words slipped away in favor of the angrier, crueler ones, the ones that would make Megan actually react.
Megan folded her arms. “Fuck you, Scarlett. My life doesn’t require your approval.”
Scarlett fumed, because Megan was right and now they were fighting. They were fighting less than an hour into this drive, and it was her fault, because she didn’t know how to be around Megan anymore. “I just thought you wanted to make your life more interesting. Like you weren’t satisfied with how things were.”
“No, I didn’t say that.” Megan’s frown was sour now, more of a pout than a frown. “I said I’ve never been out of the state and have some places on my goal list.”
“Sure. You sounded real satisfied.” Scarlett snorted. So much for Megan showing any vulnerability at all. “You’re probably totally satisfied with everything. I bet you come every time you fuck, too.”
Megan spluttered, obviously shocked out of her words, and her skin flamed up fast with a complete blush. Scarlett never saw Megan blush like that. Then again, they’d almost never talked about sex. A few conversations in high school where Scarlett had tried to get Megan to tell her all her secrets the way Scarlett told Megan hers, but Megan never had anything to share and so Scarlett had eventually stopped asking.
Maybe some things never changed. Maybe Megan was still as shy about sex.
Oh, fuck, maybe Megan was a virgin.
Megan couldn’t be a virgin, right? She was twenty-five. Well, there was nothing wrong with being a virgin as long as Megan wanted to be one. Like, if she was waiting, or if she was asexual, whatever. But Scarlett wanted to know, and she wanted Megan to tell her. The desire for information bubbled up inside her like lye, burning her from the inside out. And it was one in the morning, and she was overtired, and hell, she wanted to know, so she blurted it out.