“Yeah, sure.”
“Here.” He bends down. A crocheted sunflower on a spring, stuck to the dashboard, wobbles back and forth as he grazes it with his elbow. When he reappears, he has a strip of beef jerky from the box in his footwell. Eighteen different flavors, every last one of which we taste-tested as we drove across the state. “?‘Sweet picante,’?” he reads off the packaging. “That was your favorite, right?”
I nod, and he tosses the strip out the window. I catch it and give him a salute.
“You won’t have to wait long,” he says, although I don’t know if he’s trying to make me feel better or himself. “You take care.”
“Thanks, Booker.”
And with that, he shifts the truck into drive and pulls back onto the road. He took me as far as he could, but here’s where our paths diverge: He’s heading south to California, I’m going north to Washington. I’ll need to find someone else to take me that final stretch.
Turning, I stare at the gas station where he’s left me. The sign above the door saysLAST CHANCE FOOD AND GAS. Won’t have to wait long, he’d said. Meanwhile, I’m betting the only cars that come out here have dead bodies stowed in their trunks, their drivers hoping to unload the cargo where no one will find it. The road rolls out into the plains, dusty yellow grass fringing either side, as far as the eye can see. The sun’s starting to slip down the horizon, like a drunk losing their balance on a barstool.
I don’t want to be out on this road, alone, at night.
The bell above the door tinkles as I step inside. The grizzled old man behind the counter doesn’t look up from his newspaper when he shouts, “Closing in fifteen,” in his smoker’s rasp. Just my luck. I duck into the nearest aisle and start perusing the candy selection. The stack of twenties in my backpack’s almost gone, but the thought of being stranded outside makes my skin itch.
There are no price tags hanging from the racks, but based on the thick layer of dust covering the goods, I’m willing to bet they sell for cheap. I pick up a package of caramel SweetSations and check the expiration date. “Hey, Mister!” I call to the cashier.
He looks up at me from beneath his wiry gray eyebrows.
“These expired back in ’ninety-eight. Does that mean they’re free?”
He hacks out a laugh. “Free?”
“I’m pretty sure they’re a public health hazard at this point.”
He squints at the package, his forehead creasing into heavy folds. “Bring those here.”
I do as he says, slapping the SweetSations down on the counter.
“I remember watching this commercial when I was still learning to tie my sneakers.” I shimmy my shoulders a little. “SweetSations here—smooth and bold! Butterscotch, mint, and caramel gold. Chocolatey goodness, oh-so-sweet. It’s the hard candy flavor that can’t be beat. Every single bite’s a SweetSation!”I drop my voice as low as it can go.“Yup candy, best candy.”
“Three bucks.”
“What?”
“You want the candy? Three bucks.”
“For expired SweetSations.”
He rips open one side of the pouch and tips a candy out onto the counter. The caramel looks exactly the same as on the packaging. “They’re hard candies, kid,” he says. “They don’t go bad. Besides, if they’re really discontinued, that means you’re looking at a collector’s item. Three-fifty.”
“I thought you said three even?”
“The fifty cents is a surcharge for forcing me to listen to your little concert.”
I let out a humph and return the now-opened SweetSations to their rack. There’s a small freezer section with all kinds of novelty ice cream snacks: Drumsticks, Push-Up Pops, Creamsicles. My gaze lands on the final package: Choco Tacos. I nudge the freezer door open and pick up the box, crusty with frost. My mom and I used to buy these from the supermarket whenever I had the day off school. Choco Tacos, and then we’d visit the AAA across the plaza. They’d lead us to a little cubicle and ask where we wanted to go, and my mom would say something like Bali or Namibia—the farther away, the better—and the travel agent would bring us all these glossy brochures. We’d bothooohandaaahover the luxury resorts, fancy restaurants, snorkeling excursions. When she asked if we wanted to book anything, my mom would tell her she needed to check with her husband. We’d take the brochures home and spend the afternoon cutting out our favorite photos and taping them to the closet door. That was our Wall of Places to Go, all our dreams for the future, hung up for everyone to see.
The photos all got ripped down and thrown away when she left.
“You buying anything?” the man yells from across the store.
“Nope.”
“Then scram. We’re closed.”
Outside the front windows, the sun’s almost disappeared; the sky’s turned the color of a morning-after bruise.
