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I cut her off mid-scold and turn up the volume on Taylor Swift’s “1989” album, letting heartbreak anthems guide me up the Southern California coast.
A few minutes later, I feel edgy, so I call Dylan, my drama queen sister. At thirty-one, she’s closest to me in age and always willing to gripe about our controlling older sisters.
She answers the phone after two rings, but I hear the sleepy rasp in her voice. “Who died?”
“No one,” I tell her, listening to the shuffling sounds of her throwing off the covers and padding into the bathroom. We shared a room for years as kids, and her morning routine hasn’t changed much. I hear her pee. Hear the toilet lid drop. Hear a flush and water running in the sink.
I tell her why I’m up early while she brushes her teeth and washes her face. I explain the lameness of my ticket over the sounds of her making coffee.
“Lucky you’re unemployed. Not all of us can just drive up the coast in the middle of the week,” Dylan says, letting out an exhale her neighbor upstairs can probably hear.
Ouch.
“Don’t make me regret calling you.” She’s the only sister I’ve told so far that I was fired from designing the new offices of Glam Squad Cosmetics because I posted a few pics on my social media account, which the company considered “in questionable taste.”
It’s true that I signed a Code of Conduct agreement when I was hired, promising not to compromise the company’s image, but I didn’t see how making out with the ex of one of the Real Housewives made Glam Squad look bad. If anything, it’s a testament to their makeup that the guy hit on me in the first place.
They didn’t see it that way.
“Sorry. But didn’t you kind of know it wasn’t a good look to be making out with some B-list celebrity dude?”
“Meh. I think maybe I was pushing the limits of their policy. I wanted out of there anyway.”
She laughs. “That tracks. You’ve been there, what, six months? Time to question your life choices again and bolt.”
“Not why I called you,” I sing, giving her one last chance to be the fun sister who will banter with me for at least a few miles of the drive.
“Should’ve waited till after ten,” she sings back, forcing me to look at the dashboard and acknowledge that half past eight may be a little early to expect fun, even from the sister who daydreams about installing a waterslide shaped like a cow at Loveland Ranch, the property we inherited from our grandparents. She also envisions a petting zoo and a magical library with hidden doors leading to reading nooks with game tables. There isn’t a room she walks into without seeing its potential.
As to my career…I’ve been a server, an SAT tutor, a camp counselor, an event planner, and an interior designer for five minutes. If it sounds interesting, I’ll try it, and if it gets dull, I’m out. My sisters never let me forget it. At least Dylan doesn’t judge. Much.
“Sorry. I had to hit the road super early to avoid traffic out of LA.” I know the route because the courthouse is near our ranch in Willow Springs, but I haven’t been up here since I got the ticket.
“I’m not faulting you for driving early. Just for calling me early.”
“Fair enough,” I say. “I just wanted to ask if you have time to work on Loveland’s social media if I start designing stuff and sending you photos.”
“Can I call you back after I’ve had my coffee?”
I spy a sign for gas and a fast-food bonanza at the next exit, and change lanes. “Nah, just say yes. I’ll ping you later. Road trip snacks are calling.”
“Yes?” she says. I’m glad she’s not fully awake because I plan to hold her to it.
I sail past a sagging car dragging a trailer with one pink and one yellow bike strapped to the back. I wave a thanks to the driver for letting me pass, but he’s not even looking my way, too busy gesturing at a woman next to him who holds up a paper map, blocking half the front windshield.
Right there. That’s the reason I’m happy being single, unemployed, and out on the open road. I’d rather be making questionable decisions about making out with a dude than arguing with one over taking the kids to McDonald's or Wendy’s. Give me adventure and traffic court any day.
At least there’s excitement in not knowing how it ends. Maybe I’ll win my case. Maybe I’ll end up with traffic school. It’s my own low-stakes roulette wheel of the day, and the only thing that will make it better is a Slurpee, so I exit and drive to the 7-Eleven alongside an Arby’s and a U-pick-it fruit stand.
Rows of oranges do not tempt me at the fruit stand, and the last thing my attention-challenged brain needs is more coffee, but I can’t resist a Technicolor rainbow of slushy ice and a straw perfectly measured to fit cups of every size.
It’s a hard call between blue raspberry and reliable cola flavor, so I layer them, with the blue flavor at the bottom, pop the dome-shaped lid on top, and search for a straw.
“We’re out.” Behind the register, the size small teenager in the size XL shirt barely moves his mouth when he relays the news. Maybe he’s said it so many times that he’s testing his ventriloquism skills, or maybe he’s that bored.
“How can you be out of straws? Isn’t that the whole thing here, the straw with the little spoon at the end?”
He rakes a hand through his flat, shaggy hair, unmoved by my insistence on the importance of brand identification. Meanwhile, I’m crafting ideas for a Slurpee booth at the nearest county fair, featuring the tiny spoons and all the ways they can be used outside of basic Slurpee enjoyment.
