Reunited (13 page)

When Tiernan got back to the van, Alice was awake.

“You’re alive!” Alice said, spitting a mouth full of toothpaste into the sink. The bed where they’d slept had already been folded away.

“What time is it?” Summer asked groggily, her hair cascading over the top bunk.

“Six fifty-three,” Alice said. “I’m just going to wash my face, and then I think we should get going.”

So much for the early-morning nature photography. Whatever. It was a stupid idea anyway. Every hack that owned a camera took boring nature shots.

Tiernan had only slathered one pit with deodorant when Alice started up the Pea Pod.

“It’s seven o’clock,” Alice announced, like it was a race and she’d won. “Let’s get out of here.”

Summer slid into shotgun before Tiernan had the chance. Evidently, snagging the top bunk last night hadn’t been enough for Her Highness. Guess that meant Tiernan was flying coach.

“Wake me up when we get there,” she said, flopping onto the bench seat and closing her eyes. Wherever “there” was.

Apparently, “there” was right here. Alice gunned the engine, but instead of moving forward, there was just the high-pitched squeal of spinning tires.

Tiernan opened her eyes just as Summer opened her door.

“Ruh-roh,” Summer said, looking down.

For three people about to head off to college, they’d failed
to remember a lesson they’d learned in preschool: Rain plus dirt equals mud.

They all piled out of the van, and this time Tiernan remembered to bring her camera. Her first picture was of Alice, standing in front of the Pea Pod, her face creased with worry. The tires were sunk under mud at least six inches deep.

Tiernan steeled herself for the impending bitch-slap from Summer and Alice. Sure, they’d given her a pass last night, but now that the van was stuck in sludge, who else did they have to blame but her? But, surprisingly, no one mentioned the fact that it had been Tiernan who’d convinced them to drive out here in the first place.

“You guys ready to push?” Alice asked.

Not really
, Tiernan thought, but instead nodded yes. Why shouldn’t she start off the day with a little backbreaking manual labor? It wasn’t as if she didn’t deserve it.

The Nikon went back in the Pea Pod, and Tiernan braced herself against the right headlight—knees bent, feet dug into the squishy earth—while Summer took the left.

“On the count of three,” Alice shouted from the driver’s seat. “One . . . two . . .
three
!”

Tiernan gave it everything she had. Wheels spun, and the engine whinnied like an injured horse. The tires were barely halfway up the deep divets—but they would go no farther. Alice killed the gas and the Pea Pod rolled right back down into the valley of mud.

“I know!” Alice said. “Maybe if one of us stood on top of the van, we’d be able to get cell service and call a tow truck?”

“And tell them to come get us
where
?” Summer held up her hands.

“Let’s just give it another try,” Tiernan said. She was the one who’d caused this, and she was going to be the one to fix it, too. “We were close. Close-
ish
.”

This time Alice really floored it, and Tiernan and Summer hit the Pea Pod like linebackers taking out a player from the opposing team.

“Push, push, push, push, push!” Summer yelled as the tires spit out gritty clumps of mud all over them.

“We need better leverage,” Tiernan said. She remembered all those arguments with her mother about how her C-plus in physics didn’t matter because she’d never have to use physics in real life. The tree lying across the road was only three feet in front of the van, so driving forward wasn’t an option.

“Why don’t you try pushing from the sides?” Alice suggested. Of course, she’d aced physics.

Tiernan opened the sliding door and braced her hands against the frame as Summer moved to the driver’s side door next to Alice. Through the inside of the van, Summer glanced over at Tiernan and gave her a nod. It was the same look she’d seen Luke give Travis and Ryan in concert, whenever they launched into a new song. But in that one tiny glance was a moment of connection—a quick
here we go, you ready?—
before
the music kicked in and they communicated only by song.

Summer looked a little surprised when Tiernan nodded back.

“One, two, three!” Alice yelled.

Tiernan took an even worse mud pelting than before, but this time the van was really digging in. The wheels snarled at Tiernan and Tiernan snarled back. She had mud in her eyes, in her hair, in her mouth. But she was not giving up. They had momentum. All they needed was another half inch.

“Give it more gas, Alice!” Summer cried, shooting Tiernan an imploring look.

Tiernan pushed harder, leaning all 103 pounds of herself into the doorframe as the engine’s whine grew louder.
They were close, so close.
And then—pop!—the Pea Pod was free.

The bad news was, so was the sliding door. Tiernan had pushed so hard she’d ripped the damn thing off its hinges. It lay on the ground in a pile of mud and leaves as the Pea Pod slowly rumbled backward down the dirt road.

Summer was doubled over with laughter. “Alice is
so
gonna kick your butt,” she said, wiping a giant streak of mud across her forehead.

Tiernan looked at the Pea Pod as it drove farther and farther away. Now that the van was actually moving, Alice wasn’t about to stop.

“Well, you want to help me, or what?” Tiernan asked
Summer, who was just standing there giggling. “I can’t lift this thing all by myself.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Summer said with a chuckle.

They each took an end and hurried after the Pea Pod, staggering under the awkward weight of the door in between them. It was a scene right out of an old silent movie. Except this film was in full Technicolor, between the shiny pea-green door, Tiernan’s blue hair, and then Alice’s face—crimson with anger.

“What the hell happened?” Alice scowled from the front seat as the Pea Pod idled on a dry patch of ground.

“Well, at least we’re out of the mud, right?” Tiernan said, trying to stay positive. What else could she do? This trip had been utterly sucktastic from moment one, and most of it was all her fault. With Summer’s help, they slid the door into the van through the open hole where the door should have been; then they were off.

The backseat was all breeze. Tiernan zipped up her hoodie to stay warm while she watched the trees whiz past. They were still in the woods, but her peaceful moment communing with nature seemed like a million miles away.

“Woo hoo!” Summer cheered when they finally hit pavement. Miraculously, the Pea Pod sailed out of the woods without a single wrong turn.

“So, where to, boss?” Tiernan asked, grabbing hold of the
map they’d made last night just as it was about to fly out the door. Or, rather,
lack of door
. Parts of the map were still sticky with glue. “According to this, we go through Kentucky next, which means snow cones are on the agenda.”

“Well, before we do
anything
we need to get the door fixed,” Alice said grumpily.

They found a garage a few miles up. At least it looked like it
used
to be a garage. It was a gray, perfectly square structure made from bare concrete blocks, the words
CAR REPAIR
painted on a piece of plywood leaning against it. A tan double-wide trailer sat no more than twenty feet away from it. The yard was a tangle of weeds, rusted out junk boxes, and assorted parts.

Alice gave the horn a quick double beep.

“You think this place is open?” Tiernan asked. It looked more likely that someone had died here years ago, their carcass probably still rotting away in their favorite armchair.

“It better be,” Summer said. “I don’t think it’s legal to drive around without the door on, right?”

Summer Dalton, careful follower of rules, laws, and celebrity fashion trends.

Alice had just put the van into gear when a woman in a faded green nightgown emerged from the trailer. She was built like an oilcan, midfifties, with straggly silver hair held back with a rubber band.

“Better be an emergency at this time of day,” the woman croaked.

It hadn’t even occurred to Tiernan that it was only seven o’clock in the morning. Alice smiled apologetically, pointing to the other side of the Pea Pod.

“We had a little mishap,” Alice explained.

The woman’s face didn’t register an expression. She merely stepped around the van and peered in through the hole.

“Hey,” Tiernan said, waving a muddy hand. But the woman just touched the broken metal track and bit her tongue. Tiernan was pretty sure she was missing a tooth.

“I gotta get dressed and have my coffee first,” she said, waddling back toward the trailer.

“Excuse me, ma’am?” Alice got out of the van. “About how much will it cost? To fix the door?”

The woman opened the metal screen door to the trailer, resting it on her shoulder as she squinted back at the Pea Pod. “Three hundred,” she said. Then the door slapped shut and she disappeared inside.

Tiernan winced. Did Alice expect her to pay for part of it?
All of it?
Tiernan was willing to take the blame, but a three-hundred-dollars hit was another thing altogether.

“I think since we’re splitting the cost of gas and hotels, we should probably split this, too,” Alice said. “If you guys think that’s fair.”

“Sure.” Tiernan silently breathed a sigh of relief.

“Maybe we should just find another garage,” Summer said, tossing her hair in the direction of the used car graveyard.

“Or”—Alice’s eyes were all lit up—“we could see if she’ll barter with us.”

Over lunch yesterday, Alice had subjected them to a lecture on the value of bartering and how it was a good way to “just say no” to consumerist culture.

“Barter what?” Summer asked.

“I don’t know,” Alice replied. “There’s probably
something
she needs.”

From what Tiernan could tell there was a lot the woman needed—a better house, a lawn mower, a new tooth.

If Tiernan were in charge, she would have greased the wheels a little (so to speak) before swooping in to ask about a barter. But as soon as the screen door squeaked open and the woman reappeared (now in dusty gray coveralls and holding a coffee mug that read “World’s Greatest Nana”), Alice made her move.

“Ma’am, we were wondering . . .”

“Gert,” the woman snarled.

“Gert,” Alice went on, “we were wondering, if maybe there’s something we could
do
around here to help you out, in exchange for you knocking down the price a bit?”

Gert snorted. “What don’t this place need done?” She thought for a minute. “All right. I’ve got a barter for you. You girls have kudzu up in”—Gert glanced at the license plate on the Pea Pod—“Massachusetts?”

They shook their heads.

“Well, I got a shed out back that’s covered in the stuff.” Gert
pointed to her jungle of a backyard. “You see it back there?”

At first Tiernan didn’t see anything but a patch of tangled vines. Then, slowly, the outline of a shed emerged, the way a pointillist painting starts to make sense the farther you step away from it.

Every inch of the shed was covered in kudzu. It looked like something that belonged in a village from a children’s fairy tale. It
was
a fairy tale—complete with its very own toothless old witch.

“You clear the shed, I’ll make it one-fifty,” Gert said.

Tiernan looked at Alice. Alice looked at Summer. Summer just shrugged.

They were idiots. Ignorant Yankee
idiots who knew nothing about invasive Southern weeds. The kudzu was strong and thick and everywhere, and Tiernan was pretty sure that the harder she tugged at the stuff, the tighter it held on. So much for Tiernan’s van-door-ripping Incredible Hulk superstrength of this morning.

Summer and Alice got the hedge clippers, cutting the roots at the base of the shed while Tiernan followed behind them, tearing out the remnants of the plants by hand. They worked like this for hours under the glaring midday sun. Tiernan normally despised doing yardwork of any sort, but part of her was happy they’d been tricked into doing such a thankless task. After all, if Gert was the bad guy, it meant
Alice and Summer were less likely to pin the blame on her.

“Photosynthesize
this
, you demonic weed!” Tiernan yelled at the nest of kudzu in her hand. Then the vine suddenly gave way and she toppled backward onto the ground.

“That’s what you get for yelling at the vegetation,” Summer said. “It’s karma.”

“More like
van
-ma,” Alice added, which made Tiernan and Summer groan.