Northbound

Family Car trip North, 
next stop: Vacationland.
Minute: zero
Family: buckle up.
Me: “It’s six-oh-one, we’re late go go go go go go!”
Car doors slam, garage door shudders down.

Minute: zero point five
Me, as we back down driveway: 
“It’s so freaking humid I’m going to die right here, right here in this death seat!”
Him: averts eyes, tucks chin down to protect neck
Her: Audible Eye Roll™️

Minute eight: At local Starbucks:
Me: grande coconut milk latte, what the heck add a shot of vanilla and obviously the rice crispy bar—
Him: You don’t really need a Dream bar before seven right? 
Me: “make that two!”

Eleven minutes in:
each of us are folded back into overstuffed car, 
we turn onto backroads before the interstate:
Apple Music CarPlay at volume 2 of 100: 
🎶 move bitch🎶
Me: LUDA!!!!!!!!!!!
[immediately dials volume to 23]
Him: whoa whoa it’s way too early for volume 23
Me: guzzles latte, emits feral cry: 
“Whooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhwoooooooooooooooohhh
MOVE B!!!!!”

Him:  Um Di, can you pull up directions, I need a navigator—
Me: Ugh hold ON! I’m almost done sending this reel pebble to my friend—
Him: And—this is time-dependent I need to know if the road is closed or not—
Me: It’s a road I’m sure it’s open—
Me: Oh yeah, so it's closed—
Him: ____

Thirty-two minutes into our daylong drive:
Me: “We need to stop immediately I need to pee!”
Him: We’re on an expressway linked to a tunnel there’s literally no where to stop, Di. Look up ‘Maryland House’”
Me: “That’s twenty miles away! I will pee on you before we get that far!”

Minute: fifty-eight
Me: ebullient post-restroom relief.
I run towards him, arms open, 
hopping thrice, launch preparations to leap into his arms.
Him: grimaces, teeth bared in the middle of the rest stop:
“PSA reminder for the millionth time: I don’t do PDA, babe”

Minute sixty-one:
Me: Cross arms; huff to car
Get back in, re-fold arms over belted chest.

Minute sixty-seven (six-seven!)
I think he’s winking at me, to melt the ice.
I turn to smile as he says: 
“You know...your windshield interior is profoundly dirty”
Me: Uh! I’m sorry my windows aren’t up to your standards, Tom!
[We are all Patricia]

Minute: seventy-four
Me: “I can’t believe you wouldn’t kiss me in public”
Him: “I’m still getting over your gremlin moment before you got to pee”
Me: WHAT GREMLIN MOMENT 
Him: —
Him: — —
Him: “The next four hundred miles will be pleasant, surely.”
Me: “Don’t call me ‘Shirley!’

Him: Searches, palpates, 
desperate fingers brush across the console 
running across knobs and dials to find a partition window button, 
seeking an absolution. 

Narrator: “an absolution, that would never come”
Cue the James Horner Titanic soundtrack

Roll credits