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“Of course, what like you don’t believe it?” she countered.
“No,” I lied, “just making sure I understood.”
Sitting back, resting her head against the headrest, Sophie shouted. “Whatever, I’m just so glad we won’t be rained out. I hate the rain.”
Coco nodded and put the music on now, as if perfectly content she could give Sophie this small thing. They all began singing to some hit pop song they knew the lyrics to, so I took that as my time to take my phone out of my purse and check my email.
I was having withdrawals from work and I had barely been away from my computer and phone for an hour. “No new messages,” I said to myself.
No one seemed to notice, though, so I put my phone away and watched as Coco pulled off the highway to a gas station at a rest station. “Do we need gas already?” I asked, trying to see the meter. If she filled up before we left, we shouldn’t have needed gas until we got to Miami, especially without the air conditioning.
Coco shook her head. “We don’t need gas, but I need to pee and am dying for some beef jerky.”
“You’re going to use the restroom at a gas station?” I gave Coco a sour expression. “That can’t be safe.”
“It’s perfectly fine,” she promised. “I have these.” She took out toilet seat covers from her purse one-handed, like those made it all better, and waved them back at me.
“I hope you’re planning on using the whole box.”
She brushed off my comment. “It’ll be fine.” Then she turned to Daphne and Sophie. “Remember when we took that trip to Atlanta to go to the aquarium because Mel was having an obsession with sea animals and Sophie peed in the bushes?”
“Oh, I miss Mel. I wish she could’ve come home for this week,” Daphne said, looking off.
“There was nowhere else to pee and we had just passed a gas station,” my sister exclaimed in her defense.
“You peed in the bushes?” I asked her, still astonished that she’d do something like that.
She nodded. “It’s actually not as bad as you think. To be honest, now I know why guys do it so often.”
“Guys pee in bushes often?” I asked, sounding stupid to even my own ears.“I don’t think they set out to do it, but yeah my boyfriends have on more than one occasion,” Daphne said. “When you gotta go, you gotta go.”
I rolled my eyes. “But this is only a four-hour drive. You can’t just wait?”
Coco shook her head. “I think it was the blue raspberry Slurpee I got at the 7-Eleven earlier. I knew I shouldn’t have drank it all.”
Coco got out. “Any of you coming?” She looked to me, Daphne, and then Sophie.
We all shook our heads.
“We’ll wait here,” Sophie spoke for all of us, apparently. But I didn’t mind. In this, my sister could definitely speak for me.
Daphne shot a hand up in the air and climbed out. “Actually, wait up, I’m coming with you. I want to get something to snack on,” she explained to us as if it mattered one way or another.
When Daphne was gone, Soph unbuckled her seatbelt and climbed over to the backseat. “What are you doing?” I asked, astonished by her. In fact, I really didn’t think I’d ever not be astonished by her. She was so carefree. Reckless, I pondered. Or maybe it was just me, maybe I was getting to be too old and boring.
When she finally got settled, she fixed her jean shorts and sighed. “I want to talk to you.”
Focusing on her, I pushed aside all my thoughts and asked, “And you couldn’t do that from up there?”
She shook her head and found my hands in my lap, taking them in hers. “I need to know something.”
I searched her eyes. I didn’t know where this was going, but I’d tell Sophie anything she wanted or needed to know. “What’s up?”
She closed her eyes and exhaled. “Am I making a mistake?”
I widened my eyes and licked my lips. “Why would you ask that?”
She pulled away and played with her ponytail now. “Because I’m not always the best judge of character and Bobby is a great guy and all, but is he really my forever? I mean, is he going to make me happy for the rest of my life? Or am I settling?”
