Road to Paradise. Paullina Simons
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her little nose in a guilt squint. “I think so.” She blinked her blue eyes at me and grinned. “Want to check the map?”
“Someone is going to have to. Why would your Glen Burnie aunt tell you your Toledo aunt lived in Toledo if she doesn’t live in Toledo?”
“She didn’t say she lived in Toledo. She said she lived near Toledo.”
“Is Michigan, two states away, really near Toledo?” I flipped open my notebook.
Gina snatched it away. “Look, Miss Spiral, let’s get Burger King and get on with it. You know we’re going to have to go see Aunt Betty no matter what. She’s waiting for us. No use bitching and moaning. And it’ll save us at least fifty bucks in hotels.” She smiled. “Depending on how long we stay.”
When we had food in our hands, Gina called the number on the scrap of paper. “Aunt Betty is so happy we’re coming!” she said when she got off the phone.
“Oh, yeah? Did you tell her she lives in Michigan, not Ohio? That’ll wipe the smile off her face.”
Gina laughed. “Sloane, you’re so funny. So what? It’s nothing. Michigan, Ohio, what’s the difference? We take the road we’re on …”
“I-80?”
“I think so. We take it to Route 12, just a few miles west from here, and then take 12 a few miles north, and then we make a left, and it’s right there. Can’t miss it. She said from here it shouldn’t take us more than an hour.”
“Famous last words.” I unfolded my big map so I could find this Route 12. Oh, yes. So close. Just half a jump to the left, half a step to the right. Let’s do the time warp again … “Tell me, explain to me, how near Toledo means near Lake Michigan,” I grumbled, biting into my burger and fishing out a handful of fries. We were leaning over the hood of the ’Stang. “Tell me. Toledo is on Lake Erie. Tell me how Lake Michigan is near Lake Erie.”
“Aren’t they adjacent lakes?” Gina said helpfully.
“They’re Great Lakes! One lake is bigger than the Black Sea. The other is bigger than the Gulf of Mexico.”
“Come on, that’s not really true,” said Gina, helping me fold the map, her mouth full of fries and fish. “The Gulf of Mexico is the largest gulf in the world. And the Black Sea—”
“Gina, I don’t want to hear it.” I was getting tetchy again. “One giant lake, another giant lake, a rinky-dink town that doesn’t even rate atlas mention, that’s not next to Toledo, Ohio!”
“All right, all right. Can we go? She’s waiting.”
“Not next to it. You have to tell your Aunt Flo that, Gina, when you see her.”
“I will. It’ll be the first thing I tell her. Now come on.”
After we found Route 12 and got off, and drove twenty miles, we were told we were going the wrong way. “You’re going south,” the tollbooth guy said when we finally capitulated and asked. “You have to head north. Just head on up for ten or fifteen miles. Three Oaks is right before the bend. Watch for it. If the road turns, you’ve already missed it. You’ll be in New Buffalo.”
“So we won’t know until we’ve missed it?” I said accusingly, pulling away. “Gee, I wonder why it’s called Three Oaks?” I revved the car into second. “I’m sure it’s ironically named. It’s probably a booming town.”
Of course we missed it; missing it was built into the directions. When the road turned, a sign genially informed us that we were now leaving Three Oaks township (no less!) and counseling us to drive safely. We turned around. A little elementary school on the corner, a gas station, a bar. No sidewalks.
Michigan wasn’t what I expected. Perhaps my mind was poisoned by my perception of Detroit. I imagined all Michigan, like Flint—built up, industrial, a sort of bleaker Elizabeth, New Jersey, which is as bleak as apocalypse, all smokestacks and black electric-wire factories. It wasn’t anything like that where we were. This was all driving country, no towns, no strip malls. Silos, fields, curving country roads with little ramshackle delis built into the shoulder like bushes.
The aunt’s house wasn’t actually in Three Oaks, but on the outskirts, off a dirt road, marked not by a number but by a stone dog on the rusted mailbox. Next to it was a broken-down limp trailer with one end inside a small rotted-out barn where there was a cow and a goat.
Aunt Betty was waiting for us out on the dirt driveway. She was tall and thin, with watchful, perpetually moist brown platters for eyes. Her mouth was slightly ajar, as if she was about to say something, yet didn’t. She did quietly lament our tardy arrival as she and Ned had already eaten lunch and weren’t making another meal until sundown; was that all right with us?
“I don’t know,” said Gina. “What time does sun set around here, Aunt Betty?”
She showed us to our room, hurrying past the kitchen. The house was not as neatly kept as Aunt Flo’s—it was dusty, piled with years of layers of stuff. Ned was sitting at the kitchen table so immersed in a newspaper, he barely looked up.
“Hi, Ned,” said Gina.
He said nothing, just raised his hand in a wave.
“Come on,” said Aunt Betty. “I only have the one guest room. You don’t mind sharing a bed, do you? You used to all the time when you were small.”
Gina and I said nothing. Perhaps she did mind. If only we could put Molly between us, maybe that would be better.
Adolescent Molly may’ve been right about Ned. He gave me the willies, sitting there lumpen, his great blubber-belly hanging over his belt. Each time he turned a page of his newspaper, a frightening shower of dandruff snowed from his sparse, greasy comb-over onto his light blue T-shirt.
Later when he left the table and the paper open, I glanced over to see what had happened in the world that was so fascinating. A 500-pound woman had died and was two months in the deep freeze while waiting to be cremated. There was some issue about who was going to pay for the “highly involved” process of cremating a body 200 pounds over the allowable weight of 300. The son was indigent, and the coroner’s office, the hospital, and the morgue remained in bitter disagreement about who had to pay for it. I saw the date of the story: April, 1974. Ned couldn’t tear himself away from a news story seven years old.
After “Wheel of Fortune,” when I was faint with hunger, Betty gave us food, but not before she showed us the backyard with pens for her dogs. She cooed over them, fussed, fed them (fed them!). Then us, then Ned. He was last, after the dogs and the guests.
“Sloane,” Gina said to me quietly, “honestly, don’t let it slip how you feel about small furry pooches. Even Hitler liked dogs.”
“Yes,” I barked. “Preferred dogs to children. Quite the paragon of canine-loving virtue, that Adolf.”
Gina tutted and turned to Aunt Betty. “Aunt Betty, is there somewhere fun to go around here?”
“Fun like where?”
“I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking.”
“No, that’s why I’m asking. What kind of fun are you talking about?” She narrowed her eyes. “There’s a bowling alley in South Bend. It’s about forty miles away. But that’s a college town. It can get real rowdy there. Real rowdy. There’s an outlet mall in Michigan City. It’s closed by now. You can go there tomorrow.”
“We’ll need to be on our way tomorrow, Aunt Betty,” said Gina. “I’m just asking for tonight. Anywhere to go to in Three Oaks tonight?”
Betty’s eyes remained narrowed. “What kind of fun you talkin’ about?” She looked at Ned, dutifully drinking his beer, not looking up from his news page. He was re-reading the story about the obese woman. “Boy fun?”
Gina