Good and Gone by Megan Frazer Blakemore

Author:Megan Frazer Blakemore
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2017-10-09T04:00:00+00:00

NOW

A green sign comes into view. “This is it,” Zack says. “Where do you want us to drop you in Danbury?”

“The closer to eighty-four the better,” she says. “That’s where you need to go, too, right? To go into Pennsylvania?”

“You sure you don’t want to come with us?” Charlie asks her.

“Tempting,” she says.

“We’d drive you right to New York on the way back,” he says. All this care for a girl he’s barely even met. I mean, I agree with him. We should take her to New York. We should make sure she gets where she’s going. That’s just, like, the basic level of decency. But where the hell was all this care when I needed him?

“But if we find Adrian Wildes, there will be all this hoopla, and I really need to get down to Florida before the spring break crowds start coming in March. If I can get those tips, I’ll be set through the slow summer.”

Charlie nods. So sure he is that we’re going to find Adrian Wildes, this seems like a legit excuse.

We drive a little longer until we’re right by the on-ramp for the highway. Zack pulls the car into the parking lot of a Gulp ’N’ Go. “I need some things,” I say as I get out of the car with Harper.

“I’m gonna top off the oil,” Zack says.

“And then we have to go,” Charlie says.

“I have to tell you something,” I say as we step into the Gulp ’N’ Go. The fluorescent lights and all the brightly colored signs and food shock my eyes. The smell of old pizza and hot dogs turns my stomach.

“Shoot,” she says as she examines a display of nuts and trail mix.

“I don’t think you should hitch all the way to Florida.”

“Why not?”

“It just seems dangerous.”

“I’ve got a code,” she says. “A set of rules, you know, for keeping safe. It’s mostly about the clothes. Schlubby but clean clothes. Manly clothes, you know.” She turns to me. “That’s why for, like, half a second I thought maybe you really were a hitchhiker when I got in the car.”

I look down at myself and realize she and I are dressed in a pretty similar way—faded jeans, T-shirts, and hoodies. “Wouldn’t you get more rides with a short skirt and booby shirt?”

She shakes her head and her face grows dark. “Not if you want to make it where you’re going. That’s rule one of hitchhiking, okay?”

“Okay,” I agree, even though I don’t plan to ever need those rules.

“You dress like that, a certain kind of person will pick you up. And that type of person will expect a certain type of payment. And nine times out of ten, that type of person will take it if you don’t give it.”

I pick up a pack of chips, look at them for a minute, then put them back down. “That’s like saying that a girl deserves it if she wears a tight dress to a party.”

She shakes her head. “None of us deserve anything.

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