he stared straight ahead. "I won't be enrolling." His eyes didn't once veer o the road. "Just you. It's only for a little while."
"How little?"
"A few ... weeks."
Had Luce been the one behind the wheel, this was when she would have slammed on the brakes.
"A few weeks?"
"If I could be with you, I would." Daniel's voice was so at, so steady, that it made Luce even more upset. "You saw what just happened with your du el bag and the trunk. That was like my shooting up a are into the sky to let everyone know where we are. To alert anyone who is looking for me--and by me, I mean you. I am too easy to nd, too easy for others to track down. And that bit with your bag? That is nothing compared to the things I do every day that would draw the attention of ..." He shook his head sharply. "I won't put you in danger, Luce, I won't."
"Then don't."
Daniel's face looked pained. "It's complicated."
"And let me guess: You can't explain."
"I wish I could."
Luce drew her knees to her chest, leaned away from him and against the passenger-side door, feeling somehow claustrophobic under the big blue California sky.
For half an hour, the two of them rode in silence. In and out of patches of fog, up and down the rocky, arid terrain. They passed signs for Sonoma, and as the car cruised through lush green vineyards, Daniel spoke. "It's three more hours to Fort Bragg. You going to stay mad at me the whole time?"
Luce ignored him. She thought of and refused to give voice to hundreds of questions, frustrations, accusations, and--ultimately--apologies for Luce ignored him. She thought of and refused to give voice to hundreds of questions, frustrations, accusations, and--ultimately--apologies for acting like such a spoiled brat. At the turno for the Anderson Valley, Daniel forked west and tried again to hold her hand. "Maybe you'll forgive me in time to enjoy our last few minutes together?"
She wanted to. She really wanted to not be ghting with Daniel right now. But the fresh mention of there being such a thing as a "last few minutes together," of his leaving her alone for reasons she couldn't understand and that he always refused to explain--it made Luce nervous, then terri ed, then frustrated all over again. In the roiling sea of new state, new school, new dangers everywhere, Daniel was the only rock she had to hold on to. And he was about to leave her? Hadn't she been through enough? Hadn't they both been through enough?
It was only after they'd passed through the redwoods and come out into a starry, royal-blue evening that Daniel said something that broke through to her. They'd just passed a sign that read WELCOME TO MENDOCINO, and Luce was looking west. A full moon shone down on a cluster of buildings: a lighthouse, several copper water towers, and rows of well-preserved old wooden houses. Somewhere out beyond all that was the ocean she could hear but couldn't see.
Daniel pointed east, into a dark, dense forest of redwood and maple trees. "See that trailer park up ahead?"
She never would have if he hadn't pointed it out, but now Luce squinted to see a narrow driveway, where a lime-caked wooden placard read in whitewashed letters MENDOCINO MOBILE HOMES.
"You used to live right there."
"What?" Luce sucked in her breath so quickly, she started to cough. The park looked sad and lonesome, a dull line of low-ceilinged cookie-cutter boxes set along a cheap gravel road. "That's awful."
"You lived there before it was a trailer park," Daniel said, easing the car to a stop by the side of the road. "Before there were mobile homes. Your father in that lifetime brought your family out from Illinois during the gold rush." He seemed to look inward somewhere, and sadly shook his head. "Used to be a really nice place."
Luce watched a bald man with a potbelly tug a mangy orange dog on a leash. The man was wearing a white undershirt and annel boxers. Luce couldn't picture herself there at all.
Yet it was so clear to Daniel. "You had a two-room cabin and your mother was a terrible cook, so the whole place always smelled like cabbage. You had these blue gingham curtains that I used to part so I could climb through your window at night after your parents were asleep."
The car idled. Luce closed her eyes and tried to ght back her stupid tears. Hearing