Page 8 of The Road Sometimes Taken

“Excuse me,” I say, reaching behind her to place the items in her pink-galore van.

“Cara, you do know you’re not a real-life Barbie, right?” I joke but it falls flat.

“What I drive is none of your business. This,” she says, tapping the van’s door, “is my baby. Liking pink doesn’t make me a Barbie.”

“This is your baby that you couldn’t leave behind?” I ask, puzzled.

“Is it that you didn’t ask your sister what I needed help with or the color throwing you off?” she counters.

“No, it’s because what thirty-year-old drives a pink vehicle?” I ask before realizing I’ve stepped on a landmine. She slams the door, gives me a sharp smack on the shoulder, and climbs into the driver’s seat. The van comes to life, and I scramble to open the passenger door and hop in before she drives off.

“Real-life Barbie,” Cara mocks in a cartoonish voice, backing out of the parking lot and driving away from her school.

“You didn’t have to come. I didn’t ask you to.” She puts onefinger up and says, “First, I was going to drive myself back, thank you very much. Second—” She lowers her hand to signal the right turn she started making without signaling. I buckle my seatbelt with a loud snap and sign the cross on my forehead and chest.

“You’re so dramatic. It was just a tiny turn,” Cara snaps. “As I was saying. Second, stop acting like you’re above pink. Pink is just a color. The best one if you ask me, but it doesn’t make this beautiful thing any less.”

I smile and say, “Sure, sure, sure. Just make sure we make it in one piece. By the way, where are we headed?”

“I’m going to my house. I need to finish packing, I have a dinner party tonight, and I’m still working tomorrow. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to call your sister to give her a piece of my mind.” She pulls out her phone, sets it on a sparkly holder on the dashboard, and tells Siri to call “The Bestie” on speaker.

“Cara,” I try to say but she just looks my way and narrows her eyes.

“Cara?” Allie asks, answering the phone.

“Allison Marie Zabana, you have things to explain,” Cara snaps, looking over her shoulder before merging lanes, again without her signal being on.Por el amor a Jesus, nos va a matar.?1

“What did I do now?” Allie shouts.

Cara looks at me sideways. When I don’t say anything and she rolls her eyes, I take it as a sign and say in a clipped tone, “Hi Allielicious!” Allie used to be obsessed with Fergalicious by Fergie for a long time, so Gus and I started calling her Allielicious as a joke and it just stuck.

“Happy to hear he made it.”

“What the fuck do you mean ‘he made it?’ Allie, youdidn’t tell me he was coming. I hate surprises, you know that, and I told you I was going to drive myself back.”

“Cara, in no good conscience I was going to let you take a road trip for weeks by yourself, in your van that hasn’t left the city in who knows how long.”Weeks? Did she just say weeks?

“Mmm… unless Cara’s moving around the world and back, there’s no way it’s going to take her two weeks to make it back to Baker Oaks. What are you talking about?” I ask my sister, hijacking their conversation.

Cara pulls up into a neighborhood, parking the van in an empty spot in front of a beige townhouse with a yellow and lemon wreath on the door. When she parks, she grabs the phone from the holder and hits the FaceTime button. After a beat, Allie’s face shows up on the screen with a triumphant smile on her face.

“You didn’t tell him?!” Cara asks. “So, you didn’t tellmethatyou actually gotyour brotherto join me on a road trip that I toldyouI was going to take by myself? But you also didn’t tellhimit was more than just driving me back to Baker Oaks?”

She smiles and says, “Sounds about right. I have to go though. Good luck!”

The call drops and Cara drops her head on the steering wheel with an audible “Agh!”

“Hello, tierra a Cara?2,” I call, lifting a strand of the softest hair—silky smooth between my fingers. A jolt of electricity courses through me from the tip of my finger, and it’s obvious I need to get laid if touching this girl’s hair makes me feel more than I have felt in months.

Yeah, the media talks about me having a flavor of the day but I haven’t had a girl in a bed in months. I saya bedbecause I’ve never brought anyone to my ownplace. Or places, if you count my condos in every city where we have a corporate office. Maybe I’m bored or maybe I’m old. Either way, I’m tired of the same shit, so driving for almost seventeen hours seemed like a good idea. Freshen up my mind, widen my horizons, and put me in a new scene. But two weeks? I can’t take that much time off.

Cara gets out. I want to follow her but I remember the bag, box, and flowers so I open the back door and gather her stuff. She stops by her front door and mumbles something under her breath.

“Sorry, Carita, I don’t have supersonic ears.”

“I said,” she pauses for theatrics, “I need my keys from my bag.”

I hand her the bag, and after she opens the door, we walk in. Stepping into this home feels the way I imagine Malibu Barbie’s house would. The first thing I notice is the smell of lemon and vanilla. Like a scone at a bakery. The house is decorated with pink, lilacs, greens, and yellows. Patterns and solids. Flowers and lines. It feels soft in here but almost not real. Cara leaves her shoes by the door, walks to the pastel pink fridge, grabs a Poppi Cola, and throws herself in a pink recliner. There are boxes strewn across different areas of the house with what I assume is the stuff she’s moving, but there’s still enough space to walk around and sit.

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