Page 20 of People We Meet on Vacation

“Seriously?” He looks over at me, broad, unfiltered surprise on his face.

“Aren’t most karaoke bars twenty-one and up?” I say.

“Not all bars card,” he says. “We should go. Sometime this summer.”

“Okay,” I say, as surprised by the invitation as by my accepting it. “That’d be fun.”

“Okay,” he says. “Cool.”

So now we have two sets of plans.

I guess that makes us friends. Sort of?

A car flies up behind us, pressing in close. Alex, seemingly unbothered, puts on his signal to move out of his way. Every time I’ve checked the speedometer, he’s been holding steady precisely at the speed limit, and that’s not about to change for one measly tailgater.

I should’ve guessed what a cautious driver he’d be. Then again, sometimes when you guess about people, you end up very wrong.

As the sticky, glare-streaked remains of Chicago shrink behind us and the thirsty fields of Indiana spring up on either side of us, my shuffling driving playlist moves nonsensically between Beyoncé and Neil Young and Sheryl Crow and LCD Soundsystem.

“You really do like everything,” Alex teases.

“Except running, Linfield, and khakis,” I say.

He keeps his window up, I keep mine down, my hair cycloning around my head as we fly over flat country roads, the wind so loud I can barely make out Alex’s pitchy rendition of Heart’s “Alone” until he gets to the soaring chorus and we belt it out together in horrendous matching falsettos, arms flying, faces contorted, and ancient station wagon speakers buzzing.

In that moment, he is so dramatic, so ardent, so absurd, it’s like I’m looking at an entirely separate person from the mild-mannered boy I met beneath the globe lights during O-Week.

Maybe, I think, Quiet Alex is like a coat that he puts on before he walks out the door.

Maybe this is Naked Alex.

Okay, I’ll think of a better name for it. The point is, I’m starting to like this one.

“What about traveling?” I ask in the lull between songs.

“What about it?” he says.

“Love or hate?”

His mouth presses into an even line as he considers. “Hard to say,” he replies. “I’ve never really been anywhere. Read about a lot of places, just haven’t seen any of them yet.”

“Me neither,” I say. “Not yet.”

He thinks for another moment. “Love,” he says. “I’m guessing love.”

“Yeah.” I nod. “Me too.”

6

This Summer

I MARCH INTO SWAPNA’Soffice the next morning, feeling wired despite the late night I had texting Alex. I plop her drink, an iced Americano, down on her desk and she looks up, startled, from the layout proofs she’s approving for the upcoming fall issue.

“Palm Springs,” I say.

For a second, her surprise stays fixed on her face, then the corners of her razor-edged lips curl into a smile. She sits back in her chair, folding her perfectly toned arms across her tailored black dress, the overhead light catching her engagement ring so that the behemoth ruby set at its center winks fantastically.

“Palm Springs,” she repeats. “It’s evergreen.” She thinks for a second, then waves her hand. “I mean, it’s a desert, of course, but as far asR+R, there’s hardly any place more restful or relaxing in the continental United States.”

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