The Unexpected Everything (55 page)

Palmer grinned at me. “Always.”

Twenty minutes later I looked across at Palmer from the passenger seat. She was driving, and had been since we'd stopped by the gatehouse. I'd taken three wrong turns just trying to get us out of Stanwich Woods, which was when Palmer suggested that maybe I should just ride for a while.

It wasn't a bad idea, especially since my thoughts were spinning triple time. We'd done some preliminary research into the governor's schedule, only to find out that he was speaking at three events today. Rather than waste time—and also because it was getting
really
hot out on the driveway—we'd gone inside to see if we could find anything about the location of today's event in my dad's study.

I'd gone to my dad's desk to try and find any information while Palmer had made herself useful mostly by looking at all the paraphernalia on the bookcases. His laptop was on the desk, and even though I was pretty sure that I would need a password, I opened it up just in case I could get into his calendar. To my surprise, it wasn't locked—and there was a window open to a fan site for Clark's books. I smiled at that, then minimized it, only to see a document with my dad's speech for today. I didn't get any further than glancing at his opening remarks before I minimized that, too. I started to pull up his calendar when I realized I was looking at the background image on his screen. I knew it—I knew it better than almost anything—but I'd never seen it like this before.

I found myself sitting down in his leather chair and leaning forward, trying to understand what I was seeing. Because it was
Stars Fell on Alexandra
—but not the painting. It was a photograph.

It looked like it had been taken at early dusk, with long blue shadows everywhere. There was no flash, but you could still see details—you could see my yellow Converse and their broken laces. And you could see that I was looking off to the side, just like I was in the painting—but that I was looking at my father.

He was standing just at the edge of the frame, waving at me, and I was smiling at him like I'd never been so happy to see someone.

Clark had been right after all. I had been looking at something—at some
one
.

I'd been looking at my dad.

My mom had wanted her last work to be the two of us, in frame, together.

“Did you find it?” Palmer asked, making me jump and shaking me out of this reverie. She walked around behind me to see what I was looking at, and I heard her draw in a breath. “Is that . . . ?” she asked, and I nodded. “Wow,” she said softly, shaking her head. “We'll have to tell Tobes. She'll flip.”

The words seemed to hang in the air for a moment before I cleared my throat and said, “Okay. Goals. Address.” It had been the first item in my dad's calendar for today, and we'd grabbed bottles of water for the car and hit the road.

Now I looked down at my phone, holding my hair back in one hand to keep it out of my face. Palmer was a windows-down driver—it was one of the fights she always had with Bri, who liked to keep the Grape Escape air-conditioned and as close to the temperature of a meat locker as possible. Normally I liked a windows-down drive as well, but it was hot enough that it was beginning to feel like a hair dryer was blowing in on us.

“How are we on time?” Palmer asked, glancing over at me.

“We should be there in forty-five,” I said, looking down at the map on my phone.

“Will that be enough?”

I nodded. “It should be.” I twisted my hair up into a knot, pulling it through on itself. “I know it goes against your belief system, but do you think we could turn the AC on just for a bit?”

Palmer sighed and nodded, then put up both our windows as I cranked the air-conditioning as high as it would go. “Every now and then you have to concede defeat,” she said, angling her driver's-side vent so that it was pointing right toward her. “So what about Clark?” Palmer asked, after we'd been driving
in silence for the amount of time it took to pass two rest stops.

I looked over at her. I'd already told her about my revelation at the party and given her the bare outline of my mom's note. That one still felt a little too raw for me to go into much detail about it, but I knew I'd tell her everything soon. “What do you mean?”

“I mean what now?” she asked, looking over at me for just a second before focusing back on the highway. I wasn't worried like I would have been if Toby were driving—Palmer was the best driver out of all of us, by far. “What's the plan?”

I opened my mouth, then closed it when I realized I didn't have an answer. For the first time in a long time, I didn't have a plan. And I didn't want one. “I'm going to play it by ear, I think,” I said. I just wanted to tell Clark how I felt, without practicing or preparing anything.

Palmer looked at me, a smile spreading over her face. “Hi. I'm sorry, have we met?” she asked. “I'm looking for Andie Walker.”

“Ha,” I said, smiling back at her. “I'm not going to plan anything out. I'm just going to talk to him tonight and see how it goes. When he's back from his signing.”

“Or,” Palmer said, looking significantly over at me.

“Or what?”

“Or just go to New Hampshire and tell him at his book thing.”

“New Jersey,” I corrected. “And I'm not going to do that.”

“Why not?” she asked, changing lanes smoothly and speeding up slightly.

“Because,” I said, shaking my head, “it's a work thing for him.
And it's in public. I don't want to tell him in front of a ton of people. . . .” My voice trailed off as I remembered the argument Clark and I had had about Karl and Marjorie and the declaration of love in the crowded tavern. I closed my eyes for just a moment, remembering how seriously Clark had seemed to take it, how he'd fought for it. “Oh god,” I said hollowly, as I opened my eyes, realizing what I had to do. “I think I have to go to Clark's reading.”

Palmer grinned at me. “Okay, so we'll go tell your dad, and then we'll head to . . .”

“New Jersey,” I filled in for her. “Do you have a mental block about this state, or something?”

“New Jersey,” Palmer said, talking over me like I hadn't said anything.

“You don't have to come.”

“You think I'd miss this?” She looked at me incredulously. “Not a chance.”

“Thank you.”

She nodded, and I watched as she tapped her fingers on the closed driver's-side window, then brought her hands back to ten and two, then moved them again. “What is it?” I asked.

She glanced over at me before looking back at the road. “Bri and Toby,” she said, shaking her head. “We have to fix it.”

I nodded. From the way she said it, though, I could tell that she had about as much of an idea for how to do this as I did. “Yeah,” I agreed. “But how?” The question hung between us in the car for a moment before I reached over and turned on the radio, sensing that both of us needed a break from our thoughts.

When we were ten minutes away from the fairground where the event was being held, something started happening to
the car. The engine was making a groaning sound, and though Palmer had started driving more slowly, it didn't seem to be helping. “What is this?” I asked, leaning over to try and see the dash. “Why are you breaking my car?”

“Do you think it knew you got another one?” she asked, “and so it's mad or something?”

“It's probably nothing,” I said, hoping that if I said it out loud, it would turn out to be true. “Right?”

Palmer frowned as she looked down at the dash, tapping it once. “This is moving over toward the
H
,” she said. “It's the temperature thing. I have a feeling that's not good.”

“It's probably just because it's hot,” I said, nodding, glad to have an explanation for this that made sense. “It's just really hot out. I'm sure it'll get better once it has a chance to cool down.”

“Maybe,” Palmer said, still frowning at the gauges, most of which I'd never paid any attention to before now. Right as we turned into the parking area, however, the
CHECK ENGINE
light came on, which didn't seem like a good sign to either of us. We both got out of the car, and I felt myself wince. Things seemed to be even hotter here than they'd been at home. “Go find your dad,” Palmer said, leaning against the car and pulling out her phone. “I'm going to call Fitz and see what he says about the engine. He's the only one in my family who knows anything about cars.”

“Great,” I said, shouldering my bag and heading toward the area where a stage had been set up. “I'll meet you back here,” I called as I started to run toward the stage, then stopped when I realized that this was walk-fast weather, not running weather.

I'd been around enough of these things that I knew my
way around. But there was nobody behind the stage where the sound guys were running mic checks, and the assembled crowd was still aimlessly milling around, people trying to find as much shade as possible or lining up by the food trucks. So it was clear that I wasn't too late—but I also didn't know where I was going to find my father.

I turned in a circle, as though I would see a labeled politician holding area, or something—when I saw two campaign buses parked on the other side of the street and realized that maybe I just had.

•  •  •

“I don't understand,” my dad said, frowning, as he stood outside the bus with me. He'd been inside with Peter, enjoying the air-conditioning and reading through his speech, and I was just glad that I'd met Walt earlier this morning, since he had recognized me and opened up the doors, rather than calling security when I started yelling about how I needed to get onto the bus. “Topher said this?”

I nodded, then had to look away from the very strange optical illusion of my dad standing in front of a giant picture of his head. “I don't think you should do this,” I said, looking back toward the stage where things now seemed to be happening, the crew guys moving with more purpose as they hustled around the stage, even in this heat.

“And you came all the way here? Just to tell me?”

“Of course,” I said, and just for a second, remembered the picture on his computer, the moment my mother had captured. “Wouldn't you have done it for me?” I asked, hoping I knew the answer but needing to hear it anyway. “If I was about to get hurt?”

“Of course,” he said without even a moment of hesitation. “You know I would.”

“There was a note for me in the car,” I said, and my dad looked at me, suddenly going very still. “From Mom. She told me to take care of you.” I felt like I'd already spent far too much of this morning crying, but nevertheless, tears were starting to flood my eyes.

My dad smiled, his chin trembling just the smallest bit. “You do, sweetheart,” he said, and I started to cry for real as he wrapped his arm around my shoulder and pulled me into a hug. “Of course you do.”

“Uh . . . Alex?” We turned around to see Peter coming down the steps of the bus, his frown deepening when he saw me. “Hey, Andie. When did you get here?” He didn't wait for me to reply, just turned to my dad and said, “They're ready for you.”

My dad looked at me and then nodded. “All right.”

“Wait,” I said, stepping into Peter's path, like that would somehow stop this from happening. “You're still going through with it?”

My dad gave me a smile. “It'll be okay,” he said, and nodded toward the stage. “Want to come watch?”

I shook my head. I'd come all this way—I'd done this instead of talking to Clark when I still might have been able to—and my dad was going to go ahead and do this. “No,” I said, taking a step away. I wasn't sure I could stand to see my dad get humiliated, especially when I'd come so far to try to stop it. “I have to . . . go to New Jersey.”

“Oh,” my dad said, eyebrows flying up. “Why?”

“Alex,” Peter said, gesturing toward the stage, speaking in his
I mean business
voice. “We're on a schedule.”

“I'll see you at home,” I said, giving my dad a nod. “Um. Good luck.” I turned around then and started walking back to the car, wondering why I'd even tried if it had made absolutely no difference.

I got turned around in the parking lot, the heat coming off the baking asphalt messing with my sense of direction as I turned down one wrong row after another. Finally, Palmer dropped a pin at her location, and I was able to track her down. I'd heard the sound system come on during my third wrong turn, though I was too far away to hear anything specific, which I was glad about. I didn't need to hear the governor of New York making a fool of my dad, especially when I hadn't been able to stop it from happening.

“Bad news,” Palmer said, hopping off the trunk when she saw me coming.

“Me too,” I said, nodding to her. “You go first.”

“So Fitz says the car overheated,” she says. “He thinks we probably need to tow it, or at the very least, add coolant if we have it—”

“Which we don't.”

“Or water to the engine, but only after we've let the car cool down.”

I felt my stomach sink. “How long is that going to take?”

Palmer winced. “He said to give it a couple of hours.”

“But—”

“I know,” she said, shaking her head. “What happened with your dad?”

“Nothing good,” I said with a sigh, wondering how it was possible to feel this exhausted when it was just a little after noon.
“He didn't listen to me and just—” I stopped when I heard my phone ringing in my bag. I pulled it out and saw it was my dad calling. “Hello?” I asked, utterly confused, wondering if it was Peter or someone calling from his phone. Because I was pretty sure my dad was still onstage at the moment.