“They’re just old. I bet they work.” As we get closer, we can see a small sign below the mechanic sign: GASOLINE. And below that, a still smaller sign: FORTUNES.
“I hope that doesn’t mean that gas costs a fortune. I only have two dollars in my wallet. That won’t get us far. Do any of you have cash?” Seth asks, but looks pointedly at me, like this is all my fault in the first place. Which I suppose it is.
“Not me,” Aidan answers. “I didn’t know I’d be going anywhere today.”
“Me either,” Mira says, apologetically. “Des?”
We hear a small bell as Seth pulls up next to the pumps. He turns the motor off, and I feel them all looking at me. Before I have to respond, a lanky man with grease on his chin appears, all elbows and angles and smiles. “Morning. Fill ’er up?”
Seth looks at me and raises his eyebrows. “Sure,” I answer.
The lanky fellow raises his eyebrows to match Seth’s and leans one arm on the windshield. “Is that gonna be cash? ’Cause we don’t take cards here.” He waits. Do we arouse that much suspicion? Maybe it’s the lamb in my lap. Perhaps he thinks we’re sheep thieves? I don’t have a purse to rummage through, and even if I did, there wouldn’t be any cash. The lamb kicks his feet, and one hoof nicks the glove box. I hear Seth wince.
I’m thankful for the distraction. I dread telling them we are broke and stuck. “Only a nick,” I say, setting the lamb on the seat between us. I rub my fingers across the small gash like I will be able to rub it out—or maybe, if I rub it long enough, it will grant me three wishes. The glove box falls open like it is dropping its jaw. It’s filled with bundles of papers, but sitting right on top is a tidy clipped bundle of fresh bills.
My jaw momentarily drops too, but I quickly grab the stack of money and fan it like I knew it was there all along. They are all one-hundred-dollar bills, and there must be at least twenty of them. Seth whistles like I have just produced the Dead Sea Scrolls. I pull one out and smugly pass it to Seth, who hands it to Lanky Man, who holds it up to the sky like he is looking through it. I hope whomever I have borrowed it from is not a counterfeiter.
“Geez!” Lanky Man says. “Don’t have change for this size bill this early in the day. I’ll have to run across the street to break it.”
“You have a restroom?” Aidan asks.
Lanky Man points in the direction of the café. “Louise at the diner don’t mind if I send customers down there. Sometimes they buy.” He winks and inserts the gas nozzle into the tank. “Her blueberry bread pudding is something to marvel at, just in case you was wonderin’. Be right back.” He runs across the street, the hundred-dollar bill waving in his hand, and disappears inside a post office that is not much wider than the front door. Aidan hops out and heads for the café, and Mira tells us she’ll be right back too and is on his heels.
Seth and I share a silent five seconds, which seems like three class periods with Miss Boggs, until finally the lamb breaks our awkward silence. Baaaa.
“Maybe he needs to go too.” I scoop up the lamb and reach for my door.
“You always carry stacks of hundreds in your glove box?”
I pause without looking back at Seth. “Or maybe he’s hungry. I wonder what he eats.”
“This really your car?”
I turn to look at Seth, hugging the lamb close to my chest. “I think you know.”
“What he eats?”
“It’s not mine.”
“The lamb?” His fingers tighten around his thighs. I stare at him, my lips drawn tight. How easygoing is Seth, really? I am tempted to find out, to blow away his steady calm and easy smile. But the hour is early, we have miles to go, and though I am tempted, I am not foolish. Besides, I know he’d prefer to hear a duller reply anyway.
“Yes. The lamb. Not mine. Let’s see if we can find his mother.” I pull on the handle to get out and feel Seth’s hand on my arm, stopping me.
“What’s your secret?”
I shrug him away and get out. “I have no secrets.”
“Everyone has secrets, Destiny.”
My bones loosen, like there is slack in every joint. I think it is the first time I have ever heard him use my full name. I didn’t even know he knew it. “I didn’t see you clamoring to share your secret when Mira asked.”
“I was just being polite, letting her and Aidan go first.”
Baaaa.
“Precisely,” I whisper in the lamb’s ear, before I set him down. He scampers over to a chubby tuft of grass growing near the barn. I look back at Seth. “So I can still expect to hear yours?”
“I think I might go use that restroom too,” he says. He gets out and stretches like we’ve already been in the car for hours. “I’ll ask at the café if anyone knows about the lamb.”