Two-way Street

Day One, 1:47 p.m.

I’m going to throw up again. “I’m going to throw up again,” I tell Jordan, feeling it rising up in my throat. We’re back on the highway now, and he signals and pulls over quickly to the side of the road. I open the door and lean out, throwing up onto the pavement. This is so disgusting. Seriously. I hate throwing up. I have this really bad phobic fear of it. I go to great lengths not to throw up, and until today, I hadn’t thrown up since the fourth grade. Fourth grade! That’s like eight years. It’s a real phobia, too. Throwing up, I mean. I know no one likes to throw up, but it’s proven that some people are really scared of it. Like me. And some celebrities. Matthew McConaughey, I think.

“You okay?” Jordan asks, and I feel his hand on my back.

“Yeah, I’m okay,” I lie, wiping my mouth on the back of my hand. Gross, gross, gross. I’ll bet his MySpace girl never throws up all over herself when they’re together. I’ll bet they’re too busy having sex to eat anything that might cause her stomach to get all sketch.

“You sure?” Jordan asks. “You don’t look okay.”

“Gee, thanks,” I say, slamming the door shut.

Jordan hands me a napkin. “Uh, here,” he says, “you might want to wipe your mouth.”

I take the napkin from him and turn away, wiping the drool off my mouth. Have I mentioned this is really disgusting?

I throw the napkin into the ashtray and push the seat back again, reclining all the way back. It’s actually very easy to trick yourself into not throwing up. You just lay back, perfectly still and straight, close your eyes, and try not to move.

“Hey, Court?”

“Yes?” I ask, trying not to move my mouth in case it sets off some kind of motion wave to my stomach.

“Listen, I think maybe we should check into a hotel somewhere,” he says, sounding hesitant, like he doesn’t want to piss me off. “You’re obviously sick, and you need to rest.”

“I’m fine,” I say. “And besides, it would mess up the schedule.” Is he crazy? We’re already way behind thanks to his lollygagging this morning. Plus the traffic. Plus the long bathroom lines at the rest stop. Plus my throwing up.

“Are you sure?” he says, “Because I saw a sign a few miles back for a Days Inn coming up.”

“It. Would. Mess. Up. The. Schedule.”

“Okay,” he says, looking at me out of the corner of his eye. “Are you sure?”

“YES.” Of course I’m sure. I’m not going to let throwing up stop me from getting to college on time.

Two miles later, after we’ve had to pull over three more times so I can throw up, he pulls off at the next exit and follows the sign that says DAYS INN. I don’t stop him.

So this is really awkward. Jordan’s checking into the Days Inn, which is a completely and totally unscheduled stop, and the front desk clerk has assumed we want one room. This place is kind of sketch (the clerk asked us for how long we wanted the room, and I think he meant in hours), and there are some very scantily dressed girls standing outside. Which is weird, because it’s four in the afternoon. Definitely not late enough for prostitution. Although maybe I’ve been conditioned by the media to think prostitutes only come out after midnight. Like this one special I saw once about hookers who frequent truckstops. They call them “lot lizards” and they only come out at night.

“Yes,” Jordan says. “We’ll take the one room.”

“No,” I say. “We’ll take two.”

The guy looks nervously between the two of us. “No, we won’t,” Jordan says, turning out to look at me. I’m sprawled in one of the chairs in the “lobby,” which is really a foyer. I have vomit on my shirt, my hair is coming out of my ponytail, and on the way in here, I almost fell over and Jordan had to take my bag. “Court, you’re sick. I’m not leaving you by yourself.”

“Fine,” I say. “But two beds.”

“Of course,” Jordan says, rolling his eyes.

Of course two beds. I forgot for a moment that Jordan has a girlfriend. One who he obviously loves enough to leave me for, which means there’s no way the thought of sharing a bed with me would have crossed his mind. For the first time, I wonder what his girlfriend thinks of the fact that Jordan is here, on a trip with me. She’s probably one of those super-secure girls who is all confident in her relationship. How annoying.

Conversations About Me Jordan Had with His Girlfriend (A Deluded Fantasy by Courtney Elizabeth McSweeney):

Jordan: So I’m stuck going on this trip with Courtney.

Mercedes: Okay.

Jordan: Just so you know, nothing’s going to happen.

Mercedes (starts taking her clothes off so she and Jordan can have sex): I know.

Jordan: You want to have sex again? We just finished two hours ago.

Mercedes (climbs on top of him): Yes. (Pauses.) This Courtney girl or whatever her name is, she’s not cute, is she?

Jordan: No.

Mercedes: Cool.

Jordan picks up our bags and starts down the hall. “Room 103,” he says, reading off the card the front desk guy gave him. I’m concentrating on making it down the hall without passing out, since the floor seems to be spinning. I’m watching my feet (which are cased in very cute purple sandals) as I move one in front of the other, trying not to lose it. One. Two. Step. Step. Ha, like that song by Ciara. “I love it when you one, two step.” Although I don’t think Ciara was trying to keep herself upright while walking down a hotel room hallway with her ex-boyfriend who she was still in love with when she wrote that song. I think Ciara was having dance parties and fun and all sorts of really good things that had nothing to do with nausea or horrible road trips.

I lean against the door frame as Jordan slides the plastic card into the electronic sensor that will let us into our room. A green light flashes and he holds the door open for me. I push by him, and as I do, my chest brushes against his, and for a second, I lose my breath, but then I’m past him and it’s over. I slide onto one of the beds and drop my bag onto the floor.

Whoever was in the room before left the air conditioner on full-blast, and it feels good. I’m hot. I lean back on the bed and close my eyes.

“You okay?” Jordan asks, plopping himself down on the other bed.

“Yeah,” I say. “I’m fine.”

He picks the remote off the floor and turns on the TV. The sounds of ESPN come blaring out of the speakers.

I pick my suitcase up off the floor and head to the bathroom without telling him where I’m going. I take a long, cool shower, then change into a pair of soft pink pajama shorts and a black spaghetti-strapped tank top. I feel much better. I pull my cell out of my purse. Three missed calls. My dad. Jocelyn. And Lloyd.

Shit. Lloyd. I almost forgot about him.

Whatever, I’m not going to think about that now. La, la, la. Just going to call Jocelyn back. I dial her cell number.

“Hey,” I say when she answers. “Did you call?”

“Yeah,” she says. “I wanted to see how you were feeling.”

I hear the sound of car horns honking in the background.

“Uh, Joce?” I ask. “What are you doing?”

“I’m tailing B. J. to McDonald’s,” she says, sounding satisfied.

“Tailing B. J. to McDonald’s?” I repeat dumbly. She can’t be serious. Who does that outside of Veronica Mars?

“Yeah,” she says. “I’m following him to see if he goes to Katelyn’s.”

“Who?”

“Katelyn Masters. Who he hooked up with freshman year?”

“Why would he be going to see Katelyn Masters?” I ask, confused.

“Because she left him a MySpace message that was semi-flirty, and then today he was very vague about what he was doing. So I headed over to his house and waited outside until he left. And now he’s at McDonald’s, and I’m following him to see where else he’s going.” MySpace is seriously going to be responsible for everyone losing their minds.

“Aren’t you afraid he’s going to see you?”

“No, not at all,” she says. “I’m staying far enough behind him, and besides, I’m in my mom’s car.”

“Why are you in your mom’s car?” Jocelyn has a perfectly good car, a black Honda Civic, which her parents bought her a few months ago as an early graduation present.

“Duh,” she says. “Because I don’t want him to figure out I’m following him.”

“Hey, Joce?” I say, trying to sound gentle. “Wouldn’t it be easier just to ask him where exactly he’s going?”

“Courtney,” she says, sighing in exasperation. “I can’t ask him! He’ll think I don’t trust him.”

“You obviously don’t.”

“Asshole!” Jocelyn screams. “Sorry, some guy tried to cut me off while turning in to Home Depot. What were you saying?”

“I don’t remember,” I say, scared by Jocelyn’s sudden road rage.

“Oh, right, about B. J. and me. How I don’t trust him.”

“Why would you want to be with someone you don’t trust?”

“I wouldn’t. But what if I confront him on it and it turns out not to be true, and he breaks up with me because he thinks I don’t trust him?”

“But you don’t!”

“True.” She considers this. “But it could be all my own psychosis.”

“Probably.”

More car horns honking. “I gotta go—I think B. J.’s coming out of the drive-thru, and I don’t want to lose him.”

“I’ll call ya later,” I say, clicking off.

I look at the phone and consider calling Lloyd, but then I slide it back into my bag. I’ll deal with it later.

When I get back to the room, Jordan’s sitting on the bed, flipping between a poker tournament and a baseball game.

“Hey,” he says. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” I tell him. “I’m fine.” The truth is, I don’t know if I’m fine or not. Suddenly, I feel totally exhausted, like I can’t even move. I haul myself up onto the second bed, pull the covers down, and grab one of the pillows from the top of the bed. I move it to the bottom. I like to sleep upside down on beds. Plus, the way the room is set up, the TV is closer to the bottom of the bed, so it makes sense. Not that I care about watching poker. But I wouldn’t mind watching the baseball game.

“Who’s playing?” I ask Jordan. My eyes feel really heavy, and my throat feels scratchy from throwing up so much.

“The Devil Rays and the Yankees,” he says softly, looking at me. I meet his eye for a second, and then look away. Jordan and I spent almost every night this summer watching the Devil Rays on TV. And on one of our very first dates, we went to a game. Whatever. Not thinking about it. “Do you want to watch something else?” he asks.

“No,” I say, my eyes closing. “I’m really, really tired.”

“Yeah,” he says. “You should probably get some rest.”

“Probably,” I say. I must have fallen asleep in about two minutes, because the next thing I know, I open my eyes, and the clock says it’s four in the morning. Which means I’ve slept for like fifteen hours. My stomach feels hollow and tired, like it’s been through an ordeal. Which I guess it has. I let my eyes adjust to the darkness of the room. And then I realize Jordan’s next to me, sleeping, his arms wrapped around me, our legs tangled together under the blanket.