When it was over, I rolled away from her, hopping into my jeans, jamming my feet into my hiking boots. Robin said, “We shouldn’t—”

“It’s cool,” I lied, furious with myself for allowing Glenna to shove me into this trip. “Be back in a minute.”

I grabbed a flashlight and went toward the stream. I hadn’t thought about Glenna while we’d been going at it, but now I couldn’t stop, and I was nauseous. I took a leak, and as I knelt by the stream to rinse off my face, it began to rain. Not the rain you expect in summer, but cold and hard like the fall, and I turned away from the water and threw up thinking about how secrets can’t stay hidden forever.

At the campsite, Robin had fastened my poncho between two pines for a roof against the downpour. I thanked her, stepped out of my boots, got into my sleeping bag, and fell asleep with the rain slanting in on me and the taste of vomit in my mouth.

Chapter 23

IN THE MORNING, Robin and I were talking and laughing about Marty and Uncle Sam and eating Ritz crackers with grape jelly and drinking Tang just like the astronauts.

“You rested?” I asked her.

“I’m not tired, but I’m cold and wet. Can we get back to civilization?”

I was all for returning to Spuyten Duyvil. The rain had quit, but the overcast sky promised more, and I was spooked about spending the next two nights with Robin. The problem was that I didn’t know if we could make it to the city. As Robin packed up, I ran around interviewing people who had camped near us. A guy who had staggered in after hiking through the night said that the Thruway was closed, and Routes 17 and 17B were clogged with traffic.

I told Robin, and she replied, “We could find a motel.”

I let that suggestion sail by, and Robin said, “I know we’re splitting. And don’t worry. You’re safe. No weepy confessions to Glenna. I’m often miserable—never hysterical.”

Beneath her reassurance, I detected a note of hurt, and I figured my best move was to ignore it by consulting my map. Our options were limited to roads through Pennsylvania and New Jersey, so we hiked to Route 55. We stopped at a gas station to use the restrooms and Coke machine, and for thirty bucks I persuaded a tow-truck driver to drop us at the bus station in Shohola, Pennsylvania, where we continued on to Port Jervis and then caught another bus to the terminal in Irvington, New Jersey. It was three o’clock, and there was a four-fifteen bus to Port Authority. Robin saved us seats on a bench while I got in line to buy lemonade and soft pretzels. Robin’s parents lived in South Orange, a half-hour ride from Irvington, and when I joined her, she said that she was going to take a taxi to her folks and visit until Sunday.