*

“Can we stop at Arby’s, please?” he asks when the road he invented leads, not all the way around town and back again to the Watsons’ like I thought, but into a town I don’t recognize. The mountains have sunk down into the earth, replaced by shorn cornfields and lower elevation that messes with my balance. “They have the meats.”

“I hate turning left across three lanes of traffic.” I squint at the road signs. “Where are we?”

“Shelbyville, Indiana. It sounded like a magical place. We’ll go back to Teller City, but I wanted to prolong our road trip.”

I sit with that for a moment, waiting a beat too long to move when the light turns green. “We’ve been in the car for less than an hour, but somehow we’ve driven . . .”

“One thousand, two hundred and forty-one miles,” he finishes. “What a trip, even with shortcuts! Anyway, I’m starving. How about you?”

I indicate. “There’s a KFC.” It’s an easy right turn.

Hall sinks back against his seat, eyes narrowed. “I know too much about their eleven herbs and spices.” Then he pitches forward again, pointing at a bank. “Can we go in there?”

“What for?”

“I like lobbies. I see a chandelier. I like chandeliers.”

I deny Hall this request, because I think it would look suspicious to walk into a bank for the purposes of lurking. As I wend my way through town, focusing on the GPS (which I am almost positive speaks with the voice of Lacey Chabert), Hall asks to go inside every store that he recognizes from commercials. Big Lots. Chico’s. Kroger. Jo-Ann Fabrics and Crafts. “The HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS!!!” He takes a hundred pictures, going out of his mind. “Bettie! You have to stop!”

We waste half an hour at the Holiday Inn, taking selfies in front of anything that says Holiday Inn. At first, someone on the staff looked like they wanted to get rid of us (“Are you booking a stay?” “No, we’re just looking, thanks.”) But one of their colleagues recognizes me, and they argue in whispers about whether or not I’m Bettie Hughes. It’s absurd to think that Bettie Hughes is at a Holiday Inn Express in Shelbyville, Indiana. One of them raises their phone to snap a discreet picture, which is my cue to leave.

I steal a small Holiday Inn notepad and pen from the desk on our way out, which Hall admonishes me for, but he can’t bring himself to give it back. He gingerly tears off the top sheet and sticks it inside his scrapbook.

“Take a right at the next exit,” Hall tells me. I slow, whisking under an overpass and, impossibly, right out of the Wendy’s drive-thru in Teller City.

I almost slam on the brake. “How did you do that!” I yell, stuttering along, checking my mirror. “Holy shit.”

“Over there.” He points the way to Gold Rush Bookshop.

“I know that! I can see where we are.” My nerves fray as I edge into an ice-slicked parking space on the street. “You’re insane. You need to give me warning before you change states in the blink of an eye.”