When I looked on the map, I saw that Phoenix was only five or six hours away on the 10 Freeway, with a vast desert in between. I don’t know why I wanted to go so badly. Some days I thought Bethanny was a charlatan, but others I was sure she was the only person who held the truth about life. Maybe I wanted to see her out of her element. Or at least, out of our conference room with people always hanging on her every word. I assembled a case of wine, and clothes that could help me withstand the heat, and packed the car up.

The rooms at the Embassy Suites where the convention was being held had sold out, so I found a reasonably priced hotel nearby (with a pool).

It seemed like the right time to leave Los Angeles, which had started feeling small and dangerous to me. I was spending my nights looking up earthquake kits and go-bags. I was sure something catastrophic was coming. If I was in the desert, away from any faults, I could watch the catastrophe from afar.

On a Thursday afternoon, I got into my car and drove east. I waited to buy snacks until I was out of the city limits. I liked to see new things, so I saved my gas stops for towns I had never thought about, and now that amounted to towns in the Inland Empire that had been wrecked by meth epidemics. It didn’t feel as unsafe to stop there alone when there was still daylight, but at night I always stuck to right-off-the-freeway truck stops for gas. The deeper I got into the desert, the more fanatical the billboards were.

Near Palm Springs, where the thicket of wind turbines crisscrossed the desert, black-and-white signs asked me to call God for redemption—888-THE-LORD—the white text so bright it nearly flashed. Call him and whoever was on the other end of the line would save you from yourself. Later, among signs for pawnshops and attorneys who supported the rights of divorced fathers, was a sign that promised a pill that reversed abortions for women who’d had second thoughts.

“What?” I said, astounded.

Outside a gas station near Indio, the light was fading to pink and purple against the mountains. Even though my windows were rolled up, I could tell the wind was a wild desert wind, the kind that made palm trees sway violently.