During this whole time, I say one sentence to my friend: “Once we get going, we should be there soon.” They’re the first words that have passed between us since Illinois, and she ignores them. When we do get underway again, Grimshaw falls asleep. Two by Four sits so he can look down her shirt while she sleeps. His left hand is down the front of his pants. I take off Bo’s coat and flex my muscles while I slick back my hair with Bo’s comb. I tuck the comb into the pocket of Bo’s blue jeans. Then I take out Bo’s jackknife and push my cuticles back. It’s alpha male behavior. I’m hoping it’ll register subconsciously, I don’t want to have to actually knife him. He’s wasted enough of our time already. For most of the night, I fight off sleep—unsuccessfully, because I wake up just as we’re driving past a large brown sign that says DELAWARE WATER GAP. I look up at leafy cliffs silhouetted in blue mist and backlit by the first pink rays of dawn. I’m still holding the open jackknife. By the time Grimshaw wakes up, we’re puttering through suburban side streets, which are slowly filling up with weekday morning commuters.

“Where the—”

“You ladies get some beauty sleep?” the driver asks.

“Hell?” she asks.

“New Jersey,” I tell her. “The license plates.”

She blinks at me. “New Jersey?”

“You know,” our hero says as the truck shudders up a hill, “I took a big risk taking you ladies on. It’s ee-legal for you to even be sitting in this truck. So I figure I’m about due for a little, ah”—he grins and winks—“compensation.”

“You know,” I observe, “if you’d try downshifting, your truck might not stall.” His grin disappears.

“You telling me how to drive?” he asks.

“No.” I study my fingernails. “It was just a thought.” As we crawl forward, the truck starts to shimmy and clack.

“Damn load’s too heavy,” the driver mutters. We hear a horrible grinding noise, and then a huge crack underneath us. “Jesus,” he says. “I hope that wasn’t the u-joint.” The truck stands still for a minute and then it starts to move backward. Behind us, about twenty cars start honking their horns. I look out the side-view mirror, and a long hill stretches behind us, heading into a busy intersection. I grab the door handle with one hand and Grimshaw’s sleeve with the other.

“Grimshaw, jump!” I shout.

The driver cranks the steering wheel, hard, and the truck jackknifes, swerves, tips up on a curb, and stops.

“You wait here!” he barks at us. “Close that door!”

I’m standing on the running board, pulling on Grimshaw’s arm. “Grimshaw, get out.”

“But he said—”