I push the sheets through the window, open the door, and climb in. Bo’s truck is next to us, engine running. But he’s nowhere in sight. So we ride into the eastern third of the US in silence. Although we’re wedged together in the front seat, Grimshaw makes sure she doesn’t look at me, speak to me, or touch me. I ball up her sheets and stuff them under my feet. In the pocket of Bo’s jacket, I find a jackknife and a comb. When I woke up this morning, less than an hour ago, I was lashed to his side like a lifeboat with those long, skinny arms. My body feels different than it’s ever felt. It’s like he woke it up. So now I’m the one who’s sighing and sniffling, and Grimshaw is stiff and silent. The truck we’re in is so old it has a CB radio. For hours across Illinois, the driver whistles tunelessly, plays sentimental hits on the radio, and makes wretchedly sexist comments about us to other drivers on the road. Just when you think you’ve met the all-time loser of the universe, another contender comes along. His CB name seems to be Two by Four.

“Hey, buddy,” comes through the static. “Can ya handle it?”

“I figure I’ll just watch first.”

He uses this line on several different passing trucks, and it always gets a laugh.

“They don’t talk much,” he says to one trucker.

“Jesus, that’s beautiful.”

“Don’t brag, now.”

“The one is pretty cute, but the other one looks like she’s been fed rat poison.”

“Let her sit on the gear shift. That’ll perk her up.”

“I’ll let her sit on my gear shift,” Two by Four giggles. He catches me looking at him and waggles his tongue at me. Grimshaw sits between us and stares straight ahead of her.

Midwestern towns and Midwestern fields roll by, looking even flatter and dingier than they did from the bus. At a rest stop in Indiana, I put the sheets in a dumpster. At four in the morning, we pull in to a warehouse in Toledo. I spend an hour unloading boxes of champagne glasses and giving them to guys with hand trucks, while Two by Four watches and treats us all to a monologue on life and race and politics in America. Grimshaw stays in the cab. We spend half a day’s agony in a truck stop near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, waiting for him to get another trailer. He locked all our stuff in his cab so we can’t look for another ride.