Despite Nicki’s threatening to call the police, Adam Pelley’s publicist refused to tell them where he is staying in Duluth. None of the hotels they called will tell them anything either. So Nicki has decided that their best course of action is to go down to the Canal Park and start checking the hotels on the waterfront. “We might even be able to spot the Volvo parked somewhere,” she says, reaching for the volume on the stereo as “Welcome to the Jungle” comes on for the second time. Finn wonders if Nicki has ever listened to any music that came out after 1995. At least she’s in a better mood – Nicki needs to have a purpose, to have something to focus on. For her part, despite her best intentions to keep her mind on the task at hand, Finn has mostly been thinking about food.

“Maybe we could stop at Culver’s?” Finn says.

“We’re not stopping. I just passed like five transports. I don’t want to have to pass them again.”

Of course she won’t stop. Nicki is so like their father – single-minded, practical, unable to detour from a plan. She talks to Finn the way that Walter would sometimes talk to Kate: “No, we can’t stop to go tubing in Stanley, I need to get the boat ready for tomorrow.” “No, we can’t build a dance floor in the basement, we need the space for storage.” “No, the girls can’t have cake at midnight, they’ve already brushed their teeth.” For the first time, Finn feels some small degree of solidarity with her mother.

“Fine.” Finn crosses her arms, acutely aware that she sounds like a five-year-old on the verge of a tantrum. “But I’m going to get something to eat as soon as we get to Duluth.”

“Do what you want,” says Nicki. “This isn’t your problem anyway.”

“You keep saying that. But I’m here, aren’t I?”

“You’re not here,” says Nicki, speeding up to a minivan towing a boat. “You’re just vacationing. You’re on the full Parker Immersion Tour, and in a few days you’re going to go back home and everything will just be a beautiful fucking memory.” She pulls out into the oncoming lane, then swerves back as another SUV towing a boat whizzes past in the other direction, narrowly missing them. “How can we be the only ones on this highway not towing a fucking boat?” Nicki yells out the window to no one in particular.

“Oh yeah, this is going to be a really beautiful memory,” says Finn, bracing herself against her seat.

“Face it, Finn. This is no longer your life. Stop trying to convince us you wish it still was.”