Three years younger, smaller, thinner and darker than my sister, I sit next to her in the backseat in my faded red shorts and the boy's white crewneck t-shirt my mother bought at a Dollar Days sale. Five dollars for a package of three. In the passenger's seat, next to my mother's straw handbag is a picnic basket. We are going on a picnic.
I am sitting with my right leg crooked under me and my left leg banging the underside of the driver's seat. I know my mother will eventually tell me to stop but, until she does, I thump against one of the exposed springs, thoroughly enjoying the noise of it. My sister is writing in her diary. It is a five year diary with barely enough room given to each day to write her full name. The diary is red vinyl with gold lettering and a lock. My sister closes it after finishing her entry and locks it carefully with the key dangling from a bracelet she fashioned out of bead chain. She does not trust me and has told me as much. For my own good, she wears the key day and night. She says she has to keep her secrets. Not that I am particularly interested. I think she is insipid. "Insipid" is my vocabulary word for the week and it suits my sister. She is 13 and rolls her hair on our mother's rollers and talks about boys she likes who she thinks like her. She has forced me to play "Mystery Date" with her twice, laughing in loud hoots when I open the door to my disheveled bum of a date.
I pull my creased copy of "Moby Dick" out of the canvas tote bag I've carried since winter, keeping the beat with my foot on the front seat. I think Ahab is crazy. Last night I dreamed about him. I was on the deck of the Pequod and he was yelling at me. In the dream, I looked down at my arms. My skin was white and bloodless with blue-black tattoos swirling on my forearms as if they had a life of their own. I open the book to where I have left a chocolate bar wrapper as a bookmark and I am no longer in the backseat of a Pontiac on an already too warm summer day. I am below deck. The dark wood of the ship's hull grates and rasps.
My mother's voice rises sharply and I jump. I slap my book shut, let my foot drop, stop the rhythm I've been keeping and throw myself against the seat. I do not give her the satisfaction of a look, instead I turn my face to the rolled down window. My mother starts the car and backs out of the driveway. She is humming. We are on our way to a park by the river. My mother tells us we're going to have a family picnic, we're going to have a lot of fun and no one is going to spoil it. I know that I'm the "no one" she's talking about.
We head down our street and my mother turns left at a large, pale green stucco house I always envy, believing that it would be impossible to be unhappy in a large, pale green stucco house. She drives six blocks and signals, her frosted fingertips flicking the signal arm up. We drive up the freeway ramp, she signals again and we merge into the light flow of Sunday traffic. I jut my head out the open window. The air rushes across my ears, drying out my lips. I lick my lips and my sister begins to giggle. I don't bother to look at her. After I run my tongue over my lips again, she tells our mother that I look like a dog. Rene repeats herself, saying the word "dog" several times. I turn to look at her. She is smiling. I look in the rearview mirror at my mother's face. She's smiling too. Her mouth only scarcely turned up, but it is a smile. I feel my face redden. I fold my arms across my chest and turn my head to the window, rigidly pressing my spine against the backseat.
Cars pass us in whooshes of air and pastel blurs. I keep my eyes on the utility poles until I'm dizzy and then close them. A curve on the highway shifts my side of the car into the sun. With my eyes closed, the blackness changes to a deep red- orange. I close my eyes tighter. Then, I feel the palm of a hand flatten against the top of my head. Rene is patting my head like a dog's. She makes contact three times, her hand bouncing off the last time. I swivel in her direction. Her mouth draws into a straight line. I reach toward her and she presses herself into the corner where the door and the seat meet. Rene lets out a small cry. My mother pivots in the driver's seat to try and get a good look at what's going on, trying to steer at the same time. My sister puts her hands in front of her face, but I reach past her to the door handle. I open the door, it swings out and my sister, hanging on to the door handle, dangles over the asphalt rushing under the car. She would fall out if I weren't sitting on her legs. Above my mother's scream and my sister's howling, I can hear the sound of car horns.
My mother veers across two lanes of traffic without signalling. The car door meets the guard rail with a high-pitched shriek of metal, causing the door to swing in slightly before the car comes to a halt. I pull my sister onto the backseat by the neck of her shell top. Her hairband is gone. Her face is white. As soon as she is able to catch her breath I know she'll start screaming.
My mother's fingernails bite into my back as she pulls me off my sister and gets into the backseat with us. I am pushed against the seat while my mother kneels over my sister. I crawl backwards out of the car and onto the road. Cars are flying by a few feet away. I stand on the gravel, listening to my sister crying and my mother attempting to comfort her in small words. I lean into the car and tug my tote bag from between my mother's feet. I find my book and sit down by the left rear tire. I begin to read. The ocean rises and rolls all around me. I hear Captain Ahab's voice over the noise of the sea. Fate is in the water.