Read The Disenchantments for Free Online Page B

seats.
    There was a moment of silence when I thought for sure the world was ending.
    Then Bev said, “That’s great. That was so much better.”
    And we ran the scene again, from the beginning until the end.
    Meg drives.
    I sit by myself in the back bench seat and stare out the window. A piece of tape unsticks from the side of one ofMeg’s boxes. I push it back down, use her bass case as a pillow, and try to fall asleep. When I close my eyes I picture Bev’s small blue-walled room emptied of all of her stuff. Then I see mine, full of everything but her.
    The bus is quiet for a long time, and then Meg’s playlist resumes, and after a while, they start to talk. I hear pages turning and Bev reading, “Voice and movement. Playwriting. Method acting.”
    Meg says, “How will I choose!”
    “Take playwriting,” Bev says. “I’m taking it first semester. Let’s write plays and produce them over the summer. We can cast each other.”
    “Only if you direct me again,” Meg says. “You’re the best director I’ve ever worked with.”
    I don’t want to hear Bev talking about this, getting so excited over the things that I thought neither of us were that into. So I sit up, assuming that they’ll move on to other topics of conversation if they don’t think that I’m sleeping.
    I see Bev catch my reflection in the rearview mirror and she slips the catalog off her lap. For a while they talk about nothing, and then Meg stops talking altogether and focuses on the road.
    Which is a good thing, because the drive gets a little perilous. The Northern California coast has to be the most amazing place I’ve ever seen but it’s also terrifying. One moment, I’m thinking
Oh my god: the cliffs, the ocean, the wildflowers, the hills—nothing could be better than this
. Andthen the next, I’m wondering why there isn’t a rail on the side of the road, realizing that if Meg steered us a little too zealously around a curve, we would be plunging over the cliff, into the ocean, and that would be the end of all of us. I close my eyes and almost feel it: the denial and then the dread, falling away from the future I had every intention of reaching.
    Eventually, the earth evens out, the road widens. We drive past Mendocino, a perfect postcard town overlooking the ocean, everything neat and colorful. And then, all of a sudden, the trees disappear, everything turns gray, and a sign welcomes us to Fort Bragg.
    “Whoa,” Meg says. “What happened?”
    Alexa says, “Maybe we’re just in the outskirts or something. I’m sure it will get better.”
    Bev’s staring out the window, but in that spaced-out way that means she isn’t really looking at anything.
    Maybe she’s changing her mind.
    Alexa directs Meg off the main road, past a tattoo parlor and a few bars and an unfortunate number of boarded-up buildings. At the end of a block, we spot the red Bianchi Motel sign rising over the roofs of the surrounding stores and houses.
    “This is kind of weird,” she says, “but we don’t actually check in at the motel. We check in at the store across the street.”
    We get out of the bus. Across the street is another redsign: Bianchi Market. Next to the motel is the Bianchi Laundromat. All three of the Bianchi’s businesses look a little rough. Bars on windows, peeling paint. Instead of flashing on and off, the neon vacancy sign above the motel winces and sparks.
    Alexa frowns. “It looked okay on the website.”
    “We didn’t expect luxury,” I say. “This’ll be fine.”
    “Yeah,” Bev says. “It’s just a place to crash, right?”
    Alexa nods, like she’s trying to convince herself. “And it’s close to the venue, The Basement. It’s just a few blocks away.”
    We walk single-file into the market. An R & B song from before we were born crackles through boom-box speakers. Everything is coated in dust. An older woman with faded tattoos laughs loudly with a customer. Her name tag says Peggy, and I wonder if she’s a