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didn’t want one she drank both of them. But that was an hour ago.
    Maybe there’s just someone who talks like this. That’d be cool.
    “Yeah, probably,” I say.
    “How dare you. Why?”
    “We don’t know each other, we’ll be in a strange place for a few days. There’s nothing sexier you can say to someone than ‘You’ll never see me again after next week.’ ”
    “You know that from working on cruise ships?”
    “I’m pretty sure I knew it before.”
    “From your years as a man-whore?”
    “We prefer ‘drifter.’ ”
    “Hot. Not as hot as ‘You’ll never see me again after next week,’ but hot.”
    “You don’t think it’s true?”
    “I think there’s a U-shaped curve. Some people, you meet them, you want to fuck them for their fancy mysterious shit, then you
don’t
want to fuck them cause you’re sick of them, then you do again. Because you actually know them.”
    “Must be nice.”
    “I’m not saying
my
experience supports that. My experience supports the gradual recognition that whoever I’m dating is a complete asshole. But still.”
    This is precisely the kind of topic I should be avoiding. I’m not about to tell Violet Hurst any real thing about myself, so why should I ask
her
questions? But women who look like Wonder Woman and say drunk shit to me in a car aren’t something I’ve spent all that much time around.
    Maybe I should drive more.
    “Something recent?” I say.
    “More recently than that, actually,” she says.
    “Ongoing?”
    Or have a talk show.
    “I don’t even know. It’s the usual male thing: extreme interest, sudden bolting. Which gets old after a while. Okay, now you just think I’m a slut, cause I’m being all flirty and I have a semi-boyfriend.”
    “Now you just think I’m judgmental.”
    She turns to me. “You’re slightly smarter than you look.”
    “It’s a U-shaped curve. After five minutes I start seeming stupid again.” *
    “Ha. Well I’m not a slut. Not in a bad way, anyway. I’m just slow to acknowledge the obvious and admit that my semi-boyfriend is a non-boyfriend.”
    Yes, but I’m smart enough to stop. Or jealous enough that some dipshit out there has a chance that I and most other people on Earth—on the run or not—will never have, and doesn’t even appreciate it.
    I’ll never know.
    “I’m not sure. Depends what’s on the radio,” I say.
    “You know, you’re funnier when you don’t talk.”
    I laugh.
    “Laughing counts. Anyway, how’s
your
love life?”
    See? You should never say anything to anyone.
    “It isn’t.”
    “Since when?”
    “A long time.”
    “Why?”
    “I thought the idea was to stay mysterious.”
    “Mysterious and creepily avoidant: not the same thing.”
    “Hey, at least I’m not on a secret paleontological mission for Rec Bill.”
    “Other than this one.”
    “Good point.”
    “Thank you. What did you do before you worked on cruise ships?”
    “Went to medical school. Shit like that.”
    “In Mexico. I Googled you. Why there?”
    “Didn’t get accepted in the U.S. Still wanted to go.”
    “You were a bad kid?”
    “Bad everything.”
    “How was it?”
    “Fine.”
    She sighs. “It’s kind of like pulling teeth, talking to you.”
    “I do that sometimes. On cruise ships.”
    “Really?”
    “It’s part of the job.”
    Nothing derails a conversation like medical grotesquerie.
    “Where are
you
from?” I say.
    “Don’t change the subject.”
    “What subject?”
    “You.”
    But we both know I’ve worn her out. It’s something I’m good at.

    “Holy shit,” Violet says.
    We’re on the main drag of Ford, a couple of hours later. Notthe same highway exit as CFS Outfitters and Lodge, which we’re due to check into tomorrow—the exit before that. Ford proper.
    Ford proper looks like someone’s used it to test-market the Apocalypse. Everything—the houses, the VFW hall, the strip malls, the low brick office buildings—is boarded up, broken down, or grown over. The only