“Or we could stay on the I-5 all the way down to San Francisco. That would save us some time. Or we could turn east at Eugene, cross the mountains, and hit the 395 at Burns. What do you think?”
“Fine by me. But wouldn’t that mean missing San Francisco?”
The word on the street used to be that men think about sex every twenty seconds, whereas women think about it once a week or so. This had a scientific ring to it, as though someone had actually timed it. Actually, somebody had: Alfred Kinsey, whose Sexual Behavior in the Human Male made all kinds of claims about what men do and think about based, as far as I can remember, on studies conducted with a group of college students in Florida in the 1950s. What the Kinsey Institute’s report actually stated, however, is that, on average, 54 per cent of men think about sex once or twice a day, 43 per cent think about it once a week to once a month, and 3 per cent think about it less than once a month, if at all. And that women think about sex approximately half as often as men do. The difference doesn’t seem to be enough on which to base an entire philosophy of the fundamental incompatibility of men and women. Besides, the whole Kinsey Report has been debunked. More recent studies show that women think about sex even more often than men do, they just don’t talk about it as much, at least not to men.
“We can see San Francisco anytime,” Merilyn says. “I think I’d rather avoid big cities.”
“Me, too.”
M AYBE we should eat soon,” Wayne says before we’ve driven very far. “I’m so hungry my stomach thinks my throat’s been cut.” It was one of his father’s favourite phrases.
The morning broke with strong winds and rain that seemed pitched in great fistfuls from the hands of the gods. We ignored it, pulling the blankets over our heads. We are habitually early risers, but not this morning. We eased into the day, sitting up in bed with our books and mugs of Starbucks coffee we made ourselves, Wayne spiking his with cream he pilfered from the restaurant the night before. The room was small but cozy, strewn with our things, the air scented with the flowers I lifted from the waste bins behind the Pike Market.
We left with reluctance, pulling out of Seattle close to noon. We weren’t quite in travel mode yet, that frame of mind that makes the car, and the road, the best place in the world to be.
“We’ll eat at one of those great little diners,” I say vaguely.
Breakfast is our favourite meal on the road, the one that proves we’re not home. We often eat lunch at a restaurant, and dinner, too, but the first meal of the day is not normally taken with strangers. At home we cook our porridge with cranberries in the microwave, or grab pieces of fruit and go off to our respective desks. On the road, our appetites become gargantuan and we sit in diners before platters of food heaped with enough calories to last a lumberjack all day. It must be the ancient nomad in us coming out. Stock up while you can, our reptilian brain insists; you never know when you’ll eat again.
We pull off the interstate at an exit to nowhere that we can see, lured by a low wooden building with a huge sign tacked to the roof: All-Day Breakfast. Not a diner, but close enough. Everyone in the place but us seems to be a regular. We stand at the door as the waitress moves among the tables, calling everyone by name.
“Hey there, Bob, how’s it shakin’? Want some more coffee, just a splash? Sure thing, Jake. I’ll be with ya in a minute. And what’s a nice girl like you doing out on a day like this, Sue? Great earrings. It’s set to snow something awful, I hear. Pancakes, the usual? Yeah, I’m here right through Christmas.”
The place is draped with tinsel garlands; Christmasy cut-outs of Santa Claus, Rudolph, and Frosty are stuck to the walls. Elves dangle from the ceiling on red ribbons. A necklace of Christmas lights flashes at our waitress’s throat as she leads us to a table topped with a silver-dusted red plastic poinsettia.
“What can I bring you this morning?”
“I think it’s already afternoon.”
“Honey, here it’s morning all day long. Coffee?”
“Do you have decaf?”
“I’ll have to make some fresh.”
Breakfast is a plate of grease. That’s how the gumshoe would have described it in The Bookman’s Promise, the audiobook we’ve been listening to for the past hour. I order bacon and hash browns with a single poached egg, no toast. Wayne orders eggs and links with biscuits and gravy.
“You ever had biscuits and gravy?” I ask him.
“No.”
“You sure you want that?” I used to work in a short-order kitchen. I know where gravy like that comes from.
“Sure I’m sure,” he says defensively. “Who doesn’t like gravy?”
A few years ago, we took a road trip through Quebec that turned into a search for the perfect confit de canard—duck leg simmered to a tender crisp in its own lard. Before that, a trip to France became a quest for the perfect crème caramel. When my breakfast arrives, I decide that on this drive through America, I’ll be on the lookout for the perfect hash browns. The ones on the plate before me are grated and browned on the grill to the consistency of fibreboard. The yolk of my egg, which should be absorbed by the potato, runs in thin, pale rivulets across the plate. The bacon is deep mahogany and tastes of salt, not pork. Wayne’s biscuits are buried in a grey lava flow.
“How we doin’ so far?” the waitress says brightly, refilling our cups and moving on while we are still deciding whether to be honest or polite. By the time we smile and nod, Wayne’s mouth full of dry biscuit, she is long gone.
But really, I love the place, weak coffee, burnt bacon, greasy potatoes, grey gravy, and all. The morning smell of it. The fuggy warmth. The way everyone calls out, “Bye, Dorothy, Merry Christmas!” as they push through the door into the driving, sleeting rain, saying it the way you’d say, “Bye, Mom.” As if you know you’ll be back soon.
“What’s the best way to get to the Pacific coast?” we ask Dorothy when she brings our bill.
That stops her. She sets her coffee pot down on the table and looks up past the garlands, as if the answer is written on the ceiling tiles. We’ve seen this look before, on the face of a matron on a sidewalk in Pittenweem, Scotland. We’d asked her where to find the Harbour Guest House, the only bayside hotel in a village of not much more than a thousand souls. She’d looked at us blankly. “I don’t know,” she said, “I’ve only lived here these nine years.” Wayne was gobsmacked. “Never ask a local,” I’d said.
“I wouldn’t know,” Dorothy says finally with a laugh. “The Sound is right here, but the coast? I’ve never been.”
WE turn off the I-5 onto Highway 30 just south of Kelso, Washington, and cross the Columbia Gorge. The Columbia River is the dividing line between Washington State and Oregon. Highway 30, as we call it (we still aren’t used to saying “route” instead of “highway”), looks deceptively tame on the map. In reality, it hugs the high land above the Columbia Valley on the Oregon side, twisting and turning like an asphalt snake that is losing its grip on the slippery granite cliffs. The Columbia gleams occasionally far