Sarah Shun-lien Bynum

My mother had said she hated seeing me hang all over him, like a doting idiot, and why wasn't he with someone his own age?

Did I know how pathetic I looked, flinging myself at him?

This insult had broken my loyalty to my mother.

So I could go wherever I wanted, couldn't I?

I'd never been farther away than Washington or Boston.

My mother was horrified that I was so unlike the Kara she'd always known, but that was what elated me, the new depths I'd found in myself, my untapped capacities.

I thought my mother had probably never had really good sex.

Brody had ideas about what clothes I should bring to Arizona.

It was early June in New York, not really hot yet, but we'd do better picking up rides if I brought some of the nice things I had that showed my figure.

I was a small, skinny girl with a big bust, and he admired the sundress with the plunging neckline and the T-shirt that was tight and orange.

Oh, also the ripped jeans with the tear near the crotch.

We have to think ahead, he said.

In the end, a friend of his drove us as far as the New Jersey Turnpike, and I stood by the highway in my little orange T-shirt and jeans, with Brody lurking behind a tree.

How smug I felt when a large truck stopped right away, and Brody suddenly ran up to get in with me.

The driver was an old fat guy, and we squashed ourselves next to him by having Brody put me on his lap.

My mother thought I was on a class trip to the Adirondacks.

"'You cozy?'

the man said.

He had a growly voice and snorted when he heard that we were heading all the way to Arizona.

"'Did we know how far that was?'