Sarah Shun-lien Bynum

I was starving and very glad to be chomping down on a filet-o-fish at the nearby McDonald's.

Hits the spot, doesn't it?

Brody said.

We were going to be on the road for the next three or four days at least, he added, and we didn't have money for hotel rooms if we wanted to eat.

We were eating indoors at McDonald's, but the Rancho Deluxe restaurant a few doors down had picnic tables outside.

We had to wait till everything closed and we could sleep on the benches.

No one would even see.

It was a nice night, just a little chilly.

I was only sorry that we'd have to sleep on separate benches.

What a great girl you are, he said.

McDonald's didn't stay open much longer, and then Brody had us hike laps around the strip mall to keep us in our beautiful health.

He carried the pack with our things in it, and we had our arms around each other's waist as we walked, and I was in a glorious moment of my life.

We walked past the dark stores, with neon signs still lit, and past a few eating joints whose brightness stayed on.

The rancho took forever to close.

We went around the mall any number of times, but then we rounded the corner and saw it dark at last.

Brody put a blanket down on a bench for me, and he settled himself on another bench, and we held hands under the table.

Brody lit a roach, and we passed it back and forth.

I fell asleep on that plank of wood like a passenger on a boat.

But how were we ever going to have sex if we never had a bed?

Brody solved this for us one night, somewhere in Missouri, by deciding we could camp out at a rest stop, behind a giant bush at the end of a parking lot.