How to Start a Fire Read Free

left California. Can you believe that?”
    “We won’t be far from Oregon,” said Kate, who didn’t seem to mind having her life summarized solely in terms of how it differed from Anna’s.
    “Maybe we’ll just dip inside,” Anna said, “so you can say you’ve been there.”
    As Anna shattered the speed limit on Highway 101, the landscape turned a lusher green. Dark clouds pushed their way into the sky as headlights started to blink on. Anna interrogated her new friend with a series of seemingly random but actually premeditated questions.
What song would your torturers play to drive you mad?
“It’s a Small World.”
How many hard-boiled eggs can you eat in one sitting?
Five. (Anna was impressed; most people couldn’t answer that question.)
Who would you save in a fire, Keith Richards or Pete Townshend?
    “
I don’t know,” George answered, indifferent to both men.
    “The answer is Pete Townshend. A fire wouldn’t kill Keith Richards,” Anna said.
    Kate asked the pedestrian kinds of questions and learned that George was a midwestern girl, raised in Chicago. An only child. Still-married parents. Italian American father. WASPy mother. She had several male cousins who’d taught her how to fight and play basketball. She had had a four-inch growth spurt when she was thirteen and played on the boys’ team until high school. Her major: undecided.
    A few hours into the road trip, Kate posed a question that spurred a rapid-fire conversation George found hard to follow; it was like listening to actors in a 1940s radio show.
     
KATE :
Did you check the weather?
ANNA :
No. I thought you were going to do that.
KATE :
Did you tell me to do that?
ANNA :
No.
KATE :
Then why did you think I would?
ANNA :
Because you’re more practical than I am.
KATE :
It’s going to start raining soon.
ANNA :
You don’t know that.
KATE :
I do.
ANNA :
No, you don’t.
    Small droplets of water dotted the windshield. Then the drizzle turned to rain, forcing Anna to turn on the windshield wipers.
     
KATE :
What more proof do you need?
ANNA :
What’s a little rain?
KATE :
We can’t go camping in the rain.
ANNA :
Why not?
KATE :
You can’t start a fire in the rain.
ANNA :
So we won’t have a fire.
KATE :
If we don’t have a fire, then we don’t have s’mores.
ANNA :
So?
KATE :
Camping isn’t camping without s’mores. We can’t have other cooked food either.
ANNA :
We can have potato chips, beef jerky, and beer.
KATE :
Maybe you should slow down.
ANNA :
What does that sign say?
KATE :
Make the wipers go faster.
ANNA :
That’s as fast as they go.
GEORGE :
I think you should pull off the road.
ANNA :
Good idea. We’ll find a place to bunk for the night.
KATE :
A Motel 6 or something.
ANNA :
Not a Motel 6. Some place that sounds more rustic.
KATE :
Like what, the Rustic Inn?
ANNA :
It can’t be a chain motel and it has to have the word
Lodge
in the name.
GEORGE :
What was that?
    The car swerved back and forth across two lanes with a rhythmic thumping sound. Anna slowed the car, turned on her emergency blinkers, and pulled onto the shoulder of the road.
     
ANNA :
I’m not an expert, but I think we have a flat tire.
KATE :
I second that opinion.
ANNA :
Don’t worry. I’m going to take care of everything.
GEORGE :
Do you know how to change a tire?
ANNA :
No.
GEORGE :
I can do it. My dad showed me like a year ago.
ANNA :
Good to know. For future reference.
KATE :
Uh-oh.
GEORGE :
You don’t have a jack, do you?
ANNA :
Nope. But it wouldn’t do us any good anyway.
GEORGE :
Why not?
ANNA :
A jack is useful only if you have a spare tire.
GEORGE :
You don’t have a spare?
KATE :
She used to.
ANNA :
I took it out a while back. Wanted to see if I got better mileage without the extra weight.
GEORGE :
Oh my God.
ANNA :
Relax. Everything is under control.
    Anna donned a yellow rain slicker that she found under a waffle iron in the trunk. George didn’t ask about the waffle iron—or the toolbox, or the snowshoes, or any of the other