"Are you alright, Jessa?" Celeste asked from behind the wheel, the arizonan sun punching down on her with steel, vengeful fists, sweat pushing up against her hairline, her mouth permanently attached to a Poland Spring Bottle, the water easily smoothing the roughness of her parched throat.

"Just dandy," Jessa replied with a melancholy chuckle, her feet dangling like a doll's from the overhang bed, dabbing a blue washcloth over her heated face.

"What did she say, Jessa?" Ashley asked becalmly, curling her fingers around her frosty can of root beer.

"Oh, the usual motherly subjects," Jessa started wryly, turning over onto her stomach, driving her chin into her denim pillows like a piledriver, "How's the summer, you meet any nice guys, you miss me, oh yeah, I'm pregnant."

Stunned, Celeste strangled against her water, coughing spells distracting attention from the road. Taryn peered up from her journal astounded. Ashley's elbow slid down dumbfounded and toppled over her photo albums towering on the table.

"She is?" Ashley asked in a squeaky voice, throwing herself to the floor to cover up her shock and pick up the fallen tower of photo albums.

"Yep," Jessa filled them in, sliding down off the bed, her eyes swamped with red and gloom, Taryn's white wifebeater wrinkled like her perfectly-folded summer against her skin.

On the account of being best friends for years, the one thing no one ever discovered was how to talk to Jessa about her mother, a subject always confidential and avoided. When her mother is even mentioned in conversation, which it really never was, Jessa's eyes would constrict, her smile tumble down at the corners into a frown, her arms to blanket her chest as if it was the only thing that could protect her from the repugnant spirit of her mother haunting her in her mind. Jessa turned into someone else, someone different.

"Wow," Taryn responded while she exhailed, diverting her eyes to her journal and her feet against the couch's arm. "Does she...know whose it is?"

Jessa scurried toward the sink, pivoting herself away from question by vigerously washing pressed particles of food off of the little plastic dishwear they had. As if she was rubbing her mother's acidic touch away from her skin, she gratted the brillo pad against the bowl like it was a knife, she responded "Could be one of 3 guys..."

"Oh," Taryn replied quietly, her nurturing heart twisting in grief for Jessa.

"Another person for her to ruin its life," Jessa spatted maliciously, stacking the clean bowls on to the counter in a clatter of a column, the bowls ready to topple over just like her insides, ready to spill out and drown everyone.

"You didn't turn out so bad," Celeste assured her with a scant smile, adjusting her rearview mirror to see Jessa gazing at her with glistening eyes, holding her fists against her chest as a tear ran painfully down her cheek, streaking her emotionless face as if permanentely.

Celeste saw this as a prime time to let the engine cool and Jessa vent. Turning off Highway 79 into a dusty simulance of a shoulderlane, Celeste jerked the RV into park and swivled in her seat, drumming her fingers against the plush material of the driver's seat. "Let's talk, girls."

After getting a fresh pitcher of ice cold lemonde from the fridge and a huge crimson beach umbrella from the back to fight of the austere and scortching rays of sun toasting the land, the girls settled against a large boulder decorating the deserted desert road.

"She also told me that Derrick is furious with me," Jessa began morosely, shielding her eyes with her sunglasses and stretching out her sun-deprived legs for a moment of tanning.

"Why?" Taryn demanded with a furrowed brow, swirling her finger in the icy ocean of lemonade held in her hand, "He's your brother, not your keeper."

"Oh, you know how pigheaded he is, Taryn," Jessa confided, with a pat on Taryn's leg, "He expects me to watch over mom like a fucking babysitter just because he's away for extra study at college."

"You have a life, too, J," Ashley told her with a maternal smile, "You don't have to sacrafice it for your mother's screwed up life."

"I know," Jessa whispered, staring down at her ice shrink into water in the glass, a tear precipiating to congregate with the watered-down lemonade, "But no matter how far...away I get, she's always there, botching up everything!"

"I guess we've all found out that you can't always run away from your past," Celeste revelated with regret, embracing her legs against her chest sadly, Jessa resting her head against her bare legs and khaki shorts. Taryn frowned, her fingers scowering through Jessa's beautiful hair dampened with sweat as Ashley clung onto Taryn's arm, the four of them gazing at the cars whizzing by them as their lives were.

"Chris can't dance," Celeste said sparatically, an amused smile chiseling through the thick depression overlaying them like storm clouds.

"I've seen him," Taryn begged to differ, sipping at the cool glass as her eyes speared into the hazy distance behind red sunglasses, "And that boy can shake it."

"I mean he can't slow dance," Celeste clarified with a chuckle, their shadow lenghtening as Celeste cracked her neck of tension, "He's all like, awkward and stuff."

"He's threatened by your bootylicious presence," Jessa annouced up to the sky with a snicker, turning so her eyes could meet Celeste's in a goofy staredown.

"Oh, thank you for that uplifting comment," Celeste chuckled, giving Jess a well-deserved noogie.

"Watch the hair!" Jessa warned with a fake semblance of offense, swatting Celeste's hands away like they were annoying gnats swarming about her head.

"Laughter can fix anything, eh?" Ashley questioned, resting her head on the shoulder of Taryn's black tank top cladded with safety pins.

"Laughter is the best medicine," Taryn agreed with a head nod, raising her glass to her face to smother away pimples of sweat snapping up against the heat.

"I enjoy it," Jessa consented, squinting her eyes as if spears of sun had severed through the umbrella and pinched at her eyes with a relentless hold.

"It's OK," Celeste reluctently agreed, blowing a spiral of hair away from her face, "Most of the time. As long as you aren't the cause of laughter."

"But you always are!" Taryn dissented with a nerdy smile, her eyes crowded into her head by her glistening teeth.

"Thanks for the reminder, Loser," Celeste responded, reaching past Jessa to snatch Taryn's sunglasses from her eyes. Taryn's spice had definately toned down with the addition of this incredable trip and its obstacles. Everyone enjoyed this change in Taryn, something they didn't even believe Taryn knew about. But not everything changed.

Suddenly, a shaky, old grey 18-wheeler truck zoomed past them, their eyes staring horrified as a tan rock from its botchy cargo toppled from the secure straps and smashed into the windshield, then to the ground, cracks expanding from the point of infraction across the windshield like lava from an erupted, bubbling volcano.

"No!" Jessa shrieked, sprinting to the RV and standing on her tippytoes to inspect the damage, her fingers gingerly tracing the cracks rivering across the windshield, her other hand stroking the hood as if it consoling it.

"Can we drive it to a gas station or something?" Taryn asked skeptically, cranking her neck over Jessa's shoulder to see what happened.

"I'm not sure," Jessa responded doubtfully, tears resurfacing in her placid eyes, running her hands through her long hair in fustration, her two hands situating against the pounding in the back of her head.

"Get in, girls," Celeste commanded grimly, the girls piling into the RV as she scooted to the driver's side and slid in, the deep cracks skewing her vision greatly, drooping her neck to the right for better view. Cautiously, she turned the key, the engine purring like a young kitten without worry. Ashley and Taryn comforted Jessa at the table, all of them knowing this detour of plans wouldn't be enjoyable........

"How long will this take?" Celeste impatiently asked a well-built tanned blondie named Pat at the Shell Service Station a few miles away, his muscular grease-stained hands whiping at a grey cloth from his dirty overall's pocket, his head glancing at the spiderweb of cracks and scrutinizing it closely.

"Buisness has been slow today," Pat confided in his rough voice, running a rugged thumb along the cracks, "I'm sure we can have it done by the morning."

"Fabulous!" Celeste shouted eased, fumbling through her wickered beach bag for her wallet, praying bills won't leave a paper trail of their troubles, "Ummm....is it OK we pay cash?"

"Sounds great," Pat responded without hesitation, pointing her toward the main office shielded in tin where Taryn, Jessa, and Ashley seeked shelter, "Money upfront is appreciated. Talk to Donna about it."

"Thank you," Celeste told him politely, his model smile the last thing gracing her eyes before heading toward the office.

Jessa was immersed in a classic trashy love novel as Taryn and Ashley indulged themselves in cold sodas curtousy of Donna, the bleach-blond corpulent woman with huge white spots toattooing her golden skin, an outcome of love for the harmful arizonan sun, perched behind a cluttered green desk, the clicking of her gum and the studder of the fan the only noises in the air-tight swelter house.

"What's it be, Honey?" Donna asked without looking up, her onyx eyes searching the nearly-blank schedual for today with a frown.

"A repaired winshield," Celeste returned, pulling several hundred in a collection of freshly produced 20's and 10's.

"That would be about..." Donna's voice trailed off as her eyes shot to the ceiling as if reading the price in invisable ink, "$300, I suppose."

After counting the proper settlement, Celeste dropped the money on the table, a pleased smile etched on Donna's face, her face apearing to have been dragged over rocks at one point in her life, as she swiped the money from the disorder of her desk...

"Is there a motel we can crash at?" Celeste asked her friends, taking ease next to Ashley on the hard bashe bench.

"About a quarter of the mile down the road," Taryn answered, whiping the remains of Sprite from her lips with her arm. "Sunshine Motor Lodge."

"We sure do need some real sunshine," Celeste gruffed, not referring to the blazing sun melting the arid waxed world outside the four walls covering them.

"Can we go?" Ashley asked waverly, "I need to pee."

"Yeah," Taryn agreed, the acrimonious smell of grease and oil needling her stomach, making her feel sick.

"I can't leave this book now!" Jessa desisted, her eyes wide with anticipation with the turn of each page. "Maria is about to meet the man secretly stalking her."

"Take the book, Honey," Donna insisted, lifting her stubby legs to the desktop. Before Jessa could resist, Donna rose a calloused hand and shook her head, "I know how addictive Danielle Steel novels can be. I have a few dozen at home." With Donna's sealing chuckle, Jessa rose the pink book to her stomach and thanked her graciously, before setting out to conjoin with the sinking sun and her friends, everyone so drained, they could fall prey to vultures circling the skies with a gusty blow of wind.......

"Are you done, Celeste?" Taryn called irked from her blue-blanketed bed, her eyes scouring the pee yellow wallpaper of this low-rate motel room. She would be sharing the bed with the primping Celeste and not wanting to be disturbed when she tripped into sleepl; the water cutting off at Taryn's last spoken cyllable.

"Just a minute!" Celeste shouted back, swiftly whiping off her volumptuos body with a white motel towel, her eyes noticing the cracks of ancient paint splitting against the doorframe and cold draft from the lone window that left an inch of unporportional space caused by bad planning and negligible use.

Jessa trudged back from the pale blue window and overlapping darkness to the first double bed, Ashley already visiting dreamland at the early hour of 9. With a depleted sigh of emotion, she crawled under the covers and shrunk away from the yellow light shooting from the chincy table light between the two beds.

"It's freezing," Celeste complained against chattering teeth, her oversized Yale T-Shirt shivering as much as her body underneath it. She noticed Jessa as a cold and upset lump of coal under her sheets. Celeste frowned and glanced down, not sure how to alleviate Jessa's pain.

"It will be alright, Jessa," Celeste cooed softly, jumping into the lumpy bed and switching the light off.

"It won't ruin the summer," Taryn assured her as she rolled onto her left side, her red hair sticking to the pillow like the pillow had fly paper glued on it.

"Keep telling yourself that," Jessa whispered doubtfully as she slipped into one of many nights of tourmented sleep.