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The waitress appears, drops off our plates, and rushes off. She doesn't show any interest in us.
“All I know,” Scott continues, “is that we need to figure out where we want to go.”
“Okay, well, what do you think? I still have that list of all the places where we thought we’d like to move.”
“Those are all border towns,” Scott says. “No point moving to one of those if I’m not going to work at the border. We’d be better off in a big city where there’s lots of jobs.”
“San Francisco?”
“Too expensive. How ‘bout Seattle? It’s close to where you’re from.”
“Why don’t we cross the border into B.C. then? There’s Salt Spring. I know people we can stay with. My mom’s in Victoria; we could stay with her for a while.”
“They won’t let me move to Canada without applying for residency first, and that’ll take time and money.”
“Seattle’s fine, then,” I say.
So we have a plan. We sip our coffee and talk about how we’ll walk down to the fish market for our meat and cheeses, and how we’ll smell the salty ocean air every time we step outside. We’ll hang out at community coffee shops in the afternoon and check out the music scene in the bars at night. We’ll take the ferry over to Victoria when we have some extra cash, and Scott can meet all my old friends.
We finish our lunch and drive out of South Dakota, passing briefly through Wyoming, then crossing into Montana. Now that we have a plan, there’s no more messing around. Scott takes advantage of the speed limit sign, “Reasonable and prudent,” by kicking it down to seventy and flying down the interstate.
The landscape is a lot less interesting now that we’re just trying to get through it, with fields and hills and forests rushing past. We stop only for gas, grabbing snacks to tide us over. We’re going to drive through the night. At some point while I’m sleeping we pass into Idaho and then into Washington. Some time before dawn, Scott pulls into a Perkins, with its gigantic American flag flying next to the freeway.
“We’re just a few hours away,” Scott says. “Let’s get something to eat.”
The lobby is bright, a stark contrast to the dark road. Seattle and Portland newspapers are for sale in boxes next to the counter. I run back out to the car to get some quarters and plug in enough to get a Seattle Times and an Oregonian. With the newspapers underarm, I join Scott at our table, where he’s already ordered me a coffee. He’s counting the cash in his wallet, trying to be discreet with it on his lap.
“What?” I ask.
“We have less than I thought.”
“How much?”
“Like less than twelve hundred bucks.”
“That’s all we have left?” We had over two thousand saved up when we left Moorhead.
“Well, it all adds up,” Scott says. “The gas and restaurants and liquor store.”
“What are we going to do?” We don’t have enough left for first and last month’s rent, even.
“We’re going to get there,” Scott says, “and find jobs as quick as we can.”
I open the Seattle Times to the classifieds and start looking through, skimming the apartments for rent. They’re all eight hundred a month, at least. I flip to the help wanted section and start circling the waitressing openings. Scott opens up the Oregonian. We sip our coffee.
“Maybe we should go to Portland instead,” Scott says. “There’s a bunch of apartment manager positions, and they all say that you can live on-site. That way we won’t have to pay rent.”
I look up from the Seattle Times and nod.
“I bet we could get one of those jobs,” he continues. “I have a college degree, and we both have customer service experience.”
“Alright. Let’s go to Portland.”
Portland
We’re driving into Portland with a thousand dollars and nothing else. No jobs, no friends, no plan. “Well,” I say, the city silhouetted against the sky ahead of us, “Helen Keller said life is a fearless adventure or nothing.”
The city sprawls ahead of us. Four lane streets with fast food joints and bus stops and the downtown skyline in the distance. Apartment buildings have “Now Renting” banners. One says, “If you lived here, you’d be home now.” Our windshield wipers beat away the falling rain.
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