We get back on the rural highway, heading south toward I-80. Wyoming is the windiest place I’ve ever been; even with the windows up, we can barely hear Fitz and the Tantrums over the gusts that whip across our windshield. We zoom past miles and miles of nothing but sagebrush, which I start calling the “broccoli of the West” as we pass cowless pastures filled with it. This makes Aisha smile.
“What’s the worst thing that could happen on this trip?” I say, deadpan. “The Clancys are psycho killers and they kill us. Or they don’t kill us, but they sell us into the sex trade.”
Aisha shoots me a look. “Don’t be such a pessimist.”
I point at myself as if taken aback. “Me? Hardly. I’m an optimist. The biggest optimist. Eternal, even. If I were an eye doctor, I’d open a practice called The Eternal Optometrist.”
I can actually feel Aisha roll her eyes. “Don’t make me sorry I agreed to this before we leave Wyoming.”
WHEN WE FINALLY arrive in Salt Lake City, it’s just before eight on Sunday night. We’ve driven straight through without stopping for food so we can get to the Clancys’ before it gets too late. The city’s skyline at night is awesome — clean and crisp, like a Disney city — and I have to admit it’s nice to be back somewhere with actual tall buildings. Even a city named after a lake of salt.
The address is in a crowded neighborhood on the north side of town, a tree-lined street packed with modern-looking houses. The Clancys’ home is older, with paint chipping off the door. I ring the bell, clutching the letter Thomas wrote, my head buzzing with anxiety. Aisha looks much more calm than I feel.
We hear scampering feet, and then an elderly woman opens the door a crack.
“Hello?” she says. I can only see a sliver of her eye and nose.
“Hi, are you Mrs. Clancy?” I say, my voice trembling.
She opens the door a few inches wider, so we can see her lined face and wispy gray hair.
“I’m so, so sorry,” she whispers.
I start to ask her why when a booming voice yells, “Lois, who is it?”
She shakes her head at me and speaks louder this time. “No. We can’t help you.”
She shuts the door.
Aisha and I are left standing there on her front steps, bewildered.
“What just happened?” I ask.
Aisha says, “I have absolutely no idea.”
From inside the house, we hear a crotchety man’s voice.
“They sent us a black lesbian. Goodness gracious.”
Aisha and I look at each other, mouths wide open.
“He wasn’t even at the door,” I say. “How the hell would he know —”
She bites her lip. They must have learned this from the Leffs, and I feel a twinge of anger that the Leffs would have told them that information. Not to mention sending us to stay with a bunch of racist homophobes.
“That sucks,” I say.
Aisha shrugs. “After a while you just stop listening,” she says.
Part of me wants to pound on the door and tell the Clancys that they’re hypocrites, hiding their hate behind a God who is supposed to be loving. But Aisha says, “C’mon,” and we walk back to the car and sit there in silence.
I wish I could be half as strong as Aisha. Things that would destroy me just seem to bounce off her.
“So what do we do now?” I ask.
She thinks for a moment. “Do we go back to Billings?”
My stomach twists. I’m hungry and I’m tired and the idea of driving another ten or so hours right now is too much to take.
“Maybe we stay at a hotel?”
As Aisha considers this, her phone rings.
“It’s Laurelei and Thomas,” she says, and I perk up.
“Hey,” Aisha answers, and she puts the phone on speaker. “We can both hear you,” she tells them.
“Oh hi,” Laurelei says. “I’m so sorry, guys. I’m furious right now about how the Clancys behaved. She just called me and told me. I’m mortified.”
“It’s not your fault,” Aisha says.
“Well, it feels a bit like it is. I had no idea. When I spoke to Lois a few hours ago, everything was fine. Then, I suppose, she spoke to her husband. She just called me, and she sounded very upset. I’m so sorry, Aisha. I mentioned that you are homosexual just in passing. I did not expect it would matter, especially because Lois seemed so kind. I wish I hadn’t said anything now.”
“I’m glad you did,” Aisha says. “I don’t want to stay with someone who hates people like me.”
“Well, me neither,” Laurelei says. “But I also don’t want you to spend the night on the street! I simply don’t know what to do. We don’t have any other contacts, and we don’t use credit cards. I could try to call a hotel and talk to someone….”
“Don’t worry about it,” I say. “I have a card. We’ll be okay.”
“Yeah,” says Aisha. “Don’t sweat it. We’re fine.”
“Well, there is something else. Carson, Lois still wants to see you and give you this thing of your grandfather’s. She can’t do it tomorrow, though. The first time she could get away from her husband is Tuesday morning, so she wants you to meet her at eight a.m. Tuesday in front of the Tabernacle in Temple Square.”
I laugh. “Um. So she turns us away, then wants us to wait two days to meet her? Could she figure out how to see us tomorrow, at least?”
“I know, I know,” Laurelei says. “I just don’t know how to advise you.”
I think about our options. We could figure out how to stay a couple of days in Salt Lake City. It’ll mean spending money, and it’ll mean taking some extra days away from Billings. I don’t know. Even though my mom will probably never, ever say no to me, my dad is sick and I should be with him.
But how could I forgive myself for giving up my search for my grandfather? I picture him in the photo where he’s holding my dad as a young kid. His face like mine. I remember one of his puns: “When two egoists meet, it’s an I for an I.” His jokes like mine. He’s my blood.
I turn to Aisha. “I want to keep going. I really want to know what this lady has for me.”
I don’t know if I expect her to argue, but she doesn’t. “Well then, I guess we’re staying in Salt Lake,” she says.
“I don’t know how to help, but if you can think of a way, we’ll do it,” Laurelei says. “I feel partially responsible. We both do.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Aisha says. “We’ll be okay.”
We ask Laurelei to tell Lois Clancy we’ll see her on Tuesday. Laurelei wishes us well, and we say good-bye.
Aisha drives us to a nearby diner for a bite to eat. We’re both famished. While we’re waiting for our burgers and onion rings, she pulls up a site I’ve never seen before.
“After I was kicked out of the house, I couchsurfed a couple nights,” she says.
I crane my neck so I can see her screen. “I think you mentioned that.”
She explains that there’s this site called surfingsofas.com. People open their homes to complete strangers for God-knows-what reason — insanity, possibly. She found a family in Billings and she stayed with them for two days before she decided she was in their way and left.
“It’s worth a try. People review the folks they stay with, and vice versa.”
And then the craziest thing happens. I think, Sure. Why not? I’m doing all new stuff I’ve never done before. What’s one more new thing? “Let’s do it,” I say.
“Just no fucking Mormons. I’m over the fucking Mormons,” she says as she scrolls through people. “My soul is not getting saved in Salt Lake City. I have limits, you know.”
As I scarf down my burger, she finds two possible hosts who seem cool. She reads their profiles to me. One is a couple in their thirties who do organic farming, and the other is a lesbian couple in their twenties. I might as well just turn into a lesbian at this point, because that seems to be the direction things are going around here. She sends the requests, and then she dives into her cheeseburger while I tear into my onion rings and begin to steal hers. In between bites, we stare at her phone, hoping to hear the beep that would alert us to a message from surfingsofas.com.