We immediately notice that the drivers go faster and veer into the wrong lane far more often than they did in Utah. “Pick a lane,” Aisha yells to the cars in front of us.

“Nevada: We take the second ‘M’ out of Mormon,” I say, and Aisha laughs.

WE’RE BOTH FAMISHED when we get to the Reno city limits, as we’ve eaten only ice cream since breakfast at the Baileys’. We choose fast food based on our existential budget. Aisha pulls off the highway at a gas station with a Subway, and we each get five-dollar footlongs.

It’s not great when a fast-food dinner costs, drinks included, one-fifth of your entire net worth. As I fill up the tank again, I try to decide whether I should tell Aisha just how low we are on cash. After paying for gas, we’re down to sixteen bucks.

Google tells us we have 219 miles, or three hours and thirty-two minutes, left on our trip. It’s seven fifteen at night, and eleven p.m. seems late to show up at a stranger’s house. But we have no other way of finding Turk Braverman; I’ve called the number I have for him five times now with no answer. As we get back in the car, I’m all buzzy inside, imagining ringing the doorbell on his colorful Victorian in the heart of San Francisco. I have to hope we’ll have better luck than with the Clancys. That maybe, just maybe, Turk will answer, and know my grandfather, and where he is, and why he left.

Aisha starts up the car.

And then she starts up the car.

And again.

“Shit,” she says.

“What?” I ask. “Not …”

“Yeah,” she says. “This is not great.”

“Oh, come on,” I say to the universe.

She keeps turning the key, and it makes that wheezing engine sound, like it’s trying to find some momentum, but it never catches. The gauge on the left struggles to rise, and then the noise stops, the gauge collapses to zero, and the engine turns off.

“Has this ever happened before?” I ask.

She shakes her head.

“Come on,” I repeat, thinking that if there is a God, he obviously thinks he’s hilarious.

“Well, I guess we can forget San Fran for the night,” Aisha sighs. “I might have triple A. I might not. I have no idea if my dad canceled it. I guess we’re about to find out.”

She gets out of the car and makes a call, and I get out too and listen, having no clue what it would mean if she does have it, and what it would mean if she doesn’t.

“Well, there’s good news and there’s bad news,” Aisha says once she’s off the phone.

“Just tell me,” I say.

“I’m still a member, so that’s good. They’ll tow us for free to the nearest repair place. Also, I get a discount on parts and labor, like ten percent off.”

“Okay,” I say.

“If it’s just the battery, they’ll give us a jump for free and we should be fine. The bad news is that if there’s actually something wrong with the car, we’ll need to pay to have it fixed.”

“Ah,” I say.

“Yeah. How much money do you have left?”

“Honestly?”

“No, lie to me. Yes, honestly.”

I squint. “Sixteen dollars?”

She laughs. I laugh.

“No, really,” she says.

“Um,” I say, looking far to my left and then far to my right.

She shakes her head. “I thought your mom wired you money?”

“A hundred bucks,” I say.

“Can she give us more?”

I shrug. “She ordered me to come home, so, um …”

Aisha stares at me, mouth open. “And you didn’t tell me this because?”

I shrug again. “I’m an idiot.”

She sits on the blacktop of the gas station parking lot, leaning against the door of the Neon. “Carson. Dude.”

I hate when girls call me dude. “Yeah, I know. I’m sorry.”

Three hours, a tow truck ride, and a plea on the surfingsofas.com bulletin board later, we are homeless and carless on the streets of Reno, the Biggest Little City in the World, whatever that means. We need a new ignition coil, which is a thing. Apparently it’s what fires the spark plug, and hers is busted. It’ll cost $140, and they don’t have the part in stock. They won’t be able to fix it until the morning. And even then, we don’t have the money for it.

We are sitting at a bus stop along a boulevard with a lot of car traffic but hardly any people traffic. I have the canvas bag with our toiletries and my grandfather’s journal, Aisha has her satin pillow under her armpit, and I’m carrying the Porcupine of Truth, which will not be as good a pillow as Aisha’s satin one. I’m an idiot.

“Well, I guess there’s some comfort in knowing you’re totally screwed.”

“I guess,” I say.

Aisha takes out her phone and checks to see if our SOS on the surfingsofas.com board has garnered a response. Nothing. Nada.

I think about calling my mother. Nope. Not calling. It’s just me and Aisha.

We sit and wait for someone from surfingsofas.com to text or call. Then we wait some more. Then we wait some more. Soon it’s midnight, and we’ve been sitting at a bus stop for two hours.

“Maybe we can find a park,” she says. “We’ll take turns sleeping.”

Using Google Maps, she finds us a place about half a mile away. It’s a small, mostly empty park, with some grassy areas intersected by a lit path lined with benches and streetlights. The lights are so bright along the path that the pavement glimmers, unnaturally silver. We see a couple of homeless men sleeping on the benches. One wears only his underwear and a blackened sweatshirt. His legs are covered in sores.

“It’s too bright here.” I point to a hilly area to our left. “Maybe try the grass?”

Aisha shakes her head. “Too dark. Let’s do the benches.”

We find a couple of benches across from each other, right under a pair of streetlights, far away from the homeless guys. I lean back on my bench and watch Aisha curl up across from me. She tries her side for a while, which looks uncomfortable. She rolls onto her back and looks up at the sky. She laughs.

“What?” I say, laughing back.

“The car, a zoo, the car again, a park in Reno.”

“You’re naming places you’ve slept recently?”

“I’m just sensing, you know, a trajectory,” she says.

“People who use the word ‘trajectory’ generally don’t sleep in parks, do they?”

“Classist. And apparently we do,” she says. “Good night, Carson.”

“Sorry, by the way.”

“Hey, it wasn’t your car that broke down.”

“Good night.”

“Night.”

So this is what it feels like to be homeless, I think. I look up at the streetlight above my bench and wish I could see stars like in Wyoming. I think about how we all share the stars. My grandfather must have his thoughts when he looks up at the sky, and so does Laurelei, and so do I, and we can never really know what other people are thinking, even when we all see the exact same thing. Sometimes I just want to be able to know what the stars look like from another set of eyes. From Aisha’s eyes. I’d love to be inside her head for just one day. To know what it is to be truly beautiful, and also to know what it would take to make her be exactly her but in love with me.

Because still. There’s a part of me that wishes.

Before going to bed, I text my mom. As I don’t want her head to explode, I don’t mention that I’m writing her from a park bench in Reno.

I know you’re pissed. Sorry. We’re okay. I promise when we come back we will have a long, long talk

about a lot of things. I love you, Mom.

I’m sorry I’m a pain in the ass.

It’s the middle of the night, so I don’t expect a text back. I get one anyway.