American Vacanza

i'm as deep as a puddle • siena

Once upon a time, in the enchanted faraway land of Ohio, sat a quaint little place called the Wizard Of Oz Museum. Two girls, silly, naïve, were fighting one day over whether to take a peek inside and-

"You know, maybe we should go to one of these tourist traps," I suggested, "you know, just to get the authentic road-trip feel."

"You have to be joking," Madison said, shaking her head so vigorously her cotton candy-colored curls bounced. "I don't want to give my money to one of those random, dirty places that don't provide half the stuff they advertise."

"Well, what else are we going to do with our father slash stepfather's thirty billion dollar net worth?" I pointed out, sticking my bottom lip out in a mock pout.

"Um, give it to starving people in the developing world instead of giving it to scammers who've never worked a day in their lives and make their livings off unsuspecting tourists," Madison recited, unprompted, almost as if she'd memorized this beforehand.

"Come on! What happened to being spontaneous?"

"Siena, there are plenty of other ways-"

"Oh, so whenever you want to get a vitamin water at the gas station, it's spontaneous, but when I want to make a stop at a staple of Middle America, it's just weird and childish?"

"It's totally—"

"Live a little."

Madison let out a deep, guttural groan from the depths of hell. "What goddamn exit do I get off at?"

"This one," I replied. "I can't wait.The Wizard of Oz Museum. The finest in all of Ohio."

I didn't think either of us had noticed that we'd passed into Ohio, but the sun was setting and at this point, all types of signs that didn't point to the Wizard of Oz Museum had been disregarded. 

"Fine," Madison pulled over, followed the ubiquitous signs, and we found ourselves in the parking lot of a small, unsuspecting building we never would've known was the museum had fifty thousand highway billboards not alluded to its direct location.

Upon walking inside, we marveled at all the "wonderful" (notice the quotation marks) items on exhibit. Not to say that they didn't have great things; it just wasn't interesting. At all. However, the people watching at the WOOM was so fun, it was almost a sport.

"Seriously, this place is worse than Disney," Madison muttered, looking around at all the strange specimens surrounding us. "Guy with weird tan line, check." She pointed at a possible outdoor-roller-derby champion with white stripes only around his elbows and knees.

"Mom who doesn't know how to handle crying kid, check," I whispered back, not able to avert my eyes from a quadruple-chinned woman yelling at her four-year-old, who writhed as he screamed about something that I couldn't understand.

Madison said something almost inaudibly under her breath. "Adorable old couple." In the corner of the room was an elderly woman looking at a replica of the Ruby Slippers. Her husband, around the same age, put his hands around her waist and admired the bedazzled shoes as well.

Then she turned around and the two started Frenching like teenagers in the back row of a movie theatre; the second-most disgusting kiss I'd witnessed/experienced on this disgusting road trip. Security barged in to escort the two out, and Madison and I were left alone in the room once again. 

We walked around the room for a while longer. "You know, I don't know why we came here--" I began.

--"Are you kidding? That was hilarious."

"Well, I guess," I continued still about to vomit from the memory of Ethan doing the very same thing to me at the Doubleside, "I just never really liked The Wizard Of Oz. When I was little it freaked me out, and when I got older I just thought it was weird. The flying monkeys still freak me out. And I'll forget the Maine before I forget that witch's creepy voice."

"Remember the Maine. That one appealed to a very niche history-buff-or-high-school-student audience," she chuckled, stopping to admire a costume, which was one of the monkeys'.

"And you understood it, so what does that mean?"

"Touché," was my response.

"Ah! Stop it! You know what, you know what, this place is kinda freaking me out. Let's just go," I announced, moving toward the door and hoping Madison would follow suit. She did without hesitation, probably as terrified as me but scared to admit it, and soon we were back in the car where we belonged.

Never thought I'd say that.

"You know," Madison decided, "Ohio is on the Great Lakes. So is New York. By the transitive property, we're not that far from New York. "

I saw myself in the rearview mirror rolling my eyes. "By that logic, New York and Minnesota are practically twins. No pun intended."

"I've gone all the time we've lived together without punching you but dear Lord, this might be the day." Madison playfully swatted my arm.

"Well, whatever. On the one side, Ohio borders Indiana, which makes it a Midwestern state. On the other hand, it borders Pennsylvania, which is on the East coast. It's one of those versatile states, the bridge from one region to another."

Madison snickered, "Stop being so fake-deep. You're talking about Ohio, not the true meaning of life. You're not even talking about a cool state, like Hawaii."

I let out an ugly laugh. You know, one of the ones that's kind of forced, but kind of not, and it comes through your nose, kind of like a snort in the back of your throat. "You're saying my figurative language needs work?"

She pursed her lips and furrowed her brow, in a way that said hmm, good point. "Well, I can't argue with that," she replied. "It's almost like the setting desert sun, beautiful in the daytime, but no one can see it."

"You're really worse than I am," I sighed. 

"I guess," she scoffed, mockingly, "you're not deep enough to understand."

A short, stifled laugh escaped my lips. "But anyway. That museum was horrific. I'll be having night terrors tonight, so go ahead and book us seperate rooms when we stop."

"We should stop at more museums like the W-O-O-M," Madison suggested, to my horror. Seeing the terrified look on my face, she quickly amended her statement. "I mean, just to make it easier, so you don't have, er," she sipped a bottled water, crinkling it under her hands, "night terrors."

"Don't call it the W-O-O-M," I said each letter out loud. "Instead, call it the WOOM." I pronounced it like the word womb. That word always makes me uncomfortable.

I expected her to laugh. "That's stupid!" she announced, killing the mood. "Why would I do that?"

"I don't know. We're, uh, having this happy conversation, and I just thought..." I replied.

I knew where this conversation was going, and it wasn't anywhere good. So I trailed off and stared out the window at the various shades of green pastures, creating an intentional silence. Yes, it was, well, awkward, and weird, but sometimes silence would dispel any feelings of anger that hung limply in the air.

I stared outside at the other cars going by. Watching the sun go down, over the green fields and rush hour traffic, was oddly soothing. I, personally, was a fan of watching sunsets from the beginning to end. 

If you looked really hard at a sunset, you couldn't see the progress. The sun would look the same, to your eye, as it did a minute ago. However, had you taken a picture of it a minute ago, it wouldn't look at all the same. The liquid coral, lavender, indigo colors would ebb and flow so much that after a minute, they would look completely different, but you'd never, ever be able to tell.

The progress, the changes were impossible to notice. But they were there all the same, and they were mesmerizing. 

y'all know the drill. comment on this chapter and a bunch of other ones and i'll def notice you and check out your stories; i'll vote and comment if i like them :)