Lauren glanced down at her feet, lifting them off the floorboard, wriggling her toes in huaraches so brand new they squeaked. She laughed.
"Aw, shit!" Linda said, wondering why she hadn't noticed the new shoes until just then. "You're incredible. I can see you when you're married. 'I'm sorry, kids. There's no dinner tonight. I had to buy myself a new outfit.'"
"Kids?I'm not going to have kids. Get all fat like my older sister did? No way!"
Inside, Linda and Lauren paid for ten dollars of gasoline. "Can you at least buy a map?" Linda asked, indicating a rack with maps priced at one dollar.
"I could," Lauren said. She looked down. "But then I'd only have three dollars."
"Four dollars?" Linda exclaimed, blatantly unaware of the impression she was making on the middle-eastern cashier. "You only brought eight dollars? What about food?"
"We don't have to worry about that. My cousins are gonna feed us. Probably get us drunk and high, too." She winked at the male cashier.
Back in the car, Linda unfolded the map and studied it, tracing out the route to Cincinnati using one of her highlighting pens from lecture classes from school. There were only two turns, just as Lauren had said.
"You're such a girl scout," Lauren said, shaking her head.
"So?" Linda tossed the opened map onto Lauren's thighs. She punched down the clutch and started the car.
Later, at a town called Santa Claus, Indiana, Lauren noticed signs for restaurants. She said for two dollars they could each get burgers, fries, and a soda. "We don't even have to get out of the car," she added. "They make it so you can just drive up to the side and get your food from a window."
Linda couldn't believe it until a brightly uniformed teenager younger than them emerged from a window on the other side of the eatery, took their money and handed over their sodas and a bag with burgers and fries. "What will they think of next? It's just like my fifth grade social studies teacher said. By the 2000's we'll be big fat blobs with little arms and legs because we won't have to do anything."
"Not me," Lauren said. "My legs are the second-best part of me." She tugged on her tight knit blouse to reveal an inch more of cleavage.
"Slut," Linda said.
They sang more Led Zeppelin songs during the next leg of the trip, which took them across the Ohio River and into Louisville. Only an hour and a half more to Cincinnati. "You remember how to get to your cousin's house, right?" Dusk approached.