I started the car, pulled it out of the woods and with Sandy's warm body pressed against mine, we hit the open road.
It was a bright, clear, winter day, and we were free. We were leaving behind the parents, the schools, the future, the past, the society that made our love a criminal act. We were heading west for the Golden Gate.
We played the radio loud and didn't say much, didn't have to; for the time being at least we understood each other perfectly, were with each other completely, we were totally happy.
After sundown I began to get a little tired from the thousand or so miles I'd driven since last night and suggested to Sandy we stop at a motel.
“I'd love to,” she said. “I've been waiting for an hour for you to say that.”
“I wish you'd spoken up sooner.”
“You know,” she went on, “after all we've been through we've only spent the whole night together once.”
“That'll change, though.”
The first place I stopped, the clerk took one look at me and said he was all filled up, even though the “vacancy” light was on.
The next clerk wanted to know if I had a girl with me. I told him I did, but that she was my sister.
“That makes it kind of worse, doesn't it?” he said.
I stormed out.
I asked the next clerk for two rooms.
“You over eighteen?”
“Yes.”
“Proof?”
“No.”
“What about your girl friend?”
“She's my sister.”
He laughed. “I've heard that one a million times. You kids ought to be more imaginative.”
With each stop and each story, I could see Sandy getting more agitated, more worried.
She finally blurted out: “I knew this was going to happen, Terry, I knew it. There's just no place for us to go in this country.”
“Wait'll we get to San Francisco. It'll be okay then.”
“I doubt it. What are we going to do, Terry?”
“Drive on, I guess, until we find a place to stay.”
“Maybe we should turn back.”
“Are you out of your mind?” I yelled. “Look how far we've gone! Don't you feel great to be free like this, at last? Out of the nest and on our own? God, I love you! If we go back, we'll just be killing everything we've done, admitting that we were naughty children and didn't really mean it after all. If they want to kill our love they'll have to catch us first.”
“I'm sorry, Terry. Don't pay any attention to me when I get like that. I need you so much, I'm nothing without you.”
She snuggled against me, under my arm, and a new warmth suffused between us. It seemed as though every moment we spent together was better and richer than the last.
“Maybe the best thing to do would be to take a bus,” I said. “We could pull into one of these towns and ditch the car. They'd never get us then.”
“Do you think they're after us?”
“If they found Daddy, they must be. They probably have the license number. Anyway, we crossed the state line hours ago.”
“Couldn't they have one of those all-state alarms?”
“I doubt it. Anyway, those cops must have thousands of them on file.”
“Look, an exit!”
I started to slow down and glanced in the rear-view mirror. I saw the flashing red light just before the siren sounded and the state police car gunned in on us.