Read This One Time With Julia for Free Online

hand towels in here. And the place isn’t even half full.”
    “I’m not going to stand here and argue with some hotel prodigy,” said the manager. “I’ll charge him for a quarter day. That’s more than fair.”
    “That’s so great,” said Julia. “I think that was a really nice compromise.” She gave him a big smile and took the doggie by the collar. “Seem fair to you, Joe?”
    “Seems fair to me.”
    By the time we got back into the office, I’d remembered my signature pretty well. I hadn’t practiced it at all since Alvin left, and so I thought I’d be more rusty, but it really did look quite beautiful and special there on the tiny white hotel bill.
    “So now what?” said Julia. “I’m stuck here for two days. I’ve never traveled alone before, and I don’t think I’m too good at it. I haven’t eaten anything all day but peanuts.”
    “I drank an awful lot of water, but that’s it.”
    “There must be a fun place to have dinner somewhere around here.”
    “I have a car,” I said.
    I never should have said “I have a car” so quickly like that, and with all that confidence, because I’d driven maybe three hours total in my life, and most of it was this one terrible day when Alvin stole Marcus’s car, and I wound up destroying it, along with a couple of street signs. But I wanted to make sure I went wherever Julia was going.
    Outside, it had become nighttime. While I stood there looking at Alvin’s car, trying to remember how to drive, the doggie started licking my hand. I thought he might be hungry after a whole day locked in the hotel, so I got some money from an ATM and bought him some dog food from this little market on the corner, and he ate three cans, and threw up, and ate two more cans, and drank a little puddle of water, and peed with his leg in the air.
    “I think he keeps his keys in the muffler,” said Julia.
    “That sounds familiar.”
    I couldn’t think of any more excuses. I got the keys out of the muffler, threw Julia’s bag in the backseat, and then we both got into the car. As soon as the door was open, Max jumped in and climbed into the back. The whole car smelled like a lawn, and the backseat was covered in doggie bones. Even before I got my door closed, Julia was already fixing her lipgloss in the mirror. She had no idea how nervous I was. I put the key into the ignition and turned it.
    Life is so full of impossible things that I can’t understand. I’ll never be able to explain what happened next. I don’t know if it was because the car reminded me so much of Alvin, or because Julia was there trusting that I knew what I was doing, but for whatever reason driving that car suddenly became something I could do. I was nervous for a block or so, trying to remember how I’d crashed before, so I could try to avoid it this time, when I suddenly got the hang of the whole thing. The wheel, the pedals, even the blinkers, it all made perfect sense to me, all at the same time. I can’t remember anything about the day I learned to walk, but it must have been a very similar feeling. After a mile or so I even started to enjoy it, and I especially liked driving with Julia next me, chatting away like this was the most normal thing in the world.
    “I like Los Angeles,” she said. “I think Cecily would like it too.”
    Later I found out that Cecily was her sister, but I had no idea at the time. This is something I eventually got used to with Julia. She always talked to you as if you’d known her all your life. Suddenly she grabbed my arm.
    “I think I just saw a really fun diner, right across the park. See? There’s a man outside dressed up like a hot dog. I think I could really go for a nice tuna melt right now. Are you as hungry as I am, Joe? Did you know it’s the first day of summer?”
    The diner was full of little children with their parents. All the waiters and waitresses were dressed up like park rangers for some reason. We couldn’t find any empty booths, so