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“McDonalds! McDonalds! McDonalds!” Parker and Breanna chant in unison. Eliot looks nearly apoplectic in rage.
“Absolutely not! Do you have any idea what they put in that crap? We shouldn’t be stopping at all an hour away from home, but if we do, it sure as hell is not gonna be at that ode to processed junk.”
“This time I’m driving, so if I wanna stop for food, then we get to stop,” Parker stares at him smugly, far too long for someone operating a motor vehicle.
“Jesus, Parker, eyes on the road! Don’t you crash my car!”
“Oh relax, ‘don’t you crash my car’” She sing-songs. “ We’re fine. And if Breanna wants McDonalds, then McDonalds we shall deliver.”
“We have plenty of food- good food- at home.”
“But I have to go to the bathroom,” Breanna whines, “and if we’re stopping anyway, we might as well take this opportunity to visit the golden arches that entice palettes of all ages- from retirees to toddlers. Turn left up here, Parker.”
“Y’all’re acting like toddlers. And what do you mean opportunity? There's half a dozen McDonalds in walking distance of the theatre. We’re by the coast of Louisiana, a place known for some of the best cuisine in the world, and y’all wanna ignore all that for fast food crap?”
“Parker, next right,” Breanna instructs. “We’ve been in this area long enough to get tired of the cuisine.” She shrugs. “What I want now is some good old road-trip McDonalds.”
“Tired of- You- For McD- Just no!” Eliot sputters.
Parker smiles that her and Bre’s plot to get Eliot stuttering-level mad has worked so seamlessly. And just in time too. With a final direction from their erstwhile navigator, “just up here on the left,” Parker pulls into the restaurant they’ve been heading towards this whole time. A shining sign hangs above it: “Fleur De’licious Burgers and More: Best Cajun Food in Creola, LA.”
“Really, Parker?” he definitely knows who masterminded this con.
“Orange you glad it’s not McDonalds?” the thief asks. “Bet you don’t even mind stopping if it's here.”
“Locally owned and fresh seafood deliveries daily,” Breanna chimes in. “Five google reviews, all 100% positive.”
“Fine,” Eliot snaps, “but no more stops after this. I just wanna get home so I can finally sleep.”
“Just sleep in the car after we eat,” Parker says, “I’m driving, so you got nothing to worry about.” She smiles innocently.
“You driving is exactly why I gotta be worried, and you know I can never sleep in a moving car.”
“And the food-truck check-up 3 years ago when I drove the entire length of Nebraska while you lay with your eyes closed was what? Practicing your astral projection?”
“Meditation.”
“Sure”
“I wasn’t sleeping.”
“Were too.”
“I’m not doing this with you, Parker.”
“Great,” Breanna pipes up in the back seat. “Then let’s go in before I pee my pants, and y’all can finish this another time.”
. . .
One delicious lunch later, they’re all happily full, the check is settled, and Breanna is ready to go home herself. But now Eliot is gushing with the restaurant owner about grilling techniques or spice mixes or something. Despite glaring his displeasure at them the entire time they were ordering, his mood parted like the clouds the moment he took his first bite. Apparently, the Google reviews were right. But now they’re dealing with Chef Eliot, and who knows when he’ll run out of steam for discussing fresh, homemade food with a rural small-town local business owner. Wait, the answer’s gonna be never, isn’t it? And Parker’s already getting twitchy, which means that the end of her willpower to avoid theft is increasingly imminent.
Before Breanna can say something, the thief disappears. Thankfully, Eliot seems to have a sixth sense about Parker’s comings and goings, so by his small flinch, Breanna knows that he’s immediately clocked her absence. Bre starts to edge towards the hallway where the staff only door stands, hoping to find her mercurial mentor while Eliot distracts the employees. Before she can get far though, Parker's suddenly right there again. This would be relieving, except that both her reappearing of her own volition so soon, and that cat-ate-the-canary smirk on her face, mean that she has definitely stolen something.
Parker nods to Breanna with a grin, then marches right up to Eliot, flashing him some set of keys from the back of the restaurant, without any of the workers seeing. What follows is the most intense but subtle game of keep-away Breanna has ever seen, where Eliot tries to lift the keys back from her, while Parker squirrels them away in increasingly taunting places. The restaurant people probably think they’re a couple who can’t keep their hands off each other, and Breanna wants to hide under her hoodie in embarrassment. Finally, Eliot manages to pluck the key ring from where Parker has hung it as a hair accessory.
He loudly announces that they better be going now, but the two of them should wait in the car while he uses the bathroom before heading out. Parker agrees in a truly ridiculous accent, with a mischievously sunny smile. Thankfully though, she lets Breanna usher her back out into the battering Louisiana heat.
Parker once again claims the driver’s seat, and when Eliot comes out after returning the keys, he makes Breanna move to the back again. He tries to get Parker to move too, but she obstinately refuses, and simply starts driving while he’s still arguing, before he’s even fully in the car.
“Damnit, Parker! This is why you shouldn’t be driving- you ain’t safe.” Despite his complaining, Eliot leans back in the passenger seat, balls up his jacket, and sticks it between his head and the door like a pillow.
“Says the one who’s hit me with a car more times than I can count.”
“Wait, Eliot’s hit you with a car?”
“For the con, Park- all of those were for a con, and you're the one who always cuts it too close!” He sighs, “you know what, I’m not having this conversation. I just wanna get some rest. Even if I can’t sleep, at least give me some quiet so I can close my eyes and rest. Please. And don’t crash my car, Parker.”
“I’ve been a getaway driver since I was 10. I think I know what I’m doing.” Parker postures. “And I’ve decided that I can’t hear people who question my driving skills.”
Breanna blinks. “Since you were 10?”
“Yeah, ‘fore she was a car thief” grumbles Eliot into his jacket-pillow, studiously ignored by the driver.
“How’d you get into that?” Breanna is gonna get all the good lore on this road trip.
“It was before I knew how to steal cars, and the horses on cars never tried to kill anyone.”
“Uhh . . .”
“Don’t get her started on the horses, man!” Eliot smacks his head further into the coat and attempts to screw his eyes even tighter closed.
“I can’t hear you.”
“Okay . . . um, wait, so like, did you ever carjack people?” wonders Breanna.
“Pfft, not when I was 12.”
“I-”
“But that wasn’t nearly as fun as the first time I broke into the Louvre. I can still taste the ice cream. Strawberry with chocolate chips and sprinkles.” Parker beams.
“Ooh, please tell me how you broke into the Louvre, and also why ice cream was involved.”
“Not this again,” pleads Eliot. “She’ll talk the whole way back with this story.”
“Do you hear something? I don’t hear anything. Anyway, you never forget your first Louvre break-in. The thrill of the vents. The rush from the security system. The goosebumps at the alarm lasers. Ooh!” She shivers. “I’ll start with the security layout.”
Eliot gives one last groan before capitulating to hearing the lengthy break-down of her break-in for the hundredth time. Maybe if he just closes his eyes his brain will at least get some rest even if he can’t sleep, especially while the girls refuse to be quiet.
. . .
“Did you steal giant pancakes to go with all that maple syrup?” Their conversation has meandered through early heists from them both, and Parker is very curious about the hacker's maple syrup incident.
“Well, the point wasn’t really to eat it, per se.” Though Breanna thinks that would certainly have added an interesting element to the hackathon.
“But you can’t let it all go to waste!” Parker cries, “Besides, tasting the score is the best part of a heist. Other than the money. And the safe. And the lasers. And the stealing. But tasting is great too!”
“Well next time maybe I’ll get someone to make giant pancakes. Eliot, better get to practicing your giant flapjack flipping,” Breanna expects to hear another groan or complaint, but no response issues forth from the slouching hitter.
“Oh, he’s been asleep for 12 and a half minutes now. Don’t wake him up,” stage whispers Parker.
“What? I thought he said he couldn’t sleep in cars, and especially with people talking. Should we stop talking?”
“No, we need to keep talking, but just about fun stuff. Not about,” her voice drops to a whisper, “Nana-haters or stuff like that.” Eliot grumbles in his sleep. “He can always tell when I’m feeling murderous.”
“Uh huh . . . but you don’t really want to kill anyone, right?”
“Like I told Sophie, I want to kill people all the time, I just don’t. But if we want Eliot to stay asleep, we have to think happy thoughts.” she inhales, and a beatific smile settles on the thief’s face. “Tight, constricting, enveloping vents. Jumping from a plane and plummeting towards the earth. A night so dark that hiding is like breathing. A room filled with hundreds of puppets.”
“Yeah, somehow that last one is the scariest of all.” Breanna shudders.
“Puppets are great. We’ll have to figure out a good one to get you so you can always have it to talk to about your feelings-stuff too.”
“Or we could talk about, uh, um-” Frantically looking around, Breanna spots when they pass a sign for an alligator rescue. “Alligators! You ever steal an alligator?”
“2004.”
“Wait, really? Alive or dead?” Parker just shrugs. “Where?”
“It was this place that had these great cheese biscuits.”
“And those were more memorable than the alligator?”
“Hah! She wasn’t even the hardest thing I stole that week. A 600 pound marble statue is much more challenging.”
“What’s the story behind that one?” As Parker launches into her next heist chronicle, Breanna mentally breathes a sigh of relief. She thinks she’s escaped a bedroom full of gifted “puppet friends” for now.
. . .
When they finally pull off the main roads and into their neighborhood, Eliot starts to shift at all the turns and stops. (Breanna is impressed that Parker actually stopped at every red light on this drive. When Eliot’s not awake for her to annoy and she’s not fleeing anyone, Parker actually is an excellent driver.) Eliot’s eyes start to flutter and his head starts to shift, which Breanna assumes must mean that he’s feeling pretty safe and comfortable to be visibly waking up without evaluating the surroundings first.
As his fidgeting grows, Parker begins to take turns a little harder and hits the break and gas pedals more suddenly. She jerks the car out of a particularly sharp turn, and the jacket slides down from where it’s been cushioning Eliot’s brow against the door, as his head bumps into the window.
“Dammit, Parker. Take it easy on the alignment. You driving like this is why I can never get any sleep in the damn car.”
“Um . . .” Before Breanna can say more, Parker meets her gaze in the rearview mirror with an impish smile and tiny head shake. “At least we stopped talking eventually?” Breanna tries instead. They hadn’t actually stopped talking until reaching their neighborhood when Parker started her mission to wake Eliot up through sheer annoyance, but Breanna wants to test his sleeping claim at least a bit. “And you really didn’t sleep at all that whole time? Cause you looked—”
“I was just resting my eyes! I think I deserve at least that much after driving a day, getting thrown in jail overnight, fighting off bikers, going back to jail, mediating the pettiest grievances I’ve ever heard, and still not being given the courtesy of quiet to sleep. I should be able to at least rest my eyes. If Parker would just start treating my car with the care she deserves-”
“Sure thing, Sparky.”
Eliot pinches his nose, glares at Parker, gives up his glaring as useless, and finally sits up fully when he sees that they’re only a few streets away from home.
They pull up, and Eliot is the first out of the car in his desperation for his own bed. The girls exit more slowly, and Breanna raises an eyebrow at the experienced mastermind. Parker just gives her a wink, disappears the keys somewhere (they’ll no doubt appear in Eliot’s things at some point later), and follows him inside. With a smile and a shake of her head, Breanna grabs her bags and trails after her kooky family.