Hey Nostradamus! By Douglas Coupland

have a carry-on bag? So that some customs guy believes that we're going to get married?"
"But we are going to get married."
Barb screamed out the window and lit another of many cigarettes. "This is about Cheryl. Isn't it? Tell me
- isn't it?"
"Leave Cheryl out of this."
"No. We can't have anyone discussing little Miss Joan of Arc." She threw her cigarette out the window.
"Sorry."
"You're right. It does have to do with Cheryl."
"How?"
I didn't say anything.
"How?"
I kept silent.
Barb is a smart woman. She said, "Now I don't know if you're doing me a favor, or if I'm doing you
one."
"You're probably right."
"You're as nuts as your father. You think you're not, but you are."
"What if I am?"
"The harder people try to be the opposite of their parents, the quicker they become them. It's a fact.
Now just drive."
"What are we going to tell people when we get back?"
"We're going to tell people I freaked out. We're going to tell them that I went crazy and drove out
toward the daffodil farm, and you saw me and followed me, and that I deliberately got lost, and that you
had to hunt me down somewhere in all that scuzzy wilderness out there. That's what we're going to tell
them."
"But your car is in the garage."
"I'll think of something. Just drive us to the airport."
The airport journey was different from the taxi ride Cheryl and I took in 1988. Back then all the bridges
we had to cross seemed exciting, almost like roller coasters. Crossing them with Barb, they were just
these things you didn't want to be stuck on during an earthquake.
And of course Kent was dead, too. I tried to speak about him, but Barb would have none of it. "As far
as I'm concerned, for the next twelve hours you are Kent. Just drive."
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