Three days after leaving Uncle Kenji's house, they were somewhere between Mendocino and nowhere, parked at a scenic overlook where the Pacific Ocean stretched endlessly toward the horizon. The van's side door was open, letting in the salt air and the sound of waves crashing against rocks below.
"Pass it here," Venus said, reaching for the joint that Anthony had somehow acquired from a group of surfers at their last stop. "I need to achieve the proper mindset for sunset appreciation."
"There's a proper mindset?" Kate giggled, already well into her own altered state. Her usual earth-mother composure had given way to the giggles, and she kept pointing at seagulls and announcing their emotional states. "That one's contemplating existence!"
"That one's just hungry," Anthony corrected, but he was grinning. Being high made him less angry at the world and more amazed by Kate's ability to find wonder in everything.
Charlie was stretched out with his head in Jon's lap, sage green hair catching the late afternoon light. Jon absently played with the longer strands while staring at the ocean with the intensity of someone who'd just discovered water was wet.
"It's so... blue," Jon said with deep conviction.
"Groundbreaking observation," Chelsea teased from where she was attempting to braid Venus's hair extensions into increasingly complex patterns.
The radio was playing classic rock, cycling through the usual suspects, when suddenly the opening chords of a Beatles song filled the van. Tara, who had been quietly contemplating a bag of trail mix like it contained the secrets of the universe, suddenly sat bolt upright.
"Oh, hell no," she announced with the passion of someone about to deliver a TED talk. "Turn that off."
"What's wrong with the Beatles?" Charlie asked lazily.
"WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE BEATLES?" Tara exploded, and suddenly their mellow vibe was interrupted by what could only be described as a scholarly rant delivered by someone who was extremely high. "Where do I even START?"
"Please don't," Venus said weakly.
"No, I'm doing this. I've been holding this in for MONTHS," Tara continued, gesturing wildly with a handful of almonds. "Everyone acts like they're these musical geniuses, but they're just four dudes from Liverpool who figured out that screaming teenage girls equal money!"
"They wrote some good songs—" Jon started.
"STOLEN," Tara interrupted. "Half their early stuff was covers of American R&B artists who never got proper credit because they were Black and the music industry was racist as hell. And don't even get me started on how they treated women!"
Kate sat up, suddenly very interested. "Go on."
"John Lennon singing about peace and love while being an absent father and emotionally abusive husband! The cognitive dissonance is STAGGERING!" Tara was fully animated now, pacing the small confines of the van. "And everyone just ignores it because they made 'Imagine'!"
"You've really thought about this," Anthony observed, impressed despite himself.
"I wrote my sophomore English paper on the mythology of rock and roll versus reality," Tara said, momentarily distracted by a seagull that had landed near the van. "Got an A-plus and existential dread about hero worship."
"But what about their musical innovation?" Charlie asked, genuinely curious now.
"WHAT INNOVATION?" Tara threw her hands up. "Studio effects that other people invented? Chord progressions that existed for decades? The real innovators were people like Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Chuck Berry and Little Richard, but they don't get statues in Liverpool!"
"She's not wrong," Chelsea said thoughtfully. "I never really thought about it before."
"Nobody thinks about it because we're all brainwashed by boomer nostalgia!" Tara continued. "It's the same with Led Zeppelin and their wholesale theft of blues songs, or the Rolling Stones appropriating Black culture while making millions off it!"
Jon sat up straighter, Charlie's head sliding off his lap. "Okay, but what about their later experimental stuff?"
"You mean when they discovered drugs and started thinking feedback was revolutionary? Please. Frank Zappa was doing weird experimental music before they figured out what a sitar was!"
Venus paused in the middle of trying to French braid her own hair. "Tara, are you okay? This seems very... specific."
"I'm FINE," Tara said, then immediately sat down heavily on a cushion. "I'm just tired of people acting like four white guys from England invented music when they mostly just repackaged what already existed and got credit for it because of systemic racism and sexism."
There was a moment of silence, broken only by the sound of waves and a very confused seagull.
"Damn," Anthony said finally. "That was... comprehensive."
"And kind of inspiring," Kate added. "Like, question everything, you know?"
"I've been questioning everything since we left Maplewood," Tara said, suddenly deflated. "Maybe that's the problem."
Charlie sat up and looked at her seriously. "No, that's not a problem. That's growth. You went from perfect prep school student to... someone who thinks for herself."
"Someone who rants about classic rock while high in a van," Tara corrected.
"The best kind of person," Jon said solemnly.
"Plus," Venus added, "you looked really cool doing it. Very passionate academic meets rebellious teenager."
"That's my aesthetic now?" Tara laughed.
"Better than 'people pleaser with anxiety,'" Chelsea pointed out.
As the sun began to set over the Pacific, painting the sky in shades of orange and pink that would have made their high selves weep with beauty, they settled back into comfortable silence. The Beatles song had long since ended, replaced by something less controversial.
"Hey Tara?" Anthony said quietly.
"Yeah?"
"Thanks for the history lesson. I never knew most of that stuff."
"School doesn't exactly teach the complicated parts," Tara said. "Just the sanitized version where everyone's a hero and nothing messy ever happened."
"Kind of like how they don't teach you that running away might be the sanest response to an insane situation," Kate observed.
"Or that sometimes the people who are supposed to love you are the ones you need to get away from," Jon added, unconsciously reaching for Charlie's hand.
"Or that found family can be stronger than blood family," Charlie said, squeezing Jon's fingers.
As the stars began to appear in the darkening sky, they made plans for the next day—maybe they'd hit Santa Barbara, or maybe they'd just drive until they found somewhere that felt right. The van had become more than transportation; it was their mobile home, their safe space, their declaration of independence from a world that had tried to fit them into boxes they'd never chosen.
"One more thing about the Beatles," Tara said sleepily as they settled in for the night.
"Oh god, what now?" Venus groaned.
"They were right about one thing." Tara smiled in the darkness. "All you need is love. They just had no idea how to practice what they preached."
"That," said Kate, curled up next to Anthony, "is the most romantic thing you've ever said."
"I'm high and feeling philosophical. Don't get used to it."
But as they drifted off to sleep to the sound of the ocean, each of them was thinking that maybe Tara was right about more than just the Beatles. Maybe questioning everything, including their own assumptions about music and family and what it meant to be happy, was exactly what they needed to do.