Life felt much more boring once all the possibilities of those numbers had been exhausted. First it was the phone number possibility. Then the date. And then after that Pete kept trying to come up with other explanations with no success. Eventually though he accepted that it had just been random.

No not accept. He kept obsessing over the explanation. Had Marianna become senile? Lost her mind and was writing random numbers onto cups of customers? If only she would return to work one of these days so that he could vet what she wrote on other people's cups. Pete was old enough that he could pretend it was an honest mistake that he had gone up to the counter to pick up someone else's cup.

Besides this obession Pete felt cooped up at home. He was going out more. He had hoped that Mary Beth would notice and say something but she kept going about her regular schedule. Every time he'd come home she'd be watching videos while knitting. Pete meandered between judging her lifestyle to reflecting on how he had been living like that just few weeks ago. Had he really burned a few decades with such an existence?

Wanderlust had bitten him. Now he wanted to go out there. Wherever it was. He was reminded of the feeling he had before he had gone up to 

Spacecity

. A feeling of infinite possibilities. Pete wondered where he would go. Not east. East felt established. West, now west felt like the uncharted. He couldn't go up to space but he could drive west as long as he could. He would figure out where he would go along the way. Maybe he could make it all the way to the pacific coast.

How far into this trip would Mary Bet actually say something? What would she do? How would he respond? He didn't know. But he didn't want to take their car. He'd have to first buy his own car to take.