Chapter Thirty-Three
Hugh and Jenny said goodbye to Roly and Charlie in the hotel lobby and walked arm in arm back to Hugh’s truck. Hugh hadn’t wanted to prolong being alone with Jenny even long enough to see his brother and Charlie to their rooms. He was emotionally and physically drained, and only wanted to hold Jenny in his arms.
At the truck, sitting on Hugh’s bed, and holding hands, Jenny spoke first.
“Hugh, you look like a wreck. What happened?”
“Charlie happened. This has been the longest week of my life.”
“Hugh, it’s been three days, two nights.”
“You’re kidding. It sure feels longer.”
“Was she that bad?”
“No, actually. After the first few hours, which were tense, she came around to being a mostly normal person.”
“Then, what was it?”
“It wasn’t any one thing. Just a whole lot of little things. Maybe the one big thing is she claims to be an atheist. It is so difficult for me to understand anybody who denies God. I really don’t know how to relate to somebody with such a self-destructive spirit. Know what I mean?”
“Yeah, Hugh, I do.”
“It makes me realize how right we are for each other.”
“I was so angry when you called, and I heard Charlie’s voice on the phone. I was angry and jealous,” Jenny said.
“No need to be, believe me.”
“Well, I guess you passed the test.”
“What test?”
“The fiancé alone in a truck with a beautiful woman for three days road test,” Jenny said.
Hugh and Jenny sat in comfortable silence.
After a few moments, Jenny said, “I had a long talk with your mom. She knows you better than anyone alive. She said she was absolutely, one-hundred percent, positively dead certain no power on earth could tempt you or tear you away from me.”
“Good old Mom,” Hugh said.
“Yup. I couldn’t have picked a better mother-in-law.”
“I’m dog tired, and we have an early, long day tomorrow. Let’s make a trip to the facility, and then go to bed.”
Jenny looked up at the top bunk where her sleeping bag still held Charlie’s scent.
“No, honey.” Hugh said, and patted his lower bunk.
Back from the restrooms and changed into their pajamas, Hugh got into his bunk first, the side against the back wall, then opened the covers for Jenny to come in. It was nowhere near the space they’d had in their resort villa king-size bed. More like a large twin size. But, as it turned out, all that extra space would have been wasted anyway.
Jenny immediately covered Hugh’s left side with her own warm body, and snuggled in like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Hugh could feel himself releasing all the built-up tension of the past several days, and relaxing like he hadn’t done in a long time.
Jenny murmured, half asleep, “Is that a sword in your pocket? …”
“Hush. Go to sleep,” Hugh whispered. Then his last thought before drifting off was, it’s definitely time we got married.
Hugh awoke to pounding on his driver-side door.
“Wake up sleepy heads.”
It was Roly. An early riser, as always. He held a take-out container with three coffees and breakfast sandwiches.
Hugh climbed over Jenny, and scooted to the front of the cab to unlock the door for his brother. “Come on up. Anybody bearing coffee is always welcome.”
Roly passed out the coffees and sandwiches, then he sat in the passenger seat, which he had swiveled toward the sleeper. Hugh sat on the edge of his bed. Jenny sat up with her back against the “headboard” of the sleeper.
“I want to get an early start back to home,” he said. It hadn’t escaped Roly’s attention what the sleeping arrangements had been.
“Thank you so much for bringing Jenny out to me,” Hugh said. “I owe you a big one, little brother.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll keep that in mind,” Roly said.
The three sipped coffees, and ate their sandwiches in companionable silence.
“Jenny has told us all about the accident,” Roly said. “That must have been really bad. How are you handling it?”
“It is what it is,” Hugh replied.
Truckers are the original fatalists. Most truckers learn early in their careers the futility of railing against things they have no control over – the irritable and often hostile shipping office personnel they deal with, dispatchers and other trucking office staff who have no idea of the conditions truckers have to drive in, the constant exposure to weather and other adverse elements, and the frequency and severity of the driving hazards and accidents they witness or get involved in.
“It is what it is,” is often heard in trucker conversations.
“It was bad enough, but it’s far from over.”
Hugh brought Roly and Jenny up to date with details about Charlie’s fake kidnapping and the insurance and lawsuit scam, about Charlie’s ride-along with him, and about her finally getting off of his truck to ride with James.
“Poor James,” Roly and Jenny said simultaneously.
“Speaking of Charlie,” Hugh said and pointed with his chin outside the window. Charlie walked toward the truck with her overnight bag hanging from one arm, and a take-out container with four coffees and breakfast sandwiches in her other hand.
“Wow! She can’t be that bad,” Roly said. “Bearing coffees.”
“Howdy, gang,” Charlie said. “Permission to board.”
She looked to be in high spirits. The overnight stay in the hotel had been good for her.
“Climb on up. And thanks for these. We can have them for a lunch break,” Hugh said. He took three of the sandwiches and the extra coffees and put them in his little refrigerator. Charlie ate her sandwich and drank her coffee.
“Thank you, Hugh, for the hotel room. It was just what I needed,” Charlie said.
Roly said, “Well, ya’ll, I need to get on the road. Keep us updated on how things are going.”
“Thanks again, Roly,” Jenny said. She gave him a hug.
Roly climbed down from the truck, waved goodbye and walked toward his car.
“OK, Charlie. You hang here for a bit. Jenny and I need to use the facility, and then we’ll get to making my deliveries after I fuel up,” Hugh said.
When Hugh pulled into the fuel island, Charlie watched as Jenny jumped down on the passenger side, put on her gloves, grabbed the satellite pump nozzle and waited for Hugh to tell her to begin filling the tank on that side of the truck.
Charlie would never admit it out loud, but she envied Jenny’s youthful appearance, her vitality, and her having won the love of a man like Hugh.
She knew it was too late for her to ever recapture those first two attributes for herself, and in her experience she knew she probably never would enjoy a faithful love of the kind she had seen existing between Hugh and Jenny.
Jenny had not spoken more than a couple dozen words to Charlie in total since the first time they had met.
Charlie understood. At first, she had assumed an attitude of superiority and held herself above Jenny. But, the time she had spent with Hugh made her realize only someone very, very special could earn the love of a man like him.
It was shattering for Charlie to realize she, herself, was a person of low station compared to Jenny. Charlie intended, when she would finally be able to get some time alone for reflection, to make a deep examination of the synergy of Hugh and Jenny that has made the two of them together greater than the sum of them separately.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Seating arrangements for the three of them was a bit awkward. As big as a Freightliner Cascadia semi-truck was, it was still only a two-seater.
Hugh solved the problem by installing the restraining netting that had come with the bunks. It was similar to the web strapping used in the cargo holds of airplanes. In truck sleepers it was used as safety restraints, like seat
belts, for the off-duty team driver who slept while the truck was in motion.
Jenny took the passenger seat, and Charlie sat in Hugh’s bunk behind the netting.
Hugh made his three multi-deliveries fairly quickly, as they were located close to each other in the original Silicon Forest area of West Portland.
His next load order came in on the Qualcomm. He just had to do a drop and hook at the nearby large grocery distribution center where a trailer was destined for a Costco distribution center. Drop his empty and hook up the loaded trailer.
Freight to Costco DCs can range from a whole trailer load of one item, like toilet paper, to a trailer full of miscellaneous items. It was the latter Hugh was hauling down to the massive Costco DC in Tracy, California.
“OK. On the road, finally,” Hugh said, as he caught the onramp to Interstate 5 South.
“ETA at the Indian casino is about seven and a half hours from now, give or take.”
It was mid-morning. Hugh expected them to be rolling in around six-ish, allowing for breaks.
“Jenny, can you text James and give him our ETA?”
To Charlie he said, “You’ve been quiet. Are you OK?”
“Yeah. Sorry. It’s just that sometimes all this can be kind of overwhelming. Less than a week ago I was sitting at my desk in Boise wondering what my next big investigative story was going to be, and here I am strapped in like cargo in the cab of a semi-truck, riding down the highway, and getting ready to bunk in a different truck with a total stranger.”
Hugh and Jenny both laughed at that.
“I admit it does sound kind of funny,” Charlie said.
“By the way,” Hugh said. “For the ease and comfort of all aboard this cruise liner we will make as many unscheduled stops as necessary to meet everyone’s bathroom needs.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Jenny said, and Charlie nodded.
“We’re in good shape time-wise, and we’re on a major freeway with a lot of rest areas and truck stops. So, no problem,” Hugh said.
A couple of hours down the road, Hugh changed lanes to pass a pig-hauler. As he drove alongside, they could see the pigs’ little, curly, pink tails sticking out through the holes of the trailer’s metal punch panel side wall.
Some of the pigs were also sticking their little pink snouts through the holes, sniffing the air. These pigs were in the three-months-of-age range. Hugh knew they were being shipped to a feedlot to be fattened up.
“That is so cute,” Charlie said. “How adorable. Like Babe.”
Hugh looked at Jenny, and winked.
To Charlie, he said, “You do realize these little piggies aren’t going to California to visit Disneyland?”
“Well, yeah. I guess. That’s so sad,” she replied.
“If you want to see something that will really break your heart, there are long stretches of I-5 in California with huge fields where the spring lambs are born. You can see them running, playing, and jumping all around the mother ewes,” Hugh said.
“There are even babysitter ewes that have a dozen or more little lambs under their charge. It really is fun watching them. It goes on for miles.”
“Let me guess,” Charlie said. “Lamb chops? Rack of lamb?”
“Yup, you got it,” Hugh replied.
“Speaking of which,” Jenny said. “Maybe we can stop at the travel center north of Eugene for a restroom break, and to eat the breakfast egg – and sausage – sandwiches Charlie bought for us.”
Jenny had been tapping on her cell phone while Hugh was talking, and she had found the place for their lunch break.
Hugh thought she was getting pretty good as a co-pilot.
The pig hauler took the exit for the travel center right behind Hugh’s truck. After Hugh made the truck entrance to the travel center he immediately pulled to the curb and waited for the pig hauler to pass him and back into a spot. Then Hugh drove to the opposite side of the parking area to find a spot to back his truck and trailer into.
“I’ve literally gotten up in the middle of the night and moved when a bull hauler or pig hauler parked next to me. Should be obvious why,” Hugh explained when he saw the quizzical expression on Jenny’s and Charlie’s faces.
Several hours later, Hugh took the exit for the Indian casino, and followed the long stretch of frontage road to the casino entrance.
“OK, girls,” Hugh said as he finished parking, pulled the brakes, and logged off of his ELD. “There’s virtually everything you could want here. A first-class hotel, showers, spotless bathrooms, a beauty shop, shopping, a fantastic buffet and, of course, gambling. Wait for the buffet until James gets here, but do anything else you want.”
Hugh had scouted the parking area when he had first pulled in, and James hadn’t arrived yet.
Jenny looked at Charlie. “Shall we?”
“You bet, let’s do it. On Hugh, right?”
Hugh handed Jenny his casino pay card. “Yup. Splurge.” He was a member of the casino, and the card would get them discounts.
Hugh never gambled. But this was one of Hugh’s and James’ favorite places to park for the night. They had enjoyed many a fantastic buffet dinner together at the casino, both during Hugh’s time of riding with James in his truck, and also when Hugh went solo.
Hugh puttered around the cab of his truck for about an hour tidying up and putting things in order. Normally, Hugh’s organizational system in the small sleeper cab required little work to keep things tidy, but having two passengers put some of it beyond his control.
He also took the opportunity to call his mom, to ask her a big favor.
After he explained what he needed her to do, he said, “And, Mom, please don’t mention it to Jenny. I want it to be a surprise.”
“I understand Hugh. I think it’s a great idea. We’ll make it perfect.”
He saw James’ distinctive truck enter the parking area, and he hit his four-ways to alert James where he was parked. Luckily, a spot was open right next to Hugh.
“Hey, buddy. How’s it going?” James said when Hugh stepped down to greet him.
“Going good. Just happy to unload my third-wheel passenger to you.”
“Where are the girls, anyway?” James asked.
“They’re off at the hotel and casino spending my money.”
“Better you than me,” James said, laughing.
“So, tell me, James. What’s the deal with you wanting Charlie to ride with you?”
“It’s no big deal,” James replied. “Just a diversion. Something different for a while. Plus, I thought we’d collaborate on trying to solve the situation you had gotten yourself into.”
“That would be a big help. But don’t forget you’ll have a target on your back the whole time she’s with you. They’ll be thinking you are me,” Hugh said.
Hugh and James went off in search of the girls. They didn’t have to go far. They spotted them sitting in lounge chairs in the hotel lobby, drinks in hand. They each had several shopping bags at their feet.
“Complimentary,” Jenny said, lifting her cocktail to show Hugh, who knew complimentary meant they had spent a lot of his money to earn a couple of free drinks.
“Shall we go eat?” James said.
The girls left their shopping bags with the front desk, and then they all walked over to the casino.
“Oh, wow! Look at this.” Jenny said when they had made their way through the casino, and had found the buffet.
“It’s huge!”
It was a large room with numerous individual horseshoe-shaped buffet stations organized around themes. For example, a prime rib station where a chef would cut off slices according to preference.
The big room held separate horseshoe-shaped stations for seafood, poultry, home-cooking featuring traditional entrees such as meatloaf and mashed potatoes, but also Mexican food, and vegetarian cuisine. Each station had its side dishes, salads and deserts appropriate to the theme.
Almost every taste had been thought of and accommodated.
Everybody spread out and loaded up, then met at a booth for four.
“I’ve been around the block a few times, and have been to a lot of buffets, but this is the best I’ve ever seen,” Charlie said.
“You should see the steakhouse restaurant,” James said.
Conversation slowed a bit as everybody dug in. One or the other of them would leave the booth to visit a different station, returning with a new loaded plate.
At the end, Hugh said, “I don’t know about you guys, but I’m stuffed and need to go back to the truck to loosen my belt a bit.”
Hugh and Jenny stood up.
“You kids go ahead,” James said. “I think Charlie and I will hang here a bit and see what’s going on in the casino.”
He looked at Charlie, and she nodded.
“Sounds good. We’ll see you later.”
On the way out Hugh asked Jenny, “You’ve got the casino card I gave you. Right? I wouldn’t want James and Charlie to make a night of it on my dime.”
Jenny showed it to him.
They stopped by the hotel front desk to pick up Jenny’s bags, and made a pit stop in the restrooms.
Back at the truck, Hugh gathered up Charlie’s things so she wouldn’t have to rummage around inside the cab if they returned after he and Jenny had gone to bed. Hugh presumed Charlie would start bunking with James tonight.
“So, what did you guys do when you went off together? I was surprised when you made the offer for Charlie to go with you.”
“I know. Me too, actually,” Jenny replied.
“Did you guys talk?”
“Yeah. You know, she’s actually kind of a sad, lonely person. She has the big-city, sophisticated thing she does. But, I’m convinced she looks at us and feels she’s missed out.”
“Could be,” Hugh said.
“She mentioned you talking to her about God. I don’t know if it was the cocktail talking, or she feels like sort of a stranger in a strange land out here in trucker country, but I think she’s been thinking about what you said to her.”
“Well, there’s that,” Hugh said.
Road Test Page 18