Instead the drive dragged like an amateur opera, made louder by the silence in the passenger seat.
There was no way to tell what Tamara was thinking, if she noticed or was uncomfortable with the awkwardness, but Colleen’s mind was racing, trying to think of something—anything—to say. Initially she was aiming for witty and entertaining, but now she would settle for anything that was simply communicated out loud.
Meanwhile, Colleen’s entire playlist was murmuring quietly over the speakers in the oppressive, muggy car, and the windshield wipers whipped out of sync to the music. She kept catching herself humming along, then stopped, embarrassed. She really wanted to belt out with it, but she was very aware of the presence next to her, and she could feel Tamara looking sideways at her now and then.
“So, do you have a boyfriend?” Colleen asked at last, even though it was exactly the sort of lame typical-adult question she’d wanted to avoid.
“I—” Tamara paused, then sighed and looked out the window, her posture tense. “No, not really.”
That hesitation raised a lot of questions, but none that Colleen felt like she could ask right now without seeming really intrusive.
Instead she nodded. “I had a lot of on-and-off things at your age.” Whatever that meant. How on earth could that be helpful? She was just trying to fill the gaps in conversation, and the effort was obvious to both of them. “What do you like to do in your free time?”
Tamara glanced at her and shrugged. “Listen to music. I don’t know. Watch TV. The usual.”
“Yeah? What do you like to watch?”
Tamara shrugged again. “I don’t know. Whatever’s on.”
Right. Good start. “And what music do you like?” She was losing the kid, she could tell. How could she not? Her questions were so judge-y, Tamara’s nonanswers even worse.
“Old stuff, mostly.”
“Really?” That answer surprised her. Did this seemingly sullen, drug-addled teenager secretly harbor a love for Sinatra? Perry Como? Nat King Cole? “Like who?”
“The Clash—”
Oh.
“Sex Pistols, Arctic Monkeys, I don’t know … all sorts of stuff. The Beatles. Bon Jovi.”
“Bon Jovi?”
“Yup.”
“Seriously?”
“Why not?”
“They’re not that old, and not new enough to be in your current spehere. They’re just like in between.”
Tamara gave a laugh. “They’ve been around, like, thirty years!”
“No, they haven’t.” That seemed impossible.
“Yeah. They have. Probably longer.” Tamara started fidgeting with the screen of her phone. “In fact, they’re probably even before your time.”
“No, they were hot when I was coming of age.” Suddenly she was feeling really old. She didn’t even use expressions like “coming of age”! Soon she’d be complaining that her crinolines were too stiff and her corset was too tight.
“Debut album, Bon Jovi, was released January twenty-first, 1984,” Tamara read from her phone.
“Wow, really?”
Tamara held her phone up, as if Colleen could read the minuscule print. “It’s a fact.”
1984. A million years ago to Tamara. An era before she was a possibility. But Colleen’s life had been in full swing. And it didn’t even feel that long ago. And on the other hand, it also felt like lifetimes ago. How was it possible to feel so completely both ways at once?
“Okay, then, that’s not before my time, exactly, but it’s definitely really early in my time.”
Tamara laughed. “Anyway, he was pretty hot. Bon Jovi.”
“Still is.”
Tamara gave a small shrug.
“Oh, I remember that feeling,” Colleen said.
“What?”
“I remember being around older women and thinking their idea of hot was just depressing. Older women like older men, but when you’re young you can’t see it.”
“Wait a minute, you’re saying you wouldn’t do Bon Jovi, version 1984?”
Of course she would. In a heartbeat. “We shouldn’t be having this conversation.”
That lit it on fire for Tamara. “Who would you do, if you had to: Bon Jovi from back then or”—she crinkled her nose, thinking—“the dude who supposedly stomped on baby chickens on stage.”
“Alice Cooper?”
“Yeah, him.”
“He didn’t really do that. Urban legend.”
“Good. Him or Bon Jovi?”
Colleen bit her lower lip, then said, “Not an appropriate game for us to play.”
“So Alice Cooper, then?”
“No way.”
“Bon Jovi! I knew it!”
“Easy guess. And his name is Jon.”
“Jon Jovi?”
Colleen laughed. At least they had something to talk about. “No, Jon Bon Jovi.”
Tamara sighed. “Points off for the stupid name.”
Colleen could have explained that his real name was John Bongiovi, and that it was kind of a hot, romantic, sexy Italian thing, but that would have been revealing way too much about her old pop star knowledge in general and her Jon Bon Jovi knowledge in particular, so she let it go.
Then, just as quickly as it had come on, the moment was gone. More stiff silence.
Colleen tapped the volume-up button on the steering wheel with her thumb until the music was loud enough for them to listen to without being ultraconscious of the lack of conversation. They passed quite a few miles that way, and Colleen wondered how on earth she was going to get through the next couple of weeks like this. Every minute passed like an hour. And it was probably even worse for Tamara because all she could do was sit there and mess with her phone; she didn’t even have the distraction of driving the car.
After they’d been on the road for about four hours, they stopped at Colleen’s first marked stop, a salvage yard just south of Richmond, Virginia. The Yelp description had mentioned all kinds of intricate carved wooden pieces from buildings that had been glorious at the turn of the last century but which had been renovated recently. So Colleen wound around the back roads off I-95 to find it, turning around repeatedly on the road it was supposed to be on until finally she realized she’d passed it repeatedly. Far from the huge, glorious treasure trove described in the book, it was a small space with linoleum floors that had once been a foreign legion hall. It smelled like glue and mildew and something else Colleen couldn’t quite put her finger on, but which made her want to run away. Light filtered dimly through old plate-glass windows, illuminating more dust in the air than merchandise for sale.
It had a lot of doorknobs.
Not interesting doorknobs, by the way, just the sort of handles you’d see in a 1970s elementary school or other public building on a budget.
“Is this the kind of thing you’re on this trip to look for?” Tamara asked, clearly trying to be tactful.
“No. This isn’t the kind of thing anyone is looking for. Except maybe someone looking for a quick fix in a cheap rental property.” Who else would buy any of this crap? How did this place even stay in business? Was it just a tax loss for someone?
Tamara looked relieved. “I thought this was a little strange.”
“Disappointing.” It was.
“I’ll say.”
Colleen looked around and sighed. There was nothing of any interest whatsoever here. Nothing she’d even take for free.
“Do you need help?” a voice asked from only a few yards away.
Startled, Colleen jerked her head in the direction of the query and saw a gray woman—gray hair, gray complexion, even a gray tattered sweater—standing in the dingy light. It was like stepping into a dreary black-and-white movie and feeling your own color drain. Dorothy coming back from Oz.
“No,” Colleen said quickly. She always felt a sense of guilt at not being interested in someone’s merchandise, but she’d learned not to waste too much time pretending. “No, thank you.” She ushered Tamara out.<
br />
The rain had stopped and they were able to roll the windows down and enjoy the warm night air. This added new elements to the drive—more fun and, mercifully, more noise.
“So what is it you are looking for?” Tamara asked.
“Oh, I don’t know. Anything interesting. Unique. Cheap. Things I can paint and polish and fix up and sell in the shop.”
“Like what?”
“Uh, well, last year I found an old bicycle and took the chain, spokes, and pedals off to make a candelabra.”
“That sounds … weird.” Tamara looked skeptical. “I can’t picture that.”
“It was cooler than it sounds. I also found some old colored glass bottles and drilled holes in them so I could put lights in and make them pretty little night-lights.”
“Hm.”
“Again, cooler than it sounds.”
“And people buy that kind of thing?”
“They sure do.”
“Who?”
“Mostly women with money who can buy pretty much anything they want, so they want something unique that no one else can buy.” She wanted to add, But don’t get any ideas about turning a plate upside down and calling it a cake stand, because it’s not as stupid and easy as it sounds, but a comment like that would have been insulting to both of them.
“So you don’t really have a thrift shop exactly.”
No doubt that was how Chris had described it. “No,” she said. “It’s a cross between a boutique and an antique store, and people consign their own things there as well.”
“That’s cool. I wish I could make stuff and sell it.”
“You could. It just takes some imagination. And work. And luck.” Colleen smiled. “You’re on the right trip, I guess.”
“Better than some I’ve had,” Tamara said cryptically, and Colleen didn’t want to ask for an explanation, for fear of getting one she didn’t like. “So this is kind of like that show on Channel 26?”
Channel 26 was PBS, and Colleen knew exactly what she meant. “I’d love to find an Antiques Roadshow–worthy find. I’m always looking for that needle in a haystack, but people have gotten a lot more savvy than they used to be. No one ever finds an unseen copy of the Declaration of Independence behind an acrylic painting of kittens.”
“Like the copy where John Hancock spelled his name wrong in haste?” Tamara asked, quirking a smile. “You know, like when you’re in a hurry and you scribble over your name and it looks wrong?”
Colleen laughed out loud. She had no idea Tamara could be clever. Kevin could, so maybe it was hereditary. A gene that had skipped Chris. “That would be awesome. Imagine what it would be worth.”
“A Revolutionary War blooper.”
“Exactly. Keep your eye out for that.”
“You got it.”
They fell back into silence, but Colleen was heartened that Tamara was a slightly livelier wire than she’d expected.
The drive past the worst of D.C.’s suburbia finally opened up to a dull highway lined with green. Nothing remarkable, but better than buildings. Once they got past Richmond, much of the traffic dropped off, and what remained seemed to be primarily big-rig trucks and family-packed minivans with Rubbermaid boxes bungeed onto racks on the back. Disney-bound, no doubt.
Colleen drove about half an hour past Richmond, then took an exit to a Sheetz gas station. (“Don’t stop for a gas station until you can actually see it from the road,” Kevin had always told her. This one was right off the highway.) She opened the door and turned to Tamara. “You want anything from inside?”
“I wouldn’t mind some Doritos.”
“You got it.”
“Cool Ranch flavored!”
Colleen gave her the thumbs-up, went in, found some Cool Ranch Doritos, a tall bottle of Evian, and then hit the wine section to get a little something for later if she wanted it. On the shelf next to the fridge was a display of what looked like Reddi-wip but was in fact spiked whipped cream. Hazelnut, vanilla, and caramel. She’d never seen anything like it, so she added one of each to her purchases, making a mental note to keep it away from Tamara, who seemed perilously likely to help herself to it, whether she knew it was alcoholic or not.
They started back on the highway. But for the sound of the wheels on the road and the wind whipping over them, the miles passed in silence.
About half an hour from the North Carolina border, a truck bore down on them and slipped beside them into the right lane.
Colleen put her foot on the brake to let him pass, but he slowed down with her. When she sped up, he sped up too.
A nervous tremor crossed her chest.
“Do you know him?” Tamara asked.
“I certainly hope not.”
“He’s gesturing at us. Do you think something’s wrong with the car and he’s trying to warn us?”
Colleen glanced in the rearview mirror. Everything looked as it had the whole time. There was no odd pull on the wheel; the drive felt normal. Except, of course, for the apprehension she suddenly felt, remembering old urban legends about truck drivers seeing murderers lurking in backseats and trunks and so on and trying to warn drivers, who just blew them off and treated them like pests.
She wondered if she should pull over and check everything out, but he was pretty good at keeping pace with her, and there were no exits within view. There was no way she was going to pull over right now.
They were about ten miles from the Henley exit, though, which happened to be where Colleen had gone to college. That would be a good place to pull off and just check everything out for safety. Besides, the Henley Diner was incredible, and after McDonald’s for breakfast and nothing but junk food since, she thought they could both probably go for an incredible meal.
“The car’s fine,” Colleen said with more confidence than she felt. “Who knows what he’s doing?”
“Okay.” The doubt in Tamara’s voice was clear.
The trucker kept pace with them, tracking their speed relentlessly. The road maneuvers went from seeming like they might be a coincidence to being clearly on purpose to feeling downright scary.
They were almost at Henley when Tamara said, “Oh my God! No way! Creeper!”
Colleen’s nerves were so frayed by then that the words startled her. “What?”
“He’s … ew.”
“He’s what?” Colleen glanced but couldn’t tell what Tamara might be talking about. The trucker was gesturing still, rather broadly, but she couldn’t tell what it meant. Was he brandishing a gun or something? “What’s he saying?”
“Ugh. I don’t know, but I think it’s something like ‘Oh, baby,’ and he’s— Ugh, it’s just too gross to say.”
“Huh?” Colleen looked again and saw that the driver had somehow raised his pelvis up and appeared to be— There was no way. “Is he doing what he looks like he’s doing?”
Tamara met her eyes for a moment. “Does he look like he’s beating off?”
Colleen returned her eyes to the road. “Yes, he does.”
“Then I think yes, he is.”
“Oh, God.” Well, this was going to look great on her Résumé of Superior Guardianship when Chris saw it. Day One of her Excellent Adventure with Tamara, and so far they’d had fast food and convenience store snacks, seen a bunch of unremarkable doorknobs, and caught a middle-aged man masturbating. Add some roadkill and a motel room that smelled of bug bombs, and they’d have a banner Day One under their belts.
“Ew!” Tamara cried, and looked away. “So nastyyy.”
No kidding. This was the crescendo of their first day together? This? Some pervy trucker whacking off and, in so doing, subtly undermining Colleen even further. She was the impossibly boring straitlaced aunt taking a teenaged girl on a long drive south with old music and awkward spits of conversation—and now this? Asshole.
At that moment, the sign for Henley appeared, just like Brigadoon in the mist. “Okay, hold on, Tam, we’re going to lose him.” She gunned the motor and shot ahead of the tru
ck, then swerved into the exit lane, thinking he wouldn’t have time to do the same.
Unfortunately, he seemed to have experience with this game of cat and mouse and moved into the lane behind her, quickly closing the gap between them.
“This is so creepy,” Tamara said, looking fretful. It was amazing how fear transformed that hardened mask of an expression Tamara had been wearing all day and made her look like the vulnerable child she actually was.
“There’s no way he can take an eighteen-wheeler on these back roads,” Colleen assured her—but was there?—and took a sudden left onto the main road into town.
He followed.
“Get your phone out and call 911,” Colleen said then, wondering why it had taken her so long to think of that. The idea alone made her feel a flood of relief.
Tamara looked at her screen. “No reception.”
Sudden panic surged through her with the force it can have only after a moment of false relief. “Shit! I mean shoot.”
“I think he’s about to.”
Colleen looked at Tamara, startled for a moment, replaying the comment and trying to figure out if the guy had taken out a gun or something, but when she met the girl’s eyes, she saw a tentative laugh in them.
And then they both burst out laughing. The kind of hard, breathless laugh that felt like it was never going to stop. It had been a long time since Colleen last went on a laughing jag like that.
“I cannot believe you said that,” she said.
Tamara turned down the corners of her mouth and shrugged. “I can’t believe you got it.”
“Ouch. Come on, how old do you think I am?”
Tamara’s laughter quieted. “Actually, I don’t know. How old are you? Like … forty?”
Ugh. “Thirty-six.”
“Oh.” Tamara didn’t look surprised at the news, so it was hard to take the “forty” guess that personally. “I’m not very good at guessing people’s ages.”
“I’ll say.” Colleen smiled to let her know it was okay.
There was an old winding road into the mountain on the right, and Colleen couldn’t remember where it led, if anywhere, but she was positive she could take it at the last second and he’d overshoot it—everything was a pun suddenly—then even if he turned back, there was no way he could safely drive it.
Driving With the Top Down Page 6