I finished checking all the lugs and opened up the side door before tossing the jack and the four-way inside.
"Opus, my boy, get up.”
He jumped in and, before I could close the door, Tina hopped in behind him. I gave her a playful swat on the hind end, and closed the door behind her, smiling as she yelled and shook her hand at me.
I looked at my knuckles as I went around to my side, watching for coming traffic. I hadn't broken the skin, it was tender, not bruised. It was something I’d been careful about avoiding, as much as possible, resting my hands, especially the last couple years as my writing career had really taken off. I could hardly afford to break them or spend weeks without typing, though I’d done a lot more dictating lately.
I got in the car, rather I should say I opened the door to get into the van to see a big fuzzy mug pounce and lick me in the face.
"Ugggg," I said. "Get off me," I said, pushing Opus back. He gave me a happy bark and wagged his tail.
"Opus," Tina said, obviously the mastermind of this sneak attack. “You know he hates dog spit in his mouth.”
Opus chuffed and wagged his tail some more, but he got out of the driver’s seat. I pushed him back a little bit more, and he reluctantly jumped down into the space between the two seats.
"You ready to go?" I asked, firing the van back up.
“Of course!” Tina said.
There wasn’t anything between Michigan and Nebraska that had Tina tied in knots to go see. Instead, she took pictures with my phone, sometimes video, narrating our trip but careful to keep herself out of the frame. I was itching to get some more dictation in, but I didn’t want to interrupt her fun.
Opus had slept a lot of the ride in obvious boredom, so when I saw a sign for a KOA campground outside of Lincoln, I put my blinker on.
“Stopping for more fuel?” Tina asked, leaning over so she could look at the gauges.
I was about to answer when Opus lifted his head up, and his long tongue got her right on the side of the face.
“Gah!” She jerked her head back toward her side, wiping the slobber off.
“Good boy,” I told him, knowing he would understand the concept of payback, even if it was hours later.
“What’s he a good boy for?” Tina asked, with the eyebrow thing going again.
Opus let out a low whine, one that conveyed his anxiety.
“Nothing,” I lied for both of us and he put his head back down, his lips pulled back into a doggy smile.
“So….?”
“Fourteen hours on the road. After changing that tire, my back is wrecked,” I admitted.
“Ahhh, so I guess you won’t want to stay up too late tonight?” she said coyly.
“I’m not sure I even want to put a tent up tonight,” I admitted.
“Well, you said the back two bench seats fold down into a bed. Would it be hard to…”?
I laughed a moment because I only had one row left in the van, the other two had been out for years now. I did have a plan though, one hopefully she would like, and it wouldn’t mean changing anything around much.
“No, we just need to pile the soft stuff on the buckets and totes that are on the passenger side.”
“Air mattress?” she asked, hopefully.
“More comfortable than even the motorhome.”
Her hand snaked its way into mine as I turned and followed the signs to the campground. It didn’t take us long, and it was already dark out. I pulled up in front of the sign that pointed to the manager's spot. It was a fifth wheel, with a nice gleaming Ford truck parked next to it. The fifth wheel had fiberglass steps leading up to the door, showing that at least during a good chunk of the year, the management lived in the trailer here, probably not through the winter though.
I got out, hearing Opus scrabble into my seat where he could see better.
I’d grabbed my cell phone and walked up to the sign where there were leaflets in waterproof clear poly boxes. I turned on the flashlight app and read the sign, seeing I was past hours for checking in. I was reaching to pull out a leaflet when I heard the door of the fifth wheel open and the sound of Opus giving me a quiet warning bark.
“You’re a little late for check-in,” an elderly man’s voice said in the darkness.
I turned and turned off the flashlight app and walked toward the voice, praying I didn’t trip over anything since my night vision was already ruined.
“We’ve been on the road all day. I had a flat tire, or I could have been here a couple of hours ago. Is there a motel or hotel nearby?” I asked, already resigned to the fact that my day wasn’t as close to being finished as I had thought.
“Naw, and you didn’t pull no trailer. You wanting to pitch a tent in the dark?”
“To be honest, I was just going to throw up an air mattress and sleep till the morning and get back on the road,” I said, feeling a tiny spark of hope.
“How many of ya are there?” he asked, stepping forward close enough so I could see him.
The old man was standing on the bottom step, and now that he was out of the shadows I could tell he was a little bit older than Sarge and Annette, though where Sarge was a bear of a man, this gentleman was on the tall and thin side. I could see his teeth flash in the dark as he asked me the last bit.
“Me, my fiancé and our dog.”
“What kind of dog?” he snapped back immediately.
“German shepherd,” I said quietly, “He’s very well-trained, and he won’t be a bother.”
“Just pick up after he does his doody…” he snickered at his humor, “Doody. Get it?”
I chuckled. “Yeah, I do.”
“Well, let’s see the furry beast!”
Tina had her window cracked and heard that so she spoke softly to Opus, giving him a command I couldn’t hear and opened her door. She left it open, the dome light illuminating the growing darkness. She walked over to my side and put her arm around me in a one-sided hug and whistled softly. Opus hopped out and walked over, pushing his way in between us and then sat, his tongue hanging out the side of his mouth.
“Who’s this all?” The old man asked.
“This is my fiancé Tina, and the fur ball that owns us is named Opus,” I answered after hesitating to see if Tina was going to speak first, “And I’m Rick,” I told him, walking forward and holding out my hand.
He took it. “I’m Charles, Charlie to my friends—”
A shrill bark sounded from behind him, and he turned to look. “Is Opus dog-aggressive?”
“Sitz, blieb,” Tina commanded, and Opus’s wagging tail stopped, and he looked up at her, his head cocked to the side.
“He’ll stay like that until she lets him go,” I told Charles.
Another bark and Charles held up a finger to indicate a moment, and he turned, his hand on the railing and went up to his door and opened it. A toy poodle bounded out. The dog was probably no more than five pounds soaking wet and had the energy of a squirrel that was overdosing on crack and caffeine, at the same time.
“Fifi, nice dog!” Charles commanded as the small animal charged Opus, barking, and growling.
I was worried, and I almost called off Fifi when I saw her coming, but Opus just looked at Tina, and then me, to ask if he really had to endure the scolding from the tiny dog.
“Platz,” Tina said in a soft voice, and Opus lay down, putting his paws out in front of him.
Fifi darted in, and before I could warn or stop it, she licked Opus in the face. He took it like a champ, turning his head before he licked the other dog back. That, in turn, prompted the little dog to go behind him, and as Tina and I turned to watch what Fifi was doing, I heard Charles chuckle.
“Now she’s gonna try to hump him, I guess,” I whispered.
“I don’t think it works like—”
“Shhhh,” Tina scolded.
Fifi took a quick sniff and then ran back up to Opus, spun around in a circle and Opus got his own sniff in and then Fifi played gently, Opus finally
raising a paw to push the small dog back.
“He’s a good one. Gentle,” Charles said. “Tell you what, go ahead and set up at 198, it’s the last slot on the left. There’s nobody right on ya, so if your dog is startled in the middle of the night, it won’t wake no one up. I figure you want to use the showers and bathhouse?”
“That would be great,” I admitted.
He nodded and fished out a key and tossed it to me. “Leave a twenty in the door jamb before you pull out, though I might be awake.”
“Thank you,” I said, knowing he was giving us a deep discount.
“No problem. You get some rest now, it’s time for me to watch another episode of Game of Thrones. Fifi, come on.”
He turned to walk back, as both Tina and I called thank you in soft voices. After a moment, Fifi gave up the game and hurried in, where Charles was holding the door open patiently for her.
“You ready to camp?” Tina asked.
“Sounds good to me,” I said, as my back gave me a warning twinge that I’d overdone it.
“You coming, buddy?” I asked fur face as I turned and heading back to the van.
I opened the door but he was still sitting on the ground next to a grinning Tina, her features almost lost in the dark. She gave a soft command, and he bounced to his feet and let out a soft woof and bounded into Tina’s side. I smiled and got in and waited for her. Wise to his tricks, Tina told him to get in his spot before she climbed up. Then, we headed off to find the spot Charles had told us about.
The lyrics to the song kept playing over and over. Somebody’s watching me. I knew it, I was being chased and then—
A light clicked on, and Opus began licking my face in earnest. I pushed him back and saw that Tina had turned on the electric lantern I had used when we’d set up the air mattress.
“You were having a bad dream. I couldn’t wake you up,” she said sleepily, rolling to her side.
“I’m sorry,” I told her, my heart thumping hard.
“You shouldn’t be. I had to wake Opus up to wake up you. Good boy,” she finished in a baby voice, and I could hear Opus’s tail start thumping, “You want to tell me what it was about?” she asked.
“That damned video on my computer. I was being chased. It’s… I don’t really remember it,” I said, rolling onto my back, running my hands through my hair.
“Hey, it’s a road trip, you’re outside your normal cave, you just moved in with your lady love… and… you’re about to meet the parents.”
I snickered. “How many movie references did you just squeeze into a sentence?” I asked her.
“A lot,” she whispered sleepily and turned off the light.
She murmured something else, but I was already closing my eyes as she curled into my right side tightly, her body warm against mine. I was drifting off when I felt more movement, and Opus settled on my left. I opened one eye to see him lying on his paws, his head near my face. He licked my nose, but I was so tired, I didn’t even—
Charles and Fifi were up when we drove up to pay, on our way out. The aroma of coffee could be smelled from a dozen paces, and I mentally vowed to find someplace that had decent coffee, because with a pang… I realized I hadn’t packed any and left all of my favorite drug of choice in the motorhome.
“Come on in,” Charles hollered as I attempted to sneak the twenty dollar bill into his doorway.
I hesitated, then pulled it all the way open. The fifth wheel opened up into a salon, with the table on one side across from me and a sink on the left. To the right of that was a small Lazyboy that looked like it was mounted on a swivel near a doorway to what I would guess was a small bedroom.
“Hi, I just wanted to pay up before I hit the road,” I told him, seeing him sitting at the table, drinking my drug of choice out of an insulated Yeti.
“No problem. You and the missus want to stay for breakfast?”
“I uh… I have a camp stove, one of those little folder things. I already cooked and cleaned up, but I appreciate it,” I said trying not to look as he took a long pull of the dark, luxuriously smelling—
“Well, at least let me get you a cup for the road! Make sure you stop back in next time you’re through this way.”
“Thank you,” I said and watched Charles hop up like he was thirty years younger. He reached into a cupboard to my left and pulled out a pack of Styrofoam cups and a pack of lids. He poured two cups, and put the tops on.
“Sorry, I don’t have any cream and sugar, I don’t drink it like that myself,” he said.
“Thank you,” I told him, “I appreciate it, especially letting us in so late at night.”
“I don’t sleep much none anyways,” he said with a grin.
With that, I thanked him again and headed back to the van and got in, juggling the two steaming cups.
“Cream and sugar?” Tina asked.
“He was all out.”
She pouted, and I chuckled.
“What?” she asked.
“More for me. I’ll find you some as soon as I see someplace,” I told her.
It didn’t matter though, we’d both gotten six hours of sleep and a long, hot shower. It had done a lot to loosen the kinks in my back. Then I’d heated water, and we’d scarfed down some oatmeal before letting Opus loose and made sure he knew to be quiet and not to go chasing the squirrel terrorists… if there were any in Nebraska, because, for the most part, it was corn fields as far as the eye could see.
By the time I reached the highway, I heard soft snores. I looked over and saw Tina had fallen back asleep, her head near the seat belt strap, with Opus sitting, his head in her lap. He looked at me and then forward as if to tell me to hurry up, so I gave up on coffee and got back on the road. No matter how much sleep I needed, five or six hours was the most I got, so I wasn’t upset that Tina didn’t hold the same schedule I did. I’d let her sleep, and when she woke up, maybe we’d get some lunch. With the sun coming up, I mentally said goodbye to the KOA campground, and Nebraska in general, and drove with the rising sun in my rearview.
9
Tina
Staying awake was difficult for Tina and Opus. She didn’t mind the long silences that happened when Rick got involved in his mental planning. She actually preferred it sometimes. Small talk wasn’t her specialty as she was so direct, so it always felt awkward. Rick seemed to be comfortable with them as well, both of them comforted by each other’s presence.
The thing she was having a lot of fun with, was running Rick’s Facebook account while he was driving. People she’d never seen before nor heard of were commenting, liking and sharing the posts and pictures of what they had been doing. It made her proud that, in her own way, she was supporting him in his dreams. He was often hard on himself and a little insecure, but she thought that was a common writer trait.
Opus made a grunt and Tina looked over to see the big fuzzy-headed pup put his head down, then get to his feet and turn a circle before curling up between Tina and Rick. The bump between the seats from the dash radiated heat, and with the air conditioning cranked, Opus was finding his own area where he could keep himself as warm as he wanted.
“What do you think, buddy?” Rick asked, his eyes barely leaving the road.
Opus snored softly between them.
“I think he’s going to sleep a lot on this trip,” Tina said, playing with her phone, chatting with his Virtual Assistant through Facebook Messenger.
“Probably bored out of his fur,” Rick said, then went quiet.
I love your idea
Thanks, I’d love to help. I think he’s going to be surprised when he sees his fan’s responses to this.
I think so, too. He’s been a great sport on this and he’s having fun, but he’s not talking much.
Brooding?
Tina thought about that question then thumbed out her response.
Maybe a little bit. I caught him dictating and I think he’s getting a little burned out. Either that, or the thought of meeting my father is get
ting to him.
Men are always afraid of meeting the parents. Something about shotgun weddings when the blushing bride turns up preggers before the question is asked…
Hush your mouth!!! LOL I am not preggers. Maybe someday. We haven’t talked about that.
You should. He’s told me… well, never mind. That was private. What we’re doing is girl-talk.
That’s not fair!
Tina was almost angry at that, but she understood.
I know, I know, but he pays my salary :)
No, I get it. He’s kicking around the idea of writing in a new genre. Has he talked to you about it?
NO
Oh well, nothing like letting the cat out of the bag, lol.
Let me know when you know!
I will, girl. Let’s keep our talk a secret for a few more days. I want to see his face when he knows I’ve been helping in the background.
I don’t understand why he doesn’t know already.
I want to surprise him. The both of us are so… self-contained? I’d like to give him a nice surprise.
It will be! When you show him the fan club you set up for his reader ladies…
Gotta run, we’re pulling into a gas station. I need coffee!
Laters!
“You want some coffee?”
“I’d love some coffee. The drive is so relaxing I might fall asleep without the caffeine.”
Opus stirred between them, then stood and stretched.
“Have a good nap, boy?” Rick asked.
“Of course he did, he’s a growing boy,” Tina cooed.
Opus rumbled low in his throat, not threatening, but letting her know that it wasn’t quite bullshit.
“Want me to take him for a walk?” Rick asked.
“That would be awesome,” Tina told him. “God, I love you.”
“Do you hear that Opus? She loves me. I wonder if she knows how much I love her?”
Tina had been getting out when she heard that, her eyes going wide.
“You still scared of saying it?”
Opus hopped out Rick’s side and Tina slammed her door, waiting near the front of the big van.
Opus Odyssey_A Survival and Preparedness Story Page 6