Road Trip

by Jan Fields

  Annie knew better than to comment any more on the subject, so she just turned to her own menu. Just then Mary Beth’s cellphone rang.

  “I’m so sorry,” Mary Beth said, fishing in her purse for the phone. When she looked at the screen, she apologized again. “I have to take this one.”

  Stella gave Mary Beth a disapproving frown, but didn’t scold.

  As she studied her menu, Annie couldn’t help overhearing Mary Beth’s side of the conversation. The caller was from the Golden Needle Company and wanted to talk about Betsy’s display. Mary Beth explained how the larger items for the display had been shipped ahead and should be at the convention center, while they were carrying some smaller things themselves. She described the contents of the box Annie had given her.

  Finally, Mary Beth told the man the name of the hotel where they were staying in Hagerstown. “I’m going to shut off my cell for the night,” she explained, “so if you need me, you’ll have to call my room.” They exchanged a few more pleasantries until Stella laid her menu on the table and looked pointedly as Mary Beth.

  Mary Beth took the hint and quickly finished the call. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Mr. Gold is very excited about the exhibit.”

  “Mr. Gold?” Annie said.

  “Carlton Gold,” her friend said. “He’s the head of publicity at the Golden Needle Company. I’ve met him at previous conventions where his company has had vendor displays. We carry quite a lot of their products in the shop.”

  “He certainly has a fitting name,” Annie said, as the waiter approached the table for their order.

  “I think the Golden Needle Company must be family-owned,” Mary Beth said. “The president has the same last name as well.”

  Throughout dinner, Annie noticed Stella looking toward the back booth several times. She didn’t comment on it, though. She wasn’t interested in facing the wrath of Stella this early in the road trip. Then as they were finishing dessert, Stella’s eyes turned to the back booth again and the older woman sat up sharply. “The men are gone.” She looked around the restaurant. “They’re leaving.”

  Annie looked toward the restaurant door. She caught a glimpse of the bald man just as he was going through the door. He was portly and somehow vaguely familiar. Then the other man, the one who Mary Beth said had stared at them, blocked her view.

  “The man’s friend reminds me of someone,” Annie said.

  “Who?” Mary Beth asked.

  “I’m not sure. I didn’t see his face.”

  “He has facial hair,” Stella said in a tone that suggested she did not approve of facial hair.

  “Maybe he reminds you of Santa,” Mary Beth suggested with a laugh.

  Annie smiled in return. “Maybe that’s it.”

  Then the waiter approached the table with their check, and Annie was immediately distracted by the need to divvy up the bill. By the time she got back upstairs to her room, she was glad to get ready for bed.

  Crawling into bed, she felt as if she’d forgotten something. She sat up and looked around the dark room. What could it be? Then it hit her. She missed the rustling of the bed as Boots jumped up and found her place to sleep for the night. Annie smiled. Maybe she was turning into a cat lady after all.

  A few hours later, Annie sat bolt upright in bed, her heart racing. What was the horrible noise? Then she recognized the sound. It was a car alarm. She climbed out of bed and hurried over to the window. Her room overlooked the parking lot, and Annie quickly spotted Mary Beth’s SUV. Two men stood near the driver’s side door, and one clearly was tugging on the door handle.

  Annie grabbed her robe from the end of the bed and slipped her feet into the flats she’d worn in the car all day. When she reached the hall, the room doors on either side of her flung open.

  “Someone’s at my car!” Mary Beth cried as the women hurried toward the elevator.

  “I saw them,” Annie said. “Two men.”

  “I think it was the men from the restaurant,” Kate added.

  Stella stood gasping as they reached the elevator. “I couldn’t tell,” she said. “We’re too far away. Did anyone call the police?”

  “Not yet,” Mary Beth said. “And I don’t have my cellphone.”

  The elevator doors slid open, and they rushed inside. Stella touched Mary Beth’s arm as the elevator dropped the one floor to ground level. “I can’t keep up with you all. My legs aren’t quite as young as yours. I’ll talk to the manager while you ladies check on the car. If he hasn’t called the police yet, I’ll insist that he does.”

  “Thank you, Stella,” Mary Beth said. Then the doors slid open. Annie, Mary Beth and Kate ran across the lobby and out into the parking lot.

  “Hey!” Mary Beth yelled, just as they spotted the taller of the two men fling open the door of the SUV. “Stop right there!”

  The men turned toward them. The shorter, round man was too much in the shadows for Annie to make out his face, but the taller man looked at them in surprise. He backed away from them until he stood in shadow as well. Then he turned and said something to his partner, and the two ran.

  The women stopped at the SUV and Mary Beth turned off the screaming alarm. They knew it wasn’t safe to chase car thieves, and they needed to check on their things. It didn’t take long to see that everything inside was undisturbed.

  “Looks like we got here before they could steal anything,” Mary Beth said. “Even my MP3 player is still here in the front console—not that I paid all that much for it, but I’d definitely miss my music collection.”

  A police car arrived quickly, and an officer took down the details of what each woman had seen. Mary Beth mentioned that she thought the men had eaten in the hotel restaurant earlier, and the officer dutifully wrote that down.

  Then the policeman looked carefully at the lock on the driver’s side door. “I can see scratches around the lock. Would you check, please, to see if the car will lock?”

  When they saw that it would, the officer took Mary Beth’s cellphone number and promised to call her if they turned up anything on the car thieves. “We’ll send a car to drive through the parking lot a few times through the night. That should keep things quiet.”

  The women thanked them, and then made one last check to see that the car was locked.

  “You know, I think I’d like to take the box of Gram’s things back to the room with me,” Annie said. “I know that no one breaks into a car for needlework, but I’d just feel better.”

  “I can understand that,” Mary Beth said. “Besides, with what your grandmother’s work is selling for, someone would cheerfully steal it.”

  “Not that they’d know it was in there,” Kate said. “The box isn’t labeled or anything.”

  She opened the back, and Annie checked the box quickly. Everything was still inside. She knew it was silly to worry, but she still felt a rush of relief. She wouldn’t have been able to sleep if she hadn’t checked.

  “You know,” Kate said as she looked around the parking lot, “there are several cars that are much fancier than this one. I wonder why the men skipped them.”

  Mary Beth shrugged. “Maybe they thought a bigger vehicle would have more stuff in it. Or they saw Annie’s cardboard box and thought something valuable could be inside. Who knows?”

  Annie nodded, but somehow she wasn’t convinced. The keypad for the alarm was clear on the door, and the crooks clearly didn’t know how to disarm it. That meant whatever they did had to be done quickly, before anyone came outside to quiet the horrible car alarm. “Still, why go to a car that clearly had an alarm?” she asked.

  “Well, I guess if they were smart people, they wouldn’t be crooks,” Mary Beth said. “And if we’re smart people, we’ll grab the few hours sleep we have left.”

  The three women trooped back into the hotel. Stella stood up from the wing chair next to the lobby fireplace. She looked curiously at the three of them, but clearly wasn’t going to ask questions.

  “We scared them away,” M
ary Beth said. “They didn’t steal anything.”

  “Oh, that’s a relief,” Stella said. “I saw the police car arrive.”

  “I don’t think the policeman had high hopes about catching the crooks,” Kate said as the women filed toward the elevator. The hotel manager hurried out from behind the front desk.

  “I’m so sorry you ladies had such a horrible experience,” he said. “I want to give you these vouchers for a free full breakfast at the restaurant in the morning.”

  “How nice,” Mary Beth said smiling. “So, nothing missing and free breakfast. At least we had a happy ending.”

  “I’ll be happier when I’m back in bed,” Kate said, yawning. “Nothing like ending our first day with an adventure.”

  As they headed to their rooms, Annie looked down at the cardboard box of Gram’s things and hoped the rest of the trip would be a little less adventurous.

  6

  The next day passed uneventfully, though slowly. As the states grew larger, Annie missed that feeling of making rapid progress that came from changing states so quickly. Everyone stayed in good humor throughout the day, however, and they chatted pleasantly.

  Annie most enjoyed taking her turn at the wheel of the SUV. She had to admit to a thrill of power at the higher seat. She hadn’t driven one in some time and had never really wanted such a large vehicle. The frequent need to stop to refuel was one good reason. Plus, LeeAnn would never forgive her. One of her daughter’s favorite rants was about how SUV drivers thought they owned the road. From the driver’s seat, Annie could almost understand the feeling. It would be easy to get carried away.

  After a while, Annie noticed that each time she looked into the rearview mirrors, she saw the same dark van following them. The sun had come out, and the glare on their windshield made it nearly impossible to see who was driving. Since it wasn’t unusual to see the same vehicle over and over on the interstate, she didn’t pay it that much attention at first. Then she noticed that every time she changed lanes, the van changed lanes.

  “Can y’all see that dark van behind us?” Annie asked.

  Mary Beth was in the passenger seat, and she flipped down her sun visor to look into the mirror mounted on it. “I see it,” she said. “The windows have that dark tint, don’t they? Dark windows like that always make a vehicle look so ominous.”

  “I think they’re illegal in some states, aren’t they?” Kate asked as she turned to look out the back window of the SUV. “They make it hard for police officers to see what’s going on in a car if they have to approach it.”

  “Maybe they aren’t as dark as they look from here with the sun on it,” Mary Beth said. “Why did you want us to look at it, Annie?”

  “It’s following us,” Annie said.

  “Following us?” Stella’s voice was doubtful. “We are on the interstate. I imagine a lot of vehicles have been close to us for some time.”

  “But the van changes lanes every time we do,” Annie said, though her words sounded a little paranoid even to her ears. “Maybe I’m just jumpy after last night.”

  “I know I am,” Kate said supportively. “I don’t blame you for keeping an eye out.”

  “Still, I’m being silly. Pretend I didn’t say anything.”

  Mary Beth tactfully changed the conversation by asking everyone where they should stay for the night. “I’m thinking we’ll probably be somewhere in Tennessee.”

  “Oh, that will be fun,” Kate said. “Will everyone there talk like Annie?”

  Annie laughed. “I think a Tennessee accent is a good bit different from a Texas accent. But we all say ‘y’all.’”

  Mary Beth and Kate took turns teasing Annie about her Southern accent compared to their Maine pronunciation of words. Annie told a funny story about some problems she had understanding some of the Maine accents when she first moved to Stony Point. “I had asked Mike at the hardware store what he recommended for fall leaves,” she said, “and he told me to wrap the leaves in a ‘top.’ I had no idea what that was. The top of what?”

  Mary Beth laughed. “I’m sure he meant a tarp.”

  “Except that in Texas, ‘tarp’ and ‘top’ don’t sound like the same word the way they do when you say them,” Annie said, chuckling at the memory of her confusion.

  When they finally stopped for the night in Tennessee, Annie felt stiff and achy all over. She was glad they only had one more driving day left. She carried the box of Gram’s things into the hotel along with her luggage. “I know it’s silly,” she said, “but it’ll be good for my peace of mind.”

  Her friends were kind enough not to tease her about it, and Annie found that she slept soundly. After a breakfast that included grits, which all of the Stony Point group rated as “quite tasty,” they set out on the last day of the drive in high spirits.

  They made amazingly good time, managing to avoid traffic bottlenecks, road work and accidents. Still, when the bossy voice of Mary Beth’s GPS finally announced, “You have reached your destination,” just as they pulled into the entrance of the huge conference hotel in Fort Worth, everyone in the SUV cheered—even Stella.

  Mary Beth found a spot in the parking garage that was wonderfully close to an elevator. Then everyone loaded up with luggage, and they headed for the real beginning of their adventure—the convention.

  When they entered the lobby of the hotel, Annie looked around in admiration. The marble floor shone in the morning sun so brightly that it looked more like an ice skating rink than a floor. Tall pillars broke up the space between the front door and the lobby, and each pillar was encircled by padded seating upholstered in a rich gold fabric. On the floor around the seating stretched a band of carpet in a striking mosaic that mixed both warm and cool colors.

  With so much marble, the look could have been cold—even sterile—but the hotel management had warmed up the space with scattered seating nooks filled with overstuffed furniture and lots of greenery. Annie saw groups of women in many of the chairs and sofas. Since many wore crocheted or knitted sweaters, or carefully embroidered blouses or jackets, Annie assumed many were at the hotel for the same convention as they.

  Annie’s low heels clicked against the marble as they walked across to the front desk. Just as she finished checking in, she heard someone call out, “Mary Beth!” The whole group turned.

  A slender man with snow-white hair, wire-rimmed glasses with a neatly trimmed white beard strode toward them, beaming. “I’m so happy you’ve arrived,” he said. “I received the items you shipped, finally. It was such an ordeal, but everything arrived safely.” He eyed the cardboard box Annie carried. “Is that full of more items for the Betsy Holden display?”

  “Yes,” Annie said. “I’m Annie Dawson.”

  “Oh, please forgive me,” the man said. “I’m being horribly rude. I’m Carlton Gold from the Golden Needle Company. I’m delighted to meet you, Mrs. Dawson. I admired your grandmother tremendously.”

  “So did I,” Annie said with a smile. “It’s nice to meet you too.”

  “Carlton,” Mary Beth said. “This is my assistant and dear friend Kate Stevens. And this is Stella Brickson, the woman from Betsy’s cross-stitched portrait.”

  Mr. Gold bowed slightly to each woman, and then smiled at Stella. “I am hoping you’ll join us onstage at the ceremony to honor Betsy. I know everyone will love seeing the inspiration for the portrait.” Then he seemed to have a new thought, and he clapped his hands. “I know, we could call you up. That would be much more dramatic.”

  Stella smiled slightly. “Whatever you think is best.”

  At that Mr. Gold turned back to Annie. “So, if you’ll trust me with that box, Mrs. Dawson, I’ll go and finish the display while you all settle into your rooms. Then I would love to show all of you what we’ve set up. The display is in exhibit room four. Perhaps we could meet there in fifteen minutes? Would that be enough time?”

  “I think we could manage that,” Mary Beth said.

  “Excellent!” Again Mr. Gold c
lapped his hands before taking the box from Annie and hurrying away.

  “He’s very enthusiastic,” Annie said as they turned and headed toward the elevators to head up to their rooms.

  “Carlton is always like that,” Mary Beth said.

  “Carlton?” Kate said, raising an eyebrow. “I thought he was ‘Mr. Gold’.”

  “Actually, I’ve chatted with Carlton at other events,” Mary Beth said. “I carry a lot of Golden Needle kits, as you well know.”

  Annie looked at her friend curiously. She had never really thought of Mary Beth as having a possible romance. It might be interesting.

  “So—it’s all strictly business,” Kate said, her voice teasingly mocking.

  “Oh yes,” Mary Beth said before bursting out laughing. “Um, I don’t think Carlton actually likes women that way.”

  So much for romance, Annie thought. Then she chided herself for her own imaginings. They were at a beautiful hotel, and they were going to a convention that featured her favorite crafts. Romance was sure to be the last thing on anyone’s mind.

  It didn’t take long for Annie to hang up the clothes from her suitcase and put her toiletries away. She longed to call LeeAnn and chat for a while. She was eager to hear when her daughter might make the drive over. Maybe she would call her after they looked over the exhibit. Then she’d have even more to tell LeeAnn when they chatted.

  She stashed one of the room keycards in the pocket of the cardigan she’d slipped into. The Texas sun might be blazing outside, but the air conditioning in the hotel made Annie feel as if she were freezing.

  When she stepped off the elevator into the lobby again, she spotted the rest of her group at the nearest seating oasis. “I’m sorry,” Annie said. “Did I keep you waiting?”

  “Not a bit,” Mary Beth said as they all stood. “We really all just got here.”

  “I decided to unpack after we see the exhibit,” Stella said. “I plan to go back to my room and rest a bit until dinner. I can unpack then.”

  “Do we know where we’re going?” Annie asked. “I didn’t look at my packet at all.”