Queen of the Road

by Doreen Orion

  Shortly after our magazines arrived, cementing our celebrity status, we were driving down the highway when Tim saw a converted bus coming from the opposite direction.

  “That’s a…a…” he stuttered, straining to remember what type it was. I, of course, couldn’t have cared less and would rather he concentrate on driving.

  “It’s a bus, honey,” I stated with as much patience as I could muster.

  “What do you mean by that?” he demanded, as offended as I would have been had he referred to my prized beaded Fendi evening purse as a handbag.

  “What I meant was, who cares what kind it is?” I asked with an edge in my voice, willing him to focus on the road.

  “That’s no way for a Miss September to talk,” he chastised, shaking his head. “And the month of your reign isn’t even over yet.”

  No, but the year of our bus trip might soon be.

  Chapter Five

  MOOSELESS IN MAINE AND OTHER HAIRY NEW ENGLAND TAILS

  * * *

  Elusive Moose

  11/2 parts Godiva liqueur

  11/4 parts crème de cacao

  1/2 part vanilla vodka (or 1 part raspberry liqueur if tracking moose in forest or 1/2 part crème de banana if tracking moose in jungle)

  21/2 parts cream

  Mix ingredients in shaker, expel into glass. Squeeze chocolate syrup on rim. Plop in a chocolate bonbon to allow for satisfying splash. Wipe.

  * * *

  We made our way to the East Coast, planning to chase the fall colors as south as they took us. Although we stopped along our route (most notably in Ohio, on Lake Erie, for equally spectacular sunsets and roller coasters), there were many days, for hours on end, when we (OK, Tim) did nothing but drive. I found that I actually liked just sitting, perched up high on the buddy seat, with Shula—who seemed to be cowering ever so slightly less—in my lap.

  I’ve always prided myself on being a supreme multitasker: While working, I can talk to a doctor about one case while writing up my review on the last, while flipping through my appointment book deciding when to schedule haircuts—mine and poodle’s—while having a cable news show on in the background. I like to keep busy, provided I can remain sedentary, of course. I know that left to my own devices, I tend to…rot. I force my brain to stay active just as I have to force myself to exercise.

  A friend once dragged me to a yoga class.

  “You’ll love it!” Susan, one of the most gorgeous women I’ve ever known, exclaimed. I guess if it works for her. Then, “It really clears your mind!” Great. If my mind were any clearer, I’d be dead. But I went. I figured living in Boulder meant I had already putatively signed up for yoga, anyway. Boulderites are just so darn fit, some kind of exercise must be required in the city charter for citizenship. Hopefully, if I got yoga out of the way, they’d let slide that I never hiked, skied, or, for that matter, left the house much. (At the farmers’ market, Tim swears he once saw the result of what occurs when Boulder’s penchant for political correctness collides with its extremist attitude toward health: eggs labeled “vegetarian fed, cage free and voluntary.”)

  Anyway, I really gave yoga a chance. Really, I did. Two classes. I just couldn’t take it anymore. I was bored. Deathly so. Besides, what was the point in putting that much effort into doing something just to think about nothing, when I was already so adept at thinking about nothing without making any effort at all?

  That’s why on the bus I was surprised to discover how much I loved just sitting up front with Tim. He always tried to explain the lure, the Zen (as he called it) of driving. I could never understand it. To me, driving was simply a means to an end. All that stuff about how “it’s the journey and not the destination” seemed to be nothing more than one big rationalization people used when they didn’t like where they got.

  But sitting up front with Tim, talking or not, I started to see the appeal: no pressure, no hurry, no expectations. Just being; sitting, getting lost in the scenery flying by. Of course, sometimes we couldn’t help being pulled back into reality, such as when a navigational issue reared its ugly head.

  By now, we had divvied up the duties on board with military efficiency. When the bus was in motion, Tim was captain. I was his yeoman and if he wanted a drink or a snack, I’d hut to and get it for him—no sense in having the driver distracted by a growling stomach or parched throat. Of course, I might also take the opportunity to fix my own favorite snack: counter egg. Taking a hard-boiled egg out of the fridge, I’d crack it on the Blue Bahia, remove the shell, sprinkle salt on the counter, roll the egg in it, and voilà! Counter egg. After all, why bother with a plate when an egg already comes so perfectly complete in its own handy container?

  This habit never seemed to bother Tim when I did it at home. Maybe it was the larger counter and, thus, more efficient (and less obvious) salt dispersal. Whatever the reason, I found it completely unnecessary when, on the bus, he started threatening to spray Bitter Apple (a dog repellent) on the Blue Bahia. He was horrified I was too lazy to take out a plate. He thinks that’s lazy? Lazy is the time, working at a new hospital, I gave myself food poisoning by heating up lunch on the windshield of my car (parked out in the scorching summer sun), because I didn’t want to bother looking for a microwave. That’s lazy. (Yeah, I know. As a doctor, I should have realized. But in my defense, since it sure felt like no living thing could survive in the inside of my car, I assumed it got hot enough. Besides, I don’t recall thermodynamics even being covered in Physics for Non-Majors. As Tim later explained in painstaking and excruciating detail: The amount of calories of sun energy available to warm my meal was offset by heat loss, since the container wasn’t insulated and therefore did not reach sufficient…well, you get the idea.)

  In any event, when the bus stopped, our roles changed a wee bit, reverting to their more natural state; Tim did the laundry and dishes, was free to tackle any Project Nerd duties as he saw fit, and also took on all quartermaster responsibilities, keeping our bays fully stocked. Just in case the magnitude of his assignments appears one-sided, it’s important to note that I was still doing some insurance reviews, and when mobile, I took on the additional task of bursar, dolling out the money whenever we hit…er, encountered a toll booth. (“Can’t you drive the bus in straighter so they don’t see we’re towing a car? It’s two dollars an axle!”) Lastly, and most unfortunately for us both, I had also been pressed into service as navigator.

  “Why in the world would you want me to navigate?” I had asked. “I have no sense of direction and I can’t read a map.”

  “True,” Tim sighed. “But who else is going to do it? Miles?” We both glanced at the poodle, considering. Even the fact that he was happily, if sloppily, gumming Morty’s head didn’t seem to completely disqualify him. And truly, Miles seemed to enjoy chores as much as his father. Whenever Project Nerd tackled his outside tasks, Project Poodle could be counted on to trot close behind, veering off to accomplish his own important work (cornering rocks, barking at them, and when sufficiently vanquished, moving them around with his paws and mouth), achieving a success rate that rivaled his father’s. Still, as far as navigation was concerned, although it was close, we knew there was really no other way. With Tim the designated driver in perpetuity, I simply had to be navigator. Lord help us.

  Of course, our fancy bus was equipped with a GPS. And of course Peter, the electronic wiz who installed it, did the same bang-up job of explaining it as he did getting the TV (and just about everything else) to work.

  “Just put the CD in and you’re all set!” Peter assured us, handing me the GPS in its box. After much procrastination, I finally took the thing out once we’d left familiar Colorado. The designers of such an amazing gadget might think they’re cunning, but I’m cunninger; I quickly discovered the disc was larger than the device.

  “Look!” I exclaimed to Tim, indignant, as I slapped the CD to metal. “There’s no way to get this in there!” Being even less technologically inclined than his wife, Tim just shoo
k his head.

  It had taken me a few hundred miles to realize that the CD was meant to be installed on my computer and from there, I could transfer the maps to the GPS. Still, we hadn’t realized there was another, even more crucial step: programming. In our ignorance, we decided to test the GPS one day when we were driving the Jeep.

  “How do you think we tell it where we want to go?” I queried the Captain. He shook his head again. Then I got a brilliant idea. I was hankering for some onion rings, and jokingly (OK, half jokingly) commanded it, “Find Wendy’s.” Just then, a male voice intoned, “In…fifty…feet…turn…left.” We looked at each other, then at the road in wonder. Sure enough, there, fifty feet ahead, on the left, was a Wendy’s.

  “Find frozen custard!” I demanded. Nothing. What a worthless, piece of… By the time we left Minneapolis, we not only figured out how to use it (and that the Wendy’s thing had been a bit of a fluke) but also learned to rely on Map Breath (as we started calling it) except, of course, when there was new construction.

  Despite my poor math skills, my nonexistent sense of direction, and my total inability to read a map, I might have had the occasional navigational success if I weren’t also, as Tim put it, “concrete as a sidewalk.” Like the time in Ohio when I tried to leave a Target and was stumped at the door. The sign on it said “ENTER ONLY,” then on the next line, “DO NOT ENTER.” Enter only, do not enter? What the hell does that mean? I tried to get through the door several times, but couldn’t. I might be there still had I not noticed an elderly blue-haired lady hobbling by with a walker, effortlessly exiting through the door next to mine. I ensured that no one was looking, then quickly slipped out behind her. Back on the bus, I expressed my outrage to Tim.

  “If it said ‘ENTRANCE ONLY, DO NOT ENTER,’ that might make sense.”

  “You were exiting, sweetie.”

  “Yes, but I was entering the little alcove thingy to exit.”

  “Whatever you say, dear.” I caught the grateful look he threw the GPS’s way. Sometimes, I feel like what used to be termed an idiot savant—without the savant part.

  When we left East Harbor State Park in Lakeside, Ohio, we thought we had finally worked the bugs out of our GPS system and decided to give it the ultimate test: Could it guide us directly to the Wal-Mart at 5555 Porter Road in Niagara Falls, New York, where we planned to spend the night?

  We agreed we would follow the GPS’s instructions to the letter, no matter what Mr. Rand McNally said. (He’s a little anal for my tastes, anyway. Sometimes, too many lines on a map are just plain confusing.) I programmed the GPS and all seemed to be going well, until just after we left Buffalo. We were traveling north on 290. The GPS offered no instructions, neither on its screen nor in its haughty female voice, even though it seemed obvious to me and Rand that we would soon take 190 north to Niagara Falls.

  “I don’t know, sweetie,” I began. “I don’t understand what she wants us to do. If we keep going on this road, we’ll end up back in Buffalo. I think we need to take 190.” As I studied the map, our route seemed even more certain. Soon, there would be no turning back. Not for a forty-foot Prevost dragging a Jeep.

  “You’re sure, Number Two?” he asked.

  “Aye, Number One. 190. I just don’t get what she thinks we should do.” When we came to the point of no return, though, it became clear; 190 split off from 290 to the right. Tim easily made the adjustment. Still, in past such situations, Map Breath had instructed, “Bear right.” This time, she was silent.

  “She screwed up,” I said.

  “No,” Tim mused. “It must be the map program she got that malfunctioned.” I shot him a sideways glance. Then I recalled I had programmed Map Breath myself with a man’s voice, specifically to keep the Lying Bitch company, hoping the promise of some libidinal satisfaction might get her to start telling the truth about our tanks. Somewhere in Michigan, it seemed, Map Breath had undergone a sex change. And I hadn’t been the one to perform the procedure.

  Tim, who struggled to even turn a computer on, later admitted he’d somehow managed to stumble his way through Map Breath’s menu to change the voice function.

  “It just feels more natural to have a woman telling me what to do,” he explained.

  When we finally pulled into Chez Sam, Map Breath intoned in that smug way she has, “Destination.” I retorted, “Oh, so now you have something to say.” But Tim was quick to point out, and rather excitedly, I might add, “She did get us here. Exactly to our destination!” Now I finally understood what was going on.

  “Why do you always take her side?” I demanded.

  “What are you talking about?” he replied. But I could sense the truth under his flimsy protestation.

  “I bet if you had to choose, you’d leave me to have her on this trip!” I sputtered.

  “I’m not even attracted to her,” he insisted. “Although, if I did leave you, you’d never be able to find me,” he snickered. I was not amused.

  “Why do you always listen to her and not me?” I queried, quite reasonably, I thought.

  “I guess that is hard to explain, what with your stellar navigational skills.” OK, I deserved that. Only a few hours earlier, Tim had me consult Rand to see how far we were from Buffalo. Reading all those little numbers along all the superfluous squiggly lines was blinding. Instead, I found the distance scale and determined that fifteen miles was about the size of a knuckle. Five knuckles later, I offered, quite satisfied with myself, “OK. Five times fifteen is seventy-five. But it’s really a little less than a knuckle length, so…we could be anywhere from forty to seventy-five miles from Buffalo.” Tim rolled his eyes. Just then I spotted the “Mileage Between Cities” chart at the top of the page. Why hadn’t Rand made this more obvious? Like I was supposed to figure out that buried in all this map stuff was actual useful information. (Sometimes I think Rand is just showing off. No one likes a braggart, buster!)

  “Oops!” I chuckled.

  “How much more is it?” he sighed.

  “Actually, we’re only twenty-two miles away. Guess knuckles aren’t the best way to measure.”

  “Apparently not yours,” the Captain muttered under his breath.

  We overnighted at Wal-Mart, joining the familiar circle of rigs around its perimeter. As usual, ours was the last one left in the morning. Although we’d both seen Niagara Falls before, we couldn’t resist another look. This time, we got to see it at night, illuminated with different-colored lights every ten minutes. I found the display tacky, but Mr. Outdoorsy actually liked it. Still, as we stood among many other couples, all holding hands (some of whom should have instead been on their cell phones arranging rooms), Tim commented that while he could appreciate the Falls’ beauty, he couldn’t really see what the big romance was. I bet he’d rather be here with her.

  “If Map Breath’s so great, why don’t you try getting her to live in a bus with you for a year?” I challenged.

  “Uh…that’s what she’s doing, honey.” Oh, yeah.

  I got over it quickly. Really, I did. Only, every now and then, upon making a wrong turn, I still delighted in Map Breath’s befuddlement, as I watched the question mark linger on her screen while she recalculated her tight, little, metallic ass off.

  For the rest of our time in upstate New York, we stayed at a rustic campground in Ithaca, where I went to college at Cornell. During my three and a half years there (a multitasker, even then), I’d never appreciated the bell tower, visible throughout much of campus. It seemed like just another measure of how overwhelmed I was in my pre-med studies, chiming in hourly, counting down the dings to my grade point average with every dong. Even though I passed it daily, I never took the time to make it to the top.

  Now Tim and I climbed the 161 steps to the chimesmasters’ room. Since 1868, this unique instrument (which at twenty-one bells is one of the largest and most frequently played chimes in the world) has been given voice by students who compete annually for the honor of grabbing and stomping on a console of wo
oden levers with their hands and feet—Attack of the Mensa Ninja Nerds, if you will. Between the climbing and the chiming, it’s no wonder one chimesmaster received physical education credit for her efforts. The students were happy to answer any questions and even played requests, although “Stairway to Heaven” was not in their repertoire. Frankly, after all that exertion, followed by a stunning 360-degree view of the campus, Ithaca, and Cayuga Lake, it was hard to concentrate on the music.

  Gasping for breath aside, I did feel rewarded for finally reaching the top, in the form of extra credit for my psyche: Although part of my clinical work had been helping patients understand that they could never go back and relive, I was now learning the value that different choices could make going forward in life; choices not unlike taking a year off for an adventure, rather than staying on the same unfulfilling course. A futuristic do-over, if you will.

  Getting to the top of the bell tower reaffirmed for me that Tim and I were making new choices about how to live our lives. And whether it was finding time for that climb (even in Donald Pliner leather loafers) or putting our careers on hold, we were doing things differently than we had in the past, giving us hope that the lessons learned on the road about what was truly valuable might just stick.

  As Tim followed me up the narrow stairwell, he playfully pinched my butt with every step, a pleasant (and painful—in a black-and-blue sort of way) reminder that all I had yearned for as a student twenty-five years before had come true, even if I hadn’t taken the time to notice it until now: I was happy. At twenty years old, had I articulated what I thought I needed in life, I would probably have said a big house, a successful husband, and a great career. Yet all I really needed for true happiness was the homeless, unemployed bus driver right behind me, pinching my butt every step of the way.