Driving With the Top Down (8 page)

“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.

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 truck, 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.

She took the turn and the trailer fishtailed behind her. She’d forgotten all about it. Fortunately, it righted itself and she gunned the motor onto the small road, watching the truck pass the turn in her rearview mirror. It was no time to get complacent, though she had to keep driving until she could get to a safe turnaround spot. That way, at least she’d be pointing in the right direction to get reliably into town, where she could drive straight to the sheriff’s office.

They drove for about ten minutes until the quiet around them took over and it felt like they were well and truly safe. Colleen slowed the car and did an eighteen-point turn to reverse her direction and face the highway again.

This time she drove slowly, wary of the trucker’s return, even while the possibility seemed excessively unlikely.

“Once when I was little, a guy pulled up to the intersection in my neighborhood and said, ‘Did you ever see one of these?’ to all of us kids playing,” Tamara said. “I didn’t go over, but Amy Williams and her sister did—and he was … exposing himself. They went home and told their mom and she called the police and my mom totally freaked out.”

“Did you freak out?”

Tamara considered that for a moment. “No, I wondered what it looked like.” She looked at Colleen. “I mean, I’m not sorry now that I didn’t see—it was just that at the time, that was all anyone could talk about and I couldn’t even picture what it might look like.”

“Unfortunately, I can.” Colleen shuddered at the idea of a grown man doing that to children.

“Me too. Now. It’s really messed up to do that to kids.”

“People are sick.”

“More people than you think, probably,” Tamara agreed, then closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the seat. “Weirdos are everywhere. It’s more weird not to be weird.”

“You may be right.”

“Pretty sure I am.”

Colleen turned left on Birch Street and was surprised to see that not only was the diner not there but it also looked like it never had been there. There was a gas station and a crummy wooden house, and the rest was overgrown brush. “I could have sworn this was where it was.”

“Did you say the Henley Diner?”

“Yes.”

“Right there.” Tamara pointed not at the diner but at a billboard so small, with lettering in script, that it was hard to read at all. But the building in the picture was unmistakable. “Turn around and then go right. It’s a half a mile away.”

“Thank goodness one of us can see.” She carefully maneuvered the car around and followed Tamara’s directions until, sure enough, the familiar old diner came into view. Blue-gray wood slats outside, a chimney shaped like R2-D2 pumping out delicious scents, and a small assortment of old pickup trucks and a few scattered practical college student cars in the parking lot.

This was the place.

It was hard to believe they had left her house in Frederick only that morning. Of course, her hunger and the fact that she’d had only crap food were probably contributing to her disorientation.

But something told her everything was about to take a turn for the better. A good meal, a great dessert, a few more miles across the border into North Carolina, then they would stop for the night and get up bright and early to start again in the morning.

Hopefully, then things would fall in line with her carefully mapped-out plans.

CHAPTER FIVE

Bitty

Dear Stranger,

Everyone should have somebody to write a suicide note to. People kill themselves and leave suicide notes behind every day. Always addressing their children, parents, friends, anyone. I don’t have anyone to write mine to. So I’ll write it here, and whoever reads it … well, I guess you’re my closest friend.