Gripping
the steering wheel tighter, Carol squeezed her eyes closed, just for a sec, she
thought, just until they’d begin to water a bit. She held them shut that way just a moment
longer. They’d feel better, less dry, when
she opened them again.
It
wasn’t a very smart thing to do, but she'd been sitting there, in the same
position, since she left the office an there was practically nobody else on the
road, a long straight highway through nothing. She shifted her weight, rocking
her hips just a little and rolled her shoulders. Did those wooden bead seat covers the ads
said taxi drivers in
There
wasn’t much to look at on the side of the road.
Traffic was always light. It was
rarely any different out here, not much to be going to or coming from. Nothing like the jams out East or in
What
time was it? She glanced at the clock on
the dashboard. Damn. Quarter to eight already.
It
was always like that;
getting out late on Fridays.
Every week, there was something that had to be "finished today and
there by Monday." Mr. Reiner always seemed to make the promises, but it was Carol
who stayed late getting it all together and out the door long after he’d gone home to catch one of
his boys’ ballgames. Every time, he’d
promise and she’d get it done.
Naturally, the rush only mattered on Fridays or Mondays. The end of the week, the
beginning of the week—the two hardest days to stay late.
Carol
stared out at the road. Still a ways to go yet, and almost pitch black dark already. She pressed the heel of her hand into the
steering wheel, stretching her fingers one-by-one. Why did the radio in this car have to go dead?
The silence made the commute seem to take forever; no music or talk, even lousy
talk. Just listening to the steady hum
of the engine and feeling the shiver of the tires rolling over the gravel
stones in the black top was crazy-making.
By
the time she got home, dinner; franks and macaroni, hopefully someone
remembered to make a salad, would be cold and crunchy. But then, crunchy was really the only way to
eat macaroni anyway. Her mouth watered
just thinking about it. She swirled the
saliva around in her mouth, her tongue rubbing against and around each tooth
and then she swallowed. Her stomach
rumbled too. It had been a long time
since that cup of yogurt somewhere around noon, or was it one? A while ago anyway. Wasn’t there an apple in the glove
compartment? She reached over, rummaging
through. Aha, pay dirt!
The
kids would be ready for bed already. But
they wouldn't go upstairs until she got home.
It was getting awfully late, she'd better get going. Carol glanced down at the speedometer. Seventy was probably as fast as she should
go, any faster and the steering wheel would start shimmying.
Would
the kid's have gotten their homework done?
Or had they convinced Dan to let them stay up and watch TV? Depended on what was on tonight. If they had their homework done, then she
wouldn't have to insist that they come in early tomorrow evening. And they could all go on down at the pond
after dinner.
Still,
those two were pretty persuasive, especially after a long day in the lab, and
if everyone at school had been talking about a really great show coming on
tonight. Besides, who wanted to come
home after work and argue with the kids especially without backup? She really couldn't blame Dan if he’d kicked
back with them, all three of them nestled on the couch
together. Sure sounded a whole lot
better than cruising down a highway at seventy miles an hour, the shadows
encroaching on her headlight beams, nighttime closing in hard. Maybe there wouldn’t be time for that movie
after she got home.
All
four of them together on the couch would be even better, Dan his arm thrown around
her shoulder, his hand reaching around
just to that place her arm usually covered, where her side and her breast came
together, his fingers lightly caressing.
She’d have lain her hand high up on his thigh, fingers pressing ever so
lightly that not the
kids even sitting there with them wouldn’t notice. Imperceptible to anyone but
Dan.
The
flash of high beams reflecting in the rearview mirror yanked her thoughts back
to driving. Sheesh,
whatever it was behind her, the headlights were riding way high on its front
end. Couldn’t be
just a regular old truck. Had to be huge.
She
released some of the pressure on the gas pedal and began easing out of the high
speed lane, ooh, her ankle was so stiff after all that
time holding a steady seventy. Next time
she’d get cruise control, like on Dan’s truck. It made highway driving so much
more comfortable.
As
she eased over into the right lane, she it occurred to her that it didn't
really matter where either of them drove, since there wasn't another car on the
interstate for miles. But she didn't
like anything, especially something as big as that thing must be, going by on the
inside, and he was going to pass her.
When
he did, she could steal some of his thunder and get home all that much
faster. And maybe the kids would go to
sleep quick so she and Dan...
Didn’t
take him long to step on it again and start passing her. What a monster of a truck that thing
was. She gripped hold of the wheel
again. Before, her fingers had relaxed
some, but now she needed to be holding on tight. The suction of the truck passing by, like a
whirlwind buffeting her, pushed against her car. This one didn’t weigh
anything... Dan’s truck felt so much more substantial even empty. But the car was better in the city, and for
driving around town. Besides, when they
bought it, she hadn’t planned on commuting to the City. And now, with two kids,
who could afford a new car...
Sometimes
they hitched two, three trailers together, piggyback, and made a massive thing
was this baby one of those? Out of the
corner of her eye, she watched it going by.
No,
it was just one big truck, and he was just moving now. She squeezed the
steering wheel tighter still, holding it with both hands, steering the car
slightly more toward the breakdown lane.
She probably should have slid over in that lane more before she let him
by. Did he seem so close because he was
so big?
After
he got ahead of her a bit, she’d pull in and up behind the truck, and tailgate
him. Ever since the
oil crisis. When was that any
way? Seventy-two? Whenever. Ever since then, she’d
been riding tailgate
on trucks whenever she drove the highway.
Especially at night. They used to publicize it saying that if you
got your car into a truck's air pocket, you'd conserve gas and help the country
loosen the
Okay,
it was time now. She pulled the wheel a
little to the left, slipping
in behind the truck. As she did she
found herself thinking about the math and science that would verify that. It was interesting, thinking about the
theories explaining how it worked. Both
the ones she knew of had interesting assumptions, The question was, did a
moving truck create a vacuum in it’s wake, or was it that following in close
decreased the drag on her car, like running interference. What was the physics
of tailgating, she wondered. Maybe some day
when she had a little extra time on her hands—ha! Like when the boys were in
college?
Still,
whether or not it saved any gas, it was the way to take this buggy to
seventy-two without the shimmy . She’d been doing it for years, why stop? Besides, with a commute like this, a
hundred-twenty miles each way every day, and most of it highway, if it only
added a mile or two to a gallon, that would be something.
Now
that she was snuggled in behind him she could relax a little bit, riding in the
air pocket was smoother somehow. So what
would it save? Figure a dollar seventy-five a gallon and
twenty-five miles to the gallon...
Oh
why the Hell had she let the radio stay broken?
But really, it was kind of un thinking word problems in her head.
She
pictured Mr. Pierce back in high school cracking the chalk against the
blackboard, except they were always green..., trying to drill the math into the
class, and how surprised he’d been when she got it and that she liked it.
“Carol
Jamieson is driving a hundred-twenty miles at seventy miles an hour,” he would
have said. Only then it would have been
Carol McDonald.
“The
car averages twenty miles to a gallon of gas. She can get one point two-five
miles more per gallon, Carol just made up a number chuckling to herself, if she
always drives in the draft
of a big rig truck, say an eighteen wheeler. If she works five days a week, takes three
weeks vacation and ten paid holidays and gas costs two dollars, seventy-five a
gallon, how much money will she save annually.”
He’d make up word problems like that, using their names, just like that.
God,
she hadn’t thought of Pierce in years...
But he’d given her a good foundation, that
instead of going into research or teaching she’d used to create a well-paying
career figuring all the bids. Until
she’d come, they’d never properly factored in all the variables—commodities,
time value of money, labor of course—just guestimating
based on earlier jobs. How long had it been since she’d done any real math.?
Just calculating the bids, really, it was really only adding a few numbers
together. Funny how Reiner
& the rest of them thought she was just brilliant the way she could just manipulate
the figures in her head. She always
laughed to herself remembering her thesis project for the Masters that was
supposed to get her a teaching job, something in research, maybe at NASA. What would they think about a applying mathematics to evaluate message intercepts?
Might
as well think about that thesis, staring
at the way ahead all here was to see was the butt end of this truck. It was bigger than anything she ever
remembered seeing, wider too. How fast was she going now? Carol glanced down at the speedometer, wow,
seventy-five, seventy-six. And she hardly had her foot on the gas. The truck just pulled her along with it,
almost as if they were lashed together. The only way she could tell she was
moving was the air on the windshield, and the feel of the wheels on the
pavement with the road so smooth, o it wasn’t much to feel.
But
it was like flying, doing seventy-five miles staring at a gray metal wall—eerie. She read the stickers pasted all over the
back door:
Where
Jackie was, little brother Jack, already twenty-six now, and a college grad,
now working and finishing up his Master’s.
Little bro, she smiled just thinking about him. Out there studying, what
did he call it? Umm, yeah, landscape
architecture. She couldn’t believe he’d
gone on and on talking about designing open spaces… She glanced off to the side, chucking to
herself, and straight ahead too. Sure
was plenty of that out here. Apparently not so in the city where what did he
call them? Oh yeah, pocket parks—little
landscaped areas of green—were a big deal. She tried to imagine a pocket park
and still all she could come up with was the grassy on the inside hole
Too
bad she and Dan couldn’t swing going out there last Christmas. Would’ve been fun, Jack always had to do the
traveling. She’d love to see that house
he’d rented with a bunch of students—he could have had it to himself since
everyone was gong home for the week—and see how crowded it is there, ride the
public transportation...
Did
he really buy the story about her jinxing his final project with her “black
thumbs” that kill all growing things? Or
did the family know she wasn’t working just because the boys were in school? It was criminal that a research scientist as
talented as Dan didn’t get paid well until they had something to take to
market.
She
scrunched up her mouth smiling, hearing Dan say, “Pretty soon, Carol. We’re going to have something pretty soon.”
Then
it would be her turn—back to mathematics and no more driving miles and miles to
add and subtract numbers—God it was boring!
She
was really getting tired. Must be getting close to the exit. It wasn’t much farther from there. She glanced to the left, not much over there,
some farm someplace, just open land. She
should probably think about moving over to the traveling lane, But she hated to move over too soon. It was such a waste of gas.
They
really should stop in at the Home tomorrow and spend some time Gramma Jamieson, all of them, tomorrow. Dan saw her as often as he could during the week--Hard
duty, going by there, but the nurses encouraged it, she seemed to perk up so whenever
the boys visited, they said.
Carol
shook her head. It was hard to believe
that Gramma Jamieson got anything at all out of their
visits, she seemed so lifeless.
How
was she doing for time? Carol glanced
down at her watch. Almost
eight-thirty. That exit’d be coming up soon.
She should probably start moving over now.
Oh
shit! Oh shit! Oh shit! The soundless words
clanged through. All she could focus on were
the bright red tail lights lighting up the inside of the car, shining in her
eyes, as the car kept going forward. She
jammed her heel on the break pedal until she almost stood on that one foot, her
body raised out of the seat. Even so,
she could only watch it all happen. It
was as if the front end was somehow being sucked underneath the truck and all
she could do was watch, in slow motion.
She
clenched the steering wheel, the car filling with smoke still pressing her full
weight into the break pedal. Dan! Thoughts swirled, clamoring, inside, her lips
frozen shut. She couldn’t even scream. What difference would it make anyway?
God
damn it. Oh shit oh shit. Dan, It won’t. It won’t. It won’t stop. I think I’m going to be a little late
tonight. don’t
wait up for me! The macaroni pan, don’t forget to soak it overnight. It’ll be like cement tomorrow. Oh crap!
Will you give my folks a call? And Jack? Don’t forget Honey,
remember we agreed—kids in bed by nine, nine-thirty at the latest. Son of a bitch. It won’t stop. Why won’t it stop?
Don’t let’em con you, Sweet, they’ll
try. When it’s both of us...but one
against two...God damn it. Honey, I love
you...