It was Bonnie's dad who had instilled in her the love of a good, long road-trip. Her appreciation of the finer things such as a car loaded with snack-food and CDs, rest stops, and the nuances of "roadkill bingo" were all because of him. He enjoyed planning his routes as much as he did just tossing the bags in the trunk on a whim and picking a direction and driving.
And Bonnie always went with him.
"North American roads have more total distance than the rest of the world combined," he told her. She wasn't sure if he was right, but she rarely doubted her dad.
"Why fly when you can drive? Stop when you want, where you want, and do whatever you want," he continued, "Make it an adventure, right?"
Bonnie would roll her eyes each time her dad inevitably recited that particular credo sometime about the midway point of every journey. In truth though, she took comfort in hearing him say it.
"The devil is in the detours," he would conclude then smile, pleased with his own turn of the phrase. As she got older, she began to wonder to herself if he had thought it through what that actually meant. Despite that though, Bonnie recited it along with him.
"The devil is in the detours."
By the time she was eleven, she was tall enough to sit in the passenger seat beside him -shotgun- taking the spot where her mother would have been if she were alive. She could tell her dad liked having her up front with him, too.
When she turned sixteen and she began to get that itch to take the wheel herself, her dad decided to reveal to her his "rules of the road-trip" while on their way to a spring vacation in Florida. Some were pretty obvious like pulling over when you feel tired or not to hold a cup of hot coffee between your legs on the car seat.
"Roadside motels are fine to stay in," he said, "But just check for bed-bugs before lying down."
Connie cringed. "Ew."
"And maybe bring a black-light," he added, grinning like a cat. "You know, wave it over the sheets and carpet..."
"Eww!"
"... blood stains and all that."
" Eww - uh! Dad! That's disgusting!"
"No GPS's." The little gadgets were just beginning to gain popularity. Bonnie's dad shunned them, consider them as cheating. "They're too A to B, like using a calculator to answer a math equation. They make it too easy to miss all the little bits in between."
He had her open up the map. It unfolded to the size of a small tablecloth blocking her view of the road. He waved his hand over it. "See all those roads, all that terrain and little lakes and things? That's the good stuff."
The coloured lines of roads criss-crossing all over the place reminded her of veins on a body. It was almost organic.
"And no hitchhikers," he added, "No matter their appearance, or age, or if they're a woman, a Hobbit, or whatnot...no hitchhikers. Okay, Bonnie?"
He didn't explain any further. His look and his tone of voice told her all she needed to understand.
"Sure dad," she replied and turned her blue eyes back toward the oncoming road.
*
Bonnie Sinclair, age twenty-seven and tens of thousands of miles of highway notched on the wheels of her old Malibu, was on the road again on the second day of a three day solo drive to the coast. The drive itself was going to be the highlight of her trip, she was sure of it; the destination was less appealing. Her cousin was getting married and her entire extended family would be there. Both she and her dad weren't so big on these family events, but he always insisted that they attend.
"They can drive you crazy, but so can the rest of the world," he would say, "If anyone drives you crazy, it may as well be family... you'll always end up forgiving them, eventually."
So she had to go. When she was ready to send her RSVP, she knew she would have to face at least two inevitable questions.
The first question was why she just didn't fly to the wedding so that she could spend more time with the family. Her first reason - shared with everyone - was that she loved to drive of course, just like her dad. As long as the destination was within reach over land or bridge, she was going to drive there.
The second reason - not shared with everyone- was that she couldn't stand being with her extended and extensive family. Well, perhaps that was a bit harsh, but she could probably think of a hundred things she'd rather be doing than tooting around town for several days with dozens of relatives whose names have escaped her, chattering non-stop at her and gossiping aloud about whomever wasn't there. It made her appreciate the serenity of being on the road that much more.
Speaking of gossiping, the second question: "Will you be bringing Stefan?"
"No. Stefan isn't coming with me."
"Why? You're still seeing him, aren't you? Weren't you serious about each other?"
"Stefan is not coming with me."
"Oh no, Bonnie. Did you two break up?"
"Stefan...is not... coming ...with me."
So on this particular trip, she was alone on the road - almost alone. Every once in awhile, she rubbed the soft fur of a little green rabbit's foot dangling by a chain from her car key. It had belonged to her dad. Why green? Who knew. Didn't matter either. As long as it was with her, so was her dad.
Boomer was with her as well - again, sort of. Boomer was her Cocker-Spaniel and, unfortunately, unlike most other dogs, he wasn't so much into car rides. She loved him dearly but she was fed up having to stop her car to clean dog chow vomit off of her seats before Boomer ate it. So, while a friend babysat her motion-sick dog back home, as a reminder of her beloved companion, one of his favourite chew toys sat shotgun in his stead: a ragged, tooth-scarred Vin Diesel "Fast and the Furious" doll. Vinny D was good chewin'.
As she motored along the highway, Bonnie leaned back in her car seat - way back. The back of the chair was reclined at a lower than typical angle, like she was in a dentist's chair waiting for her mouth to be scoped. In this position, she basically viewed the road ahead through her steering-wheel, her fingers controlling it at the base. It also allowed her to raise her leg and prop her bare foot out the open driver's window, her heel on the side mirror.
This wasn't a driving position her dad ever taught her, that was for certain. She had passed some hippie guy in a beat up, duct-taped Toyota Echo sitting like that while she was driving through New York State a few years ago, and she'd been curious about trying it herself ever since then.
Her dad would not have approved.
"Sorry dad," she mused aloud, the warm wind blowing through her toes and the short, blonde strands of her page-boy haircut, "This is pretty darn comfortable."
Chalk one up for the hippies.
She had been driving for several hours now, passing through an area where winding roads through hills and valleys had long given way to flatter, browner, rockier desert, drier air, and the towns came fewer and far in between. Less rolling terrain also meant less need for curves and turns on the road. She could see straight up the highway for miles. The problem with a straight, flat, endless highway was that there was very little stimulus to help maintain her attention. She wasn't passing many cars either; traffic was beyond sparse. She gave her head little shakes and cursed at herself every once in awhile, snapping her back into focus to ensure she didn't end up mindlessly careening off the road.
Still, she remained in an almost hypnotic trance, eyes fixed and peering through dark sunglasses at the unbroken stretch of black asphalt. Her thoughts drifted like feathers up, up, up to the puffs of cloud hanging in the blue sky splayed out before her as she flew down the road at eighty miles per hour.
Suddenly, an unholy blare of one mean-sonofabitch horn erupted in the air around Bonnie, rattling her teeth and shaking her heart up into her throat.
"Holy Jeez-us!" Bonnie gasped, sat up, and gripped the wheel as the horn continued to thrum. She swerved a little to the side but managed to right her car quickly.
She glared out of her driver's side window and looked up the side of a big cherry-red rig as it rode along beside her. Looking back down at her from the truck's cab were two grizzled men, waving and smiling. They were shouting at her and, judging by their leers, it probably had less to do about what she thought about the current crisis in the Middle East and more about what they would like to do with her on the hood of her car. Then again, she couldn't hear a damn word they were saying with the whooshing rush of the road and the bleating of their own stupid horn between them.
Bonnie eased her foot off the accelerator. Thankfully, the two guys in the eighteen-wheeler decided to just pass her and continue on ahead. The one on the passenger side kissed his lips at her like a fish as they went by and then gave her a thumbs up as they took the lead and pulled away.
"Yes, yes. Nice to meet you, too," she muttered. She stuck her hand outside the window, fluttered her fingers, waving to the truck before bundling them into a tidy middle-finger salute. "Assholes."
The truck bellowed its horn.
It was one of the perils of a woman driving alone in the middle of nowhere, she knew that. An only child raised by her dad, she grew up a bit of a tomboy and felt that she could probably take care of herself in most situations, but still, she had to be aware and leery of jerks and weirdos on the road.
She continued for another hour, going through several revolutions on the dial of her radio before giving up. She sang to herself and played the geography game in her head. Then she was silent again with nothing but the road and sun above to keep her company.
She yawned. This was a damn long drive.
Bonnie sighed and caught herself thinking that maybe it would have been nice if Stefan had come along with her.
"Woah!" she exclaimed, catching herself. She tilted her head and shrugged. "No, this is ten times better than bringing along that...than being with him ," she thought.
Stefan was kind of like this stretch of road: straight, open, bright, warm...but he could also be tedious, dry, and predictable. And like those big rocks scattered off to the side of the road, it turned out there were snakes hidden behind some of them.
Yeah. Being alone was better than being with him .
Then again, being with someone is better than being alone , she thought. It reminded her of a few unfulfilled road fantasies she had envisioned from time-to-time on these solo drives.
As her thoughts drifted, so did her hand as it slipped down between her legs, scratching her thigh just under the cuff of her shorts, then gently stroking the soft skin there. She tucked her fingers in a little deeper, stroking the line of her panties. The touch of warmth and dampness on her fingertips drew an unexpected silent sigh in her throat.
She blinked her eyes wide, snapping herself out of her stupor. She knocked her knuckles against the side of her head and berated herself, "Okay, see? This is what happens when you don't focus on the road! You stop making sense!"
The conversation went on inside of Bonnie's head as she continued to drive along the straight stretch of highway. She then noticed, way off in the distance, someone walking along the side of the road. She leaned forward in her seat and squinted through her sunglasses. The figure was still tiny but she was pretty certain it was a man. He was walking on the other side of the road, towards her.
