It was hot as hell when I pulled up to the gas station on my motorcycle. The heavy, protective leathers and full-face helmet I wore made the heat feel even worse, but I believed in riding safely. Besides, it was July in South Carolina; I expected to be hot and sweaty, even if I didn't like it.
The woman I saw sitting on the bench outside the gas station didn't look happy. The large perspiration marks on the front of her sundress and bedraggled hair added to her air of misery. The four-letter words she shouted into her cellphone also made it clear that she was not having a good day.
"Fuck you!" She screamed into her phone. Then she jabbed at the screen ending the call, and drew her arm back, getting ready to send the phone flying. At the last minute, she took a deep breath, ran a grimy hand through her damp hair, and set the phone down beside her. It was a move that clearly required considerable restraint on her part. "Asshole!" She growled and turned toward me. We locked eyes briefly, then she said, "Sorry, no offense, not you."
I shrugged, propped my helmet on the handlebars of my bike, and took hold of the gas pump handle. "No offense taken," I replied. "I know it's not me."
"You're pretty confident, aren't you?" She sounded as mad as a wet hen and looked like one as rivulets of sweat ran down her face.
"Yep. Guess that I am." I finished pumping gas and returned the nozzle to the pump. The woman stared at me. "I'm pretty confident that you're having a bad day."
She smirked, recognizing my sarcasm. Then her shoulders sagged, and I saw some of her billowing anger evaporate. "Yeah, you could say that."
I sat on the edge of my bike's seat, took off my jacket in a vain attempt to cool off a little bit, and raised my eyebrows at her.
The woman accepted my wordless invitation for her to tell me more. "I was on my way to Edisto Beach to spend a week with my boyfriend when my fucking car broke down, right here, in the middle of fucking nowhere. It's July Fourth weekend, and the mechanic says he can't get the fucking part he needs to fix it until next week. So I'm basically stuck here."
"He's the asshole?"
The woman looked horrified for a second, then snorted a little laugh. "God, no. It's not his fault my shitty car broke down or that it's a goddamn holiday."
"Who's the asshole then?"
"The asshole is my fucking boyfriend, or should I say, ex-boyfriend. I asked him to pick me up, and he basically said no."
"What does 'basically' mean?"
She smirked at me again, accepting the way I teased her. "Basically means that he doesn't want to interrupt his precious vacation time to drive two hours away from the beach and rescue his stranded girlfriend."
"You mean ex-girlfriend."
This time a genuine smile crossed her face. "Yep. I'm very much ex." She rolled her shoulders, stretched, and then slumped back against the bench. "That part is no big deal. I was going to dump his ass after this week anyway. I just wanted to enjoy some time at the beach first." She looked directly at me. "What I really hate is that I'm stuck in this shit-hole." She gestured at the empty dirt parking lot and the dust-streaked windows of the gas station garage. "There's nowhere to stay anywhere close by. So it looks like I'll be spending the next few days hanging out on this fucking bench and sleeping on the fucking couch in the back of the fucking garage where the owner is going to let me crash. Showering under a hose," she pointed at a grimy garden hose lying in the dirt, "and eating shitty vending machine food is going to be almost as good as the luxury beach house where the fucking shithead asshole ex is staying."
"How long were you in the Navy?" I asked.
She gaped at me. "What?"
"Based on your elaborate four-letter vocabulary, I figure you must have been in the Navy. I spent four years on a patrol boat and didn't hear obscenity as sophisticated as yours."
She blushed bright red for a second and then glared at me. "Sorry to offend your delicate sensibilities. I am who I am without apology, dirty words and all."
I stood up and imitated her stretch, which felt great. "No offense taken. Nobody has ever accused me of having 'delicate sensibilities.' I enjoy dirty words. I just like to space them out a bit, that's all."
She rolled her eyes and then laughed. "I'll definitely take that under advisement."
I opened the saddle bag on my bike and pulled out two water bottles. I uncapped one and tossed the other to her. She snatched it out of the air like she was catching a line drive up the middle. "Thanks." With a quick twist, she opened the bottle and began drinking.
"My pleasure and the least I can do for a fellow aficionado of dirty stuff."
The woman nearly choked on the upturned bottle when I said that. Her eyes were filled with a glint of humor and something else I couldn't identify.
"Listen," I began. "We don't know anything about each other, except that we're both sweating like pigs, and we know how to curse, but I can offer you a place to sleep that's at least safer than this 'shithole.'" I made air quotes with my fingers and waved my hands toward the garage.
She raised her eyebrows at me.
"There's an abandoned farm a couple of miles down the road that way," I pointed back where I'd come from. "I was planning on setting up my tent there. The ground looks soft, there are plenty of shade trees, and I've got an extra sleeping bag. I doubt anyone will complain."
"A tent?"
"Yeah, I just finished a three-day trip shooting in Sumter National Forest and am heading to Savannah for more. I camp as much as I can. It's a lot cheaper than hotels."
"What were you shooting?" She sounded wary.
I chuckled, realizing that I'd probably sounded like a mass murderer "Shooting pictures. I do freelance landscape and architecture photography."
"Oh." She sounded relieved and finished off her water. "You mean you and me in a tent, don't you?" She didn't sound very enthusiastic about my offer.
"Yeah. It's a four-person tent, so there's plenty of room for us to be in opposite corners." I held my sweat-drenched shirt away from my chest. "It's sauna-hot out here, even at night."
"Sounds positively fantastic. How could a girl turn down spending a sweaty night lying on the ground next to a complete stranger?"
"I thought you'd see it that way." I reached for my jacket and turned to remount my bike. Movement caught my eye, and to my surprise, I saw that she'd stood up, grabbed a backpack, and begun walking toward me.
"Do you think I'm afraid of perspiration, getting dirty, or you?"
I handed her the extra helmet I keep and swung onto the bike. She shouldered her pack, pulled on the helmet, and jumped onto the saddle behind me. I looked over my shoulder at her, "None of the above, no fucking way," I answered her rhetorical question.
"Damn, fucking straight," she said with a huge smile.
The sun was low on the horizon when we got to the farm about fifteen minutes later. Despite the wind whipping past us as we rode, we were both dripping wet when I parked the bike and pulled off my helmet. "By the way, I'm Mick," I said, holding out my hand.
"Leah," she said. Her grasp was firm and not at all wimpy. She shook her hair free, and it settled into a wild mass of sodden curls that framed her face. That and her begrimed dress made her look disheveled, to say the least; nonetheless, I found something about her very attractive.
I set up the tent and the rest of our camp with well-practiced efficiency. Dinner was sizzling atop a small fire shortly after the sun set. We drank more water, had a few beers, ate, and chatted about our lives. Despite her ongoing coarse rhetoric, I found that Leah was intelligent, lively, and fun. I let the fire burn down, then completely extinguished it to ensure it wouldn't get out of control even though there was no breeze. "Better get inside," I said and unzipped the mosquito netting. "Don't want to get eaten alive." Leah hesitated for a second before ducking in. Despite her bluster about not being afraid, I wondered if I'd misread her fearlessness. I thought not but laughed to myself that maybe I should be afraid.
It was hot as hell inside the tent. Had I been by myself, I would have stripped naked to try and get a modicum of relief. But I wasn't alone; sweat poured out of me, rolled down my sides, and drenched my jeans and t-shirt. It was miserable.
"Oh my fucking god!" Leah exclaimed from the far side of the tent. "It's like an oven in here."
"More like a jungle," I quipped, wiping the wetness from my face. "An oven is dry heat. This humidity makes it jungle hot."
"And that somehow matters, smartass?"
