Another chapter in the life of Cara, a librarian with a penchant for young and natural women...
***
It was something out of character for the middle aged librarian to slow her car on the shoulder of the dark and desolate highway when she saw a hitchhiker, because ordinarily Cara Janowsky would sooner step over a vagrant or brush past a person in need rather than lend a hand to someone. Add that to the fact that Cara had just spent over 12 hours working at the state library trying to fix all the blunders her incompetent staff left behind as they scurried out for the weekend, putting her in a even worse mood than usual, and that made her stopping the car for the hitchhiker even stranger.
Even as the hitchhiker walked up to the car Cara kept her hand on the gun she kept in the compartment on the door in case any man tried something, and she was ready to hit the gas and take off if the person was male. Neither was necessary however, because the waif that peeked into the car through the passenger window was a female, and after Cara asked where she was going the librarian told her to hop in.
Cara winced when she saw how grubby the girl was, with the bottoms of her jeans caked in dried mud that was shedding on the carpet of the Lexus, but by then the girl was in the car and the damage was done so Cara engaged the girl in conversation, although because of her blunt personality it probably seemed more like an interrogation than chit chat.
"Well, for one thing if you're trying to get to Albany you were on the wrong side of the street," Cara informed the girl when she asked her where she was headed. "Albany's south and I'm headed north."
"Oh. I don't know the area at all obviously. Just looking to get near some interstate. Have to get to Boston to catch up with Phish."
"Catching fish?" Cara asked.
"They're playing there in a couple of days," the girl said after figuring out the driver had no clue. "Phish. You know? The group? They just played SPAC for the last two nights."
"Oh. I think I've heard of them," Cara replied without conviction. "You follow them around? Is that like the Deadheads used to do?"
"Yeah, I was tagging along with some people but after the show in Saratoga I lost them."
"Well, I'm going home from Albany and I'm surely not going back tonight, not after working all day and night" Cara told her. "There's a train station nearby although I doubt there are any trains running down that way this late. Can you call your folks and maybe they can help you out?"
"Folks?" the girl snorted. "That's not going to happen."
"A young girl like you shouldn't be walking dark roads around here at night. There's so many perverted men out there preying on kids."
"I can handle myself, and I ain't no kid lady. Almost 21."
"Is that so?" Cara replied dubiously while looking at the scruffy looking waif in the dim light of the dashboard.
"Yep."
"Look, I don't know how you would feel about this, but if you want I can let you stay overnight at my place, and in the morning I can drive you down to Albany," Cara offered. "Either that or I can drop you off at a motel."
"Can't afford that," the girl admitted. "You would do that? Let me crash at your place?"
"It's not something I usually do but I can't just leave you out on the side of the road."
"That's far out. You would do that for a stranger?"
"Depends. What's your name?
"Roberta. I know. I hate it. My friends call me Bobbie."
"It's not so bad. My name is Cara," the librarian said. "There. Now we aren't strangers, are we - Bobbie?"
This made the girl laugh, and as Cara drove to her house she had no intentions of doing anything with the kid, because there was no way the kid was anything close to 21. Still, the girl was cute in her own way and she could really use a warm bath because her body odor was intense and her clothes were filthy.
Calm down Cara, she told herself as she pulled into the driveway. No girl is worth going to jail for.
***
"This?" Cara responded after the hitchhiker commented favorably about the rather rustic cabin that the librarian used as a weekend retreat. "I have a home down near the capital but I come up here for the weekends to get away from the city. It's peaceful because there's no traffic and the nearest other residence is almost a 1/4 mile away. Nothing fancy but it has electricity and running water."
"Looks like paradise to me," Bobbie replied as Cara got a look at her new friend for the first time in the light. "I slept last night in the back seat of somebody's car and the night before under the stars."
"You must really like these fish," Cara commented as she looked at what seemed to be a really skinny girl under very asexual baggy clothing that looked beyond grubby.
"Yeah, they're pretty cool," Bobbie countered. "Mostly I just do this every summer they tour, follow them around. I guess it's like your weekend retreat only for a couple months. Then it's back to college in Buffalo."
"SUNY?"
"Yeah, junior year coming up."
"Oh, so you really are almost 21," Cara said as she ushered her guest into the kitchen area.
"I know I don't look it. I still have the acne from my early teens."
"Only slight scars and they fade it time. Mine did," Cara suggested and then heard herself offer the girl some soup.
"Far out," Bobbie chirped as she sat down and watched the woman dump a can of soup into a pan to heat up. "Sorry about how nasty I am. I really reek."
"After you eat you're free to take a bath or shower - your choice - and I can wash your clothes."