I was on the verge of tears as my car sputtered and wheezed on a seeming death roll into a small town in the middle of the vast emptiness, and nowhere, of southern New Mexico. Hell not even a town; more like a roadside rest area with a zip code. With just four street lights lining the main stretch through the center of "town", I saw only three buildings; thank God that one of them was a service station.
Willing my hemorrhaging vehicle with all my heart and soul to hold on just a few seconds longer, I managed to pull it off the road and into the service station parking lot where it then proceeded to die. I tried desperately to start it again, but it didn't even so much as stir. Pounding my forehead and fists on the steering wheel, I felt the tears begin to flow.
I dug into my purse and pulled out my cell phone only to find that I had no service. Naturally! And besides, who was I going to call anyway? My son was in Iraq on his second tour of duty while my philandering husband was on yet another one of his "business trips" to consult with a client. I wondered how long he'd been "consulting" this particular "client"; and how old she was. The last one was just nineteen; just a year older than our daughter.
Rapidly reaching the end of my emotional rope, I stepped out of my sweltering hot car in the hopes of finding a refreshing evening breeze. Not a chance! The air was completely still and dreadfully stale; and even though the sun had set over an hour ago, the stifling late August heat refused to relent. As I stood in that parking lot in nothing but a white pair of sandals and a lake blue colored strapless summer dress that smocked at the bust and fell into a ruffled hem to the middle of my calves, I felt like a beach-walking hooker. I still couldn't believe that I had let my daughter talk me into buying it; let alone into actually wearing it. But God love her, she had!
I had spent the last three days getting my daughter all settled into her dorm room at Arizona State University. Though Amanda had insisted that she didn't need my help, I ultimately pulled rank on her; not to mention a little bit of a guilt trip too. I still couldn't get over that my baby girl was eighteen years old and a freshman in college. Grumbling at first, Amanda finally came to appreciate having me with her and it turned out to be a wonderful girl's weekend getaway. Once we got her all moved in, we spent the remaining two days giving my American Express Gold Card a massive workout. And one of the purchases we made was the silly little summer dress I was then wearing. I'll never forget Amanda pressing it up against me, still on its hanger and virtually ordering me to try it on.
"Come on! It'll look so sexy on you, Mom." She had said.
"Sweetie, this is for a young woman with a beautiful figure." I told her. "In other words, it's for you."
"Mom, will you stop that! Good God, sometimes you talk as if you're ready for the retirement home. You're only forty-four. And you've got a fantastic body." She argued. "I mean, look at you!"
Amanda jerked me over in front of a full length mirror and stood behind me as she continued to hold the dress over the front of me.
"You're tall and slender; you got perfect olive skin, beautiful face, misty green eyes and all this long and gorgeous brown hair." She continued as she combed her sleek little hands through my shoulder blade length hair.
"Ohh, you're so sweet." I said as I blushed.
"You got great curves, long and sexy legs, a flat and firm tummy, sexy shoulders, big and perky boobs!" She continued.
"Amanda!" I snapped.
"Not to mention one of the most perfect, tight and sumptuous asses I've ever seen!" She went on.
"Okay, I think I get your point!" I shouted.
"That you're a beautiful, sexy woman that any man worth his salt would kill to get naked with?" Amanda said.
"Enough!" I roared and had just about everyone else in the store looking at us. "Alright, you win; I'll try it on."
"Thank you!" Amanda declared triumphantly.
"My daughter, the Madam." I jabbed as I headed toward the dressing room.
"My mother the MILF." Amanda called after me.
"What's a MILF?" I asked.
"Mother I'd like to Fuck!" Amanda replied with a grin.
"Amanda!" I gasped in shock.
"Becky!" She gasped back in a mocking tone and then giggled.
I shot her a stern scowl and shook my finger at her before practically storming into the dressing room and slamming the door.
"Daddy's gonna go tell it on the mountain when he sees you in it." I heard her call after me and I felt as though I'd been kicked in the stomach.
Neither Amanda nor Nick, my twenty-three year old son, had any clue of their father's incessant philandering; and I wanted to keep it that way for as long as I possibly could. Don't ask me why.
Needless to say, I went ahead and bought the damn thing. Now I could lie and say it was because I just wanted Amanda off my back, but the truth is; I was extremely impressed with how nice it looked on me, even for a woman of nearly six-foot-one. As I studied myself in the mirror in the dressing room, I felt very feminine, attractive and desirable for the first time in God knows how long. Of course, whether I'd actually wear it in public remained to be seen; I highly doubted it. But as you can clearly tell, my baby girl has not only a remarkable way with words, but is also highly skilled in the art of manipulative persuasion. And it's because of that that I now stood in the deserted parking lot of a small, rundown old service station in the middle of the vast emptiness of the New Mexico desert after dark with nothing but a thin cotton summer dress covering me. And what was worse; I was "going commando". I was already without a bra when I slipped it on that morning and my daughter somehow managed to talk me into not wearing underwear either. Talk about a mid-life crisis.
Except for the four street lamps lining the road through "town", all around me was total blackness; there was not a moon out tonight or even any stars. I could see tiny scattered lights in the distance which I assumed to be homes, but they were miles away across the vast valley floor; and it was deathly quiet. Just then I heard the sound of an air conditioning unit kicking on and it was very close by. Turning back toward the ancient gas and service station, I noticed a faint light coming through the dusty windows of the bay doors of the garage. Was it open? Glancing at my watch, I found that it was just after nine; probably not. But what the hell! I've got to do something.
Retrieving my purse from off the passenger seat, I shook out my somewhat disheveled hair that was sticking to the sweaty skin of my bare back and shoulders then strode hurriedly across the parking lot toward the garage doors. The place was clearly a relic; a classic, all-American, Route 66 type service station with full service gas pumps, free air and water dispenser, a filthy little glassed-in front office that no doubt reeked of sixty years worth of stale cigarette smoke and the infamous, utterly rancid tiny restrooms with the sky blue tiling. There was a war-torn old tow truck parked on the far side of the garage that looked to be as old as the station itself. As I passed under the canopy over the gas pumps, I heard country music coming from inside the garage; I also noticed that one of the bay doors was raised halfway.
Arriving at the half open door, I peered into the garage and was instantly hit with the infamous odors of a service garage: gasoline, tire rubber, burnt motor oil and as I had surmised, stale cigarette smoke. Taking a deep breath, I slipped under the door and was hit with a blast of semi-cool air that was blowing from the huge floor fan in the corner of the shop. I slowly rounded the rear of a beat up old clunker that was parked in the first bay and moved up cautiously between it and a mid 1970s model Ford pick-up truck that was parked in the second bay. Practically tiptoeing now, I heard the sound of a socket wrench cranking beneath the raised hood of the pick-up truck.
"Hello." I called out.
Instantly, a young woman sprang out from under the hood of the truck, clearly startled out of her wits and holding a socket wrench in her hand.
"Jesus Christ!" She roared.
"I'm sorry." I said; equally startled. "I didn't mean to scare you."
The young woman exhaled a deep, relaxing breath and wiped her forehead with the back of her filthy hand. As hard as my heart was pounding, I could only imagine what hers must be doing.
"You shouldn't sneak up on people like that." She snapped. "Especially after closing time. How'd you get in here anyway?"
"The bay door was open." I told her.
"What time is it?" She asked.
"It's just after nine." I replied, glancing again at my watch.
"We closed at seven. Sorry. Come back tomorrow." She growled.
"Look, I really hate bothering you like this, but it's an emergency. I'm in a terrible jam. My car died on me just as I was coming into town. I just dropped my daughter off at college and I'm on my way home. My son is overseas, my husband is on a business trip, my daughter is clear back in Arizona and I'm still hundreds of miles from home in Texas. And there is no cell phone service out here apparently." I explained.
The young woman whistled as she pulled a filthy rag from the back pocket and wiped her sweaty forehead.
"Sounds like you're having a pretty tough day." She said matter-of-factly.
"You have no idea." I replied.
"Where's your car now?" She asked.
"It's right out here in the parking lot." I told her. "I managed to get it pulled in here before it died."
"Well, let's have a look-see then." She said.
"Oh thank you so much." I said; trying desperately to keep from bursting into tears.
