(This story is dedicated to Rozalin_0123 and is a birthday gift from me to her. Happy Birthday, you wonderful lady, and I do hope you enjoy this little road trip to the coast.
Four miles.
"Oh damn."
Three miles.
"Oh damn, oh damn.
Two miles.
Check for state troopers—no? Gun it!
One Mile.
"Oh, damn, damn, damn."
Off-ramp! Rest stop! BATHROOM!
Not worrying about my purse, cell phone or anything damn thing else but my bladder and the possibility of doing a very childish thing, I scrambled out the car and sprinted into the rest stop and through the door with the little, dress wearing lady. Past the dripping sinks, the hand driers, and the trash can with wadded up, brown paper towels. Past the baby changing station with its cute Koala teddy bear, and past the startled woman on her cell phone. Into a stall, pants and panties already going past my hips as I was knocking the door shut with my elbow.
"Oh, thank god," I moaned as my eyeballs crossed.
The strain of trying to hover over a seat, since I had not wiped it down, was offset by the total sense of relaxation that spread from me as I sent a rill in to the bowl that would have been the envy of the men in the other bathroom. Both in volume and sound. A fact I became all too aware of when, after I wiped and pulled up my pants, I opened the door to find the cell phone lady, phone now put away, looking at me, trying her damndest not to smile.
"Close call?" she asked, her lips twitching.
"Very." I breathed a sigh, and then for some reason felt a need to explain myself to a total stranger. "I took my water pill this morning by mistake, not thinking about the drive I had to make today. I think I'm going to die before I get where I'm going."
She gave me a sympathetic half-chuckle, and then rolled her eyes when her cell phone began to blow up again.
"Yes? No, I haven't left the rest stop yet,"' she said with clearly exhausted patience.
I left her to her call and went to the sink to clean my hands. When I was going to use the noisy hand drier I stopped, decided to be courteous to her and just pulled a handful of the paper towels instead. I gave her a nod as I went out the door and into the lobby. She smiled, nodded, then rolled her eyes again and gave me a "Yack, yack, yack" sign with her hand.
Grinning, I went outside into the lobby, which smelled of either Clorox bleach or Pine-Sol or maybe some chemically toxic lethal mixture of the two, to consult the big, framed map. I was tracing my route with a finger when cell phone lady came out the restroom, still making slightly annoyed yes-no answers to whomever was on the other end. She gave me a second smile and went past me out the doorway. I paused in my destination contemplation to look at her from her painted toenails, in those comfortable-as-sin looking Birkenstock sandals, to the top of her slightly windblown hair.
Nice.
Walking out the doorway I found myself following her up the sidewalk, admiring the hourglass figure she must wear a corset sometimes to get, till I saw her put up her cell phone with an angry shake of her head. She hopped in a smart, sporty, little blue convertible and was tying on a rose-colored head scarf when I walked past to my own top-down Mustang.
We exchanged one last smile then she pulled out and disappeared off down the road and out onto the highway.
Getting into the car, I paused as I closed the heavy door, considering if I had to go back to the restroom again before I took off. I sat there for a few moments, trying to sense the inner will of my bladder, and after a moment decided I was good.
** ** ** ** ** ** **
"Damn, damn, damn. OHHHH! Damnit!"
I swerved the Mustang.
"No bumps!"
The big car roared down the highway, eating mile markers like Pez candy, but I needed it to be eating them like popcorn. By the handful...
Two miles.
"Oh, damn it..."
One mile—Rest stop.
BRAKES!
Leaving the tire-smoking car, and a dozen frightened or amused gawking people, I raced into the restroom not even bothering to check what door I went through. I was nearly in tears from the relief I felt as I filled the bowl. All but shaking in near orgasmic pleasure, I wiped and left the stall, to find that I had picked the right door after all. The other ladies gave me amused, understanding smiles.
When I walked back out, there was a very familiar blue convertible pulling in next to mine. She saw me walking from the bathroom and gave me a grin.
"I was ahead of you for about thirty miles, but then you came past me like I was sitting still." She closed her door and was about to say something else but her phone chirped. "Oh, for fuckity, fuck sake already. Sorry."
I shrugged and went to the passenger side of the Mustang.
"Yes?" she said with exasperation. "No, I'm not getting huffy, but damn it you just hung up not two minutes ago. Yes, I'm stopped at a rest stop again, I wanted a Coke. No, I didn't want to sit in a drive through just to get a drink."
Getting my own drink from the cup holder, I walked over to one of the park benches to sit and drink my soda on something not moving for once in three hours and to give my betraying bladder time to refill again. It had not been fifteen minutes down the road from the last rest stop when I had begun to need to go again. God fucking damn this shit today. I watched her talking and pacing a bare spot in the grass beside the cars till she finally got fed up with the caller and held the phone away from her ear. She looked at me and gave me this shaking with rage gesture. Then she made like she wanted to strangle her phone.
I had to laugh at that.
She nodded, shook her head with resignation and stalked off towards the restrooms with the phone again pressed to her ear.
Sipping at my soda, I pulled my phone from my hip and looked at it, for a moment feeling envy for the other lady and the person calling her. Mine hadn't so much a butt-dial me a chime in two days. But then I knew that if I had someone as up my ass all the time as whoever was calling her, they would be told off and out my life in a hurry. Clipping it back on, I leaned my back into the concrete table top and closed my eyes.
The rustle of a bag of chips, being opened behind me, popped my eyes open. Looking over my shoulder, I saw cell phone lady walking up to the table.
"Mind if I join you?" she asked.
"Not at all." I spun around and straddled one leg over the bench to sit, more or less, facing her. "Noora."
She smiled. "Ann." She sat down with the same type of long suffering sigh I had given. "I'm so tired of driving today, and I have miles to go before I sleep."
"Same. All the way to the coast." I shrugged and half-pointed towards her phone on the table. "At least someone's keeping you company."
She shook her head.
"Annoying the pants off of me." She spun the phone around and slid it over to me. "Bridgette, my BFF...well, my sometimes best friend. She's pushing things this week. I'm headed to the coast as well. Meeting her. Some big mystery she won't talk to me on the phone about."
"Sorry," I said for something to say as I handed her back the phone. The girl in the picture had been a yummy brunette, all curves and boobs, in a bikini that was strings and postage stamps. Just the sight of her made me hungry, and horny. It also made me think back to my last...BFF, Samantha, and to the fights between us, not too dissimilar to what I've been privy to today. Fights that had ended that relationship.
Ann waved off the apology and ate a chip. Not two, or a small tight packed cluster like I would have, but a single chip. She sipped her diet Dr. Pepper, and looked over at my Mustang and her car, then back at me. "I wasn't kidding, how fast were you going? I only saw a black blur and then your bumper disappeared!"
"I wasn't really paying attention to the speedometer, I was watching for red and blue lights to appear behind me."
"Well, I was doing at least seventy five to eighty so you were, god—well over a hundred and ten. At least!" She shook her head.
Shrugging, I sipped the watery soda. The ice had melted long ago to make this fountain drink disgusting, but it was not worth the effort to go get a bottled soda from the vending machines.
"Do you mind if I ask why you're heading for the coast?" she asked me when it got quiet again.
"Oh, not at all." I smiled at her being a bit nosey "I've got to go to a small condo, I was timesharing with a friend and get some stuff I left behind. She's, well–we're, selling the rest of the lease. We had a bit of a falling out, she and I."
"Oh. Oh, sorry to hear that. A misunderstanding? I have lost friends like that myself before. I..." She jumped a bit when the phone in her hand went off. She looked at it. "Oh for heaven sake, Bridgette." With a shake of her head she looked up at me. "Sorry, I have to take it. If I let it ring, she will think I'm dead in a ditch somewhere."
I motioned for her to go ahead. To give her a bit of privacy, I got up and walked to the trash can and chucked the remains of my soda. When I looked back, she was again up and pacing her line in the grass again.
"No, I'm not! I wanted to sit still for a few minutes; I've been driving all damn morning. Yes, I will. Yes. I will! Look, I know...I didn't say that!"
Walking over to the vending machines, I managed to get a hand somehow into the pocket of these too-damn tight–but-look-so-good-on-me—jeans and fished out some change to buy a drink to tide me over on the road. The wind coming in the convertible kept drying out my mouth. I could have put the top up but it was such a beautiful day.
Okay, drink check. Restroom needs? Good. Rested? Well, nothing short of the bed at the condo would give me the rest I need, and that was still hours away.
And, of course, thinking about the bed got me to thinking about the condo. The fun times, the many years of going there to just let the rest of the world piss off for a few days. The wonderful days in the sun, the even hotter nights in that bed.
The arguments. The jealousy. The fights. The long talks. The long times when we didn't talk. Then the oh so predictable end.
I looked over at the cell phone lady–Ann? Ann, yeah that was it. She was walking, talking, and shaking her head. It was so familiar a look, I had to get away from it. Too many memories. I gave her a wave when she turned my way, and I had to smile at her rolled eyes. Then I headed for the Mustang.
** ** ** ** ** ** **
When the green traffic signs finally began to show my destination, I could have wept. Now the mile markers were like a countdown.
159 miles,
158 miles,
