Winter Road
Page 3
The man stands, and suddenly I’m looking straight up. He has to be nearly seven feet tall. Mom’s no midget, and even though she’s on tiptoe, he still has to double over to hug her.
When he finally lets her go and steps back, I can see another guy sitting at the booth—a young guy, and he’s totally hot! I hadn’t really been looking forward to this lunch, but suddenly I’m thinking it might not be too bad.
When the guy smiles, I realize I’m staring. I smile back self-consciously and then look around the room like somebody called my name. And then somebody does.
“Harvey, I’d like you to meet my daughter, Kat.”
He smiles and sticks out his hand. It’s huge.
“Nice to meet you,” I say, watching in awe as his fingers swallow mine—halfway up to my elbow!
“It’s a pleasure,” he replies gallantly, releasing my hand and turning toward the guy in the booth.
“Ladies, I’d like you to meet Finn Fergus, my newest driver. Finn, this is my old friend, Donna Mulholland, and her daughter, Kat.”
“Hey.” Finn nods and smiles.
Mom smiles back. “Hello, Finn. Nice to meet you.”
“Hi,” I mumble.
Harvey gestures toward the booth. Mom slides in, and Harvey sits down beside her. Since there’s only one spot left, I ease myself onto the vinyl bench beside Finn.
The menus are already on the table, so Mom and I open ours. Finn and Harvey don’t.
Mom looks up. “Have you guys already ordered?”
Harvey shakes his head. “Nah, but we’ve had plenty of time to decide what we want.”
I glance at Finn. “So what are you having?”
“A burger and fries.” Then he taps the glass on the table in front of him. “And a Coke.”
“Yeah, that sounds good,” I say and start to close the menu.
“Oh, look at this, Kat.” Mom holds up her menu and points to a photo. All I can see is the glare of the restaurant’s fluorescent lights bouncing off the glossy laminated page.
“What is it?” I ask, though I’d bet anything that whatever she’s found isn’t nearly as appetizing as a hamburger.
“A grilled chicken breast on a bed of linguine in red-pepper sauce. It makes my mouth water just reading the description. Let’s have that.”
From the perky tone of Mom’s voice and the sparkly expression on her face, a person would think she really wanted that. But I’m not fooled for a second. The only reason she’s pointed it out is because it’s a diabetes-friendly dish. And though it might sound like she’s offering me a suggestion, she’s really telling me what to order. I don’t have a choice, and I know it.
“Yeah,” I say. “Sure. Let’s get that.”
Mom smiles. Message sent and received. Mission accomplished.
When the server comes, Mom places our order. Whole-wheat pasta, cooked al dente, and as a special bonus, I get a glass of milk. I would do cartwheels, but the restaurant is crowded.
Mom and Harvey are totally consumed with their memories, leaving no room—or interest—for Finn and me.
“So how long have you been driving truck?” I ask Finn as we wait for our lunch.
He shrugs. “A couple of months.”
“Why?” I say.
His eyebrows bunch up in confusion. “What do you mean?”
“Why did you choose trucking? There are a lot of other jobs out there.”
“I guess. But you have to work at something. Why not trucking?”
“’Cause you’re never home?”
“That’s not really an issue,” he replies.
“So you’re not married?”
He snorts and sends me an are you nuts look.
“Okay,” I say, “but someday you probably will be. My dad was a trucker, and he was away from home almost as much as he was around. It made it tough to be a family.”
He shrugs. “Your mom is a trucker too.”
“Yeah, but she stopped when I was born and only started driving again after my dad died.” I steal a glance at my mom and Harvey and lower my voice. “And it’s already causing problems. Trust me. Trucking is not a family-friendly occupation.”
Finn grins. “I’ll keep that in mind if I ever decide to get married and have kids.”
Suddenly I feel self-conscious, like maybe I’m getting too personal. I change the subject. “Have you ever driven the winter road before?”
He shakes his head. “Nope. This is my first time. That’s why Harvey’s bringing me on this run—to show me the ropes.”
“Aren’t you nervous about crashing through the ice?” I ask. “You’re going to be driving a thirty-thousand-kilo tractor-trailer onto a lake.”
“A winter lake,” he reminds me. “The ice is really thick.”
“Yeah, but it’s getting to be spring. You can already feel the heat in the sun.”
Harvey joins our conversation. “And it’s supposed to get warmer. Still, there’s not much chance of going through the ice. The authorities keep a close eye on things. They’ll shut down the winter roads if they think they’re unsafe. The worst that would happen is that they’d close them while we’re in the boonies.”
I immediately think about how my mom has to get back to Winnipeg for her other run. Getting stranded would not be good.
Mom swats Harvey’s arm. “Scare the pants off her, why don’t you?” she scolds. “You don’t need to worry about making it back home, Kat,” she says, turning to me. “We’re doing a quick turnaround, and even with the warm weather, the ice won’t break down that quickly.”
The server arrives with our food, and I look longingly at Finn’s burger and fries.
“Want some?” he asks.
Across the table, Mom raises a warning eyebrow.
“No, thanks,” I say as I stab my fork into my chicken.
Now the main sounds are the clunk and clink of dishes and cutlery. After a while, though, I find myself listening to the truckers in the booth behind me. One guy is doing most of the talking—bragging, actually. From what I can gather, he has a new truck—the best one on the road, according to him.
“How is it on diesel?” someone asks.
“I’m getting nearly 15 k. per liter,” he says.
“No way!” another guy scoffs. “Now I know you’re lying. No rig gets that kind of mileage.”
“This one does, man.”
“Yeah, going downhill maybe.”
They all laugh.
“And it really moves, even when I’m hauling. Speaking of which, I gotta get going. See you, gents.”
As he passes our table, he nods to Finn.
“You know that blowhard?” Harvey asks. Clearly, he was listening to the conversation too.
“Sort of,” Finn replies. “His name’s Dwayne Bradley. We were in driving school together. He’s not so bad really. He talks a good story, but he’s okay.”
“And he’s got his own rig?” Mom says. “How? He’s just a kid. Where would he get that kind of money?”
Finn shoves a couple of fries into his mouth. “His dad’s got a few bucks, and Dwayne’s an only child. His old man buys him just about anything he wants.”
“Too bad,” Mom mutters, turning back to her lunch. “He might be less obnoxious if he had to struggle a bit.”
Chapter Six
Lunch is over before I know it. The thing is, I don’t want it to end. Finn and I are just starting to get to know each other.
“Maybe we’ll see you around,” he says as I slide out of the booth.
I smile. “Yeah, probably—considering we’re headed in the same direction.” I think about giving him my phone number, but he didn’t ask for it. And with Mom and Harvey right there, it would be embarrassing to offer it. Besides, Finn’s a smart guy. If he wants to look me up, he’ll figure it out.
“He’s too old for you,” Mom says as we climb into the truck.
I screw up my face like I don’t know what she’s talking about.
She laughs. “Do
n’t play innocent with me, Katarina Mulholland. I’m your mother, remember? You think I didn’t see you flirting with that young man?”
“Finn,” I say. “His name is Finn. And I wasn’t flirting.”
Mom rolls her eyes. “Fine. Finn. And yes, you were. It’s been a while since I’ve done any dating, but I still recognize the dance.”
“Honestly, Mother.” I shake my head. “You’ve been reading too many romance novels.”
She laughs again and starts up the truck. “Nice try, kiddo.”
“We had lunch,” I protest. “That’s all. Arranged by you and Harvey, I might add. Finn and I had no say in the matter. So we talked. It was either that or stare at our plates while you and Harvey strolled down memory lane.”
But Mom isn’t about to be led off topic. “He’s too old for you, so you might as well forget about him right now.”
“He’s twenty-three,” I say.
“And you’re sixteen. That’s seven years. I rest my case.”
“I’ll be seventeen in two months, so it’s really only six years,” I point out. “And besides, Dad was ten years older than you.”
For a few seconds she doesn’t answer. I’m not sure if it’s because I just cut her argument to ribbons or because she’s concentrating on maneuvering the semi out of the parking lot.
“You don’t know anything about him,” she says when we’re finally on the highway.
“Jeez, Mother!” I grumble. “You’re acting like I want to marry the guy. I just met him. But I like him, and I wouldn’t mind getting to know him better. What’s wrong with that?”
Mom reverts to her original objection. “He’s too old for you.”
I growl through my teeth, “Explain to me how Dad wasn’t too old for you, but Finn is too old for me. When you were my age, Dad would’ve been twenty-six.”
“Yes, but I wasn’t a minor when I met your father. I was a grown woman. I was twenty-two.”
“Twenty-two. Wow. Just about ready to collect a pension,” I say, and despite her determination to play the mother card and squash my friendship with Finn before it even gets started, she laughs. So I do too. Then I remind her that twenty-two isn’t that much older than almost seventeen. “In a little over a year, I’ll be eighteen, Mom—aka an adult. Or, as you put it, a grown woman.”
Zing! Got her again.
I have to hand it to my mother. She doesn’t give up easily. “Age differences are tricky. A few years is a huge gap when you’re young but less noticeable as you get older—which you aren’t. If you were two and Finn was eight, you would not be hanging out together. Your worlds would be too different. You’d have nothing in common. But when he’s fifty and you’re forty-four, the six years will be nothing.”
My jaw drops open, and I stare at her. “Are you saying I have to wait until I’m in my forties before I can hang out with him?”
“Okay, okay. Truce,” she says, chuckling. “We’ll talk about it when and if it becomes an issue.”
“Deal,” I agree. At the moment, this is as close as my mother is going to come to giving in, but it’s a start. And she’s right about one thing. If I never see Finn again, we could be arguing about nothing. I guess time will tell. In a way, though, it would be kind of cool if something did develop between us—kind of like an echo of my parents. Finn is a trucker, my dad was a trucker. Finn is older than me, Dad was older than my mom. Finn is good-looking and seems like a nice guy, and my dad was too. That’s when it hits me. Maybe that’s why my mother doesn’t want Finn and me to get together. He reminds her of my father, and that must hurt, because Dad’s gone.
“So tell me how you knew Dad was the one,” I say.
Mom sighs. “It was more a case of ruling out reasons why he was not the one. We went out for a couple of years before we got married, and in that whole time I couldn’t find anything about him that sounded alarm bells.”
“How romantic,” I say. “Did you have a checklist?”
“No. Of course not. It’s just that I’d been in a relationship before I met your dad, and for a while I’d thought that guy was Mr. Right. But as soon as we got engaged, things started to go sour. Things he said and did that I’d originally thought were cute little personality quirks really started to bother me. I guess it was the same for him, and as soon as we graduated from university, he went his way and I went mine. So when I met your father, I was a bit more wary.”
I swivel toward her. “You never told me you were engaged to someone before Dad.”
She shrugs. “It never came up.”
“Did Dad know?”
She laughs. “Of course he knew. Just like I knew about his past relationships.”
“Dad had other girlfriends before you?”
Mom smirks. “He was in his thirties when we met, so what do you think?”
“Huh.” I have to admit, the idea blows my mind a little. In fact, I couldn’t be more surprised if Mom said she’d been a secret agent.
As I try to get my head around this new version of my parents, I stare absently out the window. In the distance, on the side of the highway, a semi hauling a long flatbed piled with lumber has its flashers blinking.
Mom sees it too. “I wonder if there’s a problem,” she says. She slows down and pulls up beside the other truck. It’s shiny red, and the chrome on it gleams like there’s a force field between it and the dirty snow. Mom hits a button, and the window on my side opens.
Now I can see the driver. It’s the blowhard guy from the truck stop. He looks like he’s sleeping.
Mom honks her horn and leans toward the open window. The guy jumps and rolls down his window.
“Everything okay?” Mom asks.
The guys smiles. “Yeah. It’s all good. I was just taking care of some paperwork.”
With your eyes closed? I think. And on the side of the highway? Why didn’t you take care of it in the parking lot, before you got moving?
“No mechanical trouble?” Mom says.
“With this baby?” The guy is all bravado again. He runs his hand proudly over the steering wheel. “There better not be. She’s brand new.”
Mom waves. “Okay then. If you’re sure. Drive safe.” Then she does up the window, slips the truck into gear, and we’re off again.
“He wasn’t doing paperwork,” I say.
Mom shakes her head. “I didn’t think so either.”
“He was sleeping.”
She shrugs. “All I know is that he didn’t look too good. I wonder if he’s sick.”
“If he is, why didn’t he say so?”
Mom looks at me and raises an eyebrow. “A big tough guy like him? It would tarnish his image.”
“That’s dumb.”
“Yes, it is.”
“We might have been able to help him.”
“Clearly he didn’t want help, Kat. Some people are like that. Too much pride for their own good.” She pauses and then says, “It’s time to check your sugar levels. Don’t forget to record the reading.”
How convenient of my mother to remember my diabetes right at this moment. But unless I want to look like Dwayne, the ego-trip trucker, I can’t argue. Coincidence? I don’t think so. And when I see the corners of Mom’s mouth fighting back a smile, I know so.
Chapter Seven
Highway 304 is completely clear during our drive north, so we make pretty good time. Until we move onto a gravel road riddled with potholes. Of course, Mom slows right down, but even with my seat belt on, I bounce all over the place. When we get to Bloodvein and hang a right onto a narrow track of packed snow, we slow down even more. I check out the speedometer. Fifteen kilometers an hour—that’s it! I could walk faster.
“Why are we going so slow?” I ask.
“This is a winter road,” Mom says. “It only exists a couple of months a year. When the snow melts, the road is gone. It’ll take us where we need to go, but it’s fragile, especially under the weight of a big truck. Driving slow is less likely to compromise it.”
Crossing rivers, on the other hand, does make me worry, especially since there are quite a few. It’s not that they’re superwide, but the semi has to go down a bank to get onto them and then climb another on the other side to get back onto land. Mom says bridges have been built over many of the rivers on other winter roads, but that doesn’t help us, and I hold my breath with each crossing.
The scariest section of the road, though, is a spot called Webster’s Corner, a sharp right turn on the slippery road. Mom says more than one semi has overturned here. I hang on to the door and hold my breath until we’re past it.
It’s six o’clock when we get to Round Lake, and though it’s almost dark, Mom decides to put chains on. I offer to help—not that I know what to do—but she says she can handle it. Besides, she wants me to eat. There are prepared meals in the cab’s mini fridge, so I heat one in the microwave and hungrily wolf it down.
When I’m done, I get out of the truck to stretch my legs. Without the sun to warm things up, it feels like winter again, so I zip my jacket, pull up my hood and stuff my hands into my pockets.
Mom has already retrieved the chains from the rack where they hang when not in use and has draped them over the outside tires. She moves the truck backward and forward to get the chains in the right position to lock.
“How come you don’t put them on all the tires?” I ask.
“I need traction, but I don’t want to chew up the ice. It’s a fine line. Some truckers don’t use chains at all.”
It takes Mom a half hour or so to get the chains the way she wants them. After a while I lose interest and turn toward the lake. The truck’s headlights cast an eerie beam over the ice road that runs from the shore out into the darkness. Mom says the crossing is about three kilometers. I know truckers drive it every winter without anything going wrong, but temperatures have been higher than normal lately, so I keep picturing us getting halfway across and crashing through the ice.