by Leah Atwood
“I don’t travel with women. I thought I was riding with a man named Avery and his teenage son.”
Eli’s eyebrows shot up. “You thought Mom was a man? That’s awesome. Wait till I tell Grandma and Grandpa! They’re going to love it!”
Avery watched as Eli immediately began texting. Great. Now she was a topic of gossip between her son and parents.
She returned her gaze to Gavin. “Sorry. I’m not a man. We still have a job to do, though, and we need to get going. If you’re going to refuse, tell me now so I can leave without you. I’m sure between the two of us, Eli and I can get plenty of pictures with our cellphones. We’ll gladly give you all the credit for the shots when the article runs.”
His jaw clenched.
Maybe she shouldn’t poke an angry bear.
“It’s nothing personal, but I don’t travel with women.”
“Why? If you think I’m going to be a bad driver, you’re welcome to take your turn behind the wheel.”
“I’ve had way too much trouble in my life with women thinking they could get a leg-up in their career by warming my bed, so I made it a rule. I don’t travel with women. Period.”
Of all the condescending, chauvinist, egotistical, sexist things to say…
Avery’s foot began to tap out a harsh staccato beat on the sidewalk as she crossed her arms. Her temperature went from cool to frigid faster than a flea jumps. “One, I’m not some sweet thing hanging on your every word, and you’d best not forget it. Two, you will watch what you say in front of my son. Three…”
Gavin raised his hands and shook his head. “I’m sorry. That came out wrong. I—I’m a little edgy I guess. Can we forget I said that?” Then he glanced over to where Eli leaned against the car. “But for the record, it’s not like he’s four years old here.”
Her jaw clenched. She glowered at him for a good long minute before she jerked her chin in the direction of the car. “Load your equipment up, and we’ll get out of here.”
Eli opened the hatchback and Gavin considered the small amount of space remaining for his equipment. “There’s no way this is going to work.”
Avery started drumming her nails on the rooftop of the car. “This is as good as it gets. They gave away every other vehicle. Make it work, even if you have to take up part of the back seat.”
Not even a token protest came from Eli as the bag of snacks and Avery’s suitcase got shoved up into the seat next to him. Some careful rearranging allowed Gavin to cram everything else into the tiny space called a trunk.
Eli, watching with interest, pointed to a gauge on one of Gavin’s camera cases. “What’s that for?”
“It’s called a dry box.” At least Gavin’s irritation didn’t spill over onto Eli. “It’s designed to control and monitor humidity inside the case.”
Eli’s eyebrows lifted. “What for?”
“Changes in temperature and humidity cause condensation in the lenses and can lead to fungus and other problems.”
“Aren’t cameras designed to prevent that?”
Gavin looked at Eli through the still-lifted hatchback. “Sure. Good equipment should be water-tight, but nothing’s ever a hundred percent. Why take chances? Prevention is easy and fairly cheap compared to the alternatives.”
“Huh.” Eli turned back around in his seat. “Who knew?”
Gavin, who had to be at least six inches taller than Avery’s five-foot eight-inch frame, closed the hatchback door, and climbed into the front passenger seat. He managed to squeeze his legs into the space under the dashboard but was muttering under his breath the whole time. “Could you have gotten a smaller car?”
“Is everything alright?” She plastered a smile on her face.
“Just peachy.” His tone was drier than the Sahara.
When she pulled back out into traffic heading away from the freeway rather than toward it, he started to protest. “Where…”
“Dude.” Eli’s voice came from behind them. “I forgot the charger for my phone.”
Avery gave her son The Look via the rearview mirror. “Eli, this is Mr. Eastly. His name is not Dude.”
Gavin reached awkwardly behind him and shook Eli’s hand. “You can call me Gavin, and I feel your pain.”
“You have no idea about my pain. The rental lot wanted to give Mom a Zeon, and she refused.”
“You turned down a Zeon for this hunk of junk!” Even the sunglasses couldn’t hide the incredulous look on Gavin’s face.
Great. If a tire blew, it’d be because of the weight of all the extra testosterone filling up the car.
Chapter Four
Edgewood, NM
December 23, 4:00 p.m.
“I’m starving, Mom. We missed lunch because of the hang-up with the rental agency. Let’s stop and get something to eat.”
“Get something out of the snack bag, Eli. We haven’t even been on the road an hour yet. It’ll be sunrise before we pull into Nowhere, and I don’t want to make a bunch of stops along the way to slow us down and make this drive stretch out any further than it has to.”
Gavin was hungry, too, and he wasn’t about to let Avery keep him from a meal. He had to admit, the fruit smoothie he’d had did not count as food. It was, however, far too early in their trip to start conceding victory to his traveling companion. He’d seen the way she’d inspected his drink, her lips thinned and eyes narrowed in disdain. Because of that, he planned to keep his opinion of that fruity midday snack entirely to himself. “I’m hungry, too. Mexican sounds good.”
“Yeah!” Eli’s voice echoed in the small space.
“Guys, let’s forge ahead. Maybe after we get a hundred miles behind us, then we’ll stop.”
Avery’s stomach growled then. Loudly.
“Admit it, you’re as hungry as the rest of us.” At least Gavin wasn’t smirking when he said it.
“Come on, Mom.” Eli’s voice wheedled.
“Fine. I could use a pit stop, anyway.”
“Mom makes lots of pit stops.” Eli made it sound like the end of the world. “She has a tiny bladder.”
Gavin noted the blush that crept up Avery’s neck and colored her cheeks. He was sure she didn’t appreciate her son sharing that particular bit of information, but she didn’t bite back. “I don’t have a small bladder. I have a bladder permanently damaged from having carried and brought you into this world. You weren’t exactly a small baby, you know.”
Eli pointed out a sign on the side of the freeway advertising a Mexican restaurant on the corner of Walker and Edgewood 7.
An ulterior motive behind his words, Gavin casually posed a question. “Who puts a number in the name of a street that way?” He wanted to watch the conversation between mother and son. The interplay between the two of them was unique, and as determined as he was not to enjoy this trip, he liked what the mother-son conversation said about their relationship.
Avery spoke first. “Albuquerque has First Street, Second Street, Third Street…”
“That’s not even close to being the same thing.” Eli laughed. “It sounds like a movie theater to me.” He mimicked a deep theater voice. “The Edgewood 7 Cinema with seven screens showing all your favorite films.”
She deftly moved through traffic and led them to the restaurant. “You don’t get to mock me, kid. I’m your mother.”
“You’re being crabby because you stayed up all night reading a book and didn’t get enough sleep. I told you not to drink the coffee, but did you believe me when I told you it would put you in a bad mood today? No.”
Gavin let the two Westons volley their conversation back and forth.
“This might not be such a good idea.” Hesitation filled Eli’s voice as the car came to a stop.
Looking at the restaurant, Gavin had to agree. The paint was peeling, there were exactly two cars in the parking lot, and he wasn’t sure, but he thought some of the restaurant’s windows might have peeling faded tape on them. Whether it was to cover cracks or hold the windows together, he could
n’t tell.
“We passed a sign that said there’s a drive-in further down the road. Should we go there instead?” Avery’s voice gave nothing away.
Gavin got the feeling Avery was used to being in charge and didn’t often ask anything. He wondered if she even realized she was deferring this decision to him.
“It’ll be fine.” He forced some cheer into his voice. “I’m sure it’s better on the inside. You know how these little hole-in-the-wall places are. They usually have some of the best food.”
“Then why isn’t anybody here?” Eli still wasn’t convinced.
“It’s Christmas Eve eve. Everyone’s out shopping.”
“Christmas Eve eve?” Avery’s voice held suspicion.
“Sure, haven’t you heard of it before?” Gavin opened his door. “It’s the night before Christmas Eve. People are either out shopping or too broke to eat out. That means we’ll get fresh food and great service. Come on!”
It took a little work, but they all managed to climb out of the small car without falling to the ground in the parking lot. Having been raised a gentleman, Gavin held the restaurant door for Avery. By the time he stepped through behind Eli, she was already out of sight. He removed his sunglasses and searched for her.
Eli gave his unspoken question a one-word answer. “Bathroom.”
“How big of a baby were you, anyway?”
The teen shrugged. “My birth certificate says ten pounds, but if I’ve ticked her off, it can be as much as fifteen.”
Gavin chuckled as he moved off in search of a hostess or waiter. “Hello? Anybody here?”
The man who came out from the back had food stains on his shirt, some refried beans stuck to his beard, and teeth that shined oddly when he smiled at them in greeting. After he seated them and moved away, Eli leaned across the table. “Were his teeth gold?”
Trying to think of a good way to get them out of the restaurant without having to admit he may have been wrong to insist they eat there, Gavin barely heard him. Before he could come up with a good plan of escape, Avery slid into the booth next to her son and picked up a menu.
“Did you ask the waitress what’s good here?” She scanned the menu.
“Not exactly.” Gavin was running out of options.
As Avery perused her menu, Gavin got distracted from his escape plan and studied her instead. She was wearing comfortable jeans and a long-sleeved olive green shirt. Wrapped around her neck, a knitted scarf that should have looked old-fashioned complimented her outfit and set off the green in her eyes. No, wait. They were brown.
Gavin blinked, rubbed his eyes, and looked again. Green. It was almost as if her eyes couldn’t make up their mind which color they wanted to be. He wondered if they changed with her mood. If so, her mood was skipping faster than a flat rock on a still pond.
Gavin had read enough of Avery’s work for the newspaper to have formed an impression. He’d always thought she was a good writer but had sometimes found her approach to certain topics a little out-of-character for a man. Now that he could see Avery was most definitely not a man, he needed to reevaluate the opinion he’d formed of her.
A woman approached their table. She wasn’t covered in food stains, but Gavin winced when he saw her bare feet. Hoping neither Eli nor Avery would notice, he hurriedly ordered. “I’ll have a Number One.” He hadn’t examined the menu yet, but there was no way to admit that without confessing that he’d spent the entire time studying the woman across from him, which he was loath to do.
“I’ll have the chicken chimichanga.” Avery’s voice was polite and decisive.
“The taco platter, please.” Eli was ready with his order when the waitress looked at him. “Could we get some chips and salsa, too? With, like, five extra little bowl-things of salsa?”
Gavin’s face must have given away his surprise. As soon as the waitress left, Avery leaned partway across the table. “Trust me.” Her stage whisper drew him in. “We’ll go through it all. I tried to teach Eli it’s kinder to make the waitress get it all up front instead of making her run back and forth to the kitchen to get more the entire time we’re here.”
“You two must enjoy your food spicy.”
Avery shrugged, but Eli filled the silence. “Mom swears the only way she could get me to eat anything when I was little was to put cayenne pepper on it. I haven’t seen any pictures to prove it, so I’m still not sure I believe her.”
Before too much longer, the food arrived. They all gaped at their plates. Eli was the first to speak. “Well, I guess it could be worse.” It wasn’t so much that the food had a horrible appearance. There simply didn’t seem to be a lot of color. Everything was covered in pale iceberg lettuce and chopped tomato that seemed to have been leached of its color.
Eli took his fork and scooped all the lettuce and tomato out of his three tacos. He piled it all on top of his beans which, Gavin surmised, were not going to be eaten.
Avery cleared her throat and gazed pointedly at her son, who put his fork down. “We pray at mealtimes. You’re welcome to participate.” Her voice was kind and matter-of-fact. Gavin respected that. Some people could be obnoxious about their faith, and other people could be too timid to speak up at all.
“That’s fine.”
Her mouth forming a soft O, Avery’s eyes widened for a moment. Then she nodded and bowed her head. “Lord, thank you for this food. We ask You to see us safely on our journey to Nowhere and back.”
Eli’s snicker was followed by an Ow.
“Keep us all in the palm of Your hand.” Avery continued as though there hadn’t been a teenaged interruption. “And help us to remember the reason we celebrate Christmas. Amen.”
Gavin opened his eyes to see Eli reaching for the salsa. He dumped one entire bowl of the stuff over his Spanish rice and split two more bowls between his three tacos. Then he watched as Avery picked up a bowl and scooped the entire contents onto her chimichanga. When she reached for the last bowl, he raised an eyebrow, and her hand stilled. “Were you going to use that?” The blush was becoming on her.
He looked down at his plate. Before his brain had time to process his thought, the words came out of his mouth. “What on earth did I order?”
“You got a Number One.” Eli’s answer came between bites of his salsa-drenched taco.
“Go ahead and use the salsa.” There was no reason to keep Avery waiting as ogled his plate. He took a fork and started shoving the lettuce and tomato out of the way so he could see the food. Unearthing what might have been a burrito, he cut into it and peeked inside to find crab meat and some kind of fish with celery, beans, and rice. The second item on his plate was flat like a tostada, but covered in a red sauce that looked like it had been scraped out of the bottom of a pan. A week-old pan. Unable to identify the third item on his plate, he debated whether or not to risk a bite. It might have been a taquito… or something else entirely.
When the waitress came back to fill up their drinks, Gavin put in his request. “Three more bowls of salsa, please.”
As they left the restaurant, Gavin offered to drive.
Avery shook her head. “I’d rather, if you don’t mind. I’m not much for night driving, so I’ll gladly let you take the bulk of the shifts once the sun goes down.
Before their ugly little hatchback had even made it all the way onto the freeway, Gavin’s stomach started clenching. He broke out in a sweat as he clutched his middle. The cramping pain intensified with each little rut in the road. Gavin glared at Avery, certain she was hitting every bump and pothole on purpose. There was no way she could accidentally hit every bad spot in the road.
Eli’s voice sounded hollow. “I don’t feel so good.”
Gavin sucked shallow breaths in through his nose, trying to minimize the movement of his diaphragm so his stomach might have a chance to settle down. Each breath, however, sent shards of pain shooting through his middle. “I’m with Eli.” The words came out on a gasp.
Avery, who had been studiously driving
with her hands at ten and two o’clock on the steering wheel, started darting her eyes between the rearview mirror where she could watch her son and the road ahead. Concern filled her voice. “Do we need to stop?”
Gavin didn’t hear Eli’s answer, but Avery was rapidly moving toward an exit that boasted a rest area. For the briefest of moments he wondered if she’d have stopped for him. Then another cramp doubled him over, which was at best awkward in the confined space of the car, and he no longer cared why she was stopping, just as long as she did stop.
By the time the car came to rest in its parking spot, Gavin and Eli had their doors partway open. They both ran for the bathroom as fast as they could, impeded by crippling stomach cramps as they were.
Gavin couldn’t tell which of them was whimpering the loudest – him or Eli.
Chapter Five
Moriarty, NM
December 23, 5:30 p.m.
Avery sat at a picnic table outside the rest area building. About twenty minutes prior, the sun had painted the sky in brilliant shades of pink, yellow, and orange. The sky was so big. A New Mexico sunset can’t help but last forever. Those previously brilliant colors slowly faded, and the last little bit of daylight seeped away.
Rising from her seat, Avery stretched before striding toward the car. She fought with the driver-side door and seat as she tried to get to her suitcase. When she got it wrestled to the ground outside the car, she opened it and rummaged through until she found what she was looking for. Once she was done, Avery zipped the suitcase closed again but decided against trying to force it into the back seat. Settling it on the front passenger seat instead, she managed to keep it there long enough to slam the door closed.
Now how was she going to handle what she needed to do?
She paced uncomfortably outside the door to the men’s restroom for ten minutes before knocking. When she got no response, she cracked the door open far enough to yell in. “Is everything okay?”
