Holland Suggestions

by John Dunning

  I shrugged. “Nothing personal. In fact, I’ve enjoyed having you along. It’s just that right now I don’t need any grief, and I might be letting myself in for a lot of it.”

  “You aren’t. I can promise you that.”

  “Besides,” I said, “what’s the big deal? Rides are easy to get, especially for a girl.”

  “That’s just it. Girls never know what kind of creep might stop for them.”

  “How do you know I’m not that kind of creep?”

  She smiled, and there was just the hint of a flirt behind her eyes. “I just know it.” She shrugged. “So look at it this way—you might be keeping me out of the hands of some mad rapist, right?”

  I thought about it. “No, I can’t do it,” I said finally.

  Again she lapsed into a sullen silence. I thought the matter was closed, but just as I was finishing my coffee she took out a small billfold and produced a plastic-covered driver’s license. She pushed it across the table toward me.

  “I thought you didn’t have one.”

  “There it is. It’s a horrible picture of me, and that’s why I don’t show it around.”

  In fact, it was a very good picture. The name on the license was Melinda Lewis, and the date of birth was January 6, 1950. The license had been issued just last month in Denver, Colorado.

  “Melinda?”

  “That’s my real name. Please call me Amy.”

  “And you live in—Denver?”

  “That’s my home; my husband—he’s from here.” She reached across the table and plucked the license from my fingers. “At least you know now that I’m not lying about my age, right?”

  “Okay, Amy; let’s play it by ear. How does that sound?”

  She smiled. “Fine.”

  Again she excused herself and bowed out to the ladies’ room. I got up to pay the check. At the register I could just see into the restroom corridor. At the end, almost engulfed in darkness, was a telephone booth, and my friend Amy was talking on the phone.

  5

  IT WAS A LONG day. At ten o’clock I got very sleepy and Amy offered to drive. I was reluctant, resistant to relinquish control and make that final concession to her right to be here. But when my head bobbed a second time I gave up the fight. We exchanged places, I told her to stay with Route 50, then I settled back in the seat and closed my eyes. She had to move the seat up, cramping my legs against the glove compartment and making sleep difficult. Periodically I opened my eyes, studying her driving restlessly; she was a good driver, careful and slow. When we had gone sixty miles that way she said, “Look, why don’t you relax? I’m not gonna wreck your damn car.”

  Her words came almost like a commandment; I did close my eyes, and when I opened them we were halfway through Indiana. It was after noon. We stopped at a hamburger stand near a town called Bedford and pushed into Illinois at midafternoon. Not much passed between us, and at three o’clock I took the wheel while she slept. That was how the day went, with very little conversation and almost no thought on my part. A few times I wondered about Amy and her phone call, but that only gave me a headache.

  She awoke at four-thirty, bubbling with conversation. She talked about herself and asked questions about me. She revealed her childhood ambition to be an actress and philosophized about the funny things people do with their lives. For a long time she seemed preoccupied with losing control of her own destiny, dwelling on “most people” and how they lose control of their lives and can never get it back. Abruptly she shifted to my life, asking questions about my home and Judy; I answered them briefly but, I think, politely. By six she was getting hungry again; we pulled into a restaurant in East St. Louis.

  “This time I’m buying,” she said.

  “Forget it.”

  “Look, I want to buy your dinner, okay?”

  She did, too. She grabbed the check with an expertise that surprised me and paid it before I could stop her. Dusk had fallen when we got on the road again. For the first time since I’d left home I looked at a road map. Interstate 70 dropped into St. Louis from the north and ran due west to Denver. I stopped for gas and again consulted the map; the big interstate went almost in a straight line to Denver, and was partly completed through the Rockies. Route 50, on the other hand, dipped to the south at Kansas City, ran across southern Kansas and into southern Colorado. The highways parted for about a hundred miles before joining again at a town in western Colorado called Grand Junction. I did not want to get too far away from Route 50, but I knew there could be nothing of interest between St. Louis and Kansas City, and the interstate might save me a couple of hours’ driving time across Missouri. I asked the attendant for directions to I-70, signed for the gas, and in a few minutes we were turning onto the interstate ramp.

  “I think I’ll sleep awhile,” Amy said, buckling her seatbelt. “These big highways always make me nervous.”

  She closed her eyes; I accelerated and blended with traffic. We crossed the Mississippi River and passed around the great arch. Soon the city fell behind us and the rolling country spread out ahead. It was dark now, and I wasn’t sure how much farther I wanted to drive tonight or what I would look for in the way of accommodations. I didn’t feel at all tired; surprising, considering how little sleep I had had in the past thirty-six hours. I didn’t worry about it, just pushed on in a half-blind stab at getting through it. Interstate highways are concentrated monotony, and they weave a hypnotic curtain around my brain. An interstate in California is the same as an interstate in Ohio; both are the same as an interstate in Missouri. Interstate 70 is, if anything, worse than average. The road stretches into infinity; the miles roll on and nothing ever changes. I pushed the car along at sixty-five and tried to keep my mind active. But soon I became aware of that dull sensation, that growing aggravation, that compelling urge to get off the interstate and find Route 50 again. I cannot explain how it began; one minute it was not there and the next minute it was. Dull, gnawing, not unlike my experience in West Virginia, only far less intense. It grew in intensity as I pushed on, and I fought against it with the logic that the interstate was my fastest link across a state that couldn’t possibly matter to me. Again, logic lost out. When I grew tired of the struggle I turned off the highway and stopped to consult my map.

  I was in a little town called Kingdom City, just off Interstate 70 and Route 54. I saw at once that Route 54 slashed southwest, joining 50 at Jefferson City. So I drove perhaps fifty miles out of my way, got on 50 again, and pushed westward toward Kansas City at a slower, easier pace. The road seemed to turn continuously after the smooth straightness of I-70, and I had to pass through a dozen small towns along the way. I found that irritating—a fine crash course in how to make a four-hour trip take six hours and more—but it was the lesser of the two evils. I was on Route 50 and that was what mattered.

  We were more than an hour out of Jefferson City when I felt the first wave of fatigue. I looked at my watch; ten past nine, and I wondered again what to do about accommodations. Amy was sleeping soundly. Her head had rolled to one side and her eyelids had opened slightly, but there was no question in my mind that she was in a deep sleep. She slept like she ate: passionately and intensely. I wondered if she did everything that way. Twice I hit deep chuckholes in the road and she never stirred. Once a trailer truck came roaring past with such force that the car shook. Amy never moved.

  I passed through Sedalia, a town with at least a dozen lighted motels, but I did not stop. With the lights behind me, the second wave of fatigue came, and I knew I could not go on. I looked for a spot where I might pull over and take a short nap, but there was nothing until I found a side road some twenty minutes later. The road was dirt, and it ran past several lighted farmhouses, dipped and turned for about four miles. There was a fork. The right fork looked to be an older road, little used and poorly maintained. I turned in there and parked under a large tree.

  A chill was in the air as I opened my door, got out, and looked around. I seemed to be in the middle of a la
rge farm, with this fenced road cutting between two fields. There were no buildings or lights in sight. I walked down the road for a short distance and reassured myself that the car could not be seen unless someone came directly past us along this narrow, rutted road. I thought that was unlikely and, feeling better, I returned to the car, opened the trunk, took out two blankets, and tucked Amy in.

  It was just enough movement to chase away my fatigue and leave me, for a long time, sleepless. I have never been able to sleep well in a car, especially when I am sharing the seat with someone else. Amy was not in my way; she was curled up in a small ball in the corner, but her presence was disturbing. For a time I thought of the back seat, of perhaps stretching out full length with my feet dangling out of the open window. But I have never been able to sleep in back seats either. So I stretched out across the front as far as I could go without disturbing her, leaned against my door, and closed my eyes. My right leg cramped at once. I moved it quickly and kicked her leg. She sat up, looked around, and said something to me in a heavy, sleepy voice.

  “It’s okay,” I told her. “I’ve just stopped for a rest.”

  If she heard that, or comprehended it, there was no change in her idiot expression. She fumbled with her seatbelt, unhooked it, shifted her position, and lay back across the seat. Her head dropped against my chest. She draped her arm over my shoulder and slept that way for the rest of the night

  For me, that meant little more than four hours. I was very much aware of her body pressed against mine, and increasingly bothered by the cramps in my lower legs, so I slept irregularly. Once I awoke fully aroused, my arm across her breast, and I was at least thirty minutes getting over that and getting to sleep again. Through it all she never stirred.

  At three-thirty I sat up and looked at my watch. Both my legs were fuzzy from lack of circulation. I pushed Amy into a sitting position and let her down gently against her door. Again she said something senseless; I folded my blanket and put it behind her head. I pushed the button locking her door, got out to walk around, and relieved myself on the left rear tire. By that time I was fully awake, and I knew there was no use trying for any more sleep.

  I was well past Kansas City before Amy woke. I had beaten the rush hour and, as I suspected, ended up in the same place that the interstate might have brought me hours earlier. No matter now. Route 50 petered out for a while but picked up again where Interstate 35 left off. The highway struck into Kansas from the southwest edge of town, and the land changed almost immediately. Gone was the rocky brown hill country, and in its place came the endless miles of prairie. The road straightened and stretched to the west in long sections unbroken by towns or crossroads. I had just reached the town of Emporia when Amy yawned and stretched and looked me over, her eyes still glazed with sleep.

  “God almighty.” Her voice was full of sand. “Jesus, I slept like a ton of bricks. Where are we?”

  “Somewhere in eastern Kansas. Hungry?”

  “Sure. What’d you do, drive all night?”

  “I pulled under a tree and got about four hours.”

  “I don’t remember; Jesus, I must have been out of it.” We found a restaurant near Emporia. After a trip to the ladies’ room Amy began to function. While we were waiting for our orders, I went out to the car for the map and saw that she was using the telephone. I went to the men’s room and splashed some water in my face and thought about it. She would know I had seen her when she returned to the table and found me gone. It might all be very innocent, her frequent use of the phone; she might be checking on a sick aunt, for all I knew. In that case she would feel no need to justify any of it to me, but I was betting otherwise. I came out into the dining room and saw her sitting alone in our booth; the waitress was just leaving our food. She looked up at me as I came toward her and her eyes never faltered.

  “These goddamn country phones,” she said; “you never can get anything out of a stupid country operator.”

  “You trying to make a call? I didn’t know you had anybody around here.”

  “Long distance,” she said. “Just try to get long distance from here.” She shrugged. “Yeah, I thought I’d better call my friends in L.A., at least warn them I’m coming. Yesterday I couldn’t get through and now today I can’t get through either.”

  “You’re just impatient. I’ve always found it the other way around; it’s the city operators who don’t know anything.”

  But her point was established and she let that pass. I paid and she didn’t protest; we were on the road again. I drove all day, averaging better than sixty including stops for gas. Now I could feel the end; I could almost taste it, and my foot rested heavy on the gas. I drove sixty-five and seventy with a feeling of perfect safety on this long Kansas road. Traffic was light; I guessed that most cars were using the interstate. The windswept towns rolled past: Peabody; Hutchinson; Zenith; Macksville.

  Dodge City. Tumbleweeds rolled across the highway just outside the town, adding to the cowboy imagery. We passed a rebuilt western street with saloons and wooden sidewalks and a Boot Hill cemetery. Amy wanted to stop, but I dismissed the town as a tourist trap and drove on through. Colorado was drawing me on; its effect was almost magnetic, and I was testing the law in my determination to make it by nightfall. We crossed the state line late that afternoon, but if I expected the Rocky Mountains to suddenly jump up and engulf the car, I was mistaken. For many miles there was only more of the same monotonous, rolling prairie; when the country did change, it became even more dreary. Now there were more tight bends and the land was one of washed-out gullies and dried riverbeds and sunbaked plants. That lasted for more than a hundred miles. Just before dusk I got my first look at the Rockies, through the smoke and haze of Pueblo. The lights of the city stretched across the plains ahead of us; beyond—how many miles I couldn’t guess—were the mountains, black against the velvet of twilight. Darkness came very fast, and as the lights of the city came up to me, the mountains blended into nothing behind them. Then the city engulfed us.

  Pueblo is a small city with old, run-down buildings and factories that constantly belch smoke into the air. I found it dismal but a decided relief from the long drive behind me. The city had an air of finality about it; at least it created that for me, and that made up for most of its physical shortcomings. I was damned tired and looking forward to a shower and a bed.

  “This is where we part company,” I said; “I think this is as far west as I go.”

  “Oh? I guess I should say something like it’s been fun, then, and thanks. It really has—been fun, I mean.”

  “Even if I did give you a bad time that first night. I’d like to apologize for that, by the way.”

  She smiled. “I knew right away you really weren’t like that. You’re actually a nice man, you know that?”

  I laughed out loud. “I’m a peach.” We kidded around some more, thoroughly enjoying each other in our final moments. Of course, that was all a game too. I did not for one minute think that I was finished with Amy, but we would have to see about that. I almost wished it could end here, with good feelings on both sides, and for a moment I felt that she was wishing that too. We enjoyed the play acting; going through all the bittersweet emotions of two people who become good friends overnight and never meet again. It filled the hour and made that night’s meal the best of the lot. The food was terrible, but neither of us cared. It was just part of our arrival in this smoky little city on the brown plains of Colorado.

  “I probably won’t go on till morning,” she said over dessert. “I hate thumbing, like I told you before; especially at night.”

  I nodded toward the telephone. “Maybe your friends are home now.”

  A strange, sad expression came into her eyes then and worked down to her lips. She moistened her lips with her tongue, started to say something, and thought better of it. What she did say was, “The hell with them. If they’re really my friends they’ll be glad enough to see me.”

  “I guess that’s right.”

>   “I always get by.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “Tell me,” she said thoughtfully, “do you keep in touch with your friends? Do you write letters?”

  “Not much.”

  “I’d write you if you’d answer.”

  “I’d like to hear from you. I’d really like to know how you make out in California.”

  “I’ll do okay.”

  “Sure, but I’d like to hear about it.”

  “Then I’ll write and tell you.”

  “Good.” I stood and felt in my pocket for change. “Well, if you’re not going to use that phone, maybe I will.” She looked at me suspiciously, but I turned away from her and walked to the phone without explaining. For a minute I wondered about the time difference, then decided to take a chance. The Coughlins’ phone number was in my wallet; I had an operator place the call and was delighted when Judy answered.

  “I’m babysitting for them,” she said. “Where are you?”

  “Are you ready for this?—Colorado.”

  “Colorado?”

  “I’ll tell you all about it when I get home, okay? I just called to hear your voice. How’s it going?”

  “Fine. You got a call yesterday.”

  “At the Coughlins’?”

  “Some guy in New York. He wouldn’t leave his name; just said he’d get in touch with you later.”

  “How’d he know to call the Coughlins?”

  “I think he called your office first and Darlene told him he could reach me here.”

  “Did he say anything?”

  “Just asked where you were. I told him on a fishing trip.”

  “Well, did he say what he wanted?”

  “No; I asked for messages, but he said he’d catch you later.”

  There was a long silence. Finally Judy said, “Daddy?”

  “Yes?”

  “Is it okay?”

  “Sure, it’s fine. I just can’t figure out…well, it’s probably business. Al Harper can handle it.”