Goode Vibrations
Jasinda Wilder
Contents
1. Poppy
2. Errol
3. Poppy
4. Errol
5. Poppy
6. Errol
7. Poppy
8. Errol
9. Poppy
10. Errol
11. Poppy
12. Errol
13. Poppy
14. Errol
15. Them
Lives Lived: A Postscript
A Note From The Author
Also by Jasinda Wilder
Poppy
Walking your way out of NYC is nowhere near as easy as you might think. Especially when you don’t have an itinerary…or a great sense of direction. But what I did have was a box of protein bars ordered online from Costco, two extra-large Nalgene water bottles, and a huge backpack filled with clothes—mostly underwear and T-shirts and sweatshirts and socks, plus a couple pairs of jeans and a pair of TOMS shoes to give my feet a break from the hiking boots. Also, I had in my possession an extra-large purse containing my cell phone and charger, my iPad Pro with its keyboard case, stylus, and charger; my new-to-me vintage camera courtesy of Mrs. DuPuis, my erstwhile advisor from Columbia University. I had approximately two hundred rolls of black-and-white film, and a hundred rolls of color film, divided between my purse and backpack. I was carrying four thousand dollars in cash, separated into rolls of hundreds packed in my purse, backpack, and pockets. And, finally, I had a multi-tool and a Zippo lighter.
I’d say I was traveling pretty light for someone backpacking from NYC to Alaska.
But my most valuable possession was my innate trust in the goodness of humans, balanced by a pretty reliable bullshit and creep detector.
It took me an embarrassingly long time to navigate my way on foot through the maze of boroughs and bridges and tunnels that made up New York City and then, when I thought I was making something like progress, I found myself lost in suburbia.
Dammit.
I stopped at a gas station, waited in line behind locals getting gas and buying cigarettes, and when it was my turn at the counter, the young man behind it, sporting a Sikh turban and a fantastic beard, offered me a dazzled, surprised smile.
“Good morning, how can I help you?” he said, in a lilting Punjabi accent.
“I need either a bus station or a train station,” I said. “I’m sort of lost.”
“No kidding you are lost,” he said. “I think you should call a cab to take you to the train depot. It is many miles from here, and I am not certain exactly how to tell you to get there. I only know it is not somewhere to walk to easily.”
I laughed. “Well, I’m planning on walking to Alaska, but getting out suburbia is proving pretty tricky.”
“You are walking to Alaska?” He sounded so shocked I may as well have told him I was flying to Mars. “I am only in America two years, so maybe I am misinformed, but is not Alaska many thousand of miles from here?”
“Yeah, something like thirty-five hundred miles.”
He blinked. “Why?”
I shrugged, smiling brightly. “I’m bored with my life, and need a challenge. Plus, my family all lives there.”
“If you are bored of life, get a tattoo, or…or a motorcycle.” He shook his head. “It is your business, not mine. But I feel I must say…a woman like you, so young, so beautiful, perhaps it is not safe.”
“Can we speed this up?” an impatient voice said from behind me, in a thick New York accent brimming with attitude. “I got shit to do and places to go, so come on already.”
I turned, offering the man my most brilliant grin. “I’m sorry to delay you on your important business, sir, I was just asking directions.”
Middle-aged, tall and slender, salt-and-pepper hair, neatly trimmed goatee, wearing an expensive three-piece suit. He blinked at me, taken aback by…well, me. “Uh, yeah, no—no problem. You need directions, I can give you directions. Where you tryin’ to go, sweetheart?”
It’s idiotic that reality works the way it does. Being blessed—through no virtue or achievement on my part—with extreme good looks, I can grin and flirt my way out of pretty much any potential conflict. Smirk a little, bat my lashes, arch my back just so to push my boobs up, and men just…go dog-brain gaga drooly stupid.
Like this guy. When all he saw was my black ponytail, backpack, jeans, and boots, he was all Mr. Impatient, hurry up, I’m so important. All I had to do was turn around, grin, show him some tank top and cleavage, and he’s tripping over his own saggy balls to help me.
“Well, I just need to get out of the city and out of suburbia.”
“Yeah, sure, but to where?”
“I mean, just generally west.”
He looked me over again. “Well, I’m heading to Buffalo for business, but I could take you as far as Scranton, if you want.”
I could see the wheels turning in his head. Thinking maybe he might get something out of giving me a ride. Wondering what kind of girl I am.
The question for me, then, was whether my creeper radar pinged. I in turn looked him over, assessed him. Brusque, self-important, vain, wealthy, impatient, selfish. Kind of a prick. But…mostly safe. He’d be the type, if he made an overt move on me and I turned him down, to leave me on the side of the highway.
I shrugged, extended my hand. “Scranton it is, Mr.…?”
“Zelinski. Don Zelinski.”
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Zelinski. I’m Poppy.”
“Ahh, if we’re gonna be sharing the car together for an hour and a half, you oughta call me Donny.”
I thanked the young Sikh behind the counter, and followed Donny Zelinski to his car.
After fueling his sleek silver Audi A8, we headed out of suburbia westward. He had a podcast on, something by NPR, and he turned it down when we hit the highway, offering a grin at me.
“So, Poppy. Generally west, huh?”
I nodded. “I have family in Alaska, and I’m taking the long, scenic route to visit them.”
He whistled. “Alaska, huh? That’s a hell of a trip.”
“Well, I’m young and I’m in a bit of a transitional point in my life, so I may as well see some of the country, right?”
He fiddled with something on the touchscreen, and the A/C blew colder. “Sure. Makes sense to me. When I was your age, I took a gap year and hiked Europe with my brother.”
“Yeah, I might do that next.”
A few minutes of silence; the cabin of the car, wrapped in luxurious black leather, grew colder by the minute—I caught his gaze flicking subtly but consistently to my chest, and I realized why he’d turned the A/C up so high: to give me headlights. And he’d succeeded, noticeably so.
Douchebag.
Joke was on him, though, because I just tugged my flannel shirt closed to cover them.
“So, what’s your boyfriend think about you doing this whole trip on your own?”
I laughed. “No boyfriend.”
“You mean to say a sexy young thing like you is totally unattached?”
Ick. He was old enough to be my dad. Don’t call me sexy, my dude.
“Yeah, well, I don’t need a boyfriend to be happy, and on a journey to self-discovery like I’m on, a boyfriend would just be in the way. So yeah, unattached and proud of it.”
“Good for you,” he said, and it was hard to tell if it was meant genuinely or not.
I let the silence extend, and eventually Donny turned his podcast back on, glancing at me to assess my reaction. I just turned the volume up a bit, to indicate I was fine with the podcast.
It was a long-winded discussion of some political thing or another, boring as hell but better than nothing, and better than trying to make conversation with M
r. Make-it-cold-in-the-car-so-your-nipples-get-hard.
I knew the move was coming, and I was prepared for just about anything. As long as he didn’t get handsy, I figured I could handle him. And it would be worth it for a ride out of New York City.
He made it most of the way to Scranton. We’d started seeing signs for Scranton, thirty miles, then fifteen, and we were on our second NPR political podcast. He took an exit, one too soon by my reckoning.
“Figured we’d stop for a bite to eat before we get to Scranton. Not much there, and I know there’s a nice little place at this exit.”
“Oh, that’s all right. I’m not hungry. But thank you.”
He waved a hand. “Ah, come on. You gotta eat, you know? Keep your strength up for that long trip, right?” He winked at me. “My treat. Come on.”
Here it came. Cue transition to overt flirtation…
“No, really, I’m all right. I appreciate the offer, though, Mr. Zelinski, really, I do.” Emphasizing the formality hopefully would emphasize the fact that he was fifty-something and I was just barely eighteen.
He eyed me. “Told you, call me Donny. And plus, you know, the little place I got in mind happens to be close to this real nice hotel. Figured, you know, we could grab a bite to eat and grab a room.”
Just like that? Where did he get the idea I’d want to do that?
I stared hard at him. “I don’t think so, Mr. Zelinski. While I’m grateful for the ride, if that’s what you thought this was going to be, I’m afraid you’ve woefully misunderstood the situation, and the kind of girl I am.”
“Figured you’d be a little more grateful, that’s all.”
“I’d be happy to reimburse you for the fuel cost, if you like.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Nah.” It was a quintessential New Yorker sound of dismissal. “I guess I thought maybe you’d just play nice, you know?”
I laughed. “I think we have differing ideas of what it means to play nice, in that case.” We pulled up to a stoplight, and I unbuckled. “I’ll get out here, thanks.” I reached into the back seat, hauled my backpack onto my lap over the center console, and pressed the unlock button on my door. Shoved the door open and stepped out, shouldering the backpack and carrying my purse in the other hand. I gave him a friendly smile, but not too friendly, and waved at him. “Bye, Donny, and thanks for the ride!”
He just gave me a frustrated sigh. “You can’t get out here. This ain’t a good spot, you know?”
I looked around—industrial outskirts, warehouses, manufacturing plants, a gas station. “I’ll be fine, but thanks for your concern. Have a nice day!”
I closed the door, put my other arm through the backpack strap, clipped my purse to the strap near my hip, and set off directly away from Don Zelinski’s Audi A8. A moment of silence, and then I heard his engine roar, and he squealed an illegal U-turn back toward the highway. I waited until he was on the highway entrance ramp and gone, and then pulled out my phone, figured out which compass direction I was facing and which way I needed to go. It looked like finding my way to I-80 would be my best bet. It was a bit of work with Apple Maps to get situated, pinching to zoom, shifting the focus this way and that, but finally I had a decent sense of where to go.
It was the very same entrance ramp Donny-boy had used. I cinched my straps tighter, pulled my Air Pods out and cued up the playlist I’d made, a six-hour mix of all my favorite music, which was eclectic, ranging from country and bluegrass to indie pop, singer-songwriter, and even a few hard rock and classic rock songs. First up was “Ain’t That Fine” by I’m With Her, which put pep in my step as I began the real work of walking to Alaska.
Up the ramp, well off to the side of the road, I followed it as it curved around and up to join the highway. Gravel liberally sprinkled the sparse crabgrass growing just off the shoulder, and the sun beat down hot. A pickup truck blasted past me, honking. I just waved and they were gone, and then I was on the freeway.
Which was much, much bigger on foot than it had seemed from the confines of a car. The white stripe on the side of the road, which from a car seemed only a few inches wide was, in fact, almost as wide as both my feet. The lanes themselves were enormous, and the highway as a whole seemed to be an entire world wide, rather than a narrow strip of pavement with a little bit of paint.
Also, it was loud. Very loud.
Cars, trucks, semis, car-haulers, panel vans, all roared past so fast they were barely even a blur, the combined noise of engines and movement a constant, almost deafening wall of sound. I had to turn my music up to hear it over the noise, and for the first several minutes I found myself startled every time a huge semi barreled past at seventy miles per hour, the wind battering me even when I walked as far from the edge of the highway as I could.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t regretting my decision. A few miles in, and I started to get used to the noise and the battering wind of passing trucks. But…it was a little scarier walking along a freeway than I’d expected.
Some part of me, the part spoiled by growing up white, well-to-do, and pretty, expected someone to stop and offer me a ride almost immediately.
I guess it was kind of hard to tell what I looked like from the driver’s seat of a car going eighty on a freeway. Whatever the reason, a few miles turned into a few hours, and a few hours turned into almost a whole day. My feet hurt like a bitch and I’d drunk almost all of my water, and I was hungry as hell.
I was in a section of freeway where it was miles and miles between exits, which meant I had no clue how much farther I had to walk before I came to a decent exit for food and lodging.
I was, at that point, beginning to question the wisdom of this plan.
A tan Buick slid past going way too slow to be on the freeway. The driver tapped the brakes, and then swerved erratically onto the shoulder. Stopped. Brake lights held, and it became clear the driver was waiting for me to get in, so I hustled my steps to the front passenger side and leaned to peer into the window.
The driver was an elderly woman—by elderly, I mean snow-white hair in a thinning bouffant spray of strands, blue standout veins on stick-thin arms and hands, eyes that could barely see over the steering wheel, and the kindliest smile I’d ever seen.
“A little darling like you shouldn’t be on the side of the freeway, young lady. Get in and I’ll take you somewhere safe.” She patted the seat beside her and I, without hesitation, got in.
The inside of the car smelled like…well, the indefinable scent that meant “old person.” She had classical music playing softly. She was wearing a matching pink crushed velvet tracksuit with Nike walking shoes as white as her hair. She wore huge chunky costume jewelry; massive square rings on several fingers and an even bigger necklace, with matching earrings that were heavy enough to make her earlobes droop.
She was one in a million, and looked as if she had driven up from Miami Beach.
“Hi, I’m Poppy,” I said. “Thanks for stopping for me.”
“Nice to meet you, Poppy. I’m Delia.” She waved at the shoulder of the highway as we merged into the traffic. “I saw you walking there with that big backpack, and I thought of my great-granddaughter walking alone on the side of the freeway and I just had to stop. It’s simply not safe. Where are your parents, young lady?”
I had to laugh, she was so sweetly earnest. She probably assumed I was a runaway half the age I really am. “Well, that’s where I’m going. My whole family lives in Alaska, and I’m making a fun road trip out of getting to them.”
“Oh my, that’s ridiculous. You can’t walk to Alaska.”
“No, but I can walk and hitch rides.”
“Not everyone who stops for you is going to be a nice little old lady like me, you know. Something awful could happen.”
“Sure, it could. But something awful could happen anywhere, anytime. I’ve been living in New York City, and I’m pretty certain it’s far more dangerous than the side of the highway.”
“Oh, I don’t know about t
hat, but I see your point.” She turned the radio down so it was nearly inaudible. “So, where should I take you? I can’t take you all the way back to New York City, I’m afraid, but if you called your mother I’m sure we could work out some way of getting you home safely.”
I laughed. “Oh, no, that won’t be necessary. I’m perfectly fine, Delia, but thank you. My mother is in Alaska, like I said.”
“Well, shouldn’t you ask her to buy you a plane ticket or something? Hitchhiking simply isn’t safe. Not anymore, if it ever was.”
“I’m having an adventure, that’s all. I’ll be perfectly safe.”
She huffed, not liking that answer but sensing that I wouldn’t be dissuaded. “Does your mother know you’re hitchhiking like this?”
I laughed. “Heck no! She’d be apoplectic if she knew. But I’m eighteen and I’ve been living alone in New York since I was seventeen, so I’m not about to go asking her permission.”
“On your own since you were seventeen? Are you a runaway?”
Honestly, the inquisition was getting a little annoying. “No ma’am. I was in college. Columbia University.”
“Well, you can’t be finished yet, and it’s got to be the middle of a term, right? So why are you going to Alaska?”
I couldn’t entirely suppress a sigh of annoyance. “I dropped out. It just wasn’t for me, for a lot of reasons. I’m an artist, and the college scene was honestly just cramping my voice as an artist, and left me no real time for painting or anything but classes and studying. So, I’m hitchhiking to Alaska and thinking about what my next step will be.”
Delia frowned at me. “One of my granddaughters dropped out of college to be an artist, and now she’s addicted to drugs and living in a tunnel or something in Chicago.”
I sighed yet again. “I’m not addicted to drugs, and have no plans to start. I don’t even like drinking all that much. But I appreciate your concern.”
Goode Vibrations Page 1
