Beautiful Distraction(8)

“I said I took a shortcut!” she yells at me. Then she adds quietly, “Or so I thought. And then the damn thing failed—” she points at the satnav “—probably because I forgot to update the software.”

“This is so typical of you.” I open the glove compartment to pull out the roadmap, but all I find are cans of soda and several packs of Twinkies. “Where’s the map?” I ask, even though I know the answer.

“I didn’t think we’d need it.” Mandy shrugs and stares ahead at the darkening road.

I laugh from the waves of hysteria collecting at the back of my throat.

Why would anyone ever take a shortcut in the middle of nowhere and consciously decide against packing a map? Then again, this is Mandy. Given that I’ve known her all my life, I have no one to blame but myself.

“There goes my backup plan,” I mumble.

“It wasn’t really that much of a backup plan anyway, given that neither of us has ever found her way around with the help of a map,” Mandy says, not really helping.

“But still. You should have known better.”

“What about you?” Mandy prompts. “You could have thought about packing one instead of obsessing over your non-existent love life.” The accusation is palpable in her voice. She’s trying to blame it all on me.

“I’m not even going there because I wasn’t obsessing. I spent the last few months working my ass off. You know how hard I had to work to get where I am now.”

“Where?” she asks innocently. “We both know that by ‘work’ you mean you were secretly obsessing about the fact that you shouldn’t have brushed off the guy who hit on you at Club 69.”

Oh, for crying out loud.

She’s trying to divert attention from her mistakes by annoying the living shit out of me.

I roll my eyes. “Get us out of here before we end up completely lost and living in a self-made wooden hut. I’m not learning how to set traps and collect berries to keep your sorry ass alive.”

“If this helps, I did pick up how to make a fire when I was a Girl Scout.”

I grin at her. “Yeah, your fire will be of immense help when we’re trapped in a storm.”

“Check the cell,” Mandy says, her face brightening at the idea.

“And call who if we don’t even know where we are?”

“The police, obviously. They could track us.”

Intentionally, I don’t praise her as I retrieve my cell phone and then stare at the no signal sign. “Dammit. No bars.”

Which isn’t much of a surprise.

We are in the middle of nowhere. There’s no doubt about it because ninety-nine percent of mainland USA has cell phone coverage, which is about everywhere. Mandy has just managed to find the remaining one percent, and she didn’t even have to put a lot of effort into it.

“No signal,” I say needlessly and drop my cell phone back into my handbag, which I then toss it onto the back seat amid Mandy’s toiletry case, several shoeboxes, and countless fashion magazines, all of which she picked up during our petrol station stopover. For the money, she could have bought at least two roadmaps. The thought manages to make me even crankier.





CHAPTER TWO





We remain silent for a long time. At some point, I consider asking her to drive back to the gas station, but then decide against it. For one, she’s taken so many turns that I doubt she’d find her way back before the rain begins cascading down on us. And second, the gas station is at least a two-hour drive away. If the weather’s playing along, we have three or four hours to find a motel before dusk falls.

“I could turn around,” Mandy suggests, jolting me out of my thoughts.

“No. Just keep going. The road’s bound to take us somewhere.” I open my eyes and scan the sky, worried. The gathering clouds dim the light, bathing the deserted road in semi-darkness. It’s only four p.m., but it feels as though nighttime is about to fall. As the car rolls on, the first drops of rain begin to splatter against the windshield.

Within minutes, the drizzle turns into a raging downpour and the road begins to resemble a huge puddle of water. The engine is roaring and the tires keep slipping on the muddy ground. The visibility’s so bad Mandy slows down the car and leans forward in her seat, fighting to see through the foggy glass.

“Should we stop and wait this one out?” Mandy asks.

“No. Don’t stop,” I yell to make myself audible through the noise of the splattering rain. “I fear if we stop, the tires will get stuck in the mud and no one will ever find us out here. No one can possibly survive on Twinkies and soda forever.”