“I’m headed out to the MacKenzie place if you want to hitch a ride,” said the grizzly man.
I turned back around to face him, but not before catching a scowl move across Hannah’s face.
“Really? That would be great. I could follow you in my car.”
He looked out the front windows of the diner directly at my Smart Car.
“I wouldn’t recommend it,” he said simply.
I imagined myself trapped in a vehicle with this man and decided there were certain risks I was willing to take and others I just wasn’t. “I’ll be fine. That little car has a lot of spunk … you’d be surprised.”
“Whatever floats your boat. You ready to go now?”
“But she hasn’t even finished her coffee,” said Hannah. She sounded very upset about it, too.
“I can wait,” said the man.
I stood. “No need. I put too much sugar in it anyway.” I put some money down on the counter, enough to cover the coffee and a generous tip. “Thanks, Hannah.”
She frowned at me. “How’d you know my name?”
I looked pointedly at her name tag. “Uhhh, I guessed?”
“I got my eye on you, Abbie,” she said in a threatening tone, narrowing her eyes.
“That’s Andie.”
“Let it go, Hannah Banana,” said the man-bear-pig, sighing at the end of his plea.
“Shut up, Boog! You don’t tell me what to do anymore, got it? And stop calling me that name.”
I picked up my satchel, very happy to be leaving the unhappy Hannah Banana behind. She obviously had an issue with strangers, so it was time for me to leave. Besides, if I could get lucky and find this MacKenzie place before dinner, I could very possibly be home by noon tomorrow. A grin spread across my face as I pictured myself sewing this little problem up and tucking it away in a little box no one would ever find.
“Come on, follow me. I’m in the blue truck out there. We’ve got about a thirty minute drive ahead of us.”
I stopped walking as his words sank in. “Thirty minutes?” I asked.
He didn’t answer. He just went out the door of the diner, leaving me to follow.
Chapter Seventeen
THE FIRST PART OF THE trip was a breeze. Fifteen minutes of smooth driving and beautiful weather had my windows down and my voice soaring out into the wind. Walking On Sunshine came on the radio, and I yelled the lyrics as loud as I could, rejoicing in the seratonin that was bleeding into my brain. Life is good! Life is awesome! I was on the road to traveling towards my lifeplan again! I pictured myself on the plane with my signed annulment papers in my lap and a smile on my face. There was even a cocktail on my tray in this vision of glory. Maybe I’d even upgrade to first class.
Just as my song was finishing, the man-bear-pig, a.k.a Boog turned off the two-lane paved road and onto one with only a single-lane of dirt. Calling it a road was generous, though. It was more like a path than anything else. It made me happy I was driving a clown car when I saw his big tires going off into the weeds on both sides.
That happiness faded quicker than I would have thought possible. My life went from smooth-sailing to Nightmare on Elm Street in five seconds flat. Literally flat. Like, flat-tire flat. I was so busy trying to see Boog through the cloud of dust his giant truck was kicking up, I didn’t see the huge pothole in the road. My tire fell into it and then didn’t want to come out. The whole vehicle was sitting off-kilter, the passenger-side lower than the driver-side.
I pressed on the gas pedal and the car rocked a little, but then nothing but the sound of spinning wheels greeted my ears. The clown car and I were done.
Looking up, I saw Boog’s truck getting smaller and smaller in the distance. He didn’t seem to consider the craters in the road a reason to go any slower than he’d been traveling on the highway. I pressed on the clown car’s honky-horn several times to get his attention, but he didn’t seem to hear it. He soon disappeared in a cloud of dust.
I got out of the car and walked around to the other side of it. The front tire was flat and resting deep in the hole. “What the hell!” I screamed, kicking it and hurting my toe in the process. “Ow-ow-ow-ow-OW!” I yelled, hopping around on one foot, now worried that I’d broken not only the car but a toe, too. I was jumping around like a lunatic yelling cuss words when a horse and rider appeared out of the nearby trees and bushes.
Chapter Eighteen
“LOOKS LIKE YOU’RE IN SOME trouble,” said the man on the back of the horse.
I couldn’t decide which of them was prettier. The horse was a patchwork of colors and the man was broad-chested and thick in the thighs, wearing a pair of those leather pant cover thingies that cowboys have on over their jeans in commercials. If I were to guess, I would have said he was younger than me by a few years. He reminded me of someone I’d seen before, but who it was exactly escaped me. It crossed my mind that it was some movie star I’d seen in some indie film a while back, maybe. This would be a good place for celebrities to hang out. No paparazzi would bother coming all the way out into this wasteland for a stupid photo.