June Musings

I finished my morning coffee and stared into the empty cup. I'd been sitting at the desk in my office for over an hour, gazing out the window. Soon I began to write: 

Ashley squinted against the morning sun, hurtling down the long, straight, endless road. I’ll know when I get to Texas, she thought, because hell will have frozen over. And then she saw the dreaded red and blue lights flashing in the rear view mirror and immediately steered her white Tesla sedan to the shoulder, scowling as the electronic vehicle rolled to a stop.

The police cruiser pulled up behind her, and for a fleeting moment, she imagined pressing the accelerator pedal to the floor, but thought better of it.

No, no, no. Not now. Not here.

She slammed the palm of her hand against the steering wheel and lowered the sun visor, staring at her tired, burning eyes in the vanity mirror. The effects of driving a thousand miles had started to show when she turned off the Interstate and headed down the old road. In fact, she’d been on the phone with her sister, Emily, when she cut the conversation short.

“I can’t believe you’re telling me this,” Emily had said. “Have you lost your mind? You’ve got a successful practice, Ash. You can’t just pick up and leave!”

“Maybe you can’t, but I can. I grabbed a few clothes and walked out the door. And don’t think for a minute that I’m going back again.”

“Why don’t you just stay the course? Keep calm and act like you’re innocent. Wait to see if things blow over.

“I can’t stick around to find out,” Ashley said. “No more creative accounting. I’m through cooking the books for criminals. Grandpa said Midpoint is still a friendly place where honest, hardworking people can make a decent living.”

“Well, if you call struggling to make ends meet in a town where the pay is shit, and tourists tip like cheapskates decent, then sure, it’s the goddamn land of opportunity.”

“Oh, don’t worry about me. I’ll get a job and work eight-to-five,” she lied. “Oh shit, Em—I gotta go. I’ll call you back later.”

“Something else is bothering you. I can hear it in your voice. So tell me what’s really going on and—”

That’s when she’d clicked to end the call. And Emily’s instincts were right. There was something else wrong, something else going on that Ashley hadn’t disclosed, and that she couldn’t talk about with anyone.

The necessity for long, frequent stops to charge her vehicle had made the journey seem endless. It was only 7:00 a.m., but the air was already warm. There weren’t many trees, and the bright morning sun beat down on the windshield, steaming the remains of bugs that had splattered against it. Naturally, there were no covered rest areas along this stretch. If her memory served correctly, she was getting close to the roadside diner where she was to meet her grandfather, but it would take longer now that she had to sit and wait for some state trooper to walk up and ask if she knew how fast she was driving.

Flustered, she pulled her California Department of Motor Vehicles registration and proof of insurance from the console between the front seats and then grabbed the license from her wallet. Fanning herself, she sighed and shifted uncomfortably. Even with the windows down, the car already felt like an oven. She sipped her iced tea and mused, recalling an encounter at Coit Tower after climbing the Filbert Stairs...

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