“Two Christian stations and one country station,” Jennifer said, crumpling the wrapper from her breakfast, a Nutri-grain bar, in disgust. “My parents would love it. Fire, brimstone, sad songs and barren desert. It’s already hot as hell– amen for air conditioning.” She gave the radio’s knob a mean twist to turn it off.
Sarah was driving them up the two lane highway, deeper into Nevada, through the foothills of the desert and away from another small outpost of civilization. Their refueling breaks, which separated otherwise empty stretches of highway into neat sections, reminded Sarah of the far reaching arms of America, even into the timeless desert. When Sarah drove Cassandra, she stopped frequently, even to fill up only four or five gallons of gas. A full tank of gasoline gave her confidence in Cassandra; with a full fourteen gallons of unleaded, she felt Cassandra could take her anywhere necessary. At times she felt Cassandra could even lead the way to a better understanding of the world, if it could only be given a driver who could help Cassandra navigate the way. Cassandra was the name of Sarah’s Volvo. She had pronounced it as such in a short naming ceremony quickly after giving the Volvo it’s first hot wax treatment. Cassandra was a used Volvo, but Sarah felt it was a good Volvo; it was _her_ Volvo. The blue paint had aged to a deeper hue, and a previous owner had added air conditioning. The radio was of original stock; to Sarah, it looked like Cassandra’s radio was perpetually smiling, with knobs for eyes and station pre-set buttons which looked like crooked teeth.
“It feels like it hasn’t rained in years,” Sarah said. “The gas pumps had two inches of dust on them.”
“How anyone can live out here is beyond me. There’s nothing to do. About as exciting as living in Utah and hanging with ‘da hood.”
Sarah laughed. “Maybe that’s why cacti grow up so slowly. They just aren’t excited. In a strange irony, someone named them succulents.”
Jennifer slid her sunglasses off and quickly rolled down the passenger window, creating a windstorm of dry, hot air in the front seat. “Hey cacti!” Jennifer yelled at the desert, sticking her head out the window. She pulled down on her tank top to show her cleavage. “Get excited! Woohoo!”
Sarah felt her skin redden. “If you can’t get them to stand at attention I don’t know what will,” she yelled over the wind noise.
Jennifer let out another woop and rolled up the window, squelching the front seat’s miniature tornado. She shook her head back and forth to collect her thick brown hair about her shoulders, then combed it with her fingers. She gave Sarah a deadpan look while collecting her mane. “I just don’t think they’re interested.”
“You might have better luck at the next stop. I’ll bet there’s another guy in blue overalls named Jimmy.”
“Ugh! Not another gas station sleazeball,” Jennifer shuddered, shaking off Sarah’s teasing comment and the memory of the recent, though quick, encounter while stopping to refuel and stretch. “Greasy guys who don’t stop staring! That gives me the shivers. Reminds me of the creeps who used to watch me walking home from junior high in Arizona. I used to give them the Evil Eye, but nothing ever happened.” She demonstrated this, squinting wrathfully at Sarah. “I always hoped I’d meet their mothers, to tell them all about their smarmy auto mechanic sons whistling at school girls.” She gripped her sunglass frames and gave them a mean twist.
“Did anything bad happen?” Sarah asked, suddenly concerned.
Jennifer’s grimace vanished. “Oh. No, they were just slime balls.” She slid her small sunglass frames back on.
“Do you think, when we get to the gate–that the weather will hold out? Did the guidebook say why the sudden windstorms start?” Sarah’s pulse quickened.
Jennifer shrugged. “Whatever happens, we’ll work it out along with everyone else.”
“If we drive smack into some mobile home-sized mud hole camouflaged by dust from a windstorm, then what? Some parts of this trip are too sketchy.”
“Then we get out and someone will eventually see us and come help.”
“Get out and do what? Hike up your skirt?” Sarah whitened her knuckles with her tight grip on the steering wheel. “Wait for all the boys to stop?” Sarah felt a sudden silence from her friend, and frowned. “Sorry, I didn’t mean that. I’m just not sure we thought of everything.”
“We’re in this thing together, right?” She saw Sarah nod. “It’s our first big adventure.” She touched Sarah’s arm. “Girl, it’s back to basics–five days of freedom, no rules, ten thousand strong. Now we can be a part of it…finally! So when the black lights go up, that’s where I’ll be, forget the windstorms. I’ll blow them away myself. Once the DJ’s start spinning, our only problem will be deciding which trance is the best to dance to.” She saw Sarah smiling. “Hey, look at that,” she pointed ahead. “Traffic!”
Up ahead, they saw a line of three vehicles heading north, traveling slower than Sarah’s Volvo and backed up by the leading automobile. As the Volvo caught up to them, Sarah backed off the gas pedal. “A blast from the past,” she said, as Cassandra came up behind the trailing car. “Check out the graphics.”
The car immediately ahead was an old Civic, originally gray, though only small patches of the paint were visible from the rear. The entire back of the car acted as a bible of hipster slogans, made up of dozens of bumper stickers. Only the current tags on the license plate showed evidence that the vehicle was from Earth–or, at least, from somewhere in California. Skeleton iconography of the Grateful Dead were featured along side peace logos with psychedelic color schemes, plant leaves in two-tone holography, and beatific sayings.
“Life Flows from Within,” Sarah read aloud with interest. “Get Your Mind Together by Blowing It Apart. Plants and People are One.”
Jennifer took a turn to read aloud: “Lucy Shows the Way. The Blue Bus, The Crystal Ship, Follow Jim.” She laughed. “I like that one. Tex’in radio an’ the big beat an’ awl,” she drawled in an over-ripe Texas accent. “These cats fell off the magic bus somewhere and forgot to get back on.”
“Maybe that is the magic bus. It’s just the nineties version–with good gas mileage and a hatchback.”
“Hey, well, their magic is going too slow. Floor it and pass them.”
Sarah checked her speedometer; the meager convoy traveled at a good ten miles per hour under the limit. The trip guide, which Sarah followed strictly, mentioned that any speeding through the desert, even one mile per hour above the limit, made for easy prey by highway patrol. The locals were apparently armed with radar guns. She looked into the distance ahead and saw straight highway with no oncoming cars, and in the rear view mirror, the highway looked clear. She hesitated. It looked as if she would have to pass all three cars ahead at once; there didn’t seem to be room to pass them one at a time by slipping in between them. “Let’s just wait for a passing lane. I don’t want to get pulled over.”
“Come on, Sarah. Girl power!”
Sarah frowned at her fiery companion. The gas pedal felt firm beneath Sarah’s bare right foot. The Volvo maintained a smooth speed, alternatively coasting and tugging the momentum of the heavy cargo. She steered a bit to the left; the yellow road reflectors gave her a periodic warning of the imminent danger of driving beyond their own lane. Cassandra’s air conditioning blew cool and dry against her skin. Sarah maneuvered back into the northbound lane.
“We’re only going forty-five. Let it fly,” Jennifer said.
They still had several hours of driving until Dustin, and though she wanted to reach their destination with plenty of time to set up a camp, they were remarkably on schedule, and could even afford to take extra time on the drive. Sarah looked over at Jennifer again; her wide eyes dared her, looking both angry and impatient. Sarah pushed Cassandra’s air conditioning button, turning it off. She checked the rear view mirror. The oncoming lane was clear. She stomped on the gas pedal and crossed the yellow dashes.
Cassandra took a moment to down shift, then began to pick up speed. They gained on the ad-hoc convoy and Jennifer examined the Civic curiously, trying to get a good view of the passengers. She quickly eyed the driver as they pushed near even. The Civic’s window was rolled down, revealing a tan arm connected to the shirtless, equally tan torso of a young man. His head was covered in a tall knit cap, woven from hemp with rainbow yarn, full of his bunched-up hair. “He must have some nice dreds,” she said, looking back at Sarah. “I wonder what other hemp he’s wearing.”
Sarah glanced across at the Civic’s driver just as he turned to see who was passing. A happy brown gaze met hers, and a friendly, relaxed grin lit up his face. He smiled at her as Sarah continued to pass. She suddenly felt the tread of the highway’s far shoulder and quickly regained her focus on the road.
Jennifer leaned forward, looking back at the Civic through the passenger side mirror. “I think he likes you,” she laughed. She tried to look at the Civic’s passenger seat but couldn’t get a good view. “He must be hot without air conditioning.”
Sarah alternated her gaze on both the road and the rear view mirror. “You say that about every guy we meet.”
“Being hot? Or liking you? I don’t say it about every guy–”
They reached neck-and-neck with the second car, a normal looking, dark red minivan. Being equal with the second car revealed the slow moving first vehicle, the culprit of the single northbound-lane highway bottleneck. “Check that–it had to be a bus.”
The lead vehicle was a blue and white Volkswagon bus, with several windows down the side. The driver’s window wings stuck out, channeling the air, presumably into the driver’s lap. The bus’s paint looked weathered, but clean. Small marks of age gave the vehicle a chiseled character. The hubcaps gleamed in bright chrome, as did the bumpers and the trim. The entire bus was free of any stickers or labels. Blue and white checkered curtains decorated the windows. As Sarah’s Volvo approached the rear, the engine of the bus became audible, humming like a well-stuffed bumble-bee.
The girls noticed the driver through her open window. Instead of a slack-dressed teen with long hair, they saw a pale woman, perhaps in her late fifties. Long locks of her otherwise light brown hair matched the white of the bus. A tie-die long sleeve shirt brightened her thin frame, the ink spirals of the pattern matching her clear blue eyes. She seemed absorbed in her driving, yet unaware of her immediate surroundings, fixated in deep concentration.
After a moment, they had safely passed the bus, and Sarah maneuvered Cassandra back to the right side of the highway’s yellow dashes. The speedometer glared at her and she coasted to return to the speed limit, fifty-five, slowly outpacing the bottleneck behind them. Sarah pushed the air conditioning button and relaxed her grip on the steering wheel. She noticed she had been perspiring, and Cassandra’s air conditioning began drying her skin.
“Now we know what the crowd will be like,” Sarah said. “They must be going where we’re going.”
The highway ahead seemed clean, traffic free, and dry. From their recent map check, it would be a few hours to the nearby town where they could look for a good meal. Jennifer pulled a sweatshirt from behind the driver’s seat, rolled it up into a ball, tilted her seat further back, and stuffed the sweatshirt behind her head, wedging it against the passenger side window. She closed her eyes and pushed her head into her makeshift pillow. “Wake me up if we hit anything.”
As excited as Jennifer could be, she always fell asleep quickly and slept as if disconnected from her senses. Sarah let out a soft hum.
