12
Once Sonia gets going on 95 going north, once she is definitely out of the city, it is all she can do not to slam on the breaks and turn back, or slam on the gas pedal and speed 100 miles an hour. She feels … extreme. She’s free! Every now and then she lets out a high-pitched squeal of delight and fear. But it is the beginning of her trip, of her adventure — indeed, the very first day — and so she’s not comfortable really talking or exclaiming out loud to herself. (That would come later.) Hence, the high-pitchedness of her squeal. Things had not gotten gutteral. Not yet.
As the day wears on and she drives further and further into the New England countryside, past the suburbs, deep into the hilly, tree-laden world that is Massachusetts, she’s struck with how gorgeous the world really is. The sun hangs deep and yellow in the painfully clear sky, the trees sparkle every shade of orange and red. Autumn in the country. And she’s alone! Alone at last! No crying babies demanding she try to stick a bottle in their mouths while driving. No toddlers saying, “I’m bored. Are we there yet?” No young child throwing up from carsickness. No one demanding to stop because they have to pee so badly they are about to wet their car seat.
Except that Sonia has to pee. And even if there are no children in the car — she glances into the rearview mirror just to make sure—nope, no children! — there are the car seats, accusingly empty.
The miles accumulate. Traffic is sparse. The sun is setting and a darkness settles in. She turns on the lights and the road spreads out gray and weakly lit before her. Funny how lights on a car don’t feel important until it’s deep into the night. She’s been listening to CDs and, alternately, to the radio, and now her ears hurt. She turns down the music. A green sign saying rest stop in three miles presents itself. Good, she thinks. She can make it until there.
And she does. But barely. She parks the Passat as near to the restrooms as she can and then rushes into the bathroom, whose smell reminds her of a pig farm she drove by on a family road trip combined with a dead rat she removed from the courtyard of an old apartment — a juicy, rotten stink. She sits on the toilet seat without thinking or looking and, immediately, her ass feels wet. Her wet, cold butt sticking to the toilet seat fuels the cancerous growth of self-hatred that Sonia has festering inside of her. She is disgusting and incompetent. But she is peeing and feels some relief. And it dawns on her that this is the first of many public bathrooms she will encounter.
Afterward, she manages a decent cleanup job. There is toilet paper — hallelujah! — and even warm water in the sinks. She stares at herself in the mirror. She sticks her chest out. She has the glow. The pregnancy glow. The moist skin, the seemingly smiling face. The Mona Lisa smile that all pregnant women get. It’s not a real smile, but it seems like one to the outside world. She sticks her tongue out and leaves the restroom.
It is a beautiful night. Even here, next to the highway. The air is crisp and cool and her nipples harden under her tank top. And even though cars whiz by on the highway occasionally, the rhythmic noises of crickets and birds overwhelm the traffic. Sonia sits on top of her car, delicately though, as it feels a bit warm. She folds her hands in her lap and breathes slowly for a minute, her eyes closed. I’m here now, she thinks, that’s all. Nothing else matters.
There are a handful of other cars. A few spots away from her Passat, with no cars in between, is a green Chevy pickup, with a young, dark-haired man leaning against it, holding a cup of coffee and smoking a cigarette.
Sonia immediately likes him. His dirty hair, long but not too long, like a haircut gone neglected. His pants are tight, but not painfully so. He’s got tattoos, which she notices first. Then she notices his arms. They are big.
“You’re staring at me.”
“I’m sorry?” Sonia calls back.
“You’re staring at me.” In the low light, it’s hard to see if he’s smiling, what his expression is.
“Can I bum a cigarette?”
Sonia hasn’t smoked since college. She walks over and every muscle in her body feels tight and strange, as if walking were something her body had never done before. He taps out a Camel filter for her. He looks older than he is. He has that reddish-tan seeming skin that has a bit to do with the sun, and much to do with cigarettes and alcohol. Sonia finds it sexy in him — decadent, reckless.
“I haven’t had a cigarette in a long time,” she says.
“Are you pregnant?”
Sonia looks down at her bump. She feigns surprise. “Look! I am pregnant!”
“Phew. For a minute there, I thought I had made a mistake.” He has an accent that Sonia can’t place. “That’s no good, saying a woman looks pregnant when she’s not.” He laughs, looking away from her.
But quickly, he’s leaning toward her, flicking his lighter at the cigarette in her mouth. She doesn’t inhale, but she holds the dry smoke in her mouth. It’s too much. Her hand shakes as she takes the cigarette out from between her lips.
“Where are you from?” she asks him.
“From Hingham, the south shore of Boston. I was visiting my dad. He lives in Connecticut. Where are you from?”
“From Brooklyn,” she answers, and then wonders if this is the time where she starts lying about where’s she’s from. Or if she’s pregnant. Let them think she’s fat! Who cares? Guys fuck fat chicks. Some guys do. Or if she’s married. The hand with the cigarette, her left hand, sports a wedding ring. She wonders if she should take it off. Hell, guys fuck married women all the time. In fact, Sonia decides, many may prefer to. Perhaps the sort of man Sonia is looking for prefers married women. If Sonia is looking for men, which she’s not quite sure about. Is she looking for men? For what? For laughs? She is looking at this man now. He is beautiful to her. The cigarette and his arms and his accent and everything about him, his truck everything, is making her feel weak, lightheaded.
“Where’re you heading?” he asks.
“That’s a good question. I guess to Boston. I’m on a road trip. And I don’t have a strict itinerary.”
He smells good. She’s standing so close to him that she can really smell him. He smells salty and smoky. Like he’s been sweating a bit, but not too much. His biceps bulge, his tattoo is of a dragon, his arms are covered with coarse, dark hair.
“Are you OK?” he asks and he puts a hand on her arm. “Yeah, the cigarette just made me dizzy.” But really, it’s his touch that pushes her over the edge. “Can I sit in your truck for a minute?”
Now he looks at her strangely.
“Please?” she says, weakly.
“Sure.” She can hear a bit of nervousness in his voice. “I do have to be going soon.” He starts looking around himself, as if he was waiting for someone.
She wants to scream, Fuck You! Pussy! What are you afraid of? Be a Man! Help Me Out! But instead, she says, “Thanks. Just for a minute.”
Then she looks at his face. He’s chiseled. It’s as if she ran into Colin Farrell here on the side of 95 in deep New England. Except this guy’s taller, and smells. And he probably gets his cut arms from doing real work, not from hanging out with his personal trainer. God how Sonia hates actors, the whole concept of them, pretending to be real people. But she loves men. She loves real men.