Amber by Dan-Dwayne Spencer (e book reader .TXT) 📕

his redheaded butt aside, locked eyes with him, and growled, “You’re not going to tell Sarah anything about what happens on this trip. You got that.”

He pulled away from me and stepped back. “Since when did you start acting like Jimmy Dugan?” He stood there pressing flat the wrinkles I put into his shirt. “I thought we were best friends. Now you’re all buddy-buddy with Jimmy.”

“Sorry, Roger. I got carried away. I don’t know what came over me. I shouldn’t have grabbed you like that.” I stepped back, farther away from him. “But it’s not our place to tell Sarah what Jimmy does. You know how important Sarah is to him. Even if he makes it with another girl, it’s his confession—or secret to keep.” I pressed my lips together and grabbed the most disturbing comparison I could think of. “If you hooked up with a girl on this trip, I wouldn’t go blab to your mom about it.”

Roger’s face mutated into an expression of pure horror. “Damn. You’d better not. I’d kill you.”

“Yeah, and Jimmy would kill you too.” I knew I’d hit Roger below the belt, but I had to make him see—sometimes keeping a friend meant keeping his mouth shut.

I put a hand on Roger’s shoulder and asked, “Still friends?”

He smiled and nodded. “Best friends.” He gave me an awkward expression. “You wouldn’t tell mom, would you?”

I meant to answer, but it was then I heard an older man complaining to another wrinkled codger. “Danged kids are going to give her a ride. I thought I was finally going to get a look at what goes on at the Hollow. You know they say all those hippies take drugs and run around naked.”

Several parts of his fleeting conversation rang bells in my head. The words drugs, hippies, naked, and Hollow added up to one thing. Rose lived in a commune. That was why Sam hesitated to hire her. She was a full-fledged hippy, not just a weekend warrior like we were. During the school term, our lives revolved around classes all week, and then we pretended on the weekends to be part of the groovy crowd. In fact, I’d never met a real hippie before, much less visited a commune. I think my temperature rose five degrees just thinking about it.

Trying to conceal my excitement, I climbed into the back of the Mustang with Roger, Jimmy sat in the passenger seat, and Rose slid behind the wheel. She took her time adjusting the mirrors, checking where her light switches were, and such. She clicked the foot-switch, flashing the brights on and off, then grappled for something behind her.

“What are you reaching for?” Jimmy asked.

“This is a new car and all the new cars have safety belts.” She grappled a bit more.

“This buggy’s not so new,” Jimmy assured her. “My old man’s 68 Oldsmobile has them, but not this one.” Unrolling his pack of Dorals from his sleeve, he flipped out a cigarette and clicked open his zippo. Placing the end in the flame, he pulled a deep drag and gave it to Rose.

She had no problem inhaling the smoke and exhaling folded gray ribbons as she drove. “Thanks, I needed that.” She took another drag. “Dorals, huh?” She smilingly observed. “This is a new brand. I’ve never seen these before.”

“Yeah, they just came out. My… friend clerks at a convenience store back home. She gave them to me.”

Roger and I kept dumbly silent.

“I heard that,” she replied.

“What? You heard what?” Jimmy pulled his eyebrows down into a scowl.

“There was a silent word in your statement. You purposefully left out the word girl.” She blew more smoke out of the Mustang’s window as she pulled onto the highway heading south. “You almost said your girlfriend clerks at a convenience store.”

Jimmy bowed his head. “Yeah, you’re right.”

She smiled sweetly. Her sparkling white teeth, lip gloss, and perfectly drawn eyeliner framed her face, giving her an angelic look. “You thought I wouldn’t like you if you had a girl back home—right?”

Jimmy nodded, keeping his eyes on his cigarette.

“Don’t worry, man. I like you just fine.” She took another drag and exhaled. “Damn man, what’s not to like?”

She drove southwest on Highway 44 until a sign announced a cut-off for US Route 400. With no moon out it was pitch dark, making the stars sparkle brilliantly in the black velvet night. They glowed so brightly and there were so many of them; it looked as if I could reach up and scoop them right out of the sky. For about ten miles, everything was fine. We talked and Rose told stories about the funny antics her customers had pulled at the café. After passing the Tri-state marker, she turned northwest. Up ahead a semi-tractor with a long trailer in tow headed towards Wichita, by way of Baxter Springs.

“That’s Dave’s rig. I’d know it anywhere,” Rose excitedly explained. She looked back at me in the rearview mirror. “You asked where he goes after stopping at the truck stop. I guess he has a route taking him northwest across Kansas.” She sighed. “Isn’t it a thing of beauty? The rig, I mean. It’s all shiny, metallic blue with white pinstriping.”

From where I sat I couldn’t see any pinstriping, but if Rose said it was there, I believed her. Jimmy and Roger agreed with her every word, but I doubted they could see the pinstripes either.

Jimmy asked, “How much farther is it to this Hollow you live at?”

“Not far. It’s only about seven more miles and then we turn due north and go another four miles,” Rose replied.

I figured she had been born in Kansas if she thought this wasn’t far from the truck stop. Only someone used to everything being miles from civilization would consider this a little hop over to anywhere.

Up ahead, Dave