Amber, clearly flustered, slapped her hand against the side of the camper. “Look, Corey. If this is about you and me, fine. I’ll get my own place to live when we get back to Nashville, but you guys still need me to sell merchandise. I’ll sleep on the bus.”
“Gus already has a vendor to handle the merchandise. It’s the same company he uses all the time.”
“Are you telling me this whole thing was a setup?” Her voice was quivering and her cheeks red. “You couldn’t just break up with me like a normal person? No, you had to haul me all the way out here and dump me on the side of the road?”
“You’re not on the side of the road. Just call your folks. They’re fifteen minutes away. Your mom’s waiting to hear from you.”
“You called her?”
“Amber, I’m not a bad guy. I wasn’t going to just kick you out and make you sleep in the bus station. I wanted to be sure you—”
The line went dead.
In her side-view mirror, Joy could see Amber leaning against the camper, her arms at her sides and her face skyward with her eyes closed. She knew that feeling, the blunt realization that the faith you had in someone was poorly placed. Though eager to get back on the road, she could spare a few minutes for this girl to get her senses back and decide what she needed to do.
She was too thin, Joy thought, and wore too much color in her eye makeup, blush and lipstick. Her right shoulder blade sported a tattoo of what looked like a bass guitar.
“One more call?”
“Of course.” There was no way she could avoid listening without letting on that she’d heard the entirety of the first call.
“Harmony…it’s me, Amber. Look, it didn’t work out for me going on the tour and I need to get back to Nashville. Is there any way I can get my job back at the daycare?”
The woman on the other end groaned. “Listen, girl. I can’t take you back. Wayne says Corey wants a clean break, you know?”
“Corey doesn’t have anything to do with any of this. I’m not even going to see him anymore. I just need a job…and a place to stay for a couple of weeks until I can get settled somewhere else.”
“I can’t do it, Amber. I wish I could, but Wayne and Corey…they’re the band. You know how it is. Everything’s always about what’s best for the band. Sorry, kid.”
Amber cut off the call and slumped again against the camper for a few seconds. As if suddenly remembering she wasn’t alone, she straightened up and returned to the driver’s window with the phone. “Thanks.”
Joy watched as she flicked her cigarette butt to the ground and walked back to the building where her tiny dog began dancing with excitement. She drew the pup into her lap as she sat forlornly on her suitcase. If those calls were any indication, the poor girl had no choice but to call her family, who happened to live nearby. At least Corey—whoever he was—had made it seem like it would be okay.
She started to pull out and realized Amber was sobbing. Dropping her off somewhere would probably eat up an hour of her day, but Joy knew she’d never sleep tonight if she went to bed worrying about how this turned out.
“You need a lift somewhere?”
The girl shook her head. “I don’t know where I’d go.”
With the engine still running, Joy walked around and opened the passenger door. “Hop in. We’ll figure it out.”
Amber hesitated for a few seconds but stood, which enabled Joy to grab her suitcase and toss it in the crew cab behind the front seat. “Which way are you going?”
“I’m headed west on I-64, but I can drop you off wherever you need to go. I’m sure there’s a bus station around here, and if you need some help with a ticket, I can spare a few bucks.” Joy climbed in on her side and buckled her seat belt, signaling to Amber to do the same.
“Are you going anywhere near a place called Limon, Colorado?”
“Colorado?”
“I have a friend there. I can stay with her while I look for a job.”
She hadn’t figured her friendly gesture would result in a rider for the next two days. “Did I hear you say you had family near here?”
“I’m not going back there…not ever. I’ve got some money to help pay for gas. If it’s too much trouble, I’m sure I’ll find somebody else going that way.” She started to unbuckle her belt.
“No…no, that’s okay.” A girl as desperate as this one would probably get into a car with anyone, and it might not be safe. “I’ll be passing through Limon sometime tomorrow afternoon. You’re welcome to ride.”
The relief on Amber’s face was unmistakable. “I’m Amber…Amber Halliday.”
“Joy Shepard. Who’s your friend?” The black and tan pup, about half the size of a typical cat, cowered in Amber’s lap, terrified either of Joy or the truck.
“Skippy. He’s part Chihuahua. I got him last year at the shelter in Nashville.”
She reached out to give him a pet, prompting a low growl that made her pull her hand back in a hurry. It was going to be a long day.
* * *
“…I’m a ground crew chief at the airport in Oakland. You know, one of those people in the orange vests who guides the planes into the gate and makes sure they get serviced.”
Amber nodded along, though she had no idea what Joy was talking about. She’d never been on a plane in her life. “And you’re what, on vacation?”
“Yeah, sort of. My goddaughter Madison—she’s nine—she flew out to California a few weeks ago to visit my pop and me. I took her back to her home near Norfolk and we had a nice camping trip along the way…went to Yosemite and the Grand Canyon, then through the Rockies.”
“Norfolk…that’s in North Carolina, right?”
“Virginia.”
Amber had never been much for geography. Like most other subjects in high school, she couldn’t imagine why she’d ever need it. All those lessons about map reading were unnecessary when you had a GPS on your phone telling you everywhere to turn.
Just about everyone she knew in Nashville drove a pickup truck, but none were as nice as this one, with its camper shell attached. It had tan leather seats with wood trim on the dashboard, a wide-screen navigation system, CD player and satellite radio, and touch controls for everything on the steering wheel.
“Nice truck…lots of fancy stuff.”
“Thanks. Technically, it belongs to my pop, but he never drives it anymore. He bought it about four years ago when my mom got sick so they could take a few trips together. She died not long after that and…well, he and I get along just fine most of the time, but not well enough to spend time together in a pillbox like this.”
California women were nothing like the ones Amber knew in Tennessee and Kentucky. In the first place, she didn’t know a single one who would just pick up and drive all the way across the country by herself. Practically all her friends had boyfriends or husbands, and it was the guys who went off and did crap like that.
In the second place, she looked strong and physically fit, with muscles in her arms and legs. Her appearance was meticulous, like she’d gone out of her way to make every single detail perfect. Her bright yellow T-shirt, with a pocket logo that read Big Stick, was tucked into her shorts. Both had obviously been ironed.
Ironed!
Who ironed shorts and T-shirts?
Joy’s obsession with neatness extended well beyond picking up paper towels in the restroom. There wasn’t a speck of dust on the dashboard or even a smudge on the windshield.
“What sort of work do you do, Amber?”
Amber sighed, wishing she could have another cigarette. “A little of this, a little of that. My last job was at a daycare. Before that I worked at the Friendly Mart…that’s a convenience store in Nashville, but don’t be fooled by the name. The owner’s an asshole. I’ve flipped hamburgers, made tacos, sold vitamins over the phone…sat with old people. I would have liked doing the merchandising for Gus Holley, but that was all one big joke on me.”
“That’s a lousy way to treat somebody. I’m sorry they did that to you.”
“You know what they say…lay down with dogs and get fleas.” She was accustomed to disappointment. All those jobs she’d mentioned had ended with her being fired or quitting because she couldn’t work under ridiculous conditions with bosses who yelled at her all the time for no reason. She would have done great work for Gus if only he’d given her a chance.
“So you know Gus Holley? My goddaughter tells me he’s a pretty big name in country music.”
“Yeah, he’s a nice guy…a lot better than those jerkoffs in his band. I bet he’ll be pissed when he hears what Corey did to me.”
She was tired of thinking about Corey and turned her thoughts to Molly, one of the first friends she’d made in Nashville after splitting up with Archie, her boyfriend from high school. She and Molly had shared an apartment with two other girls for about a year, during which Amber discovered she liked sleeping with women a lot more than with men. Though they’d kept it casual—not to mention secret—she’d been disappointed when Molly left suddenly to take a desk clerk job at her cousin’s motel in Limon. She’d even toyed with moving out there when Molly said there was a job cleaning rooms, but by that time she’d started seeing Corey and it just seemed easier to stay put.
They passed a sign for a rest area and Amber decided she could wait no longer for a cigarette. “Can we stop here?”
She went first to the restroom and then used the time walking Skippy to smoke. From the hillside above the parking lot, she watched as Joy took a cloth and cleaned both the windshield and headlights before wiping down the truck’s grill. She’d never seen someone so finicky about a stupid pickup truck.
Joy met her at the passenger door with a plastic bag. “Here, I thought you might need this to clean up after Skippy.”
Amber stuffed it in her pocket. “He didn’t do anything this time.” Actually he had, but she had no intention of marching back up the hill to pick up dog shit. Just because Joy was obsessive-compulsive didn’t mean she had to be. A few germs here and there were supposed to be good for you, helping ward off colds or the flu.
When they got back on the road, Amber passed the next hour pretending to sleep, still mired in thoughts of how she’d been duped by Corey and the band. In hindsight, there were lots of clues and she’d foolishly missed them all. Corey had moved his belongings into storage while encouraging her to sell everything she didn’t absolutely need. When she’d almost backed out of the tour because she didn’t want to give up Skippy, he’d come back with the great news that Gus said she could bring him along. Then her phone stopped working all of a sudden—because Corey had canceled her service—and he’d even given her a little spending money as a kiss-off.
What really hurt was realizing all her supposed friends had been in on it. Everyone had followed his cue and gotten up to go to the bus when he first mentioned calling her folks. Even Harmony knew about it and was ready when she called to let her down. It was bad enough to be betrayed by a bastard like Corey, but everybody!
On the far side of St. Louis they stopped at another rest area, where Joy went into the camper to make lunch. She’d grown quiet too, probably wondering what she’d gotten herself into by picking up a stray on the side of the road, one who sulked like a brat.
“You need any help in there, Joy?”
“I can handle it. You like mustard?”
“Sure.” She didn’t care what she ate—or even if she ate—but she needed to straighten up and be nice. They still had a full day to go to get to Limon, and she wasn’t going to get a better ride than this, not with food and a place to sleep thrown in.
Joy emerged through the narrow door balancing two plates piled with sandwiches, chips and chunks of watermelon. “You want to get our drinks? I left two cups on the counter. There’s iced tea in the fridge, but make sure you put it back in the slot on the door.”
Amber wasn’t surprised to find the inside of the camper as tidy as the rest of the truck. It was a teeny space but efficiently arranged. A closet-sized bathroom with a shower was on her left across from a dinette that looked just big enough for four very skinny people. Next was a sink, a cooktop with a microwave mounted above it, and a small refrigerator. Beyond the kitchen area was a step up into a sleeping compartment that extended over the truck’s cab. Naturally, its sheets and blanket were perfectly trimmed. A TV was mounted on a swivel so it could be seen from either the bed or the dinette. Every cubic inch that wasn’t plainly visible appeared to be storage.
Expecting to feel claustrophobic in such a cramped space, she was surprised to find it cozy and welcoming. If she had the money for a rig like this, she’d never have to worry about where to live. On a day like today, she could have parked this baby under a shade tree and chilled.
“This is really cool. How much does one of these outfits cost?”
Joy was seated at a concrete picnic table in the shade, already eating. “I think the camper was about twenty and the truck another thirty-five. You in the market?”
“Yeah, right. More than likely, I’ll be sleeping on a couch by tomorrow night.”
“Is that what’s waiting for you in Limon?”
“Probably. My friend Molly moved there when her cousin took over one of the motels. She tried to get me to come out and work for her but I’d started seeing Asshole so I said no. I just hope she still has an opening.”
“What if she doesn’t have anything right now? There are a lot more people out there than jobs these days.”
“We’ll work it out. She’s practically my best friend so at least she’ll put me up until I find something.”
“It’s a good feeling to have friends like that.”
“It would be even better if I had one of these,” she said, indicating the truck camper.
“I know what you mean. Sometimes I feel like a turtle carrying my house around.”
When Joy finished her lunch, she stretched her long frame upward to grab the crossbeam of their picnic shelter, and in a sudden burst, did three quick pull-ups before dusting her hands and tossing her trash in the bin.
Amber almost laughed aloud to realize the biggest difference between Joy and the other girls she’d hung out with—none of them did pull-ups on a whim. Joy was probably gay.
“I’m really sorry, Joy.”