Melody & Easton's Wacky Road Trip
Feb. 24th, 2005 09:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexmegamiAlright, everyone, it's 9 pages of Melody and Easton road trip... well, I won't call it goodness, not yet.
I'd really really appreciate comments ;_;
Road Trip
Alessandra Picchetti
The air in the bar was blue and grey, twisting around Easton like a lover. He sipped at his drink quietly, scanning the patrons of this early hour: fat older men with no interest in anything beyond the rims of their shot glasses, one waitress with Herculean bravery deftly ignoring the occasional catcall and attempts at ass-grabbing. The bartender dried a glass slowly.
These were not the people he cared about.
She was on stage: her hands fluttering over the strings of an old guitar, beating out John Lennon to the disenfranchised and the cynics, her voice piercing the haze. The patrons ignored her; Easton watched. As she finished the last verse, the waitress quietly reminded the denizens of the bar that it was time for last call; the girl onstage tried to infuse the room with some buoyancy, unaware or uncaring about the futility of the attempt.
As the bar emptied, he approached the stage. She was packing away the microphone, relegating it to its unassuming corner. He cleared his throat.
“Easton!” Tucking her hair behind her ear, Melody leaned down to hug him tightly. “How are you? Here, help me put this away, will you?” She passed an amplifier to him, and he lugged it in the direction she pointed. When he returned, she had her guitar case in one hand and a duffel bag slung over her shoulder. “You giving me a ride?”
“Sure.”
Pushing against the bar of the doors, Easton led her to his car, a battered and rusty Pontiac four-door. He opened the trunk for her, and she tossed her bag in, relegating the guitar to the backseat. When she went to open the passenger door, however, she stared at him over the roof of the car.
“You feeling okay?”
He cleared his throat again. “Actually, I wanted to ask you something.”
“Shoot.”
“I have some vacation time. I was wondering if you’d like to go for a drive.”
“A drive?” She waggled her eyebrows at him. “How long is this vacation time?”
“Two weeks.”
“That’s a pretty long drive.”
He slid into his seat. “You don’t have to come. I don’t have a location picked out yet.” He slammed the door shut, and she quickly got in next to him.
“Really?” She hummed for a moment, bobbing her head. “Santa Monica.”
“What?”
“Let’s go to Santa Monica.”
“Will you be joining me?”
“Sure. What the hell.”
The streetlights passed over them in a repetitive gold-dark pattern, the night outside still and empty. Melody watched the side of the highway, the familiar pattern of dark tree lines whipping past, interrupted by green and blue street signs. They had been silent for the past hour, each contemplating their own personal mysteries.
“Why are you doing this?” She asked, and wished she hadn’t crushed the fragile emptiness between them.
“Doing what?”
“Have you ever even left Toronto before? I’ve never seen you leave Toronto before.”
“I’ve left Toronto before.”
“That’s not an answer.”
His mouth set into a firm line, and she turned back to the countryside, but only for a few moments. “Why me, then?”
“You’re being very confrontational.”
“You barely know me.”
“Why are you escalating the situation?”
“What if I want to go back home?”
He stared at her. “Then I’ll turn around.”
There, she thought, there was something. It was subtle, a slight rising of pitch on the word ‘turn’, perhaps; he did not want to go back. “Easton,” she said, adopting her most reasonable tone, “tell me what’s going on or I won’t go any further.”
His jaw set.
“I’ll hitchhike back if you want to keep driving.” She tried to gauge his reaction. Well, she reasoned, he wasn’t pulling over or throwing her out of the car. “Is it girlfriend trouble?”
“No.” He pushed a hand through his hair.
“Is this a pity trip? Like pity sex, but not as sexual?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Never mind.”
He sighed, tried to decide whether or not to pull over. “Do you want to go home?”
“No,” she said softly. I want to see where you go, and what you do when you get there, she thought. Unbuckling her seatbelt, she crawled into the backseat, disregarding Easton’s protests.
“I’m just getting my guitar. We need some music.”
“You couldn’t turn on the radio?”
“That’s not really music.”
“Put on your seatbelt, at least.” He was watching her in the rearview mirror.
“I can’t play if I do. You’re off-duty. Relax.” She strummed a few chords. “Any preference?”
“I’d prefer you put your seatbelt back on.” She didn’t acknowledge him, launched into an Iggy Pop song that he didn’t recognize; humming, mostly, but she broke out into ‘la’s on what he assumed was the chorus. When she finished, he said, “At least put it on before we cross the border.”
He had to admit he was stonewalling her, though not deliberately. Her need to find answers nagged at him; he had no clear agenda for this trip, no reason he could shape into words. He pushed back his hair, his thoughts wandering to the red duffel bag in the trunk.
“I’m glad you stayed,” he said. That, at least, was honest.
She looked at him, the streetlights playing over her face. “Yeah,” she said. “Me too.”
The border crossing passed uneventfully, and they pulled into a motel shortly afterwards, the mourning doves and sparrows just beginning their daily routine. Too tired to negotiate rooming arrangements, he purchased a double room, collapsing on the bed suit and all before sleep claimed him.
They spent the day in Flint, Michigan; Easton found it borderline distasteful, but Melody saw a sign on the bar across from the motel advertising a battle of the bands.
“We’ve got weeks,” she said. “It won’t kill you.”
“It’ll be a bunch of college kids whining about their exams over noise,” he said. “It isn’t worth it.”
“You don’t know that,” she said. “Where’s your sense of adventure?”
He rankled at that. “Fine, but we’re leaving first thing in the morning.”
They spent the afternoon buying necessities and snacks for the trip, Easton converting money for gas. He wanted to buy a map, but she laughed and said that they went west and then south, how hard could it be? She was impressed, though; Easton treated money with an ease that she could not.
“So you’re just going to buy my meals,” she said over dinner.
“I’ve done that before,” he said, surprised how she pecked at this fact.
“A bagel at Timmy’s, maybe soup once a week,” she said, jabbing her fork at him. “That doesn’t count. This is feeding a whole other person for two weeks, here.”
“Perhaps we’ll make you healthy.” He shrugged, and that was what amazed her the most.
Easton had been right about the bands; the few that did have talent mostly played covers, and those that had none flaunted it. The throngs of teens that crushed against him stank of cigarettes and booze and other unsavory things that made him want to shout at them until he was hoarse.
Melody seemed unconcerned with the crowd and the vices it abused; she closed her eyes upon entering the bar and began to dance. He watched her, pushing away a girl that tried to nuzzle against his chest, torn between grabbing her and making her leave and the urge to watch her for just a moment longer.
By the time Melody joined him again, he was lecturing a pair of potheads on the dangers of marijuana use, alternately threatening to call the police and cajoling them to make something of their lives. She laughed, took his arm, explained to the boys that her friend sometimes forgot where he was, and lead him away.
“They’re ruining their lives.”
“You’re off duty. This isn’t even your country.”
She’s laughing at me, he thought. “That’s no excuse.” He pulled away from her as they made their exit. Everything aches, he thought. I’ll have to pick up some aspirin.
“Besides, who says they’re ruining their lives?”
“Don’t defend their addictions.”
“I’m not,” she said. “I just think that they’ve grown up in a sensationalist world.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“It’s like,” she motioned with her hands, “a higher octave, maybe. Their sounds are louder, so they need to be louder to hear themselves, and some of them just want to silence sound entirely. And neither option is good.” Easton pulled the motel room door open. “Are you listening?”
He did not say anything, and it was in that smothering emptiness that they slept.
They started early the next morning; Melody was used to waking with the sun, and Easton had no desire to stay there any longer. They returned to the open road, purple-gold light backlighting their progress.
Melody, in her way, opened the conversation first. “I’ve never done drugs.”
“Oh?”
“Nope, not once. I’ve never drunk alcohol or smoked, either. I am like the poster child for the anti-drug coalition.”
“Probably not,” he said. “I don’t think they’d approve of your lifestyle.”
“That’s true. No one wants to hear about the high-school dropouts.”
“That, too.”
“It’s funny, though. People are so insistent: ‘I’ve got to get through high school, go to university, become someone, do something’. And then they do, and they’re miserable.”
“Not all of them,” Easton said.
“Oh, sure, they go on to get good jobs in hospitals or retail or – or policing. And you probably see people who are worse off, every day. But I see people getting on the subway and it’s awful.” She shifted, holey sweater pulling up over her concave stomach. “I have to sing From Me to You until the morning rush finishes.”
“Why?”
“Because people need to know that someone out there notices. I guess it’s my way of coping.”
“You really are a hippie.”
She laughed at his expression. “I figure I’m better off with an alley to myself and a spot on a subway wall than they are with their degrees and their homes.”
He doubted it, but he doubted silently; her living conditions were a constant battle between them, and he wasn’t in the mood to bring it to the fore again.
“So how’s your girlfriend?” She asked as they pulled through a drive-thru in Indiana.
“Sam is fine.” He paid the server and took their coffees, passing Melody hers. “And if you’re trying to be nosy, you’re being remarkably unsubtle.”
Melody ducked her head a little. “Can’t blame a girl for trying.”
“Sam is fine,” he repeated. Sam is normal, he thought. Sam is open-minded. “I wouldn’t call her my girlfriend, exactly.”
“What would you call her?”
“A woman I’m seeing.” He took a sip and grimaced. “God, this coffee’s awful.”
“That takes too long to say.” She took a sip, thoughtfully swilling it around in her mouth. “Tastes fine to me.”
“I hardly think you’re a connoisseur. I don’t think I should be telling you about my personal life, anyway.”
“Why not? Are you embarrassed?”
“I think it crosses a professional boundary.”
She laughed until he could feel his ears and stomach burning. “Oh,” she gasped. “Oh.”
She continued to burst into fits of giggles, twittering every few minutes until they were well across the Indiana/Illinois border. He turned on the radio, which distracted her somewhat, but she continued.
“Enough,” he said.
“I’m sorry,” she said, trying to cover her mouth.
“I realize it sounded ludicrous.”
“No!” She said, leaning against his arm. “It sounded completely sane.”
“There’s no reason to rub it in.”
“The expression on your face.” She grinned up at him.
He could feel his lips twitching.
“Can we pull over?” She said. “The car smell is making me sick.”
They stopped for gas at a local station with a sign that said We Serv Y u Better. Easton wasn’t sure what the sign said about the service, but the man who took his money was talkative while Melody escaped towards the bathroom.
“Pretty girlfriend you’ve got there,” he said, chewing a wad of tobacco. Easton made a noncommittal noise, knowing that an explanation of the truth wouldn’t go over well. He wasn’t even sure how he’d correct the man. “’Course, I prefer them with a bit of meat on their bones, ya know?” He wiped a hand on his pants, then traced half an hourglass in the air. “Something to hold on to, won’t blow away in the wind.”
“She’s had it rough,” Easton said. “Hand-to-mouth existence.”
“Yeah,” the guy said. “Bills’re always rough.” Easton doubted Melody had ever paid a bill in her life. “It’s ‘cos of yer socialist medicine,” the guy continued, motioning to Easton’s license plates. “Takin’ all the money from people, givin’ it to bums, means ya don’t get an honest day’s pay. You should move down here.”
“Right,” said Easton. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Where ya headed, anyway?”
“California,” Melody said, coming up behind him and handing him the bathroom key. “We’re going to see the sights.”
“Just a bunch of hippies and fags over there,” the guy said. “Nothing really interesting.” He leaned over, spitting brown sludge into the dirt.
“I see they have a revolving door for assholes here, though.”
He said it quietly, and the man showed no signs of having heard. Easton supposed that it was for the best. “You should go visit the Lewis ‘n’ Clark centre, that’s a real treat.” The man slid the gas pump back into its holder.
“Maybe on the way back,” Easton said, pulling out a few bills and handing them over.
“You have fun now,” the guy said.
By dusk, Melody had started wriggling in her seat again. He’d convinced her to remain in her seat, today, but only by pointing out how abhorrently expensive a traffic ticket in America would be. She was eyeing her guitar case, and there was a palpable itch in the air.
“What do you want to do when we get there?” He said.
“Stretch. Dance. Play my guitar. Not be in a car ever ever again,” she said.
“Roll down the windows. It’ll help.”
“Ever. I mean it.” She rolled down the window, though, sticking her head out into the wind, her blonde hair whipping out behind her. He could see her hip bone curving out from underneath her skirt. He tugged the waistband, and she pulled back inside, slapping his hand and laughing.
“You shouldn’t do that,” he said.
“You worry too much. It’s a vacation.”
“Bad things still happen on vacation.”
“Bah.” She stared out the window, trailing her hand out into the warm night air, pretending that her hand was a bird. “You never did say why we were doing this.”
“A change of pace, I suppose.”
“Right.”
“It just seemed like the thing to do.”
“Pick up a random stranger and travel across the country?”
“You’re not a random stranger. Besides, why am I being put on trial?” The steering wheel creaked in his hands. “Are you not enjoying yourself? Is comfort such a strange and bizarre concept for you that you want to go back?”
She unbuckled her seatbelt again, climbing over the armrest.
“God damn it, Melody,” he said. “You promised.”
“Quiet.” Her first chord was muted, as though she couldn’t get a grip on the neck, but soon quiet notes filtered their way to the front, hampered by the wind.
“You can’t live off music, Melody, not forever. You’ve been lucky so far, but if you keep it up you’re going to die before you hit thirty.”
“Spare me the lecture,” she said softly. “I’ve heard it already.”
“You don’t seem to have understood it. Look at yourself for once. Everything you own is in a guitar case and a sack. You haven’t even changed clothes since we started.”
“I think it’s time we stopped for the night,” she said.
She insisted on a double room again, despite Easton’s misgivings. The motel was dirty, with tacky Venetian blinds that Melody left open. When she went to take a shower, however, he slipped out the door, desperate to get away from her wounded-bird act.
The area was washed in red-gold tones, and he found himself wandering up the street to a convenience store that they’d passed. The universal stark glow of 7-11 was almost comforting as he picked up juice bottles and a pack of cigarettes. At the last moment he grabbed an interstate map of the mid-west and west coast, wondering why he felt so disconcerted.
He returned to the motel, leaning against the railing and tapping the carton of cigarettes on his hand.
“Those things’ll kill you, you know,” she said. He turned around to face her. Framed by the door, she was wearing a towel like a skirt around her waist and her tank top, wringing her hair out on the floorboards.
“I do a lot of things I shouldn’t,” he said.
“Not really,” she said. She started to pull her fingers through her hair. “I was worried.”
“I wouldn’t just leave you here.”
She shrugged, and he realized how hollow she really looked.
“I’m sorry,” he said, offering her one of the juice bottles.
“It’s okay. You just universalize things a lot, you know that?” She took his hand, sliding the cigarettes out. “Things can go right, too.” She tapped the cigarettes on her hand, mimicking him, then tossed the carton, discus-like, out over the railing. “Cigarettes, on the other hand, are never good.”
They watched TV together that night, Melody drifting off with her guitar in her lap while Easton pretended to watch Animal Planet. When he was sure she wouldn’t wake up, he slid the map out of the plastic bag. Unfolding it once, he decided to put her guitar away. Gently lifting her hands away from the strings, he tucked the instrument into its case, then pulled the covers over Melody. She nestled her head into the pillows.
Damn, he thought, looking at the clock, it’s already one. Stripping down to his boxers, he climbed into bed. The route could wait until tomorrow.
They crossed Iowa uneventfully; Melody found an oldies station and persisted in singing along with every single song they played. When prodded, Easton chimed in, but only briefly.
“You sound like a dying cat,” she said.
“I told you that.”
“Can Sam sing?”
“I’ve never heard her try,” Easton said. “She’s never expressed an interest.”
“How’d you meet her, anyway?”
He concentrated on the road. “Through work.”
“So she’s a cop, too?” When he didn’t reply, she poked his arm. “Not a cop, then?”
“No.”
“Oh.” She considered him momentarily. “Does Easton seduce sweet and innocent homeless girls?” She asked, batting her eyelashes at him and giggling.
He decided against fighting. “She used to be a prostitute. She cleaned up her act. She’s not my girlfriend; she’s a sweet girl that I date sometimes.” He glanced to his right. “Does that answer all your questions?”
He’d been hoping to shut this line of questioning down, but Melody was oblivious. “Do you love her?”
“Can I interrogate you about your love life?” He asked. “Do you love your boyfriend?”
“Sure,” Melody replied. “I don’t have one. Never have. Can we stop? I need to pee.”
He pulled over, thankful that Nebraska’s interstate roads were empty this early in the morning. He followed the trail of her brightly patterned skirt, watching in case anyone happened to be nearby, but she returned to the car quickly, stuffing something in her waistband.
“Hey, Easton,” she said, pausing his hand as he moved to start the car.
“What?”
“I’m really glad we did this,” she said, and kissed him. He could feel her fumbling with the seat mechanism, pushing him back and down to a prone position.
Her pelvis dug into him, and he could feel individual muscles rippling in her back when he ran his fingers along it. Her hair went everywhere – in his mouth, in his eyes – but he concentrated on the soft chirping noises she made in his ear.
When she finally sagged against him, she laughed, climbing off him as easily as she’d climbed on. He laughed at her laughter, then pushed his seat back into position.
“Are you ready to go?” He asked.
“What, again?” She said.
He mussed her hair, starting the car again and rolling the windows down.
“I think I’m going to write a song about you,” she said over the whistling from outside.
“Really,” he said.
“Promise you’ll come listen?”
“Of course.”
“Where next?”
“Colorado, Utah, a quick pass through Nevada, and then California.”
“All right, we’re almost there.” She cheered, whooping out the window.
His cell phone was ringing.
“What’s that?” She asked as he fumbled after the beeping noise.
“Phone,” he said.
“Don’t answer it,” she said, trying to snatch it from him.
“Cut it out, I’m driving.” He finally managed to wrangle it open, but the answering machine had already picked up. “Damn it. Here, check my mailbox, will you?” He handed it to her. “The password is…” He was cut off by the shutdown tune. “What are you doing?”
“You’re on vacation,” she said. “Leave it off.”
“Melody, I can’t just – what did that sign say?”
“New Mexico?” She said.
“I must have taken the wrong exit,” he said, swearing.
“Next gas station fifty kilometers,” she read aloud. “Great.”
“Maybe there’ll be an exit to go west again.”
“Maybe. Or maybe we’ll run out of gas in the middle of nowhere and die a horrible death.”
“That was gruesome.”
“Do you want to stop for directions?”
He motioned to the back seat. “Grab the bag with the juice in it. There might be a map we can use.”
“When did you get these?” She asked, pulling out the maps.
He shrugged and pulled over; he hoped silently that the whirring noise he was hearing was another car. “Here, pass them to me.”
She was looking at him expectantly, but expectant of what, he wasn’t sure. He opened the map lengthwise, then looked at her again. She waggled her eyebrows.
“Fuck it,” he said, folding the map again. “South then west, right? What could go wrong?”
They spent the night in Albuquerque, in a two-bed motel room off the I-25.
“Today,” Melody told him when they woke up. “I can feel it.”
The car was definitely giving out, and Easton was praying that it would make the final leg of the journey; to get this far and fail was unthinkable. While Melody showered, however, he checked his phone. Four messages from work, he thought with a sigh.
“So why California?” He asked as they drove.
“I always wanted to go,” she said. “You know, home of the Beach Boys, Jerry Garcia…”
“Is everything in your life about music?”
“Pretty much,” she said. “I was born on December eighth, and my parents named me Melody. What did they expect?”
He rolled his eyes. “Why Santa Monica? You’ve never been.”
She grinned. “I’ll tell you when we get there.”
It was this image that he remembered that winter, when he was asked to ID her body: Melody, sitting on the Santa Monica pier with her guitar cradled in her lap, singing Nat King Cole with no shame or self-awareness, a few people laughing and clapping alongside her. She was in her element, here, and when he told her they were flying back out, she kissed his cheek and said, “You go. I’ll hitchhike my way back.”
“Melody,” he said.
“I’m serious.” She grinned at him, and he found himself grinning back. “You’ll see me before summer’s out.”
“Here’s my number,” he said. “Call me if anything goes wrong.”
“Say hi to Sam for me,” she said.
And she had come back, met him for coffee and pried into his life like a magpie chasing a coin, and he hadn’t worried. This was the reason he would take her guitar home with him, that January night, and why he would tell Sam about the trip more than a year later. His fingers would brush the strings discordantly, and he’d shake his head. “She was born in the wrong age,” he’d tell Sam. “Route 66. Can you believe it?”
I'd really really appreciate comments ;_;
Road Trip
Alessandra Picchetti
The air in the bar was blue and grey, twisting around Easton like a lover. He sipped at his drink quietly, scanning the patrons of this early hour: fat older men with no interest in anything beyond the rims of their shot glasses, one waitress with Herculean bravery deftly ignoring the occasional catcall and attempts at ass-grabbing. The bartender dried a glass slowly.
These were not the people he cared about.
She was on stage: her hands fluttering over the strings of an old guitar, beating out John Lennon to the disenfranchised and the cynics, her voice piercing the haze. The patrons ignored her; Easton watched. As she finished the last verse, the waitress quietly reminded the denizens of the bar that it was time for last call; the girl onstage tried to infuse the room with some buoyancy, unaware or uncaring about the futility of the attempt.
As the bar emptied, he approached the stage. She was packing away the microphone, relegating it to its unassuming corner. He cleared his throat.
“Easton!” Tucking her hair behind her ear, Melody leaned down to hug him tightly. “How are you? Here, help me put this away, will you?” She passed an amplifier to him, and he lugged it in the direction she pointed. When he returned, she had her guitar case in one hand and a duffel bag slung over her shoulder. “You giving me a ride?”
“Sure.”
Pushing against the bar of the doors, Easton led her to his car, a battered and rusty Pontiac four-door. He opened the trunk for her, and she tossed her bag in, relegating the guitar to the backseat. When she went to open the passenger door, however, she stared at him over the roof of the car.
“You feeling okay?”
He cleared his throat again. “Actually, I wanted to ask you something.”
“Shoot.”
“I have some vacation time. I was wondering if you’d like to go for a drive.”
“A drive?” She waggled her eyebrows at him. “How long is this vacation time?”
“Two weeks.”
“That’s a pretty long drive.”
He slid into his seat. “You don’t have to come. I don’t have a location picked out yet.” He slammed the door shut, and she quickly got in next to him.
“Really?” She hummed for a moment, bobbing her head. “Santa Monica.”
“What?”
“Let’s go to Santa Monica.”
“Will you be joining me?”
“Sure. What the hell.”
The streetlights passed over them in a repetitive gold-dark pattern, the night outside still and empty. Melody watched the side of the highway, the familiar pattern of dark tree lines whipping past, interrupted by green and blue street signs. They had been silent for the past hour, each contemplating their own personal mysteries.
“Why are you doing this?” She asked, and wished she hadn’t crushed the fragile emptiness between them.
“Doing what?”
“Have you ever even left Toronto before? I’ve never seen you leave Toronto before.”
“I’ve left Toronto before.”
“That’s not an answer.”
His mouth set into a firm line, and she turned back to the countryside, but only for a few moments. “Why me, then?”
“You’re being very confrontational.”
“You barely know me.”
“Why are you escalating the situation?”
“What if I want to go back home?”
He stared at her. “Then I’ll turn around.”
There, she thought, there was something. It was subtle, a slight rising of pitch on the word ‘turn’, perhaps; he did not want to go back. “Easton,” she said, adopting her most reasonable tone, “tell me what’s going on or I won’t go any further.”
His jaw set.
“I’ll hitchhike back if you want to keep driving.” She tried to gauge his reaction. Well, she reasoned, he wasn’t pulling over or throwing her out of the car. “Is it girlfriend trouble?”
“No.” He pushed a hand through his hair.
“Is this a pity trip? Like pity sex, but not as sexual?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Never mind.”
He sighed, tried to decide whether or not to pull over. “Do you want to go home?”
“No,” she said softly. I want to see where you go, and what you do when you get there, she thought. Unbuckling her seatbelt, she crawled into the backseat, disregarding Easton’s protests.
“I’m just getting my guitar. We need some music.”
“You couldn’t turn on the radio?”
“That’s not really music.”
“Put on your seatbelt, at least.” He was watching her in the rearview mirror.
“I can’t play if I do. You’re off-duty. Relax.” She strummed a few chords. “Any preference?”
“I’d prefer you put your seatbelt back on.” She didn’t acknowledge him, launched into an Iggy Pop song that he didn’t recognize; humming, mostly, but she broke out into ‘la’s on what he assumed was the chorus. When she finished, he said, “At least put it on before we cross the border.”
He had to admit he was stonewalling her, though not deliberately. Her need to find answers nagged at him; he had no clear agenda for this trip, no reason he could shape into words. He pushed back his hair, his thoughts wandering to the red duffel bag in the trunk.
“I’m glad you stayed,” he said. That, at least, was honest.
She looked at him, the streetlights playing over her face. “Yeah,” she said. “Me too.”
The border crossing passed uneventfully, and they pulled into a motel shortly afterwards, the mourning doves and sparrows just beginning their daily routine. Too tired to negotiate rooming arrangements, he purchased a double room, collapsing on the bed suit and all before sleep claimed him.
They spent the day in Flint, Michigan; Easton found it borderline distasteful, but Melody saw a sign on the bar across from the motel advertising a battle of the bands.
“We’ve got weeks,” she said. “It won’t kill you.”
“It’ll be a bunch of college kids whining about their exams over noise,” he said. “It isn’t worth it.”
“You don’t know that,” she said. “Where’s your sense of adventure?”
He rankled at that. “Fine, but we’re leaving first thing in the morning.”
They spent the afternoon buying necessities and snacks for the trip, Easton converting money for gas. He wanted to buy a map, but she laughed and said that they went west and then south, how hard could it be? She was impressed, though; Easton treated money with an ease that she could not.
“So you’re just going to buy my meals,” she said over dinner.
“I’ve done that before,” he said, surprised how she pecked at this fact.
“A bagel at Timmy’s, maybe soup once a week,” she said, jabbing her fork at him. “That doesn’t count. This is feeding a whole other person for two weeks, here.”
“Perhaps we’ll make you healthy.” He shrugged, and that was what amazed her the most.
Easton had been right about the bands; the few that did have talent mostly played covers, and those that had none flaunted it. The throngs of teens that crushed against him stank of cigarettes and booze and other unsavory things that made him want to shout at them until he was hoarse.
Melody seemed unconcerned with the crowd and the vices it abused; she closed her eyes upon entering the bar and began to dance. He watched her, pushing away a girl that tried to nuzzle against his chest, torn between grabbing her and making her leave and the urge to watch her for just a moment longer.
By the time Melody joined him again, he was lecturing a pair of potheads on the dangers of marijuana use, alternately threatening to call the police and cajoling them to make something of their lives. She laughed, took his arm, explained to the boys that her friend sometimes forgot where he was, and lead him away.
“They’re ruining their lives.”
“You’re off duty. This isn’t even your country.”
She’s laughing at me, he thought. “That’s no excuse.” He pulled away from her as they made their exit. Everything aches, he thought. I’ll have to pick up some aspirin.
“Besides, who says they’re ruining their lives?”
“Don’t defend their addictions.”
“I’m not,” she said. “I just think that they’ve grown up in a sensationalist world.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“It’s like,” she motioned with her hands, “a higher octave, maybe. Their sounds are louder, so they need to be louder to hear themselves, and some of them just want to silence sound entirely. And neither option is good.” Easton pulled the motel room door open. “Are you listening?”
He did not say anything, and it was in that smothering emptiness that they slept.
They started early the next morning; Melody was used to waking with the sun, and Easton had no desire to stay there any longer. They returned to the open road, purple-gold light backlighting their progress.
Melody, in her way, opened the conversation first. “I’ve never done drugs.”
“Oh?”
“Nope, not once. I’ve never drunk alcohol or smoked, either. I am like the poster child for the anti-drug coalition.”
“Probably not,” he said. “I don’t think they’d approve of your lifestyle.”
“That’s true. No one wants to hear about the high-school dropouts.”
“That, too.”
“It’s funny, though. People are so insistent: ‘I’ve got to get through high school, go to university, become someone, do something’. And then they do, and they’re miserable.”
“Not all of them,” Easton said.
“Oh, sure, they go on to get good jobs in hospitals or retail or – or policing. And you probably see people who are worse off, every day. But I see people getting on the subway and it’s awful.” She shifted, holey sweater pulling up over her concave stomach. “I have to sing From Me to You until the morning rush finishes.”
“Why?”
“Because people need to know that someone out there notices. I guess it’s my way of coping.”
“You really are a hippie.”
She laughed at his expression. “I figure I’m better off with an alley to myself and a spot on a subway wall than they are with their degrees and their homes.”
He doubted it, but he doubted silently; her living conditions were a constant battle between them, and he wasn’t in the mood to bring it to the fore again.
“So how’s your girlfriend?” She asked as they pulled through a drive-thru in Indiana.
“Sam is fine.” He paid the server and took their coffees, passing Melody hers. “And if you’re trying to be nosy, you’re being remarkably unsubtle.”
Melody ducked her head a little. “Can’t blame a girl for trying.”
“Sam is fine,” he repeated. Sam is normal, he thought. Sam is open-minded. “I wouldn’t call her my girlfriend, exactly.”
“What would you call her?”
“A woman I’m seeing.” He took a sip and grimaced. “God, this coffee’s awful.”
“That takes too long to say.” She took a sip, thoughtfully swilling it around in her mouth. “Tastes fine to me.”
“I hardly think you’re a connoisseur. I don’t think I should be telling you about my personal life, anyway.”
“Why not? Are you embarrassed?”
“I think it crosses a professional boundary.”
She laughed until he could feel his ears and stomach burning. “Oh,” she gasped. “Oh.”
She continued to burst into fits of giggles, twittering every few minutes until they were well across the Indiana/Illinois border. He turned on the radio, which distracted her somewhat, but she continued.
“Enough,” he said.
“I’m sorry,” she said, trying to cover her mouth.
“I realize it sounded ludicrous.”
“No!” She said, leaning against his arm. “It sounded completely sane.”
“There’s no reason to rub it in.”
“The expression on your face.” She grinned up at him.
He could feel his lips twitching.
“Can we pull over?” She said. “The car smell is making me sick.”
They stopped for gas at a local station with a sign that said We Serv Y u Better. Easton wasn’t sure what the sign said about the service, but the man who took his money was talkative while Melody escaped towards the bathroom.
“Pretty girlfriend you’ve got there,” he said, chewing a wad of tobacco. Easton made a noncommittal noise, knowing that an explanation of the truth wouldn’t go over well. He wasn’t even sure how he’d correct the man. “’Course, I prefer them with a bit of meat on their bones, ya know?” He wiped a hand on his pants, then traced half an hourglass in the air. “Something to hold on to, won’t blow away in the wind.”
“She’s had it rough,” Easton said. “Hand-to-mouth existence.”
“Yeah,” the guy said. “Bills’re always rough.” Easton doubted Melody had ever paid a bill in her life. “It’s ‘cos of yer socialist medicine,” the guy continued, motioning to Easton’s license plates. “Takin’ all the money from people, givin’ it to bums, means ya don’t get an honest day’s pay. You should move down here.”
“Right,” said Easton. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Where ya headed, anyway?”
“California,” Melody said, coming up behind him and handing him the bathroom key. “We’re going to see the sights.”
“Just a bunch of hippies and fags over there,” the guy said. “Nothing really interesting.” He leaned over, spitting brown sludge into the dirt.
“I see they have a revolving door for assholes here, though.”
He said it quietly, and the man showed no signs of having heard. Easton supposed that it was for the best. “You should go visit the Lewis ‘n’ Clark centre, that’s a real treat.” The man slid the gas pump back into its holder.
“Maybe on the way back,” Easton said, pulling out a few bills and handing them over.
“You have fun now,” the guy said.
By dusk, Melody had started wriggling in her seat again. He’d convinced her to remain in her seat, today, but only by pointing out how abhorrently expensive a traffic ticket in America would be. She was eyeing her guitar case, and there was a palpable itch in the air.
“What do you want to do when we get there?” He said.
“Stretch. Dance. Play my guitar. Not be in a car ever ever again,” she said.
“Roll down the windows. It’ll help.”
“Ever. I mean it.” She rolled down the window, though, sticking her head out into the wind, her blonde hair whipping out behind her. He could see her hip bone curving out from underneath her skirt. He tugged the waistband, and she pulled back inside, slapping his hand and laughing.
“You shouldn’t do that,” he said.
“You worry too much. It’s a vacation.”
“Bad things still happen on vacation.”
“Bah.” She stared out the window, trailing her hand out into the warm night air, pretending that her hand was a bird. “You never did say why we were doing this.”
“A change of pace, I suppose.”
“Right.”
“It just seemed like the thing to do.”
“Pick up a random stranger and travel across the country?”
“You’re not a random stranger. Besides, why am I being put on trial?” The steering wheel creaked in his hands. “Are you not enjoying yourself? Is comfort such a strange and bizarre concept for you that you want to go back?”
She unbuckled her seatbelt again, climbing over the armrest.
“God damn it, Melody,” he said. “You promised.”
“Quiet.” Her first chord was muted, as though she couldn’t get a grip on the neck, but soon quiet notes filtered their way to the front, hampered by the wind.
“You can’t live off music, Melody, not forever. You’ve been lucky so far, but if you keep it up you’re going to die before you hit thirty.”
“Spare me the lecture,” she said softly. “I’ve heard it already.”
“You don’t seem to have understood it. Look at yourself for once. Everything you own is in a guitar case and a sack. You haven’t even changed clothes since we started.”
“I think it’s time we stopped for the night,” she said.
She insisted on a double room again, despite Easton’s misgivings. The motel was dirty, with tacky Venetian blinds that Melody left open. When she went to take a shower, however, he slipped out the door, desperate to get away from her wounded-bird act.
The area was washed in red-gold tones, and he found himself wandering up the street to a convenience store that they’d passed. The universal stark glow of 7-11 was almost comforting as he picked up juice bottles and a pack of cigarettes. At the last moment he grabbed an interstate map of the mid-west and west coast, wondering why he felt so disconcerted.
He returned to the motel, leaning against the railing and tapping the carton of cigarettes on his hand.
“Those things’ll kill you, you know,” she said. He turned around to face her. Framed by the door, she was wearing a towel like a skirt around her waist and her tank top, wringing her hair out on the floorboards.
“I do a lot of things I shouldn’t,” he said.
“Not really,” she said. She started to pull her fingers through her hair. “I was worried.”
“I wouldn’t just leave you here.”
She shrugged, and he realized how hollow she really looked.
“I’m sorry,” he said, offering her one of the juice bottles.
“It’s okay. You just universalize things a lot, you know that?” She took his hand, sliding the cigarettes out. “Things can go right, too.” She tapped the cigarettes on her hand, mimicking him, then tossed the carton, discus-like, out over the railing. “Cigarettes, on the other hand, are never good.”
They watched TV together that night, Melody drifting off with her guitar in her lap while Easton pretended to watch Animal Planet. When he was sure she wouldn’t wake up, he slid the map out of the plastic bag. Unfolding it once, he decided to put her guitar away. Gently lifting her hands away from the strings, he tucked the instrument into its case, then pulled the covers over Melody. She nestled her head into the pillows.
Damn, he thought, looking at the clock, it’s already one. Stripping down to his boxers, he climbed into bed. The route could wait until tomorrow.
They crossed Iowa uneventfully; Melody found an oldies station and persisted in singing along with every single song they played. When prodded, Easton chimed in, but only briefly.
“You sound like a dying cat,” she said.
“I told you that.”
“Can Sam sing?”
“I’ve never heard her try,” Easton said. “She’s never expressed an interest.”
“How’d you meet her, anyway?”
He concentrated on the road. “Through work.”
“So she’s a cop, too?” When he didn’t reply, she poked his arm. “Not a cop, then?”
“No.”
“Oh.” She considered him momentarily. “Does Easton seduce sweet and innocent homeless girls?” She asked, batting her eyelashes at him and giggling.
He decided against fighting. “She used to be a prostitute. She cleaned up her act. She’s not my girlfriend; she’s a sweet girl that I date sometimes.” He glanced to his right. “Does that answer all your questions?”
He’d been hoping to shut this line of questioning down, but Melody was oblivious. “Do you love her?”
“Can I interrogate you about your love life?” He asked. “Do you love your boyfriend?”
“Sure,” Melody replied. “I don’t have one. Never have. Can we stop? I need to pee.”
He pulled over, thankful that Nebraska’s interstate roads were empty this early in the morning. He followed the trail of her brightly patterned skirt, watching in case anyone happened to be nearby, but she returned to the car quickly, stuffing something in her waistband.
“Hey, Easton,” she said, pausing his hand as he moved to start the car.
“What?”
“I’m really glad we did this,” she said, and kissed him. He could feel her fumbling with the seat mechanism, pushing him back and down to a prone position.
Her pelvis dug into him, and he could feel individual muscles rippling in her back when he ran his fingers along it. Her hair went everywhere – in his mouth, in his eyes – but he concentrated on the soft chirping noises she made in his ear.
When she finally sagged against him, she laughed, climbing off him as easily as she’d climbed on. He laughed at her laughter, then pushed his seat back into position.
“Are you ready to go?” He asked.
“What, again?” She said.
He mussed her hair, starting the car again and rolling the windows down.
“I think I’m going to write a song about you,” she said over the whistling from outside.
“Really,” he said.
“Promise you’ll come listen?”
“Of course.”
“Where next?”
“Colorado, Utah, a quick pass through Nevada, and then California.”
“All right, we’re almost there.” She cheered, whooping out the window.
His cell phone was ringing.
“What’s that?” She asked as he fumbled after the beeping noise.
“Phone,” he said.
“Don’t answer it,” she said, trying to snatch it from him.
“Cut it out, I’m driving.” He finally managed to wrangle it open, but the answering machine had already picked up. “Damn it. Here, check my mailbox, will you?” He handed it to her. “The password is…” He was cut off by the shutdown tune. “What are you doing?”
“You’re on vacation,” she said. “Leave it off.”
“Melody, I can’t just – what did that sign say?”
“New Mexico?” She said.
“I must have taken the wrong exit,” he said, swearing.
“Next gas station fifty kilometers,” she read aloud. “Great.”
“Maybe there’ll be an exit to go west again.”
“Maybe. Or maybe we’ll run out of gas in the middle of nowhere and die a horrible death.”
“That was gruesome.”
“Do you want to stop for directions?”
He motioned to the back seat. “Grab the bag with the juice in it. There might be a map we can use.”
“When did you get these?” She asked, pulling out the maps.
He shrugged and pulled over; he hoped silently that the whirring noise he was hearing was another car. “Here, pass them to me.”
She was looking at him expectantly, but expectant of what, he wasn’t sure. He opened the map lengthwise, then looked at her again. She waggled her eyebrows.
“Fuck it,” he said, folding the map again. “South then west, right? What could go wrong?”
They spent the night in Albuquerque, in a two-bed motel room off the I-25.
“Today,” Melody told him when they woke up. “I can feel it.”
The car was definitely giving out, and Easton was praying that it would make the final leg of the journey; to get this far and fail was unthinkable. While Melody showered, however, he checked his phone. Four messages from work, he thought with a sigh.
“So why California?” He asked as they drove.
“I always wanted to go,” she said. “You know, home of the Beach Boys, Jerry Garcia…”
“Is everything in your life about music?”
“Pretty much,” she said. “I was born on December eighth, and my parents named me Melody. What did they expect?”
He rolled his eyes. “Why Santa Monica? You’ve never been.”
She grinned. “I’ll tell you when we get there.”
It was this image that he remembered that winter, when he was asked to ID her body: Melody, sitting on the Santa Monica pier with her guitar cradled in her lap, singing Nat King Cole with no shame or self-awareness, a few people laughing and clapping alongside her. She was in her element, here, and when he told her they were flying back out, she kissed his cheek and said, “You go. I’ll hitchhike my way back.”
“Melody,” he said.
“I’m serious.” She grinned at him, and he found himself grinning back. “You’ll see me before summer’s out.”
“Here’s my number,” he said. “Call me if anything goes wrong.”
“Say hi to Sam for me,” she said.
And she had come back, met him for coffee and pried into his life like a magpie chasing a coin, and he hadn’t worried. This was the reason he would take her guitar home with him, that January night, and why he would tell Sam about the trip more than a year later. His fingers would brush the strings discordantly, and he’d shake his head. “She was born in the wrong age,” he’d tell Sam. “Route 66. Can you believe it?”
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-02-25 07:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-01 02:18 am (UTC)**He mussed her hair, starting the car again and rolling the windows down.
“I think I’m going to write a song about you,” she said over the whistling from outside.
“Really,” he said.
“Promise you’ll come listen?”
“Of course.”**
no subject
Date: 2005-03-01 02:40 am (UTC)