Once Upon a Road Trip (34 page)

Angie nodded, chuckling to herself as she slid off the swiveling chair. “It was nice to meet you. Thanks for the tea,” she said, leaning closer to Marie to be heard over the music. She then found herself buried in the woman’s ample bosom, caught in an enthusiastic parting embrace.

Marie released Angie and leaned back into her chair, calling out after them, “Any time, girl. Ya’ll have fun!”

Vince paused at the door to look back, forcing Angie to stop short. “Hey Mom? Don’t stay out too late,” he called, a sincere edge to his voice.

Angie heard Marie laugh, but didn’t catch her reply.

It was nearly dusk as they made their way back to their cars. Angie caught a pensive expression on Vince’s face as she passed him. “Something wrong?” she asked.

Vince pulled a set of narrow-framed eyeglasses out of his shirt pocket and slipped them into place as he got into his car. “Nah,” he answered, reaching to pull the door closed. “I just get worried when she stays out on nights when my Dad isn’t in town. His job sends him out-of-state for training a few times a year.” He draped his arm along his open window and shrugged, changing the subject. “Follow me back? I rented some movies the other day.” He half-smiled and backed his car out.

How strange
, Angie thought, sliding into her driver’s seat . Was there some level of child/parent role reversal going on, or was Vince just overplaying his concern? Worrying about her own mother staying out too late at a bar wasn’t something she’d ever had to consider.

Maybe just a case of one person’s “normal” being another person’s Twilight Zone
.

The short drive back to the house didn’t leave her with much time to mull it over.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Halfway up the stairs to the main level of Vince’s house, Angie was startled to come nose-to-nose with the black and brown dog she’d seen earlier in the day. She wasn’t sure what was more unnerving, the dog’s sudden appearance at the top of the stairwell, or the statuesque silence that accompanied its stare. She’d never seen a Doberman of any size up close before. In spite of it being a miniature, its sharp ears, along with the angle at which she was forced to approach, combined to make the animal seem menacing. She didn’t realize she’d stopped in her tracks until she heard the creak of the step behind her and felt a tap on her elbow.

“You okay?” Vince asked, hefting the duffel bag he’d insisted on carrying for her. 

“Yeah, it’s just…your dog surprised me,” she said, recollecting her resolve and continuing on.

“Back up, Bud,” Vince called from behind her, unconcerned.

Nails clicking on the pale linoleum, the dog gave Angie space as she reached the landing. The top floor opened into a lighthouse-themed kitchen, with a porch on the right that faced a tree line along the back side of the house. To the left was the living room, featuring cinnamon carpeting and a ragged blue sofa. To her immediate left and right were short hallways leading to bedrooms.

She turned around in the kitchen and glanced down at the dog again as she waited for Vince to indicate where he was taking her things. The dwarf canine afforded her the briefest sniff before centering all of its attention on its owner. His black nub of a tail squirmed back and forth with recognizable enthusiasm. When Vince rounded the corner and veered into the hall to the right, the dog went prancing after him.

“His name is Bud?”  

“Budweiser Jack-Daniel’s. Bud for short,” Vince said, grimacing over his shoulder as he nudged the door open. “I was eight when we got him. I didn’t get any say in the naming,” he added.

“Oh, so your parents—”

“—named him after their favorite beer and whiskey.”

“Gotchya.” Angie kept her tone carefully nonchalant, in case he expected her to be appalled by the information.  

Vince lowered her bag to the floor as she scanned around the wood-paneled walls. The room was spacious and tidy, arranged with a computer desk on the far left and a steel framed bunk bed in the far right corner. The bunk bed was painted a vivid red, with a full size futon for the lower potion and a twin bed on the upper level. Budweiser had already jumped onto the futon and curled up at one end. Each wall held at least one poster featuring dragons as the central theme. On the wall adjacent to the door sat an old oak dresser, topped with a collection of framed pictures. Beside it was a small television on a low stand, its shelving packed with video games.

“This is your room?” Angie guessed.

“Yep.”

She hesitated a moment, chewing at the inside of her lower lip. “Where…should I be sleeping?”

Vince gave her a blank look, cupping his hand to the back of his neck before using it to make a sweeping gesture toward the bunk bed. “Well, I thought you could stay here.” He looked uncertain, as though no other possibility had crossed his mind. “I mean, I’m not planning on watching you sleep or anything creepy.”

“I just…don’t think I should stay in your room,” she said, groping for a way to keep from offending him. “I don’t think that’s going to look good to your mom.”

“Mom won’t care, trust me.” Vince’s tone came out bland. “Neither of my parents would mind. They’re kind of...more like friends than parents sometimes.”

Angie was bewildered by the concept he presented so factually, while part of her wondered if she’d caught a note of sadness in his voice. “Well, I’d be more comfortable with the couch, if that’s alright.”

“Probably not.” Vince frowned. “It sags in the middle and it’s got a bunch of broken springs. Oh, and Mom gets up around four-thirty every morning, even on weekends. Being quiet isn’t exactly her forte.” He paused to consider. “There’s the basement though, we’ve got a spare bed down there if you want to check it out.” Abandoning her bag, he moved to his computer, switched it on, and sank into the chair in front of it.

“Okay, thanks.” While her host appeared otherwise occupied, Angie retrieved her bag and made her way back to the stairs.

Every one of the painted wooden steps creaked on her way down into the unfinished basement. She hadn’t paid much attention when they’d first passed through, and now she regretted it. At the base of the stairs was an open workshop, strewn with benches, shelving, and countless power tools positioned along the walk-in cinderblock foundation. No sign of a guest room. She veered to the left, passing the wall that supported the staircase on one side and a wall lined with posters of bikini-clad women on the other.

She found a light switch, noting the only window seemed to be located near the entry door. Not that there was much daylight left for it to offer.

In the back corner sat a well worn trap set, and she resisted the urge to inspect the instrument. There was only one portion of the basement left to search: a partial room on the back left side that looked as though it had been erected as an afterthought.

Angie rounded the corner and found a full-sized bed. The room itself was bare bones at best, with blank drywall surrounding and the same poured concrete floor as the rest of the basement. The room had no door. Bare rafters and pipes hung overhead, and the only light source for this semi-secluded corner was a small lamp perched on a nightstand. She turned it on, but found herself disappointed with the dull glow meant to illuminate the lonely space. The bed was neatly made at least, layered with a hodgepodge of colorful blankets.

Forcing herself to ignore the general eeriness of the room, she sat on the edge of the bed. The mattress offered little give.

Still, it has to be better than sleeping in my car again
, she reminded herself.

From where she sat, she detected the mingling scent of motor oil and sawdust drifting in from the workshop. She stared out from the open section of wall where a door should have been, wishing the window wasn’t so far off.

Out of the corner of her eye, a sudden movement drew her attention to a clear Mason jar that sat in front of the lamp on the nightstand. A tightening sensation gripped her chest. Startled, she turned only her head to peer at the vessel.

The glass was more distorted than it was clear, but she caught the shifting of something dark toward the bottom of it. Whatever was in the jar, it was alive — and it was much larger than she would have liked an unidentified living thing to be. Every muscle in her body pulled taut in unison as her curiosity barely outweighed her impulse to flee.

Vince looked up from his computer as Angie shuffled back into his room and let her bag slide off her shoulder. “Change your mind?” His lips quirked slightly at the corners in what she guessed to be either a pleased or smug affect.

Angie stared at him for a moment before she approached his desk, holding out the Mason jar in front of her. She set it down and slid it toward him, monitoring his reaction.

Vince looked genuinely perplexed with her, though he turned his attention to the drinking mug she’d set before him. He leaned forward to look over the rim at its contents.

“What are you… HOLY mother of… it’s alive?!” The exclamation was accompanied by him launching to his feet and backing away from his desk with enough force to knock his chair into the wall behind him. 

This immediately abated Angie’s suspicions of any malicious intent. “I found that by the bed downstairs. So, I take it this isn’t part of some punk-the-Yankee thing?” she asked, glancing down at the brown scorpion as it skittered uselessly against the slick walls of its confines.

Vince recovered from his initial alarm and returned to the cool, composed expression he seemed to default to. He cleared his throat and stepped back up to the jar, going so far as to pick it up to inspect the trapped arachnid. “I guess it must have fallen in from the ceiling—” he said, glancing back up at her again. “I didn’t put it there, I swear.”

“From the ceiling?” Angie gaped at him and then glanced upward, as though she might find more of the creature’s kin lurking overhead. 

“They come in sometimes in the summer looking for water. My dad told me once that they like the condensation on the pipes.” His brows gathered in what she guessed to be an apologetic expression as he set the jar back down. “Usually we only see the dead ones. They’re not deadly—they just have a mean sting, kind of like a wasp.”

“Oh, that’s comforting,” she said, openly sarcastic.

“Sorry. I’ll go down and do a sweep...make sure there aren’t any more,” Vince offered, pulling open one of his desk drawers and rummaging around until he located a utility flashlight. “Just make sure you check your shoes before you put them on in the morning. Sometimes they like to crawl in there.”

“That’s okay.” Angie held up a hand. “You know what? It’s kind of scary down there -without- the threat of scorpion bombardment. If the offer is still open, I’ll take the top bunk.” She sighed, just to make sure he knew she wasn’t thrilled with the compromise.

“Sure, whatever you want,” Vince said, and then hesitated. “Will you mind if I keep the radio on all night? I need background noise to drown out my brain, or I can’t sleep.”

“Not a problem—I can get used to noise.” Angie retrieved her duffel bag and hefted it onto the top bunk. “So if the scorpions aren’t poisonous, what do you have around here that is?” she asked. “You know, so I can keep an eye out.”

“Brown Recluse spiders, Black Widows, Copperheads, and Water Moccasins,” he answered, as though he was reading a grocery list.

“Great.” She frowned. “You don’t really have to worry much about the great outdoors in Minnesota. The cold must keep away the poisonous critters.”

“The Water Moccasins are just around the lake,” Vince added with a dismissive air as he picked up the Mason jar and headed toward the door with it. “I’ve only seen one since we moved here.”

“Where are you going?” Angie called after him.

“I’m evicting your former roommate. By way of the garbage disposal.”

“Wait! Don’t kill him,” she said. “I named him Harvey. I’ll let him go in the woods tomorrow or something.”

Vince stopped in his tracks and turned back to her, a dumbfounded look on his face. “You -named- it?”

“Yeah.” She shrugged, quietly pleased by his astonishment. “Just leave him on the dresser. It’s not like he can get out or anything.” She’d decided that if she was going to spend several days in close quarters with this guy, she ought to go out of her way to make sure he didn’t get too attached to her. What better way to prevent that than by being herself?

“O…kay.”  He relented after a pause, carefully setting the jar atop the dresser. Vince shifted to the television then, grabbing several rental movie cases. He held them up and fanned them for her to see. “Take your pick.”

Angie selected a comedy to start out the marathon, exchanging it for a sci-fi action movie halfway through when it proved to be more stupid to her than funny. As far as she could discern, Vince was indifferent to the swap. Though, he seemed more entertained by the first movie than she was. This observation underscored their differences in her mind, and his relative silence through one movie after another made her suspect he found them to be a convenient excuse to avoid talking to her.

Angie wasn’t sure at what point during the fourth movie she fell asleep on the futon, but when she opened her eyes, the gray glow of predawn seeped in from the window behind her. The little television across the room droned out the low hiss of static, mingling with the muted pulse of rock music from the radio on the wall. Her neck was stiff from being slumped to one side. Blinking away the fog of confusion over her whereabouts, she peered down at what she now realized had roused her.

Budweiser had wedged his sausage-like body into the gap between her and Vince. His back conformed to his master’s side, which left his legs free to stretch and swipe at Angie. The dog was clearly dreaming about chasing something.

Vince was asleep as well, propped up at an ungainly angle with his head tilted back. She couldn’t imagine the position to be healthy, let alone comfortable. She gave brief consideration to letting him know she was clearing out of the way, but decided against disturbing him. This turned out to be a pointless effort, as the bunk frame squealed when she hoisted herself onto the top bed.