The Big Dirt Nap

any luck I'd be home by 10 P.M.

Can a road be sexy? If it can, then the Merritt is one sexy road. There's a pitch and sway to it that can make you feel like you're dancing with two tons of steel. The more times you drive it, the better you know when to stay to the right and when to lean to the left. And the trees are beautiful. You'd never think that most of the time you're only five minutes away from a Home Depot or a Wal-Mart. There's even a spot near one of the few gas stations where a cell tower has been camouflaged with fake branches—Pinus cell-ostrobus, someone had dubbed it—to make it less offensive.

I was about an hour into the drive and the light was fading. Through the trees the sky had turned pink, then orange, then inky blue. The Jeep's headlights turned on automatically. And so did those of the car trailing a little too close behind me. I checked the speedometer. I was going sixty-five mph, fine for me at this hour, and if he wanted to pass, why the hell didn't he just do it? No one else was around. All right, be cool. Some drivers like to have a lead pony, especially at night. I sped up a tiny bit. He kept pace.

A friend of mine used to be a regional sales rep for a pharmaceutical company and found herself driving all over the East Coast at odd hours of the day or night. She bought an inflatable man doll, and would strap him into the passenger seat for nervous-making occasions just like this. She'd put sunglasses and a hat on him, and throw one rubber arm over the back of his seat to make it seem like she wasn't alone. When she started calling him Ronald, we all got a little worried.

Just pass, you moron. I tensed up, then relaxed a bit as we swung around a long curve and I saw a third car behind the guy trailing me.

I knew there was a Mobil station ahead on the right, and decided to stop for a pee break and a diet Snapple, and to lose my convoy. I signaled well in advance of the stop and pulled in to the middle of the rest area, beyond the pumps, the dog run, and the minimarket.

First one car, then the other, pulled in. They killed their lights fast, and crawled to the far end of the rest area.

Nine

No one got out of either car. And no interior lights suggested that the drivers were either looking at maps or making phone calls. I repositioned my side-view mirror to get a better look at what they were doing. Nada. Were they together? Had they stopped because of me? Why would I even think that? I wasn't usually the jittery type.

I grabbed my bag and casually, I thought, jogged toward the presumed safety of the service station's market. So casually I forgot to lock the car. I fished around in my pocket, found the keys, and locked it with the remote, accidentally hitting the panic button that's supposed to keep robbers away, but really only scares the car's owner. No one even reacted. So much for panic buttons.

At the gas pumps, a young woman was finishing up. She looked about Amanda's age, with multiple piercings in the ears, but not in the eyebrows or nose as far as I could see.

The girl tore off her credit-card receipt, then stuck her head in the driver's-side window and poked her sleeping passenger. 'You owe me twenty bucks for your share of the gas.' The friend mumbled something and twisted herself into an even more contorted position than before. 'Missy can sleep anywhere,' the girl said to me, when she saw me looking.

'It's a gift.'

She finger-combed her long thick hair straight back from her forehead and it flopped right back into the same position, framing her face when she dropped her hand. 'You know how far Greenwich is? We're driving to Missy's parents'.'

They looked like Greenwich. Blond, blue-eyed, good kids really, but at that stage of life where they could go either way. The piercings could move from her ears to her tongue or further south, and the artfully streaked hair could turn to a modified Boy George with splashes of green or pink if my last visit to the East Village was any indication of current trends.

Missy and her friend were only half an hour away, and I was twenty minutes from Springfield, but I took my time giving her directions, chatting and keeping one eye on the two cars at the end of the lot. What the hell were they doing? Or didn't I want to know? And when did I get so nosy? I'd heard there were rest stops on the highway that were unofficial hookup spots but had never really believed it. And if that's what they were up to, what was it to me?

The girls finally drove off, and I entered the minimarket, setting off the shrill buzzing doormat, startling me and rousing the small dark clerk who was catching some zzz's behind his Plexiglas shield. His goldtone name badge read RAVI.

He nodded at me, as much to wake himself up as to suggest anything remotely like customer service might be forthcoming. Then he pointed to the back of the narrow building, where the restrooms were, before I'd even asked. I still had a funny feeling about those two cars outside. I was in no hurry to sequester myself in a small locked room, so I killed some time reading the nutritional information on a package of Ring Dings, then started mindlessly plucking items off the shelves as if I did all my grocery shopping at the gas station: water, diet Red Bull—the nice jumbo cans—nuts . . . I drew the line at Slim Jims, even though there'd been a time in my life when I'd considered them one of the basic food groups, along with beer, muffin tops, and martinis.

When I was reasonably sure I was just being 'noid and the drivers outside were merely having a snooze, a squeeze, or a snort, I headed for the ladies' room. I grabbed a handful of my shirt and used it to keep from actually touching the doorknob. Not bad. Pretty clean actually, but that didn't stop me from meticulously layering the seat with toilet paper before sitting down. I know, it's neurotic, but the lessons of youth are never quite forgotten—I had a friend who always traveled with her own over-the-door hook so she'd never have to put her handbag on the floor of a public bathroom. Undoubtedly something her mother once taught her.

I'd just unzipped and dropped trou when through the opened window I heard a car start to pull out and then stop after only a minute. I heard a door slam. Moments later the doormat's jarring buzzer sounded. Trapped in a toilet, I could be in big trouble. I sat there paralyzed. What could I use as a weapon if I needed one? A plunger? A toilet brush? Only if I touched them and that was a big if since whatever was outside was probably less deadly than either of those germ-riddled items. I was staring at the bathroom's small shuttered window, trying to picture my hips squeezing through, when I realized I was being ridiculous—the victim of an overactive imagination. I zipped up, washed up, and threw some cold water on my face, patting dry with a rough paper towel. This time, I wrapped another towel around the doorknob to let myself out. The door opened into the bathroom and I held it ajar with my butt and turned to watch the balled-up wad of paper bank shot into the trash.

'Nice shot.'

I spun around in the tiny bathroom, slamming my shoulder into the door and my hip into the doorknob and coming face-to-face with the large pockmarked nose of a man with no visible neck. His double and triple chins melded into his shoulders and chest and I imagined that naked he must look something like the Michelin Man. Not a pretty picture.

'Thanks,' I mumbled. I tried to get past him and we did that little dance you do when two people are trying to be polite and accidentally keep blocking each other's way, only this didn't feel accidental or polite.

'Sorry,' I said. 'I'll just scoot by.' I skipped around him fast, my fingers grazing the cold leather of his jacket, which was so voluminous it must have cost two cows their lives. I was ready to make my exit when Ravi, the clerk, called to me.

'Lady, lady, I am ringing your order.'

Michelin Man flashed an oily grin and positioned himself right behind me, between me and the door. I gave him a weak smile and moved closer to the counter to put as much distance between us as possible. He didn't seem to be buying anything; he just stood there, his frankfurter fingers laced in a loose cat's cradle, his stubby thumbs tapping together to some internal melody.

'If you're just getting cigarettes or something, you can go before me,' I said, 'I have a lot of stuff.'

'I don't smoke. Filthy habit.' He shrugged and showed me three candy bars buried in his laced fingers. 'Sweet tooth.' I was stuck.

Inside my pocket, I separated my keys so that there was one in between each finger of my right hand. That