KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI
‘Cindy French is my name. I haul that big-ass classic Kenworth out there, the one with the sky-blue cab? Rocky Mountain double? Got me a load of Maersk containers heading down to Corpus Christi.’
Sofia hadn’t said a word, hadn’t invited her to sit down, but that’s what this Cindy was doing - sliding herself into the booth, juggling a plate piled high with fried chicken and mashed potatoes, and two huge paper cups filled with Coke. When she had herself comfortably settled into the booth, she pushed one of the drinks across and smiled. The smile reached into Cindy’s clear blue eyes, drawing to Sofia’s mind memories of her grandmother.
‘Here, hon,’ she offered, ‘the Coke isn’t half bad here. And take some of these taters off of my hands. They’re probably instant, but beggars can’t be choosers. I loaded myself down with a dozen-piece chicken meal so if you want a drumstick, I’d be willing to spare one. But the
Sofia checked across the room. The two men who’d been creeping her out had lost interest now.
‘Don’t you worry about them, hon,’ said the woman. ‘They won’t bother you while I’m here. I once gave those boys an ass whoopin’ with my favourite tyre iron. Taught them some manners. I won’t abide poor manners in a man.’
She picked up a chicken breast and bit into it with evident relish, rolling her blue eyes as she chewed. Sofia watched the woman, who was shorter than her by a good few inches, work her way through the plate of food. It was hard to tell her age. There was a strange, childlike quality to her, especially in the giddy way she ate. Through that veneer, however, there lurked something else. Sofia wasn’t sure what it was, but at the end of a long and terrible day she found she wanted to trust this woman very much.
After swallowing her mouthful of food, Cindy spoke again, not looking at Sofia, but still concentrating on her plate.
‘You know, I’m not going to be here for long.’
She finally looked up. The smile was still there.
Sofia didn’t know what to say. For a split second just now, she thought she’d been tracked down by the police. Instead she seemed to have attracted the attention of a crazy person. Kindly, but possibly crazy. Who went up to complete strangers at a truck stop, sat themselves down, and started insisting they share their food, all the while telling them they were in trouble? No one she had encountered. Everyone wanted something, that was the rule Sofia Pieraro had learned.
Still, she could turn this to her advantage. She had come to the diner looking for someone like this Cindy French. Not so much a crazy woman, but somebody she might be able to trust to move her a little bit further down the road.
‘I am not in trouble,’ she said quietly. ‘I’m just looking for a ride.’
French laughed. Indeed, she laughed so much she had to stop eating.
‘If you came here looking for a ride, believe me, you
She did need something to wake her up, that was true. Her nap in the taxi was entirely too short, and she was finding it difficult to keep her eyes open here, even under the harsh fluorescents, with the music cranked up loud and the other diners roaring at each other. She was wrung out, all but destroyed by one of the worst days of her life. And she’d had some bad ones.
‘You said you needed a ride, hon. Where you headed?’
The girl found herself momentarily unable to answer. She had come looking for a lift down to Fort Hood, in central Texas, or at least in that direction. But she’d intended to seek out the transport herself, by approaching someone she thought looked trustworthy. She may well have approached this chicken-eating Cindy French had she seen her first.
‘I am going to Texas,’ she said in the end, deciding to run with a version of the truth.
‘Really? Going down to the Federal Mandate, are we?’ The truck driver pulled a drumstick out and tossed it onto the spare plate. ‘Go on. Eat up.’
She was almost tempted to lie and say, yes, she was headed for the Mandate, but she caught herself at the last moment. Anybody with a legitimate reason for travelling down to the Texas Federal Mandate would’ve had any number of legitimate means of getting there. The government did not expect settlers to make their own way through the badlands. Most people would know that, and somebody like French, who probably drove those routes all the time, would definitely know.
‘No,’ replied Sofia. ‘I need to get to Fort Hood.’ There - she had done it.
Cindy continued with her meal, but raised one eyebrow as if Sofia had played a particularly interesting hand in a game of cards. She steered a ball of mashed potato on the end of the fork and used it to mop up some gravy. The mouthful of food prevented her from speaking, but it was obvious she was giving some thought to what she would say next.
Sofia took the opportunity to look around the diner once more. A quartet of soldiers came in from the cold, snapping their hats against their thighs before heading off to the counter. As they passed her, she waited to see if they were army or local militia. One of the younger ones smiled at her, shaking his head before moving on to get a drink.
She was becoming worried that this was taking too long. That a police cruiser would pull up in the next minute or so and the officers who had come to collect her at the apartment would find her here, obviously preparing to run away. If they found her, they’d make certain that she didn’t get another opportunity for a long time. Oh, they’d say they were doing it in her interests, but they didn’t truly know what her interests were.
‘Fort Hood? That’s an unusual place for a young lady to be lighting out to on a night like this,’ said French. ‘Especially a young lady like you.’
She gave Sofia a look that contained a long, unspoken reproach for her foolishness. ‘You’re Mexican, aren’t you? I mean, originally. I can tell from your accent you moved around a little. I guess we all have the last couple of years. My dad was part Mexican himself, served in the army. He’s dead now.’
‘The Wave?’
Cindy shook her head. ‘No, he died long before that. My mother broke his heart. She could be a real bitch. Now the Wave, it
Sofia nodded and took another piece of chicken. She was much happier talking about their past than providing details of her plans for the future. She even relaxed for the first time as she took up her own greasy fork to scoop up some of the mash.
‘I was young when we left Mexico,’ Sofia said. ‘My father …’ Her voice caught for a second before she forced herself to move on. ‘Papa got us onto a boat leaving Acapulco. Just before all the really bad riots and the killing started. The boat took us to Australia and we worked on the big farms there. For the government. It was not so bad. The work was no harder than we had known at home, and the camp where we lived was very good. Nuns came to teach us. We came to America to settle.’
She was unwilling to go into any greater detail. If French found out what had happened to her family down in Mexico, or even what had happened to her father more recently, she would call the police immediately. There could be no good reason why somebody like Sofia would want to return to a place that was the source of so much misery. Best let the woman’s imagination fill in the gaps for herself.
‘That would explain your accent,’ she said. ‘I’ve heard some mighty strange ones the last couple of years, pushing eighteen wheels all over the country. Yours sounds like you don’t really come from anywhere. Or maybe that you come from everywhere.’
It seemed a rather rude thing to say, but she refused to bristle in response. Perhaps Cindy was simply teasing her, trying to get on her nerves, to see how she would react. It was quite obvious she was intrigued, possibly even suspicious.
‘My voice sounds normal to me,’ Sofia replied with a shrug. ‘But what is normal? You are right, we hear many voices these days. In my class at school, there are people from twenty-six different countries. We have all of our
