Page 14 of Truth or More Truth
“Um, the driver was a woman.”
I smirk. “No wonder she honked.”
“Honking isn’t all she did.”
Now my eyes widen. “What did she do?”
“She flashed me.”
I snort. “And that’s a problem why? Are you not attracted to women?”
“Yes, I’m attracted to women. Just not ones thirty years my senior.”
Once again, I laugh so hard he has to take controlof the wheel.
We’re in yet another part of nowhere Illinois when Bobby ejects Paula Abdul and fiddles with the radio to try to find a station that’ll come in clearly. A light snow has begun to fall, and we need a weather update. He finally lands on a station that’s not complete static.
“… receiving heavy snowfall here in southern Illinois. If it hasn’t started yet where you are, get ready. It’s coming fast and furious. If you don’t need to be on the roads, stay where you are or get home as quickly as possible. We’ve gotten three inches here in Carbondale in the last two hours, and we’re getting reports of towns in southern Missouri with nearly a foot of snow. Hunker down, people. And now back to your favorite country music.”
Bobby turns the volume down as music begins to play, but he doesn’t turn it off, likely so we can hear any further updates.
“That doesn’t sound good,” he states unnecessarily.
“How far are we from Carbondale?” I ask.
He unfolds the Illinois map he picked up at the gas station earlier and asks, “What was the name of the town where we stopped to get gas a bit ago? Any idea?”
“I think it was Mount … something. Sorry. I don’t pay a lot of attention to road signs. I’m the pilot here. You’re the navigator.”
“Mount Vernon?” he asks.
“Yep, that was it. Don’t remember seeing any mountains or presidential homes, though,” I quip.
He ignores my joke as he peruses the map. “Carbondale isn’t directly on the interstate,” he says, “but I’d say we’re about thirty miles northeast of it.”
I sneak a glance at him. “What do we do?”
“I don’t know that there’s much to do other than keep going as long as we can.”
I nod toward the map. “Does it seem like there will be any towns along the interstate with motels or anything?”
“I don’t know. Most of these places look pretty small. But surely some of them have motels for truckers and such, right?”
My eyes widen. “We might have to stop at a truckermotel?”
He chuckles. “Don’t worry. I’ll be there to protect you. All my mafia training prepared me for this exact scenario.”
“They get a lot of snowstorms in Italy, do they, Bobby Joe?”
“Hey, lady,” he says in a terrible accent. “I’m in the Russian mafia. Lots of snow in Russia.”
“Lots of truckers, too?” I tease, loving that he’s joking around with me instead of being a jerk.
“You have no idea.”
“What if your lady trucker friend stops at the same motel we do? Or the finger-bird guy?”
“Again,” he says, “mafia training.”
