Kenny felt a pinch of guilt as she merged into Columbus Circle and realized the trusty car attendant was the only person she had been completely truthful with about her need to recharge.
Since she had all but eliminated her social life, she had no plans she needed to cancel or postpone. She emailed her parents a lengthy message about how she’d been deployed to South Carolina for a highly confidential assignment and was told to pack for a few weeks. Kenny loved her parents dearly, but she needed a break from them, too. Given the nature of her job, if she periodically checked in, reminded her parents that the project she was working on was top secret and couldn’t be discussed, and shared just enough to let them know she was safe, they wouldn’t think too much of it. She had been on the road for longer than five weeks at a time in the past and they’d find comfort knowing she was at least on the same coast.
She reluctantly sent Colby a terse text. Not because she forgave him or was even sure if she’d speak to him again, but because she was nervous Colby would show up at One Police Plaza and demand the chief send out search troops and canvass the 20th Precinct for his missing friend. She certainly didn’t need that drama.
Text to Colby: Going to South Carolina on a sensitive assignment for a few weeks. Expecting poor cell service.
Kenny was semi-truthful with work since she couldn’t pull the top secret assignment card on the people who were allegedly sending her on it. She hadn’t taken a vacation in several years, and since all things Clinton White were on hold until October, she made the argument it would be a good time to cash in on her dozens of unused vacation days. She went a step further to say she’d be spending time with family who live in Hilton Head, South Carolina, and working on a book she’s been wanting to write. The line “of course, I will be completely reachable any time of day or night by phone, text, and email” sprinkled throughout the proposition. The facts that herentirefamily lived in Pennsylvania and her book had already been written—and rejected—Kenny perceived as misguided truths rather than flat out lies. Just tiny, baby-sized fibs that didn’t make her seem like the single, burned-out, anxiety driven, emotional trainwreck she really was.
She double-parked the Nautilus in the middle of West Eighty-Third Street and threw on the flashers so she could load up the luggage that was neatly stacked inside the front door of The Dollhouse. After years of being a plane hopper, the role bequeathed to junior producers who were sent on all the assignments, she was an expert at packing, unpacking, loading, unloading, navigating security lines, and reigning in her lead foot if she sensed she was in a highly patrolled speed trap. If she was flying, she knew which airports were lax about checking liquids and sharp objects in carry-on bags. If she was driving, she knew to ensure that the GPS was set to English and not a foreign language spoken by the previous renter before driving out of the rental company parking lot and onto a major highway. If she had to check into a hotel, she knew the front desk always had free toothpaste, toothbrushes, razors, and even makeup wipes for travelers who forgot their toiletry bag or, in Kenny’s case, became lazy in the packing department. If she had to travel by bus or train with no seat assignments, she knew to always sit toward the front, on an aisle and pretend to be asleep under a pair of blackout sunglasses with her head tilted back while other passengers boarded. This increased the odds of getting the row to yourself as most onboarders walk past the napping passenger to the back of the bus or train, in hopes of also finding themselves alone in a row.
She made a half dozen trips up and down the steps of the brownstone, lugging a large black Samsonite suitcase on wheels that swiveled, the matching carry-on version, two giant duffel bags from the same set, and an unsightly bedazzled hot pink international sized carry-on that she was forced to purchase from an overpriced, gaudy store in the Las Vegas airport when the zipper on her suitcase busted at the departure gate as her flight was about to take off. She hated the suitcase, but the vision of it always made her laugh at the week she had been on the Strip covering the case of a debonair gigolo who went to jail for swindling smitten girlfriends out of money and love.
Kenny checked her laptop bag three times to make sure she had all her chargers.Phone, watch, computer, iPad, mophie, electric toothbrush. She also packed up the notebooks and pens she snatched from the office earlier in the weekjust in case a creative thought popped into her head, and she felt compelled to start writing. At the last minute, she emptied the Tupperware from under the kitchen sink where she kept her cleaning supplies and threw in the Percolator, Brita and a replacement filter. Luckily, the midsized SUV wasn’t much smaller than The Dollhouse, since the contents of the studio were essentially what Kenny had packed.
Once the car was loaded, she sat back in the driver’s seat, with the four ways still flashing, and reclined her head for a few seconds. She let the cold air blow through the vents to bring her nerves and body temperature down and basked in the aroma from Damien’s beach-inspired, coconut-infused parting gift.
She pulled up Google Maps and began typing S-E-A whenSea Pines, Hilton Head Island, South Carolina29928populated in the destination bubble. Kenny vaguely remembered taking a virtual drive down I-95 after the sixth or seventh time she virtually toured Pelican Pointe Villa #5 on Wednesday night.
Estimated time in hours with light traffic: twelve hours, six minutes.
She reached for her Wildest Dreams planner that was on the passenger seat, pulled out the day’s pink Post-it, and stuck it on the steering wheel.
Ironic.Never in my wildest dreams did I think I’d spontaneously pack up my life, strategically cram the material possessions of it into a rental car and take them on a long-distance road trip in an attempt to escape the mental elements of the same life for a few weeks.
To-Do Saturday, September 2
National @ 8:00 a.m.
Finish packing
Unplug appliances
Empty fridge + take out garbage
Lock windows + close blinds
Richmond, VA (Exits 83B - 62)
It wasn’t even 9:30 a.m. and she was able to cross five of the six items off her “to-do” list.
“All right, Miss B, let’s go,” Kenny triumphantly said as she hit the blue “Go now” button on the screen and shifted the car into drive.
The summer between high school and college, she and her girlfriends went on vacation to Ocean City, Maryland. It was a rite of passage for all the recent graduates of northeastern Pennsylvania to descend on the popular beach town over the Fourth of July for a week of partying, exploring and other debauchery. “What happens at Senior Week, stays at Senior Week,” was the only rule.
Luckily, what happened at Senior Week wasn’t always remembered, making the rule much easier to follow. On the girls’ sleepy and sunburned drive home from the epic week, the Garmin navigation system seemed to be in a similar hazy and confused state, taking them in circles around and through the ghettos of Philadelphia. The voice barking directions became known as “The Bitch in the dashboard.” The four-hour trip took seven, but The Bitch eventually got them home. Over the years and as Kenny’s girlfriends started driving around their babies and toddlers, The Bitch was shortened to Miss B.
Miss B and Kenny cruised up Broadway and made a left at the Seventy-NinthStreetBoat Basin that led them up the Henry Hudson and over the George Washington Bridge.
Twelve
Kenny arrived at the shortest leg of her trip down Interstate 95 just as the multiple days of driving alone began to weigh on her focus and sanity. She played all the usual mind-distracting games she could think of that still allowed her to safely operate a vehicle. She made mental notes of the different license plates she passed on the road and then wrote them on a sheet of paper when she pulled over at rest stops for a quick leg stretch.
Somewhere around Fayetteville, North Carolina, Kenny saw a license plate for New Mexico with the image of a Chile pepper and slogan, “The Chile Capital of the World.”Who knew?
Kenny loudly shouted, “South of the Border,” each time she saw one of the kitschy, yet historic, billboards promoting the tourist trap disguised as a truck stop and theme park in the city of Dillon that straddles the border of North Carolina and South Carolina.
She moved on to a real brain twister and calculated how many hours she had spent behind the wheel of the car, versus how many hours she still had left.
