Page 57 of Hauling Ashe

Mae sheepishly smiles and all she offers is, “Along the way.” My own smile grows large enough my cheeks ache.

“Mae Ellen Fox, if you tell me you own a flatbed Ford I might have to marry you.”

Her face pinkens, and I realize what I’ve said. I’m teasing her, of course, and she turns her head to glance at the truck parked on the corner, playing up the motif of the nostalgic song. She doesn’t answer me but peers back at me with a tighter smile.

“You should play something,” she says, her voice quiet.

“Right here?” I laugh.

“Standing on the corner, definitely.” She slips from my arms, and I stare back at this incredible woman who bumped into me on a street corner in Chicago with coffee in her hand. Who would have known five days later, I’d be road tripping across the country, and she’d give me this gift? A gift I’m nervous to play as it’s been so long.

“I don’t know if I remember,” I say, holding the instrument in my hand.

“I bet it’s like that piano,” Mae softly says. “You didn’t forget. You’re just out of practice.”

There are so many things I’m out of practice at and could use a good teacher. Mae might be that mentor who restores my faith in things like hope and love and loyalty.

“Try it,” she whispers, easing back another step as if I need the space to play such a small wind instrument.

With shaky hands, I lift the four inches of metal to my mouth and blow. The first shot is sharp, and I flinch at the crack of noise so close to my face. Mae chuckles nearby and I close my eyes, bringing the instrument to my lips once more. On the second try, I’m better.

The song flows outward a bit rough and a little scratchy but eventually, I’m at the refrain and it comes smoother. The melody is not meant to be played in entirety, but the chorus works, and Mae sings off key before belting out the final crazy. She breaks into her own rendition of an air guitar solo, and I add my sound to her silent mix. When I end, the tourists near us clap, and I laugh harder than I have in a long time.

A couple offers to take a picture of Mae and me, and then I ask them to take one of us by the flatbed truck because this girl really is going to save me.

When we leave Winslow, I know what I have to do. I’ve already told Julia it’s going to be a day-by-day thing on when I can arrive, and I’d update her. I’ll never make tomorrow at noon, and a selfish part of me is glad. Although I don’t see Julia unless she comes to me, and we could use some father-daughter time, I need these additional hours with Mae. I need to do right by the woman driving me to my daughter. I just need to be in Napa by Friday afternoon.

“Let me check in with Mach.” In the early afternoon, I’m two hours behind Chicago’s time zone. I haven’t conducted a stitch of business today. However, the call is a ruse. I search the internet instead. My heart races. I’m not certain I can do what I’ve planned for Mae, but I need to try something, as much for her as for me. It’s time.

We decide to skip a meteor site but at the same exit is a strange-looking geodome building and Mae looks up the history of the building. Another inspiration for the movie Cars. Basically, Route 66 is running parallel to the original road or underneath where we currently drive, and my big-hearted driving companion obsesses over things we pass that are lost and forgotten on the side of the route.

“That’s not art,” she complains of a former diner and gas station covered in spray paint. “That’s vandalism in comparison to the Cadillacs.”

I don’t disagree with her and let her ramble.

“And why aren’t those two arrows moved to the casino on the opposite side of the highway?” Two giant metallic arrows—literally named Twin Arrows—stand parallel to one another as markers of someplace once important in time. “They could be a historic landmark and a point of interest.” They’ve obviously captured her interest.

Eventually, the landscape changes once more from dry, flat desert to a mountainous terrain of evergreens. Road markers tell us our elevation has increased.

“What is that?” Mae asks, as if she doesn’t recognize a mountain off in the distance or the obvious snow at the top. We’re nearing Flagstaff which can be forty degrees cooler than the southern portion of Arizona on any given day. My tour guide looks up the mountain—Humphrey’s Peak—and reads me information about it. “It’s breathtaking.”

She’s used the word to describe numerous things we’ve passed, and in my opinion, she’s the attraction stealing my breath. I’m still not certain what she expected to happen on this trip of hers, but I know what’s happening to me. I’m falling in love with her. In five days, I feel freer than I’ve felt in twenty-five years and it’s damn refreshing.

When we near Williams, I exit the highway and Mae twists to look at me. She’s been admiring the landscape shift from desert to mountain, lost in her own thoughts for a moment.

“Bathroom break?” she questions.

“Something like that.” I sheepishly smile at her as I’m certain she read the sign that mentioned the Grand Canyon. Off the highway on a two-lane road leading north, Mae continues to stare out the window as the land is flat and empty.

“You know, it’s sad to put it this way, but you could bury a dead body out here and no one would be the wiser.”

I laugh at the assessment of the large, flat, open space. “Thinking of committing murder?”

“I’ve considered it,” she teases. “I bumped into this guy on a sidewalk in Chicago and he was such a flirt. He hit on me.”

“Did he now?” I smile, wondering where she’s going with this.

“And then he conned me into giving him a ride across the country.”