2/18/01: Weekend #1:
New Jersey Turnpike, Friday, doing 75
“We’ll probably get there before midnight,” says Jenny. She takes a quick look behind her at Kathryn, asleep in the car seat.
“Good to know,” I say.
“We should get some more coffee,” says Jenny, and I concur. It’s never suggested that she be the only one to caffeinate herself, since she is the one who is driving. If she's going to drink coffee, I’m going to join her, dammit. I love coffee.
“Who all is going to be at your mom’s house?” I ask.
“Just Mom, Rich, and Jeff. Kelly's at school.”
“Cool,” I say. When I was there visiting over the summer, I met Rich – he’s Jenny’s mom’s boyfriend. Kelly is Jenny's 19 year-old sister. She's quiet and very skinny. Jeff is Jenny’s 20 year-old brother. He’s a cutie. It was strange to see him last summer. I remember when he was a smelly little 9 year old who kept tanks of half-dead frogs in his room. It’s odd because now he’s a tall blonde… man. I guess these things happen when you fall out of touch with someone for almost ten years. It was strange to see Jenny’s mom again, too. I practically lived at Jenny’s house for five years. Jenny’s mom used to write to me at summer camp. She would sign her letters “Patty.”
“We’ll stay in the bunk-bed room,” says Jenny, and rolls her window down and back up again to get the fog off of it.
“’Kay,” I say, as a truck flies by next to us.
“Damn trucks,” says Jenny.
“Do you want me to roll my window down, too, to get off the fog?”
“Sure.”
As I do, I say: “Did you know that George Lucas made a recording of the way that the trucks sound when they go by, to use as the sound effects for the fighters in Star Wars?”
“Um… I can’t see,” says Jenny. The windshield has gotten pretty foggy.
“It’s pretty bad,” I say.
“I really can’t see!” The fog is now so thick that we can’t see the road. “I have to pull over!” We switch lanes, totally blind. Something honks loudly to our left as we start moving to the right. “I can’t tell if there’s anything!” We start screaming.
“God,” says Jenny, “I hope there’s no guardrail or anything.”
The car comes to a stop by the side of the road. I’m shaking. “Hey, are you dead?” I ask.
“No, are you?” Jenny peeks behind her. “Look, she’s still asleep.” And Kathryn is, indeed, still asleep. “Look at this,” Jenny says. She reaches her arm out, grabs one of Kathryn’s hands, lifts it up, and lets go. It just drops to Kathryn’s side. “Look!” Lift, drop, lift drop. Already the color is back in Jenny’s face.
“She’s so cute,” I say.
We look at Kathryn for a bit.
“Well,” says Jenny. “Mental note: rolling down the windows is a bad thing.”
“So it would seem,” I say.