Chapter 2
Poor Phoebe! How she ached the next morning. Her arm fell across her breasts never reaching the alarm. Oh how she ached. It would be difficult to keep her mother from discovering the events of yesterday afternoon. But there was no sense in encouraging madness. What had happened, happened and it would do no good to disturb the world about it. Anyway, nothing really happened.
Today would begin as almost everyday had begun but before it was over Phoebe would be out on her own. An adult, albeit a little inexperienced, but a young woman looking for a new life.
She rose from her bed and dressed in minutes. Downstairs her mother had dutifully prepared breakfast amid all the apprehensions of any mother about to say goodbye to her last home-bound offspring. Phoebe's sister had moved to Hollywood nearly five years ago and was still busily following the career that would take her to far off lands and keep her there for months on end. Phoebe was to be the guest of her newly established brother-in-law, Sal Bruno. A handsome, if pictures can be trusted, swarthy type. But, if Alice was happy ... well, what could a mother say?
Phoebe brought her bag with her as she came downstairs. Actually her bag was little more than a knapsack designed to flip over the shoulders and leave the hands free for the thousand things that a young traveler has to do.
"Mornin', Momma" chimed Phoebe as she entered the kitchen.
"Morning, sweetheart. You really were out to the world last night!"
"I was?" querried Phoebe.
"Indeed you were, I went up to see you tucked in and'you never so much as stirred an inch ... and me worrying if you would be able to sleep the night before your big adventure...."
"I guess yesterday sort of took the edge off my excitement...."
"Why do you say that darling?" Her mother noted a tone of anger in her voice...."Why, what happened yesterday?"
"Nothing really, I just had a sort of bad time with Dan...."
"Well," confided her mother, "sometimes when a girl leaves her boyfriend, the poor guy is very hard put to understand that its not something wrong with him that's making her go...."
"Yeah, well Dan wasn't that unselfish ... seems like he just went crazy. But anyway, that's over ... and if I don't get a move on my whole trip is gonna be over before it starts! My bus leaves in twenty minutes!"
Phoebe finished her milk and left her toast untouched. Her mother started to chide her for not finishing her meal but realized that from now on, Phoebe would have to decide what was right and what was wrong for herself. Phoebe was growing up.
Up and out. Phoebe stood up to strap on her knapsack, her fresh young breasts jutting forward with seductive enthusiam. Even her mother noticed that somehow Phoebe seemed fuller, more robust than she had before.
The two women pulled out of the driveway and turned down Prudence Lane. Phoebe's mind was fixed on what was to come but still she swung around in her seat for just a-moment. As she looked back at the house and the garden she wondered when she would see them again. And when she did see them again, could anyone guess what her eyes might see between now and then?
The bus driver was just loading the last of the baggage when the Abbott women arrived. A few people had come down all the way from Quebec but the majority of the passengers would not get on until White River Junction. For now the bus was essentially empty with just a few Canadian Indians and some Montpelier college kids sprinkled through the high-back seats.
Phoebe had always resisted goodbyes. Her mother was sloppy about them and inevitably ended up crying. This would be no different but at least they were the last to board and had only a very few seconds. Phoebe's mom looked deep into her eyes when Phoebe finally turned to kiss her.
"Now no crying, Mom. I'm just going away for the summer."
"To you it's just a summer ... for me, well ... I'll be fine. I won't like it but I'll be fine. Meanwhile, you be as good as you can and have a wonderful time!"
"I will, Momma, and-Momma-thanks for the vacation. You have no idea how important it's been just knowing that I had something this wonderful and special to look forward to...."
Hermione Abbott looked away as the bus revved its engine and shifted gears. As it started forward she followed it with her eyes right down to the bend where the willows and the covered bridge cut it and her waving child from sight. Then she wiped a tear or two from her eyes and straightened her composure with a dose of New England resolution. The summer was short. Phoebe would be back before she knew it ... but the rest of the world was so unlike her beloved, safe Green Mountains. Phoebe had never really known the world ... Still, she had to grow up and nothing could make that easier or harder, slower or faster than the personal, intimate, unknowable clock that ticked inside Phoebe's, and each individual's, breast.
The bus swayed from side to side as it meandered slowly down the New England hillsides. Phoebe lay back against the soft cushions of her seat watching the spring greenery pass by her window. Her mind wandered again over the events of the preceding day. She gently touched the faded rosettes that Dan's hot sperm had left on her face and throat. He was disgusting. But somehow, as her mind toyed with the memories as a child toys with a beetle on a cold and rainy day, partially with revulsion and partially with fascination, somehow there was something ... but no. It was impossible to find even fleeting interest. Certainly not in something so ugly and ... her mind drifted back to the road.
The bus was now only a few minutes from the major intersection of White River Junction. At a crossroads just on the edge of town they passed a huge Mack truck parked along the restway. Phoebe could only see the driver vaguely as he exited from the men's room. His lanky frame reminded her for a second of men she had known as father, friend, school chum. The same long, drawn out look and pace. The same Old English, sometimes with a touch of Irish, pale but virile outer shell. Were all men in her life always to be blond? What a curious question to ask herself, she was hardly out of the county that she had been born in and already bizarre thoughts, strange comparisons were cropping up in her mind.
The bus pulled over at the gas station that served as bus depot in most small New England towns. Everyone got off while some kind of mechanical work was being done on the bus. Phoebe hadn't the slightest interest in the bus other than as a means to get her to Boston where her flight to Los Angeles would dovetail neatly with her arrival. She had taken pains to discover the shortest and most economical route to Logan Airport from the bus stop in Beantown. She would arrive at five-thirty in the afternoon and her flight left at eight-seventeen. No problem.
She returned to the bus after buying a magazine and some Life Savers at the refreshment stand. There was a crowd of people standing next to the bus driver when she got back, but there was no bus. Then, as she looked again she noticed that the bus had been pulled around the corner to the mechanic's workshop.
As Phoebe approached the crowd the bus driver was asking for quiet so he could make an announcement. "Sorry, folks, but the mechanic here-this is Joe Preston everybody," Joe Preston nodded almost apologetically for his part in what was to be announced. "Anyway, Joe here tested the brake lines as a matter of routine precaution and he tells me that there's a leak in the line or the well, he can't tell just yet...."
One of the passengers piped up. "What does that mean for us? Will it take very long to fix?"
"That I just can't tell you ... not yet anyway. In any case it's gonna be at least a couple of hours checking it out so you folks better make yourselves at home. There's a diner right behind you and a couple of bookstores and souvenir shops for those of you who aren't natives ... Be sure to check back here from time to time so that you don't get left."
The grumble of disappointment was unanimous. Everyone had plans it seemed and everyone would be inconvenienced by the delay but to Phoebe it was much more of a crisis. She had to be in Boston, she had to catch her flight. Her first trip. Her perfectly coordinated plans. Suddenly all the little girl in her came out. For an instant it seemed that she would cry, then looking down the highway a bit she saw one of the Indians being given a ride by a local pickup truck. Why not? She flipped her sack into place and headed toward the road.
No one noticed or if they did no one indicated to Phoebe that a seventeen-year-old girl might find safer ways to travel than hitchhiking alone across the New England afternoon. No one indicated either that there were faster ways to travel than standing next to a virtually untraveled highway at nearly three in the afternoon.
The longer Phoebe stood, the longer she reconsidered her decision. Minutes seemed like hours. Twice she headed back to the bus depot but she knew that she had not seen the bus pass her and if it did come her way, if the repairs were made before she got a ride, well she would simply wave it down.
She waited. Fifteen minutes. Twenty. The heat began to go out of the June sun. Just as Phoebe was vacillating toward her "wouldn't I really rather be sipping a Coke in the diner" argument, a Mack truck pulled around the bend. The driver was the same one whom she had seen half an hour before when her bus was pulling into town. Apparently the driver had stopped in town and had heard the news about the bus breakdown because he pulled over with hardly an instant's hesitation.
Phoebe noticed for the first time that Mack trucks are enormous. The vehicle loomed ten feet above her head as the driver leaned over and pushed the door-open for her.
"Well, git on in," he said good-naturedly.
Phoebe was awed. She was also perplexed as to how one did get in! The steps looked more like a ladder than anything else. With one arm thrown free of her knapsack she reached up to the railing and stretched her five-foot-six frame to its utmost. Her breasts brushed against the seat of the truck and she climbed in. The surprises had just begun however.
Inside the cab of the truck everything was out of proportion. The road seemed miles below them. The cab was a full six-feet wide if not more and the seats were big enough to hold two normal-size people. Behind the seats there was a storage compartment, certainly as big as any car trunk and above that there was a full six-foot bunk bed.
"Wow," said Phoebe, "this is more like a train than a bus."
"Oh. You never been in a big diesel before, huh?"
"Never. I never even thought about one in all my seventeen years, let alone thought that I might end up in one. You see, the bus to Boston...."
"Yeah," agreed the driver, "I was talking to the guys down at the garage. They said that it looks like they're gonna have to check out the entire brake line. That's gonna take quite a while."
"Well, then I guess my idea was a good one...."
"You mean catching a lift?"
"Yes. I never imagined that I'd end up with so many complications just to get to Boston."
With a moment stolen from the road, the driver glanced more carefully at his young passenger. She was quite beautiful. Still a child, but hadn't she just said that she was seventeen. That was not a child, not legally at least.
"Why you in such a hurry to get to Boston?" he continued.
"Well," explained Phoebe, "I'm on my way to visit my brother-in-law in Hollywood and my plane takes off from Boston."
"Well," the driver imitated, "I sure hope your plane's not in any hurry to get off the ground because you're gonna be a while getting to Boston."
The driver went on to explain that Phoebe had picked a difficult weekend to get from her home to the Hub. As he spoke he shifted gears knowingly with the absence of mind that accompanies years of intimacy with another entity, be it person or machine. He shifted gears up and down as the road indicated but never considered the act. It was perfectly natural for him to reach across the distance, halfway to Phoebe. To take the great knob of the gearshift rod in his oversized hands and to pull it forward or backwards, left or right with strength and solid certainty. He knew how to please the machine and he enjoyed doing it. It was good to him to feel the surging response of the hundreds of horses that he nearly straddled.
"1 sure hope there's not another delay. My plane leaves at eight-seventeen." Phoebe said pulling the ticket from her knapsack to validate her concern.
"Sorry, honey, but I'm afraid that's one plane you're never gonna see."
"Oh no! What do you mean ... I mean, we're only a few hours from Boston and you're going straight there aren't you," she looked at him pleadingly noticing for the first time that his shirt was open halfway down his chest.
"Sure, I'm going straight through but we're gonna miss that eight o'clock thing by more than an hour. You see, little miss," he shifted his seat and pulled the leg of his pants down the better to accommodate himself, "the spring waters pick up a lot of momentum down here and every spring we get about ten bridges between White River and Boston that the highway department writes off as unsafe for big trucks like this...."
"Well, let me off. I'll get there in a regular car!"
"Now that sounds like a good idea, but it's getting late and there aren't too many travelers in these parts after dark...."
Phoebe was truly perplexed. Her face was a montage of confusion and disappointment.
"Now don't look so grim," comforted the driver, "let me see that ticket for a minute...."
Phoebe handed it over to him with a shrug of futility.
"You got no problem, little lady. This ticket must have had your troubles in mind when it was written out."
Phoebe perked up immediately, "What do you....
Handing the ticket back to her, he continued, "Well look there at the bottom line of the first page. See that connection in New York?"
"Yeah."
"Look what time it says, you see it?"
"Yeah. It says my plane leaves New York at three-forty-seven in the morning. Why, what difference does that make if I don't get to Boston in time to catch my plane. Momma checked out the schedules and there aren't any other connections between Boston and New York tonight. That's why I had to have such a long layover."
The driver lifted his eyebrows at the use of the word. Apparently the girl was a little more worldly than he had originally estimated.
"Well, that's still all right."
"How is it all right if I'm gonna miss my plane," Phoebe was growing exasperated with the driver's failure to understand her situation.
"What's your name anyway," she asked. "I'm tired of calling you 'driver'."
"My name's Clem, Clem Hall, and the reason it's all right is that you're not gonna miss your plane. We'll make Boston around nine and from there it's an easy four hours to New York. I'll drop you off at La Guardia before two."
Phoebe leaped up in her seat. "Would you really, I mean can you ... you wouldn't have to go too far out of your way?"
"Nope. As a matter-of-fact, I gotta load that 1 gotta drop in Long Island City and that's just a hop, skip and a jump from where you need to be."
"Wow, mister ... I mean Clem, that's really nice of you. I don't know how I can thank you...."
"Just helping out is plenty thanks, and since we're gonna be cab-mates, so to speak, what's your name?"
"Me? Oh I'm sorry. I'm Phoebe, Phoebe Abbott from...."
"I know where you're from...."
"You do? How...."
"Why, it's written right there, right across your chest."
Phoebe felt a strange warmth enter her body as he reached across the cab and pulled the shoulder of her sweatshirt up the better to read the logo that stretched across her high full bosom.
The sun had set and Clem turned the cab lights on. The windows went up automatically and soft music filled the cab. Phoebe leaned back and rested her head against the soft cushion that Clem had taken down from the bunk bed for her. At last she was on her way. She settled comfortably into the security of the cab and the man.