The Hitchhiker
Jessica
Sanbreiner drove up the Southern California coast on the 101 Freeway, talking
sixty-miles-an-hour on her cell phone while driving seventy-five – and still getting
passed. Suddenly, something caught her eye in the rear-view mirror. Something inside her
SUV. Darkened by shadows, it moved closer. Jess felt the hair on the back of her neck
stand at attention.
She
shrieked.
“Jess,
what is it?” her friend’s worried voice crackled across the statticky cell-phone
connection. “Are you okay?”
“Yolanda,
hold . . .” Another shriek. “STOP! Stop right where you are! Don’t come any
closer!”
But
the shadowy figure crept slowly towards her, and Yolanda, a hundred miles away, could do
nothing but listen helplessly to her friend’s terrified pleas.
* * *
When Jessica first told them her vacation plans, her three best friends all said
they were in. A road trip up the California coast, snapshots at a handful of quaint
tourist shops and vineyards along the way, culminating in a visit to the National
Steinbeck Center and a tour through the great author’s hometown of Salinas.
Okay, so maybe it wasn’t what most people would pick as their dream vacation
destination. But Jess had long been an ardent John Steinbeck fan – and not just
because they shared the same initials. She still vividly remembered the first book of
his she read: The Grapes of Wrath. At thirteen, she had never before tackled a book so
thick, but she finished it within a few days and loved it so much she promptly read the
whole thing again, cover to cover. There was something about the seemingly effortless
way Steinbeck wove a story together: his perfectly chosen words, his detailed
descriptions, his characters so painfully honest that it made Jess’s very soul ache
with recognition. Indeed, it was Steinbeck’s work that inspired Jess to want to become
a writer herself someday.
That “someday” had arrived. Now she was twenty-six years old, the author of
two modestly reviewed, semi-decent-selling novels. And yet neither book brought her
great pride, deep satisfaction – or much money, for that matter. Jess had started her
latest novel attempt two months earlier and already she could feel it dying, the life
being slowly sucked away by too many one-dimensional characters, clichéd similes, and
overly dramatic dialogue. She needed something to inspire her, to get her writer’s
blood pumping, to give her creativity the kick in the culottes it so desperately needed.
Steinbeck’s hometown, she hoped, would be the magic elixir. Maybe she could
absorb some of his genius through osmosis.
And so the road trip was on.
Then it was off.
The problem? A passenger. Or, rather, a lack thereof.
At first her friends had marveled at the plan’s utter brilliance, but by the
time June rolled around and Jess needed a commitment, a whirlwind of urgent “more
important” business came up. Cindy had a wedding to attend. Tina was going camping
with her Boyfriend-of-the-Month.
Even Yolanda, Jess’s best friend, backed out. “You know how busy it is right
now at the restaurant, Jess,” she explained. What a lame excuse! Yolanda worked at
Wendy’s, but she insisted on referring to it as the restaurant. “My boss would kill
me if he found out I took a week off to travel to some museum.”
Some museum! Jess fumed and declared that if Yolanda really felt that way about
Steinbeck – that his beloved Salinas was just “some museum” – she didn’t want
her to come anyway. She would have a grand time on her own, thank-you-very-much.
Despite backing out on the trip, Yolanda made Jess promise to call every once in
awhile to check in. “Just to be safe,” Yolanda said. “I want to make sure your car
doesn’t break down, you aren’t wandering the roads completely lost, and you haven’t
picked up a murderer-slash-rapist disguised as a handsome hitchhiker.”
Of course, Yolanda was just joking about the latter – “Really, Jess, you’d
never be so dumb as to take on a hitchhiker when you’re alone, even if he looks like
Brad Pitt, right?” But now, listening to her friend’s shrieks over the phone, it
seemed the worst-case-scenario was actually coming true. Jess had always harbored a
weakness for cute guys.
* * *
“Where are you, Jess? Did you hit something? Talk to me!”
“No, Yolanda, I’m . . . Hold it right there, Buster. Don’t come any closer!”
The intruder was in plain sight now, close enough to strike. Time for desperate
measures.
Still clutching the cell phone in her right hand, Jess used her right knee to hold
the steering wheel straight, reached down with her left hand and yanked off one of her
imitation Doc Martens – “Intern Martens,” she called them – and fiercely began
swinging the fashionably clunky shoe at the intruder while trying not to swerve off the
road. Suddenly a siren wailed, and red and blue lights flashed in her rearview mirror.
A wave of relief washed over Jess. “Gotta go, Yolanda. I’ll call you back
soon, ’k?” she said, ignoring her friend’s protests and flipping the phone closed.
Jess smiled smugly at her unwanted passenger. “You’re gonna get it now!” she
hissed.
Yolanda tried calling back, but there was no answer.
* * *
Want to find out what happens? Then you’ll
have to read the book! : )
