the song ends—to the relief of the employees—I get one pair of hands clapping for me from the old lady sitting in the booth behind Camryn. Nobody else cares, but by the look on Camryn’s face, you’d think everyone in the restaurant was watching and laughing at us. Hilarious. And she’s so cute when she’s embarrassed.
I prop my elbows on the table and lay my arms across it, folding my hands together.
“Ah, it wasn’t that bad was it?” I smirk.
She slides the edge of her finger underneath each of her eyes to wipe off that tiny streak of black that she instinctively knows is there. A few more laughs still rattle through her calming chest.
“You have no shame, either,” she says, laughing one more time.
“It was embarrassing, but I think I needed that.” Camryn kicks off her shoes and pulls her bare feet onto the front seat in the car.
We’re back on the road again, and taking direction only from Camryn’s pointing finger. Heading east on 44; looks like we’re going to be passing through the bottom half of Missouri.
“Glad I could oblige.”
I reach out and press the power on the CD player.
“Oh no,” she teases, “I wonder how far back into the seventies we’ll go this time.”
I tilt my head over and smirk at her.
“This is a good song,” I say, reaching out to turn the volume up a little and then tapping my thumbs on the steering wheel.
“Yeah, I’ve heard it before,” she says, laying her head against the seat. “Wayward Son.”
“Close,” I say, “Carry On Wayward Son.”
“Yeah, close enough you didn’t need to correct me.” She pretends to be offended, but isn’t doing a very good job.
“And what band is it?” I test her.
She makes a face at me. “I don’t know!”
“Kansas,” I say with an intellectually raised brow. “One of my favorites.”
“You say that about all of them.” She purses her lips and flutters her eyes.
“Maybe I do,” I relent, “but really, Kansas songs have a lot of emotion. Dust in the Wind, for example; can’t think of a more fitting piece of music for death. It has a way of stripping your fear of it.”
“Stripping your fear of death?” she says, not convinced.
“Well yeah, I guess so. It’s like Steve Walsh is the reaper and he’s just telling you that there’s nothing to be afraid of. Shit, if I could choose a song to die to, that one would be at the top of my playlist.”
She looks discouraged.
“That’s a little too morbid for my blood.”
“If you look at it that way, I guess so.”
She’s fully facing me now with both legs pulled onto the seat, knees drawn up, and her shoulder and head lying on the back of the seat. That golden braid of hers which makes her look that much softer always draped over her right shoulder.
“Hotel California,” she says. “The Eagles.”
I look at her. I’m impressed.
“That’s one classic song that I like.”
That makes me smile “Really? That’s a great one; very chilling—kind of makes me feel like I’m in one of those old black and white horror films—Good choice.”
I’m actually really impressed.
I tap my thumbs some more on the steering wheel to Carry On Wayward Son and then I hear a loud pop! and a constant flap-flap-flap-flap-flunk-flap-flunk until I veer slowly off the side of the freeway and pull onto the shoulder.
Camryn has already dropped her bare feet back onto the floorboard and is looking all around the car trying to figure out the direction of the noise.
“Do we have a flat?” she asks, though it’s more like: “Oh great, we have a flat!”
“Yep,” I say putting the car in park and turning the engine off. “Good thing I have a spare in the trunk.”
“Is it one of those ugly mini tires?”
I laugh.
“No, I have a life-sized tire in there with a rim and everything and I promise it’ll match the other three.”
She looks slightly relieved, until she realizes I was making fun of her and she sticks her tongue out at me and crosses her eyes. Not sure why that made me want to do her in the backseat, but to each his own, I guess.
I put my hand on the door handle and she pulls her legs back onto the seat.
“What are you getting all comfortable for?”
She blinks. “What do you mean?”
“Get your shoes on,” I say, nodding to them on the floorboard, “and get your ass out with me and help.”
Her eyes get wider and she just sits there as though waiting for me to laugh and tell her I’m only kidding.
“I-I don’t know how to change a tire,” she says when she realizes I’m not.
“You know how to change a tire,” I correct her and it stuns her even more. “You’ve seen it done hundreds of times in real life and in movies—trust me, you know how; everybody knows how.”
“I’ve never changed a tire in my life.” She all but sticks out her bottom lip.
“Well you’re going to today,” I say grinning, opening my door just a few inches so the semi coming toward us doesn’t knock it off.
A few more seconds of disbelief and Camryn is slipping her feet down into her running shoes and shutting the car door behind her.
“Come over here.” I motion to her and she walks to the backside of the car with me. I point to the flat one, back passenger’s side. “If it had been one of those two on the side with the traffic, you might’ve gotten out of it.”
“You’re seriously gonna make me change a tire?”
I thought we already established this.
“Yes, babe, I’m seriously going to make you change a tire.”
“But in the car you said help you, not actually do all the work.”
I nod. “Well you are going to help technically, but—just come here.”
She walks around to the trunk and I lift the spare out and set it on the road. “Now get the jack and the tire iron out of the trunk and bring them over.”
She does what I say, grumbling under her breath something about getting ‘black gook’ on her hands. I restrain my very passionate desire to laugh at her as I roll the tire over near to the flat one and lay it on its side. Another semi zooms by; the wind rocks the car gently side to side.
“This is dangerous,” she says, dropping the jack and the tire iron on the ground at my feet. “What if a vehicle veers off the road and hits us? Don’t you watch World’s Dumbest?”
Holy shit! She watches that show, too?
“As a matter of fact I do,” I say, “now get over here and let’s get this done. If you’re the one squatting down, hidden from the traffic by the car then we’re less likely to get run-over by anyone.”
“How does that make it less likely?” Her eyebrows are knotted in her forehead.
“Well, if you’re standing out here in the