Cindi Myers - Detour Ahead

Okay, maybe she was being too hard on the guy. Maybe he was shy. Or he felt awkward about this whole give-a-ride-to-a-stranger thing. She could relate to that.

No problem, then. She’d be the one to break the ice. She’d show him how it was done.

From: Marlee@TWM.com

To: TopToque@govnet.net

Subject: Road Trip!

Hi Craig. Good to hear from you. I’m Marlee Jones, erstwhile best woman in need of a ride to San Diego. Thanks so much for agreeing to help me out here. I promise I’ll be good company and, of course, I’ll pay my share of the costs.

Since we’re going to be spending some time together on the road, I thought it might be nice to get to know each other a little first. How about coffee or a drink sometime? Call me at 555-6129. I’m looking forward to meeting you!

Marlee

Smiling to herself, she hit the Send button. That should thaw Craig out a little. They could meet for a drink, hammer out the details of the trip and when it was time to hit the road they’d practically be old friends instead of strangers.

“Hey, Marl.” Gretchen Wunderlich, her boss Gary’s secretary, slipped into Marlee’s closet/office. “Gary told me to give these to you.” She dumped a pile of multi-colored papers on Marlee’s desk.

“What is all this?” She frowned at the top sheet, “Sterilization Techniques for Meat Handlers.”

“P.I.O. sheets that need to be updated. Gary says to work on them as you get the chance.”

Public Information Office sheets always needed updating. Most of them dated from the forties and fifties. Marlee pulled a pale-pink sheet of paper from the stack. “Safe Food Handling for the Housewife” was illustrated with drawings of a smiling woman in a full-skirted dress, apron and high heels. “Why did Gary send these to me?” she asked.

Gretchen leaned against the doorjamb and smacked a wad of gum the color of a honeydew melon. “They’ve been cluttering up the office for months now. I got tired of moving them around and complained, so Gary had me bring them here.”

“So now they can clutter up my office. Gee, thanks.” She frowned at the six-inch high tower of paper. “I thought the interns were supposed to do this kind of grunt work.” As a nonprofit, the agency relied on interns from George Washington University for free labor.

“This semester’s intern is designing an animation program for the art department.”

Great. Now even the interns did more exciting work than Marlee. “Tell Gary I don’t think I’ll be able to get to this anytime soon.”

“No prob.” Gretchen heaved herself upright once more and started to leave. She stopped halfway out the door and swung around to face Marlee again. “I almost forgot—Gary really liked your idea to use the rappers for the Reading Is Fundamental promo.”

“Great.” Of course, it would have been greater if Gary had managed to tell her this himself, but she’d learned to be grateful for small favors.

Gretchen was almost out the door again when Marlee stopped her. “Gary knows about my vacation, right? Remind him I’ll be away the next two weeks.”

“I’ll remind him. Knowing Gary, he won’t even notice you’re gone.” Gretchen waved over her shoulder, then was gone, her feet slapping on the tile floor in rhythm with her popping gum.

Marlee sank into her chair and stared at the P.I.O. sheets. So much for the artistic, interesting and important work she always bragged about whenever her friends asked why she continued to work for a peanuts-for-pay nonprofit when she could be plying her trade for real dough at one of the big ad firms around town.

Not that she hadn’t asked herself from time to time if she was really making the best use of her talents. Sure, working for programs like Reading Is Fundamental and the March of Dimes was rewarding and important, but was she selling herself short by not being more ambitious?

Ambition sounded like so much hard work. She’d always been one to go with the flow and see where life took her next. Only lately she felt as if the flow had stopped and she wasn’t going much of anywhere.

She shoved the P.I.O. busywork aside and opened a new file on her computer. Writing new blog entries always helped her to sort out her thoughts.

Road trip!

Don’t those words immediately make you think of fun and adventure? Whether it’s a Spring Break caravan to the Florida beaches or a summer safari across the country, hitting the road with friends for a few days away from the grind is a sure cure for a case of the dulls.

Yours truly is about to set off on a cross-country odyssey of my own. I’ll be traveling from D.C. to San Diego to attend by best gal pal Susan’s wedding.

Before you start alerting state police to be on the lookout for me, rest assured that I will not be driving myself on this trip. (See previous entry for the whole sad story of my recently departed driver’s license.) No, I have the privilege of a chauffeur for this vacation, the wedding best man. More on him later.

Right now I’m musing about the value of road trips in general and this one in particular. I’m thinking this will be the perfect time to take a closer look at where I’m headed—literally and figuratively.

Don’t worry, though, I don’t intend to get too serious. I’m not forgetting this is a vacation, too. And vacations are for fun. For cutting loose and doing things we might not do in the confines of our ordinary lives. How else to explain the penchant for Las Vegas conventioneers to sing karaoke or overly pale beachgoers to throw their backs out doing the limbo?

So expect a few surprises from yours truly in the coming weeks. Though I don’t know exactly how yet, I intend to find my own way to cut loose.

MARLEE was well into her regular Wednesday-night movie marathon when the phone rang. She was tempted to ignore it, since tonight’s theme was road-trip movies and she hated to break away from Priscilla, Queen of the Desert to talk to what was probably a phone salesperson anyway.

But guilt and the worry that it might be a friend in need drove her to hit the pause button and reach over and pluck the phone from its cradle. “Hello?”

“Is this Marlee Jones?”

“That depends on who’s calling. Who is this?”

“This is Craig Brinkman.”

“Oh, hi, Craig.” She smiled and tucked her feet up under her, settling in for a longer conversation. “Nice to talk to you. How are you doing?”

“I’m actually pretty busy right now. I just called to get directions to your place.”

“Sure. Or if you want to meet for a drink or something I can bring you a map.”

“I don’t really have time for that. Just give me your address.”

She frowned. Craig wasn’t any chattier on the phone than he was via e-mail. “Sure. I’m really easy to find.” She rattled off her address and the names of the cross streets.

“Great. I’ll pick you up at eight on Saturday morning.”

Almost too late, she realized he was about to hang up. “Wait, wait,” she called. “Don’t hang up yet.”

“What is it?” He came back on the line.

“Is there anything I should bring? Anything you need me to do?”

“No, I already have everything planned out. And I have reservations for hotels along the way.”

“You do?” Not that she wasn’t aware some people traveled this way; she just never saw the point.

“Yes. That way we don’t have to waste any time searching for a place to stay each night.”

“What if something happens and we don’t make it to the place where you have reservations?”

“What could happen?”

“I don’t know—bad weather, construction detours. Or we could get lost.” She didn’t mention that she always got lost at least once on a trip of any length.