Page 128 of Valley Girls
The hood had cooled enough to open carefully, her hand wrapped into her T-shirt. She wasn’t sure what she was looking for; but if the engine was smoking, she figured she should take a look.
With the engine open, she could only peer blankly inside.
And feel thirsty and hot. Sweaty.Shit.
The road was still empty. How could it be empty?
She glanced down the long row of trees.
Across the road, the dust devil kept spinning.
A car approached, and she rushed out to the road, waving her hands. But the car zoomed right on by.
This was fast becoming a problem. She was melting. A hot wind puffed in her face and she wished it were cooler. The haze on the horizon seemed darker. Brewing. She squinted.
And suddenly, she heard the chug of a tractor.
Rilla whipped her head around, scanning the clementine trees. A cloud of dust rose above the trees a few rows over. Turning, she ran down the road, looking down the rows until she spotted a tractor, pulling it’s trailer down a row of trees. Shouting, she ran down the row, sandals sinking in the surprisingly soft dirt.
The tractor kept moving. Shooting heavy streams of water onto the bases of the trees, soaking the desert. She caught up with it and the worker pulled back in surprise, cutting the engine.
He was dark skinned and dark haired, and he waited with a bandana covering his mouth, eyes crinkled in concern.
She’d only taken two years of high school Spanish. All she could remember was hello.
“Hola?” she asked.
The man yanked down his bandana. “¿Hola?”
“Uh. Soy llama ...shit.”
“I speak English. Are you okay?” he asked.
Relief flooded over her. “I broke down. I think my truck overheated.”
“You’re on the road?”
She nodded. “Can I ...” But she wasn’t even sure what to ask.
The man came back and looked over the truck. He filled the radiator with water, and she was able to restart. By that time, the dust devil was long gone; but the horizon had thickened, and the haze had given way to a sharp anvil of clouds, soaring into the blue sky.
Only an hour and a half to go, and she’d be back at Thea’s. Hopefully before Thea got home and realized the truck was gone. Only an hour and a half. She eased onto the road and gripped the steering wheel.
The road led right into the clouds. She lifted her eyes to the edge as she passed under it—from intense blue to swirling dark. But she was in the mountains now, the hills rising steeply on both sides into the canyon as she dropped down to ride the road along the bubbling Merced.
An hour. Maybe. She kept her eye to the narrowing sky above the mountains and kept the pedal toward the floor as much as she dared. After another stop to fill the coolant, she climbed back into the truck as it began to rain.
She was almost there.
Almost.
She entered the start of the Valley. The road dimmed. The rain drummed in her ears. The river beside her rose and roared and foamed.
Why had she done this stupid drive? It felt as if the shoulders of the gods twisted and turned, trying to swat her off like she was an invisible gnat that tickled their shoulder blades.
The windshield wipers flicked angrily back and forth. The river rose. She leaned forward in the seat, eyes glued to the road, speed down to under twenty miles an hour but it felt fast. The water seemed all around her. The edge of the river rippled up along the edge of her sight. Reaching.
Her pulse thumped in her throat. Hands sweaty on the steering wheel. Almost there. Almost there.
