One More Stop by Lois Walden Read Free Book Online Page A

United’s airplane bondage. The busy little baggage handlers are back on the job, doing as little as possible.
    Fortunately, my ruined bag arrives posthaste. I head on over to the Enterprise van … As usual, the rental vehicles are parked in the next state. That would be Wyoming. I figure that I have some serious nap time in store. I take full advantage of the altitude and quickly pass out. In my reverie, I hear fellow Enterprise van passengers’ voices.
    â€˜Three feet. A damn blizzard.’
    â€˜That much? I heard two.’
    â€˜Glad I’m not driving behind a semi any time soon. Not up those hills.’
    â€˜If we droplift you up the mountain, you can ski back to Denver. For sure you’ll beat the traffic.’
    â€˜Beat my wife anyway.’
    â€˜What do you beat her with?’ Gales of laughter awaken the rest of me.
    â€˜What blizzard?’ I say.
    â€˜Don’t you watch the weather channel?’
    â€˜I …’
    He interrupts. ‘We’re about to have the biggest blizzard since ’03, 1903. It’s a good thing you’re picking up your car now. Not gonna be a car on the lot for days. Oh wow, look. It’s started. Do you ski?’ Before I can answer, he’s onto the next question. ‘Where you from?’
    I am so tired. ‘New York.’
    â€˜I have a friend in Park Slope. His name is Steve Goodman. You ever run across him?’ He’s not gonna stop, is he? ‘He’s a great guy. Makes antique furniture.’
    â€˜How do you make antique furniture?’ I ask.
    â€˜Think he uses a bellows. Blows dust on his mother’s old tables and chairs. She’s senile. Doesn’t sit at the dinner table anymore. Eats in her room. He makes a lot of money off her furniture.’
    Â 
    Snow falls … Blankets of white powder puffs fill the sky as my vehicle and I pull up to the Sheraton Hotel. I check in, go to my room, unpack, organize my toiletries, open the curtains, plug in my air purifier and pick up the telephone.
    Saul Rudman, my personal Peter Pan, a flamboyant gay motel owner in Wyoming, keeps a loft in Denver. I’m hoping that we can connect. His machine tells me that he will be out of town until Friday. So, I swim 200 laps in the bacteria-laden, over-chlorinated, ninety-degree, ten-foot, kiddy pool.
    Out my window is a wall of white. I’m thinkin’: ‘It’s Colorado . They know how to deal with snow.’
    I eat a lemon zest Luna protein bar for dinner. I meditate, file my nails, loofah my dry skin, try to call Simone to congratulate her on having had an impact on my niece. Of course, Simone is not home. Read Susan Weed’s Menopausal Years . Women have so much more to deal with than men. As if I didn’t already know that one.
    Then I sit in the hotel lounge surrounded by some honest-to -goodness cowboys. We watch television. Mad King George wages war on Iraq: The famous weapons of mass destruction, protect the world from the Axis of Evil.
    I return to my room. I cry for mankind. I lay me down to sleep on my own feather pillow.
    â€˜Now I lay me down …’
    â€˜Go away. Please.’
    At six thirty a.m. it is a veritable white Christmas, even though Bing Crosby is dead. At seven thirty a.m. the phone rings.
    â€˜Hi. It’s Bobbi.’
    Who the hell is calling me at this hour? Oh! I fumble for my school folder, the teacher. ‘Hi. How are you?’
    â€˜I’ve been shoveling. Got to get a handle on this blizzard. They say it’s going to last for at least seventy-two hours. Turn on the Weather Channel. Won’t be any school today.’ She continues her monologue. ‘My kids were really looking forward to working with you. I told them that you were going to jam their computers. Told them they would have to use their imagination . Kids just don’t dream anymore, do they?’
    â€˜Some do.’
    â€˜My daughter does. She’s an actress.