turned my head slightly toward him, my gaze moving around the cab. An ice scraper rested on the dashboard, much closer to him than to me. A large flashlight lay in a mesh bag that hung from the back of his seat. A ticket stub stuck out of a built-in ashtray just by the steering wheel. My gaze rested there, and my breathing slowed.
We were on a turnpike.
I stayed quiet, facing straight ahead. To get off the turnpike, he’d have to stop to pay a toll. There would be a toll worker. Some people had special tags that let them glide through on credit accounts, but I didn’t see any such tag on his windshield. He was from out of state, just passing through. I lifted my chin, breathed in, and looked at the road ahead.
He reached over to turn down the heat. When I looked over at him, his temples and forearms were shiny with sweat. “I’m going to let you out,” he said. “Just not here, not on the road. I’ll let you out in Topeka. Or at the next exit. Whatever.”
“Okay,” I said. “I believe you.”
“I wasn’t going to hurt you.” He looked at me and laughed, as if the very idea were ridiculous. “I just got distracted, you know, with you talking. You talk a lot. I’m not used to having somebody talking.”
“Sure,” I said. I managed what I hoped was a convincing smile. “Sure. I can see that.”
We were still far outside of Topeka when, just up ahead, I saw the flagpole signs for a cluster of gas stations and restaurants. The exit was halfway up a hill. It was a turnpike stop, a closed loop, no escape from the tolls.
I raised my hand and pointed, as if that had done me any good before. “Here,” I said. “I’ll just get out…”
“I know,” he said, irritated. He shifted gears, and unbelievably, wonderfully, the truck really did start to slow. I picked up my book bag without lowering my head, my eyes on the exit sign, the driver in my peripheral vision. I could see cars in the parking lot for a Hardee’s, and a couple in matching NASCAR coats walking carefully back over the ice to their car.
“Listen…” He turned to me, leaving one hand on the wheel, the other raised to me, palm forward.
I didn’t listen. We were still far from the restaurant. We were no longer moving, but the engine was running. I opened the door and jumped. My feet gave way on the ice, and I slid forward, hitting my face against the open door. I got up, fell again. I heard the door slam, gears moving. I looked up and breathed in exhaust. By the time I was on my feet again, the truck was rolling away.
The lobby of the Hardee’s was nearly empty. A man sat in one of the booths by the window, playing solitaire and drinking a cup of coffee. A girl my age in a brown uniform swept behind the counter. She looked up at me and her face changed.
“You’re bleeding,” she said, with disapproval.
I took off my glove and reached up to my face. My fingers came down bloody.
“I fell,” I said. “I fell outside on the ice.”
“That sucks.” She picked up the broom and resumed sweeping. “Yeah. I been here since midnight, but I know that ice out there is just terrible. Nobody from the morning crew even showed up. I was supposed to be gone a half hour ago.”
Speakers hung from the ceiling on either side of the counter, playing a tinny, wordless version of “I Can See Clearly Now.” The girl with the broom looked up at me. I looked at her. I wondered later, when I was calmer, warmer, and not so tired, why I did not tell the girl right then about the trucker, if only to explain why I was so rattled.
“Did you want to order something?” She asked this as if it were a ridiculous question. “Or did you want to wash up first?” She lifted a hand with a plastic glove and pointed to her left. “There’s a restroom around the corner.”
In the bathroom, I held a napkin up to the cut on my bottom lip. I stared at myself in the mirror, trying to decide if I really had bumped my head. My pupils looked slightly dilated. My cheeks were splotched with red, maybe from the cold. My hands were still shaking. I would call my mother.