Cool, Calm & Contentious - Merrill Markoe [84]
“The old female bonding didn’t work out too well that time, did it?” said Ashley.
“No, but I was a bigger pain in the ass when I was seventeen,” I argued. “These days I’m much better adjusted.” I paused to see if either of us was buying this.
That was when she reminded me that the trip to Italy ended when the propeller plane on which our group was flying home had two engines catch fire and another one explode. We had been in the air for less than an hour when the pilot came on the intercom and announced, “I don’t know what to say. I’m at a loss for words.” Shortly thereafter we crash-landed in Shannon, Ireland, where we all spent the night on the airport floor.
Only then did I learn that someone in our group had gone to a psychic before we’d left and had been warned not to get on the plane. Was this another one of those unrecognized moments when consequences should have been more carefully calculated? When forethought could have prevented disaster-filled action?
“For a girl like you to agree to sign ‘an acknowledgment of risk’ document that mentions the phrase ‘inherent risks’ eleven times and ‘death’ an additional seven is like one of those movies where a bunch of sorority girls agree to spend the night in an abandoned cabin even though they have heard that a serial killer has just escaped from a nearby mental institution and has been seen in the area,” Ashley scolded me.
“I know,” I told her. “But even in the event of an escaped serial killer, these days we all have cellphones.”
And with that I began to study the list of things we were told to bring along on the trip: a water bottle, a flashlight, sunblock, biodegradable soap, mosquito repellent. I was beginning to feel an odd yearning to walk around in the dark, in the woods, with a flashlight, listening to frogs and crickets and the sounds of a fast-moving river. It reminded me of summer camp. Maybe, I thought, I will buy name tags and sew them into my clothes.
“You seem to have forgotten that you hated summer camp,” Ashley whispered.
“If you need to be freaked out all the time, go become pen pals with a prisoner on parole,” I told her as I picked up the phone and called the editor at the magazine. “I’m in,” I said.
DAY ONE
I am so not worried about this, I told myself as I arrived at the airport a full two hours early, my wheelie suitcase full of waterproof clothing. For once in my Southern California life, there were no traffic slowdowns or problems with parking. Everything was running smoothly. Right up until I got to the gate and was informed that my flight to Salt Lake City would be departing three hours late.
In that single moment, all my tidy interlocking travel arrangements fell like dominoes. Now I would be arriving in Salt Lake City at nine-thirty at night, which meant I would miss the only connecting flight to Vernal, Utah, which was going to put me near where the group would be gathering to begin the trip at sunrise.
This left me with no choice but to rent a car and head out all by myself for a four-hour drive through the Utah desert in the middle of the night.
Ashley was instantly on fire with the plot implications. To counter her histrionics, I studied maps of the area relentlessly during my flight. It looked to me like a straight shot through the desert. Nothing to worry about. “Once I find the highway, I just stay on it,” I said to her.
“Yes, of course,” replied Ashley. “It’s simple. What could possibly go wrong? A single woman all by herself in a car she’s never driven before, on a dark desert highway in the middle of the night.”
Still, I was pleased by how competent I felt as I was talking over my planned route with the car rental agent. This will be fine, I said to myself as he reassured me by taking a yellow highlighter and drawing a line from the freeway entrance to my destination.