July 22, 2003
Truck Stop
California Desert
Rose sighed as she shrugged off her backpack and sat down on a bench in the shade of a wall at the truck stop midway between Palm Springs and Banning. They had been traveling on foot for two days, heading west along the freeway. The weather had cooled slightly, so that the high temperature during the day was only a hundred and five degrees, but it was still hard traveling, and they hadn’t succeeded in finding another ride.
She was beginning to experience serious misgivings about the wisdom of traveling west. Not only was southwestern California more densely populated than the desert, making it more difficult to find a safe place to rest, but the farther west they traveled, the more signs of the recent earthquake they found—something Rose found hard to think about. She still shuddered at the memories of that terrible night, and grew increasingly uncomfortable as more and more evidence of the cataclysm appeared.
Although they were still in the desert, which had not been so badly damaged by the earthquake as the southwestern part of the state, they had still seen signs of the natural disaster only a few months earlier. There had been some flattened buildings in outlying areas, although these ancient, rickety wooden structures would likely have collapsed on their own within a few years anyway. There had also been some damage to the freeway, and when they had passed by the energy-generating windmills in the pass, only a few were operating, and some had fallen over and had not been repaired. If damage had been this severe in the desert, so far from the epicenter of the earthquake, she could only imagine what it was like farther west.
Before she had left Masline, Rose had read the reports about the earthquake, about the severe damage that stretched for miles in every direction. There hadn’t been any reports on Banning, but she knew that if they continued in the direction they were traveling, they would eventually wind up in the Hemet-San Jacinto area, which had been inundated when the Diamond Valley Lake dam collapsed. To the west of that was Perris, which had also been badly damaged by a collapsing dam.
In spite of the considerable number of people killed or displaced by the earthquake, in spite of the massive amount of damage done by the cataclysm, not nearly enough had been done to repair the damage and assist the survivors. The country was embroiled in a war that had now lasted some four months and showed no signs of ending soon, in spite of the president’s assertion of ‘mission accomplished’ two months earlier. Rose didn’t see the point of the war—she had been following the news as much as she could since it had started in March, reading headlines and discarded newspapers whenever she was in a town following the day she had walked away from Masline—but it was evident to her that President Bush’s desire for revenge on the Iraqi dictator and hunger for Iraqi oil was more important than the suffering of people following such a horrendous natural disaster.
Rose had other reasons for her misgivings about heading west. Even if more of the damage had been cleaned up in the disaster areas, there was always the danger that she would meet someone she knew. Mari lived in Perris, and Rose knew that her mother occasionally went places like Temecula and Murrieta on business and to shop. The likelihood of running across either of them was slim, but Rose didn’t want to take any chances. If her mother found out that she was alive, she would never let the matter rest, and Mari might pass the word on to others at Elias University—and thereby make its way to her mother or Cal at their business places in Southland.
Beyond that, Rose knew that the earthquake had brought on an even bigger disaster in the west—the destruction of the San Onofre nuclear power plant near Oceanside, spreading radiation over a good portion of the land and ocean. The mountains had helped to block it from spreading east, but some of the coastal towns, even those not destroyed by the ensuing tidal wave, were uninhabitable, and she wasn’t sure that it was safe to stay in the western area. Radiation could last for a long time, especially if it wound up concentrating in a small area.
Rose was pulled from her thoughts as Daffodil sat down beside her, handing her a bottle of cool water filled at a bathroom sink. She took a drink gratefully, preferring the cool, fresh water to the stale, lukewarm water they had been drinking for two days.
"Do you want to stay here for a few hours, or keep moving?" Daffodil asked her, taking a drink from her own bottle.
"Stay here. We can get fresh water and clean up a little in the bathroom. Maybe, if we’re lucky, we can hitch another ride. It may be a few degrees cooler, but it’s still awfully hot. At least there’s a little shelter here."
Daffodil nodded, leaning back against the bench and pulling out a half-crushed can of mixed, salted nuts. Taking a few, she offered the can to Rose, who shook her head, not hungry at the moment.
"How about this—if we can hitch a ride, we’ll leave with the driver. If not, we’ll leave at sunset and walk through the night, or at least until we get tired. Then we’ll find some place to rest—a campground if we’re lucky, or if not, we’ll think of something."
"Yeah. We always do." Rose settled back and closed her eyes for a moment, then sat up, reminding herself that a truck stop was not a safe place to nap. In addition to truckers and travelers looking for a rest stop, truck stops also attracted assorted unsavory people, some of whom would think nothing of attacking them or stealing their few belongings. It was best to stay alert.
Daffodil put the can of nuts back into her pack and leaned forward, perusing the wide parking area for someone who they might be able to hitch a ride with. She observed several families, their vehicles packed with luggage and children—probably safe, but not likely to give them a ride, even if they had space. An SUV with several people in their late teens or early twenties pulled into the parking area, swerving wildly, but she also rejected this prospect, as they appeared to be drunk or high, and at risk for an accident or arrest. The best prospects, she decided, were the truckers, who might give them a ride for free or for a low fee, or occasionally just for the company, although they had to be careful there, too—some men believed that company was synonymous with sex, and she wasn’t desperate enough pay for rides that way, nor, most emphatically, was Rose.
She nudged Rose, who got reluctantly to her feet, and they set off across the parking lot to try to beg a ride. The first two truckers they approached told them that it was against company policy for them to take riders, a third refused them flat out, and a fourth was willing but looked at them in a way that made Rose shake her head and walk away without a word. They were ready to give up and wait for someone new to arrive when the driver of the last truck in the parking lot came out, heading in the direction of her vehicle.
Daffodil immediately walked up to her. "Can you take a couple of riders?" she asked, looking at the woman. There were far fewer female truckers than male, but she didn’t care about the gender of the driver, as long as they could drive safely and didn’t intend to harm hitchhikers. Her instincts told her that this trucker was safe.
"Maybe. I’m headed for Reno," she answered, looking at the two grubby, slightly disreputable-looking women.
"Reno is good," Rose said, before Daffodil could say anything. She elbowed her in the ribs as she started to speak.
"It’ll be fifteen dollars for the two of you," she told them, "and if you cause any trouble I’ll put you out on the road. No refund."
"We’ll pay it," Rose told her, reaching into her purse.
The woman stopped her. "Pay me when you get in the truck. I’m leaving in about fifteen minutes. If anyone I know shows up, the deal is off. Okay?"
"Sure," Rose agreed, again elbowing Daffodil in the ribs as she began to speak.
"Be ready. If you’re not there when I’m ready to go, I’m leaving you behind."
"We’ll be there in about ten minutes. We’d like to clean up a little first."
"Fine. Be back here by 12:30." She climbed into the cab to get her lunch.
Daffodil stalked after Rose, following her into the bathroom.
"What the hell are you doing?" she demanded. "I thought you wanted to go west."
Rose locked herself into one of the stalls. "I changed my mind. I’d rather go to Reno."
"When did you decide this?"
"When she said she was going to Reno."
Daffodil was silent for a moment, then said, "It’s a hell of a lot hotter in Reno than it is here."
"It’s also a major city. We should be able to find something to do there. It’s farther north, too, so maybe we can head for the Sierras when we’re done there."
"Just in time for winter. Great idea. Maybe we should head for Donner Pass, too."
"Shut up." Rose came out and began to wash up. "I just don’t think that going west is a really good idea. You’ve seen how much earthquake damage there is out here. Think of what it will be like farther west. Besides, we don’t have to be anywhere in particular, so Reno is as good as Banning. And if we go west from there, it’ll be farther north, and farther from the earthquake damage."
"You and earthquakes. You must have had a really traumatic experience when the Masline quake hit."
"I did, but I’d just as soon not talk about it."
"I know. Your boyfriend and all." Daffodil sighed. "Okay. We’ll go to Reno, but it had better be worth it."
"That’s up to you as much as me. Life is what you make of it, you know."
"That’s what I told you."
"See? I learned from the best." Rose dried her face and tossed the paper towel in the trash. "Come on. We’d better get going before she leaves without us."