Page 23 of Hero on the Road
An hour later I was still sitting in the same place, only now I was cold. I checked my phone and saw that it was 10 at night. The people in the booth behind me had left and turned out all the lights, checking first to make sure I was going to be okay.
I’d said I was fine. What else was I supposed to say? ‘No, I’m not okay, please take me home with you’? I wasn’t a lost kitten.
I was a sometime musician sitting in a parking lot in Great Falls, Montana by herself because her roadie had deserted her and her record label couldn’t even be bothered to get her a hotel room for the night. And the guy who was supposed to be sitting with me, because we’d agreed we were in this together, had up and left without any explanation other than a muttered idea that he was going to figure something out.
When a van that looked like it was right out of Scooby Doo pulled up in front of me, I wondered what else could possibly go wrong. Who the hell was this, and why were they pulling into this parking lot in the middle of the night? What could they possibly want with this place?
Were they here to kidnap me? Because that would go right along with all the other things that had happened so far.
Then Connor jumped out of the van and jogged around to me, grinning like a maniac.
I glanced from him to the van, confused, and then looked back at him. “What did you do, travel back to the 70s?”
“I got us a vehicle,” he said, full of pride and self-congratulations.
I looked back to the van. “You got us a vehicle?”
He followed my eyes, though I didn’t think he was seeing the same thing I was, because he was far too happy about it. “Well yeah. We can’t just spend the night on the street, and we need a way to get to the next venue. I figure a van kills both birds with one stone.”
For a long moment, I didn’t even have any words to throw at him. This was all too ridiculous. The van might have been red once but was now more orange, and had wooden siding that should have been illegal. It was possibly the ugliest thing I’d ever seen.
“When you said you were going to figure something out, Connor, I was hoping it would include a hotel room. Maybe some food.”
He put out a hand and helped me to my feet. “Even if we get a hotel, Olivia, we’re going to need transportation. And this was the best I could do on short notice.”
Okay, that was a fair point, and itwas10 at night. I guessed most car rental places were probably closed. We definitely needed transportation, regardless.
But still.
Scooby Doo van.
Connor pulled me toward the monstrosity, already trying to talk me into liking it. “It’s more comfortable than you might think, and there’s plenty of room in there. I figure we probably have enough money for some food and a hotel tonight, but when we’re out on the road we’re going to want to have access to a place we can sleep. And we might not have a real tour bus, but we do have...”
“The Scooby Doo van,” I finished, starting to come around to the idea.
Yeah, it was hideous. Truly horrendous. I felt like my eyes might start bleeding soon. But there was plenty of room in there, and if the record label wasn’t going to give us a hand...
“It’s not the worst idea I’ve ever heard,” I admitted, running a finger lightly over the bright used-to-maybe-be-red paint job.
“Gee, thanks,” Connor said with a snort.
I sent him a sidelong glance. “I’m not going to give you a full endorsement until I’ve seen the inside.”
He laughed and slid the side door open. “Your chariot, my lady.”
The inside was even uglier than the outside. The back didn’t even have seats. Just one open space for whatever it was for. And the floor was covered with orange shag carpeting. I glanced to the driver’s side to see one of those woolly steering wheel covers, and the dashboard looked like it was also covered in faux wood.
The whole thing smelled like someone had shampooed it using cherry KoolAid.
“I don’t even have the words,” I told him honestly.
“I don’t think there are words, to be completely frank,” he replied. “But it’s the best I could find and it’s better than nothing.”
“And if we run out of money, we can go solve mysteries on the side,” I said. “So what are we doing tonight, now that we have this groovy van?”
Connor chuckled. “There’s a Walmart down the way that’s still open. I figure we get some clothes and maybe sleeping bags. Food. And then tomorrow, we head for the next show.”
“Do you even know the schedule?” I asked. I hadn’t bothered to find it out because I’d thought we could leave that up to Barry.
