To my immense relief, Annie decided to take on pass on those kinds of heavy conversational topics after that. I’m not opposed to discussing complicated issues, but it’s not the kind of thing you want before you’re about to do something dangerous. Fortunately, she segued into things that didn’t take a lot of brain power to discuss after that. We spent the better part of an hour discussing an old John Wayne movie that we both liked called The Quiet Man. I was excited because she was the first person I’d ever met who’d actually seen it. I wonder sometimes if people know that movies were made before 1990. Annie took a different approach and inflicted it on anyone she could get to sit down for long enough to watch it. From there, the conversation moved to music, books, and food.
For my part, I didn’t care about what we were talking about so much as I cared that we were talking about things that offered an easy distraction. Maybe it was just a bit of plain old human weakness on my part, but I wanted to separate myself from the problem of Pierce Carter for a while and give my brain a rest. That crazy bastard had been getting a lot of rent-free time in my head of late, and he made for a crappy roommate. As much as I appreciated the distraction, though, I’d have much rather spent those hours talking with someone else. Annie was nice enough when she wasn’t soapboxing a moral position. We even had some stuff in common. The problem was that we didn’t have any real history together. If I’m going to spend hours talking to someone, I want it to be someone I know at least a little bit.
I don’t know if Jessie could read my mind or just knew her sister. When we pulled into some local burger shop about halfway there, Jessie announced that she’d ride with me for a while. I pretended not to notice the little gleam of malicious glee in her eye at the suggestion. Putting Annie and Bill into an enclosed space? I’m not sure it’s a choice that I would have made, but I didn’t lodge any protests either. Bill gave Jessie a very level look that she pretended not to see. Annie just looked annoyed. Jesse pretended she didn’t notice that either. I think Bill knew what Jessie was doing, just stirring the pot because it served some impish impulse in her, but Annie seemed oblivious. Either that or she hadn’t thought it all the way through yet. I had warned her that she and Bill were a lot alike. If she didn’t recognize the full implications, well, life is full of all kinds of learning experiences. I chose to think that this would be one of hers.
The meal at the burger joint was one of the more awkward things that I’ve had the misfortune to participate in. What conversation that there was happened in fits and starts. By the end, we were all just sitting there in silence, eating our food, and not really looking at each other. Although, I had to stop looking at Jessie because she kept making ridiculous faces at me. If I burst out laughing, I knew that it would aggravate both Bill and Annie. Those two were sitting across from each other with stony expressions. As soon as the last French fry passed my lips, I announced that I was going to go and gas up my rental. Jessie bounced out of her seat and grabbed her tray. It didn’t look like she was done, yet, but I guess she was as eager to be free of the awkward tension as I was. We both got unamused looks from Bill and Annie. We took off with a vague comment about being back in fifteen minutes and fled.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
On the way to the gas station that I’d seen a mile or so back, Jessie gave me a beatific look. “So, how was spending time with Annie?”
“Dear God,” I muttered. “She started off by trying to debate sanctity of life with me.”
Jessie burst into laughter. “She didn’t.”
“She did. So, that was just as awesome and pleasant as you might expect, all things considered. She calmed down after that.”
“Well, that doesn’t sound like Annie,” said Jessie, her expression pensive.
“She had some things to work out in her own head, I think. Or she was desperately avoiding working them out. Who knows?”
“Maybe so.”
“You and Bill work out a master plan for us?”
Jessie snorted. “Master plan? We’re the good guys here, remember? Villains have master plans.”
“What do good guys have?”
“Indy ploys, mostly.”
“Indy ploys? What the hell are those?”
Jessie heaved a melodramatic sigh. “Jericho, you really, really need to get up to speed on your pop culture tropes. It means they make it up as they go.”
“Oh. Can we maybe have a master plan instead, just this one time? I’d really like for there to be a plan.”
“No! No master plans. I will concede only to having a strategy.”
“Strategy it is. So, did you and Bill cook up a strategy for us?”
Jessie nodded. “Actually, I think we did. Assuming we can get all the work done and make everything operational before they show up. If not, we’re back to making it up as we go. I’m not a fan of that plan in this scenario, by the way.”
“Neither am I,” I said, pulling into the gas station.
While I filled up, Jessie went inside and bought a truly absurd number of snacks for the road. She came out hefting three plastic shopping bags. I blinked at the bags for a few seconds once we got back in the car.
“What?” She demanded, pulling out a bag of potato chips.
“We just ate.”
“So? It’s a road trip. Maybe my last road trip ever. Road trips have snacks, Jericho. Snacks!”
I opened my mouth to protest again, but I didn’t really have a good argument beyond, “We just ate.” Once I considered it, though, even that wasn’t really a good argument against the snacks. We had just eaten a real meal. I shrugged and peeked into the bags.
“Got any gummy bears in there?”
“Please,” she snorted. “Do you think I’m some kind of amateur? I have all of the gummy bears in there.”