You slow down to a stop about a hundred yards down the road from where the girl waits with her cardboard sign and her meager belongings. You put the Thunderbird in reverse and back up slowly so she knows you’re trying to pick her up, and not run her over. Within a minute you’re abreast of her.
“Hi,” you say. “Need a lift?”
“Yes, I do,” the girl says. Up close now, you can see that she’s maybe twenty or twenty-one and pretty in a cheerleader/girl-next-door kind of way despite the heat and the sweat on her. Her jeans are hip-huggers, and her belt has a heavy brass buckle with a big star and the words LONE STAR on it. “You’re not a pervert, are you?”
“Uh…,” you say. “No, I—”
It takes a moment, but then the girl smiles. It’s a joke, you guess. She puts her guitar case in the back seat and tosses her duffel bag in beside it. Without waiting for any further invitation, she climbs over the passenger side door and into the leather bucket seat. She’s wearing scuffed cowboy boots.
“I’m Jessie,” the girl says once she’s plopped down in the seat.
“,” you reply. You wonder if Jessie’s going to put on her seat belt. Apparently she isn’t.
“I didn’t think any lady would pick me up,” Jessie says. She has a hint of a southern accent, but nothing too overpowering. “I figured it’d be some greasy truck monkey. They want you to suck dick for a ride, you know.”
“No, I…didn’t know,” you say.
“Yeah, that’s no fun,” Jessie says matter-of-factly. She lifts her hat long enough to wipe her sweaty brow with the back of an arm. “Well, let’s get a move on, huh? How far you going, anyway?”
All right, so perhaps there are good reasons why people shouldn’t pick up hitchhikers. But Jessie doesn’t seem crazy, just a little quirky. Even so, you’re not sure if you want her to know exactly where you’re headed. You just met, after all. |