Cadillac Couches by Sophie B. Watson

outdoor street parade crowd, a bar audience, and make all the hairs on all the arms and backs of necks stand up and do the wave in a collective mass crowd shiver.
    You are not just some kind of prophetic rockstar, tap-dancing, curly-haired boy wonder full of the right measure of masculinity and femininity. You are my Grateful Dead, which must make me a Hawksley Head, which sounds like I’m some kind of weirdo birdwatcher. Edmonton, Toronto, London, Antigonish, Tuktoyaktuk, Wayne, Hove, Waterloo—there’s nowhere I won’t go for you. I would consider parachuting if I had to (and I’m seriously terrified of that moment when they push you out of the airplane).
    Me and my pal Isobel are going to drive the flattest, most boring roads in the world to come see you in Québec. I’ll be in Montréal for your mountain gig, it’d be great if we could hook up . . . 
    I’ll be wearing a red flower in my hair.
    XOX Annie Jones
    Before I could stop my brave tipsy self, I ran down the block and popped it in the old-fashioned mail because I knew he’d prefer it like that. I would have loved to send it by messenger pigeon if it wasn’t so damn far for a bird to fly. I called Isobel to say let’s go tomorrow.
    She said oui.



side a, track 4

    â€œ3,000 miles from satisfied . . .”
    â€œProvidence,” Luann Kowalek
    Day 1
    Southeastern Alberta
    400 klicks gone
    +30 Celsius, late August
    2 o’clock
    Hawksley probably hadn’t got my letter yet, and I didn’t have time to wait around for his response. His concert was on in Montreal in seven days’ time. So we left the next day as planned, barely prepared. As soon as we left those city limits, I got the familiar feeling that it was so utterly right to be leaving, it would have been wrong to stay.
    Isobel said, “Allons Sud!” And my heart filled with joy at her oomph. Her oomph was one of the best things about her.
    So south we went first of all, hoping for more sun and southern charms. We’d go east after Lethbridge. We knew it was shorter to cut through the States, but we didn’t have our passports, and besides, it was cool to keep it Canadian. I was driving the first leg of the day and was trying not to fall into a trance from the hypnotizing pulse of the road. I’d decided to quit smoking on the road because as much as I loved my cigarettes they weren’t helping the Problem. I’d taken long, luxurious drags off my last smoke early this morning. When I felt the smoke mingle with my adrenalin, I knew I was halfway there on the anxiety hellpath. The new me was on Chupa Chups lollipops instead, interchanged with watermelon-flavoured Jolly Ranchers. Isobel was smoking like a chimney, so I was matching her one for one.
    Some time after Calgary, in an otherwise empty landscape void of anything but a flatlining horizon, any specks are a major event. Isobel was the first to notice a blob in the distance. As we got closer we could see it was a hitchhiker with a panama hat and a red bandana covering his nose and mouth and a cardboard sign with the message: PICK ME UP, I’M FRIENDLY .
    We slowed down thinking it might be funny to have a hitchhiker. Plus the guy might have some food on him. The break from monotony got my heart pumping. I pulled Rosimund over to the verge, and Isobel got out to stretch her long legs. Shielding her eyes from the glare of sun, she sussed out the guy: “What the—how?!” I leaned farther over the passenger seat to look at the guy in case he was a wacko and she was in danger.
    It was Finn! And Isobel was pissed.
    â€œGet in the car, Finn. You’re in big trouble. What are you doing out here, in the middle of nowhere—like roadkill?”
    â€œWhoa, Isobel, take it easy! He’s hitching, he could be going anywhere. Where are you going, Finn, and what’s with the bandit bandana look?” I asked. It had become our habit