Road Trip by Jan Fields Page A

taking her turn at the wheel of the SUV. She had to admit to a thrill of power at the higher seat. She hadn’t driven one in some time and had never really wanted such a large vehicle. The frequent need to stop to refuel was one good reason. Plus, LeeAnn would never forgive her. One of her daughter’s favorite rants was about how SUV drivers thought they owned the road. From the driver’s seat, Annie could almost understand the feeling. It would be easy to get carried away.
    After a while, Annie noticed that each time she looked into the rearview mirrors, she saw the same dark van following them. The sun had come out, and the glare on their windshield made it nearly impossible to see who was driving. Since it wasn’t unusual to see the same vehicle over and over on the interstate, she didn’t pay it that much attention at first. Then she noticed that every time she changed lanes, the van changed lanes.
    “Can y’all see that dark van behind us?” Annie asked.
    Mary Beth was in the passenger seat, and she flipped down her sun visor to look into the mirror mounted on it. “I see it,” she said. “The windows have that dark tint, don’t they? Dark windows like that always make a vehicle look so ominous.”
    “I think they’re illegal in some states, aren’t they?” Kate asked as she turned to look out the back window of the SUV. “They make it hard for police officers to see what’s going on in a car if they have to approach it.”
    “Maybe they aren’t as dark as they look from here with the sun on it,” Mary Beth said. “Why did you want us to look at it, Annie?”
    “It’s following us,” Annie said.
    “Following us?” Stella’s voice was doubtful. “We are on the interstate. I imagine a lot of vehicles have been close to us for some time.”
    “But the van changes lanes every time we do,” Annie said, though her words sounded a little paranoid even to her ears. “Maybe I’m just jumpy after last night.”
    “I know I am,” Kate said supportively. “I don’t blame you for keeping an eye out.”
    “Still, I’m being silly. Pretend I didn’t say anything.”
    Mary Beth tactfully changed the conversation by asking everyone where they should stay for the night. “I’m thinking we’ll probably be somewhere in Tennessee.”
    “Oh, that will be fun,” Kate said. “Will everyone there talk like Annie?”
    Annie laughed. “I think a Tennessee accent is a good bit different from a Texas accent. But we all say ‘y’all.’”
    Mary Beth and Kate took turns teasing Annie about her Southern accent compared to their Maine pronunciation of words. Annie told a funny story about some problems she had understanding some of the Maine accents when she first moved to Stony Point. “I had asked Mike at the hardware store what he recommended for fall leaves,” she said, “and he told me to wrap the leaves in a ‘top.’ I had no idea what that was. The top of what?”
    Mary Beth laughed. “I’m sure he meant a tarp.”
    “Except that in Texas, ‘tarp’ and ‘top’ don’t sound like the same word the way they do when you say them,” Annie said, chuckling at the memory of her confusion.
    When they finally stopped for the night in Tennessee, Annie felt stiff and achy all over. She was glad they only had one more driving day left. She carried the box of Gram’s things into the hotel along with her luggage. “I know it’s silly,” she said, “but it’ll be good for my peace of mind.”
    Her friends were kind enough not to tease her about it, and Annie found that she slept soundly. After a breakfast that included grits, which all of the Stony Point group rated as “quite tasty,” they set out on the last day of the drive in high spirits.
    They made amazingly good time, managing to avoid traffic bottlenecks, road work and accidents. Still, when the bossy voice of Mary Beth’s GPS finally announced, “You have reached your destination,” just as they pulled into the entrance of the