The timbre of the engine deepened as the train slowed. The spotty brown line bordering the crop fields became a discernable fence. The crops themselves gave way to a lot of green-yellow weeds and oak trees crowned in yellow and orange and red. Mel closed her book as the station came into view, an unattractive concrete building that rose from the weeds like a squinting gargoyle. She reached overhead to grab her tote bag and took out a manual photographer’s camera. She placed it to her eye and took a shot of the station through the train window. It was bad architecture, she mused, even if the design was several decades out of date.
She followed Stuart out of the train with her own bags in tow. The smell of diesel and exhaust outside the train and on the station platform was heavy. Her nose stung, but she didn’t have any free hands to cover her face. She took quicker steps and reached the interior of the station in a few moments. It had been cool outside, but the station itself was colder. The floor was a dirty concrete worn away by the shuffling of many years worth of shoes. The chairs in the waiting area were neon orange and empty. The counter selling train tickets had an equally garish yellow sign slapped above it. There was still a tinge of exhaust in the air but it was overpowered with something more pungent—a mixture of cigarettes and body odor.
Stuart was ahead of her and had quickly inquired about car rental at the information booth. The tired middle-aged man with a ragged moustache working among the brochures and maps said something that she didn’t catch and then waved vaguely in a direction away from the station. Mel grabbed a couple of the brochures and a copy of the town map and stuffed them into her tote before she once again took off on a sprint after him.
“I know this is important, but I didn’t think we were in that much of a hurry,” she huffed.
He stopped. They now stood on the opposite side of the train station. There was a tiny parking lot in the front which contained ten cars. To the left of the parking lot was a smaller and newer building with a green sign that said “Gavot Car Rental”. To the right of the parking lot was a gas station with two pumps and an aging convenient store. From there, a two-lane road stretched into the interior of farm country.
“Sorry. Sometimes I get ahead of myself.”
“No. That’s not a problem. It’s just that, well, you could have at least gotten a map. I’d hate to get lost in the middle of nowhere.”
“I have some maps I printed out before we even left New Halis. If you want to look at them, it’s in this bag.”
“Stuart, you are way too prepared.”
“It never hurts to be too prepared.”
Stuart had called the car rental company ahead of time to reserve a vehicle. He had only to go into the car rental building to sign some papers and get the keys. They loaded up their bags into the trunk of a small dark blue four-door. When they climbed in and Stuart started the engine, Mel took out the map she had grabbed earlier and squinted at the squiggling lines.
“Where to?” he asked.
“It looks easy enough. We just go down this road and turn right on route seventy-six. Eventually we’ll hit the main street.”
He nodded and pulled out of the parking lot. Mel looked up momentarily from the map to see a figure coming out of the rental place to see them off. The figure was a long-haired blonde in a tiny pink tube top. Her black miniskirt was even tinier.
“Is that the owner of Gavot Car Rental?” she remarked.
“Hm? Her? I think so. She was real disappointed when I told her I was a reporter and not some hot shot computer programmer. She was hoping I could fix some of her computer problems.”
Mel found herself smirking. “I bet.”
They first filled the gas tank at the service station across the way before finally taking off. The line of scraggly trees faded away to corn rows as they headed north. The land and sky simply gave way to two bands, one green-yellow, one blue occasionally dotted with white.
“I’m guessing this used to be all forest a couple hundred years ago,” murmured Mel, mostly to herself. “A pity that now it’s just flat.” She sighed, and when her eyes refocused again, something on the horizon made her snap upright. “Stuart! Stop the car!”
Non-perturbed, he pulled the car over to the side of the road and killed the engine. “What is it this time? Don’t tell me you’re feeling car sick.”
“Give me the keys.”
Stuart readjusted his glasses and glared at her reprovingly. “You want to drive?”
“What are you talking about?” She pulled her camera out of her tote. “I just want to open the trunk to get the zoom lens.” Mel grabbed the keys out of the ignition and climbed out of the car.
He got out of the driver side to peer off into the horizon as his photography partner snapped on the zoom lens to her camera and aimed into the distance. It was rather impressive with the blue sky and straight corn rows, he thought, and there was a single tree out there in the distance, out by itself and made conspicuous by its flaming red leaves. It was a distant fire burning a vast pool of gold.
Stuart’s gaze turned back to Mel as she adjusted the lens for another shot. The faintly brisk wind tugged at her loose, black hair. He shook his head a bit to clear it. What had gotten him to ask her to go out with him to see a movie? She seemed like the type to go for artsy fares, not docu-dramas let alone action flicks. And boy, did she have a temper. I’m a masochist, he thought ruefully to himself. But he couldn’t resist pushing buttons.
“Okay, I’m done.”
He caught the key she tossed to him. “Next time, a little warning would be nice.”
“Gotcha, oh Controller of the Car.”
“I’m not that much of a tyrant.”
“Oh, I know how it is with guys and their cars.”
“This is not my car.”
They were back on the road and out of the corner of his eye, he saw her grinning. “But you’ve got the steering wheel in your hands. However, I have the map.”
“Planning on getting us lost?”
“Even if I tried, I couldn’t do it. You probably have a global positioning system in one of your bags.”
“I may be well prepared, but I’m not that prepared.”
A faded sign at an intersection declared the intersecting road to be Route 76. There were a few scattered buildings at the intersection, most noticeably a renovated schoolhouse, Gavot Academy, painted a burgundy red. Some cars were parked at those buildings, but none were on the road. They turned right and headed east. The corn rows became more spotted and the scattered buildings became more frequent. Then a church with a pristine white steeple rose seemingly out of nowhere. Stuart slowed down and Mel peered at the sign post at the intersection.
“I’m pretty sure this is Main Street,” she said.
The scattered buildings which had been clapboard farmhouses merged into neat little brick buildings with store front facades. The town square was actually quite round. A fountain and a gazebo took up the center. A roundabout surrounded it. Turning left on Camden Road, the stores disappeared and the houses with still leafy oaks and maples took their place. A bubble pink three story house came into view. A small hand painted sign along the driveway said “Townsend House”. In a smaller script were the words, “Bed and Breakfast”.
Mel stared flabbergasted at the white trimmed windows and the lacy curtains. It was a life-sized dollhouse in pink. Did the decorator ask a six-year-old girl for advice? “We’re staying in that?!”
“The nearest motel is fifty miles away,” supplied Stuart. “Although I didn’t think you would be so concerned with house style.”
“Of course I’m concerned with style. You’re talking to a photographer, remember? But I’ll have to say, that thing is so hideous, I might as well take a picture. It’ll go with that train station. Maybe I’ll publish a book of photographs and call it When Architects Go Bad.”
