Games

Six and a half hours. It took more than six and a half hours to make the 250-mile drive. On the way down, we made it in something closer to four but the rain, a detour to the book fair, running out of gas somewhere along I-81 sidetracked us and hours after we left, I crawled into bed, ready to sleep.

When I opened the door to the apartment, I thought a smell from the trash under the stairs had followed me, and I quickly closed the door. Seconds later, I realized that the smell came from the apartment itself. Something resembling death permeated the air and I gagged as I walked back toward the bedrooms, along the dirt-lined hall to empty the dehumidifier.

My rug, my beautiful old rug from Turkey, showed spiky patches of over-dried tufts and damp, mildewing spots. The clothes in the bathtub had bled onto each other and stubbornly refused to dry, even a little. I hung them from the towel rod, the shower basket and a handful of hangers, sniffing each garment and poking forlornly at new, dye-based stains.

In the living room, I lit a candle and prayed the scent would overpower the stench of rot and mildew. I knew my nose would stuff shortly and my eyes would swell. I'd smell and see precious little of it before dumping the water basin again in the morning.

At some point, though, I would have to clean the floors, the clothes, the everything. I would have to strip my bed and wash the bed skirts, the sheets, the washable throw rugs and the shower curtain as well as the clothes marinating in the tub. I would have to do it sooner, rather than later, expecting houseguests when I left for Argentina in a week and a half, but it could wait another day, maybe two, while I targeted individual pieces instead of the whole.

I was exhausted, and I needed to sleep. Desperately. Operating on days, weeks, months of sleep deprivation. The drive tired me as well, even though I didn't take the wheel. I sat in the passenger seat, reading questions from a box of trivia cards, adding details, commentary and songs in my own off-key way.

When we ran out of gas, I found a box of cookies in the back and joked with the driver who'd missed the warning signs. I looked for a number for AAA. I considered walking three miles back to the closest gas station in my capris, T-shirt, cardigan, dress coat and pink rubber rain boots with the blue plaid umbrella, fully aware that none of the above matched, fully aware that it would take me well into nightfall to walk three miles in my pink rubber rain boots, buy a gallon of gas if I could find a container and walk back along the road, mere feet away frighteningly-fast-moving traffic. In the end, I sat in the car with the trivia questions.

Hours later, closer to home, after a rescue from AAA and a stop for a proper tank of gas and some food, I read the questions by the light of passing cars, using a cell phone when I found myself without. It had been a day of games and they'd made the time go faster.

Before lunch, I played hide and seek with a couple of toddlers.

"Play with me?" the 3 year old asked.

"What do you want to play?"

"Hide and peak," he said and I agreed. I would have agreed to anything but I wanted to know how his little mind worked.

I followed him into the living room where I covered my eyes and counted to 10 time and time again. He and his sister hid in the bedrooms, the bathroom, the closet, reusing hiding spaces and giggling loudly. They never really gave me a chance to find them, poking their heads around doors or out from under the beds as soon as I stopped counting.

After the 15th or 50th time, I asked to play something else and we scattered memory cards across the living room floor.

"Good job, Charlie," I said, shooting for positive reinforcement.

"Good job, Kristin," he repeated when I found my own match. His younger sister took my cards and squealed with glee.

"I have a match," she piped unintelligibly, waving them over her head.

"Good job, Emma," I smiled.

We gamed away an hour or so while their mother napped and others cooked. The rain started falling sometime between memory and fondue, so we waited to leave, playing dominoes on the dining room table, scattering the tiles, the bones, across the table where we'd so recently broken bread. By the time we finished, the rain had cleared and we headed out into the sunshine.

It stayed clear for a while, through much of the drive, the detour, the wait for help, but closer to home, the rain started again. Drops splattered on the roof of the car, the windshield, the road. We hydroplaned for a second and my voice shook as I read the next question by the light of the car behind us. I'd make it through dozens of cards or so plus dozens of songs, movies and useless facts that I wrestled from dusty corners of my mind to entertain my friend.

Six and a half hours. It felt shorter until I walked into my apartment, the dirt, the mildew and the smell of death. I needed to sleep.


Tag: Road trip Friends