5. On the Road-1
421 Words
5
On the Road
The way Bonnie felt the next morning, she might as well have had influenza. She crawled out of bed, threw up in the bathroom and then staggered downstairs just in time to answer her doorbell.
Debbie stood there, a suitcase at her feet. ‘Ready?’
‘Huh? I just got up.’
With a sigh, Debbie marched inside and begun painstakingly unlacing her boots. ‘Don’t just stand there,’ she said, catching Bonnie watching. ‘Make coffee. I’ll pack for you.’
‘How do you know what I’ll need?’
Debbie rolled her eyes. ‘I have a mother, don’t I? The same stuff I’d have to pack for her.’
Fifteen minutes later, Debbie came back down the stairs carrying a suitcase. Bonnie had managed to shower and change, and had returned to the kitchen table to nurse her hangover over a second cup of coffee.
‘Right, you’re all ready,’ Debbie said.
Bonnie looked up, trying to focus. Stumbling up to bed sometime after one a.m., she had forgotten to take out her contact lenses. Now, peering through the glasses she rarely wore, she wished the world would stop swaying from side to side.
‘What did you pack for me?’
‘Underwear and a jacket. We can pick anything else we’ll need up on the way. They’ll have charity shops in the Lake District.’
‘Charity shops?’
Debbie glared at her and lifted her arms. ‘You think this comes from the corporate machine? Free trade, baby. Charity shops and the net. I wouldn’t be seen dead shopping anywhere else.’
‘I would. In fact, I could handle death right about now.’
‘Well, we’re going in your car so it’ll be nearby, that’s for sure. You sure we can’t go on B-roads?’
‘It’ll take a week to get there.’
‘Ah, but Stephen King says it’s all about the journey.’
‘That’s only because he can’t write endings.’
‘Dark Tower rocked. He must have had balls like a space hopper to dare pull that after seven books. Respect.’
‘Dreamcatcher sucked.’
‘Ah, but Dreamcatcher isn’t classic era. It doesn’t count.’
Bonnie lifted a tired hand. ‘Okay. We can discuss Stephen King on the way.’ Despite her hangover, she was quite excited about a long drive with Debbie. While their music tastes were polar opposites, they were perfectly aligned when it came to books. So much so, that they often swapped books they had recently read, or warned each other off books which had fallen short of expectations.
‘Let’s move. I need to be outside the job centre at nine. Did you call off work yet?’
‘Not yet. I don’t start until eleven.’
‘Good. Let’s get on the road before you do it. That way you can’t chicken out.’
- Writer
