Page 45 of Side Trip

Joy tapped the screen, smiling. Dylan heard the text send off.

“Mark?” he couldn’t resist asking.

She looked up from the phone, perplexed. He’d kind of spat her fiancé’s name.

“Yes, why?”

Dylan just shook his head and got back into the car before he said something stupid. He didn’t know what muscle he’d tweaked, but Mark was the knot that suddenly showed up under the shoulder blade and gave a sharp pinch of a reminder it was there whenever he lifted his arm or twisted his torso a certain way. Weird. Dylan didn’t even know the guy. And he didn’t do jealousy, so that couldn’t be it.

Joy scooted the Bug across the highway to the Midpoint Café and Dylan followed her inside. Cooking grease, burned ground beef, and sour milk elbow-struck his olfactory nerve. His stomach recoiled. Takedown. Appetite gone. Not that it had made an appearance today in the first place.

Dylan scanned the joint, because that’s exactly what it was. A time warp of vinyl chairs, chrome, and Formica tables. Route 66 paraphernalia pocked the walls. Elvis Presley crooned from a jukebox in the corner.

“Wow! This place is off the hook,” Joy exclaimed.

More like aTwilight Zonenightmare. He’d fallen asleep only to wake up in aHappy Daysepisode. Smack him. He wanted to go back to sleep. He yawned and pinched the sleepers from his eyes.

“Judy would have loved this.” Joy sounded wistful. He also caught a shadow of something he didn’t expect to see in her eyes. Regret? Remorse? She turned away to answer the hostess before he could pinpoint what, or ask.

“Two for dinner,” Joy said.

The hostess seated them at a small table in the middle of the dining room and gave them plastic menus. Joy devoured the selection. She cooed over each item. They all sounded delicious.

Dylan put his menu aside. He’d skipped lunch, but the thought of another burger and shake turned over his sour stomach.

“Aren’t you hungry?” Joy asked.

He shook his head. Whatever he dumped into his gut would only come back up. He had another gig in a few hours in Amarillo.

Joy’s bottom lip turned out. “Hmm.” She returned her attention to the menu. Dylan’s, though, remained on Joy.

His gaze traveled over her. A strand of pearls adorned her neck. Where had those come from? He hadn’t noticed them this morning. She’d also polished her nails, a pale pink. He didn’t like it. He preferred them natural.

His eyes tracked up her hand, past the gaudy engagement ring to something shiny on her wrist. A sterling silver wire bracelet with a single turquoise stone. That was new, and it totally suited her, or the woman he visualized living under the shellacked exterior she projected. He dug that bracelet. He hated her getup.

“Why do you dress like that?” He’d asked before but never got a straight answer.

Joy looked up from the menu, startled. “Like what?”

“June Cleaver, Joanie Cunningham ...Judy?”

Joy blinked. Her mouth parted as if she was about to tell him off, because he knew he was rude, but the waitress stopped at their table to take their order.

“Cheeseburger, fries, and a Cherry Coke,” Joy requested, her voice small. He was quashing her chipperness but he couldn’t stop.

“Is that really what you want, or what Judy would have ordered?”

Joy warily glanced at him, handing her menu to the waitress. “Thank you,” she whispered.

“And you, sir?” the waitress asked Dylan. Her name tag read Bonnie. Bubbly-bouncing-Bonnie who didn’t show an ounce of bubbly personality. She glared at him. Well, hell. He didn’t give a shit what Bonnie thought about him. He’d never see her again after today.

“Coffee. Black.”

He flipped up the menu, handing it off to Bonnie, his hard gaze locked on Joy, daring her to make eye contact. She wouldn’t. She traced her pink nail along the table edge. She toyed with the silver bracelet and flat-out ignored him.

He didn’t like being ignored.

“It’s obvious you hate your clothes. Why do you wear them?” He’d seen her pull at the blouse and tug at her shorts. Both were cut from stiff, starchy fabric nobody in their right mind would wear in August while driving through the desert. Why did she? Was it some sort of punishment?

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