Bill and Margie On the Open Road

School started about a month ago, and I can’t believe I haven’t posted since before then. I’ve been doing a lot of writing, but haven’t had a free moment yet to collect my writing and publish it here. I hope that now that the school year is underway, I’ll be able to start posting regularly again.

This year I’m doing something new at school. I started a Story Club, inspired by Anne Shirley, which meets Friday afternoons during the school day. Each week I give the students a writing prompt, and then the following week we give each other feedback and talk about a writing-related topic. The students can write in prose or poetry or bring illustrations. So far, we’ve covered why we write (to serve God by serving our readers), Freytag’s Pyramid (I used this graphic), and how to “map out” a story by determining the beginning, middle, and end (from N.D. Wilson’s School of Fantastical Wordcraft).

Our first week I read this quote from this article by Jonathan Rogers:

Writing is an act of hospitality. The writer says to the reader, “Here, I’ve made this spot for you. Come in; here you can be refreshed, informed, entertained, reminded of the truer Story before you continue on your way.

In the Story Club this year, we’re focusing on the ideas of hospitality and telling the truer Story in our writing.

Below is the first week’s writing prompt, and the story I wrote to go along with it. The students liked this writing prompt because it actually happened to me on the way to the cabin over the summer. I hope enjoy reading about Bill and Margie!

Bill and Margie on the Open Road

Writing prompt: Imagine you’re driving down the road, and somebody swerves into your lane. Explain why.

“Bill, the gas light’s on,” Margie said as she looked up from the latest issue of the Country Living magazine. Bill didn’t respond with words. He hunched his shoulders, grabbed another potato chip, and crunched down on it as loud as he could. He didn’t like when Margie tried to drive from the passenger side of their old RV. Of course he knew the gas light was on. He’d heard it ding! a minute ago.

Margie went back to perusing her magazine. She licked her right index finger, stuck it to the smooth magazine paper, and turned the page. A springer spaniel sat on the ground next to a young man in a flannel shirt and bright red vest. His loose-fitting jeans had just the right amount of rips in them. They made him look like an outdoorsmen, but a nice, clean-shaven, civilized outdoorsmen. His right hand rested on the dog, and his left hand held a hatchet.

Margie’s breath caught in her throat and her eyes filled with tears. This young man in the photo looked just like Job. Job, dear Job, her youngest son, her baby boy. He’d left for college the week before, following in the footsteps of his older sister, attending college out in New York. Margie looked out the window so Bill wouldn’t have to see her cry, again. She had shed more tears this past week than she could ever remember shedding before. She was supposed to be enjoying her long-earned time alone with Bill, and all she could do was sob into various objects.

Bill hunched his shoulders even more and munched on another potato chip. He was starting to look like a vulture, his big shoulders reaching for the sky, neck curled forward, beady eyes staring at the road ahead. He knew Margie was crying again, but he’d run out of words to say a couple days ago. Wasn’t she happy they were together, soaring over the open roads, just the two of them, like they used to do when they were young? He loved Margie. He really did. He promised himself he wouldn’t crunch at her anymore.

“Bill, I really think we should stop for gas. Up north here it gets real quiet, real quick,” Margie said. They had already bypassed the Twin Cities and were approaching the exit for Hinckley, a small Minnesota town known for its delicious, and rather large, cinnamon rolls. The woods had started to creep in on both sides of the highway, and as soon as they exited in Moose Lake, the maples and oaks would begin to fade and the pines and poplars would take their place. Margie loved the smell of pine trees. So did Job. Oh, boy.

Bill reached over and patted Margie’s knee, and Margie gave him a weak, teary smile. “We’ll stop in Hinckley,” he said. I could use a cup of strong coffee, he thought.

“Oh, Bill. I miss…so much…,” and Margie began to cry, again.

Ten minutes later, Bill and Margie pulled into the parking lot of Tobie’s Station, adjacent to Tobie’s Restaurant and Bakery, “Minnesota’s Famous Half Way Stop.” Margie went in to the restaurant to use the restroom, under the assumption Bill would get gas and buy her a cinnamon roll and coffee. Praise God Almighty, she was the only person in the bathroom. Her eyes looked red and puffy and tired and numerous brown hairs had escaped her barette. She noted the stray gray hairs as well. She didn’t look as young as she had last week, she thought. She smoothed her light pink blouse and squared her shoulders. Who cares if she didn’t look young. She still felt young, for the most part, most of the time.

She met Bill in the parking lot in the same spot from which he had dropped her off. He had set a large brown box on her seat, and through the cellophane top she saw the shiny white frosting of a cinnamon roll. He had also bought her favorite coffee, hazelnut, which she smelled as soon as she opened the old RV door. Maybe this trip would be worthwhile, after all.

“For you,” Bill said, and motioned his hand to the cinnamon roll and the coffee. Margie smiled, and Bill’s shoulders lost some of their vulture-ishness. Margie settled into her seat. She paused before she took out Country Living. She hoped she and Bill might talk instead.

“Thank you for the treats, honey,” she said. She took a bite of the cinnamon roll. It melted in her mouth. “That’s right delicoius,” she declared after she swallowed.

“Well, it cost a small fortune,” Bill replied. “I almost had to dip into the kids’ college funds.” Bill held his breath. That might have been the wrong choice of words.

Margie sighed. “Haw, haw,” she said. “Let me see that receipt.” She reached into Bill’s pocket and pulled out his leather wallet. He pretended to be shocked that she would do something so juvenile. She found the receipt jammed into the middle pocket. “Hmm,” she mused.

A thought struck Bill like a lightning bolt. At the same moment, Margie’s eyes widened. “Margie, I…,” Bill began, but it was too late.

“You done forgot to get gas!” Margie screeched. She crumpled up the receipt and threw it at Bill’s balding head. He slammed on the brakes and swerved into the right lane. He narrowly missed a small, red car, and as he pulled to the side of the road he saw the terrified look of the young woman in the driver’s seat of the vehicle. “Now look what you done!” Margie screeched again.

They sat in the old RV on the side of the road for a few tense minutes. Neither of them said anything, but anger boiled in the old RV like a pot of water over an open flame. Then, Bill started to laugh.

“Hey, Marge,” he chuckled, “You remember that time we had to change Job’s diaper on the roadside? I never seen so much…stuff.”

Margie looked down at her hands. “I do,” she said quietly. Life had slammed into Margie. One day she was rocking a newborn in her arms, afraid and happy, and the next day she was sitting in an RV alone with Bill, afraid.

Bill reached over and took Margie’s hand. “We’ll do this together,” he said. Margie looked into his brown eyes. They hadn’t aged at all. The skin around them had little cracks and creases, but they looked as bright as the day he and Margie had met. Margie realized she wasn’t alone with Bill. She was with Bill, period.

“Okay,” she said. “Sorry I yelled at you. Won’t you forgive me?”

“I’ll always forgive you,” he said. And Margie kissed him on the cheek.

“Alright!” Bill hollered. “We got ourselves a road trip.” He turned on the blinker, looked over his left shoulder, and slowly merged back onto the highway. He pressed on the accelerator. The old RV lurched forward for a few, gripping moments, like it had eaten too much and was about to expel its last meal. Bill put more pressure on the accelerator, squeezing it between his foot and the floor. The old RV slowed to a crawl.

“I done forgot to get gas,” he said.

“Yes, you did,” Margie said, and laughed.

Photo: Mary Gauthier on Unsplash