Betsy

 We’ve got about 350 miles to Buffalo when Syd finally wakes up. Even though she’s been with me close to a year and a half, it still gives me a start sometimes when I feel her moving in the RV. It’s comforting most of the time, though.

**********

               I was 21 when I bought my first RV. Her name was Betsy and she was my ticket out of Waterford. After Ma died, there just wasn’t anything left in Detroit for me. Good ol’ dad blew most of the insurance money she’d left me by the time I turned 21, but I had my suspicions and was actually surprised there was anything left. As soon a she brought home the impractical Mustang, I knew started planning. I wrote out what I needed to do. I would get a job as a server at Sugar N Spice, the local diner everyone loves. I’d save every single penny I could, buy myself an RV and pick my first destination with a dart and a map pinned to the wall. Depending on who you are, it was fortunate or unfortunate that it didn’t work that way, exactly.

***********

               I had become particularly close with Lauren and Diane after working at the diner for 2 years. They were regulars at the diner that would come in real early in the morning after their shifts ended at 4am. I started hanging out with them away from the diner. One night we all had off, so I went to their apartment for a party and I ended up drinking way too much. I only remember having fun and then BAM! Everything I had worried about and all the pernicious factors slammed down on me. I was out on the fire escape smoking with Lauren when the floodgates broke. After talking for a while, she suggested I audition at the strip club she and Diane worked at and move in with them.

               So I did; I moved in with them and auditioned at Foxy’s. Within the first two months I realized I was making twice what I had at Sugar N Spice, and by the time I was 21 I had saved more than enough to buy Betsy. I set out on my own as soon as I bought her. I miss Lauren and Diane sometimes even though they were the ones to stop answering any sort of correspondence. I truly believe I wouldn’t be where I am now if it weren’t for them. It sucks how you can be so intertwined with someone and then not even knows them anymore. I’ve met so many people since them, but Syd is the first one since them that I’ve really allowed myself to get attached to.

               We met in Atlanta when I auditioned at a club there. She was new to dancing, but had been involved in a burlesque show for a while. She had no tattoos, no piercings, and a baby face. Her blond ringlet curls only added to the ‘girl next door’ look. She’s also one of the only dancer’s I’ve ever encountered that doesn’t wear a full face of makeup. She wears only mascara and Chanel. I always tell her it’s a waste of money to wear expensive perfume when she could wear cheap body spray like the rest of us, but she’s stubborn and swears it makes a difference in her return.

**********

“How much longer until we get there?” Syd asks with a yawn.

               “A few hours, probably. How’d you sleep?”

               “Great, I really love being able to wake up without an alarm. Do you want me to take over so you can take a break?” 

               I let her know I’m good to keep driving. She sits in the front passenger seat and tucks her legs under herself. She starts going through one of the massive CD cases I’ve still got from when I used to bring my own mixes into clubs that used the old school juke boxes.

**********

“I can’t believe you talked me into going North this time of year,” I say to Syd as snow start hitting the windshield. It’s so dark out that it makes me feel like I’m in space going in hyper speed through the stars. I catch a glimpse of Syd, who is now sitting on her knees bouncing up and down with excitement.

**********

“We. Are. Not. Going. ..Buffalo in December?! Are you crazy? I grew up with harsh winters, shoveling snow, having to wear a thousand layers and still be freezing. There’s nothing good about snow. I’ve been moving from place to place over the years and haven’t had any need to go North during the winter. The only good time to go, especially to the Northeast, is Fall,” I said factually to Syd in response to her suggestion. We fought about it for a week before I finally asked why she really wanted to go. She’d never fought me so hard on anything, so there had to be a more legitimate reason than just never having seen snow. Turns out I was right.

               “My cousin adopted my son when he was a few months old,” she confessed. “I was 19 and alone. My cousin, Lisa, and her husband had already tried for a few years and had just started looking into adoption.” Syd was trying not to cry, her voice becoming hoarser with every word. “It seemed like it was meant to be, like a sign from the universe, but it hurt so much more than I’d thought it would. Then they left Georgia a year later and it devastated me. Sure, they came back occasionally to visit, and I stayed in touch, but it’s so rough.” At this point tears were flowing freely from her eyes and her breathing was labored. “I just want to actually see him open this year’s Christmas present from me.”

               There were so many things I wanted to say, to ask, but sometimes words just don’t cut it. I pulled her in my arms and just rocked back and forth until she had let it all out.

**********

Syd is back to flipping through the massive CD case, putting CD’s in for one or two songs then switching to the next. ‘Jingle Bell Rock’ starts playing and I finally cave after debating with myself for weeks.

               “Why didn’t you tell me about your son?” The smile slides down her face and she starts shifting in her seat. She’s quiet for so long that ‘Jingle Bell Rock’ turns into “Rockin’ around the Christmas Tree’. Just when I’m about to tell her I’m sorry I asked and say it doesn’t really matter, she looks at me and whispers “I’ve seen you leave so many people behind without a second thought; coworkers, friends, lovers. I sometimes feel like I’m on borrowed time with you and it changes the way I interact with you. I’ve wanted to tell you about Marcus since I joined your adventure, but then you told me how disappointed in Allison you were when she let her mom take custody of Tina. In this line of work, it’s not super uncommon and you’ve commented more than once. You haven’t even spoken to Allison since then.”

               Her words practically knock the wind out of me. My perception of our relationship just altered drastically in just a few sentences. I’ve been living this nomadic lifestyle, moving with the season on this circuit, I hadn’t even realized how that might look to others.

“Syd, I’ve been living like this for a decade. You’re the first person I’ve ever taken on the road with me and there hasn’t been a single time I’ve regretted it. I used to stay in touch with people, but over the years things just fell away, or people started using or got out of the industry and don’t want connections anymore. Also, Allison’s situation was completely different than yours, not that I should be so judgmental considering I don’t have a child. Syd, I love you, you’re the sister I never had.” I’m trying not to cry at this point. I’m not used to getting so emotional, it really has never crossed my mind that Syd wouldn’t know how I’ve felt and it breaks my heart that she would be concerned I’d just disappear from her life.

               “I love you, too,” Syd croaks “Are you sure you don’t think less of me?” She adds with a sniffle.

               “Of course I’m sure.”

**********

I’m suddenly shaking violently and can feel hot liquid p9ouring down my forehead into my eyes. I smell burning rubber and realize the RV isn’t moving anymore. I look around trying to get my bearings and realize that the world is on its side and the windshield is broken. There’s an intense pressure in my right thigh and all I can hear is ‘Silver Bells’. That’s when I realize I can’t see Syd.

               “Syd,” her name comes out strangled so I try clearing my throat and saying it louder while trying to get my seatbelt off. Was she wearing her seatbelt?! Where is she? Jesus! I feel excruciating pain as my body slams into the side of the passenger seat. It just keeps reverberating throughout my entirety. Still, I keep calling for Syd and crawling. Over the dashboard, over the shattered glass and plastic, out through the windshield, through the snow. That’s when I notice a path of already disturbed snow. I follow it for what feel like an absurd amount of time, all the while crying her name out.

               I see her! She’s just ahead but I literally cannot move any faster. Her back is to me. Her head is bent so far forward I can barely see the back of it and her hips are lying flat. I can’t even recognize her with all the glass and blood.

**********

Suddenly I’m back in the RV, and Syd is talking.

               “…And you’ve commented more than once. You haven’t even spoken to Allison since then.”

               “Well if you think I’m so harsh then maybe we should go our separate ways. Clearly I’m cold hearted and you’re not really comfortable with me, so it doesn’t make much sense for you to keep living with me.”

               “That’s not what I’m saying. I was trying to open up to you.”

               “Well, there’s obviously a reason you didn’t sooner. I am who I am and this is the life I live. I’ve seen this whole country and you’ve seen more than half of it because of me. I may be judgmental, but at least I’m real. You, well you must have been pretending to be someone else if you couldn’t come clean about something that meant so much to you.” I can’t seem to stop myself from letting the venom slip off my tongue.

               “Why are you being like this?” Syd says with so much hurt I have to stop looking at her. “Dani, slow down!”

               I close my eyes for just a second and when I open them, a deer is in front of us. I hit the brakes and turn the wheel lightly trying to go around it. It’s been too long since I’ve driven in the snow, especially in something so big. I try to correct it but the RV turns sideways and skids, rolling. It lands on its side but keeps sliding along the road.

               All of it rushes back to me the instant I touch her body. I never told her I didn’t think less of her, never explained she was different than the others I’d left behind, and never told her I loved her. I hear the sirens, but instead of relief I only feel anxiety.

               How could anyone live with this?