Waiting

Rachel begrudgingly pulls into a run-down gas station on the side of a highway weaving through the Oregon Cascades. For the last hour, she had been cruising with the windows down, the playlist she curated especially for this stage of her road trip blasting out of her speakers and into the wind along with her full-throated singing. Rachel had been paying attention to everything but the driver’s console. How could she not? The sun was getting low on the horizon, casting a golden gauze over the rugged peaks to her right. The shapes and colors of the clouds were changing every few minutes, and the evergreens all around her seemed to be humming with energy from the long rays of light as she whirred by. It was only the sudden appearance of the town that jolted Rachel out of her reverie and caused her to notice the warning light by the fuel gauge. 

She reminds herself which side the fuel tank is on and drives up alongside a pump. She starts through the now well-rehearsed steps: kill the ignition, pop open the tank lid, grab her wallet from her purse, unfasten the seat belt, and put the keys in a pocket to avoid accidentally locking herself out of the car. Rachel always does this, even with the windows down. 

As she reaches for the door handle she freezes. “Oregon!” Rachel remembers aloud and drops her hand. She looks around the gas station lot for an attendant but doesn’t see one. A new acquaintance she’d made last week in Seattle had warned her that it’s illegal in Oregon to pump your own gas. “If you fill up in Vancouver and stick to I-5, you should be able to make it through Oregon on one tank,” Kath had assured her. 

Rachel didn’t want to stick to I-5, or to rush her way through Oregon. She came to the west coast to see mountains, and alpine lakes, and waterfalls. She came to have no real direction or schedule, to follow every one of her own whims without having to convince anyone else to join. She’d come to get lost, though preferably only metaphorically. And, like many solo women on the road, she wanted to find out who she was and what she could do on her own. 

-

She’s waiting for Alan at the restaurant he’d chosen for their fifth date. He’d been late for three of the first four, and she was already starting to expect it, but if the reservation was for 7 p.m. then she figured one of them had to be there on time. So she walked in at 6:55, was seated promptly by the hostess, and ordered a glass of wine. It was a small menu and she was quick to decide what she wanted, so she sat back and casually observed the other diners on their dates, trying to guess how far along each couple was in their own relationship. When the waiter checked on her at 7:20, she realized she was hungry and ordered an appetizer but held off on a second glass of wine. Alan glided in shortly after her dish arrived and slung his jacket over the back of the chair. 

“Oh, you didn’t wait for me?” He asked by way of greeting.

“It’s just an appetizer. You can have some, if you like.” Rachel didn’t point out the time, or the previous dates where she had waited on an empty stomach. She noted his disappointment, but also how it quickly gave way to an easy smile and genuine interest in her day. The rest of the evening in his company flew by and left her feeling flushed, like it always did. Like the next few years would. He’d always seemed worth the wait, to her. 

-

Rachel snaps back to the present, suddenly distraught to find herself waiting on a man again. She scolds herself half-heartedly for making the assumption - of course a woman can be anything, including a gas station attendant in a rural mountain town. She leans out her window to check again for any sign of an employee, but still no movement in the lot or through the windows of the shop. Impatient to be back on the road, Rachel hops out of her car as another driver pulls up to the pump behind her. A balding man with an ashy beard leans out his window and whistles to get her attention. 

“Hey now, miss, you gotta wait in your car. Dale will be out ‘fore long,” he says.

Ignoring the whistle, Rachel replies, “I’ve been waiting five minutes already, it seems no one–” 

“Oh now, hey there, Jack!” A lanky man with dark, shaggy hair and faded coveralls calls out as he promptly walks toward the newly arrived pick-up. “What can I do ya for?”

“Fill ‘er up, Dale. Premium.” Jack extends a credit card out his window. 

“Windshield wash, too?” Dale asks.

“Hell, why not?”

“Um, excuse me?” Rachel interjects. “I was here–”

“Just hold tight there, miss, I’ll be right with ya.” Dale says, without a glance in her direction. 

“But I–”

“Ma’am you can just wait right there in the car, if ya would.” He shoots a gaze at her from beneath thick, black eyebrows then turns again to his buddy. “Jack, how’s the fishin’ been?” 

Clenching her jaw, Rachel climbs back into the driver’s seat. In her side mirror she sees Dale unhurriedly swiping the card, punching buttons, and getting the pump in position. Once the gas is flowing, he grabs a wet squeegee from the side of a trash bin. Instead of starting on the windshield though, he leans against the pump and chats away with Jack about the best places to get away with fishing without a license. Soapy water dribbles off the sponge while the meter ticks along slowly. 

Rachel lets out a groan and drops her head against the steering wheel. She feels hot, even though the sun is now dipping behind the mountains. Itchy, though the bugs don’t seem to be out yet. Claustrophobic, though the windows are down and from this viewpoint she could believe Oregon’s forests might stretch on forever. She just wants to go.

-

“What about Senegal?”

“Senegal? Where’d you come up with that?” Alan looks up briefly from his iPad, one eyebrow raised, but his attention is back on Sudoku before Rachel has even started to answer.  

“Well, I’d love to see Dakar, and in the spring they host this international jazz festival that's supposed to be amazing, and —“

“Can’t we just go to New Orleans for that?” He keeps tapping away at his numbers. 

“I don’t just want to go for the jazz, Alan. I thought you might be interested in it, though. I was hoping —“

“That’s sweet of you, Rach. Let’s just do New Orleans then, huh? Maybe next year? We could invite Lance and Paula to join!” She’s not able to fully mask her disappointment, so he adds, “Africa’s just so far. The flights will be expensive. And you know I won’t be able to take enough time off to make that kind of trip worth it.” 

Rachel eventually dropped her Senegal pitch, but New Orleans never happened, either. 

-

“Alrighty miss, what’ll it be? Miss?” Dale knocks on the door frame with one hand, waves good-bye to Jack with the other as the older man pulls back onto the highway. 

Rachel lifts her head and hands over her card. “Regular, please.” 

Dale doesn’t ask if she wants her windshield washed. She wonders if doing that herself is against the law in Oregon, too. Jack and Dale both made it seem like if she stepped foot outside her car she’d be slapped with a fine, maybe even jail time.

Rachel thinks back on all the red tape and vague restrictions she’d let confine her over the years. All the things she’d been convinced she couldn’t, or shouldn’t, do. Because it wasn’t the right time, or there wasn’t enough money saved. Because she’d miss this or that party or milestone. Because it’d be irresponsible. Because no one else wanted to. Because Alan didn’t want to. 

Now here she is, on her journey of independence and self-discovery, held up waiting for a man to do for her what she’s perfectly capable of doing for herself. Neither the irony nor the cliché of it all is lost on her.

-

They’re watching the sunset over the river, standing together on top of the hill in town where everyone goes to enjoy the humid summer evenings.

“Rachel, I know you’ve been waiting for me to make some changes,” Alan interjects into their silence. She turns her gaze from the sunglow to her partner, wondering where this is going. 

“And I just want to thank you for sticking with me. I know things have been hectic for a long time, and it’s been hard to plan for the future. And I just love you, Rach. You’ve always been so supportive.” He looks as sheepish as a handsome, confident man can. Sunsets always bring out the red in his hair and the amber in his eyes. 

“I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for our next big adventure,” he shifts his weight toward the ground, fishes something out of his pocket. 

“Alan–”

“Rachel, will you marry me?”

She freezes as people around her start to ooh and aww and clap. In her peripheral vision she notices phones pointed in their direction, imagines photos of her stunned face in this moment popping up in the Instagram stories of strangers. 

“Alan, I –” Why did he have to say adventure? What adventure? What big adventure have they ever gone on together? In four years they’ve barely left the city. They’ve gone to the same restaurants and seen the same people and stayed home most nights and God, has it really been four years?  

Rachel can feel the giddy expectation of the crowd give way to awkwardness, people averting their eyes and resuming conversations to give them back the privacy of anonymity. 

“Alan,” she exhales, realizing she’d been holding her breath for however long it’s been since he kneeled. “This isn’t the change I was waiting for.” She can’t tell whether he is more puzzled or hurt as he stands, his eyes shifting around anxiously as he processes this public rejection. 

“I don’t want a marriage, Alan. I want a life. A full one. I want to go anywhere and everywhere and as much as I’ve always hoped we’d go together, I think you’ve made it clear we don’t want the same kind of life.”  

The sun sinks. Dusk shrouds the hillside and darkens the water. It occurs to Rachel that she doesn’t actually know where this river begins or ends.

-

“Anything else I can do for you, miss?” Dale asks as he returns her card.

“No, please.” Rachel eagerly restarts the ignition and watches the fuel gauge climb. Finally with a full tank, she can keep driving toward her full life. She takes a right turn onto the highway and continues on her way to anywhere, or everywhere. She hasn’t decided yet.