Ragnarök

Twenty-One: The Puzzle

Mason isn't surprised to get another call from Oklahoma. It's at roughly the same time as last night, and maybe some of the trucker's mysticism has rubbed off on him because it feels fated. He selected her truck, after all, out of all the trucks there.

Her pretext for calling again is to inform him she mailed the phone that afternoon. "You should get it in two or three days, I would think."

"If I'm ever in Oklahoma," he says, sinking back into character, "or the next time you pass through Minnesota, lunch is on me."

He finds it so comforting to be someone else that there's a bottomless gratitude toward Bernadette. He wishes he could keep her on the phone forever, or at least through the dead of night. She asks him about his day. He gives some generalized answer and diverts the question back to her, trusting in the garrulous nature of this self-described introvert.

She's passing through Texas at the moment, on her way to Dallas, speaking via Bluetooth. "Sorry for calling so late again. I didn't wake you, did I?"

"Not at all." He adds that he works second shift and doesn't normally go to bed until three or four. Another lie to keep track of.

"I always get the loneliest at this time of night, especially in Texas. It's so friggin big and there ain't nothing on the radio but preachers and UFO fanatics. I'm from Texas originally, but it never really felt like home. We moved up to Tennessee when I was little. Now that's a beautiful state. I aim to move back one day, get myself a house there with a nice sweeping view of the Smokys."

Under his encouragement, she tells some more about her life. Her parents divorced when she was fourteen. Her mama is still in Tennessee. Her daddy went off to Nebraska and worked as a cattle auctioneer, but three years ago a heart attack killed him. She has a little brother up in Michigan who's a successful architect. And then there's her, tooling around the country like a wind-up toy. Never married, no kids, despite being thirty-six and having a fair amount of savings tucked away.

"The right guy just never 'came along,' as they say. Like it's only a matter of sticking your thumb out. I think I scare them off with my hocus pocus mumbo jumbo. How about you?" she asks. "You got kids? You sound awful young."

"I'm twenty-two." He says he's been stuck in an on-off relationship with the crazy girl who taped her phone to Bernadette's truck. As tempting as it is to weave a rich tapestry of details, he restrains himself. "I think I'll end it for good this time. Supposing I ever see her again."

Bernadette leaves a quiet interim for the diesel vibrations and whirring of tires on blacktop to reach him, then clears her throat. "I always say it never pays to chase love down. I think love is a kind of hole you fall into when you're just walking along, minding your own business."

He forces a chuckle, tells her that's a good way of putting it.

They speak for two hours that night, not about deeply personal stuff, just vamping off each other. Naturally, Bernadette does eighty percent of the talking. Every time she exhausts a topic and trails off, Mason knows just what to say to throw more wood on the fire, becoming attuned to the layered shades of nuance in her voice. He starts to forget the trouble that plagues him by day and focuses only on Bernadette, as if her life story, her worldview, are the most important fields of study ever to warrant examination.

She mentions she has a few weeks' worth of vacation coming up. "I want to start the new year off on a restful note, so I'm balling this jack as hard as I can. The sooner I get back to Oklahoma City, the sooner I can pack my bags and get to Florida. My brother's got a timeshare down there with his wife. They said I could have the whole place to myself for a while if I wanted. I said goddamn, I just might take you up on that. A little sun, sand, and surf will do me good. My complexion is wrecked. I just checked the forecast this morning. It's supposed to be in the seventies over there all next week."