On the Way

On the Way

We headed toward the airport, two good friends who were not in any hurry. We’d packed her meager belongings. Now, only a hundred miles to travel and the whole day was ours. Jane’s plane wasn’t till midnight.

We talked and we talked. It had been months since we’d seen each other, and who knew when we’d be together next. We talked about her divorce, and cried some, and celebrated too. We talked about the future, about seminary, and what it would be like to live back East.

Suddenly Jane gave a shout. “Stop! Pull over!” Alarmed, I did just that, as quickly as possible, edging the wheels onto the dirt.

“What’s wrong?” I cried, my mind racing.

“Turn around!”

“I can’t! This is the interstate, for God’s sake! What is it?”

“Can’t you just back up?” Seeing my hesitance, Jane threw open the door. “I’m getting out. I can walk back.”

I scrambled out too and ran toward where she was pointing.

“Look what I found!” she said, her face beaming. As I got closer I saw that it was indeed a treasure, a hand-stitched quilt of yellow and white and blue, soiled but whole. “This will be perfect,” she said. “I’ll strap it to my suitcase if I have to.”

We went back to my overloaded econobox, crammed it into the back seat, and took off again.

By the next exit we decided we needed a rest stop and a Coke. Passing up the Gas and Go near the freeway, we went on into the little town. There was a diner on the corner, and we whooped with delight. It had been the setting of an old tv series, “North Peak.” Jane wanted to sit in the same bar stool the hero always sat in to drink his coffee. I pretended to be the mysterious villain, and then the vamp, and we laughed some more.

As we paid our check, we saw a notice taped on the cash register. “If anybody has seen our Mama’s yellow quilt that we lost on I-5, please call this number.”

We looked at each other, suddenly sad, and Jane pulled her cell phone from her purse.
In a few moments a voice answered, “Gas and Go. How may I help you?”

“We’re over here at the City Café, and we saw a sign someone posted about a quilt. Do you know anything about it? It has this phone number on it.”

“Oh, good!” she exclaimed. “They was about to go. They been here all day hoping somebody would call. They was heartsick about it. It was underneath the mattress on the roof, and when the mattress slid off, they must have lost it. It took them such a long time trying to get the mattress tied back up there, they didn’t think a thing about the old quilt.”

“Tell them to wait. We’ll be right there.” Jane sighed. “I’m glad they’ll get their mama’s quilt back.”

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