Flap (standard:Suspense, 1995 words)
Author: BENTLINK	Added: Aug 27 2007	Views/Reads: 4034/2446	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Not a good way to start a well earned vacation.

FLAP 

She thought the meeting would never be over. Having a meeting scheduled
on the Friday before the beginning of her two week summer vacation was 
bad enough but to have the usual dimwits asking question after question 
to delay the meetings end was almost more than she could sit still for. 
 What a terrific inconvenience it had been to have to stay past the 
time she normally ended her work day.  Her husband Bill was long gone 
having agreed to transport the ton of vacation gear and their two sons 
Mike and Billie to the family's summer rental cabin using the old truck 
he usually drove only to work and for do-it –yourself hauling close to 
home.  She could picture the three of them eyes wide with excitement 
chattering away about the fish they would catch and the rocks they 
would climb as they bumped along at a snails pace across the miles of 
interstate highway. 

Her mandatory meeting was scheduled to end at four but it was closer to
five when she finally reached the off street parking lot and climbed 
into the red SUV.  She had hoped to overtake the family's slow poke 
truck somewhere along Interstates 40 or 30 before it reached the Hot 
Springs exit.  Of course, with all the dimwit delays that was now out 
of the question and she knew her husband and boys would be at the cabin 
site and unloaded well before she arrived.  She had been a little late 
getting away from home this morning and had no chance to fill the SUV 
with fuel so she would lose still more time having to make a stop at 
one of the many gasoline stations along the way. 

Bill would huff and groan about having had to do all the work but when
she arrived a mountain of luggage, food, boating, and fishing equipment 
would be piled in a mound around her smiling blond haired husband.  Her 
insides grew warm with anticipation knowing that in its turn each item 
in the patiently waiting mound would receive her gentle touch to give 
it direction.  She never dreamed how wonderful married life could be 
having been raised in a home filled not with love but unresolved issues 
of anger, jealousy, and sometimes even violence.  She had held her 
breath and tip-toed around until she was old enough to live on her own 
then never went home again. 

She seldom allowed herself luxuries preferring instead to spend her
disposable funds on the boys and her husband by giving them things she 
never had access to as a child.  The one exception was the red SUV; it 
was her special treat that she enjoyed each and every day, an 
everything power assisted chariot of fire with amazing acceleration and 
agility.  When driving the SUV she was sure she understood how champion 
athletes must feel as their bodies responded to their will. 

She was looking forward to the family vacation and as she drove across
the table flat miles of interstate highway towards Little Rock, she 
could feel the frustration of today's meeting and the built up tension 
of preparing everyone for a vacation draining away.  The SUV's disk 
player issued butter smooth instrumental music and the miles just flew 
by. 

Several miles into the trip, she closed rapidly on a large tarpaulin
covered utility trailer in the right lane.  As she maneuvered into the 
left lane to pass the slower vehicle, the air flow around the utility 
trailer's blue plastic tarp changed and she caught a brief glimpse of a 
human hand. 

She had seen a hand hadn't she!  She knew she had seen a woman's hand
with long delicate fingers and brightly polished nails now hidden by 
the enveloping blue tarpaulin. 

She was so surprised she monetarily lifted her foot from the SUV's
accelerator pedal and instantly got a loud blast from the air horns of 
a monstrous 18 wheel truck that now filled her rear view mirror.  She 
pressed hard on the accelerator and the always responsive SUV leaped 
forward.  She then changed from the left to the right lane and slowed 
to match the speed of the trailer and truck she had just passed.  All 
the while, she was keeping a close eye on the monster truck that had 
nearly run her over.  As the 18 wheelers cab came abreast of her 
driver's door a hard eyed blond female passenger looking for all the 
world like the before picture of a advertisement for Swedish wrinkle 
cream gave her the finger. 



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