When morning came I was hit with that weird feeling you get when you wake up in foreign surroundings.
I lay there wrapped up in navy blue cosmic sheets surveying the blank white walls of the room then saw my orange suitcase laying open at the foot of my bed. That’s right. I’m in Albuquerque, drove here last night. I looked to the right noticing the matching bunk to my left was empty. The Australian hair farmer had been sleeping in the other bed. Oh yeah, I’m in love. Forgot about that.
I walked out into the kitchen and found hair farmer sitting at the dining room table. Its glass top was covered with various papers that looked work-related. Juice stuff. He finally looked up from the laptop.
“Hello, did you have a good sleep?" he asked in his cute accent. I was spellbound.
"Yeah. How about you?"
"Nah. I couldn't sleep.”
Oh great. Was he just staring at me all night then? Creepy.
I asked him how he had ended up meeting Josh, being that he was from Australia. He said he had come here three years ago to play rugby but wasn't making any money and couldn't afford to stay.
"I was at this State Fair when I met Josh. You see he has this gimmick where he always has cute girls working for him.”
Oh great. I was just reduced to being a ‘gimmick.’
“We became friends and each year he'd pay for my flight to come out here and work for him. It’s worked out pretty sweet cuz I'd get a free ticket and I can see my friends. I've been doing it now for the last three years.”
So he’s a vagabum with some sort of seasonal juice career. His accent is soooo cute though.
"Do you want a bagel?"
“Sure," I replied and started to get out of the chair.
"I'll make it for you," he said.
I got up anyhow to inspect the fridge. “Any low fat cream cheese?”
Hair farmer gave me a negative look. I hated to come across as a typical girl that worried too much about foods going straight to their hips, but heck, lets be honest; I was about to be sitting on my butt in a trailer for days as we traveled across the Southern U.S. towards Atlanta. That kind of inactivity could be detrimental to my body image.
"It’s regular fat," he said holding out the cream cheese.
“I’m okay,” I said. “I’ll just eat it plain.” Great, I thought. Now he thinks I’m a ‘you know what’.
Hair farmer disappeared. Probably off to pack up the trailer I thought, but minutes later I heard him call me from down the hall. I got up and followed his voice to the room that we had both slept in the night before.
"I'm doing some laundry. Do you have anything that needs to be washed?"
"Yeah, I do. It's all right here," I said, indicating a heap of dirty clothes I had pulled out of my suitcase.
He bent down and scooped the pile up in one swoop, but as he straightened back up something fell to the floor. A thong! Holy crap. I watched in horror as he went ‘down under’ to pick up my dirty thong. Oh the humanity! And I still don’t know his stupid name. Balls!
An hour later I looked over my shoulder and observed hair farmer vegging out on the couch in front of the TV watching cartoons. Yeah, I know, so the love of my life is filled with exotic culture and worldly charm.
“Where was Josh?” I asked. Sure enough Josh came barging through the door in a whirlwind.
"I'm running late. I have to go to my dentist appointment and I haven't even gone to return the plastics yet.”
Plastics?
“Shelly, I'm going to need you to take Tomo to run an errand for me.”
So he’s a Tomo! Oh no-oh. What the hell is a Tomo? Isn’t there a really old song Tomo arigato, Mr. Roboto? Or was it Domo?
“I'll leave you directions so you can meet me in Santa Fe when you are done."
Santa Fe is where I was to leave my Beetle at his friend’s house.
"All right," I said, hopping up out of my seat to scurry out of the living room toward the bedroom to change.
Tomo had told me that when Josh was all wound up in a panic state that the best thing to do is 'switch off'’ until he cools down. I didn't have time for a shower now so I pulled a tank on over my dirty body and paired it with some clean jean shorts. Which were very short now that I was looking at them in the bathroom mirror. Oh great, Mr. Roboto washed and dried them on HOT. What a dick!
I walked out into the living room to find that Josh had already gone. Tomo was at the coffee table crouched over a stack of receipts he was sifting through. A phone book lay open to his side.
"So, where am I taking you?" I asked.
"Ahhh, I'm not sure," he confessed. "We need to return some stuff. I'm just trying to figure out how to get there."
"Why don't you just look it up on the Internet?"
"Well I would,” Tomo said, clenching a fistful of his chin-length blonde hair. “If I wasn't such a dummy and knew how to work a computer."
Dude, push the power button.
"I can do it," I said switching the computer back on. "Believe me, after working in Hollywood for over a year I think I can navigate my way around Albuquerque."
Tomo walked over to my chair watching as I typed. Moments later I had the directions to all of our stops written out on a scrap paper in three neat sections.
"Right on." Tomo was visibly impressed. "You're really on to this."
(I think he likes me.)
Directions in hand, Tomo and I walked out into the New Mexico sun carrying a couple rolls of strange tubes.
"Aw, this is a pretty flash car," Tomo said, as he lowered himself into the passenger seat of my Beetle.
"Uh, thanks," I said, wondering what he had said.
We arrived at destination number one, which appeared to be a small industrial-type building.
"Hey buddy, we need to return these," Tomo told the man behind the counter.
"Well what are these?" the man asked, giving the containers a scrutinizing look.
"I'm not quite sure actually, but they are the wrong size and we'd like to swap them."
"I'd love to help you out but these aren't ours," the man said, turning one of the containers around so we could see that the company logo clearly didn't match the one printed on top of the receipt Tomo held in his hand. "But that shop is just down the street."
"Oh that's a good thing because we really have no idea where we are," Tomo said.
The man nodded and said slowly, “You’re in the United States of America. Buddy.”
I felt like a complete tool. Thanks Mr. Roboto.
The first thing I noticed upon walking into the next place was the most redneck afro I had ever seen on a woman. Not that there’s a lot of woman sporting redneck afros. Tomo and I stood before her unnoticed.
"I noticed you have tattoos," he said.
"I got that one when I was eighteen,” I said indicating the tribal dolphin just above my right shoulder blade. “I got the lizard next." I lifted my left foot up out of my flip-flop to show him the now faded gecko wrapping around my toe. "My sister and I both got Chinese congi symbols.”
“What’s a congi symbol mean? Tomo asked.
“Little sister,” I said. “I got mine on my lower back. Then she designed this one for me the following year," I said, turning my left wrist over. "I wanted a four leaf clover but I also wanted a Celtic knot. And last but not least are my stars." I lifted my hair up off my neck and turned to show him the three turquoise stars I had positioned there with the word 'moe a'.
"What does it mean?"
“Oh, hello. I’m Tomo.”
We laughed and shook hands. “Shelly.”
“Sorry to interrupt. Go on.”
“Well Michelle, means star in some language. No matter what I have done or how many times I’ve felt like I failed my mother has always told me 'Shelly, you are my star'. It's because of her that I have been able to dream big and reach for the stars.”
It was then that the redneck afro woman spoke. “I hear a lower back tat is nuttin but a bulls-eye.”
Tomo pulled up his shirt to reveal the word Reef on his rib cage. "That's my son's name.”
What? Wait. He has a son?
"Can I help you two love birds with something?”
Oh, gawd.
"Yes," Tomo said. "We need to return these and get them in twenty-seven inches."
The redneck afro went to the back but returned telling us all she had were 30-inch rolls in yellow and blue. Tomo asked permission to use the shop's phone to call Josh but he couldn’t get it to work. I offered my cell phone to him but he didn’t know how to use it either. Nice. Not only was the cutie from ‘down under’ no good with laundry or computers but he also didn't own or know how to operate phones. Talk about being ‘outback.’
I helped out the Australian primate by dialing Josh's number for him then handed it back. Apparently the juice man hadn't been too happy about the state of affairs but Tomo just took charge and bought the 30-inch rolls of plastic.
Our next stop was Kinko’s where a guy told us that the 30-inch rolls didn't fit his machine. Tomo and I started brainstorming possible Plan B’s to work out a solution.
"One year we had to cut out all the letters ourselves," Tomo told me. "It took forever."
"Do it," Tomo said. “It has to be done.”
It was already past one o'clock and I was having a hard time ignoring my hunger pangs. Just as I was about to suggest food my cell phone came to life. It was Josh. He was done with his dentist appointment and was ready for me to meet him in Santa Fe.
On the drive I had gotten a hold of Heather, my one and only New Mexico friend, and she was going to be picking me up later for dinner. I dropped Mr. Roboto off at the adobe and got on the 25 heading north. Josh met me at an Albertson's.
"We're going to leave your car here and meet Jeff in Albuquerque, he'll come and pick your car up later," he explained.
On the way back down to Albuquerque Josh spoke of the evolution of his business. He had started it nine years ago when he first started racing snowboards professionally so he could fund his training. "There's no money in racing. So I started the lemonade stand with the idea that I could just work one or two months out of the summer and have the rest of the year off to train. I always kept it kind of small, but I am at the point in my life where I think I am ready to take it to the next step.”
“What do you plan on next?” I asked painting French tips on my toes.
I had just finished cleaning off the old polish remnants with a cotton ball of remover when Josh’s gaze landed on them. "Man, you have some funky feet for a girl. I thought my feet were bad.
Humph, I thought to myself. My feet are cute, damn it! I even have a cute freckle on my toe.
“Anyways,” he said. “I've thought about getting a store front or franchising by selling people their own carts.” He flipped on his indicator to exit off the highway. "We're going to meet Jeff at this gas station. Jeff's a distributor for Red Bull, he would also be a good person to know if I did decide to franchise Just Squeezed and get into bottling."
Yeah. Great. Whatever. Jerk.
We pulled up next to a small white delivery-looking truck with the tell tale Red Bull logo emblazoned on the side. Jeff was sitting in the driver's seat. He stepped down out of his vehicle and into the tumultuous sand storm. Jeff looked to be in his early 40’s and seemed to be a nice, responsible enough person to leave my precious Beetle with. I only wondered how on Earth Josh had gotten to know him, he didn't seem to be the type of person that Josh would run into on the mountain and they didn't seem to know each other all that well either.
Jeff and Josh gabbed about a thing called biodiesel that involved using vegetable oil to fuel his truck. Normally I would have been more interested in such a bizarre topic but the sandstorm had picked up and I was having a hard time seeing yet hearing what they were saying.
Finally the guys ended their conversation and we got back to business. I handed my keys over to Jeff and he vowed to take good care of my car.
"I'll put some cardboard over the wheels so they don't dry out and I’ll start it from time to time so the battery doesn't die," he said, shaking my hand.
"Thank you so much," I said, walking back around to the passenger side of Josh's truck.
Back at Josh’s adobe I told him about my dinner date with Heather.
"Cool. We have some shopping to do at Costco.”
An hour later, Heather called announcing her arrival just as I finished blow-drying the last section of my freshly washed hair.
I still had my phone pressed to my ear when a full-size black SUV pulled into view on the side of the road. "Oh my gosh...is that you?" I asked.
Heather said it was her. So I walked over and climbed in her beast of an SUV.
"This thing is huge," I said. "Are you a soccer mom now?"
"No," Heather said, laughing. "I had to get it because of the tax break. My accountant told me I could either pay 'X' amount in taxes or I could buy a new car. So I got this."
I never made enough money to even pay taxes. But I’ve dreamt about it.
Heather had moved back home to Albuquerque from Las Vegas about a year and a half ago with her then boyfriend only to have him freak out on her a week later and jet back to Vegas leaving her alone and without a clue.
She looked so successful. She wore a tailored black jacket over a simple tee and jeans. The outfit all pulled together with a strand of pearls circling the pale white skin of her neck. She couldn't have been more opposite me in my gray Abercrombie tank top and frayed denim skirt. The only piece of jewelry covering my tanned skin was a wooden surfboard necklace from Peru. Was I jealous? No.
We pulled up to a tavern just a few blocks away and strolled in to the dark pub; the smell of smoke hit me instantly. I followed Heather over to a high top table and settled into the chairs.
I did my best to mumble through the adventure I was about to embark on with two complete strangers. She in turn told me that she had quit working at Albuquerque’s Action 7 new station and was solely doing contract work with some housing thing. Or whatever. She was dating a great guy named Sam.
I laughed at Action 7.
"One day he confessed that he had had a crush on me for years," she beamed. "Ever since then we've been together."
"Oh that's great, Heather. It sounds like you really like him." And then I asked what every girl asks after learning about the man in her life. How’s his Action 7? I’m kidding. I asked, "Do you think you guys are going to get married?"
She smiled. "Actually, he bought me a ring!"
"Really? I squealed back, playing the part of a typical girl.
"Well I'm not exactly sure if it is an engagement ring, but I think it might be."
My heart glowed for Heather as I listened intently to her telling me how someone had seen Sam in the jewelry store a
few days ago. You see Heather had always been what I called a 'boyfriend-girl' and it only seemed natural for her to be married. I had felt awful for her when I found out about the previous boyfriend bailing on her.
"Do you want to meet him?" Heather asked, as her voice was drowned out by a roar of cheers.
"What's going on?" I asked, turning my attention to the little TV hanging over the bar, straining to see what was causing all the commotion.
"Oh." Understanding settled in as the blurry figures on the screen came into focus. "Is it the NBA Finals?"
"I don't know," Heather said.
"I think it is... are those the Spurs?"
I still couldn't make out the names on the jerseys but I was pretty sure it was the Spurs.
"So, do you want to meet him?" Heather asked again.
"Who?" I asked, as my mind clicked back to the present. "Oh, Sam. Yeah, where is he?"
"He's working at Action 7."
We stayed for the remainder of the ball game; to my disappointment the Spurs lost to the Mavericks in overtime, paid our tab and exited the bar. It was a short drive over to Action 7 and I could tell that Heather's excitement was mounting.
"When I was a little girl I always dreamed of working here when I grew up," Heather said, her voice laced with nostalgia as we pulled into the lot. She punched the buttons on her cell phone to dial Sam's number. "Hey, can you come out? We're here.”
A few moments later a cute blonde guy with a friendly smile popped out from within the double doors. He sauntered over to us
pushing the sleeves of his flannel shirt up to shake my hand. I engaged him in conversation about snowboarding among other things and took a picture of the happy couple just before an angry gentleman poked his head out the door. "Sam! Previews!" the angry man barked.
Sam bolted at the sound, shouting ‘nice to meet you’ over his shoulder before disappearing back inside the confines of the news station.
"It's a little early for previews," Heather said to me with a hint of annoyance. "That guy's a jerk. He's always trying to write Sam up for no good reason."
Heather drove me back to Josh's sister's house. We vowed to get back together later in the summer when I came back in town for the New Mexico State Fair. We hugged and I departed her SUV.
I walked through the gate but the door to the house was shut and locked. I called Josh to notify him of my arrival and took a seat on the cold stone bench to wait. Then I realized I hadn’t eaten anything all day and I was happy despite the noticeable chill in the desert air.
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