By the time we reached the hairpin turn we were both soaked, my T-shirt like another layer of skin. Even my socks squished inside my sneakers. Without a word to each other we broke into a gallop.
“My underwear is wet now!” Eliza shouted. She was ahead of me.
“Mine too.” I laughed.
“Eliza, does your mother know you’re out here in this?” I heard the voice first. A forest green van had pulled up beside us and the driver was leaning out the window.
We were still running, the van moving slowly along beside us. It was filled with guests on their way to the Mountain Lodge for the week. With the sound of the rain, I hadn’t heard the engine coming up from behind, but now the windshield wipers swept back and forth, squeaking rubber. I saw the faces peering out the window at us, an old couple, a young mother with her little boy on her lap. Two boys, close to my age, maybe a little older, looking as bored as they could manage. I quickly looked away.
“Yeah,” Eliza shouted back. “But it wasn’t raining when we left.”
I guessed this was Roger, the driver.
“Well, you two get in.” He pulled the van ahead of us and over to the side of the road. He let us squat down by the van door since we were too wet to take a real seat. Besides, they were all taken by guests.
Roger said, “Stay still, you two. Stay sitting.”
The van was air-conditioned and the goose bumps rose on my legs and arms so fast I could feel them pinch my skin. The two boys were looking at us. One had blond hair and the other was dark-haired. I shifted and tried to face the door. I suddenly remembered what T-shirt I had put on this morning and I regretted it. It had a picture of the Little Mermaid on the front and it felt suddenly too small. It was wet against my chest. I was glad I was wearing an undershirt underneath, the one I had slept in.
Where were the ladies in horse-drawn carriages and their men holding the parasols above their heads? My skin suddenly stuck out all over my body, my legs, my arms, my back, my neck. I pressed my legs closer together and hugged my arms around them. Where are my white petticoats, my ivory-colored dress, and lace shawl that would have covered my whole body? Only my ankles might have shown, and my ankles looked okay, didn’t they?
Don’t all ankles look the same? Wasn’t there a time when just an exposed ankle would have been scandalous?
Where was my broad-rimmed hat with the wide blue ribbon that would have hidden my face when I tipped my chin down?
“Hey, Roger, can you go a little faster?” Eliza said. “I’m getting pins and needles in my feet and my bottom is killing me.”
“Sit tight there, girl. We’re here.”
The van braked with a lurch, at the entrance to Mohawk Mountain Lodge, just as the rain stopped and the sun broke through the mist and clouds and the last droplets of rain. Somebody once wrote, the secret to life is good timing.
I think they are right.
Because bad timing stinks.
Nora Raleigh Baskin, Anything but Typical
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