I had to laugh, she was so sweetly earnest. She probably assumed I was a runaway half the age I really am. “Well, that’s where I’m going. My whole family lives in Alaska, and I’m making a fun road trip out of getting to them.”
“Oh my, that’s ridiculous. You can’t walk to Alaska.”
“No, but I can walk and hitch rides.”
“Not everyone who stops for you is going to be a nice little old lady like me, you know. Something awful could happen.”
“Sure, it could. But something awful could happen anywhere, anytime. I’ve been living in New York City, and I’m pretty certain it’s far more dangerous than the side of the highway.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that, but I see your point.” She turned the radio down so it was nearly inaudible. “So, where should I take you? I can’t take you all the way back to New York City, I’m afraid, but if you called your mother I’m sure we could work out some way of getting you home safely.”
I laughed. “Oh, no, that won’t be necessary. I’m perfectly fine, Delia, but thank you. My mother is in Alaska, like I said.”
“Well, shouldn’t you ask her to buy you a plane ticket or something? Hitchhiking simply isn’t safe. Not anymore, if it ever was.”
“I’m having an adventure, that’s all. I’ll be perfectly safe.”
She huffed, not liking that answer but sensing that I wouldn’t be dissuaded. “Does your mother know you’re hitchhiking like this?”
I laughed. “Heck no! She’d be apoplectic if she knew. But I’m eighteen and I’ve been living alone in New York since I was seventeen, so I’m not about to go asking her permission.”
“On your own since you were seventeen? Are you a runaway?”
Honestly, the inquisition was getting a little annoying. “No ma’am. I was in college. Columbia University.”
“Well, you can’t be finished yet, and it’s got to be the middle of a term, right? So why are you going to Alaska?”
I couldn’t entirely suppress a sigh of annoyance. “I dropped out. It just wasn’t for me, for a lot of reasons. I’m an artist, and the college scene was honestly just cramping my voice as an artist, and left me no real time for painting or anything but classes and studying. So, I’m hitchhiking to Alaska and thinking about what my next step will be.”
Delia frowned at me. “One of my granddaughters dropped out of college to be an artist, and now she’s addicted to drugs and living in a tunnel or something in Chicago.”
I sighed yet again. “I’m not addicted to drugs, and have no plans to start. I don’t even like drinking all that much. But I appreciate your concern.”
Delia chuckled. “Am I being a know-it-all busybody again? My grandchildren all get upset with me quite often for that. I just can’t help wanting the best for everyone.”
I thought about lying, but it just wasn’t my style. “Honestly, Delia, yes, a bit. It’s all right, I understand and I appreciate your concern. But I do promise, I’m safe and being cautious about who I accept rides from.”
I mean, after all, I’d anticipated exactly what happened with good ol’ Donny Zelinski.
“I only live a few miles from here. How about I take you to my home, cook you a meal, and you can sleep in a real bed tonight. And then, in the morning, I’ll make you breakfast and take you half an hour in any direction you want. Preferably to a bus station, but if not, I’ll understand.”
Home-cooked food, and a bed?
Hello, generosity of strangers.
“That sounds wonderful, Delia. I’d be delighted to accept.”
A fairly auspicious start to my trip, I’d say.
Errol
“These look amazing, Errol,” my editor at National Geographic, Len, was looking down, away from the screen of his laptop, at the iPad upon which my latest completed photography project was displayed. “Sienna and I will go through them and make some choices.”
“Sounds brilliant.” I was in an airport lounge in…St. Paul?
Maybe. Probably. I’d been connection hopping since yesterday morning, without sleep, so I was a bit cranky and more than a bit confused.
“What’s next for you, then, Errol?”
I yawned. “Find somewhere to sleep.”
“Well, yeah. But then what? Got a project lined up?”
I scrubbed my face, listening as a boarding call was announced. Not mine, so I tuned out. “I mean, I’ve had a few ideas. But honestly, this last project was pretty intense and I kinda need something more chill, you know? I like extreme stuff, but I’ve been hanging off the side of helicopters for the last six months. I wouldn’t mind being on the ground for a while.”
“So, ideas. Hit me.”
“Well, I’m in the States, right? My ticket is supposed to take me all the way back to Christchurch, but the only way I could get out of Norway was through Atlanta which somehow included a layover in St. Paul…whatever, you don’t care about my connections. Point is, the idea that’s been rattling around in my head lately is sort of a different take on things for me. I was thinking something like a photographic essay of unusual parts of the States. The title I’ve got in my head is ‘The Unseen America.’ Sort of my own unique take. The kind of shots I’m good at, but here, Stateside. A tour of the country, no real itinerary, no plan, just…bang about with a few cameras.”
“A break from the usual, but still working.” Len chuckled. “Meaning, getting me to pay for you to take time off.”
“Yeah,” I laughed. “But you’d get a few thousand photos out of it, at least. I just need a bit of time to recharge, you know?”
Len mused, still idly flipping through my photos, which was a collection documenting the Norwegian fjords, but most of them had been taken from the side of a hovering helicopter, or rappelling halfway down sheer vertical faces, or from a kayak…the kind of shots impossible to get—birds nesting in the cliff faces, the sea hundreds of feet below—as seen from the chimney crack of a granite face.
“How long are you thinking of spending on this?” Len asked.
I shrugged, yawned again. “I dunno. A few months, at least. Four? Maybe six.”
“If I’m not getting a new project from you for four to six months, it had better be your best work yet.”
“When you get it, Len, I promise you, it’ll be a cover feature. You’ll want to give me at least half the rag. Maybe even a full magazine special feature. It’ll be brilliant, I swear. Also, if I don’t take time off, my work will go to shit. So there’s that.”
“Sounds suspiciously like an ultimatum,” Len said, smirking at me.
“It’s not even a real holiday, Len. I’ll still be shooting just about every day. It’s just not a high adrenaline, wildly dangerous project way the hell out in the wops, accessible only by helo. I love those, you know I do. But I’ve been doing those back-to-back for years now. I need a little break from it, is all.”
“I know, I know.” Len closed the iPad and rubbed his jaw as he looked at me on his computer. “All right. Six months. Then I’m gonna need a pitch for something high octane. A real attention-grabber Errol Sylvain special.”