A Cowboy of Her Own

Thump. Thump.

“That sound.” He pointed to the wall.

“The restroom is on the other side,” Betty said.

Wendy.

“Key doesn’t always work. Your friend might be stuck in there.”

Unbelievable. “How long were you going to let her sit in there before you went to check on her?”

Betty stared as if he’d grown two heads.

“Never mind.” Porter hurried outside and banged his fist on the bathroom door. “Wendy? You okay?”

“The key’s stuck in the lock.”

She didn’t sound panicked, which surprised him. The women he’d known would have pitched a hissy fit by now if they’d gotten trapped inside a stinky gas-station latrine.

“Hang on!” He went into the store. “Do you have a screwdriver? Any kind of tool set?”

“What would I need with a screwdriver?” Betty asked.

“The restroom key is stuck in the lock, and I need to remove the door handle.”

“You can’t deface the property.”

“This place is already defaced.” He swallowed a curse word. By the time he and Wendy hit the road again another half hour would be wasted. “I’ll reattach the door handle once I get her out.”

Betty pried her backside off the stool and walked through the store. “There might be some tools on the endcap over here.” She pointed an orange finger.

Sure enough. Porter opened the kit and removed the screwdriver. He took one step but stopped when Betty blocked his path. “You gotta pay for that.”

He opened his mouth to argue with her, then decided not to waste his breath and handed her a five-dollar bill from his wallet. “Answer me one question,” he said. “Why does the restroom lock from the inside with a key?” That made no sense.

“Don’t ask me. I just work here.”

Porter went outside and rapped his knuckles on the door. “I’m going to remove the handle.”

Wendy didn’t say anything, and he became concerned that she’d passed out from the putrid fumes inside. He pressed the edge of the screwdriver into the latch at the base of the knob and jiggled it. The hardware was ancient and pulled right off. Next, he loosened the screws, then removed the mounting plate. “Hang on. I’m almost done.” He poked his finger inside the hole, scraping his knuckle. Ignoring his bloody finger, he pushed the latch aside, then shoved the door open.

He wasn’t sure what he expected to find inside the windowless graffiti-covered compartment with a chipped ceramic sink and condom wrappers littering the floor, but it sure wasn’t Wendy perched on top of the toilet tank, texting away on her phone.

“Thanks for freeing me.” She hopped off the toilet, inched past him and stepped outside, where she sucked in a breath of fresh air. “We should exchange phone numbers. If that happens again, I’ll be able to text you.” She marched to the truck, a strip of toilet paper stuck to the heel of her shoe fluttering in the air like a kite tail.

Her nonchalant attitude confounded Porter. Manipulating the jammed key was difficult when it was connected to a bike chain that had been padlocked to an old hubcap.

To hell with this. Cheetos Betty could figure it out. Porter replaced the outside knob then returned to the store. “I can’t get the key out of the lock. You’ll have to call a repairman.”

Betty’s head remained buried in the magazine, but she waved her orange fingers in the air, signaling that she’d heard him.

When Porter got into the truck cab, Wendy was working on her iPad. He glanced at the floor and noticed she’d removed the TP from her shoe. “I can’t believe it.”

She looked up from the screen. “Believe what?”

“You were just sitting there calm as can be, texting on your phone when I opened the restroom door.”

“I was making good use of the time by checking work emails.”

He stared, dumbfounded.

“I told you this isn’t a vacation for me, Porter. I have accounts that I need to manage while we’re traveling.”

“You’re a girl. You should have been distraught and panic-stricken.” And she was supposed to jump into his arms and smother his face with kisses of gratitude once he’d freed her—that’s how it played out in the movies.

“I’m not like most girls.”

No kidding. He started the truck, then merged onto the highway. “We’re not stopping again until we hit Durango or Silverton.”

“That’s fine.” Wendy set aside her iPad and dug through the bag of snacks on the seat. She unwrapped a candy bar and said, “You’re shaking your head again.”

“I’ll never understand women.”

“At least you’re smart enough to admit it. Most men assume women can’t function without them. The truth is we can do everything they can and often better.”

“I didn’t see you free yourself from the bathroom.”

“I would have figured a way out.”

“Okay, smart lady. If I hadn’t been there, how would you have gotten out of that jam?”

“I would have called nine-one-one.”

Porter shut up and focused on his driving.

* * *

THE TRUCK HIT a bump, and Wendy’s eyes popped open. “What happened?”

“Sorry. I didn’t see the pothole in the pavement,” Porter said.

She pressed the back of her hand against her mouth and yawned, waiting for her blurry eyes to focus. She wasn’t used to wearing her contact lenses more than ten hours a day. As soon as she arrived home from work, she switched to her glasses. “It’s late, isn’t it?”

“Almost ten.”

The cab was dark and she couldn’t make out his features, but she heard the frustration in his voice. Their unexpected delay at the gas station earlier in the afternoon had put a kink in his driving schedule.

“You didn’t actually plan on picking up the bulls tonight, did you?” The thought of the animals stuck inside a trailer until morning seemed cruel.