We’re forty-minutes into a relatively quiet drive from Albuquerque toward the Arizona border, California-bound in the middle of summer, me a freelance photographer and her a hitch-hiker with her feet dangling out the window. Her cardboard sign is in the backseat with OCEAN scrawled out in big capital letters. The O is a smiley face. She’s humming the beat to a different song than what’s crackling through the radio. I don’t know anything about her and I think her name is Dayna.
Then she asks, “Do you ever just want to be something completely new?”
“We’re all new, once,” I tell her.
“That once doesn’t count. It wasn’t my choice.”
“So do it, then. Change your hair. Paint your fingernails.”
“I’ve done that. This isn’t my natural color.”
She has brown, shoulder-length hair. Could’ve fooled me.
“You know they say every seven years all your cells regenerate.”
“But that’s so painless.”
“What is?”
“Do you feel your cells regenerating?”
“Sometimes. On Saturdays,” I say.
“You think I’m joking.”
“I think you’re restless.”
“Pull over.”
We’re surrounded by red mountains and the earth in this part of the south is the rusty brown color of a junkyard automobile bumper. Dust clouds around my Ford pick-up and spins off in a series of tornadoes caught by a small breeze that smells like oil. We watch the particles drift and I turn off the radio, quieting Johnny Cash, tuning to the click-click-click of the settling engine. She takes her feet in from their perch above the side-mirror and rolls up the window to keep the brown dust from getting inside. Too late. The dash is coated and I let out a little cough—makes me think of chalkboards and elementary school—and I laugh while she puts her feet over the glovebox and wiggles her toes.
“I changed my mind.”
“To what?”
“Just drop me off at the next rest-stop.”
“Exnay on the Californ-i-ay?”
“Yeah. Exnay.”
“Was it something I said?”
“It’s just what I want.”
She puts her feet on the floor and crosses her smooth legs at the ankle. I follow her tan skin to the ripped jean-shorts and brass belt buckle and inch of belly below her candy-cane striped t-shirt with the loose collar that drips down one shoulder.
“Arizona’s nice,” she says.
“It’s something new.”
“It’s something.”
“Did you want me to keep driving, or do you want to sit for a while?”
She shrugs. She’s wearing big reflective sunglasses with fake diamonds glued to the green plastic frame, her own design, I’m sure, and she takes them off to wipe the dust off the lenses. I like her eyes—they’re almost white, the kind of faint blue you’d expect an infant’s soul to be made of. She covers them immediately. Can’t blame her. Arizona is bright in the summer. I see myself in the lens: the camera strap looped around my neck, sweating, unshaven, but happy and carefree—I don’t give a fuck—and I wonder if I should try and kiss this girl before I drop her off. I haven’t yet. I’m sure she’s noticed. She must think any guy who picks up a cute hitch-hiker like her either wants to fuck her or kill her, and I’m not a hundred percent on either, especially not the killing. Not my style.
I ask, “What were you doing in Albuquerque?”
“Chasing Bugs Bunny.”
“Funny.”
“You?”
I touch the camera. “Working.”
“You live in California?”
“Los Angeles.”
“I’ve never been.”
I ask, “How old are you?”
“A thousand. Does it matter?”
“You look like you’re twenty-five.”
“You look forty-five.”
“I’m thirty-one.”
“I’m twenty-six.”
We look at each other for a while, then I start the engine. I turn up the radio dial and welcome Led Zeppelin to the conversation. She wrinkles her nose and rolls down her window, and I put the truck into drive, and we’re back on the road. The mid-afternoon clouds are painted orange and purple by the setting sun and I have to lower the visor to block the glare. She’s either asleep or just being quiet, slouched sideways in the passenger seat with only the seatbelt keeping her from falling onto my lap. I’ve met plenty of disillusioned, hopeless twenty-somethings like this girl before—I photograph mainly concerts, where the hopeless like to huddle. In fact, I might’ve seen this girl at the last venue I covered. If I looked through the photos, I’d probably see her in the crowd.
At the next rest-stop, I park outside of a gas station market.
“Where are we?”
“Arizona.”
“Like the iced tea.”
“Yeah, I guess. Did you want to get out?”
“Do you want me to?”
I shrug. “It’s either here or in LA, so…”
“Thanks for the ride,” she says.
The last time I see this girl—Dayna, was it?—she’s taking her cardboard sign toward the restrooms across the parking lot, and she’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen walking away. It won’t be until much later that I realize she stole my wallet.
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